"That same charming young Countess Flemming is still here, age now thirty-one; charming, more than ever, though now under a changed name; having wedded a Von Racknitz (Supreme Gentleman-Usher, or some such thing) a few years ago, and brought him children and the usual felicities. How much is changed! August the Strong, where is he; and his famous Three Hundred and Fifty-four, Enchantress Orzelska and the others, where are they? Enchantress Orzelska wedded, quarrelled, and is in a convent: her charming destiny concluded. Rutowski is not now in the Prussian Army: he got beaten, Wednesday last, at Kesselsdorf, fighting against that Army. And the Chevalier de Saxe, he too was beaten there;--clambering now across the Metal Mountains, ask not of him. And the Marechal de Saxe, he takes Cities, fights Battles of Fontenoy, 'mumbling a lead bullet all day;' being dropsical, nearly dead of debaucheries; the most dissolute (or probably so) of all the Sons of Adam in his day.
August the Physically Strong is dead. August the Spiritually Weak is fled to Prag with his Bruhl. And we do not come, this time, to get a flute; but to settle the account of Victories, and give Peace to Nations. Strange, here as always, to look back,--to look round or forward,--in the mad huge whirl of that loud-roaring Loom of Time!--One of Countess Racknitz's Sons happened to leave MANUSCRIPTDIARIES [rather feeble, not too exact-looking], and gives us, from Mamma's reminiscences" ... Not a word more. [Rodenbeck,
Beitrage, i. 440, et seq.]
The Peace, we said, was signed on Christmas-day. Next day, Sunday, Friedrich attended Sermon in the Kreuzkirche (Protestant High-Church of Dresden), attended Opera withal; and on Monday morning had vanished out of Dresden, as all his people had done, or were diligently doing. Tuesday, he dined briefly at Wusterhausen (a place we once knew well), with the Prince of Prussia, whose it now is; got into his open carriage again, with the said Prince and his other Brother Ferdinand; and drove swiftly homeward. Berlin, drunk with joy, was all out on the streets, waiting. On the Heath of Britz, four or five miles hitherward of Berlin, a body of young gentlemen ("Merchants mostly, who had ridden out so far") saluted him with "VIVAT FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE (Long live Friedrich THEGREAT)!" thrice over;--as did, in a less articulate manner, Berlin with one voice, on his arrival there; Burgher Companies lining the streets; Population vigorously shouting; Pupils of the Koln Gymnasium, with Clerical and School Functionaries in mass, breaking out into Latin Song:--"VIVAT, VIVAT FRIDERICUS REX;VIVAT AUGUSTUS, MAGNUS, FELIX, PATER, PATRI-AE--!"--and what not. [Preuss, i. 220; who cites Beschreibung ("Description of his Majesty's Triumphant Entry, on the" &c.) and other Contemporary Pamphlets. Rodenbeck, i. 124.]
On reaching the Portal of the Palace, his Majesty stept down;and, glancing round the Schloss-Platz and the crowded windows and simmering multitudes, saluted, taking off his hat; which produced such a shout,--naturally the loudest of all. And so EXIT King, into his interior. Tuesday, 2-3 P.M., 28th December, 1745: a King new-christened in the above manner, so far as people could.
Illuminated Berlin shone like noon, all that night (the beginning of a GAUDEAMUS which lasted miscellaneously for weeks):--but the King stole away to see a friend who was dying; that poor Duhan de Jaudun, his early Schoolmaster, who had suffered much for him, and whom he always much loved. Duhan died, in a day or two.
Poor Jordan, poor Keyserling (the "Cesarion" of young days):
them also he has lost; and often laments, in this otherwise bright time. {In OEuvres, xvii. 288; xviii. 141;IB. 142 (painfully tender Letters to Frau von Camas and others, on these events).
