History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 6 | Page 8

it.
Nothing except angry correspondence with King August; very
provoking to the poor soul, who had no hand but a nominal one in the
Thorn catastrophe, being driven into it by his unruly Diet alone.
In fact, August, with his glittering eyes and excellent physical
constitution, was a very good-humored fellow; supremely pleasant in
society; and by no means wishful to cheat you, or do you a mischief in
business,--unless his necessities compelled him; which often were great.
But Friedrich Wilhelm always kept a good eye on such points; and had
himself suffered nothing from the gay eupeptic Son of Belial, either in
their old Stralsund copartnery or otherwise. So that, except for these
Protestant affairs,--and alas, one other little cause,--Friedrich Wilhelm
had contentedly left the Physically Strong to his own course, doing the
civilities of the road to him when they met; and nothing ill had fallen
out between them. This other little cause--alas, it is the old story of
recruiting; one's poor Hobby again giving offence! Special recruiting
brabbles there had been; severe laws passed in Saxony about these
kidnapping operations: and always in the Diets, when question rose of
this matter, August had been particularly loud in his denouncings.
Which was unkind, though not unexpected. But now, in the Spring of
1727, here has a worse case than any arisen.
Captain Natzmer, of I know not what Prussian Regiment,
"Sachsen-Weimar Cuirassiers" [ Militair-Lexikon,
iii. 104.] or another, had dropt over into Saxony, to see what could be
done in picking up a tall man or two. Tall men, one or two, Captain
Natzmer did pick up, nay a tall deserter or two (Saxon soldier,
inveigled to desert); but finding his operations get air, he hastily
withdrew into Brandenburg territory again. Saxon Officials followed
him into Brandenburg territory; snapt him back into Saxon; tried him

by Saxon law there;--Saxon law, express in such case, condemns him
to be hanged; and that is his doom accordingly.
"Captain Natzmer to swing on the gallows? Taken on Brandenburg
territory too, and not the least notice given me?" Friedrich Wilhelm
blazes into flaming whirlwind; sends an Official Gentleman, one
Katsch, to his Excellenz Baron von Suhm (the Crown-Prince's
cultivated friend), with this appalling message: "If Natzmer be hanged,
for certain I will use reprisals; you yourself shall swing!" Whereupon
Suhm, in panic, fled over the marches to his Master; who bullied him
for his pusillanimous terrors; and applied to Friedrich Wilhelm, in fine
frenzy of indignant astonishment, "What, in Heaven's name, such
meditated outrage on the law of nations, and flat insult to the Majesty
of Kings, can have meant?" Friedrich Wilhelm, the first fury being
spent, sees that he is quite out of square; disavows the reprisals upon
Suhm. "Message misdelivered by my Official Gentleman, that stupid
Katsch; never did intend to hang Suhm; oh, no;" with much other
correspondence; [In Mauvillon (ii. 189-195) more of it than any one
will read.]--and is very angry at himself, and at the Natzmer affair,
which has brought him into this bad pass. Into open impropriety; into
danger of an utter rupture, had King August been of quarrelsome turn.
But King August was not quarrelsome; and then Seckendorf and the
Tobacco-Parliament,--on the Kaiser's score, who wants Pragmatic
Sanction and much else out of these two Kings, and can at no rate have
them quarrel in the present juncture,--were eager to quench the fire.
King August let Natzmer go; Suhm returned to his post; [Pollnitz, ii.
254.] and things hustled themselves into some uneasy posture of
silence again;--uneasy to the sensitive fancy of Friedrich Wilhelm
above all. This is his worst collision with his Neighbor of Saxony; and
springing from one's Hobby again!--
These sorrows, the death of George I., with anxieties as to George II.
and the course he might take; all this, it was thought, preyed upon his
Majesty's spirits;--Wilhelmina says it was "the frequent carousals with
Seckendorf," and an affair chiefly of the royal digestive-apparatus. Like
enough;--or both might combine. It is certain his Majesty fell into one
of his hypochondrias at this time; talked of "abdicating" and other

gloomy things, and was very black indeed. So that Seckendorf and
Grumkow began to be alarmed. It is several months ago he had Franke
the Halle Methodist giving ghostly counsel; his Majesty ceased to have
the Newspapers read at dinner; and listened to lugubrious Franke's
exhortations instead. Did English readers ever hear of Franke? Let them
make a momentary acquaintance with this famous German Saint.
August Hermann Franke, a Lubeck man, born 1663; Professor of
Theology, of Hebrew, Lecturer on the Bible; a wandering, persecuted,
pious man. Founder of the "Pietists," a kind of German Methodists,
who are still a famed Sect in that country; and of the WAISENHAUS,
at Halle, grand Orphan-house,