History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 14 | Page 6

rest content."
The Holy Father shrieked his loudest (which is now a quite calculable
loudness, nothing like so loud as it once was); declared he would
"himself join the Army of Martyrs sooner;" and summoned Sinzendorf
to Rome: "What kind of HINGE are you, CARDINALIS of the Gates
of"-- Husht! Shrieked his loudest, we say; but, as nobody minded it,
and as Sinzendorf would not come, had to let the matter take its course.
[Adelung, iii. A. 197-200.] And, gradually noticing what correct
observance of essentials there was, he even came quite round, into a
high state of satisfaction with this Heretic King, in the course of a few
years. Friedrich and the Pope were very polite to each other thenceforth;
always ready to do little mutual favors. And it is to be remarked,

Friedrich's management of his Clergy, Protestant and Catholic, was
always excellent; true, in a considerable degree, to the real law of
things; gentle, but strict, and without shadow of hypocrisy,-- in which
last fine particular he is singularly unique among Modern Sovereigns.
He recognizes honestly the uses of Religion, though he himself has
little; takes a good deal of pains with his Preaching Clergy, from the
Army-Chaplain upwards,--will suggest texts to them, with scheme of
sermon, on occasion;--is always anxious to have, as Clerical
Functionary, the right man in the important place; and for the rest,
expects to be obeyed by them, as by his Sergeants and Corporals.
Indeed, the reverend men feel themselves to be a body of Spiritual
Sergeants, Corporals and Captains; to whom obedience is the rule, and
discontent a thing not to be indulged in by any means. And it is worth
noticing, how well they seem to thrive in this completely submissive
posture; how much real Christian worth is traceable in their labors and
them; and what a fund of piety and religious faith, in rugged effectual
form, exists in the Armies and Populations of such a King. ["In 1780, at
Berlin, the population being 140,000, there are of ECCLESIASTIC
kind only 140; that is 1 to the 1,000;--at Munchen there are thirty times
as many in proportion" (Mirabeau, Monarchie Prussienne,
viii. 342; quoting NICOLAI).] ...
By degrees the Munchows and Official Persons intrusted with Silesia
got it wrought in all respects, financial, administrative, judicial, secular
and spiritual, into the Prussian model: a long tough job; but one that
proved well worth doing. [In Preuss (i. 197-200), the various steps
(from 1740 to 1806).] In this state, counts one authority, it was worth to
Prussia "about six times what it had been to Austria;"--from some other
forgotten source, I have seen the computation "eight times." In money
revenue, at the end of Friedrich's reign, it is a little more than twice; the
"eight times" and the "six times," which are but loose multiples, refer, I
suppose, to population, trade, increase of national wealth, of new
regiments yielded by new cantons, and the like. [Westphalen, in
Feldzuge des Herzogs Ferdinand (printed, Berlin,
1859, written 100 years before by that well-informed person), i. 65,
says in the rough "six times:" Preuss, iv. 292, gives, very indistinctly,

the ciphers of Revenue, in 1740 and SOME later Year: according to
Friedrich himself ( Oeuvres, ii. 102), the Silesian Revenue at
first was "3,600,000 thalers" (540,000 pounds, little more than Half a
Million); Population, a Million-and-Half.]
Six or eight times as useful to Prussia: and to the Inhabitants what
multiple of usefulness shall we give? To be governed on principles fair
and rational, that is to say, conformable to Nature's appointment in that
respect; and to be governed on principles which contradict the very
rules of Cocker, and with impious disbelief of the very Multiplication
Table: the one is a perpetual Gospel of Cosmos and Heaven to every
unit of the Population; the other a Gospel of Chaos and Beelzebub to
every unit of them: there is no multiple to be found in Arithmetic which
will express that!--Certain of these advantages, in the new Government,
are seen at once; others, the still more valuable, do not appear, except
gradually and after many days and years. With the one and the other,
Schlesien appears to have been tolerably content. From that Year 1742
to this, Schlesien has expressed by word and symptom nothing but
thankfulness for the Transfer it underwent; and there is, for the last
Hundred Years, no part of the Prussian Dominion more loyal to the
Hohenzollerns (who are the Authors of Prussia, without whom Prussia
had never been), than this their latest acquisition, when once it too got
moulded into their own image. [Preuss, i. 193, and ib. 200 (Note from
Klein, a Silesian Jurist): "Favor not merit formerly;" "Magistracies a
regular branch of TRADE;"--"highway robbers on a strangely familiar