Part 21

It is a curious instance of a certain cynical hauteur in George Lewis (which, however, contains an element of manly self-possession) that he should have supplied the Duchess of Orleans with a key to the characters of the Supplement to the _Roman Octavia_, in which Duke Antony Ulric had taken the opportunity, perhaps with the help of Fräulein von dem Knesebeck’s reminiscences, of giving to the world a version of the whole story of the Duchess of Ahlden.—A French MS., _Histoire de Frédegonde, Princesse de Chérusque, Duchesse d’Hanovre, Épouse de George, Roi de la Grande Bretagne_, proposing to give an account, _inter alia_, of ‘_sa Prison au Chateau d’Alhen, où elle a fini ses jours_,’ supposed to date from about 1740, was not long since advertised for sale.

Footnote 116:

Lord Hervey’s story of his having preserved his mother’s picture may be true; but the further statement that he proposed, if she had survived, to have brought her over and declared her Queen, needs a stronger qualification than the ‘it was said,’ by which it is accompanied. (_Memoirs_, Vol. iii. pp. 348-9.)

That the unfortunate prisoner should have gained the active goodwill, which the fair young Princess had never conciliated, of her mother-in-law, the Electress Sophia, was hardly to be expected. Such advances as were made to her by the Duchess of Ahlden seem to have been coldly rejected; and the tone in which the Duchess of Orleans continues occasionally to speak of her ill-fated relative no doubt reflects, with tolerable accuracy, that adopted by her aunt in her non-extant letters. The Electress, as we now know, had verified the conclusion of Elizabeth Charlotte, that Sophia Dorothea’s case exemplified the proverb as to there being no smoke without fire; and, while we may regret that the charity which, in the matter of morals, the Electress Sophia readily showed to the shortcomings of the men of her family, was never extended by her to the daughter of Eleonora d’Olbreuze, there is in this rigour nothing unnatural or incompatible with the rules of life which she consistently observed. To argue, however, from this severity back to the unproved supposition of an active cooperation on the part of Sophia towards the ruin of her daughter-in-law, is palpably unjust. And it should always be borne in mind that the sympathy of posterity was secured to Sophia Dorothea by her misfortunes, not by her character, in which there is little or nothing to admire, while much in it may have justly repelled the sound and self-controlled nature of her mother-in-law; and that the Electress was more impressed by the Princess’ fall than by what might seem its legitimate consequences.

There seems no reason for attributing to the painful experiences through which the House of Hanover had recently passed the decline which, about this time, set in in the health of the Elector Ernest Augustus. His illness (which Cressett thought in a large measure imaginary) has quite gratuitously been brought into connexion with Sophia Dorothea’s catastrophe, the suggestion being that the wife and the mistress of the Elector had conspired to avert the consequences which might ensue, in the event of his death and the accession of a new Electress. In June, 1697, the Electress Sophia informs the Raugravine Louisa that, though the other symptoms in the Elector’s condition are good, his nervous debility is great, and that it has been resolved to try the skill of a Dutch empiric, with whose ‘_charlattaneri_’ she characteristically expresses impatience. Towards the end of the year the course of his malady seemed to have been in a measure arrested; but the decay of his powers soon set in again with alarming rapidity. His life of constant self-indulgence ended very miserably; for some time loss of sight in one eye was feared, and after this he was all but deprived of the use of speech. The Electress Sophia faithfully nursed him to the last. Even in the days of his health she had bravely accustomed herself to his habits; and she afterwards humorously related that she had made a point, in the hour of domesticity, of filling his pipe with the tobacco which she loathed. In his last illness she, during many months, never left his side, except when he was asleep. The end came on January 24th, 1698; and a letter written by Sophia a few months later shows her still in a condition of deep and unaffected grief—hopeful only ‘_que le bon Dieu me fera bientost rejoindre ce cher Électeur en l’autre monde_,’ but consoled by the attentions of her children and her brother-in-law. Ernest Augustus had well played his part as a ruler, not only providing a sure basis for the progress of his dynasty to augmented power and influence, but also strengthening and consolidating the civil as well as the military administration of the Electorate established in his person. His extravagant expenditure on himself and on his court, though no doubt largely occasioned by habits of self-indulgence and a profligate temperament, seemed in consonance with what was probably a well-merited reputation for liberality of conduct and feeling towards those who served him well. Thus he proved, in his way, an apt imitator of the great French prototype whom he, not less than his brother John Frederick, kept before his eyes; and the style in which he lived and reigned suited the interest of the dynasty as well as his own tastes. At the same time, he knew how to combine with his magnificence and generosity a self-restraint that enabled him in his will to dispose of an unencumbered personal estate. To Sophia his death, in more respects than one, brought a considerable change. She had never ruled him, not even controlled him by her influence, as Eleonora of Celle long controlled her Duke, or as, in another generation, Sophia’s favourite Caroline of Ansbach was to control King George II. But the aid of her counsel had been of great value to Ernest Augustus, both in the ordinary business of government and in great questions of state policy; and much of the authority which thus accrued to her passed away with him. George Lewis was not of a disposition likely to induce him, from motives of piety, to show to his mother a deference beyond that of ordinary custom. On the other hand, the death of Sophia’s husband gave to her more of that freedom which no princess ever used less ostentatiously or more nobly; it made her, in certain respects, more distinctly the centre of the intellectual life of the Hanoverian Court than she had cared to be, or at all events to seem, in the lifetime of Ernest Augustus; it probably brought her closer to her daughter, and certainly allowed her a fuller enjoyment of the friendship of Leibniz.

