History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great Chapter IV. - Father's Mother.
by Thomas Carlyle
Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, as we hinted, did not live to see this
marriage which she had forecast in her maternal heart. She died,
rather suddenly, in 1705, [1st February (Erman, p. 241; Forster,
i. 114): born, 20th October, 1666; wedded, 28th September 1684;
died, 1st February, 1705.] at Hanover, whither she had gone on a
visit; shortly after parting with this her one boy and child,
Friedrich Wilhelm, who is then about seventeen; whom she had with
effort forced herself to send abroad, that he might see the world
a little, for the first time. Her sorrow on this occasion has in
it something beautiful, in so bright and gay a woman: shows us the
mother strong in her, to a touching degree. The rough cub, in whom
she noticed rugged perverse elements, "tendencies to avarice," and
a want of princely graces, and the more brilliant qualities in
mind and manner, had given her many thoughts and some uneasy ones.
But he was evidently all she had to love in the world; a rugged
creature inexpressibly precious to her. For days after his
departure, she had kept solitary; busied with little; indulging in
her own sad reflections without stint. Among the papers she had
been scribbling, there was found one slip with a HEART sketched on
it, and round the heart "PARTI" (Gone): My heart is gone!--poor
lady, and after what a jewel! But Nature is very kind to all
children and to all mothers that are true to her.
Sophie Charlotte's deep sorrow and dejection on this parting was
the secret herald of fate to herself. It had meant ill health
withal, and the gloom of broken nerves. All autumn and into winter
she had felt herself indefinitely unwell; she determined, however,
on seeing Hanover and her good old Mother at the usual time.
The gloomy sorrow over Friedrich Wilhelm had been the premonition
of a sudden illness which seized her on the road to Hanover, some
five months afterwards, and which ended fatally in that city.
Her death was not in the light style Friedrich her grandson
ascribes to it; [ Memoires de Brandebourg
(Preuss's Edition of OEuvres, Berlin, 1847
et seqq.), i. 112.] she died without epigram, and though in
perfect simple courage, with the reverse of levity.
Here, at first hand, is the specific account of that event;
which, as it is brief and indisputable, we may as well fish from
the imbroglios, and render legible, to counteract such notions,
and illuminate for moments an old scene of things. The writing,
apparently a quite private piece, is by "M. de la Bergerie, Pastor
of the French Church at Hanover," respectable Edict-of-Nantes
gentleman, who had been called in on the occasion;--gives an
authentic momentary picture, though a feeble and vacant one, of a
locality at that time very interesting to Englishmen. M. de la
Bergerie privately records:--
"The night between the last of January and the first of February,
1705, between one and two o'clock in the morning, I was called to
the Queen of Prussia, who was then dangerously ill.
"Entering the room, I threw myself at the foot of her bed,
testifying to her in words my profound grief to see her in this
state. After which I took occasion to say, 'She might know now
that Kings and Queens are mortal equally with all other men;
and that they are obliged to appear before the throne of the
majesty of God, to give an account of their deeds done, no less
than the meanest of their subjects.' To which her Majesty replied,
'I know it well ( Je le sais bien ).'--I went
on to say to her, 'Madam, your Majesty must also recognize in this
hour the vanity and nothingness of the things here below, for
which, it may be, you have had too much interest; and the
importance of the things of Heaven, which perhaps you have
neglected and contemned.' Thereupon the Queen answered, 'True
( Cela est vrai )!' 'Nevertheless, Madam,'
said I, 'does not your Majesty place really your trust in God?
Do you not very earnestly ( bien serieusement )
crave pardon of Him for all the sins you have committed?
Do not you fly ( n'a-t-elle pas recours ) to
the blood and merits of Jesus Christ, without which it is
impossible for us to stand before God?' The Queen answered,
' Oui (Yes).'--While this was going on,
her Brother, Duke Ernst August, came into the Queen's room,"--
perhaps with his eye upon me and my motions? "As they wished to
speak together, I withdrew by order."
