AN ANCIENT PRUSSIAN COURT SCANDAL.
Alf R. BENTLEY has just published a book, in two volumes, called "Recollections of the Countess von Voss," an old lady, wife of a Mecklenburg proprietor, and Mistress of the Household to Queen Louisa of Prussia. The book is rather dry reading for anybody not especially interested in the daily life of the old Court of Prussia, its most valuable portion, the Countess's diary, being a mere aide-mgmoire, of the most snippety and hurried kind ; but it contains a full and authentic account of an affair often mentioned by historians, the left-handed marriage of Julie von Voss to Frederick William II., which throws a flood of light upon the manners of the period, and upon the relation which Kings at the beginning of this century bore even towards thoroughly good people about their Courts. The Countess von Voss, née Ton Pannewitz, was born in 1729, and died in 1814, at the age of eighty-five, having lived through the reign of the eccentric King Frederick William ; that of his great son, Frederick the Great ; that of the wretched voluptuary, Frederick William II. ; and that of the well-meaning, but imbecile Frederick William III., who lost Jena, and so nearly destroyed Prussia that even a devoted courtier like the Countess von Voss believed that all was over. Through- out this long series of reigns, and a life so unusually protracted, the Countess remained either an intimate member of the Court circle at Berlin or a leading official of the household, and it is the effect of that life at that time upon her mind which we desire to bring out. Personally, she appears to have been a woman of a singularly fine character, who attracted the regard of every one who approached her ; unselfish, devoted to duty as she under- stood it; though slightly formal, very kind-hearted; and of a piety which nothing could shake,—except, indeed, her wonder that God could be so tardy in rescuing the Royal House of Prussia by defeating or slaying that infamous Napoleon. A curiously nay° doubt if God could know how " my Queen " suffered, runs through some of her entries. Introduced as a mere child into the Court, she attracted while still a young girl the notice of the Prince of Prussia, Frederick the Great's Heir-Apparent, who fell passionately in love with her,—a love which continued unbroken and fervent until he died of heart-break, caused by the savage reprimandrof the King, who attributed to him the partial loss of a campaign. Mdlle. Pannewitz, though equally in love, discouraged the Prince resolutely, deeming his love either a dishonour to her or a derogation to his own rank, but Frederick became so alarmed lest his heir should actually marry her, that he compelled her parents to wed her tJ. E. von Voss, a diplomate in his service, who really loved her, but was made so jealous by 'her indifference that he became the torment of her life. She was, however, a most faithful wife, an admirable mother, and a woman of the deepest and, so far ashunran eye may detect, of the most sincere piety, when, in 1786, Frederick William II., then Crown.Prince, fell in love with her niece, Julie von Voss, a young girl whose radiant beauty was the admiration of her contemporaries :—" Her contemporaries depict her as a beauty in the style of Titian, of slender but rounded shape, beautiful form and delicate features, dazzlingly fair, but entirely without colour, her marble paleness relieved by rich, reddish-yellow hair. At Court she was nicknamed Ceres' on account of this luxuriant golden hair, adorned by which she is depicted in the pictures which still remain of her, and which all represent her in the first bloom of that youth which she was fated not to survive." The Crown Prince was married, was notorious for his liaison with Fraulein von Enke, whom he married to a Chamber- lain, one Rietz, and afterwards created Countess of Lichtenau, a woman singularly clever and abandoned, who retained her influ- ence over him throughout his life, and was at first steadily re- sisted by Julie von Voss, a vain and weak girl, but in no way exceptionally bad. The Prince, however, after his accession to the throne still proclaimed himself her devoted slave, and Julie at last, overcome by the King's passion or the fascination of royalty, agreed to become his mistress on certain con- ditions, perhaps the most extraordinary ever proposed even in Germany, where bigamous marriages have so often been recorded. She insisted that she should be married to the King ; that the Queen, his wife, should give her written consent to the union ; that it should be formally celebrated in church, with full religious service, as a left-handed marriage ; and that Frau Rietz (the Countess of Lichtenau) should quit Berlin for ever. The King refused the last condition peremptorily, urging, as it would seem from his subsequent conduct, that he could not live without his old mistress's advice ; but he conceded the two former stipulations, and they were actually carried out to the letter. The supreme synod of the Evangelical Church of Prussia, the Consistorium, gave its consent to the marriage by the Court preacher Zollner, in the Royal chapel at Charlottenburg, on the ground that it was justi- fied by the double marriage allowed by Melanchthon (Luther?) to Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse, and the ceremonial was regu- larly performed. The Queen gave her written consent, and even urged the marriage, writing of Julie that she had always had an affection for her, and telling her that she " was glad to know that the King was in such noble and good hands." The ceremony was performed late in May, 1787, and Julie was created Countess Ingenheim, and was regularly invited by the Queen to dinner with the King and herself, and always seated opposite his Majesty at table, the only distinction made against her being that, as not Royal, she was not allowed to play cards with the Royal family, but only with the members of the Household. The old Countess writes :—
"December 20, 1787.—Julie is unwell, and cannot leave her bed, Princess Frederika and the Princess of Brunswick, with the King, dined in her room, at her bedside. It is too strong!"
