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

Countess Finkenstein joining her remonstrances to Sonsfeld's, the

Queen, though with regret, promised to moderate herself." [Wilhelmina,
i. 215.]
This is the effulgent flaming-point of the long-agitated English Match,
which we have so often caught in a bitterly smoking condition. "The
King indeed spoke nothing of it to us, on his return to Berlin in a day or
two," says Wilhelmina; "which we thought strange." But everybody
considered it certain, nothing but the details left to settle. "Hotham had
daily conferences with the King." "Every post brought letters from the
Prince of Wales:" of which Wilhelmina saw several,--this for one
specimen, general purport of the whole: "I conjure you, my dear
Hotham, get these negotiations finished! I am madly in love
(AMOUREUX COMME UN FOU), and my impatience is unequalled."
{Ib. i. 218.] Wilhelmina thought these sentiments "very, romantic" on
the part of Prince Fred, "who had never seen me, knew me only by
repute:"--and answered his romances and him with tiffs of laughter, in a
prettily fleering manner.
Effulgent flame-point;--which was of very brief duration indeed, and
which sank soon into bitterer smoke than ever, down almost to the
choking state. There are now six weeks of Diplomatic History at the
Court of Berlin, which end far otherwise than they began. Weeks
well-nigh indecipherable; so distracted are they, by black-art and
abstruse activities above ground and below, and so distractedly
recorded for us: of which, if it be humanly possible, we must try to
convey some faint notion to mankind.

Chapter II.
LANGUAGE OF BIRDS: EXCELLENCY HOTHAM PROVES
UNAVAILING.
Already next morning, after that grand Dinner at Charlottenburg,
Friedrich Wilhelm, awakening with his due headache, thought, and was
heard saying, He had gone too far! Those gloomy looks of Hotham and
Dubourgay, on the occasion; they are a sad memento that our joyance

was premature. The English mean the Double-Marriage; and Friedrich
Wilhelm is not ready, and never fairly was, for more than the Single.
"Wilhelmina Princess of Wales, yes with all my heart; but Friedrich to
an English Princess--Hm, na;"--and in a day more: ["Instruction to his
Ministers, 5th April," cited by Ranke, i. 285 n.] plainly "No." And there
it finally rests; or if rocked about, always settles there again.
And why, No?--Truly, as regarded Crown-Prince Friedrich's marriage,
the question had its real difficulties: and then, still more, it had its
imaginary; and the subterranean activities were busy! The witnesses,
contemporaneous and other, assign three reasons, or considerations and
quasi-reasons, which the Tobacco-Parliament and Friedrich Wilhelm's
lively fancy could insist upon it till they became irrefragable:--
FIRST, his rooted discontent with the Crown-Prince, some even say his
jealousy of the Crown-Prince's talents, render it unpleasant to think of
promoting him in any way. SECOND, natural German loyalty,
enlivened by the hope of Julich and Berg, attaching Friedrich Wilhelm
to the Kaiser's side of things, repels him with a kind of horror from the
Anti-Kaiser or French-English side. "Marry my Daughter, if you like; I
shall be glad to salute her as Princess of Wales; but no union in your
Treaty-of-Seville operations: in politics go you your own road, if that is
it, while I go mine; no tying of us, by Double or other Marriages, to go
one road." THIRD, the magnificence of those English. "Regardless of
expense," insinuates the Tobacco-Parliament; "they will send their
grand Princess hither, with no end of money; brought up in grandeur to
look down on the like of us. She can dazzle, she can purchase: in the
end, may there not be a Crown-Prince Party, capable of extinguishing
your Majesty here in your own Court, and makiug Prussia a bit of
England; all eyes being turned to such sumptuous Princess and her
Crown-Prince,--Heir-Apparent, or 'Rising Sun' as we may call him!"--
These really are three weighty almost dreadful considerations to a
poetic-tempered King and Smoking Parliament. Out of which there is
no refuge except indeed this plain fourth one: "No hurry about Fritz's
marriage; [Friedrich Wilhelm to Reichenbach (13th May), infra.] he is
but eighteen gone; evidently too young for housekeeping. Thirty is a

good time for marrying. 'There is, thank God, no lack of royal lineage; I
have two other Princes,'"--and another just at hand, if I knew it.
To all which there is to be added that ever-recurring invincible
gravitation towards the Kaiser, and also towards Julich and Berg, by
means of him,--well acted on by the Tobacco-Parliament for the space
of those six weeks. During which, accordingly, almost from the first
day after that Hotham Dinner of April 3d, the answer of the royal mind,
with superficial fluctuations, always is: "Wilhelmina at once, if you
choose; likely enough we might agree about Crown-Prince Friedrich
too, if once all were settled; but of the Double-Marriage, at this present
time, HORE NIT,