No sooner had the reign of Ernest Augustus come to an end, than his sons Maximilian and Christian renewed their protest against the principle of primogeniture which he had so persistently maintained;[117] and the sympathy with Maximilian displayed by his sister, the Electress Sophia Charlotte of Brandenburg, can hardly have failed to find a secret response in the maternal heart of the Electress Dowager Sophia herself. But, though there was some talk of her paying a visit at this season to Berlin, she had learnt to tutor her own wishes, and was well aware how much depended upon the maintenance of the good understanding between the two Electoral Governments, which was at the time endangered by certain territorial questions that may here be passed by. Thus George Lewis succeeded without let or hindrance to the whole of the paternal inheritance and expectancies; and, as was noted above, Hanover and Brandenburg were united by a close and ‘perpetual’ alliance at the very period when the dynastic ambition of the one seemed on the point of consummation, and that of the other was near achieving its absorbing object—the acquisition of a royal (Prussian) crown. That the Hanoverian court was filled with joy by the success of the operations which ended, early in 1701, with the coronation of the first Prussian King, Frederick I, would be an unnatural supposition. The event had, however, been rendered virtually inevitable by the accession, in 1697, of the Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony to the Polish throne; and the Elector George Lewis was personally not so constituted as to be impelled, even by jealousy, to an eagerness to follow suit. As for the Dowager Electress Sophia, there was, to her, something more than compensation in the thought that a royal crown now surmounted the brow of her favourite child.

Footnote 117:

Early in 1694, Cresset reports him as ‘moving heaven and earth’ on the subject.

Sophia Charlotte, her parents’ only daughter, had grown up in a long and unbroken intimacy with her mother. With that mother, as already noted, she had in common a clear and penetrating intelligence, a charm of manner irresistible to anyone whom she chose to admit to familiar intercourse, and a self-possession against which scandal waged war in vain. She also had her mother’s intellectual curiosity and general love of knowledge; but she must have approached more nearly to her aunt Elizabeth in her power of entering into problems of philosophy, though it is only with a grain of salt that the assertion can be accepted as to the conferences between her and Leibniz having originated his _Théodicée_. On the other hand, what little remains from her hand in the way of familiar correspondence, can scarcely be said to be lit up with the natural humour that her mother and the Duchess of Orleans always had at command. Notwithstanding her power of delighting those admitted to her society by the sunny brightness of her manner, when she was so disposed, or when she was stimulated by intellectual interest, her nature seems from early years to have possessed the tranquillity which reason and resignation enabled her mother more gradually to acquire. Probably a certain physical indolence, or phlegma, may have contributed to this result; together with a calm determination to please herself—a luxury in which her mother had rarely or never enjoyed opportunities of indulging.