This Duke Ernst August, age now 31, is the youngest Brother of the
family; there never was any Sister but this dying one, who is four
years older. Ernst August has some tincture of soldiership at this
time (Marlborough Wars, and the like), as all his kindred had; but
ultimately he got the Bishopric of Osnabruck, that singular
spiritual heirloom, or HALF-heirloom of the family; and there
lived or vegetated without noise. Poor soul, he is the same Bishop
of Osnabruck, to whose house, twenty-two years hence, George I.,
struck by apoplexy, was breathlessly galloping in the summer
midnight, one wish now left in him, to be with his brother;--and
arrived dead, or in the article of death. That was another scene
Ernst August had to witness in his life. I suspect him at present
of a thought that M. de la Bergerie, with his pious commonplaces,
is likely to do no good. Other trait of Ernst August's life; or of
the Schloss of Hanover that night,--or where the sorrowing old
Mother sat, invincible though weeping, in some neighboring room,--
I cannot give. M. de la Bergerie continues his narrative:--
"Some time after, I again presented myself before the Queen's bed,
to see if I could have occasion to speak to her on the matter of
her salvation. But Monseigneur the Duke Ernst August then said to
me, That it was not necessary; that the Queen was at peace with
her God ( etait bien avec son Dieu )."--Which
will mean also that M. de la Bergerie may go home? However, he
still writes:--
"Next day the Prince told me, That observing I was come near the
Queen's bed, he had asked her if she wished I should still speak
to her; but she had replied, that it was not necessary in any way
( nullement ), that she already knew all that
could be said to her on such an occasion; that she had said it to
herself, that she was still saying it, and that she hoped to be
well with her God.
"In the end a faint coming upon the Queen, which was what
terminated her life, I threw myself on my knees at the other side
of her bed, the curtains of which were open; and I called to God
with a loud voice, 'That He would rank his angels round this great
Princess, to guard her from the insults of Satan; that He would
have pity on her soul; that He would wash her with the blood of
Jesus Christ her heavenly Spouse; that, having forgiven her all
her sins, He would receive her to his glory.' And in that moment
she expired." [Erman, p. 242.]--Age thirty-six and some months.
Only Daughter of Electress Sophie; and Father's Mother of
Frederick the Great.
She was, in her time, a highly distinguished woman; and has left,
one may say, something of her likeness still traceable in the
Prussian Nation, and its form of culture, to this day.
Charlottenburg (Charlotte's-town, so called by the sorrowing
Widower), where she lived, shone with a much-admired French light
under her presidency,--French essentially, Versaillese, Sceptico-
Calvinistic, reflex and direct,--illuminating the dark North;
and indeed has never been so bright since. The light was not what
we can call inspired; lunar rather, not of the genial or solar
kind: but, in good truth, it was the best then going; and Sophie
Charlotte, who was her Mother's daughter in this as in other
respects, had made it her own. They were deep in literature, these
two Royal Ladies; especially deep in French theological polemics,
with a strong leaning to the rationalist side.
They had stopped in Rotterdam once, on a certain journey homewards
from Flanders and the Baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, to see that
admirable sage, the doubter Bayle. Their sublime messenger roused
the poor man, in his garret there, in the Bompies,--after dark:
but he had a headache that night; was in bed, and could not come.
He followed them next day; leaving his paper imbroglios, his
historical, philosophical, anti-theological marine-stores;
and suspended his neverending scribble, on their behalf;--but
would not accept a pension, and give it up. [Erman, pp. 111, 112.
Date is 1700 (late in the autumn probably).]
