Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second, Volume 2 (of 3)

by Horace Walpole

Of these, the chief was Count Bruhl, the favourite of the King of Poland. This man, whom no merit, or no merit that is known, had recommended to Augustus the Third, governed absolutely, I may say, reigned in Saxony, for the Prince, who hated pomp, and divided his time between his priests and his forests, chose that Bruhl should be his proxy to display that grandeur, which Germans take for empire—and he could not have made a properer choice. As Elector, Bruhl[67] was magnificent, expensive, tawdry, vain;—as Minister, weak and false. He had two or three suits of clothes for every day in the year:—strangers were even carried to see his magazine of shoes! This man, who had mortgaged the revenues of Saxony to support his profusion, and who had prepared nothing but baubles against a Prince that lived in a camp, with the frugality of a common soldier,—this daring trifler aspired to form a league with two mighty Empires, to overturn the throne of Prussia, and pretended to a share in the spoils.

At the same time the Councils of Vienna were directed by Count Kaunitz, a man lately returned from an Embassy to Paris, where he had pushed all the luxurious effeminacy of dress and affectation to an excess common to imitators, and of all imitators most common to Germans. I will mention but one instance: it was fashionable to wear little powder: every morning when he dressed, he had the whole air of a room put in agitation with powder, and when announced to be properly impregnated, he just presented himself in it, and received the atoms in equal dispersion over his hair. These were the politicians that took upon them to annihilate the House of Brandenburg at the very period that it was headed by Frederic the Third. I mention them only to show what pismires roused that lion. Yet Kaunitz had parts—Bruhl had no more than just served to govern his master’s none. The tools associated to their plot were such as recommended themselves by activity, cunning, or inveteracy: yet one they had, sensible enough to negotiate a conspiracy, and cool enough to conduct it: his name Count Fleming, a haughty and sullen Saxon, who had been employed in England, and was now at Vienna.

In the year 1745, Bruhl had made a partition-treaty with the Empress-queen, by which part of the King of Prussia’s dominions were to be allotted to Saxony. That treaty had produced nothing but the seizure of Dresden by Frederic. He palliated the violent possession he had taken of Silesia, to which he thought he had a right, by the moderation with which he restored Saxony, to which he had no title but provocation. Yet Augustus had scarce sworn to the articles of a peace by which he recovered his dominions, before he was tempted to a violation of them by the Court of Vienna. As eager as Bruhl was to close with perfidy, yet he could not forget the invasion of Dresden: he suggested that a previous treaty between the Courts of Vienna and Petersburg would expedite and secure their common wishes. To facilitate this union, the Saxon Ministers in every Northern Court received secret instructions to spread suggestions and alarms of great machinations at Berlin against the Czarina. As Bruhl was not penurious of lies, he took the pains to dictate these slanders himself in the blackest terms. In his intercepted despatches one sees how successfully he administered his calumnies, till the Czarina believed herself aimed at even by assassination—and this project of terrifying her into an attack upon the King of Prussia, Bruhl had the modesty to call a somewhat artful, though good intention.

The Czarina was an amiable woman, of no great capacity. She had been deprived of a throne to which she had pretensions, and had passed her youth in the terror which must accompany such a claim in a despotic empire, where, if civilized manners were stealing in, humanity to a competitor was one of the last arts of which they were likely to find or adopt a pattern. Yet she had been treated with great lenity, and, which perhaps was still more extraordinary, as the addition of gratitude, another virtue, made the imitation still more difficult, returned it. Her first transport on her rapid elevation was devout mercy; she made a vow never to put any person to death, and adhered to it; Siberia and the prisons, during her reign, were crowded with criminals, tortured, but never executed. She not only spared the little dethroned Czar, John, and had him educated with great care, but was as indulgent as she could be with safety to her rival the Princess Anne, his mother. With so much tenderness of heart, it was not wonderful that her heart was entirely tender—and how slight was that unbounded abuse of power, which only tended to gratify an unbounded inclination! Let us compare the daughters of two ferocious men, and see which was sovereign of a civilized nation, which of a barbarous one. Both were Elizabeths. The daughter of Peter was absolute, yet spared a competitor and a rival; and thought the person of an Empress had sufficient allurements for as many of her subjects as she chose to honour with the communication. Elizabeth, of England, could neither forgive the claim of Mary Stuart nor her charms, but ungenerously imprisoned her when imploring protection, and without the sanction of either despotism or law, sacrificed Mary to her great and little jealousy. Yet this Elizabeth piqued herself on chastity; and while she practised every ridiculous art of coquetry to be admired at an unseemly age, kept off lovers whom she encouraged, and neither gratified her own desires nor their ambition:—who can help preferring the honest, open-hearted, barbarian Empress?

