History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 14 | Page 5

means the fact! Your poor Prussian
Dryasdust (without even an Index to help you) being at least authentic,
if you look a long time intensely and on many sides, features do at last
dawn out of those sad vortexes; and you find the old Reinsberg
Program risen to activity again; and all manner of peaceable projects
going on. Friedrich visits the Baths of Aachen (what we call
Aix-la-Chapelle); has the usual Inspections, business activities,
recreations, visits of friends. He opens his Opera-House, this first
winter. He enters on Law- reform, strikes decisively into that grand
problem; hoping to perfect it. What is still more significant, he in
private begins writing his MEMOIRS. And furthermore, gradually
determines on having a little Country House, place of escape from his
big Potsdam Palace; and gets plans drawn for it,--place which became
very famous, by the name of SANS-SOUCI, in times coming. His
thoughts are wholly pacific; of Life to Minerva and the Arts, not to
Bellona and the Battles:--and yet he knows well, this latter too is an
inexorable element. About his Army, he is quietly busy; augmenting,
improving it; the staff of life to Prussia and him.

Silesian Fortress-building, under ugly Walrave, goes on at a steadily
swift rate. Much Silesian settlement goes on; fixing of the
Prussian-Austrian Boundaries without; of the Catholic- Protestant
limits within: rapid, not too rough, remodelling of the Province from
Austrian into Prussian, in the Financial, Administrative and every other
respect:--in all which important operations the success was noiseless,
but is considered to have been perfect, or nearly so. Cannot we, from
these enormous Paper- masses, carefully riddled, afford the reader a
glimpse or two, to quicken his imagination of these things?
SETTLES THE SILESIAN BOUNDARIES, THE SILESIAN
ARRANGEMENTS; WITH MANIFEST PROFIT TO SILESIA AND
HIMSELF.
In regard to the Marches, Herr Nussler, as natural, was again the person
employed. Nussler, shifty soul, wide-awake at all times, has already
seen this Country; "noticed the Pass into Glatz with its block-house,
and perceived that his Majesty would want it." From September 22d to
December 12th, 1742, the actual Operation went on; ratified,
completely set at rest, 16th January following. [Busching,
Beitrage, ? Nussler: and Busching's Magazin,
b. x. (Halle, 1776); where, pp. 475-538, is a
"GESCHICHTE DER &c. SHLESISCHEN GRANZSCHEIDUNG IM
JAHR 1742," in great amplitude and authenticity.] Nussler serves on
three thalers (nine shillings) a day. The Austrian Head-Commissioner
has 5 pounds (thirty thalers) a day; but he is an elderly fat gentleman,
pursy, scant of breath; cannot stand the rapid galloping about, and
thousand-fold inspecting and detailing; leaves it all to Nussler; who
goes like the wind. Thus, for example, Nussler dictates, at evening
from his saddle, the mutual Protocol of the day's doings; Old Pursy
sitting by, impatient for supper, and making no criticisms. Then at night,
Nussler privately mounts again; privately, by moonlight, gallops over
the ground they are to deal with next day, and takes notice of
everything. No wonder the boundary-pillars, set up in such manner,
which stand to this day, bear marks that Prussia here and there has had
fair play!--Poor Nussler has no fixed appointment yet, except one of
about 100 pounds a year: in all my travels I have seen no man of equal

faculty at lower wages. Nor did he ever get any signal promotion, or the
least exuberance of wages, this poor Nussler;-- unless it be that he got
trained to perfect veracity of workmanship, and to be a man without
dry-rot in the soul of him; which indeed is incalculable wages. Income
of 100 pounds a year, and no dry-rot in the soul of you anywhere;
income of 100,000 pounds a year, and nothing but dry and wet rot in
the soul of you (ugly appetites unveracities, blusterous conceits,--and
probably, as symbol of all things, a pot-belly to your poor body itself):
Oh, my friends!
In settling the Spiritual or internal Catholic-Protestant limits of Silesia,
Friedrich did also a workmanlike thing. Perfect fairness between
Protestant and Catholic; to that he is bound, and never needed binding.
But it is withal his intention to be King in Catholic Silesia; and that no
Holy Father, or other extraneous individual, shall intrude with
inconvenient pretensions there. He accordingly nominates the now
Bishop of Neisse and natural Primate of Silesia,--Cardinal von
Sinzendorf, who has made submission for any late Austrian
peccadilloes, and thoroughly reconciled himself,--nominates
Sinzendorf "Vicar-General" of the Country; who is to relieve the Pope
of Silesian trouble, and be himself Quasi-Supreme of the Catholic
Church there. "No offence, Holy Papa of Christian Mankind! Your holy
religion is, and shall be, intact in these parts; but the palliums, bulls and
other holy wares and interferences are not needed here. On that footing,
be pleased to