HumanitiesWeb.org - History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great (Chapter IX. - Court-Martial on Crown-Prince and Consorts.) by Thomas Carlyle
History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great Chapter IX. - Court-Martial on Crown-Prince and Consorts.
by Thomas Carlyle
The rumor of these things naturally fills all minds, and occupies
all human tongues, in Berlin and Prussia, though an Edict
threatens, That the tongues shall be cut out which speak of them
in any way, [Dickens, of 7th November, 1730.] and sounds far and
wide into foreign Courts and Countries, where there is no such
Edict. Friedrich Wilhelm's conduct, looked at from without,
appears that of a hideous royal ogre, or blind anthropophagous
Polyphemus fallen mad. Looked at from within, where the Polyphemus
has his reasons, and a kind of inner rushlight to enlighten his
path; and is not bent on man-eating, but on discipline in spite of
difficulties,--it is a wild enough piece of humanity, not so much
ludicrous as tragical. Never was a royal bear so led about before
by a pair of conjuring pipers in the market, or brought to such a
pass in his dancing for them!
"General Ginkel, the Dutch Ambassador here," writes Dickens, "told
me of an interview he had with the King;" being ordered by their
High Mightinesses to solicit his Majesty in this matter.
King "harbors 'most monstrous wicked designs, not fit to be spoken
of in words,' reports Ginkel. 'It is certain,' added he, 'if the
King of Prussia continue in the mind he is in at present, we shall
see scenes here as wicked and bloody as any that were ever heard
of since the creation of the world.' 'Will sacrifice his whole
family,' not the Crown-Prince alone; 'everybody except Grumkow
being, as he fancies, in conspiracy against him.' Poor enchanted
King!--'And all these things he said with such imprecations and
disordered looks, foaming at the mouth all the while, as it was
terrible either to see or hear.'" That is Ginkel's report, as
Dickens conveys it. [Despatch, 7th September, 1730.] Another time,
on new order, a month later, when Ginkel went again to speak a
word for the poor Prisoner, he found his Majesty clothed not in
delirious thunder, but in sorrowful thick fog; Ginkel "was the
less able to judge what the King of Prussia meant to do with his
Son, as it was evident the King himself did not know."
[Ib. 10th October.]
Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, through these months, wanders about,
shifting from room to room, in the night-time, like a man
possessed by evil fiends; "orders his carriage for Wusterhausen at
two in the morning," but finds he is no better there, and returns;
drinks a great deal, "has not gone to bed sober for a month past."
[Ib. 19th December, 1730.] One night he comes gliding like a
perturbed ghost, about midnight, with his candle in his hand, into
the Queen's apartment; says, wildly staring, "He thinks there is
something haunting him:"--O Feekin, erring disobedient Wife, wilt
not thou protect me, after all? Whither can I fly when haunted,
except to thee? Feekin, like a prudent woman, makes no criticism;
orders that his Majesty's bed be made up in her apartment till
these phenomena cease. [Ib. 27th February, 1731.] A much-agitated
royal Father.
The question what is to be done with this unhappy Crown-Prince, a
Deserter from the army, a rebel against the paternal Majesty, and
a believer in the doctrine of Election by Free Grace, or that a
man's good or ill conduct is foredoomed upon him by decree of
God,--becomes more intricate the longer one thinks of it.
Seckendorf and Grumkow, alarmed at being too victorious, are set
against violent high methods; and suggest this and that
consideration: "Who is it that can legally try, condemn, or summon
to his bar, a Crown-Prince? He is Prince of the Empire, as well as
your Majesty's Son!"--"Well, he is Heir of the Sovereign Majesty
in Prussia, too; and Colonel in the Potsdam Guards!" answers
Friedrich Wilhelm.
