History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 4 | Page 7

princely and other circles; nor is his marriage the only strange thing Leopold has done. He is a man to keep the world's tongue wagging, not too musically always; though himself of very unvocal nature. Perhaps the biggest mass of inarticulate human vitality, certainly one of the biggest, then going about in the world. A man of vast dumb faculty; dumb, but fertile, deep; no end of ingenuities in the rough head of him:--as much mother-wit, there, I often guess, as could be found in whole talking parliaments, spouting themselves away in vocables and eloquent wind!
A man of dreadful impetuosity withal. Set upon his will as the one law of Nature; storming forward with incontrollable violence: a very whirlwind of a man. He was left a minor; his Mother guardian. Nothing could prevent him from marrying this Fos the Apothecary's Daughter; no tears nor contrivances of his Mother, whom he much loved, and who took skilful measures. Fourteen months of travel in Italy; grand tour, with eligible French Tutor,--whom he once drew sword upon, getting some rebuke from him one night in Venice, and would have killed, had not the man been nimble, at once dexterous and sublime:--it availed not. The first thing he did, on re-entering Dessau, with his Tutor, was to call at Apothecary Fos's, and see the charming Mamsell; to go and see his Mother, wss the second thing. Mot even his grand passion for war could eradicate Fos: he went to Dutoh William's wars; the wise mother still counselling, who was own aunt to Dutoh William, and liked the scheme. He besieged Namur; fought and besieged up and down,--with insatiable appetite for fighting and sieging; with great honor, too, and ambitions awakening in him;--campaign after campaign: but along with the flamy-thundery ideal bride, figuratively called Bellona, there was always a soft real one, Mamsell Fos of Dessau, to whom he continued constant. The Government of his Dominions he left cheerfully to his Mother, even when he came of age: "I am for learning War, as the one right trade; do with all things as you please, Mamma,--only not with Mamsell, not with her!"--
Readers may figure this scene too, and shudder over it. Some rather handsome male Cousin of Mamsell, Medical Graduate or whatever he was, had appeared in Dessau:--"Seems, to admire Mamsell much; of course, in a Platonic way," said rumor:-- "He? Admire?" thinks Leopold;--thinks a good deal of it, not in the philosophic mood. As he was one day passing Fos's, Mamsell and the Medical Graduate are visible, standing together at the window inside. Pleasantly looking out upon Nature,--of course quite casually, say some Histories with a sneer. In fact, it seems possible this Medical Graduate may have been set to act shoeing- horn; but he had better not. Leopold storms into the House, "Draw, scandalous canaille, and defend yourself!"--And in this, or some such way, a confident tradition says, he killed the poor Medical Graduate there and then. One tries always to hope not: but Varnhagen is positive, though the other Histories say nothing of it. God knows. The man was a Prince; no Reichshofrath, Speyer-Wetzlar KAMMER, or other Supreme Court, would much trouble itself, except with formal shakings of the wig, about such a peccadillo. In fine, it was better for Leopold to marry the Miss Fos; which he actually did (1698, in his twenty-second year), "with the left-hand,"--and then with the right and both hands; having got her properly ennobled before long, by his splendid military services. She made, as we have hinted, an excellent Wife to him, for the fifty or sixty ensuing years.
This is a strange rugged specimen, this inarticulate Leopold; already getting mythic, as we can perceive, to the polished vocal ages; which mix all manner of fables with the considerable history he has. Readers will see him turn up again in notable forms. A man hitherto unknown except in his own country; and yet of very considerable significance to all European countries whatsoever; the fruit of his activities, without his name attached, being now manifest in all of them. He invented the iron ramrod; he invented the equal step; in fact, he is the inventor of modern military tactics. Even so, if we knew it: the Soldiery of every civilized country still receives from this man, on parade-fields and battle-fields, its word of command; out of his rough head proceeded the essential of all that the innumerable Drill-sergeants, in various languages, daily repeat and enforce. Such a man is worth some transient glance from his fellow-creatures,--especially with a little Fritz trotting at his foot, and drawing inferences from him.
Dessau, we should have said for the English reader's behoof, was and still is a little independent Principality; about the size of Huntingdonshire, but with woods instead of bogs;--revenue of