forest—tall branchy timbers yonder, one day to be masts of admirals, when floated down as far as Rotterdam, whitherward one still meets them going. Spessart;—and nearer, well hidden on the right, is an obscure village called DETTINGEN, not yet become famous in the Newspapers of an idle world; of an England surely very idle to go thither seeking quarrels! All which is, naturally, in the highest degree indifferent to a Crown-Prince so preoccupied.—They reach Frankfurt, Monday, still in good time.
Behold, at Frankfurt, the Trio of Vigilance, Buddenbrock and Company (horrible to think of!) signify, "That we have the King's express orders Not to enter the Town at all with your Royal Highness. We, for our part, are to go direct into one of the Royal Yachts, which swing at anchor here, and to wait in the same till his Majesty have done seeing Frankfurt, and return to us." Here is a message for the poor young Prince: Detected, prisoner, and a volcanic Majesty now likely to be in full play when he returns!—Gilt weathercock on the Mayn Bridge (which one Goethe used to look at, in the next generation)—this, and the steeple-tops of Frankfurt, especially that steeple-top with the grinning skull of the mutinous malefactor on it, warning to mankind what mutiny leads to; this, then, is what we are to see of Frankfurt; and with such a symphony as our thoughts are playing in the background. Unhappy Son, unhappy Father, once more!
Nay Friedrich Wilhelm got new lights in Frankfurt: Rittmeister Katte had an estafette waiting for him there. Estafette with a certain Letter, which the Rittmeister had picked up in Erlangen, and has shot across by estafette to wait his Majesty here. Majesty has read with open eyes and throat: Letter from the Crown-Prince to Lieutenant Katte in Berlin: treasonous Flight-project now indisputable as the sun at noon!—His Majesty stept on board the Yacht in such humor as was never seen before: "Detestable rebel and deserter, scandal of scandals—!"—it is confidently written everywhere (though Seckendorf diplomatically keeps silence), his Majesty hustled and tussled the unfortunate Crown-Prince, poked the handle of his cane into his face and made the nose bleed—"Never did a Brandenburg face suffer the like of this!" cried the poor Prince, driven to the edge of mad ignition and one knows not what: when the Buddenbrocks, at whatever peril interfered; got the Prince brought on board a different Yacht; and the conflagration moderated for the moment. The Yachts get under way towards Mainz and down the Rhine-stream. The Yachts glide swiftly on the favoring current, taking advantage of what wind there may be: were we once ashore at Wesel in our own country—wait till then, thinks his Majesty!
And so it was on these terms that Friedrich made his first acquaintance with the beauties of the Rhine;—readers can judge whether he was in a temper very open to the picturesque. I know not that they paused at Mainz, or recollected Barbarossa's World-Tournament, or the Hochheim vineyards at all: I see the young man's Yacht dashing in swift gallop, not without danger, through the Gap of Bingen; dancing wildly on the boiling whirlpools of St. Goar, well threading the cliffs;—the young man gloomily insensible to danger of life, and charm of the picturesque. Coblenz (CONFLUENTIA), the Moselle and Ehrenbreitstein: Majesty, smoking on deck if he like, can look at these through grimly pacifying tobacco; but to the Crown-Prince life itself is fallen haggard and bankrupt.
Over against Coblenz, nestled in between the Rhine and the foot of Ehrenbreitstein, [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, iii. 180.] there, perhaps even now, in his Hunting Lodge of Kerlich yonder, is his Serene Highness the fat little Kurfurst of Trier, one of those Austrian Schonborns (Brother to him of Bamberg); upon whom why should we make a call? We are due at Bonn; the fortunate young Kurfurst of Koln, richest Pluralist in the Church, expects us at his Residence there. Friedrich Wilhelm views the fine Fortress of Ehrenbreitstein:—what would your Majesty think if this were to be yours in a hundred years; this and much else, by way of compound-interest for the Berg-and-Julich and other outstanding debts? Courage, your Majesty!—On the fat little Kurfurst, at Kerlich here, we do not call: probably out hunting; "hunts every day," [Busching, Beitrage, iv. 201.] as if it were his trade, poor little soul.