Already in her childhood, benefiting by the traditions in her mother’s family as to the necessity of a good education based on linguistic knowledge, she had exhibited signs of talent; while her character probably owed much to the training of Frau von Harling (who was also Elizabeth Charlotte’s governess), one of those teachers whose destiny it is to be loved for their administration of the rule of law by pupils who, under a less vigorous influence, would certainly be inclined to remain a law to themselves. In the eleventh year of her age, Sophia Charlotte, as we saw, accompanied her mother on a visit to the French Court, while her father was recruiting his health at Ems. It was a delightful visit—perhaps one of the happiest episodes of Sophia’s life—in the mixture which it offered of pleasant retrospect under the caresses of the faithful Duchess of Orleans, and of still earlier reminiscences in the genial company of the Abbess of Maubuisson, with a hopeful looking-forward to the future in store for her charming daughter. King Louis XIV himself was the perfection of magnificent courtesy, requesting his brother, the Duke of Orleans, not to whisper in Sophia’s presence, and taking magnanimous notice of her daughter. Sophia’s quick wit helped her through every difficulty, and enabled her to avoid any mistake—even that of accepting a _tabouret_ when self-respect bade her take a _fauteuil_, or not sit at all. She knew how to meet both the stiffness of the French Queen (a Spanish princess) and the effusiveness of the Spanish Queen (a French princess); nor was her self-possession disturbed even by the splendour of Versailles, for which, as she justly observed, art had done more than nature. As for Sophia Charlotte, the impression created, both by her beauty and by the extent of her knowledge, was such as to suggest to Louis XIV the idea of a match between her and one of his princes. Nothing, however, came of the notion except, perhaps, an accentuation of the diplomatic activity of de Gourville at the Lüneburg courts. Sophia Charlotte’s quiet life continued; and, though there was some talk of a Bavarian suit for her hand, it gradually became known that her destiny was shaping itself nearer home. The establishment of relations of intimacy between the Courts of Brandenburg at Hanover had become a political necessity, and Sophia had recognised the expediency of promoting his object with the aid of her daughter’s hand. When, in 1683, the Electoral Prince Frederick of Brandenburg became a childless widower, these speculations at once assumed a practical aspect. The obstacles which had to be surmounted did not include a religious difficulty, inasmuch as the Reformed (Calvinist) faith, of which Sophia Charlotte made public profession shortly before her marriage, was a form of religion always favoured, though never actually professed, by her mother.[118] There is no reason for crediting the story (which rests only on the gossip of Pöllnitz) that it had been thought unnecessary to anticipate Sophia Charlotte’s own choice of a form of Protestantism till it was known whom she was to marry. But, whatever the daughter’s religious profession, tolerance would always have formed part of her creed, as it did of her mother’s. The marriage was celebrated at Herrenhausen on September 28th, 1684.

Footnote 118:

‘I used,’ she writes to the elder Schütz in 1703, ‘to know all the common prayers, practically, by heart, but I was never taught that our religion much differed from the reformed religion of France and Germany, and I have communicated in this also;’ and, again: ‘I have had prayers offered for the Queen’ [Anne] ‘in both the German and the French reformed churches here’ [at Hanover], ‘with the permission of the Elector.’—Erman, preacher at the French Reformed church in Berlin, subsequently wrote _Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Sophie Charlotte, Reine de Prusse_.]

From the first, Sophia Charlotte displayed that indifference to playing any part in politics which seemed so strange in her, considering the capacity which she indisputably possessed for exerting influence alike by her personal charms and by her intellectual powers. But, during the few remaining years of the Great Elector’s life, the Electoral Prince Frederick was under a cloud; and, in 1686, he had to withdraw with his consort to Halle. In 1688 he succeeded his father as Elector, and a few months later his consort presented him with an heir to his honours (the future King Frederick William I). She continued, however, to show little disposition to assert the authority and influence which had now accrued to her; and, though, during the ensuing decade, so eventful in the history of the relations between the Houses of Hanover and Brandenburg, she was always happy to exchange visits with her parents and to listen to the advice bestowed on her by her mother, she cannot be said to have taken much trouble to use, either directly or indirectly, the power which she can hardly have lacked aught but the will to exercise. It was not that she had to contend against any great strength of character in her husband, who, if humoured in a few things, could without much difficulty be ruled in the rest. But she did not care to stoop even to the level of his rather commonplace and formal nature, in order to conquer for herself an all-controlling influence in both public and private affairs. She preferred to create a sphere or circle of her own, into which only those were admitted who approved themselves to her, more especially by their intellectual gifts. Here simplicity, typified by black dress, was the rule. The colony of French refugees, which was in these years establishing itself at Berlin and Brandenburg, was largely represented in her intimate social circle. Sophia Charlotte appreciated those gifts of conversation, of which, in her age, Frenchmen and Frenchwomen possessed, if not the monopoly, at least a predominant share; and she seems herself to have become mistress of an art which is always more easily described than reproduced. She was fond of theatrical entertainments of many kinds, and probably gave more offence to the pietism prevailing around her by these, for the most part, innocuous tastes than by her philosophising tendencies. Toland amused her, and she was not, like her mother, obliged to respect British prejudices about his views or principles, though she was indignant to have been supposed to have gone so far as to ask a man without birth or official position to dine at her table. In general, she was, no doubt, very much _sans gêne_ in her relations with persons whom she liked; but, though scandal was busy with these freedoms, she never compromised herself by indulging in them too far. The height of her personal influence seems to have been reached when, by 1696, the Elector Frederick III had fulfilled her heart’s desire by building for her a country residence in the village of Lützen on the pleasant declivities of the Spree. She had never been willing to sojourn in the castle of Copenick, where her predecessor, Frederick’s first wife, had pined away her days; and the ample gardens at Berlin, which he had presented to his Electress, she had, with intelligent philanthropy, mainly distributed in allotments among the townsfolk, with whom, for this reason, and perhaps also because of a sympathetic quickness of wit indigenous among the inhabitants of the growing capital, her reputation always stood high. Lützenburg, as the Italian villa, which gradually grew into a palace, was called, became Sophia Charlotte’s chosen abode, although the magnificence with which it was in course of time adorned, both inside and out, had not received its final touches before her death, when this famous royal residence was, in remembrance of her, rechristened Charlottenburg.

