Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia"




BOOK VI.

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND CROWN-PRINCE,
GOING ADRIFT UNDER THE STORM-WINDS.

1727-1730.

Chapter I.

FIFTH CRISIS IN THE KAISER'S SPECTRE-HUNT.

The Crown-Prince's young Life being, by perverse chance, involved
and as it were absorbed in that foolish question of his English
Marriage, we have nothing for it but to continue our sad function;
and go on painfully fishing out, and reducing to an authentic
form, what traces of him there are, from that disastrous beggarly
element,--till once he get free of it, either dead or alive.
The WINDS (partly by Art-Magic) rise to the hurricane pitch, upon
this Marriage Project and him; and as for the sea, or general tide
of European Politics--But let the reader look with his own eyes.

In the spring of 1727, War, as anticipated, breaks out; Spaniards
actually begin battering at Gibraltar; Kaiser's Ambassador at
London is angrily ordered to begone. Causes of war were many:
1. Duke de Ripperda--tumbled out now, that illustrious diplomatic