At length, after six or seven weeks of abstruse meditation, it is
settled in Tobacco-Parliament and the royal breast, That Katte and
the Crown-Prince, as Deserters from the Prussian Army, can and
shall be tried by Court-Martial; to that no power, on the earth or
out of it, can have any objection worth attending to. Let a fair
Court-Martial of our highest military characters be selected and
got ready. Let that, as a voice of Rhadamanthus, speak upon the
two culprits; and tell us what is to be done. By the middle of
October, things on Friedrich Wilhelm's side have got so far.
CROWN-PRINCE IN CUSTRIN.
Poor Friedrich meanwhile has had a grim time of it, these two
months back; left alone, in coarse brown prison-dress, within his
four bare walls at Custrin; in uninterrupted, unfathomable
colloquy with the Destinies and the Necessities there. The King's
stern orders must be fulfilled to the letter; the Crown-Prince is
immured in that manner. At Berlin, there are the wildest rumors as
to the state he has fallen into; "covered with rags and vermin,
unshaven, no comb allowed him, lights his own fire," says one
testimony, which Captain Dickens thinks worth reporting. For the
truth is, no unofficial eye can see the Crown-Prince, or know what
state he is in. And we find, in spite of the Edict, "tongues," not
"cut out," kept wagging at a high rate. "People of all ranks are
unspeakably indignant" at certain heights of the business:
"Margravine Albert said publicly, 'A tyrant as bad as Nero!'"
[Dickens, 7th November, 2d December, 1730.]
How long the Crown-Prince's defiant humor held out, we are not
told. By the middle of October there comes proposal of "entire
confession" from the Prince; and though, when Papa sends deputies
accordingly, there is next to nothing new confessed, and Papa's
anger blazes out again, probably we may take this as the
turning-point on his Son's part. With him, of course, that mood of
mind could not last. There is no wildest lion but, finding his
bars are made of iron, ceases to bite them. The Crown-Prince
there, in his horror, indignation and despair, had a lucid human
judgment in him, too; loyal to facts, and well knowing their
inexorable nature, Just sentiments are in this young man, not
capable of permanent distortion into spasm by any form of
injustice laid on them. It is not long till he begins to discern,
athwart this terrible, quasi-infernal element, that so the facts
are; and that nothing but destruction, and no honor that were not
dishonor, will be got by not conforming to the facts. My Father
may be a tyrant, and driven mad against me: well, well, let not me
at least go mad!
Grumkow is busy on the mild side of the business; of course
Grumkow and all official men. Grumkow cannot but ask himself this
question among others: How if the King should suddenly die upon
us! Grumkow is out at Custrin, and again out; explaining to the
Prince, what the enormous situation is; how inflexible,
inexorable, and of peril and horror incalculable to Mother and
Sister and self and royal House; and that there is one possibility
of good issue, and only one: that of loyally yielding, where one
cannot resist. By degrees, some lurid troublous but perceptible
light-gleam breaks athwart the black whirlwind of our indignation
and despair; and saner thoughts begin to insinuate themselves.
"Obey, thou art not the strongest, there are stronger than thou!
All men, the highest among them, are called to learn obedience."
Moreover, the first sweep of royal fury being past, his Majesty's
stern regulations at Custrin began to relax in fulfilment; to be
obeyed only by those immediately responsible, and in letter rather
than in spirit even by those. President von Munchow who is head of
the Domain-Kammer, chief representative of Government at Custrin,
and resides in the Fortress there, ventures after a little, the
Prince's doors being closed as we saw, to have an orifice bored
through the floor above, and thereby to communicate with the
Prince, and sympathetically ask, What he can do for him?
Many things, books among others, are, under cunning contrivance,
smuggled in by the judicious Munchow, willing to risk himself in
such a service. For example, Munchow has a son, a clever boy of
seven years old; who, to the wonder of neighbors, goes into
child's-petticoats again; and testifies the liveliest desire to be
admitted to the Prince, and bear him company a little! Surely the
law of No-company does not extend to that of an innocent child?
