Among the officers the grievances were different, but scarcely less. Noble birth was in nearly all cases held indispensable for promotion. On any vacancy occurring in a regiment, the colonel was required by the rules to recommend to his majesty for appointment the most deserving subaltern, provided only that he was noble. In several instances, even foreign noblemen were, avowedly on the ground of their birth, preferred for officers' places to native plebeians. In like manner, none but youths than the right of the stronger, and no better plea | madness!* Amongst the Prussian peasants such than the wolf in the fable gives the lamb-this was the horror of entering the army that it became injustice, great and grievous though it be, can necessary to promulgate an edict against those who scarcely dim the lustre of his victories. Who had cut off their own thumbs, hoping by such mucould forget that immortal strife of seven years, tilation to disqualify themselves for the service! when, with no other ally than England, Frederick We may observe in passing, that according to stood firm against all the chief powers of the Con- Saumaise and Horne Tooke a similar practice gave tinent combined? Who could fail to admire that rise to the French word Poltron (quasi pollice self-taught skill with which he overthrew his truncatus.) enemies, or that lofty spirit with which he bore, and at last retrieved, reverses? How heroic he appears at Rosbach when scattering far and wide the three-fold numbers of France! How heroic when, after that battle, which as he said himself had merely gained him leisure to fight another battle elsewhere, (so closely was he then beset with foes,) he marched against the Austrians in Silesia, disregarded their strong position, contemned the winter season, and declared that he was resolved to assail them even though they had intrenched of good family were allowed admission into the colthemselves on the church-steeples of Breslau! How glorious the day of Leuthen which followed, and which Napoleon has pronounced a masterpiece in war! How not less glorious in the succeeding ification-"not of true and right nobility," says summer the day of Zorndorf, when Frederick looked down on the heaps of Russian slain, and beheld the Czarina's army destroyed rather than defeated by his arms! Nor, again, is the honor slight of having maintained in perfect discipline, and with unimpaired renown, during twenty-three years of peace, an army of an hundred and fifty thousand men. To the last, while Frederick lived, the well-earned military fame of Prussia was worthily upheld. Twenty years after his death on the field of Jena it was clearly proved how much the high merit of that army depended on his own. When at St. Helena Napoleon was asked which were the best troops that the world had ever seen, he answered (not perhaps without some injustice both to himself and to his adversary at Waterloo)—" The Carthaginians under Hannibal, the Romans under the Scipios, the Macedonians under Alexander, and the Prussians under Frederick !"'* lege of cadets. So late as 1784 we find Frederick directing the expulsion of three brothers named Stephani as being deficient in this essential qual the king himself. Celibacy, though recommended in most services, has never yet been so rigidly enforced in any other; as an instance, it is mentioned that when, in 1778, the Baireuth regiment of dragoons was reviewed by the king, it contained seventy-four officers, and of these not one-from the commander, General Bülow, down to the youngest ensign-was a married man! In other respects the duties were very severe, and the least departures from them punished by long arrests, while the pay was extremely small, and leave of absence seldom granted. Scanty, however, as were the allowances of the Prussian army, they absorbed the larger share of the revenues of the state. In 1740, just before the accession of Frederick, it is stated that from a total income of 7,137,000 dollars, not less than 5,977,000 were devoted to the military department. At Frederick's decease in 1786, when the provinces had more than doubled in extent and populaYet even this discipline had its dark side. In our tion, and much more than doubled in productive own times experience has proved that the due obedi- industry, the income was twenty-two millions, and ence of soldiers does not depend on their ill-treat- the expenses of the army thirteen. Yet, notwithment. But far different maxims prevailed in Fred-standing this constant and enormous drain on his erick's age, and the good order of his troops was resources, such was the wise economy of Frederick, maintained by a large amount of individual suffering. that he never seemed to want money whenever any In the first place, the non-commissioned officers plied object of public utility seemed to need assistance. the cane without stint or mercy on the common | We have already noticed his taste for building as men. If we were required to draw an emblematic shown in his costly palaces, but it would be doing picture of a Prussian soldier of those days, we