Friedrich's Winter in Breslau was of secluded, silent, sombre character, this time; nothing of stir in it but from work only: in marked contrast with the last, and its kindly visitors and gayeties. A Friedrich given up to his manifold businesses, to his silent sorrows. "I have passed my winter like a Carthusian monk," he writes to D'Argens: "I dine alone; I spend my life in reading and writing; and I do not sup. When one is sad, it becomes at last too burdensome to hide one's grief continually; and it is better to give way to it by oneself, than to carry one's gloom into society. Nothing solaces me but the vigorous application required in steady and continuous labor. This distraction does force one to put away painful ideas, while it lasts: but, alas, no sooner is the work done, than these fatal companions present themselves again, as if livelier than ever. Maupertuis was right: the sum of evil does certainly surpass that of good:—but to me it is all one; I have almost nothing more to lose; and my few remaining days, what matters it much of what complexion they be?" ["Breslau, 1st March, 1759," To D'Argens (OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 56).]
The loss of his Wilhelmina, had there been no other grief, has darkened all his life to Friedrich. Readers are not prepared for the details of grief we could give, and the settled gloom of mind they indicate. A loss irreparable and immeasurable; the light of life, the one loved heart that loved him, gone. His passionate appeals to Voltaire to celebrate for him in verse his lost treasure, and at least make her virtues immortal, are perhaps known to readers: [ODE SUR LA MORT DE S. A. S. MADAME LA PRINCESSE DE BAREITH (in OEuvres de Voltaire, xviii. 79-86): see Friedrich's Letter to him (6th November, 1758); with Voltaire's VERSES in Answer (next month); Friedrich's new Letter (Breslau, 23d January 1759), demanding something more,—followed by the ODE just cited (Ib. lxxii. 402; lxxviii. 82, 92; or OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 20-24: &c.) alas, this is a very feeble kind of immortality, and Friedrich too well feels it such. All Winter he dwells internally on the sad matter, though soon falling silent on it to others.
The War is ever more dark and dismal to him; a wearing, harassing, nearly disgusting task; on which, however, depends life or death. This Year, he "expects to have 300,000 enemies upon him;" and "is, with his utmost effort, getting up 150,000 to set against them." Of business, in its many kinds, there can be no lack! In the intervals he also wrote considerably: one of his Pieces is a SERMON ON THE LAST JUDGMENT; handed to Reader De Catt, one evening:—to De Catt's surprise, and to ours; the Voiceless in a dark Friedrich trying to give itself some voice in this way! [OEuvres de Frederic, xv. 1-10 (see Preuss's PREFACE there; Formey, SOUVENIRS, i. 37; &c. &c.)] Another Piece, altogether practical, and done with excellent insight, brevity, modesty, is ON TACTICS; [REFLEXIONS SUR LA TACTIQUE: in OEuvres de Frederic, xxviii. 153-166.]—properly it might be called, "Serious very Private Thoughts," thrown on paper, and communicated only to two or three, "On the new kind of Tactics necessary with those Austrians and their Allies," who are in such overwhelming strength. "To whose continual sluggishness, and strange want of concert, to whose incoherency of movements, languor of execution, and other enormous faults, we have owed, with some excuse for our own faults, our escaping of destruction hitherto,"—but had better NOT trust that way any longer! Fouquet is one of the highly select, to whom he communicates this Piece; adding along with it, in Fouquet's case, an affectionate little Note, and, in spite of poverty, some New-year's Gift, as usual,—the "Widow's Mite [300 pounds, we find]; receive it with the same heart with which it was set apart for you: a small help, which you may well have need of, in these calamitous times." ["Breslau, 23d December, 1758;" with Fouquet's Answer, 2d January, 1759: in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 114-117.] Fouquet much admires the new Tactical Suggestions;—seems to think, however, that the certainly practicable one is, in particular, the last, That of "improving our Artillery to some equality with theirs." For which, as may appear, the King has already been taking thought, in more ways than one.