The innocent child has a row of pockets all round the inside of
his long gown; and goes laden, miscellaneously, like a ship of the
desert, or cockboat not forbidden to cross the line. Then there
are stools, one stool at least indispensable to human nature;
and the inside of this, once you open it, is a chest-of-drawers,
containing paper, ink, new literature and much else. No end to
Munchow'a good-will, and his ingenuity is great. [Preuss, i. 46.]
A Captain Fouquet also, furthered I think by the Old Dessauer,
whose man he is, comes to Custrin Garrison, on duty or as
volunteer, by and by. He is an old friend of the Prince's;
--ran off, being the Dessauer's little page, to the Siege of
Stralsund, long ago, to be the Dessauer's little soldier there:
--a ready-witted, hot-tempered, highly estimable man; and his real
duty here is to do the Prince what service may be possible. He is
often with the Prince; their light is extinguished precisely at
seven o'clock: "Very well, Lieutenant," he would say, "you have
done your orders to the Crown-Prince's light. But his Majesty has
no concern with Captain Fouquet's candles!" and thereupon would
light a pair. Nay, I have heard of Lieutenants who punctually blew
out the Prince's light, as a matter of duty and command; and then
kindled it again, as a civility left free to human nature.
In short, his Majesty's orders can only be fulfilled to the
letter; Commandant Lepel and all Officers are willing not to see
where they can help seeing. Even in the letter his Majesty's
orders are severe enough.
SENTENCE OF COURT-MARTIAL.
Meanwhile the Court-Martial, selected with intense study, installs
itself at Copenick; and on the 25th of October commences work.
This Deserter Crown-Prince and his accomplices, especially Katte
his chief accomplice, what is to be done with them? Copenick lies
on the road to Custrin, within a morning's drive of Berlin;
there is an ancient Palace here, and room for a Court-Martial.
"QUE FAIRE? ILS ONT DES CANONS!" said the old Prussian Raths,
wandering about in these woods, when Gustavus and his Swedes were
at the door. "QUE FAIRE?" may the new military gentlemen think to
themselves, here again, while the brown leaves rustle down upon
them, after a hundred years!
The Court consists of a President, Lieutenant-General Schulenburg,
an elderly Malplaquet gentleman of good experience; one of the
many Schulenburgs conspicuous for soldiering, and otherwise, in
those times. He is nephew of George I.'s lean mistress; who also
was a Schulenburg originally, and conspicuous not for soldiering.
Lean mistress we say; not the Fat one, or cataract of tallow, with
eyebrows like a cart-wheel, and dim coaly disks for eyes, who was
George I.'s half-sister, probably not his mistress at all; and who
now, as Countess of Darlington so called, sits at Isleworth with
good fat pensions, and a tame raven come-of-will,--probably the
SOUL of George I. in some form. [See Walpole,
Reminiscences. ] Not this one, we say:--but the
thread-paper Duchess of Kendal, actual Ex-mistress; who tore her
hair on the road when apoplexy overtook poor George, and who now
attends chapel diligently, poor old anatomy or lean human
nail-rod. For the sake of the English reader searching into what
is called "History," I, with indignation, endeavor to discriminate
these two beings once again; that each may be each, till both are
happily forgotten to all eternity. It was the latter, lean
may-pole or nail-rod one, that was Aunt of Schulenburg, the
elderly Malplaquet gentleman who now presides at Copenick. And let
the reader remember him; for he will turn up repeatedly again.