him great injustice to suppose that it was confined should portray him covered with scars in front to them; not only his capital, but his principal from his enemy, and covered with scars behind cities, such as Breslau, owed him the construction from his corporal! A veteran of Frederick's army, of libraries, theatres, and other stately public ediwho was still alive in 1833, recently described the fices, besides new streets and squares for private dreadful effect of those cruelties which he witnessed houses. In one of his letters of 1773, he is able in Silesia-how many poor soldiers were flogged to boast with just pride that he had that very year to desertion, how many to suicide, how many to begun to rebuild some towns in Prussian Poland, * Schlesische Provincial-blätter, ix., p. 241, as quoted by + Von wahrem und rechten Adel. To Volatire, Oct. 24, 1773. *Mémorial de St. Hélène, par le Comte de Las Cases, Preuss. vol. vi., p. 6. which had lain in ruins ever since the pestilence | suffered this year by the inundations of the Oder, of 1709. In the same year he made arrangement and had found the damage by no means so great as for founding sixty new villages among the waste it had been represented to him. 'One ought not,' lands of Upper Silesia, and for rebuilding two ities of nature, however frightful they seem at first; he added, 'to be too much dismayed by such calamtowns in the same district, which had been de- since nature is apt herself to repair, and at no long stroyed by conflagration; "They were of wood," interval, the havoc she has made.' At Freienwalde says he, "but they shall now be of brick or of there were only two small breaches in the dam, and stone from the neighboring quarries which we have only about twenty-five houses slightly damaged, so opened." In 1775 we find him establish and endow that the whole real loss of the inhabitants would be at once an hundred and eighty schools in his new scarcely more than a few cartloads of hay and the Polish province-some, of the Protestant, and growing crops on the ground. His majesty then others of the Roman Catholic communion. Were of such large sums as you have proposed to me to proceeded: I do not therefore see the necessity there any veins of metal discovered in the moun-grant in remission of taxes and compensations for tains-did any district suffer either from drought losses. However, I will allow 60,000 dollars. or inundation in the plains-did any new manu-When the water shall have flowed off again the facture call for bounties-was there any attempt minister of state Von Hagen shall go to the of producing at home instead of importing from spot and examine everything more exactly. But abroad-in all these, and many other such cases, isfied at finding the new church in the Oder-bruch I cannot conceal from you how much I was dissatand without distinction of province or of creed, the not yet completed. I desire that you will again succoring hand of Frederick was extended. His send a sharp order to Lieut. Colonel Petri to take subjects found that he would not give alms to measures for having the church ready soon, or it compassion, but only aids to restoration or improve-shall be the worse for him!' the sums proposed to be allotted, and said,‘1. That ment; he would help them whenever they would "Upon this his majesty took up the account of bestir themselves. On his yearly journeys through his states he was always on the watch for old abuses to correct, or new works of public benefit to commence. His questions were ever: Why not drain yonder marshes? why should that range of hills remain bare? might not this sheltered hollow bear fruit-trees? should not a new bridge span that river, or a new road pierce that forest? Nor were these mere vague recommendations: they became the first germ of speedy plans and estimates, and when the king passed by in the ensuing year, or summoned his provincial officers to Potsdam, he insisted on ascertaining what real progress had been made. Activity of any kind is rare, when great wealth and power of indolence exist; but how much rarer still to find it thus well-directed and steady in its aim! We had once the high honor of being for a short time in the company of a prince, whose mind struck us as a curious contrast to Frederick's; he asked nearly the same questions, but seldom paused to hear the answer, or cried, "Right-quite right—exactly so" whatever the answer might be ! To show more clearly how close and minute was Frederick's superintendence of his provincial affairs, we will give an account of one of his "Ministers' Reviews," as they were termed that is a conference which he held every summer with the principal holders of office. which took place at Sans Souci on the 1st of June, 1770, a summary was drawn up by the minister of state Von Derschau, for the information of an absent colleague : Of the one "His majesty received us with a most gracious countenance, and said Gentlemen, I have caused you to come that we might examine our household affairs together.' We replied that we had duly prepared ourselves for this investigation; upon