History of Friedrich II of Prussia, appendix | Page 5

has been an "old
man,"--having returned home from it with his cheeks all wrinkled, his
temples white, and other marks of decay, at the age of 51. The "wounds
of that terrible business," as they say, "are now all healed," perhaps
above 100,000 burnt houses and huts rebuilt, for one thing; and the
"ALTE FRITZ," still brisk and wiry, has been and is an unweariedly
busy man in that affair, among others. What bogs he has tapped and
dried, what canals he has dug, and stubborn strata he has bored
through,--assisted by his Prussian Brindley (one Brenkenhof, once a
Stable-boy at Dessau);--and ever planting "Colonies" on the reclaimed
land, and watching how they get on! As we shall see on this
occasion,--to which let us hasten (as to a feast not of dainties, but of
honest SAUERKRAUT and wholesome herbs), without farther parley.
Oberamtmann Fromme (whom I mark "Ich") LOQUITUR:
"Major-General Graf von Gortz," whom Fromme keeps strictly mute
all day, is a distinguished man, of many military and other experiences;
much about Friedrich in this time and onwards. [Supra, 399.]
Introduces strangers, &c.; Bouille took him for "Head Chamberlain,"
four or five years after this. He is ten years the King's junior; a Hessian
gentleman;--eldest Brother of the Envoy Gortz who in his cloak of
darkness did such diplomacies in the Bavarian matter, January gone a
year, and who is a rising man in that line ever since. But let Fromme
begin:-- [ Anekdoten und Karakterzuge aus dem Leben
Friedrich des Zweyten (Berlin, bei Johann Friedrich Unger,
1787), 8te Sammlung, ss. 15-79.]
"On the 23d of July, 1779, it pleased his Majesty the King to undertake
a journey to inspect those" mud "Colonies in the Rhyn- Luch about

Neustadt-on-the-Dosse, which his Majesty, at his own cost, had settled;
thereby reclaiming a tract of waste moor (EINEN ODEN BRUCH
URBAR MACHEN) into arability, where now 308 families have their
living.
"His Majesty set off from Potsdam about 5 in the morning," in an open
carriage, General von Gortz along with him, and horses from his own
post-stations; "travelled over Ferlaudt, Tirotz, Wustermark, Nauen,
Konigshorst, Seelenhorst, Dechau, Fehrbellin," [See Reimann's
KREIS-KARTEN, Nos. 74,73.] and twelve other small peat villages,
looking all their brightest in the morning sun,-- "to the hills at Stollen,
where his Majesty, because a view of all the Colonies could be had
from those hills, was pleased to get out for a little," as will afterwards
be seen.--"Therefrom the journey went by Hohen-Nauen to Rathenau:"
a civilized place, "where his Majesty arrived about 3 in the afternoon;
and there dined, and passed the night.-- Next morning, about 6, his
Majesty continued his drive into the Magdeburg region; inspected
various reclaimed moors (BRUCHE), which in part are already made
arable, and in part are being made so; came, in the afternoon, about 4,
over Ziesar and Brandenburg, back to Potsdam,--and did not dine till
about 4, when he arrived there, and had finished the Journey." His
usual dinner- hour is 12; the STATE hour, on gala days when company
has been invited, is 1 P.M.,--and he always likes his dinner; and has it
of a hot peppery quality!
"Till Seelenhorst, the Amtsrath Sach of Konigshorst had ridden before
his Majesty; but here," at the border of my Fehrbellin district, where
with one of his forest-men I was in waiting by appointment, "the turn
came for me. About 8 o'clock A.M. his Majesty arrived in Seelenhorst;
had the Herr General Graf von Gortz in the carriage with him," Gortz,
we need n't say, sitting back foremost:--here I, Fromme, with my
woodman was respectfully in readiness. "While the horses were
changing, his Majesty spoke with some of the Ziethen Hussar-Officers,
who were upon grazing service in the adjoining villages [all Friedrich's
cavalry went out to GRASS during certain months of the year; and it
was a LAND-TAX on every district to keep its quota of army-horses in
this manner,-- AUF GRASUNG]; and of me his Majesty as yet took no
notice. As the DAMME," Dams or Raised Roads through the Peat-bog,
"are too narrow hereabouts, I could not, ride beside him," and so went

before? or BEHIND, with woodman before? GOTT WEISS! "In
Dechau his Majesty got sight of Rittmeister von Ziethen," old Ajax
Ziethen's son, "to whom Dechau belongs; and took him into the
carriage along with him, till the point where the Dechau boundary is.
Here there was again change of horses. Captain von Rathenow, an old
favorite of the King's, to whom the property of Karvesee in part
belongs, happened to be here with his family; he now went forward to
the carriage:--
CAPTAIN VON RATHENOW. "'Humblest servant, your Majesty!'
[UNTERTHANIGSTER KNECHT, different from the form of ending
letters, but really of the same import].
KING. "'Who are