Besides an attempt on her person, the Czarina was made to believe that Frederic had designs on Courland, on Polish Prussia, and Dantzick; and that France, Prussia, and Sweden had fixed a successor if a vacancy should happen in Poland. She signed the league with the Empress-queen, and resolved to attack the King of Prussia. Saxony was summoned to accede, on its own terms of having two Duchies and three Circles dismembered, on the conquest of Prussia. Bruhl engaged his master to sign, but obtained so much favour as to have the secret articles concealed: and having obtained that indulgence, spared no falsehoods to deny the existence of any secret articles at all: then endeavoured to draw the King of England to accede to the same secret articles; and persisted all the time in the strongest professions of friendship to the King of Prussia. But Bruhl, as the King of Prussia said, had more art in forming plots than in concealing them; and having to do with a vigilant Prince, whose own practice had taught him not to trust to professions, every lie that was despatched from the Secretary’s office at Dresden was accompanied with a duplicate to Berlin. Bruhl, so indefatigable and so cautious, little thought that Frederic knew all his secrets before they reached the places of their destination.

Had the King of Prussia wanted intelligence, the preparations of his great enemies, and the folly of his little ones, would have alarmed him. The troops of the two Empresses were in motion, yet neither so much as professed an intention of succouring the King of England their ally. The Empress-queen excused herself in form, when her assistance, so dearly purchased, was demanded. The Muscovite Empress was raising forces against the new ally of Britain with the very money she had received to hold her troops in readiness for England: and the Court of Saxony, to facilitate their junction with the Austrian forces cut a new road to Bohemia, which Bruhl had the ostentatious imprudence to christen in an inscription, the military road. The King of Prussia was the only object against whom all these armaments could be levelled; and they were intended to crush him as early as the year 1755: yet the contracting powers had acted with so little providence, that not one of them had magazines, arms, provisions, or money sufficient to set their great machine in motion. The Czarina, though mistress of such a continent, had neither sailors, nor soldiers, nor treasure; and having begun to march her troops, was reduced to recall them, and to accept a million of florins from Vienna. The Empress-queen had affected great economy and regulation of her finances; but the sums that were squeezed from the subject, as a foundation of frugality, were wasted on buildings, and ceremonies, and pageants. The Emperor indeed was rich, and banker to his wife: she indulged him in this only pleasure: surrounded by the frightfullest Maids of Honour that she could select, she permitted him to hoard what she never let him have temptation or opportunity to squander.

However, towards the middle of the summer of 1756, the bomb was ready to burst; and Frederic (as he wrote to his uncle of England,) saw it was more prudent “prævenire quam præveniri.” Yet, by no means ambitious of a defensive war, and fully apprised that the first stroke he should strike would set his Crown, his reputation, his life at stake, he attempted to avert the storm; at least, resolved to convince Europe that he was not the aggressor. He asked of the Empress-queen the meaning of those mighty armaments. She gave him an evasive answer. He demanded a categoric one; concluding his letter with these words,—“Point de reponse en style d’oracle.” Yet the Pythian, though she grew more haughty, was not less enigmatic. He had told her that he would take an ambiguous answer as a hostile declaration: accordingly, towards the end of August, at a great supper, the King of Prussia whispered Mitchell, the British resident, to come to him at three in the morning, when he carried him to his camp, and told him, there were a hundred thousand men setting out that instant, they knew not whither; and bade him write to his master, that he was going to defend his Majesty’s dominions and his own. He ordered two Armies into Upper and Lower Silesia, assembled another body at Glatz, and left another in Prussia to oppose the Russians. Yet, though Frederic knew that his most numerous and most determined enemies were in Bohemia, he would not venture to leave Saxony behind him. He marched with another Army to Leipsic, and dispatched a sixth to Dresden—yet again endeavoured peace. A third time he sent to the Empress-Queen, that if she would give a positive assurance of not attacking him that year or the next, he would directly withdraw his troops: she refused that satisfaction—and Saxony fell an instantaneous sacrifice. The King of Poland, however, was so far prepared as to have encamped his little Army in the only strong situation he had; to which, on the approach of the Prussian army, he withdrew. Frederic, with insulting politeness, sent word to Augustus, that he had ordered relays of post-horses to be prepared for him, if he chose, as it was the season of holding the Diet, to go to Poland. He promised his protection to the Royal Family and Civil Officers, “Jusqu’à votre ministre,” said he, “qui est trop au dessous de moi pour le nommer.” He lamented Augustus being in the hands of a man, whom he offered to prove guilty of the grossest conspiracies.

