IX. CHASOT.[33]
History is generally written en face. It reminds us occasionally of certain royal family pictures, where the centre is occupied by the king and queen, while their children are ranged on each side like organ-pipes, and the courtiers and ministers are grouped behind, according to their respective ranks. All the figures seem to stare at some imaginary spectator, who would require at least a hundred eyes to take in the whole of the assemblage. This place of the imaginary spectator falls generally to the lot of the historian, and of those who read great historical works; and perhaps this is inevitable. But it is refreshing for once to change this unsatisfactory position, and, instead of always looking straight in the faces of kings, and queens, and generals, and ministers, to catch, by a side-glance, a view of the times, as they appeared to men occupying a less central and less abstract position than that of the general historian. If we look at the Palace of Versailles from the terrace in front of the edifice, we are impressed with its broad magnificence, but we are soon tired, and all that is left in our memory is a vast expanse of windows, columns, statues, and wall. But let us retire to some of the bosquets on each side of the main [pg 201] avenue, and take a diagonal view of the great mansion of Louis XIV., and though we lose part of the palace, the whole picture gains in color and life, and it brings before our mind the figure of the great monarch himself, so fond of concealing part of his majestic stateliness under the shadow of those very groves where we are sitting.
It was a happy thought of M. Kurd von Schlözer to try a similar experiment with Frederic the Great, and to show him to us, not as the great king, looking history in the face, but as seen near and behind another person, for whom the author has felt so much sympathy as to make him the central figure of a very pretty historical picture. This person is Chasot. Frederic used to say of him, C'est le matador de ma jeunesse,—a saying which is not found in Frederic's works, but which is nevertheless authentic. One of the chief magistrates of the old Hanseatic town of Lübeck, Syndicus Curtius,—the father, we believe, of the two distinguished scholars, Ernst and Georg Curtius,—was at school with the two sons of Chasot, and he remembers these royal words, when they were repeated in all the drawing-rooms of the city where Chasot spent many years of his life. Frederic's friendship for Chasot is well known, for there are two poems of the king addressed to this young favorite. They do not give a very high idea either of the poetical power of the monarch, or of the moral character of his friend; but they contain some manly and straightforward remarks, which make up for a great deal of shallow declamation. This young Chasot was a French nobleman, a fresh, chivalrous, buoyant nature,—adventurous, careless, extravagant, brave, full of romance, happy with the happy, and galloping [pg 202] through life like a true cavalry officer. He met Frederic in 1734. Louis XV. had taken up the cause of Stanislas Lesczynski, King of Poland, his father-in-law, and Chasot served in the French army which, under the Duke of Berwick, attacked Germany on the Rhine, in order to relieve Poland from the simultaneous pressure of Austria and Russia. He had the misfortune to kill a French officer in a duel, and was obliged to take refuge in the camp of the old Prince Eugène. Here the young Prince of Prussia soon discovered the brilliant parts of the French nobleman, and when his father, Frederic William I., no longer allowed him to serve under Eugène, he asked Chasot to follow him to Prussia. The years from 1735 to 1740 were happy years for the prince, though he, no doubt, would have preferred taking an active part in the campaign. He writes to his sister:—
“J'aurais répondu plus tôt, si je n'avais été très-affligé de ce que le roi ne veut pas me permettre d'aller en campagne. Je le lui ai demandé quatre fois, et lui ai rappelé la promesse qu'il m'en avait faite; mais point de nouvelle; il m'a dit qu'il avait des raisons très-cachées qui l'en empêchaient. Je le crois, car je suis persuadé qu'il ne les sait pas lui-même.”
But, as he wished to be on good terms with his father, he stayed at home, and travelled about to inspect his future kingdom. “C'est un peu plus honnête qu'en Sibérie,” he writes, “mais pas de beaucoup.” Frederic, after his marriage, took up his abode in the Castle of Rheinsberg, near Neu-Ruppin, and it was here that he spent the happiest part of his existence. M. de Schlözer has described this period in the life of the king with great art; and he has pointed out how Frederic, while he seemed to live for nothing but [pg 203] pleasure,—shooting, dancing, music, and poetry,—was given at the same time to much more serious occupations,—reading and composing works on history, strategy, and philosophy, and maturing plans which, when the time of their execution came, seemed to spring from his head full-grown and full-armed. He writes to his sister, the Markgravine of Baireuth, in 1737:—
“Nous nous divertissons de rien, et n'avons aucun soin des choses de la vie, qui la rendent désagréable et qui jettent du dégoût sur les plaisirs. Nous faisons la tragédie et la comédie, nous avons bal, mascarade, et musique à toute sauce. Voilà un abrégé de nos amusements.”
And again, he writes to his friend Suhm, at Petersburg:—
“Nous allons représenter l'Œdipe de Voltaire, dans lequel je ferai le héros de théâtre; j'ai choisi le rôle de Philoctéte.”
A similar account of the royal household at Rheinsberg is given by Bielfeld:—
“C'est ainsi que les jours s'écoulent ici dans une tranquillité assaisonneé de tous les plaisirs qui peuvent flatter une âme raisonnable. Chère de roi, vin des dieux, musique des anges, promenades délicieuses dans les jardins et dans les bois, parties sur l'eau, culture des lettres et des beaux-arts, conversation spirituelle, tout concourt à repandre dans ce palais enchanté des charmes sur la vie.”