They were shrewd, noticing, intelligent and lively women;
persuaded that there was some nobleness for man beyond what the
tailor imparts to him; and even very eager to discover it,
had they known how. In these very days, while our little Friedrich
at Berlin lies in his cradle, sleeping most of his time,
sage Leibnitz, a rather weak but hugely ingenious old gentleman,
with bright eyes and long nose, with vast black peruke and bandy
legs, is seen daily in the Linden Avenue at Hanover (famed Linden
Alley, leading from Town Palace to Country one, a couple of miles
long, rather disappointing when one sees it), daily driving or
walking towards Herrenhausen, where the Court, where the old
Electress is, who will have a touch of dialogue with him to
diversify her day. Not very edifying dialogue, we may fear;
yet once more, the best that can be had in present circumstances.
Here is some lunar reflex of Versailles, which is a polite court;
direct rays there are from the oldest written Gospels and the
newest; from the great unwritten Gospel of the Universe itself;
and from one's own real effort, more or less devout, to read all
these aright. Let us not condemn that poor French element of
Eclecticism, Scepticism, Tolerance, Theodicea, and Bayle of the
Bompies versus the College of Saumur. Let us admit that it was
profitable, at least that it was inevitable; let us pity it,
and be thankful for it, and rejoice that we are well out of it.
Scepticism, which is there beginning at the very top of the world-
tree, and has to descend through all the boughs with terrible
results to mankind, is as yet pleasant, tinting the leaves with
fine autumnal red.
Sophie Charlotte partook of her Mother's tendencies; and carried
them with her to Berlin, there to be expanded in many ways into
ampler fulfilment. She too had the sage Leibnitz often with her,
at Berlin; no end to her questionings of him; eagerly desirous to
draw water from that deep well,--a wet rope, with cobwebs sticking
to it, too often all she got; endless rope, and the bucket never
coming to view. Which, however, she took patiently, as a thing
according to Nature. She had her learned Beausobres and other
Reverend Edict-of-Nantes gentlemen, famed Berlin divines; whom,
if any Papist notability, Jesuit ambassador or the like, happened
to be there, she would set disputing with him, in the Soiree at
Charlottenburg. She could right well preside over such a battle of
the Cloud-Titans, and conduct the lightnings softly, without
explosions. There is a pretty and very characteristic Letter of
hers, still pleasant to read, though turning on theologies now
fallen dim enough; addressed to Father Vota, the famous Jesuit,
King's-confessor, and diplomatist, from Warsaw, who had been doing
his best in one such rencontre before her Majesty (date March,
1703),--seemingly on a series of evenings, in the intervals of his
diplomatic business; the Beausobre champions being introduced to
him successively, one each evening, by Queen Sophie Charlotte.
To all appearance the fencing had been keen; the lightnings in
need of some dexterous conductor. Vota, on his way homeward,
had written to apologize for the sputterings of fire struck out of
him in certain pinches of the combat; says, It was the rough
handling the Primitive Fathers got from these Beausobre gentlemen,
who indeed to me, Vota in person, under your Majesty's fine
presidency, were politeness itself, though they treated the
Fathers so ill. Her Majesty, with beautiful art, in this Letter,
smooths the raven plumage of Vota;--and, at the same time, throws
into him, as with invisible needle-points, an excellent dose of
acupuncturation, on the subject of the Primitive Fathers and the
Ecumenic Councils, on her own score. Let us give some Excerpt,
in condensed state:--
"How can St. Jerome, for example, be a key to Scripture?" she
insinuates; citing from Jerome this remarkable avowal of his
method of composing books; "especially of his method in that Book,
Commentary on the Galatians, where he
accuses both Peter and Paul of simulation and even of hypocrisy.
The great St. Augustine has been charging him with this sad fact,"
says her Majesty, who gives chapter and verse; ["Epist. 28*, edit.
