Chapter IV. — FATHER'S MOTHER.
Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, as we hinted, did not live to see this marriage which she had forecast in her maternal heart. She died, rather suddenly, in 1705, [1st February (Erman, p. 241; Forster, i. 114): born, 20th October, 1666; wedded, 28th September 1684; died, 1st February, 1705.] at Hanover, whither she had gone on a visit; shortly after parting with this her one boy and child, Friedrich Wilhelm, who is then about seventeen; whom she had with effort forced herself to send abroad, that he might see the world a little, for the first time. Her sorrow on this occasion has in it something beautiful, in so bright and gay a woman: shows us the mother strong in her, to a touching degree. The rough cub, in whom she noticed rugged perverse elements, "tendencies to avarice," and a want of princely graces, and the more brilliant qualities in mind and manner, had given her many thoughts and some uneasy ones. But he was evidently all she had to love in the world; a rugged creature inexpressibly precious to her. For days after his departure, she had kept solitary; busied with little; indulging in her own sad reflections without stint. Among the papers she had been scribbling, there was found one slip with a HEART sketched on it, and round the heart "PARTI" (Gone): My heart is gone!—poor lady, and after what a jewel! But Nature is very kind to all children and to all mothers that are true to her.
Sophie Charlotte's deep sorrow and dejection on this parting was the secret herald of fate to herself. It had meant ill health withal, and the gloom of broken nerves. All autumn and into winter she had felt herself indefinitely unwell; she determined, however, on seeing Hanover and her good old Mother at the usual time. The gloomy sorrow over Friedrich Wilhelm had been the premonition of a sudden illness which seized her on the road to Hanover, some five months afterwards, and which ended fatally in that city. Her death was not in the light style Friedrich her grandson ascribes to it; [ Memoires de Brandebourg (Preuss's Edition of OEuvres, Berlin, 1847 et seqq.), i. 112.] she died without epigram, and though in perfect simple courage, with the reverse of levity.
Here, at first hand, is the specific account of that event; which, as it is brief and indisputable, we may as well fish from the imbroglios, and render legible, to counteract such notions, and illuminate for moments an old scene of things. The writing, apparently a quite private piece, is by "M. de la Bergerie, Pastor of the French Church at Hanover," respectable Edict-of-Nantes gentleman, who had been called in on the occasion;—gives an authentic momentary picture, though a feeble and vacant one, of a locality at that time very interesting to Englishmen. M. de la Bergerie privately records:—
"The night between the last of January and the first of February, 1705, between one and two o'clock in the morning, I was called to the Queen of Prussia, who was then dangerously ill.
"Entering the room, I threw myself at the foot of her bed, testifying to her in words my profound grief to see her in this state. After which I took occasion to say, 'She might know now that Kings and Queens are mortal equally with all other men; and that they are obliged to appear before the throne of the majesty of God, to give an account of their deeds done, no less than the meanest of their subjects.' To which her Majesty replied, 'I know it well ( Je le sais bien ).'—I went on to say to her, 'Madam, your Majesty must also recognize in this hour the vanity and nothingness of the things here below, for which, it may be, you have had too much interest; and the importance of the things of Heaven, which perhaps you have neglected and contemned.' Thereupon the Queen answered, 'True ( Cela est vrai )!' 'Nevertheless, Madam,' said I, 'does not your Majesty place really your trust in God? Do you not very earnestly ( bien serieusement) crave pardon of Him for all the sins you have committed? Do not you fly ( n'a-t-elle pas recours ) to the blood and merits of Jesus Christ, without which it is impossible for us to stand before God?' The Queen answered, ' Oui (Yes).'—While this was going on, her Brother, Duke Ernst August, came into the Queen's room,"—perhaps with his eye upon me and my motions?"As they wished to speak together, I withdrew by order."
This Duke Ernst August, age now 31, is the youngest Brother of the family; there never was any Sister but this dying one, who is four years older. Ernst August has some tincture of soldiership at this time (Marlborough Wars, and the like), as all his kindred had; but ultimately he got the Bishopric of Osnabruck, that singular spiritual heirloom, or HALF-heirloom of the family; and there lived or vegetated without noise. Poor soul, he is the same Bishop of Osnabruck, to whose house, twenty-two years hence, George I., struck by apoplexy, was breathlessly galloping in the summer midnight, one wish now left in him, to be with his brother;—and arrived dead, or in the article of death. That was another scene Ernst August had to witness in his life. I suspect him at present of a thought that M. de la Bergerie, with his pious commonplaces, is likely to do no good. Other trait of Ernst August's life; or of the Schloss of Hanover that night—or where the sorrowing old Mother sat, invincible though weeping, in some neighboring room—I cannot give. M. de la Bergerie continues his narrative:—
"Some time after, I again presented myself before the Queen's bed, to see if I could have occasion to speak to her on the matter of her salvation. But Monseigneur the Duke Ernst August then said to me, That it was not necessary; that the Queen was at peace with her God ( etait bien avec son Dieu )."—Which will mean also that M. de la Bergerie may go home? However, he still writes:—
"Next day the Prince told me, That observing I was come near the Queen's bed, he had asked her if she wished I should still speak to her; but she had replied, that it was not necessary in any way ( nullement ), that she already knew all that could be said to her on such an occasion; that she had said it to herself, that she was still saying it, and that she hoped to be well with her God.
"In the end a faint coming upon the Queen, which was what terminated her life, I threw myself on my knees at the other side of her bed, the curtains of which were open; and I called to God with a loud voice, 'That He would rank his angels round this great Princess, to guard her from the insults of Satan; that He would have pity on her soul; that He would wash her with the blood of Jesus Christ her heavenly Spouse; that, having forgiven her all her sins, He would receive her to his glory.' And in that moment she expired." [Erman, p. 242.]—Age thirty-six and some months. Only Daughter of Electress Sophie; and Father's Mother of Frederick the Great.
She was, in her time, a highly distinguished woman; and has left, one may say, something of her likeness still traceable in the Prussian Nation, and its form of culture, to this day. Charlottenburg (Charlotte's-town, so called by the sorrowing Widower), where she lived, shone with a much-admired French light under her presidency—French essentially, Versaillese, Sceptico-Calvinistic, reflex and direct—illuminating the dark North; and indeed has never been so bright since. The light was not what we can call inspired; lunar rather, not of the genial or solar kind: but, in good truth, it was the best then going; and Sophie Charlotte, who was her Mother's daughter in this as in other respects, had made it her own. They were deep in literature, these two Royal Ladies; especially deep in French theological polemics, with a strong leaning to the rationalist side.
They had stopped in Rotterdam once, on a certain journey homewards from Flanders and the Baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, to see that admirable sage, the doubter Bayle. Their sublime messenger roused the poor man, in his garret there, in the Bompies—after dark: but he had a headache that night; was in bed, and could not come. He followed them next day; leaving his paper imbroglios, his historical, philosophical, anti-theological marine-stores; and suspended his never-ending scribble, on their behalf;—but would not accept a pension, and give it up. [Erman, pp. 111, 112. Date is 1700 (late in the autumn probably).]
They were shrewd, noticing, intelligent and lively women; persuaded that there was some nobleness for man beyond what the tailor imparts to him; and even very eager to discover it, had they known how. In these very days, while our little Friedrich at Berlin lies in his cradle, sleeping most of his time, sage Leibnitz, a rather weak but hugely ingenious old gentleman, with bright eyes and long nose, with vast black peruke and bandy legs, is seen daily in the Linden Avenue at Hanover (famed Linden Alley, leading from Town Palace to Country one,