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HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II OF PRUSSIA V 21
HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II OF PRUSSIA V 21 THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia"
Book XXI
Processed by D.R. Thompson
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BOOK XXI.
AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF FRIEDRICH'S LIFE.
1763-1786.
Chapter I.
PREFATORY.
The Twelve Hercules-labors of this King have ended here; what was
required of him in World-History is accomplished. There remain to
Friedrich Twenty-three Years more of Life which to Prussian
History are as full of importance as ever; but do not essentially
concern European History Europe having gone the road we now see it
in. On the grand World-Theatre the curtain has fallen for a New
Act; Friedrich's part like everybody's for the present is played
out. In fact there is during the rest of his Reign nothing of
World-History to be dwelt on anywhere. America it has been
decided shall be English; Prussia be a Nation. The French as
finis of their attempt to cut Germany in Four find themselves sunk
into torpor abeyance and dry-rot; fermenting towards they know not
what. Towards Spontaneous Combustion in the year 1789 and for long
years onwards!
There readers there is the next milestone for you in the History
of Mankind! That universal Burning-up as in hell-fire of Human
Shams. The oath of Twenty-five Million men which has since become
that of all men whatsoever "Rather than live longer under lies we
will die!"--that is the New Act in World-History. New Act--or we
may call it New PART; Drama of World-History Part Third. If Part
SECOND was 1800 years ago this I reckon will be Part THIRD.
This is the truly celestial-infernal Event: the strangest we have
seen for a thousand years. Celestial in one part; in the other
infernal. For it is withal the breaking out of universal mankind
into Anarchy into the faith and practice of NO-Government--that
is to say (if you will be candid) into unappeasable Revolt against
Sham-Governors and Sham-Teachers--which I do charitably define to
be a Search most unconscious yet in deadly earnest for true
Governors and Teachers. That is the one fact of World-History worth
dwelling on at this day; and Friedrich cannot be said to have had
much hand farther in that.
Nor is the progress of a French or European world all silently
ripening and rotting towards such issue a thing one wishes to
dwell on. Only when the Spontaneous Combustion breaks out;
and many-colored with loud noises envelops the whole world in
anarchic flame for long hundreds of years: then has the Event come;
there is the thing for all men to mark and to study and scrutinize
as the strangest thing they ever saw. Centuries of it yet lying
ahead of us; several sad Centuries sordidly tumultuous and good
for little! Say Two Centuries yet--say even Ten of such a process:
before the Old is completely burnt out and the New in any state of
sightliness? Millennium of Anarchies;--abridge it spend your
heart's-blood upon abridging it ye Heroic Wise that are to come!
For it is the consummation of All the Anarchies that are and were;
--which I do trust always means the death (temporary death) of
them! Death of the Anarchies: or a world once more built wholly on
Fact better or worse; and the lying jargoning professor of Sham-
Fact whose name is Legion who as yet (oftenest little conscious
of himself) goes tumulting and swarming from shore to shore become
a species extinct and well known to be gone down to Tophet!--
There were bits of Anarchies before little and greater: but till
that of France in 1789 there was none long memorable; all were
pygmies in comparison and not worth mentioning separately.
In 1772 the Anarchy of Poland which had been a considerable
Anarchy for about three hundred years got itself extinguished--
what we may call extinguished;--decisive surgery being then first
exercised upon it: an Anarchy put in the sure way of extinction.
In 1775 again there began over seas another Anarchy much more
considerable--little dreaming that IT could be called an Anarchy;
on the contrary calling itself Liberty Rights of Man; and singing
boundless Io-Paeans to itself as is common in such cases;
an Anarchy which has been challenging the Universe to show the like
ever since. And which has at last flamed up as an independent
Phenomenon unexampled in the hideously SUICIDAL way;--and does
need much to get burnt out that matters may begin anew on truer
conditions. But neither the PARTITION OF POLAND nor the AMERICAN
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE have much general importance or except as
precursors of 1789 are worth dwelling on in History. From us here
so far as Friedrich is concerned with them they may deserve some
transient mention more or less: but World-History eager to be at
the general Funeral-pile and ultimate Burning-up of Shams in this
poor World will have less and less to say of small tragedies and
premonitory symptoms.
Curious how the busy and continually watchful and speculating
Friedrich busied about his dangers from Austrian encroachments
from Russian-Turk Wars Bavarian Successions and other troubles
and anarchies close by saw nothing to dread in France; nothing to
remark there except carelessly from time to time its beggarly
decaying condition so strangely sunk in arts in arms in finance;
oftenest an object of pity to him for he still has a love for
France;--and reads not the least sign of that immeasurable all-
engulfing FRENCH REVOLUTION which was in the wind! Neither Voltaire
nor he have the least anticipation of such a thing. Voltaire and he
see to their contentment Superstition visibly declining:
Friedrich rather disapproves the heat of Voltaire's procedures on
the INFAME. "Why be in such heat? Other nonsense quite equal to
it will be almost sure to follow. Take care of your own skin!"