Paris." And Jerome's answer, "Ibid. Epist. 76*."] "and Jerome
answers: 'I followed the Commentaries of Origen, of'"--five or six
different persons, who turned out mostly to be heretics before
Jerome had quite done with them in coming years!--"'And to confess
the honest truth to you,' continues Jerome, 'I read all that;
and after having crammed my head with a great many things, I sent
for my amanuensis, and dictated to him now my own thoughts,
now those of others, without much recollecting the order,
nor sometimes the words, nor even the sense.' In another place (in
the Book itself farther on [ "Commentary on the Galatians,
chap. iii."]), he says: 'I do not myself write;
I have an amanuensis, and I dictate to him what comes into my
mouth. If I wish to reflect a little, to say the thing better or a
better thing, he knits his brows, and the whole look of him tells
me sufficiently that he cannot endure to wait.'"--Here is a sacred
old gentleman, whom it is not safe to depend on for interpreting
the Scriptures, thinks her Majesty; but does not say so, leaving
Father Vota to his reflections.
Then again, coming to Councils, she quotes St. Gregory Nazianzen
upon him; who is truly dreadful in regard to Ecumenic Councils of
the Church,--and indeed may awaken thoughts of Deliberative
Assemblies generally, in the modern constitutional mind. "He says,
[ "Greg. Nazian. de Vita sua." ] No Council
ever was successful; so many mean human passions getting into
conflagration there; with noise, with violence and uproar, 'more
like those of a tavern or still worse place,'--these are his
words. He, for his own share, had resolved to avoid all such
'rendezvousing of the Geese and Cranes, flocking together to
throttle and tatter one another in that sad manner.' Nor had
St. Theodoret much opinion of the Council of Nice, except as a
kind of miracle. 'Nothing good to be expected from Councils,'
says he, 'except when God is pleased to interpose, and destroy the
machinery of the Devil.'"
--With more of the like sort; all delicate, as invisible needle-
points, in her Majesty's hand. [Letter undated (datable
"Lutzelburg, March, 1708,") is to be found entire, with all its
adjuncts, in Erman, pp. 246-255. It was
subsequently translated by Toland, and published here, as an
excellent Polemical Piece,--entirely forgotten in our time
( A Letter against Popery by Sophia Charlotte, the late
Queen of Prussia: Being, &c. &c. London, 1712).
But the finest Duel of all was probably that between Beausobre and
Toland himself (reported by Beausobre, in something of a crowing
manner, in Erman, pp. 203-241, "October,
1701"), of which Toland makes no mention anywhere.] What is Father
Vota to say?--The modern reader looks through these chinks into a
strange old scene, the stuff of it fallen obsolete, the spirit of
it not, nor worthy to fall.
These were Sophie Charlotte's reunions; very charming in their
time. At which how joyful for Irish Toland to be present, as was
several times his luck. Toland, a mere broken heretic in his own
country, who went thither once as Secretary to some Embassy
(Embassy of Macclesfield's, 1701, announcing that the English
Crown had fallen Hanover-wards), and was no doubt glad, poor
headlong soul, to find himself a gentleman and Christian again,
for the time being,--admires Hanover and Berlin very much;
and looks upon Sophie Charlotte in particular as the pink of
women. Something between an earthly Queen and a divine Egeria;
"Serena" he calls her; and, in his high-flown fashion, is very
laudatory. "The most beautiful Princess of her time," says he,--
meaning one of the most beautiful: her features are extremely
regular, and full of vivacity; copious dark hair, blue eyes,
complexion excellently fair;--"not very tall, and somewhat too
plump," he admits elsewhere. And then her mind,--for gifts, for
graces, culture, where will you find such a mind? "Her reading is
infinite, and she is conversant in all manner of subjects;"
"knows the abstrusest problems of Philosophy;" says admiring
Toland: much knowledge everywhere exact, and handled as by an
artist and queen; for "her wit is inimitable," "her justness of
thought, her delicacy of expression," her felicity of utterance
and management, are great. Foreign courtiers call her "the
Republican Queen." She detects you a sophistry at one glance;
pierces down direct upon the weak point of an opinion: never
in my whole life did I, Toland, come upon a swifter or sharper
intellect. And then she is so good withal, so bright and cheerful;
and "has the art of uniting what to the rest of the world are
antagonisms, mirth and learning,"--say even, mirth and good sense.
