Part 13

ICH. "'Your Majesty, that is Havelberg.'

KING. "'Na, come here, all of you!' (THERE WERE AMTSRATH KLAUSIUS, BAUINSPECTOR MENZELIUS AND I.) 'Hear now, the tract of moor here to the left must also be reclaimed; and what is to the right too, so far as the moor extends. What kind of wood is there on it?'

ICH. "'Alders (ELSEN) and oaks, your Majesty.'

KING. "'Na! the alders you may root out; and the oaks may continue standing; the people may sell these, or use them otherwise. When once the ground is arable, I reckon upon 300 families for it, and 500 head of cows,--ha?'--Nobody answered; at last I began, and said:--

ICH. "'Ja, your Majesty, perhaps!'

KING. "'Hear now, you may answer me with confidence. There will be more or fewer families. I know well enough one cannot, all at once, exactly say. I was never there, don't know the ground; otherwise I could understand equally with you how many families could be put upon it.'

THE BAUINSPECTOR. "'Your Majesty, the LUCH is still subject to rights of common from a great many hands.'

KING. "'No matter for that. You must make exchanges, give them an equivalent, according as will answer best in the case. I want nothing from anybody except at its value.' [TO AMTSRATH KLAUSIUS] 'Na, hear now, you can write to my Kammer [BOARD, Board-of-Works that does NOT sit idle!], what it is that I want reclaimed to the plough; the money for it I will give.' [TO ME] 'And you, you go to Berlin, and explain to my Geheimer-Rath Michaelis, by word of mouth, what it is I want reclaimed.'

"His Majesty now stept into his carriage again [was Gortz sitting all the while, still in silence? Or had he perhaps got out at the bottom of the hill, and sat down to a contemplative pipe of tobacco, the smoke of which, heart-cheering to Gortz, was always disagreeable to Friedrich? Nobody knows!]--and drove down the hill; there the horses were changed. And now, as his Majesty's order was that I should 'attend him to the Stollen hills,' I went up to the carriage, and asked:--

ICH. "'Does your Majesty command that I should yet accompany farther' ["BEFEHLEN, command," in the plural is polite, "your Majesty, that I yet farther shall WITH"]?

KING. "'No, my son; ride, in God's name, home.'--

"The Herr Amtsrath [Klau-si-us] then accompanied his Majesty to Rathenow, where he [THEY: His Majesty is plural] lodged in the Post-house. At Rathenow, during dinner, his Majesty was uncommonly cheerful: he dined with Herr Lieutenant-Colonel von Backhof of the Carabineers, and the Herr Lieutenant-Colonel von Backhof himself has related that his Majesty said:--

"'My good Von Backhof (MEIN LIEBER VON BACKHOF): if He have not for a long time been in the Fehrbellin neighborhood, go there.'" Fehrbellin, the Prussian BANNOCKBURN; where the Great Elector cut the hitherto invincible Swedes IN TWO, among the DAMS and intricate moory quagmires, with a vastly inferior force, nearly all of cavalry (led by one DERFLINGER, who in his apprentice time had been a TAILOR); beat one end of them all to rags, then galloped off and beat the other into ditto; quite taking the conceit out of the Swedes, or at least clearing Prussia of them forever and a day: a feat much admired by Friedrich: "'Go there,' he says. 'That region is uncommonly improved [as I saw to-day]! I have not for a long time had such a pleasant drive. I decided on this journey because I had no REVIEW on hand; and it has given me such pleasure that I shall certainly have another by and by.'

"'Tell me now: how did you get on in the last War [KARTOFFEL KRIEG, no fighting, only a scramble for proviant and "potatoes"]? Most likely ill! You in Saxony too could make nothing out. The reason was, we had not men to fight against, but cannons! I might have done a thing or two; but I should have sacrificed more than the half of my Army, and shed innocent human blood. In that case I should have deserved to be taken to the Guard-house door, and to have got a sixscore there (EINEN OFFFENTLICHEN PRODUKT)! Wars are becoming frightful to carry on.'

"'This was surely touching to hear from the mouth of a great Monarch,' said Herr Lieutenant-Colonel von Backhof to me, and tears came into that old soldier's eyes." Afterwards his Majesty had said:--

"Of the Battle of Fehrbellin I know everything, almost as if I myself had been there! While I was Crown-Prince, and lay in Ruppin, there was an old townsman, the man was even then very old: he could describe the whole Battle, and knew the scene of it extremely well. Once I got into a carriage, took my old genius with me, who showed me all over the ground, and described everything so distinctly, I was much contented with him. As we were coming back, I thought: Come, let me have a little fun with the old blade;--so I asked him: 'Father, don't you know, then, why the two Sovereigns came to quarrel with one another?'--'O ja, your Royal HighnessES [from this point we have Platt-Deutsch, PRUSSIAN dialect, for the old man's speech; barely intelligible, as Scotch is to an ingenious Englishman], DAT WILL ICK SE WOHL SEGGEN, I can easily tell you that. When our Chorforste [Kurfursts, Great Elector] was young, he studied in Utrecht; and there the King of Sweden happened to be too. And now the two young lords picked some quarrel, got to pulling caps [fell into one another's hair], AND DIT IS NU DE PICKE DAVON, and this now was the upshot of it.'--His Majesty spoke this in Platt-Deutsch, as here given;--but grew at table so weary that he (they) fell asleep." So far Backhof;--and now again Fromme by way of finish:--

"Of his Majesty's journey I can give no farther description. For though his Majesty spoke and asked many things else; it would be difficult to bring them all to paper." And so ends the DAY WITH FRIEDRICH THE GREAT; very flat, but I dare say very TRUE:--a Daguerrotype of one of his Days.