The fact is, I Kaltenborn quitted the Prussian Service, and took Hessian,—being (presumably) of exaggerative, over-talkative nature, and strongly gravitating Opposition way!—Kaltenborn admits that the King delighted in nothing so much as to see people's faces cheerful about him; provided the price for it were not too high. Here is another passage from him:—
"At latest by 9 in the morning the day's Manoeuvre had finished, and everything was already in its place again. Straight from the ground all Heads of regiments, the Majors-DE-JOUR, all Aides-de-Camp, and from every battalion one Officer, proceed to Head-quarters. It was impossible to speak more beautifully, or instructively, than the King did on such occasions, if he were not in bad humor. It was then a very delight to hear him deliver a Military Lecture, as it were. He knew exactly who had failed, what caused the fault, and how it might and should have been retrieved. His voice was soft and persuasive (HINREISSEND); he looked kindly, and appeared rather bent upon giving good advice than commands.
"Thus, for instance, he once said to General van Lossow, Head of the Black Hussars: 'Your (SEINE) Attack would have gone very well, had not your own squadron pressed forward too much (VORGEPRELLT). The brave fellows wanted to show me how they can ride. But don't I know that well enough;—and also that you [covetous Lossow] always choose the best horses from the whole remount for your own squadron! There was, therefore, no need at all for that. Tell your people not to do so to-morrow, and you will see it will go much better; all will remain closer in their places, and the left wing be able to keep better in line, in coming on.'—Another time, having observed, in a certain Foot-regiment, that the soldiers were too long in getting out their cartridges, he said to the Commandant: 'Do you know the cause of this, my dear Colonel? Look, the cartouche, in the cartridge-box, has 32 holes; into these the fellow sticks his eight cartridges, without caring how: and so the poor devil fumbles and gropes about, and cannot get hold of any. But now, if the Officers would look to it that he place them all well together in the middle of the cartouche, he would never make a false grasp, and the loading would go as quick again. Only tell your Officers that I had made this observation, and I am sure they will gladly attend to it.'" [Anonymous (Kaltenborn), Briefe eines alten Preussischen Officiers (Hohenzollern, 1790), ii. 24-26.]
Of humane consolatory Anecdotes, in this kind, our Opposition Kaltenborn gives several; of the rhadamanthine desolating or destructive kind, though such also could not be wanting, if your Assize is to be good for anything, he gives us none. And so far as I can learn, the effective punishments, dismissals and the like, were of the due rarity and propriety; though the flashes of unjust rebuke, fulminant severity, lightnings from the gloom of one's own sorrows and ill-humor, were much more frequent, but were seldom—I do not know if ever—persisted in to the length of practical result. This is a Rhadamanthus much interested not to be unjust, and to discriminate good from bad! Of Ziethen there are two famous Review Anecdotes, omitted and omissible by Kaltenborn, so well known are they: one of each kind. At a certain Review, year not ascertainable,—long since, prior to the Seven-Years War,—the King's humor was of the grimmest, nothing but faults all round; to Ziethen himself, and the Ziethen Hussars, he said various hard things, and at length this hardest: "Out of my sight with you!" [Madame de Blumenthal, Life of Ziethen, i. 265.] Upon which Ziethen—a stratum of red-hot kindling in Ziethen too, as was easily possible—turns to his Hussars, "Right about, RECHTS UM: march!" and on the instant did as bidden. Disappeared, double-quick; and at the same high pace, in a high frame of mind, rattled on to Berlin, home to his quarters, and there first drew bridle. "Turn; for Heaven's sake, bethink you!" said more than one friend whom he met on the road: but it was of no use. Everybody said, "Ziethen is ruined;" but Ziethen never heard of the thing more.
