Littell's Living Age/Volume 131/Issue 1691/Sixty-Nine Years at the Court of Prussia

From The Athenæum.

SIXTY-NINE YEARS AT THE COURT OF PRUSSIA.^[1]

There could scarcely be a more trivial book than this, and it may be doubted whether even the exceptional position of the Countess Voss in the very midst of a society of historical importance gives any, real value to her meagre jottings. But the faint titillation of pleasure which a reader experiences when a well-known historical character is introduced to him in the dress of everyday life is felt oftener in reading this book than in reading almost any book of the kind; and there is something so surprising in the length of time over which this insignificant diary extends, that the book becomes noticeable; almost every one will take it up with curiosity, even though the liveliest curiosity will soon be satiated by it, and therefore it is not surprising that it should have been very promptly translated.

To give a notion of the lapse of time which the book covers, it may be mentioned that the countess's father was wounded at Malplaquet, and that the countess herself outlived by a year the battle of Leipzig, though the interval between those battles is one hundred and four years. But the countess's own experience of some sort of public life was also immensely long. It is described in the title as covering sixty-nine years; but the countess could remember Mr. Carlyle's bear, Frederic William the First, who died in 1740, — that is, seventy-four years before her own life ended. The first incident in her public life is recorded in the Margravine of Baireuth's memoirs as follows: —

The young Pannewitz was as beautiful as an angel, but as resolute as she was fascinating; and when once the king met her on a staircase that led to the queen's apartments, where she could not avoid him, and ventured to try to kiss her, she defended herself against him with such a hearty box of the ears that those who stood at the bottom of the stairs could have no doubt of her good success.

After this début, the lady went through the whole of the long reign of Frederic the Great, survived his successor, Frederic William the Second, lived through the early and deceptively prosperous days of Frederic William the Third, witnessed the downfall of Jena and the peace of Tilsit, saw Prussia sink lower still, closed the eyes of Queen Louise, saw the Russian expedition pass through the country, taking possession of it in a way that showed that the fate of Prussia was involved in that of Russia, saw the tide turn, saw the levée en masse of Prussia and the creation of the Landwehr, received the news of Dennewitz, Katsbach, Leipzig, Craonne; and when she left the world, could feel that the second great trial of Prussia was over, her second great enemy — more formidable than Maria Theresa — crushed, and a new period of prosperity commenced. She saw, in fact, the whole rise of Prussia to the position of a great power, and during most of the time she was in the closest intercourse with the men who could have best explained to her all that was going on. Had she chosen to observe attentively all that passed before her, to reflect upon it, and write a careful history, her book might have been as interesting as Saint Simon's.

But the countess is the antipodes of Saint Simon. She observes nothing, and narrates nothing. If we were to call her reflections commonplace, we should convey too favorable an impression of them. Properly speaking, she makes no reflections, for we cannot call the mere exclamations, whether of joy or sorrow, with which she accompanies her items of news by so dignified a name. In like manner, she tells us nothing of the characters that are thrown in her way: we learn sometimes that they are agreeable or otherwise, but rarely anything further. Not that there is any reason to think that the countess wanted the power of observation or thought, but it is evident that she had only the very humblest object in view in keeping a diary, — that she aimed at nothing more than providing a slight assistance for her memory.

It seems further that, when she had anything of great importance to record, she often abstained from doing so. There was one moment in her life when she was of real importance in Prussian history. This was in the last months of 1808, when the French army of occupation was on the point of leaving Prussia, and Napoleon was forcing a new treaty upon the king, by which he hoped to hold Prussia down as effectually as if his army were not withdrawn. A great outcry was raised about the conspiracies against the French power, which were supposed to be rife among the Prussian officials and military men. Davoust and Daru took the lead in the agitation, and the servile French party among the Prussians, which had its headquarters at Berlin, echoed all their charges. One of the absurd stories they circulated was that the Countess Voss had written a letter to Prince Wittgenstein, then at Hamburg, proposing to him to poison Napoleon at Bayonne. The prince was actually arrested on this charge. About the same time, we find the leading statesmen of Prussia complaining that it is impossible to keep important state secrets because of the countess Voss's teas, at which everything was repeated. These are not matters of the first importance, but they are, at least, more important than nine-tenths of the matters dealt with in this diary, and any information the countess might give about them would be of some interest to students of Prussian history, particularly as it would be certainly authentic. But we are disappointed; the diary contains not a syllable on these subjects, nor has the editor any light to throw upon them.