Is deep in music, too; plays daily on her harpsichord, and
fantasies, and even composes, in an eminent manner. [ An
Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, sent to a Minister
of State in Holland, by Mr. Toland (London, 1705),
p. 322. Toland's other Book, which has reference to her, is of
didactic nature ("immortality of the soul," "origin of idolatry,"
&c.), but with much fine panegyric direct and oblique:
Letters to Serena ("Serena" being Queen
), a thin 8vo, London, 1704.] Toland's admiration,
deducting the high-flown temper and manner of the man, is sincere
and great.
Beyond doubt a bright airy lady, shining in mild radiance in those
Northern parts; very graceful, very witty and ingenious; skilled
to speak, skilled to hold her tongue,--which latter art also was
frequently in requisition with her. She did not much venerate her
Husband, nor the Court population, male or female, whom he chose
to have about him: his and their ways were by no means hers,
if she had cared to publish her thoughts. Friedrich I., it is
admitted on all hands, was "an expensive Herr;" much given to
magnificent ceremonies, etiquettes and solemnities; making no
great way any-whither, and that always with noise enough, and with
a dust vortex of courtier intrigues and cabals encircling him,--
from which it is better to stand quite to windward. Moreover,
he was slightly crooked; most sensitive, thin of skin and liable
to sudden flaws of temper, though at heart very kind and good.
Sophie Charlotte is she who wrote once, "Leibnitz talked to me of
the infinitely little ( de l'infiniment petit): mon Dieu,
as if I did not know enough of that!" Besides, it is
whispered she was once near marrying to Louis XIV.'s Dauphin; her
Mother Sophie, and her Cousin the Dowager Duchess of Orleans,
cunning women both, had brought her to Paris in her girlhood,
with that secret object; and had very nearly managed it. Queen of
France that might have been; and now it is but Brandenburg, and
the dice have fallen somewhat wrong for us! She had Friedrich
Wilhelm, the rough boy; and perhaps nothing more of very precious
property. Her first child, likewise a boy, had soon died, and
there came no third: tedious ceremonials, and the infinitely
little, were mainly her lot in this world.
All which, however, she had the art to take up not in the tragic
way, but in the mildly comic,--often not to take up at all, but
leave lying there;--and thus to manage in a handsome and softly
victorious manner. With delicate female tact, with fine female
stoicism too; keeping all things within limits. She was much
respected by her Husband, much loved indeed; and greatly mourned
for by the poor man: the village Lutzelburg (Little-town), close
by Berlin, where she had built a mansion for herself, he fondly
named Charlottenburg (Charlotte's-town),
after her death, which name both House and Village still bear.
Leibnitz found her of an almost troublesome sharpness of
intellect; "wants to know the why even of the why," says Leibnitz.
That is the way of female intellects when they are good; nothing
equals their acuteness, and their rapidity is almost excessive.
Samuel Johnson, too, had a young-lady friend once "with the
acutest intellect I have ever known."
On the whole, we may pronounce her clearly a superior woman, this
Sophie Charlotte; notable not for her Grandson alone, though now
pretty much forgotten by the world,--as indeed all things and
persons have, one day or other, to be! A LIFE of her, in feeble
watery style, and distracted arrangement, by one Erman,
[Monsieur Erman, Historiographe de Brandebourg,
Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de Sophie Charlotte,
Reine de Preusse, las dans les Seances, &c. (1 vol.
8vo, Berlin, 1801.)] a Berlin Frenchman, is in existence, and will
repay a cursory perusal; curious traits of her, in still looser
form, are also to be found in Pollnitz: [Carl
Ludwig Freiherr von Pollnitz, Memoiren zur Lebens- und
Regierungs-Geschichte der vier letzten Regenten des Preussischen
Staats (was published in French also), 2 vols. 12mo,
Berlin, 1791.] but for our purposes here is enough, and more
than enough.