Dresden was not an easier conquest than a contented one. They were rigid Protestants, offended by a bigoted Catholic Court, and ruined by an oppressive Court. They were charmed to see a King at Church, and with pleasure remembered Frederic at their devotions when he conquered them before. Augustus, and Bruhl, and 12,000 men were in the strong camp at Pirna; the Queen and Saxon Royal Family remained at Dresden. Keith was ordered to search the archives there for the original pieces, of which Frederic had the copies in his hands. The Queen made all the resistance in her power, and told the Marshal that, as his master had promised to use no violence, all Europe would exclaim against this outrage—“And then,” said she, with spirit, “you will be the victim. Depend upon it, your King is a man to sacrifice you to his own honour.” Keith was startled, and sent for further orders; and on receiving reiteration of them, possessed himself of the papers, though the Queen herself sat on the most material trunk, and would not rise, till he convinced her that he could not avoid proceeding to force.

Frederic, in the meantime, was employed in straitening the camp at Pirna, and unavoidably wasted the season for pushing into Bohemia before the Austrians were well prepared to receive him. General Brown advanced to disengage the Saxons, and Keith, who was ready to check his progress, wrote to the King that he was on the point of giving battle. Frederic, leaving Augustus blocked up, posted away to his little Army, and arrived just in time to command the charge. The battle was fought at Lowoschutz on September 29th. The Prussians were not above 25,000 men; Brown had double their number; yet Frederic thought himself, or endeavoured to be thought, victorious. The inveteracy between the contending nations was remarkable, but the bravery of the Prussians most signalized, eight squadrons sustaining the efforts of thirty-two of Austrians. Brown retired a little; but with so much order, and he and Piccolomini remained so firmly entrenched, that the King would not venture to renew the attack. With the same vivacity of expedition with which he had left it, he returned to his Army besieging that of Augustus. October 11th, Brown, with 15,000 select men, made forced marches to arrive on the back of the camp of Pirna. This was in private concert with the Saxons, who, flinging a bridge over the Elbe at Konigstein, passed the river on the 12th under favour of a foggy night. Darkness and the mist dispersing ere they had made four leagues, to their amazement they found the King of Prussia between them and the Austrians, and master of all the defiles. He advised them to return to their camp. They prepared to follow an advice which it was to no purpose to reject, but, to the increase of their astonishment, found that this universal man had battered down their bridge. They laid down their arms. Augustus shut himself up in the castle of Konigstein, where Frederic sent word to the Queen that she would be indulged in visiting him; and that care was taken to furnish her Lord with provisions and diversions.

I have abridged this narrative as much as possible. From this time, the King of Prussia was too much connected with our affairs to be passed over in silence; but his actions have been too singular and too splendid to want illustration from a private annalist. Europe was the tablet on which he has written his own memoirs with his sword, as he will probably with his pen. Besides, I live too near the times, and too far from the scene of action, to be able to penetrate into the exact detail of his campaigns and measures, and to winnow the truth from such a variety of interested, exaggerated, contested relations, as are at once produced by eminent glory, and strive to obscure it. I shall observe the same circumspection whenever I have further occasion to mention this extraordinary man.