History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 17 | Page 5

and bestir himself. How Mahlzahn has found his Menzel, and has bestirred himself, we saw. Thief-keys were made to pattern in Berlin; first set did not fit, second did; and stealthy Menzel gains admittance to that Chamber of the Archives, can steal thither on shoes of felt when occasion serves, and copy what you wish,--for a consideration. Intermittently, since about Easter-Fair, 1753. Three persons are cognizant of it, Winterfeld, Mahlzahn, Friedrich; three, and no more. Probably the abstrusest study; and the most intense, going on in the world at that epoch. [Rotzow, Charakteristik des Siebenjahrigen Krieges (Berlin, 1802), i. 23.]
"At a very early stage of the Menzel Excerpts it became manifest that certain synchronous Austrian Ditto would prove highly elucidative; that, in fact, it would be indispensable to get hold of these as well. Which also Winterfeld has managed to do. A deep- headed man, who has his eyes about him; and is very apt to manage what he undertakes. One Weingarten Junior, a Secretary in the Austrian Embassy at Berlin (Excellency Peubla's second Secretary), has his acquaintanceships in Berlin Society; and for one thing, as Winterfeld discovers, is 'madly in love' with some Chambermaid or quasi-chambermaid (let us call her Chambermaid), 'Daughter of the Castellan at Charlottenburg.' Winterfeld, through the due channels, applied to this Chambermaid, 'Get me a small secret Copy of such and such Despatches, out of your Weingarten; it will be well for you and him; otherwise perhaps not well!' Chambermaid, hope urging, or perhaps hope and fear, did her best; Weingarten had to yield the required product and products, as required. By this Weingarten, from some date not long after Menzel's first mysterious Dresden Excerpts, the necessary Austrian glosses, so far as possible to Weingarten on the indications given him, have been regularly had, for the two or three years past.
"Weingarten first came to be seriously suspected June, 1756 (Weingarten Junior, let us still say, for there was a Senior of unstained fidelity); 'June 15th,' Excellency Peubla pointedly demands him from Friedrich and the Berlin Police: 'Weingarten Junior, my SECOND Secretar, fugitive and traitor; hidden somewhere!' ["BERLIN, 22d JUNE: Every research making for Mr. Weingatten,--in vain hitherto" ( Gentleman's Magazine, xxvi., i. e. for 1756, p. 363).] Excellency Peubla is answered, 24th June: 'We would so fain catch him, if we could! We have tried at Stendal,--not there: tried his Mother-in-law; knows nothing: have forborne laying up his poor Wife and Children; and hope her Imperial Majesty will have pity on that poor creature, who is fallen so miserable.' [ Helden-Geschichte, iii. 713.] So that Excellency Peubla had nothing for it but to compose himself; to honor the unstainable fidelity of Weingarten Senior by a public piece of promotion, which soon ensued; and let the Junior run. Weingarten Junior, on the first suspicion, had vanished with due promptitude,--was not to be unearthed again. We perceive he has married his Charlottenburg Beauty, and there are helpless babies. It seems, he lived long years after, in the Altmark, as a Herr von Weiss,'--his reflections manifold, but unknown. [Retzow, i. 37.] What is much notabler, Cogniazzo, the Austrian Veteran, heard Weingarten's MASTER, Graf von Peubla, talk of the 'GRAND MYSTERE,' soon after, and how Friedrich had heard of it, not from Weingarten alone, but from Gross-Furst PETER, Russian Heir-Apparent! [Cogniazzo, i. 225.]
"As to Menzel, he did not get away. Menzel, as we saw, lasted in free activity till 1757; and was then put under lock and key. Was not hanged; sat prisoner for twenty-seven years after; overgrown with hair, legs and arms chained together, heavy iron bar uniting both ankles; diet bread-and-water;--for the rest, healthy; and died, not very miserable it is said, in 1784. Shocking traitors, Weingarten and he."
Yes, a diabolical pair, they, sure enough:--and the thing they betrayed against their Masters, was that a celestial thing? Servants of the Devil do fall out; and Servants not of the Devil are fain, sometimes, to raise a quarrel of that kind!--
The then world, as we said, was one loud uproar of logic on the right reading and the wrong of those Sibylline Documents: "Did your King of Prussia interpret them aright, or even try it? Did not he use them as a cloak for highway robbery, and swallowing of a peaceable Saxony, bad man that he surely is?" For Friedrich's demeanor, this time again, when it came to the acting point, was of eminent rapidity; almost a swifter lion-spring than ever; and it brought on him, in the aerial or vocal way, its usual result: huge clamor of rage and logic from uninformed mankind. Clamorous rage and logic, which has now sunk irresuscitably dead;-- nothing of it much worth mentioning to modern readers, scarcely even its HIC JACET (in Footnotes, for