Jan., 1741.

long-one knows not for how long: that is a first step definitely clear to Belleisle. Toward which, as preliminary to it and to all the others in a dimmer state, there is a second thing clear, and has even been officially settled (all but the day): That, in the mean while, and surely the sooner the better, he, Belleisle, Most Christian Majesty's Embassador Extraordinary to the Reichstag coming, do, in his most dazzling and persuasive marner, make a Tour among German Courts. Let us visit, in our highest and yet in our softest splendor, the accessible German Courts, especially the likely or well-disposed: Mainz, Köln, Trier, these, the Three called Spiritual, lie on our very route; then Pfalz, Baiern, Sachsen: we will tour diligently up and down; try whether, by optic machinery and art-magic of the mind, one can not bring them round.

In all these preliminary steps and points, and even in that alpha and omega of excluding Grand-Duke Franz, and getting a Kaiser of his own, Belleisle succeeded, with painful results to himself and to millions of his fellow-creatures-to readers of this History among others, and became, in consequence, the most famous of mankind, and filled the whole world with rumor of Belleisle in those years. A man of such intrinsic distinction as Belleisle, whom Friedrich afterward deliberately called a great Captain, and the only Frenchman with a genius for war, and who, for some time, played in Europe at large a part like that of Warwick the Kingmaker, how has he fallen into such oblivion? Many of my readers never heard of him before, nor, in writing or otherwise, is there symptom that any living memory now harbors him, or has the least approach to an image of him! "For the times are babbly," says Goethe," and then, again, the times are dumb:

“Denn geschwätzig sind die Zeiten,

Und sie sind auch wieder stumm."

Alas! if a man sow only chaff, in never so sublime a manner, with the whole Earth and the long-eared populations looking on, and chorally singing approval, rendering night hideous, it will Kur-Pfalz, on January 12th, seconded by others in the French interest); upon which the appointment, after some arguing, collapsed into the vague, and there ensued delay enough; actual Election not till January 24th, 1742.

Jan., 1741.

avail him nothing. And that, to a lamentable extent, was Belleisle's case. His scheme of action was in most felicitously just accordance with the national sense of France, but by no means so with the Laws of Nature and of Fact; his aim, grandiose, patriotic, what you will, was unluckily false and not true. How could "the times" continue talking of him? They found they had already talked too much. Not to say that the French Revolution has since come, and has blown all that into the air, miles aloft, where even the solid part of it, which must be recovered one day, much more the gaseous, which we trust is forever irrecoverable, now wanders and whirls; and many things are abolished, for the present, of more value than Belleisle!

For my own share, being, as it were, forced accidentally to look at him again, I find in Belleisle a really notable man, far superior to the vulgar of noted men, in his time or ours. Sad destiny for such a man! But when the general Life-element becomes so unspeakably phantasmal as under Louis XV., it is difficult for any man to be real-to be other than a play-actor, more or less eminent and artistically dressed. Sad enough, surely, when the truth of your relation to the Universe, and the tragically earnest meaning of your Life, is quite lied out of you by a world sunk in lies, and you can, with effort, attain to nothing but to be a more or less splendid lie along with it! your very existence all become a vesture, a hypocrisy, and hearsay; nothing left of you but this sad faculty of sowing chaff in the fashionable manner! After Friedrich and Voltaire, in both of whom, under the given circumstances, one finds a perennial reality, more or less, Belleisle is next; none fails to escape the mournful common lot by a nearer miss than Belleisle.

Beyond doubt, there are in this man the biggest projects any French head has carried since Louis XIV., with his sublime periwig, first took to striking the stars. How the indolent Louis XV. and the pacific Fleury have been got into this sublimely adventurous mood? By Belleisle chiefly, men say, and by King Louis's first Mistresses, blown upon by Belleisle; poor Louis having now, at length, left his poor Queen to her reflections, and taken into that sad line, in which, by degrees, he carried it so far. There are three of them, it seems, the first female souls that could

Jan., 1741.

ever manage to kindle, into flame or into smoke, in this or any other kind, that poor torpid male soul-those Mailly Sisters, three in number (I am shocked to hear), successive, nay, in part simultaneous! They are proud women, especially the two younger, with ambition in them, with a bravura magnanimity of the theatrical or operatic kind, of whom Louis is very fond. "To raise France to its place, your Majesty-the top of the Universe, namely!" "Well, if it could be done, and quite without trouble ?” thinks Louis. Bravura magnanimity, blown upon by Belleisle, prevails among these high Improper-Females, and generally in the Younger Circles of the Court, so that poor old Fleury has had no choice but to obey it or retire. And so Belleisle stalks across the Eil-de-Bœuf in that important manner, visibly to Geusau, and is the shining object in Paris, and much the topic there at present.

A few weeks hence he is farther-a little out of the common turn, but not beyond his military merits or capabilities-made Maréchal de France,6 by way of giving him a new splendor in the German Political World, and assisting in his operations there, which depend much upon the laws of vision. French epigrams circulate in consequence, and there are witty criticisms ; to which Belleisle, such a dusky world of Possibility lying ahead, is grandly indifferent. Maréchal de France; and Geusau hears (what is a fact) that there are to be "thirty young French Lords in his suite;" his very "Livery," or mere plush retinue, "to consist of 110 persons;" such an outfit for magnificence as was never seen before. And in this equipment, "early in March" (exact day not given), magnificence of outside corresponding to grandiosity of faculty and idea, Belleisle, we shall find, does practically set off toward Germany, like a kind of French Belus, or God of the Sun, capable to dazzle weak German Courts by optical machinery, and to set much rotten thatch on fire!