Anecdote Second is not properly of a Review, but of an incidental Parade of the Guard, at Berlin (25th December, 1784), by the King in person: Parade, or rather giving out of the Parole after it, in the King's Apartments; which is always a kind of Military Levee as well;—and which, in this instance, was long famous among the Berlin people. King is just arrived for Carnival season; old Ziethen will not fail to pay his duty, though climbing of the stairs is heavy to a man of 85 gone. This is Madam Blumenthal's Narrative (corrected, as it needs, in certain points):—
"SATURDAY, 25th DECEMBER, 1784, Ziethen, in spite of the burden of eighty-six years, went to the Palace, at the end of the Parade, to pay his Sovereign this last tribute of respect, and to have the pleasure of seeing him after six months' absence. The Parole was given out, the orders imparted to the Generals, and the King had turned towards the Princes of the Blood,—when he perceived Ziethen on the other side of the Hall, between his Son and his two Aides-de-Camp. Surprised in a very agreeable manner at this unexpected sight, he broke out into an exclamation of joy; and directly making up to him,—'What, my good old Ziethen, are you there!' said his Majesty: 'How sorry am I that you have had the trouble of walking up the staircase! I should have called upon you myself. How have you been of late?' 'Sire,' answered Ziethen, (my health is not amiss, my appetite is good; but my strength! my strength!) 'This account,' replied the King, 'makes me happy by halves only: but you must be tired;—I shall have a chair for you.' [Thing unexampled in the annals of Royalty!] A chair," on order to Ziethen's Aides-de-Camp, "was quickly brought. Ziethen, however, declared that he was not at all fatigued: the King maintained that he was. 'Sit down, good Father (MEIN LIEBER ALTER PAPA ZIETHEN, SETZE ER SICH DOCH)!' continued his Majesty: 'I will have it so; otherwise I must instantly leave the room; for I cannot allow you to be incommoded under my own roof.' The old General obeyed, and Friedrich the Great remained standing before him, in the midst of a brilliant circle that had thronged round them. After asking him many questions respecting his hearing, his memory and the general state of his health, he at length took leave of him in these words: 'Adieu, my dear Ziethen [it was his last adieu!]—take care not to catch cold; nurse yourself well, and live as long as you can, that I may often have the pleasure of seeing you.' After having said this, the King, instead of speaking to the other Generals, and walking through the saloons, as usual, retired abruptly, and shut himself up in his closet." [Blumenthal, ii. 341; Militair-Lexikon, iv. 318. Chodowiecki has made an Engraving of this Scene; useful to look at for its military Portraits, if of little esteem otherwise. Strangely enough, both in BLUMENTHAL and in Chodowiecki's ENGRAVING the year is given as 1785 (plainly impossible); Militair-Lexikon misprints the month; and, one way or other, only Rodenbeck (iii. 316) is right in both day and year.]
Following in date these small Conway Phenomena, if these, so extraneous and insignificant, can have any glimmer of memorability to readers, are two other occurrences, especially one other, which come in at this part of the series, and greatly more require to be disengaged from the dust-heaps, and presented for remembrance.
In 1775, the King had a fit of illness; which long occupied certain Gazetteers and others. That is the first occurrence of the two, and far the more important. He himself says of it, in his HISTORY, all that is essential to us here:—
"Towards the end of 1775, the King was attacked by several strong consecutive fits of gout. Van Swieten, a famous Doctor's Son, and Minister of the Imperial Court at Berlin, took it into his head that this gout was a declared dropsy; and, glad to announce to his Court the approaching death of an enemy that had been dangerous to it, boldly informed his Kaiser that the King was drawing to his end, and would not last out the year. At this news the soul of Joseph flames into enthusiasm; all the Austrian troops are got on march, their Rendezvous marked in Bohemia; and the Kaiser waits, full of impatience, at Vienna, till the expected event arrives; ready then to penetrate at once into Saxony, and thence to the Frontiers of Brandenburg, and there propose to the King's Successor the alternative of either surrendering Silesia straightway to the House of Austria, or seeing himself overwhelmed by Austrian troops before he could get his own assembled. All these things, which were openly done, got noised abroad everywhere; and did not, as is easy to believe, cement the friendship of the Two Courts. To the Public this scene appeared the more ridiculous, as the King of Prussia, having only had a common gout in larger dose than common, was already well of it again, before the Austrian Army had got to their Rendezvous. The Kaiser made all these troops return to their old quarters; and the Court of Vienna had nothing but mockery for its imprudent conduct." [OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 124.]
The first of these gout-attacks seems to have come in the end of September, and to have lasted about a month; after which the illness abated, and everybody thought it was gone. The Kaiser-Joseph evolution must have been in October, and have got its mockery in the next months. Friedrich, writing to VOLTAIRE, October 22d, has these words:... "A pair of charming Letters from Ferney; to which, had they been from the great Demiurgus himself, I could not have dictated Answer. Gout held me tied and garroted for four weeks;—gout in both feet and in both hands; and, such its extreme liberality, in both elbows too: at present the pains and the fever have abated, and I feel only a very great exhaustion." [Ib. xxv. 44.] "Four consecutive attacks; hope they are now all over;" but we read, within the Spring following, that there have been in all twelve of them; and in May, 1776, the Newspapers count eighteen quasi-consecutive. So that in reality the King's strength was sadly reduced; and his health, which did not recover its old average till about 1780, continued, for several years after this bad fit, to be a constant theme of curiosity to the Gazetteer species, and a matter of solicitude to his friends and to his enemies.