At Bonn, where we do step ashore to lodge with a lean Kurfurst, Friedrich Wilhelm strictly charges, in my (Seckendorf's) hearing, the Trio of Vigilance to have an eye; to see that they bring the Prince on board again, "LIVING OR DEAD."—No fear, your Majesty. Prince listened with silent, almost defiant patience, "MIT GROSSER GEDULD." [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 4).] At Bonn the Prince contrived to confide to Seckendorf, "That he had in very truth meant to run away: he could not, at the age he was come to, stand such indignities, actual strokes as in the Camp of Radewitz;—and he would have gone long since, had it not been for the Queen and the Princess his Sister's sake. He could not repent what he had done: and if the King did not cease beating him in that manner, &c., he would still do it. For loss of his own life, such a life as his had grown, he cared little; his chief misery was, that those Officers who had known of the thing should come to misfortune by his means. If the King would pardon these poor gentlemen, he would tell him everything. For the rest, begged Seckendorf to help him in this labyrinth;—nothing could ever so oblige him as help now;" and more of the like sort. These things he said, at Bonn, to Seckendorf, the fountain of all his woes. [Ibid.] What Seckendorf's reflections on this his sad handiwork now were, we do not know. Probably he made none, being a strong-minded case-hardened old stager; but resolved to do what he could for the poor youth. Somewhere on this route, at Bonn more likely than elsewhere, Friedrich wrote in pencil three words to Lieutenant Keith at Wesel, and got it to the Post-Office: "SAUVEZ-VOUS, TOUT EST DECOUVERT (All is found out;—away)!" [Wilhelmina (i. 265) says it was a Page of the Old Dessauer's, a comrade of Keith's, who, having known in time, gave him warning. Certain it is, this Note of Friedrich's, which the Books generally assign as cause, could not have done it (infra, p. 275, and the irrefragable date there).]
Clement August, expensive Kurfurst of Koln (Elector of Cologne, as we call it), who does the hospitalities here at Bonn, in a grand way, with "above a hundred and fifty chamberlains" for one item—glance at him, reader; perhaps we shall meet the man again. He is younger Brother of the elegant ambitious Karl Albert, Kurfurst of Bavaria, whom we have transiently heard of: sons both of them are of that "Elector of Bavaria" who haunts us in the Marlborough Histories—who joined Louis XIV. in the Succession War, and got hunted about at such a rate, after Blenheim especially. His Boys, prisoners of the Kaiser, were bred up in a confiscated state, as sons of a mere private gentleman; nothing visibly ahead of them, at one time, but an obscure and extremely limited destiny of that kind;—though now again, on French favor, and the turn of Fortune's inconstant wheel, they are mounting very high. Bavaria came all back to the old Elector of Bavaria; even Marlborough's "Principality of MINDELHEIM" came. [At the Peace of Baden (corollary to UTRECHT), 1714. Elector had been "banned" (GEACHTET, solemnly drummed out), 1706; nothing but French pay to live upon, till he got back: died 26th February, 1726, when Karl Albert succeeded (Michaelis, ii. 255).] And the present Kurfurst, who will not do the Pragmatic Sanction at all—Kurfurst Karl Albert of Baiern, our old Karl Philip of Mannheim's genealogical "Cousin;"—we heard of abstruse colleaguings there, tendencies to break the Pragmatic Sanction altogether, and reduce it to waste sheepskin! Not impossible Karl Albert will go high enough. And this Clement August the cadet, he is Kurfurst of Koln; by good election-tactics, and favor of the French, he has managed to succeed an Uncle here: has succeeded at Osnabruck in like fashion;—poor old Ernst August of Osnabruck (to whom we once saw George I. galloping to die, and who himself soon after died), his successor is this same Clement August, the turn for a CATHOLIC Bishop being come at Osnabruck, and the French being kind. Kurfurst of Koln, Bishop of Osnabruck, ditto of Paderborn and Munster, ditto now of Hildesheim; richest Pluralist of the Church. Goes about here in a languid expensive manner; "in green coat trimmed with narrow silver-lace, small bag-wig done with French garniture (SCHLEIFE) in front; and has red heels to his shoes." A lanky indolent figure, age now thirty; "tall and slouching of person, long lean face, hook-nose, black beard, mouth somewhat open." [Busching (Beitrage, iv. 201–204: from a certain Travelling Tutor's MS. DIARY of 1731; where also is detail of the Kurfurst's mode of Dining—elaborate but dreary, both mode and detail). His Schloss is now the Bonn University.] Has above one hundred and fifty chamberlains;—and, I doubt not, is inexpressibly wearisome to Friedrich Wilhelm in his Majesty's present mood. Patience for the moment, and politeness above all things!—The Trio of Vigilance had no difficulty with Friedrich; brought him on board safe again next day,