"There are curious daguerreotype glimpses of old Paris to be found in that Note-book of Geusau's," says another Excerpt, "which come strangely home to us, like reality at first-hand; and a rather unexpected Paris it is to most readers, many things then alive there which are now deep underground. Much Jansenist Theology afloat: grand French Ladies piously eager to convert a young Protestant Nobleman like

6 Fastes de Louis XV., i., 356 (12th February, 1741).

Jan., 1741.

Reuss; sublime Dorcases, who do not rouge or dress high, but eschew the evil world, and are thrifty for the Poor's sake, redeeming the time. There is a Cardinal de Polignac, venerable sage and ex-political person, of astonishing erudition, collector of Antiques (with whom we dined); there is the Chevalier Ramsay, theological Scotch Jacobite, late Tutor of the young Turenne-so many shining persons, now fallen indistinct again. And then, besides gossip, which is of mild quality and in fair proportion, what talk, casuistic and other, about the Moral Duties, the still feasible Pieties, the Constitution Unigenitus! All this alive, resonant at dinner-tables of Conservative stamp; the Miracles of Abbé Pâris much a topic there; and not a whisper of Infidel Philosophies; the very name of Voltaire not once mentioned in the Reuss section of Parisian things.

“There is rumor now and then of a 'Comte de Rothenbourg,' conspicuous in the Parisian circles; a shining military man, but seemingly in want of employment, who has lost in gambling, within the last four years, upward of £50,000 (1,300,000 livres, the exact cipher given). This is the Graf von Rothenburg whom Friedrich made acquaintance with in the Rhine Campaign six years ago, and has ever since had in his eye; whom, in a few weeks hence, Friedrich beckons over to him into the Prussian States: Hither, and you shall have work!' which Rothenburg accepts, with manifold advantage to both parties—one of Friedrich's most distinguished friends for the rest of his life.

"Of Cardinal Polignac there is much said, and several dinners with him are transacted, dialogue partly given: a pious wise old gentleman really, in his kind (age now eighty-four), looking mildly forth upon a world just about to overset itself and go topsy-turvy, as he sees it will. His Anti-Lucretius was once such a Poem! but we mention him here because his fine Cabinet of Antiques came to Berlin on his Death, Friedrich purchasing; and one often hears of it (if one cared to hear) from the Prussian Dryasdust in subsequent years."

7.

"Of Friedrich's unexpected Invasion of Silesia there are also talkings and surmisings, but in a mild indifferent tone, and much in the vague; and in the best-informed circles it is thought Belleisle will manage to have Grand-Duke Franz, the Queen of Hungary's Husband, chosen Kaiser, and in some mild good way put an end to all that," which is far indeed from Belleisle's intention!

7 Came to Charlottenburg August, 1742 (old Polignac had died November last, ten months after those Geusau times): cost of the Polignac Cabinet was 40,000 thalers (£6000) say some, 90,000 livres (under £4000) say others; cheap at either price; and, by chance, came opportunely, a fire having just burnt down the Academy Edifice," and destroyed much ware of that kind. Rödenbeck, i., 73; Seyfarth (Anonymous), Geschichte Friedrich des Andern, i., 236.

Jan., 1741.

CHAPTER VIII.

PHENOMENA IN PETERSBURG.

I KNOW not whether Major Winterfeld, who was sent to Petersburg in December last, had got back to Berlin in February, now while Friedrich is there; but for certain the good news of him had, That he had been completely successful, and was coming speedily to resume his soldier duties in right time. As Winterfeld is an important man (nearly buried into darkness in the dull Prussian Books), let us pause for a moment on this Negotiation of his, and on the mad Russian vicissitudes which preceded and followed, so far as they concern us. Russia, a big demi-savage neighbor next door, with such caprices, such humors and interests, is always an important, rather delicate object to Friedrich, and Fortune's mad wheel is plunging and canting in a strange headlong way there of late. Czarina Anne, we know, is dead; the Autocrat of All the Russias following the Kaiser of the Romans within eight days. Iwan, her little Nephew, still in swaddling-clothes, is now Autocrat of All the Russias if he knew it, poor little red-colored creature; and Anton Ulrich and his Mecklenburg Russian Princess-But let us take up the matter where our Note-books left it, in Friedrich Wilhelm's time:

6

"Czarina Anne with the big cheek," continues that Note-book, “ was extremely delighted to see little Iwan, but enjoyed him only two months, being herself in dying circumstances. She appointed little Iwan her Successor, his Mother and Father to be Guardians over him; but one Bieren (who writes himself Biron, and Duke of Courland,' being Czarina's Quasi-Husband these many years) to be Guardian, as it were, over both them and him. Such had been the truculent insatiable Bieren's demand on his Czarina. You are running on your destruction,' said she, with tears; but complied, as she had been wont.

"Czarina Anne died 28th October, 1740, leaving a Czar in his cradle; little Czar Iwan of two months, with Mother and Father to preside over 1 Suprà, vol. ii., p. 526.

VOL. III.-I