186-194.]--fluttering the Reichs Diet not a little, and disposing everybody for Peace. The Austrians saw it with pleasure, "We solemnly engaged to save these poor people harmless, on their joining us;--and, behold, it has become thrice and four times impossible. Let them fall off into Peace, like ripe pears, of themselves; we can then turn round and say, 'Save you harmless?
Yes; if you had n't fallen off!'"
NOVEMBER 24th, all Austrians make truce with Friedrich, Truce till March 1st;--all Austrians, and what is singular, with no mention of the Reich whatever. The Reich is defenceless, at the feet of Kleist and his 6,000. Stollberg is still in Prussian neighborhood; and may be picked up any day! Stollberg hastens off to defend the Reich;finds the Reich quite empty of enemies before his arrival;--and at least saves his own skin. A month or two more, and Stollberg will lay down his Command, and the last Reichs-Execution Army, playing Farce-Tragedy so long, make its exit from the Theatre of this World.
Chapter XIII.
PEACE OF HUBERTSBURG.
The Prussian troops took Winter-quarters in the Meissen-Freyberg region, the old Saxon ground, familiar to them for the last three years: room enough this Winter, "from Plauen and Zwickau, round by Langensalza again;" Truce with everybody, and nothing of disturbance till March 1st at soonest. The usual recruiting went on, or was preparing to go on,--a part of which took immediate effect, as we shall see. Recruiting, refitting, "Be ready for a new Campaign, in any case: the readier we are, the less our chance of having one!" Friedrich's head-quarter is Leipzig; but till December 5th he does not get thither. "More business on me than ever!"complains he. At Leipzig he had his Nephews, his D'Argens; for a week or two his Brother Henri; finally, his Berlin Ministers, especially Herzberg, when actual Peace came to be the matter in hand. Henri, before that, had gone home: "Peace being now the likelihood;--Home; and recruit one's poor health, at Berlin, among friends!"Before getting to Leipzig, the King paid a flying Visit at Gotha;--probably now the one fraction of these manifold Winter movements and employments, in which readers could take interest. Of this, as there happens to be some record left of it, here is what will suffice. From Meissen, Friedrich writes to his bright Grand-Duchess, always a bright, high and noble creature in his eyes:
"Authorized by your approval [has politely inquired beforehand], Ishall have the infinite satisfaction of paying my duties on December 3d [four days hence], and of reiterating to you, Madam, my liveliest and sincerest assurances of esteem and friendship. ...
Some of my Commissariat people have been misbehaving?
Strict inquiry shall be had," [To the Grand-Duchess, "Meissen, 29th November" (<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> xviii.
199).]--and we soon find WAS. But the Visit is our first thing.
The Visit took place accordingly; Seidlitz, a man known in Gotha ever since his fine scenic-military procedures there in 1757, accompanied the King. Of the lucent individualities invited to meet him, all are now lost to me, except one Putter, a really learned Gottingen Professor (deep in REICHS-HISTORY and the like), whom the Duchess has summoned over. By the dim lucency of Putter, faint to most of us as a rushlight in the act of going out, the available part of our imagination must try to figure, in a kind of Obliterated-Rembrandt way, this glorious Evening; for there was but one,--December 3d-4th,--Friedrich having to leave early on the 4th.
Here is Putter's record, given in the third person:--"During dinner, Putter, honorably present among the spectators of this high business, was beckoned by the Duchess to step near the King [right hand or left, Putter does not say]; but the King graciously turned round, and conversed with Putter."The King said:--KING. "In German History much is still buried; many important Documents lie hidden in Monasteries." Putter answered "schicklich--fitly;" that is all we know of Putter's answer.
KING (thereupon). "Of Books on Reichs-History I know only the PEREBARRI." [<italic> Barri de Beaumarchais, <end italic> 10 vols. 4to, Paris, 1748: I believe, an extremely feeble Pillar of Will-o'-Wisps by Night;--as I can expressly testify Pfeffel to be (Pfeffel, <italic> Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne, <end italic> 2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1776), who has succeeded Barri as Patent Guide through that vast SYLVA SYLVARUM aud its pathless intricacies, for the inquiring French and English.]
PUTTER. ... "Foreigners have for most part known only, in regard to our History, a Latin work written by Struve at Jena."[Burkhard Gotthelf Struve, <italic> Syntagma Historiae Germanicus <end italic> (1730, 2 vols. folio).]
KING. "Struv, Struvius; him I don't know."PUTTER. "It is a pity Barri had not known German."KING. "Barri was a Lorrainer; Barri must have known German!"--Then turning to the Duchess, on this hint about the German Language, he told her, "in a ringing merry tone, How, at Leipzig once, he had talked with Gottsched [talk known to us] on that subject, and had said to him, That the French had many advantages; among others, that a word could often be used in a complex signification, for which you had in German to scrape together several different expressions. Upon which Gottsched had said, 'We will have that mended (DAS WOLLEN WIR NOCH MACHEN)!' These words the King repeated twice or thrice, with such a tone that you could well see how the man's conceit had struck him;"--and in short, as we know already, what a gigantic entity, consisting of wind mainly, he took this elevated Gottsched to be.
Upon which, Putter retires into the honorary ranks again;silent, at least to us, and invisible; as the rest of this Royal Evening at Gotha is. ["Putter's <italic> Selbstbiographie <end italic> (Autobiography), p. 406:" cited in Preuss, ii. 277 n.]