The poor young woman, who appears to have been sincerely devoted to her paramour, was, however, wretchedly unlinppy. She felt certain that the King, who dined almost every evening with-the Countess of Lichtenau, would desert her at last ; the ceremonial had in no way pacified her conscience, she was not soothed by the attentions of the courtiers, and on March 25, 1788, after having borne the King one child, she died, leaving the Xing inconsolable for nearly a year, when he married again, of course with the left hand, the Countess Dohna, this time without the consent of the Queen, who was remarkable for her bad-temper, and was this time so bitter that the King compelled her to apologise to the new mistress.
That, it may be said, is merely a scandal, such as has occurred in most Courts of Europe, and not worth repeating ; and we should agree, but for one feature in the tale. It is quite evident that the reverence for the Royal authority in Prussia, fostered by the first Frederick William's strict government, and developed by the unusual abilities of Frederick the Great, had risen to the most extravagant height, until all classes recognised that the King was above the ordinary moral law. In no other country in the world, not even in France under Louis XV., would it have been conceived even possible that the Queen should distinctly con- sent to such an arrangement as the left-handed marriage, that the heads of the Church should assist it, that a chaplain should per- form the ceremony, and that the Princesses of the Blood should encourage the connection by direct countenance ; yet all these things were done, and done by people otherwise not bad. The King him- self was a low voluptuary of the half-sentimental, half-heartless sort; but the Queen, though disagreeable, was a good woman ; the mis- tressJulie von Voss was heart-broken at her own fault; the Consis- torium must have contained many pious men ; and the old Countess von Voss, whose utter grief over the whole affair cannot be doubted, and who severely condemned her niece, could not bring herself to regard the King as anything but an excellent man, led away by a weakness in his character. She writes :—
" January 2, 1789.—Julie gave birth to a son to-day. The Wing was there, and much pleased."
" Januaty 4.—The child is christened. The King himself held him at the font. He is named Gustavus Adolphus William. Julie's brother, the Minister Bischofswerder, and I were the sponsors. The King was nearly the whole day with the invalid. In truth, he is really the best Prince that can be found in the whole world. What a pity that he is so weak, so devoid of energy, and sometimes so impetuous."
And this was no passing judgment. Twenty years after, when the Countess von Voss was seventy-nine years old, and had passed through deep griefs and trials, all of them well borne, she sits down to write a retrospect of her life, intended for no eye but her own. She blesses in touching language all who, during her pilgrimage on earth, have aroused in her feelings of love and tenderness, and thanks God humbly for His care, and then sums up her opinion of Frederick the Great and Frederick William II., the seducer of her niece :— "It has pleased God to give her a long life. She thanks Him in all humility, and blesses and prizes the narrow road along which His holy will has led her. Sometimes the way has been hard and dark, but it was salutary and healing to the soul. One happiness, however, was
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hers, the possession of beloved children, whose love has doubled all her joys and lightened all her sorrows. :From her earliest youth wmember of the Court to which she still belongs, a brilliant and stately one in those days, she has remained through her long life faithful and true to that Royal house. She has seen the rule and great achievements of a King who conquered in a dangerous war, although the might and mag- nitude of the foe who had sworn to his destruction was such that it seemed as if his kingdom must inevitably succumb. But his greatness consisted not only in that he defended himself, and stood np unaided and undismayed against an universal enemy, but he also reconquered what he had lost, and became mightier than he had been before. He was inflexibly firm and stedfast, and at times even admirable and sublime. And in addition he built palaces and piled up treasure. The good Prince who followed him [Julie's seducer] seemed to be made for the happiness of his people, of a character full of mildness and warm-hearted benevolence. He had energy also, and would have shown it, had not ill-luck willed that a base and evil influence should hang upon and take possession of him, until he lost all control over his own passions. This was also the reason of his early death. He was taken before his time, and oh I not half so much lamented as he deserved. And yet he was so kind, so true a friend in need, and if one may permit oneself the
expression, such an honourable, upright man I"
All are to blame save the King, and this in the eyes of a woman really religious, unusually experienced, keenly observant of char- acter, and as free of flunkeyism as it was possible to be, her com- ments on the members of the family she so devotedly served being sometimes most bitter, and her cool treatment of the last King she served a surprise to the whole Court. It is difficult, after reading such memoirs, to doubt that at that time, and in Germany, Kings were believed, not only by the masses, but by good people who lived close to them, and saw them as they were, to be released from the obligations which govern ordinary human beings, to be above the laws, whether human or divine. That impression serves to explain many things of that period,—the astound- ing loyalty evoked by weak or scoundrelly men, and the excessive selfishness, rising almost to disease, which is so characteristic of the Sovereigns of that century, till to the modern reader of Court history it seems marvellous how Louis XIV., or Louis XV., or Frederick the Great could have found nobles and statesmen and generals willing to endure the endless monotony and occasional oppressions of Court life. They did endure it, however, and though to most of them it must have seemed, as it often did to the Countess von Voss, intolerably wearisome—she had at one time to play cards every evening for years, hating cards all the while—they found every other life, when they quitted the Court circle, too insipid to bear.
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