which he proceeded to say that he had himself inspected in the Oder-bruch the district which had *To Voltaire, Oct. 34, 1773. + Letter to d'Alembert, June 19, 1775. "When this was over, the king looked through with a keen eye the accounts of the Chambre des Domaines and of the Caisse Militaire, and signed them respectively. He then opened his desk, drew out a paper, and read to us a statement of the considerable sums which he intends this year, as far as he finds it possible, to devote to the benefit of his dominions. Among these sums we especially noticed 300,000 dollars for the nobility of Pomerania, 20,000 for the province of Hohnstein, and 30,000 on account to restore the towns in the March of Brandenburg. On the first item the king observed: Gentlemen, I recommend to you especially the upholding and supporting my nobility. I lay great stress upon that order, for I require it both for my army and my civil administration. You know how many valuable men, I have already drawn from it, and what I have been able to do by its means.' "Before dinner the king spoke to us on sundry other matters, and said, amongst the rest, that it gave him pleasure whenever any of his subjects travelled into foreign states with views of improvement, and brought back useful knowledge to their native country. He added, that during his last journey through Pomerania he has seen at Colbatz the Ober-Amtman Sydow, who, together with his son, had been lately in England, and had studied the English system of husbandry. They understand how to grow lucerne, and what are termed TURNIPS (a white root for fodder, of which nine or ten often reach an hundred weight :) and experiments in the culture of both have been made in Pomerania with excellent success. His majesty wishes that the same may be done in Brandenburg. We are, therefore, to put ourselves in correspondence with these gentlemen, and receive from them the necessary instructions; and we are, also, to the amount of pocket-money which he might take send some sensible Wirthschafts-Schreiber from va- with him; if a nobleman or an officer, 400 dollars: rious Amter in Brandenburg to Colbatz, to observe if neither, 250. The government was, in fact, and afterwards adopt at home, the cultivation not only of these turnips and lucerne, but also of the one of those which, when well administered, as hops, which last his majesty has recommended to was Frederick's, are called by friends patriarchal us in the most pressing terms. The king observes or paternal, which leave little to individual choice that the country-people in Brandenburg are still or enterprise, but direct every man to the path in too stubborn and prejudiced against any new discov- which he should go. ery, however good and useful it may be. Therefore, says his majesty, the men in office should always make a beginning with whatever promises well; and if it answers, then the lower classes will be sure to foliow. You would not think,' added his majesty with much animation, how eager I feel to make the people advance in knowledge and welfare; but you must have often experienced, as I have, how much contradiction and thwarting one meets with, even where one has the best intentions.' It is remarkable that Frederick, who not only possessed but actively wielded this uncontrolled authority, and who never to his dying day manifested the slightest idea of relaxing it, yet in many of his writings expresses the most ardent aspirations for freedom. Thus in his epistle to the Marquis d'Argens : "Vous de la liberté héros que je révère, O Mânes de Caton, o Mânes de Brutus !" Or when he thus upbraids Hermothême :— Our limits warn us to carry no further the report of this remarkable interview. We will therefore "Votre esprit est imbu des préjugés vulgaires, Vos parchemins usés ne sont que des chimères." omit, though reluctantly, the king's remarks and directions as to the better manuring of pasture- We remember that in "Emile" Rousseau points lands—the reclaiming of several sandy spots near an eloquent invective against those mock-philanLöwenberg, Strausberg, Alt-Landsberg, and Wer-thropists who profess unbounded zeal for the Tarneuchen which he had noticed on his last journey tars, but who will never help a poor neighbor at -the draining of the great marshes at Stendal, the door. In like manner we confess that we feel and with the profits bringing over to the spot a small reverence for those kings who never part colony of Dutchmen—the encouragement of bee- with one iota of their inherited despotism, who hives and silk-worms, for which last large planta- give a subject the hem of their garment to kiss, tions of mulberry-trees had been made several who bound their promotions to nobles, and who years before the establishment of extensive nur- leave their peasantry serfs, and yet with all this sery-gardens near Berlin to be manured from the love to prate of republicans and regicides—prosweepings of the streets and drains in that city-vided only that these lived many hundred years the planting of fruit-trees in other places likewise, so as to check