If a reader is very anxious to realize to himself exactly, how the royal family of Prussia' lived in, that distressful period after Jena which was passed at Memel, he should take this book and compare it with the diaries of Sir George Jackson (of which the last volumes are called "The Bath Archives"). He will find in the one book that the countess met Mr. Jackson, and in the other that Mr. Jackson met the countess. For all we know, he may be able to find two histories of the same evening in the two books. We must add, however, that in all probability neither history will be worth reading, though the English diarist is in every case to be preferred. The diary before us at any rate can serve no better purpose than is served by a visitors' book at an inn. The utmost you can look for is to find what persons were to be met with at the Prussian court at a given time. In turning over so many names, however, something will occasionally strike the eye. For instance, in the later years of Frederic the Great, the countess often mentions a Humboldt among those at court. This we take to be the father of the illustrious brothers. We have been speaking of the staple of the book, than which nothing can be more unprofitable. There are, however, three passages in it which are more interesting. Of these the first is that part of the diary which refers to the last years of the Seven Years' War. As the editor says, there is something startling and "almost enigmatical" in the style of these pages, which show us "how, at the very time when the king, overwhelmed with losses and misfortunes of every kind, struggles all the more heroically against the enemy's superior force, people at the court of his wife, sisters, and sisters-in-law were trying to drive away the time with petty amusements, and scarcely troubled themselves seriously to know what territory of the miserable and exhausted land was at the moment groaning under the heavy hand of the Russians, Austrians, or French!" Besides the curiousness of this, these pages give us a more distinct notion than perhaps it was possible to get before of one who certainly is among the most unimportant personages in history, but yet a queen, and the queen of a great king; we mean Elizabeth Christine, the neglected wife of Frederic the Great. Her impatience and dogmatism, her want of tact in conversation, are traits which we think are new: —

The queen was present, too, and made some very angry remarks about the unfavorable accounts and reports that were circulated about her court. I do not know what she can mean but some silly gossip here in the place which should not have been listened to, and still less noticed. But she would not leave off scolding and declaiming that the people who received from her the greatest attentions were loudest in mocking and ridiculing her; in short, I am sorry to say she said a number of things which put us all into perplexity, and were very little becoming in a queen.

The other two interesting things in the book are the two parallel love-stories — that between the heroine and Frederic's brother, Prince August Wilhelm, and that between her niece Julie and King Frederic William the Second. In the history of the Hohenzollern house, these two stories are really not unimportant, and the more so because they run parallel to each other. In both cases, the lady is pursued with the most ungovernable passion. In the first case, she makes her escape from the royal addresses by a marriage without affection; in the latter case she yields. But both the lovers, at the time of falling in love, bear the title of Prince of Prussia, and one is the father of the other. King Frederic William the Second is a person who, as soon as it becomes part of a proper English education to learn something about Continental, especially about Prussian history, will be recognized as having a great historical importance. His peculiar ungovernableness, his total want of the stern self-discipline which has made the greatness of his house, had great consequences in the world, for they produced that demoralization of the Prussian State and army which ended in Jena and the Peace of Tilsit. His character is the more worth studying because it was not without strong and remarkable qualities, so much so that Kant could describe him as a "brave, honest, humane, and — putting aside certain peculiarities of temperament — a thoroughly excellent prince." We seem to get some light upon his character from the way in which in this book it is set over against that of his unfortunate father. Ungovernableness is equally the characteristic of both father and son. The elder prince of Prussia, at the celebration of the marriage which he has forced our diarist into contracting, actually falls down in a fainting fit, and has to be carried out. The same unrestrained sensibility is shown in the circumstances of his death. In this volume is printed a letter from a Fraulein von Kleist, describing the persistency with which, when attacked by illness, he, broken-hearted by the harshness with which his brother treated him, refused to listen to medical advice or take remedies, until, in spite of all the care of those about him, he succeeded in rendering his illness fatal. The family likeness is plain in the notes which the diarist makes of the behavior of his son, Frederic's successor. He pursues Julie as his father had pursued our diarist, until she consents to a left-handed marriage, and, in the remarks here made, both on this persecution and on his other amours, we see how different was the Prussian Charles the Second from the English one. We see a man of passion rather than a man of pleasure, a sentimentalist rather than a cynic; that is, a man not wanting in the feelings so much as in the discipline of virtue.

Just so much we seem to learn from this book, though, indeed, it would not be safe to treat as serious historic testimony a document so exceedingly light and so conventional in its tone as the diary of the Countess Voss. But the time will come when King Frederic William the Second of Prussia — the king who made the treaty of Reichenbach, the second and third partitions of Poland, the invasion of France, and the treaty of Basle — will be a better-known historical character than he now is; and it will then be interesting to observe that the faults of his public career were of the same kind as those which were observed in his private life, that is, very great and scandalous faults, but not faults of will so much as of impulse, the irregularities of a warm temperament joined to a somewhat confused understanding.

1. Sixty-Nine Years at the Court of Prussia. From the Recollections of Sophie Marie, Countess von Voss. Translated by Emily and Agnes Stephenson. 2 vols. Bentley & Son.