The Court consisted farther of three Major-Generals, among whom I
name only Grumkow (Major-General by rank though more of a
diplomatist and black-artist than a soldier), and Schwerin, Kurt
von Schwerin of Mecklenburg (whom Madam Knyphausen regrets, in her
now exile to the Country); three Colonels, Derschau one of them;
three Lieutenant-Colonels, three Majors and three Captains, all of
whom shall be nameless here. Lastly come three of the "Auditor" or
the Judge-Advocate sort: Mylius, the Compiler of sad Prussian
Quartos, known to some; Gerber, whose red cloak has frightened us
once already; and the Auditor of Katte's regiment. A complete
Court-Martial, and of symmetrical structure, by the rule of
three;--of whose proceedings we know mainly the result, nor seek
much to know more. This Court met on Wednesday, 25th October,
1730, in the little Town of Copenick; and in six days had ended,
signed, sealed and despatched to his Majesty; and got back to
Berlin on the Tuesday next. His Majesty, who is now at
Wusterhausen, in hunting time, finds conclusions to the
following effect:--
Accomplices of the Crown-Prince are two: FIRST, Lieutenant Keith,
actual deserter (who cannot be caught): To be hanged in effigy,
cut in four quarters, and nailed to the gallows at Wesel:--GOOD,
says his Majesty. SECONDLY, Lieutenant Katte of the Gens-d'Armes,
intended deserter, not actually deserting, and much tempted
thereto: All things considered, Perpetual Fortress Arrest to
Lieutenant Katte:--NOT GOOD this; BAD this, thinks Majesty; this
provokes from his Majesty an angry rebuke to the too lax
Court-Martial. Rebuke which can still be read, in growling,
unlucid phraseology; but with a rhadamanthine idea clear enough in
it, and with a practical purport only too clear: That Katte was a
sworn soldier, of the Gens-d'Armes even, or Body-guard of the
Prussian Majesty; and did nevertheless, in the teeth of his oath,
"worship the Rising Sun" when minded to desert; did plot and
colleague with foreign Courts in aid of said Rising Sun, and of an
intended high crime against the Prussian Majesty itself on Rising
Sun's part; far from at once revealing the same, as duty ordered
Lieutenant Katte to do. That Katte's crime amounts to high-treason
(CRIMEN LOESOE MAJESTATIS); that the rule is, FIAT JUSTITIA, ET
PEREAT MUNDUS;--and that, in brief, Katte's doom is, and is hereby
declared to be, Death. Death by the gallows and hot pincers is the
usual doom of Traitors; but his Majesty will say in this case,
Death by the sword and headsman simply; certain circumstances
moving the royal clemency to go so far, no farther. And the
Court-Martial has straightway to apprise Katte of this same:
and so doing, "shall say, That his Majesty is sorry for Katte:
but that it is better he die than that justice depart out of the
world." [Preuss, i. 44.]
This is the iron doom of Katte; which no prayer or influence of
mortal will avail to alter,--lest justice depart out of the world.
Katte's Father is a General of rank, Commandant of Konigsberg at
this moment; Katte's Grandfather by the Mother's side, old
Fieldmarshal Wartensleben, is a man in good favor with Friedrich
Wilhelm, and of high esteem and mark in his country for half a
century past. But all this can effect nothing. Old Wartensleben
thinks of the Daughter he lost; for happily Katte's Mother is dead
long since. Old Wartensleben writes to Friedrich Wilhelm; his
mournful Letter, and Friedrich Wilhelm's mournful but inexorable
answer, can be read in the Histories; but show only what we
already know.
Katte's Mother, Fieldmarshal Wartensleben's Daughter, died in
1706; leaving Katte only two years old. He is now twenty-six;
very young for such grave issues; and his fate is certainly very
hard. Poor young soul, he did not resist farther, or quarrel with
the inevitable and inexorable. He listened to Chaplain Muller of
the Gens-d'Armes; admitted profoundly, after his fashion, that the
great God was just, and the poor Katte sinful, foolish, only to be
saved by miracle of mercy; and piously prepared himself to die on
these terms. There are three Letters of his to his Grandfather,
which can still be read, one of them in Wilhelmina's Book,
[Wilhelmina, i. 302.] the sound of it like that of dirges borne on
the wind, Wilhelmina evidently pities Katte very tenderly; in her
heart she has a fine royal-maiden kind of feeling to the poor
youth. He did heartily repent and submit; left with Chaplain
Muller a Paper of pious considerations, admonishing the Prince to
submit. These are Katte's last employments in his prison at
Berlin, after sentence had gone forth.
