A DAY WITH FRIEDRICH.(23d July, 1779.)
Table of Contents
"OBERAMTMANN (Head-Manager) Fromme" was a sister's son of Poet, GleimGleim Canon of Halberstadt, who wrote Prussian "grenadier-songs" in, or in reference to, the Seven-Years War, songs still printed, but worth little; who begged once, after Friedrich's death, an OLD HAT of his, and took it with him to Halberstadt (where I hope it still is); who had a "Temple-of-Honor," or little Garden-house so named, with Portraits of his Friends hung in it; who put Jean Paul VERY SOON there, with a great explosion of praises; and who, in short, seems to have been a very good effervescent creature, at last rather wealthy too, and able to effervesce with some comfort;Oberamtmann Fromme, I say, was this Gleim's Nephew; and stood as a kind of Royal Land-Bailiff under Frederick the Great, in a tract of country called the RHYN-LUCH (a dreadfully moory country of sands and quagmires, all green and fertile now, some twenty or thirty miles northwest of Berlin); busy there in 1779, and had been for some years past. He had originally been an Officer of the Artillery; but obtained his discharge in 1769, and got, before long, into this employment. A man of excellent disposition and temper; with a solid and heavy stroke of work in him, whatever he might be set to; and who in this OBERAMTMANNSHIP "became highly esteemed." He died in 1798; and has left sons (now perhaps grandsons or great-grandsons), who continue estimable in like situations under the Prussian Government.
One of Fromme's useful gifts, the usefulest of all for us at present, was "his wonderful talent of exact memory." He could remember to a singular extent; and, we will hope, on this occasion, was unusually conscientious to do it. For it so happened, in July, 1779 (23d July), Friedrich, just home from his troublesome Bavarian War, [Had arrived at Berlin May 27th (Rodenbeck, iii. 201).] and again looking into everything with his own eyes, determined to have a personal view of those Moor Regions of Fromme's; to take a day's driving through that RHYN-LUCH which had cost him so much effort and outlay; and he ordered Fromme to attend him in the expedition. Which took effect accordingly; Fromme riding swiftly at the left wheel of Friedrich's carriage, and loudly answering questions of his, all day.Directly on getting home, Fromme consulted his excellent memory, and wrote down everything; a considerable Paperof which you shall now have an exact Translation, if it be worth anything. Fromme gave the Paper to Uncle Gleim; who, in his enthusiasm, showed it extensively about, and so soon as there was liberty, had it "printed, at his own expense, for the benefit of poor soldiers' children." ["Gleim's edition, brought out in 1786, the year of Friedrich's death, is now quite gonethe Book undiscoverable. But the Paper was reprinted in an ANEKDOTEN-SAMMLUNG (Collection of Anecdotes, Berlin, 1787, 8tes STUCK, where I discover it yesterday (17th July, 1852) in a copy of mine, much to my surprise; having before met with it in one Hildebrandt's ANEKDOTEN-SAMMLUNG (Halberstadt, 1830, 4tes STUCK, a rather slovenly Book), where it is given out as one of the rarest of all rarities, and as having been specially 'furnished by a Dr. W. Korte,' being unattainable otherwise! The two copies differ slightly here and therenot always to Dr. Korte's advantage, or rather hardly ever. I keep them both before me in translating" (MARGINALE OF 1852)].
"The RHYN" or Rhin, is a little river, which, near its higher clearer sources, we were all once well acquainted with: considerable little moorland river, with several branches coming down from Ruppin Country, and certain lakes and plashes there, in a southwest direction, towards the Elbe valley, towards the Havel Stream; into which latter, through another plash or lake called GULPER SEE, and a few miles farther, into the Elbe itself, it conveys, after a course of say 50 English miles circuitously southwest, the black drainings of those dreary and intricate Peatbog-and-Sand countries. "LUCH," it appears, signifies LOCH (or Hole, Hollow); and "Rhyn-Luch" will mean, to Prussian ears, the Peatbog Quagmire drained by the RHYN.New Ruppin, where this beautiful black Stream first becomes considerable, and of steadily black complexion, lies between 40 and 50 miles northwest of Berlin. Ten or twelve miles farther north is REINSBERG (properly RHYNSBERG), where Friedrich as Crown-Prince lived his happiest few years. The details of which were familiar to us long agoand no doubt dwell clear and soft, in their appropriate "pale moonlight," in Friedrich's memory on this occasion. Some time after his Accession, he gave the place to Prince Henri, who lived there till 1802. It is now fallen all dim; and there is nothing at New Ruppin but a remembrance.
To the hither edge of this Rhyn-Luoh, from Berlin, I guess there may be five-and-twenty miles, in a northwest direction; from Potsdam, whence Friedrich starts to-day, about, the same distance north-by-west; "at Seelenhorst," where Fromme waits him, Friedrich has already had 30 miles of drivingrate 10 miles an hour, as we chance to observe. Notable things, besides the Spade-husbandries he is intent on, solicit his remembrance in this region. Of Freisack and "Heavy-Peg" with her didactic batterings there, I suppose he, in those fixed times, knows nothing, probably has never heard: Freisack is on a branch of this same Rhyn, and he might see it, to left a mile or two, if he cared.
But Fehrbellin ("Ferry of BellEEN"), distinguished by the shining victory which "the Great Elector," Friedrich's Great-Grandfather, gained there, over the Swedes, in 1675, stands on the Rhyn itself, about midway; and Friedrich will pass through it on this occasion. General Ziethen, too, lives near it at Wusterau (as will be seen): "Old Ziethen," a little stumpy man, with hanging brows and thick pouting lips; unbeautiful to look upon, but pious, wise, silent, and with a terrible blaze of fighting-talent in him; full of obedience, of endurance, and yet of unsubduable "silent rage" (which has brooked even the vocal rage of Friedrich, on occasion); a really curious old Hussar General. He is now a kind of mythical or demigod personage among the Prussians; and was then (1779), and ever after the Seven-Years War, regarded popularly as their Ajax (with a dash of the Ulysses superadded)Seidlitz, another Horse General, being the Achilles of that service.
The date of this drive through the moors being "23d July, 1779," we perceive it is just about two months since Friedrich got home from the Bavarian War (what they now call "POTATO WAR," so barren was it in fighting, so ripe in foraging); victorious in a sort;and that in his private thought, among the big troubles of the world on both sides of the Atlantic, the infinitesimally small business of the MILLER ARNOLD'S LAWSUIT is beginning to rise now and then. [Supra 415, 429. Preuss, i. 362; &c. &c.]
