The Court of Berlin, where Caroline was to spend the most impressionable years of her life, was queened over at this time by one of the most intellectual and gifted princesses in Europe. Sophie Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg, who in 1701, on her husband’s assumption of the regal dignity, became first Queen of Prussia, was the daughter of that remarkable woman, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, and granddaughter of the gifted and beautiful Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James the First of England. These three princesses—grandmother, mother and daughter—formed a trinity of wonderful women.
Like her mother and grandmother, Sophie Charlotte inherited many traits from her Stuart ancestors; Mary’s wit and passion, James the First’s love of metaphysical and theological disputations, were reproduced in her, and she possessed to no small degree the beauty, dignity and personal charm characteristic of the race, which even the infusion of sluggish German blood could not mar. Her mother had carefully trained her with a view to her making a great match some day; she was an accomplished musician, and a great linguist, speaking French, English and Italian as fluently as her native tongue, perhaps more so. She had read much and widely, an unusual thing among German princesses of that age. Sophie Charlotte’s religious education was hardly on a level with her secular one, as the Electress Sophia, in accordance with her policy of making all considerations subservient to her daughter’s future advancement, decided to bring her up with an open mind in matters of religion and in the profession of no faith, so that she might be eligible to marry the most promising prince who presented himself, whether he were Catholic or Protestant. As a courtly biographer put it: “She (Sophie Charlotte) refrained from any open confession of faith until her marriage, for reasons of prudence and state, because only then would she be able to judge which religion would suit best her condition of life”.
Despite this theological complaisance, several eligible matches projected with Roman Catholic princes fell through, and the young princess’s religion was finally settled on the Protestant side, for when the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, son of the Great Elector, came forward as a suitor, Sophia eagerly accepted him for her daughter, notwithstanding that he was a widower, twelve years older than his bride, deformed, and of anything but an amiable reputation. These drawbacks were trifles compared with the fact that he was heir to the most powerful electorate of North Germany. The wedding took place at Hanover in September, 1684, and the bride and bridegroom made their state entry into Berlin two months afterwards. A few years later Sophie Charlotte gave birth to a son, Frederick William, who was destined to become the second King of Prussia and the father of Frederick the Great. Four years later the Great Elector died; and with her husband’s accession she became the reigning Electress of Brandenburg and later Queen of Prussia.
The salient points of Sophie Charlotte’s character now made themselves manifest. The Court of Berlin was a brilliant one, and modelled on that of the King of France, for the King of Prussia refused to dispense with any detail of pomp or ceremony, holding, like the Grand Monarque, that a splendid and stately court was the outward and visible sign of a prince’s power and greatness. He had a passion for display, and would spend hours debating the most trivial points of court etiquette. This was weariness of the soul to the Queen, for she cared nothing for the pomp and circumstance of sovereignty. She was careful to discharge her ceremonial duties, but she did so in the spirit of magnificent indifference. “Leibniz talked to me to-day of the infinitely little,” she wrote once to her friend and confidante, Marie von Pöllnitz. “Mon Dieu, as if I did not know enough about that.” The young Queen had arrived at a great position, but her heart was empty; she tolerated her husband, but she felt towards him nothing warmer than a half-contemptuous liking. The King, on his part, was proud of his beautiful and talented consort, though he was rather afraid of her. It would have been easy for Sophie Charlotte, had she been so minded, to have gained great influence over her husband, and to have governed Brandenburg and Prussia through him, but though her intellect was masculine in its calibre, unlike her mother, she had no love of domination, and cared not to meddle with affairs of state. These things were to her but vanity, and she preferred rather to live a life of intellectual contemplation and philosophic calm; the scientific discoveries of Newton were more to her than kingdoms, and the latest theory of Leibniz than all the pomp and circumstance of the court.
