of the lamplight, as you pass out of the June sun. Many went, all
day; looked once again on the face that was to vanish.
Precisely at ten at night, the coffin-lid is screwed down:
twelve Potsdam Captains take the coffin on their shoulders;
four-and-twenty Corporals with wax torches, four-and-twenty
Sergeants with inverted halberts lowered; certain Generals on
order, and very many following as volunteers; these perform the
actual burial,--carry the body to the Garrison Church, where are
clergy waiting, which is but a small step off; see it lodged, oak
coffin and all, in a marble coffin in the side vault there, which
is known to Tourists. [Pauli, viii. 281.] It is the end of the
week, and the actual burial is done,--hastened forward for reasons
we can guess.

Filial piety by no means intends to defraud a loved Father of the
Spartan ceremonial contemplated as obsequies by him: very far from
it. Filial piety will conform to that with rigor; only adding what
musical and other splendors are possible, to testify his love
still more. And so, almost three weeks hence, on the 23d of the
month, with the aid of Dresden Artists, of Latin Cantatas and
other pomps (not inexcusable, though somewhat out of keeping), the
due Funeral is done, no Corpse but a Wax Effigy present in it;--
and in all points, that of the Potsdam Grenadiers not forgotten,
there was rigorous conformity to the Instruction left. In all
points, even to the extensive funeral dinner, and drinking of the
appointed cask of wine, "the best cask in my cellar." Adieu,
O King.

The Potsdam Grenadiers fired their three volleys (not
"PLACKERING," as I have reason to believe, but well); got their
allowance, dinner-liquor, and appointed coin of money: it was the
last service required of them in this world. That same night they
were dissolved, the whole Four Thousand of them, at a stroke;
and ceased to exist as Potsdam Grenadiers. Colonels, Captains, all
the Officers known to be of merit, were advanced, at least
transferred. Of the common men, a minority, of not inhuman height
and of worth otherwise, were formed into a new Regiment on the
common terms: the stupid splay-footed eight-feet mass were allowed
to stalk off whither they pleased, or vegetate on frugal pensions;
Irish Kirkman, and a few others neither knock-kneed nor without
head, were appointed HEYDUCS, that is, porters to the King's or
other Palaces; and did that duty in what was considered an
ornamental manner.

Here are still two things capable of being fished up from the sea
of nugatory matter; and meditated on by readers, till the
following Books open.

The last breath of Friedrich Wilhelm having fled, Friedrich
hurried to a private room; sat there all in tears; looking back
through the gulfs of the Past, upon such a Father now rapt away
forever. Sad all, and soft in the moonlight of memory,--the lost
Loved One all in the right as we now see, we all in the wrong!--
this, it appears, was the Son's fixed opinion. Seven years hence,
here is how Friedrich concludes the HISTORY of his Father, written
with a loyal admiration throughout: "We have left under silence
the domestic chagrins of this great Prince: readers must have some
indulgence for the faults of the Children, in consideration of the
virtues of such a Father." [<italic> OEuvres, <end italic> i. 174
(<italic> Memoires de Brandebourg: <end italic> finished about
1747).] All in tears he sits at present, meditating these
sad things.

In a little while the Old Dessauer, about to leave for Dessau,
ventures in to the Crown-Prince, Crown-Prince no longer;
"embraces his knees;" offers, weeping, his condolence, his
congratulation;--hopes withal that his sons and he will be
continued in their old posts, and that he, the Old Dessauer,
"will have the same authority as in the late reign." Friedrich's
eyes, at this last clause, flash out tearless, strangely Olympian.
"In your posts I have no thought of making change: in your posts,
yes;--and as to authority, I know of none there can be but what
resides in the King that is sovereign!" Which, as it were, struck
the breath out of the Old Dessauer; and sent him home with a
painful miscellany of feelings, astonishment not wanting
among them.

At an after hour, the same night, Friedrich went to Berlin; met by
acclamation enough. He slept there, not without tumult of dreams,
one may fancy; and on awakening next morning, the first sound he
heard was that of the Regiment Glasenap under his windows,
swearing fealty to the new King. He sprang out of bed in a tempest
of emotion; bustled distractedly to and fro, wildly weeping.
Pollnitz, who came into the anteroom, found him in this state,
"half-dressed, with dishevelled hair, in tears, and as if beside
himself." "These huzzaings only tell me what I have lost!" said
the new King.--"HE was in great suffering," suggested Pollnitz;
"he is now at rest." "True, he suffered; but he was here with us:
and now--!" [Ranke (ii. 46, 47), from certain Fragments, still, in
manuscript, of Pollnits's <italic> Memoiren. <end italic>

END OF BOOK X----





End of Project Gutenberg's Etext History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 10