Voltaire and he are deeply alive especially Voltaire is to the
horrors and miseries which have issued on mankind from a Fanatic
Popish Superstition or Creed of Incredibilities--which (except
from the throat outwards from the bewildered tongue outwards) the
orthodox themselves cannot believe but only pretend and struggle
to believe. This Voltaire calls "THE INFAMOUS;" and this--what name
can any of us give it? The man who believes in falsities is very
miserable. The man who cannot believe them but only struggles and
pretends to believe; and yet being armed with the power of the
sword industriously keeps menacing and slashing all round to
compel every neighbor to do like him: what is to be done with such
a man? Human Nature calls him a Social Nuisance; needing to be
handcuffed gagged and abated. Human Nature if it be in a
terrified and imperilled state with the sword of this fellow
swashing round it calls him "Infamous" and a Monster of Chaos.
He is indeed the select Monster of that region; the Patriarch of
all the Monsters little as he dreams of being such. An Angel of
Heaven the poor caitiff dreams himself rather and in cheery
moments is conscious of being:--Bedlam holds in it no madder
article. And I often think he will again need to be tied up (feeble
as he now is in comparison disinclined though men are to manacling
and tying); so many helpless infirm souls are wandering about not
knowing their right hand from their left who fall a prey to him.
"L'INFAME" I also name him--knowing well enough how little he in
his poor muddled drugged and stupefied mind is conscious of
deserving that name. More signal enemy to God and friend of the
Other Party walks not the Earth in our day.
Anarchy in the shape of religious slavery was what Voltaire and
Friedrich saw all round them. Anarchy in the shape of Revolt
against Authorities was what Friedrich and Voltaire had never
dreamed of as possible and had not in their minds the least idea
of. In one or perhaps two places you may find in Voltaire a grim
and rather glad forethought not given out as prophecy but felt as
interior assurance in a moment of hope How these Priestly Sham
Hierarchies will be pulled to pieces probably on the sudden once
people are awake to them. Yes my much-suffering M. de Voltaire be
pulled to pieces; or go aloft like the awakening of Vesuvius one
day--Vesuvius awakening after ten centuries of slumber when his
crater is all grown grassy bushy copiously "tenanted by wolves" I
am told; which after premonitory grumblings heeded by no wolf or
bush he will hurl bodily aloft ten acres at a time in a very
tremendous manner! [First modern Eruption of Vesuvius A.D. 1631
after long interval of rest.] A thought like this about the
Priestly Sham-Hierarchies I have found somewhere in Voltaire:
but of the Social and Civic Sham-Hierarchies (which are likewise
accursed if they knew it and indeed are junior co-partners of the
Priestly; and in a sense sons and products of them and cannot
escape being partakers of their plagues) there is no hint in
Voltaire though Voltaire stood at last only fifteen years from the
Fact (1778-1793); nor in Friedrich though he lived almost to see
the Fact beginning.
Friedrich's History being henceforth that of a Prussian King is
interesting to Prussia chiefly and to us little otherwise than as
the Biography of a distinguished fellow-man Friedrich's Biography
his Physiognomy as he grows old quietly on his own harvest-field
among his own People: this has still an interest and for any
feature of this we shall be eager enough; but this withal is the
most of what we now want. And not very much even of this;
Friedrich the unique King not having as a man any such depth and
singularity tragic humorous devotionally pious or other as to
authorize much painting in that aspect. Extreme brevity beseems us
in these circumstances: and indeed there are--as has already
happened in different parts of this Enterprise (Nature herself in
her silent way being always something of an Artist in such
things)--other circumstances which leave us no choice as to that
of detail. Available details if we wished to give them of
Friedrich's later Life are not forthcoming: masses of incondite
marine-stores tumbled out on you dry rubbish shot with uncommon
diligence for a hundred years till for Rubbish-Pelion piled on
Rubbish-Ossa you lose sight of the stars and azimuths;
whole mountain continents seemingly all of cinders and sweepings
(though fragments and remnants do lie hidden could you find them
again):---these are not details that will be available!
Anecdotes there are in quantity; but of uncertain quality;
of doubtful authenticity above all. One recollects hardly any
Anecdote whatever that seems completely credible or renders to us
the Physiognomy of Friedrich in a convincing manner. So remiss a
creature has the Prussian Clio been--employed on all kinds of
loose errands over the Earth and the Air; and as good as altogether
negligent of this most pressing errand in her own House. Peace be
with her poor slut; why should we say one other hard word on
taking leave of her to all eternity!--
The Practical fact is what we have henceforth to produce is more
of the nature of a loose Appendix of Papers than of a finished
Narrative. Loose Papers--which we will hope the reader can by
industry be made to understand and tolerate: more we cannot do for
him. No continuous Narrative is henceforth possible to us. For the
sake of Friedrich's closing Epoch we will visit for the last
time that dreary imbroglio under which the memory of Friedrich
which ought to have been in all the epochs of it bright and
legible lies buried; and will try to gather as heretofore and
put under labels. What dwells with oneself as human may have some
chance to be humanly interesting. In the wildest chaos of marine-
stores and editorial shortcomings (provided only the editors speak
truth as these poor fellows do) THIS can be done. Part the living
from the dead; pick out what has some meaning leave carefully what
has none; you will in some small measure pluck up the memory of a
hero like drowned honor by the locks and rescue it
into visibility.
That Friedrich on reaching home made haste to get out of the
bustle of joyances and exclamations on the streets; proceeded
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