The King made her a present of the château of Lützenburg, later called after her Charlottenburg, just outside Berlin, and here she was able to gratify her love of art and beautiful things to the utmost. The gardens were laid out after the plan of Versailles, by Le Nôtre, with terraces, statues and fountains. Magnificent pictures, beautiful carpets, rarest furniture of inlaid ebony and ivory, porcelain and crystal, were stored in this lordly pleasure-house, and made it a palace of luxury and art. The King thought nothing too costly or magnificent for his Queen, though he did not follow her in her literary and philosophic bent, and Lützenburg became famous throughout Europe, not only for its splendour, for there were many palaces more splendid, but because it was the chosen home of its beautiful mistress, and the meeting-place of all the talents. At Lützenburg, surrounded by a special circle of intellectual friends, the Queen enjoyed the free interchange of ideas, and discussed all things without restraint; wit and talent, and not wealth and rank, gave the entrée there. At Lützenburg she held receptions on certain evenings in the week, and on these occasions all trammels of court etiquette were laid aside, and everything was conducted without ostentation or ceremony. Intellectual conversations, the reading of great books, learned discussions, and, for occasional relaxation, music and theatricals, often kept the company late into the night at Lützenburg, and it frequently happened that some of the courtiers went straight from one of the Queen’s entertainments to attend the King’s levée, for he rose at four o’clock in the morning. To these reunions came not only the most beautiful and gifted ladies of the court, but learned men from every country in Europe, philosophers, theologians, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, representatives of literature, science and art, besides a number of French refugees, who did not appear at court in the ordinary way. Since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Berlin had become a rallying-place for Huguenots, many of them men of intellectual eminence and noble birth, who were banished from their native land. They were made especially welcome at Lützenburg, where everything was French rather than German. At Sophie Charlotte’s reunions French only was spoken, and so elegant were the appointments, so perfect was the taste, so refined and courteous were the manners, so brilliant the wit and conversation, that one of the most celebrated of the Huguenot nobility declared that he felt himself once again at Versailles, and asked whether the Queen of Prussia could really speak German.
To Lützenburg came the eloquent Huguenot preacher, Beausobre; Vota, the celebrated Jesuit and Roman Catholic controversialist; Toland, the English freethinker; Papendorf, the historian; Handel, the great musician, when he was a boy; and last and among the greatest, the famous Leibniz. Hither came often, too, on many a long visit, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, “the merry débonnaire princess of Germany,” who, like her daughter, delighted in theological polemics, and philosophic speculations. Sophie Charlotte’s principles were exceedingly liberal, so much so that she became known as “the Republican Queen,” and her early religious training, or rather the lack of it, was very noticeable in the trend of thought she gave to her gatherings. She would take nothing for granted, she submitted everything to the tribunal of reason; her eager and active spirit was always seeking to know the truth, even “the why of the why,” as Leibniz grumbled once. Her mother, the Electress Sophia, would seem to have been a rationalist, with a strong dash of Calvinism. Sophie Charlotte went a step farther; she was nothing of a Calvinist, but rather leant to the theories of Descartes. “My mother is a clever woman, but a bad Christian,” said her son once, and that was true if he meant a dogmatic Christian, though Leibniz had a theory for reconciling Christianity and reason, which especially commended itself to her. She took a keen interest in theological polemics, and whenever any clever Jesuit came her way, she delighted in nothing so much as to get him to expound his views, and then put up one of her chaplains to answer him. In this way she set the Jesuit Vota disputing with the Protestant Brensenius, and the orthodox Huguenot Beausobre with the freethinking sceptic Toland. Nor were these arguments confined to theological subjects; scientific, philosophic and social questions—everything, in short, came within the debatable ground, and on one occasion we hear of a long and animated argument on the question whether marriage was, or was not, ordained for the procreation of children! The Queen presided over all these intellectual tournaments, throwing in a suggestion here or raising a doubt there; she was always able to draw the best out of every one, and thanks to her tact and amiability, the disputes on thorny questions were invariably conducted without unpleasantness.
LÜTZENBURG (CHARLOTTENBURG).
This was the home in which Caroline spent the greater part of nine years, and we have dwelt upon it because the impressions she received and the opinions she formed at Lützenburg, during her girlhood influenced her in after years. The King of Prussia was Caroline’s guardian, and after her mother’s death, Sophie Charlotte assumed a mother’s place to the little princess, who had now become an orphan and friendless indeed. Her step-brother was ruling at Ansbach, and Caroline was not very welcome there; indeed she was looked upon rather as an encumbrance than otherwise, and the only thing to be done was to marry her off as quickly as possible. There seems to have been some idea of betrothing her, when she was a mere child, to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, but she could hardly have been in love with him, as Horace Walpole relates, for the Duke married some one else when Caroline was only thirteen years of age.
Sophie Charlotte caused her adopted daughter to be thoroughly educated, and carefully trained in the accomplishments necessary to her position. Caroline’s quickness and natural ability early made themselves manifest. Sophie Charlotte had no daughter of her own, and her heart went out to the young Princess of Ansbach, who returned her love fourfold, and looked up to her with something akin to adoration. Her admiration led to a remarkable likeness between the two in speech and gesture; nor did the likeness end here. Caroline was early admitted to the reunions at Lützenburg, and permitted to listen to the frank and free discussions which took place there. Such a training, though it might shake her beliefs, could not fail to sharpen her wits and enlarge her knowledge, and there is abundant evidence to show that in later life she adopted Sophie Charlotte’s views, not only in ethics and philosophy, but in conduct and morals. But she was more practical and less transcendental than the Queen of Prussia, and, like the Electress Sophia, she loved power, and took a keen interest in political affairs.