the importation of dried fruit every year from Saxony, and "to keep," the king added, 66 our money at home”—the working of the cobalt and coal-mines in Silesia, and how the coals should be transported, and how applied in bleaching-Montesquieu has done, that despotic power while grounds, tile-kilns, and lime-kilns. After so many thus administered, is the best of all forms of govand such manifold orders this "Ministers' Review" ernment. Take any Prussian town or district ended, we may observe, in a manner more agreea- during the peaceful years of Frederick, and it will, ble than most cabinet-councils in England-by a we believe, appear that amidst very many cases of general invitation to the royal table that same day. individual grievance and hardship the general pro"During the repast," adds our reporter, "hisgress of prosperity was rapid and unceasing. majesty was especially condescending and gay, made a great number of jests, and then bade us go-highly delighted at his gracious reception." ago! It is certainly true that Frederick, upon the whole, administered his despotic power with enlightened views and with public spirit for the good of his subjects, and it may perhaps be argued, as No instance can be stronger than that of Silesia. Here was a province won without a shadow of real right from Maria Theresa-a sovereign who, beIn thus considering the administration of Fred- sides her legitimate title, had all the claims to her erick we must always bear in mind that his author- subjects' sympathy which womanhood, youth, and ity over his people was entirely and in all respects beauty can bestow. Here were nobles of high uncontrolled. Not only the treaties with foreign lineage and loyalty compelled to acknowledge an powers and the systems of foreign policy, the army, usurping conqueror; here was a people of bigoted the ordnance, the shipping, the questions of trade Catholicism ruled over for the first time by a Proand protecting duties, the imposition or remission testant prince. Under such circumstances what of new taxes, and the application of the revenue else could be expected than that Silesia should received, were subject to his despotic sway, but become to Prussia what Ireland has been to Engeven the decisions of the courts of law, which most land—a perennial fountain of bitterness—an object other tyrannies hold sacred. Nay more, even be- to all statesmen of anxious solicitude, and to nearly yond the frontiers of the state, personal freedom all of afflicting disappointment—a battle-field of was so far controlled that no Prussian subject could ever recurring political and religious animosities, travel without special permission from the king, and, like other battle-fields, laid waste by the conand even when that permission was granted there tention! Yet so prompt and so prudent were the was a royal ordinance of October 29, 1766, fixing measures of Frederick in behalf of his new con quest neither neglecting the interests of his sub- | It must, however, be observed that the king's object jects, as, for instance, Joseph the First, not yet in the higher rate was perhaps not so much finanwounding their prejudices, like Joseph the Second cial as prohibitory. When the Land-Stände of -that within a few years' space Silesia became Pomerania ventured to remonstrate against the as firmly bound to him as Brandenburg, and that increased duties on coffee and wines, his majesty's Maria Theresa, in her later attempts to recover views were explained in his own royal rescript of the province, found no effective or general assis-August 27, 1779 :— tance from the Silesians themselves. "The great point," says that rescript, (which is We must confess, however, that this praise of written in the style of familiar conversation,) "is the general result of Frederick's government is not to put some limits to the dreadful amount of coneasily borne out on examining the particular steps sumption. It is quite horrible how far the consumpof the process. Wide as are the differences tion of coffee goes-to say nothing of other articles! amongst ourselves on questions of trade and taxa-low is accustoming himself to the use of coffee, as The reason is, that every peasant and common feltion, we do not suppose that one man could now be found to vindicate the former system in Prussia. Severe government monopolies laid on main articles of consumption, and farmed out to speculators from a foreign country, form perhaps the very worst system of finance which human ingenuity has yet devised. And such was Frederick's-as a short review of the items will show. being now so easily procured in the open country. If this be a little bit checked the people must take again to beer, and that is surely for the good of their own breweries, as more beer would then be sold. Here then is the object-that so much money may not go to foreign parts for coffee; and if but 60,000 dollars went yearly, that is quite enough. As to the right of search, which the Land-Stände object to, it is needful to keep order, especially On meat there was established an excise-duty among their own