Bargaining, Promising, Non-performing. False in general as dicers'
oaths; false on this side and on that, from beginning to end.
Intercepted Letters from Fleury; Letter dropping from Valori's waistcoat-pocket, upon which Friedrich claps his foot: alas, alas, we are in the middle of a whole world of that. Friedrich knows that the French are false to him; he by no means intends to be romantically true to them, and that also they know. What is the use to human creatures of recording all that melancholy stuff?
If sovereign persons want their diplomacies NOT to be swept into the ash-pit, there are two conditions, especially one which is peremptory: FIRST, that they should not be lies;--SECOND, that they should be of some importance, some wisdom; which with known lies is not a possible condition. To unravel cobwebs, and register laboriously and date and sort in the sorrow of your soul the oaths of crowned dicers,--what use is it to gods or men? Having well dressed and sliced your cucumber, the next clear human duty is:
Throw it out of window. In that foul Lapland-witch world, of seething Diplomacies and monstrous wigged mendacities, horribly wicked and despicably unwise, I find nothing notable, memorable even in a small degree, except this aspect of a young King who does know what he means in it. Clear as a star, sharp as cutting steel (very dangerous to hydrogen balloons), he stands in the middle of it, and means to extort his own from it by such methods as there are.
"Magnanimous I can by no means call Friedrich to his allies and neighbors, nor even superstitiously veracious, in this business:
but he thoroughly understands, he alone, what just thing he wants out of it, and what an enormous wigged mendacity it is he has got to deal with. For the rest, he is at the gaming-table with these sharpers; their dice all cogged;--and he knows it, and ought to profit by his knowledge of it. And in short, to win his stake out of that foul weltering mellay, and go home safe with it if he can."Very well, my friend! Let us keep to windward of the Diplomatic wizard's-caldron; let Hyndford, Valori and Company preside over it, throwing in their eye of newt and limb of toad, as occasion may be.
Enough, if the reader can be brought to conceive it; and how the young King,--who perhaps alone had real business in this foul element, and did not volunteer into it like the others, though it now unexpectedly envelops him like a world-whirlwind (frightful enough, if one spoke of that to anybody), is struggling with his whole soul to get well out of it. As supremely adroit, all readers already know him; his appearance what we called starlike,--always something definite, fixed and lucid in it.
He is dexterously holding aloof from Hyndford at present, clinging to French Valori as his chosen companion: we may fancy what a time he has of it, like a polygamist amid jealous wives. It will quicken Hyndford, he perceives, in these ulterior stages, to leave him well alone. Hyndford accordingly, as we have noticed, could not see the King at all; had to try every plan, to watch, waylay the King for a bit of interview, when indispensable. However, Hyndford, with his Neipperg in sight of the peril, manages better than Robinson with his Aulic Council at a distance: besides he is a long-headed dogged kind of man, with a surly edacious strength, not inexpert in negotiation, nor easily turned aside from any purpose he may have.
Between the two Camps, nearly midway, lies a Hamlet called Klein-Schnellendorf, LITTLE Schnellendorf, to distinguish it from another Schnellendorf called GREAT, which is a mile or two northwestward, out of the straight line. Not far from the first of these poor Hamlets lies a Schloss or noble Mansion, likewise called Klein-Schnellendorf, belonging to a certain Count von Sternberg, who is not there at present, but whose servants are, and a party of Croats over them for some days back: a pleasant airy Mansion among pleasant gardens, well shut out from the intrusion of the world.
Upon this Castle of Klein-Schnellendorf judicious Hyndford has cast his eye:--and Neipperg, now come to a state of readiness, approves the suggestion of Hyndford, and promptly at the due moment converts it into a fact. Arrests namely, on a given morning (the last act of his Croats there, who withdrew directly with their batch of prisoners), every living soul within or about the Mansion;--"suspected of treason;" only for one day;--and in this way, has it reduced to the comfortable furnished solitude of Sleeping Beauty's Castle; a place fit for high persons to hold a Meeting in, which shall remain secret as the grave. Such a thing was indispensable.
For Friedrich, keeping shy of Hyndford, as he well may with a Valori watching every step, has, by words, by silences, when Hyndford could waylay him for a moment, sufficiently indicated what he will and what he will not; and, for one indispensable condition, in the present thrice-delicate Adventure, he will not sign anything; will give and take word of honor, and fully bind himself, but absolutely not put pen to paper at all. Neipperg being willing too, judicious Hyndford finds a medium. Let the parties meet at Klein-Schnellendorf, and judicious Hyndford be there with pen and paper. [Orlich, i. 146; <italic> Helden-Geschichte, <end italic>
i. 1009.]