Finance is naturally a heavy part of Friedrich's Problem; the part which looks especially impossible, from our point of vision! In Friedrich's Country, the War Budget does not differ from the Peace one. Neither is any borrowing possible; that sublime Art, of rolling over on you know not whom the expenditure, needful or needless, of your heavy-laden self, had not yet—though England is busy at it—been invented among Nations. Once, or perhaps twice, from the STANDE of some willing Province, Friedrich negotiated some small Loan; which was punctually repaid when Peace came, and was always gratefully remembered. But these are as nothing, in face of such expenses; and the thought how he did contrive on the Finance side, is and was not a little wonderful. An ingenious Predecessor, whom I sometimes quote, has expressed himself in these words:—
"Such modicum of Subsidy [he is speaking of the English Subsidy in 1758], how useful will it prove in a Country bred everywhere to Spartan thrift, accustomed to regard waste as sin, and which will lay out no penny except to purpose! I guess the Prussian Exchequer is, by this time, much on the ebb; idle precious metals tending everywhere towards the melting-pot. At what precise date the Friedrich-Wilhelm balustrades, and enormous silver furnitures, were first gone into, Dryasdust has not informed me: but we know they all went; as they well might. To me nothing is so wonderful as Friedrich's Budget during this War. One day it will be carefully investigated, elucidated and made conceivable and certain to mankind: but that as yet is far from being the case. We walk about in it with astonishment; almost, were it possible, with incredulity. Expenditure on this side, work done on that: human nature, especially British human nature, refuses to conceive it. Never in this world, before or since, was the like. The Friedrich miracles in War are great; but those in Finance are almost greater. Let Dryasdust bethink him; and gird his flabby loins to this Enterprise; which is very behooveful in these Californian times!"—
The general Secret of Prussian Thrift, I do fear, is lost from the world. And how an Army of about 200,000, in field and garrison, could be kept on foot, and in some ability to front combined Europe, on about Three Million Sterling annually ("25 million THALERS"=3,150,000 pounds, that is the steady War-Budget of those years), remains to us inconceivable enough;—mournfully miraculous, as it were; and growing ever more so in the Nugget-generations that now run. Meanwhile, here are what hints I could find, on the Origins of that modest Sum, which also are a wonder: [Preuss, ii. 388-392; Stenzel, v. 137-141.]—
"The hoarded Prussian Moneys, or 'TREASURES' [two of them, KLEINE SCHATZ, GROSSE SCHATZ, which are rigidly saved in Peace years, for incidence of War], being nearly run out, there had come the English Subsidy: this, with Saxony, and the Home revenues and remnants of SCHATZ had sufficed for 1758; but will no longer suffice. Next to Saxony, the English Subsidy (670,000 pounds due the second time this year) was always Friedrich's principal resource: and in the latter years of the War, I observe, it was nearly twice the amount of what all his Prussian Countries together, in their ravaged and worn-out state, could yield him. In and after 1759, besides Home Income, which is gradually diminishing, and English Subsidy, which is a steady quantity, Friedrich's sources of revenue are mainly Two:—
"FIRST, there is that of wringing money from your Enemies, from those that have deserved ill of you,—such of them as you can come at. Enemies, open or secret, even Ill-wishers, we are not particular, provided only they lie within arm's-length. Under this head fall principally three Countries (and their three poor Populations, in lieu of their Governments): Saxony, Mecklenburg (or the main part of it, Mecklenburg-SCHWERIN), and Anhalt; from these three there is a continual forced supply of money and furnishings. Their demerits to Friedrich differ much in intensity; nor is his wringing of them—which in the cases of Mecklenburg and Saxony increases year by year to the nearly intolerable pitch—quite in the simple ratio of their demerits; but in a compound ratio of that and of his indignation and of his wants.
"Saxony, as Prime Author of this War, was from the first laid hold of, collared tightly: 'Pay the shot, then, what you can' (in the end it was almost what you cannot)! As to Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the grudge against Prussia was of very old standing, some generations now; and the present Duke, not a very wise Sovereign more than his Ancestors, had always been ill with Friedrich; willing to spite and hurt him when possible: in Reichs Diet he, of all German Princes, was the first that voted for Friedrich's being put to Ban of the Reich,—he; and his poor People know since whether that was a wise step! The little Anhalt Princes, too, all the Anhalts, Dessau, Bernburg, Cothen, Zerbst [perhaps the