domestics, and, as good subjects of one pfennig per pound; and moreover varying to the king, they should not even say a word against but always considerable Droits d'Octroi at the it. Besides, his majesty's own royal person was gates of towns on cattle and sheep. Thus at reared in childhood upon beer-soups, (ale-berry,) Berlin there was demanded for each ox one thaler and why not then just as well the people down yonder? It is much wholesomer than coffee. The thirteen groschen of entrance-excise, and ten gros-Land-Stünde may therefore set their minds at rest chen more of market-excise; besides which there on the matter, especially since all noblemen residing was another duty on the hide and another on the on their own estates shall continue to have free of tallow. Bread was not excised; but the Octroi duty as much coffee and wine as they require for on wheat and on flour amounted to four and six their own and their families' consumption; only pfennigs the bushel respectively; the effect being, care must be taken that this their privilege be of course, to make bread dearer in the towns than guarded from abuse, and that no contraband traffic be carried on under their names. That cannot posin the villages or open country. On brandy there sibly be winked at for the future." was an excise of one groschen the quart; on beer of eighteen groschen the barrel. Coffee, tobacco, and salt were not merely excised, but administered by and for the state as monopolies. For the most part the coffee was only sold ready roasted for use the right of roasting it being reserved as a special favor for certain privileged classes, as the nobles, the officers of the army, and the clergy in towns. The duty retained by the government was at first four groschen the pound; but, in 1772, was increased to six groschen and two pfennigs. It was calculated, that, deducting the duty, a pound of coffee could not possibly be sold by the fair trader at less than four groschen and three quarters; yet the price of the pound of coffee at Berlin in the retail trade never exceeded ten groschen; a clear proof of the prevalence and success of smuggling. Redoubled vigilance and severity on the part of the French revenue-officers in this department—the "coffee-smellers," (Kaffee-Riecher,) as the mob called them-were wholly unavailing, except to increase the animosity against themselves. Thus, in 1784, the king found it necessary to reduce the amount of the duty by one half, and it is remarkable that the revenue derived from it almost immediately doubled. ceding year this revenue had been only 300,000 dollars; in the subsequent year it rose to 574,000.* In the pre * De Launay, Justification du. Systême, p. 30. Bad as was this system of impost, with the like monopoly of tobacco and salt, Frederick may be In reproached for introducing another still worse. 1763 there were first established in Prússia govthis source were small, only 60,000 dollars, but ernment lotteries. At the first annual profits from they gradually increased, both during Frederick's The net proceeds in 1829 are reign and after it. stated at 684,000 dollars. No mode of administration, as we conceive, could have made the main government monopolies But certainly they were welcome to the people. much aggravated in practice by the system which the king selected. Three years after the peace Paris several French farmers-general, the chief of Hubertsburg, Frederick summoned over from of whom was La Haye de Launay, and by them exclusively he administered his principal monopolies, as tobacco and coffee. This system, under the name of La Régie, was steadily maintained for twenty years, that is, during the remainder of Frederick's reign, but was immediately afterwards cancelled by his successor. Nor was the French importation limited to the principal contractors; they drew over in their train several hundred of their countrymen, who were forthwith distributed over the Prussian states as men in office, with various grades and denominations: Directeurs, Inspecteurs, Vérificateurs, Con rigidly adhered to the confinement of all manufacturing industry within town walls. By an edict of June 4, 1718, which was not repealed till 1810, no kind of handicraftsmen were allowed to ply in the villages or open country, except these six: smiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, masons, weavers, and tailors. There were certain exemptions for breweries and distilleries, especially in the provinces between the Oder and the Vistula, but the general rule stood as we have just described it. Thus the many new manufactories and branches of industry which Frederick loved to found or foster had to struggle against both the confined space and the larger expenses of the towns. tróleurs, Visitateurs, Commis, Plombeurs, Con- pected to secure, by another system not less trôleurs ambulants, Jaugeurs, Commis rats de cave, and above all, Anti-contrebandiers à pied et à cheval! To these were adjoined also a great number of Germans, but always in a subaltern situation to the French. The whole establishment was far too numerous