Dilapidated Polish Majesty, we observed, was extremely attentive to Wilhelmina; nor could she ascertain, for long after, what the particular reason was. Long after, Wilhelmina ascertained that there had been the wonderfulest scheme concocting, or as good as concocted, in these swearings of eternal friendship: no other than that of marrying her, Wilhelmina, now a slim maiden coming nineteen, to this dilapidated Saxon Man of Sin going (or limping)fifty-five, and broken by DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES (rivers of champagne and tokay, for one item), who had fallen a Widower last year!
They had schemed it all out, Wilhelmina understands: Friedrich Wilhelm to advance such and such moneys as dowry, and others furthermore as loan, for the occasions of his Polish Majesty, which are manifold; Wilhelmina to have The Lausitz (LUSATIA) for jointure, Lausitz to be Friedrich Wilhelm's pledge withal;and other intricate conditions; [Wilhelmina, i. 114.] what would Wilhelmina have thought? One shudders to contemplate;--hopes it might mostly be loose brain-web and courtier speculation, never settled towards fact.
It is certain, the dilapidated Polish Majesty having become a Widower, questions would rise, Will not he marry again? And with whom? Certain also, he wants Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance;having great schemes on the anvil, which are like to be delicate and perilous,--schemes of "partitioning Poland," no less; that is to say, cutting off the outskirts of Poland, flinging them to neighboring Sovereigns as propitiation, or price of good-will, and rendering the rest hereditary in his family. Pragmatic Sanction once acceded to, would probably propitiate the Kaiser? For which, and other reasons, Polish Majesty still keeps that card in his hand. Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance, with such an army and such a treasury, the uses of that are evident to the Polish Majesty.--By the blessing of Heaven, however, his marriage with Wilhelmina never came to anything: his Electoral Prince, Heir-Apparent, objected to the jointures and alienations, softly, steadily;and the project had to drop before Wilhelmina ever knew of it.
And this man is probably one of the "Four Kings" she was to be asked by? A Swedish Officer, with some skill in palmistry, many years ago, looked into her innocent little hand, and prophesied, "She was to be in terms of courtship, engagement or as good as engagement, with Four Kings, and to wed none of them." Wilhelmina counts them in her mature days. The FIRST will surprise everybody,--Charles XII. of Sweden;--who never can have been much of a suitor, the rather as the young Lady was then only six gone;but who, might, like enough, be talked of, by transient third-parties, in those old Stralsund times. The SECOND,--cannot WE guess who the second is? The THIRD is this August the dilapidated Strong. As to the SECOND, Wilhelmina sees already, in credulous moments, that it may be Hanover Fred, whom she will never marry either;--and does not see (nor did, at the time of writing her <italic> Memoires, <end italic> "in 1744" say the Books) that Fred never would come to Kingship, and that the Palmistry was incomplete in that point. The FOURTH, again, is clearly young Czar Peter II.; of whom there was transient talk or project, some short time after this of the dilapidated THIRD.
But that too came to nothing; the poor young lad died while only fifteen; nay he had already "fallen in love with his Aunt Elizabeth" (INFAME CATIN DU NORD in time coming), and given up the Prussian prospect. [He was the Great Peter's Grandson (Son having gone a tragical road ); Czar, May, 1727--January, 1730:
Anne Iwanowna (Great Peter's Niece, elder Brother's Daughter), our Courland friend with the big cheek, succeeded; till her death, October, 1740: then, after some slight shock of revolution, the Elizabeth just mentioned, who was Daughter of the Great Peter by his little brown Czarina Catherine whom we once met.
See Mannstein, <italic> Memoirs of Russia <end italic> (London, 1770), pp. 1-23, for some account of Peter II.; and the rest of the Volume for a really intelligent History of this Anne, at least of her Wars, where Mannstein himself usually had part.