The death of Ernest Augustus, in 1698, as we saw, drew mother and daughter more closely together; and, in the same year, a very important ministerial change at Berlin, the circumstances of which to this day occupy the attention of historical students, greatly increased Sophia Charlotte’s opportunities of exercising a personal influence upon the government and policy of her husband. The fall of the hitherto omnipotent minister, Eberhard von Danckelmann, which was speedily followed by his incarceration, affords a most striking instance of the uncertainty of princely favour, and a cruel illustration of the recompense that may await great political services.[119] Here it must suffice to say, that Sophia Charlotte had certainly been jealous of Danckelmann’s influence, and that his downfall was regarded by her mother and her friends, even more decidedly than by herself, as an epoch in her personal career. Leibniz wrote to her, with rather exasperating _aplomb_, surmising that, since she had now secured the entire confidence of the Elector her husband, she would recognise the necessity of taking advantage of the situation (_ménager la conjoncture_). As there was, he continued, an identity of interest between her and her mother, it was to be hoped that they would find consolation for the evils that had befallen them (the death of Ernest Augustus) in employing their gifts so as to bring about a complete union between Sophia Charlotte’s brother and her husband. (It may perhaps be noted that the sorrow afterwards shown by George Lewis on his sister’s death indicates the existence of a genuine affection between them.) Leibniz could not think of anyone likely to manage so effectively the requisite communications between the two Electresses as it would be within his own power to do; and he suggested that this purpose would be most easily accomplished if he were to be appointed to some supervising post connected with science and art at Berlin, and thus supplied with a ready reason for occasional visits to that capital. As a matter of fact, Sophia Charlotte used her best endeavours to induce Frederick III to call into life a (prospectively) Royal Society or Academy of Science, which, as the Elector was quick to perceive, would conspicuously add to the reputation of his court and to the glory of the monarchy of which he was ambitious to become the founder; and, after Leibniz had spent several months at Berlin, and conducted the deliberations on the subject, besides participating in the intellectual delights of ‘Lustenburg’ (Lützenburg), the Society of Sciences was, in July, 1700, actually called into life, with Leibniz as its perpetual president.[120]

Footnote 119:

See H. Breslau, _Der Fall des Oberpräsidenten E. von Danckelmann_, 1692 (H. Breslau and S. Isaacsohn, _Der Fall zweier Preuss. Minister_). Berlin, 1878.

Footnote 120:

Curiously enough, on the day after the opening of this august institution, Leibniz took a prominent part in a ‘Village Fair’ at the Court, of which a graphic description remains in a letter from him to the Electress Sophia. It seems to have been a revised edition of the _Wirthschaften_ of her youth, and of similar Arcadian diversions of later days.—For an interesting survey of the relations—both personal and philosophical—between Leibniz and Sophia Charlotte, see A. Foucher de Careil, _Leibniz et les deux Sophies_, Paris, 1876.