and costly, Frederick himself being the judge; for when, in 1783, he came to revise its details, he found himself able to suppress no less than 834 employés, and to effect a saving of 150,000 dollars yearly. Nor was the general financial result satisfactory. It has been ably shown by Dr. Preuss that the average annual receipts since the French financiers came in exceeded the former ones by only 857,000 dollars; a result not at all commensurate to the additional taxes imposed, nor to the growing population and prosperity of the Prussian states. Undoubtedly, however, the main fault of the system was the deep humiliation of the Prussians at finding themselves thus excluded from the administration of their own finances, and declared incapable of filling the best employments in their native country. It may likewise be imagined that ignorant or careless as were many of the French excisemen of any foreign language, the collisions between them and the native population were both frequent and angry. We are far from disputing the financial merits of our nearest neighbors whenever employed at home. But we really doubt whether even the Egyptian locusts, whose appearance so greatly irritated Frederick, could have proved a worse plague to his subjects than these French excisemen. It will be observed that they (although the excise itself was of long standing) were not appointed until some years after the seven years' war. Had they been at work previously, we are strongly of opinion that the king would have felt their ill effect from the anger and alienation of at least his Silesian subjects. All such new manufactories, however, during Frederick's reign, were not only guarded by protective duties against their foreign rivals, but propped and encouraged by bounties. Large sums were often and readily devoted to this end. Some points, however, in Frederick's commercial policy, as in his financial, would be in the present day universally condemned. Thus, wishing to secure to the woollen manufactories of Prussia a cheap and constant supply of their raw material, he absolutely prohibited the export of wool from his dominions; nay, more, by an edict of April 3, 1774, he decreed that the export of wool or fleece should thenceforward be a capital offence! The corn-laws of Frederick were also, to say the least of them, rather stringent. There was a general order issued at the very outset of his reign, that whenever in any district or at any season the land-owners were unwilling to dispose of their stocks of grain, it might be seized by the govern ment officers and forcibly sold by auction. He also insisted that in common years his granaries and garrisons should be supplied at a low fixed price as named by himself. On the other hand, however, these granaries were always opened in a year of scarcity, and their contents being sold at moderate prices tended in so small degree to counteract the prevailing dearth. Passing to another branch we may observe, that in many parts of the Prussian monarchy the peasants continued to be feudal serfs-ascripti gleba. Such Frederick found them at his accession-such "For universities and schools," says Dr. Preuss, he left them at his death. It is due to him, how-"Frederick did much less than might have been ever, to observe that he issued several edicts to expected from so warm a friend of civilization and secure them as far as possible from any wanton ill-knowledge." On one occasion, indeed, as we have usage of their masters. With regard to these, elsewhere mentioned, he founded nearly 200 the proprietors of the soil, there was a wide distinction maintained between those who were and those who were not of noble birth. None of the former class were allowed to alienate their lands to the latter without a special royal license; and this license, for which we find many applications in Frederick's correspondence, was almost invariably refused; the object being, that if even some noblemen should be ruined, the estates of the nobles as a class should undergo no diminution. schools for his new province of West Prussia; but in general he supplied for the schools in his dominions only his advice, and not his money, of which they stood in urgent need. The office of village school-masters was so wretchedly paid that of course it was wretchedly filled; most of them, as the king informs us, being tailors! Still far worse, however, grew the state of things when Frederick, in 1779, hit upon this expedient for providing without expense to himself for his invaThis system, however irreconcilable with the lided soldiers. The veterans thus turned into French philosophy of Frederick, was no doubt in pedagogues were found for the most part wholly accordance with the temper and feelings at that unequal to the task, as many of them frankly time of his principal subjects. But it is difficult owned; nay, we are even assured that in the betto understand what prejudice was gratified, or what ter-conducted schools the new master appeared to advantage beyond facility of taxation it was ex- know much less than his pupils. Wretched, |