KATTE'S END, 6th NOVEMBER, 1780.
On Sunday evening, 6th November, it is intimated to him,
unexpectedly at the moment, that he has to go to Custrin, and
there die;--carriage now waiting at the gate. Katte masters the
sudden flurry; signifies that all is ready, then; and so, under
charge of his old Major and two brother Officers, who, and
Chaplain Muller, are in the carriage with him, a troop of his own
old Cavalry Regiment escorting, he leaves Berlin (rather on sudden
summons); drives all night, towards Custrin and immediate death.
Words of sympathy were not wanting, to which Katte answered
cheerily; grim faces wore a cloud of sorrow for the poor youth
that night. Chaplain Muller's exhortations were fervent and
continual; and, from time to time, there were heard, hoarsely
melodious through the damp darkness and the noise of wheels,
snatches of "devotional singing," led by Muller.
It was in the gray of the winter morning, 6th November, 1730, that
Katte arrived in Custrin garrison. He took kind leave of Major and
men: Adieu, my brothers; good be with you evermore!--And, about
nine o'clock he is on the road towards the Rampart of the Castle,
where a scaffold stands. Katte wore, by order, a brown dress
exactly like the Prince's; the Prince is already brought down into
a lower room to see Katte as he passes (to "see Katte die," had
been the royal order; but they smuggled that into abeyance);
and Katte knows he shall see him. Faithful Muller was in the
death-car along with Katte: and he had adjoined to himself one
Besserer, the Chaplain of the Garrison, in this sad function,
since arriving. Here is a glimpse from Besserer, which we may take
as better than nothing:--
"His (Katte's) eyes were mostly directed to God; and we (Muller
and I), on our part, strove to hold his heart up heavenwards, by
presenting the examples of those who had died in the Lord,--as of
God's Son himself, and Stephen, and the Thief on the Cross,--till,
under such discoursing, we approached the Castle. Here, after long
wistful looking about, he did get sight of his beloved Jonathan,"
Royal Highness the Crown-Prince, "at a window in the Castle;
from whom he, with the politest and most tender expression, spoken
in French, took leave, with no little emotion of sorrow." [Letter
to Katte's Father (Extract, in Preuss, Friedrich mit
Freunden und Verwandten, p. 7).]
President Munchow and the Commandant were with the Prince;
whose emotions one may fancy; but not describe. Seldom did any
Prince or man stand in such a predicament. Vain to say, and again
say: "In the name of God, I ask you, stop the execution till I
write to the King!" Impossible that; as easily stop the course of
the stars. And so here Katte comes; cheerful loyalty still beaming
on his face, death now nigh. "PARDONNEZ-MOI, MON CHER KATTE!"
cried Priedrich in a tone: Pardon me, dear Katte; oh, that this
should be what I have done for you!--"Death is sweet for a Prince
I love so well," said Katte, "LA MORT EST DOUCE POUR UN SI AIMABLE
PRINCE;" [Wilhelmina, i. 307; Preuss, i. 45.] and fared on,--round
some angle of the Fortress, it appears; not in sight of Friedrich;
who sank into a faint, and had seen his last glimpse of Katte in
this world.
The body lay all day upon the scaffold, by royal order; and was
buried at night obscurely in the common churchyard; friends, in
silence, took mark of the place against better times,--and Katte's
dust now lies elsewhere, among that of his own kindred.
"Never was such a transaction before or since, in Modern History,"
cries the angry reader: "cruel, like the grinding of human hearts
under millstones, like--" Or indeed like the doings of the gods,
which are cruel, though not that alone? This is what, after much
sorting and sifting, I could get to know about the definite facts
of it. Commentary, not likely to be very final at this epoch, the
reader himself shall supply at discretion.
