June-Sept., 1740. village of hope. His emotions at Reinsberg, and every body's while Friedrich Wilhelm lay dying, and all stood like greyhounds on the slip; and with what arrow-swiftness they shot away when the great news came-all this he has already described at wearisome length in his fantastic semi-fabulous way.3 Friedrich himself seemed moderately glad to see Bielfeld; received his highflown congratulations with a benevolent yet somewhat composed air; and gave him afterward, in the course of weeks, an unexpectedly small appointment: To go to Hanover under Truchsess von Waldburg, and announce our Accession; which is but a simple, mostly formal service, yet perhaps what Bielfeld is best equal to.

The Britannic Majesty, or at least his Hanover people, have been beforehand with this civility; Baron Münchausen, no doubt by orders given for such contingency, had appeared at Berlin with the due compliment and condolence almost on the first day of the New Reign; first messenger of all on that errand; Britannic Majesty evidently in a conciliatory humor, having his dangerous Spanish War on hand. Britannic Majesty in person, shortly after, gets across to Hanover; and Friedrich dispatches Truchsess, with Bielfeld adjoined, to return the courtesy.

Friedrich does not neglect these points of good manners, along with which something of substantial may be privately conjoined. For example, if he had in secret his eye on Jülich and Berg, could any thing be fitter than to ascertain what the French will think of such an enterprise? What the French; and next to them, what the English-that is to say, Hanoverians, who meddle much in affairs of the Reich. For these reasons and others he likewise, probably with more study than in the Bielfeld case, dispatches Colonel Camas to make his compliment at the French Court, and in an expert way take soundings there. Camas, a fat, sedate, military gentleman of advanced years, full of observation, experience, and sound sense "with one arm, which he makes do the work of two, and nobody can notice that the other arm resting in his coat-breast is of cork, so expert is he"will do in this matter what is feasible; probably not much for the present. He is to call on Voltaire as he passes, who is in 3 Bielfeld, i., 68-77; ib., 81.

June-Sept., 1740.

Holland again, at the Hague for some months back, and deliver him "a little cask of Hungary Wine," which probably his Majesty had thought exquisite; of which, and the other insignificant passages between them, we hear more than enough in the writing and correspondences of Voltaire about this time.

In such way Friedrich disposes of his Bielfelds, who are rather numerous about him now and henceforth. Adventurers from all quarters, especially of the literary type, in hopes of being employed, much hovered round Friedrich through his whole reign; but they met a rather strict judge on arriving: it can not be said they found it such a Goshen as they expected.

Favor, friendly intimacy, it is visible from the first, avails nothing with this young King; beyond and before all things he will have his work done, and looks out exclusively for the man ablest to do it. Hence Bielfeld goes to Hanover, to grin out euphuisms, and make graceful court-bows to our sublime little Uncle there. On the other hand, Friedrich institutes a new Knighthood, Order of Merit so-called; which, indeed, is but a small feat, testifying mere hope and exuberance as yet, and may even be made worse than nothing, according to the Knights he shall manage to have. Happily it proved a successful new Order in this last all-essential particular, and, to the end of Friedrich's life, continued to be a great and coveted distinction among the Prussians.

Beyond doubt this is a radiant enough young Majesty; entitled to hope, and to be the cause of hope. Handsome, to begin with; decidedly well-looking, all say, and of graceful presence, though hardly five feet seven, and perhaps stouter of limb than the strict Belvidere standard. Has a fine, free, expressive face; nothing of austerity in it; not a proud face, or not too proud, yet rapidly flashing on you all manner of high meanings. Such

4

5

* Height, it appears, was five feet five inches (Rhenish), which in English measure is five feet seven or a hairsbreadth less. Preuss, twice over, by a mistake unusual with him, gives "five feet two inches three lines" as the correct cipher (which it is of Napoleon's measure in French feet); then settles on the above dimensions from unexceptionable authority (Preuss, Buch für Jedermann, i., 18; Preuss, Friedrich der Grosse, i., 39 and 419).

5

"Wille's Engraving after Pesne" (excellent, both Picture and Engraving) is reckoned the best Likeness in that form.

June-Sept., 1740. a man, in the bloom of his years, with such a possibility ahead, and Voltaire and mankind waiting applausive! Let us try to select, and extricate into coherence and visibility out of those Historical dust-heaps, a few of the symptomatic phenomena, or physiognomic procedures of Friedrich in his first weeks of Kingship, by way of contribution to some Portraiture of his then inner-man.

Friedrich will make Men happy: Corn-Magazines.

