[Otherwise Frederick II, third king of Prussia, son of Frederick William I, and grandson of George I of England, born 1712, died 1786. Regarded in his youth, before his accession to the throne, as a spendthrift and voluptuary or as a prince of weak and vacillating character, his accession to the throne in 1740 instantly brought out his true character as the most able and masterful of rulers. His protracted wars with odds against him, often of four to one, in which he fought the banded armies of Europe, stamped him as a soldier of splendid genius and iron tenacity of endurance and purpose. During the Seven Years’ War he stood with only five million subjects against a hundred million. On the declaration of peace he devoted himself, with the same energy, to the restoration of the commerce, agriculture, and industries of Prussia as that with which he had fought her enemies, and with as much success. Frederick was not only a great soldier and civil administrator, though on somewhat despotic lines, but keenly sympathetic with literature, art, and science. All these he encouraged and fostered by every means. He was the true founder of the Prussian monarchy.]
About fourscore years ago there used to be seen sauntering on the terraces of Sans Souci, for a short time in the afternoon, or you might have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapid business manner on the open roads or through the scraggy woods and avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam region, a highly interesting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping figure, whose name among strangers was King Friedrich the Second, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was Vater Fritz—Father Fred—a name of familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a king, every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king. Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture; no crown but an old military cocked hat—generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute softness if new—no scepter but one like Agamemnon’s, a walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which he hits the horse “between the ears,” say authors)—and for royal robes, a mere soldier’s blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or cut, ending in high overknee military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach.
The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume; close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much hard labor done in this world, and seems to anticipate nothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joys there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humor—are written on that old face, which carries its chin well forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose, rather flung into the air, under its old cocked hat—like an old snuffy lion on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man or lion or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have.
“Those eyes,” says Mirabeau, “which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated you with seduction or with terror (portaient, au gré de son âme héroïque, la séduction ou la terreur).” Most excellent potent brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of the azure-gray color; large enough, not of glaring size; the habitual expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, rapidity resting on depth, which is an excellent combination, and gives us the notion of a lambent outer radiance springing from some great inner sea of light and fire in the man.
The voice, if he speak to you, is of similar physiognomy—clear, melodious, and sonorous; all tones are in it, from that of ingenuous inquiry, graceful sociality, light-flowing banter (rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, up to desolating word of rebuke and reprobation; a voice “the clearest and most agreeable in conversation I ever heard,” says witty Dr. Moore. “He speaks a great deal,” continues the doctor, “yet those who hear him regret that he does not speak a good deal more. His observations are always lively, very often just, and few men possess the talent of repartee in greater perfection.”
This was a man of infinite mark to his contemporaries, who had witnessed surprising feats from him in the world; very questionable notions and ways, which he had contrived to maintain against the world and its criticisms, as an original man has always to do, much more an original ruler of men. The world, in fact, had tried hard to put him down, as it does, unconsciously or consciously, with all such, and after the most conscious exertions, and at one time a dead-lift spasm of all its energies for seven years, had not been able. Principalities and powers, imperial, royal, czarish, papal, enemies innumerable as the sea-sand, had risen against him, only one helper left among the world’s potentates (and that one only while there should be help rendered in return), and he led them all such a dance as had astonished mankind and them.
No wonder they thought him worthy of notice! Every original man of any magnitude is—nay, in the long run, who or what else is? But how much more if your original man was a king over men; whose movements were polar, and carried from day to day those of the world along with them. The Samson Agonistes—were his life passed like that of Samuel Johnson in dirty garrets, and the produce of it only some bits of written paper—the Agonistes, and how he will comport himself in the Philistine mill; this is always a spectacle of truly epic and tragic nature, the rather if your Samson, royal or other, is not yet blinded or subdued to the wheel, much more if he vanquish his enemies, not by suicidal methods, but march out at last flourishing his miraculous fighting implement, and leaving their mill and them in quite ruinous circumstances, as this King Friedrich fairly managed to do.
For he left the world all bankrupt, we may say; fallen into bottomless abysses of destruction; he still in a paying condition, and with footing capable to carry his affairs and him. When he died, in 1786, the enormous phenomenon since called French Revolution was already growling audibly in the depths of the world, meteoric-electric coruscations heralding it all round the horizon. Strange enough to note, one of Friedrich’s last visitors was Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau. These two saw one another; twice, for half an hour each time. The last of the old gods and the first of the modern Titans—before Pelion leaped on Ossa, and the foul earth taking fire at last, its vile mephitic elements went up in volcanic thunder. This also is one of the peculiarities of Friedrich, that he is hitherto the last of the kings; that he ushers in the French Revolution, and closes an epoch of world-history. Finishing off forever the trade of king, think many, who have grown profoundly dark as to kingship and him.
The French Revolution may be said to have, for about half a century, quite submerged Friedrich, abolished him from the memories of men; and now, on coming to light again, he is found defaced under strange mud incrustations, and the eyes of mankind look at him from a singularly changed, what we must call oblique and perverse point of vision. This is one of the difficulties in dealing with his history—especially if you happen to believe both in the French Revolution and in him—that is to say, both that real kingship is eternally indispensable, and also that the destruction of sham kingship (a frightful process) is occasionally so.
On the breaking out of the formidable explosion and suicide of his century, Friedrich sank into comparative obscurity, eclipsed amid the ruins of that universal earthquake, the very dust of which darkened all the air, and made of day a disastrous midnight—black midnight, broken only by the blaze of conflagrations—wherein, to our terrified imaginations, were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastly portents, stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods.