FREDERICK THE GREAT. By THOMAS CARLYLE.

[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.

It must be owned the figure of Napoleon was titanic; especially to the generation that looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by him. In general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge scale; if not greater than anything in human experience, at least more grandiose. All was recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to the shilling gallery; and there were fellows on the stage with such a breadth of saber, extent of whiskerage, strength of windpipe, and command of men and gunpowder as had never been seen before. How they bellowed, stalked, and flourished about, counterfeiting Jove’s thunder to an amazing degree! Terrific Drawcansir figures of enormous whiskerage, unlimited command of gunpowder; not without sufficient ferocity, and even a certain heroism, stage heroism, in them; compared with whom, to the shilling gallery, and frightened, excited theatre at large, it seemed as if there had been no generals or sovereigns before; as if Friedrich, Gustavus, Cromwell, William Conqueror, and Alexander the Great were not worth speaking of henceforth.

All this, however, in half a century is considerably altered. The Drawcansir equipments getting gradually torn off, the natural size is seen better; translated from the bulletin style into that of fact and history, miracles, even to the shilling gallery, are not so miraculous. It begins to be apparent that there lived great men before the era of bulletins and Agamemnon. Austerlitz and Wagram shot away more gunpowder—gunpowder, probably, in the proportion of ten to one, or a hundred to one; but neither of them was tenth part such a beating to your enemy as that of Rossbach, brought about by strategic art, human ingenuity and intrepidity, and the loss of one hundred and sixty-five men. Leuthen, too, the battle of Leuthen (though so few English readers ever heard of it) may very well hold up its head beside any victory gained by Napoleon or another. For the odds were not far from three to one; the soldiers were of not far from equal quality; and only the general was consummately superior, and the defeat a destruction.

Napoleon did, indeed, by immense expenditure of men and gunpowder, overrun Europe for a time; but Napoleon never, by husbanding and wisely expending his men and gunpowder, defended a little Prussia against all Europe, year after year for seven years long, till Europe had enough, and gave up the enterprise as one it could not manage. So soon as the Drawcansir equipments are well torn off and the shilling gallery got to silence, it will be found that there were great kings before Napoleon, and likewise an art of war, grounded on veracity and human courage and insight, not upon Drawcansir rodomontade, grandiose Dick-Turpinism, revolutionary madness, and unlimited expenditure of men and gunpowder. “You may paint with a very big brush, and yet not be a great painter,” says a satirical friend of mine. This is becoming more and more apparent, as the dust-whirlwind and huge uproar of the last generation gradually dies away again.

Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods; and there are various things to be said against him with good ground. To the last, a questionable hero; with much in him which one could have wished not there, and much wanting which one could have wished. But there is one feature which strikes you at an early period of the inquiry. That in his way he is a reality; that he always means what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, on what he recognizes for the truth; and, in short, has nothing whatever of the hypocrite or phantasm. Which some readers will admit to be an extremely rare phenomenon.

We perceive that this man was far indeed from trying to deal swindler-like with the facts around him; that he honestly recognized said facts wherever they disclosed themselves, and was very anxious also to ascertain their existence where still hidden or dubious. For he knew well, to a quite uncommon degree, and with a merit all the higher as it was an unconscious one, how entirely inexorable is the nature of facts, whether recognized or not, ascertained or not; how vain all cunning of diplomacy, management and sophistry, to save any mortal who does not stand on the truth of things, from sinking in the long run. Sinking to the very mudgods, with all his diplomacies, possessions, achievements; and becoming an unnamable object, hidden deep in the cesspools of the universe. This I hope to make manifest; this which I long ago discerned for myself, with pleasure, in the physiognomy of Friedrich and his life. Which, indeed, was the first real sanction, and has all along been my inducement and encouragement, to study his life and him. How this man, officially a king withal, comported himself in the eighteenth century, and managed not to be a liar and charlatan as his century was, deserves to be seen a little by men and kings, and may silently have didactic meanings in it.

He that was honest with his existence has always meaning for us, be he king or peasant. He that merely shammed and grimaced with it however much, and with whatever noise and trumpet-blowing, he may have cooked and eaten in this world, can not long have any. Some men do cook enormously (let us call it cooking, what a man does in obedience to his hunger merely, to his desires and passions merely)—roasting whole continents and populations, in the flames of war or other discord; witness the Napoleon above spoken of. For the appetite of man in that respect is unlimited; in truth, infinite; and the smallest of us could eat the entire solar system, had we the chance given, and then cry, like Alexander of Macedon, because we had no more solar systems to cook and eat. It is not the extent of the man’s cookery that can much attach me to him; but only the man himself, and what of strength he had to wrestle with the mud-elements, and what of victory he got for his own benefit and mine.