On the day after his Accession, Officers and chief Ministers taking the Oath, Friedrich, to his Officers, "on whom he counts for the same zeal now which he had witnessed as their comrade," recommends mildness of demeanor from the higher to the lower, and that the common soldier be not treated with harshness when not deserved; and to his Ministers he is still more emphatic, in the like or a higher strain. Officially announcing to them, by Letter, that a new Reign has commenced, he uses these words, legible soon after to a glad Berlin public: "Our grand care will be, To further the Country's well-being, and to make every one of our subjects (einen jeden unserer Unterthanen) contented and happy. Our will is, not that you strive to enrich Us by vexation of Our subjects, but rather that you aim steadily as well toward the advantage of the Country as Our particular interest, forasmuch as we make no difference between This these two objects," but consider them one and the same. is written, and gets into print within the month; and his Majesty, that same day (Wednesday, 2d June), when it came to personal reception, and actual taking of the Oath, was pleased to add in words, which also were printed shortly, this comfortable corollary: "My will henceforth is, If it ever chance that my particular interest and the general good of my Countries should seem to go against each other, in that case, my will is, That the latter always be preferred.”6

This is a fine dialect for incipient Royalty; and it is brandnew at that time. It excites an admiration in the then popula

6 Dickens, Dispatch, 4th June, 1740; Preuss, Friedrichs Jugend und Thronbesteigung (Berlin, 1840), p. 325-quoting from the Berlin Newspapers of 28th June and 2d July, 1740.

June-Sept., 1740.

tions, which to us, so long used to it and to what commonly comes of it, is not conceivable at once. There can be no doubt the young King does faithfully intend to develop himself in the way of making men happy; but here, as elsewhere, are limits which he will recognize ahead, some of them perhaps nearer than was expected.

Meanwhile his first acts in this direction correspond to these fine words. The year 1740, still grim with cold into the heart of summer, bids fair to have a late poor harvest, and famine threatens to add itself to other hardships there have been. Recognizing the actualities of the case, what his poor Father could not, he opens the Public Granaries-a wise resource they have in Prussian countries against the year of scarcity; orders grain to be sold out, at reasonable rates, to the suffering poor; and takes the due pains, considerable in some cases, that this be rendered feasible every where in his dominions. "Berlin, 2d June,' is the first date of this important order; fine program to his Ministers, which, we read, is no sooner uttered than some performance follows. An evident piece of wisdom and humanity, for which doubtless blessings of a very sincere kind rise to him from several millions of his fellow-mortals.

Nay, furthermore, as can be dimly gathered, this scarcity continuing, some continuous mode of management was set on foot for the Poor; and there is nominated, with salary, with outline of plan and other requisites, as "Inspector of the Poor," to his own and our surprise, M. Jordan, late Reader to the CrownPrince, and still much the intimate of his royal Friend. Inspector who seems to do his work very well. And in the November coming this is what we see: "One thousand poor old women, the destitute of Berlin, set to spin," at his Majesty's charges; vacant houses, hired for them in certain streets and suburbs, have been new-planked, partitioned, warmed; and spinning is there for any diligent female soul. There a thousand of them sit, under proper officers, proper wages, treatment; and the hum of their poor spindles, and of their poor inarticulate old hearts, is a comfort, if one chance to think of it. Of "distressed needlewomen" who can not sew, nor be taught to do it; who, in private truth, are mutinous maid-servants come at last

June-Sept., 1740. to the net upshot of their anarchies-of these, or of the like incurable phenomena, I hear nothing in Berlin, and can believe that, under this King, Indigence itself may still have something of a human aspect, not a brutal or diabolic, as is commoner in some places! This is one of Friedrich's first acts, this opening of the Corn-magazines and arrangements for the Destitute ;" and of this there can be no criticism. The sound of hungry pots set boiling on judicious principles; the hum of those old women's spindles in the warm rooms-gods and men are well pleased to hear such sounds, and accept the same as part, real though infinitesimally small, of the sphere-harmonies of this Universe!

Abolition of Legal Torture.

Friedrich makes haste, next, to strike into Law-improvements. It is but the morrow after this of the Corn-magazines, by Kabinets-Ordre (Act of Parliament, such as they can have in that Country, where the Three Estates sit all under one Three-cornered Hat, and the debates are kept silent, and only the upshot of them, more or less faithfully, is made public)-by Cabinet Order, 3d June, 1740, he abolishes the use of Torture in Criminal Trials. Legal Torture, "Question," as they mildly call it, is at an end from this date. Not in any Prussian Court shall a "question" try for answer again by that savage method. The use of Torture had, I believe, fallen rather obsolete in Prussia, but now the very threat of it shall vanish—the threat of it, as we may remember, had reached Friedrich himself at one time. Three or four years ago, it is farther said, a dark murder happened in Berlin: Man killed one night in the open streets; murderer discoverable by no method, unless he were a certain Candidatus of Divinity to whom some trace of evidence pointed, but who sorrowfully persisted in absolute and total denial. This

'Helden-Geschichte, i., 367. Rödenbeck, Tagebuch aus Friedrichs des Grossen Regentenleben (Berlin, 1840), i., 2, 26 (2d June, October, 1740): a meritorious, laborious, though essentially chaotic Book, unexpectedly futile of result to the reader; settles for each Day of Friedrich's Reign, so far as possible, where Friedrich was and what doing; fatally wants all index, &c., as usual.

8 Preuss, Friedrichs Jugend und Thronbesteigung (Berlin, 1840-a minor Book of Preuss's), p. 340. Rödenbeck, i., 14 ("3d June").