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175 RIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUCH GERMANY,
operas only excepted); he has no occafion to advife with a minifter of finance, how, or
from what funds the miftrefs’s new drefs, or her new houfe, or her new garden, or
her journey to fhall be paid; —nothing is undertaken here for which the money is not
ready. The King of Pruffia has neither favourite, nor confeffor, nor court fool (who,
mutatis mutandis, is {till in good credit in the other courts of Germany, and whofe part
the confeflor moftly plays).
Under thefe circumftances, the court anecdotes of the day muft neceflarily be very
few; but yet the King gives himfelf fo little trouble to be concealed, that as the Eng-
lifhman, Moore obferves, it is no difficult matter to arrive at his bed-chamber unper-
ceived: he is furrounded neither by a guard or a fwarm of faotmen and valets de
chambre ; he often walks alone in the gardens of Sans-Soucy, and wherever he is,
except at a review, no man is kept at a diftance.
It is-owing to the fame fimplicity and order which obtains in his private life, that the
operations of the King of Pruffia’s government make fo little noife. | Whoever con-
fiders his adminiftration as myfterious, or his dealings as eftablifhed in intrigue, falls into
the error fo common to all us mortals, of thinking there is intrigue wherever there is
fimplicity; hence it is, that we do not fee the truth that is under our nofes. Some-
times, however, a man’s over zeal works out fomewhat bitter from his own gall, and
this I conceive to have been Mr. Wraxall’s cafe.
It is true, that the King neither holds ftated councils, nor yet a Lit de Juftice ; he has
no parliament whofe members are promoted for their flatteries, and banifhed for their
oppofition. ‘The princes of the blood have no opportunity of compelling him by repre-
fentations or proteftations again{t his meafures, either to forbid them appearing at court
on certain days, or to pay their debts; men of honour are not banifhed from him by
Lettres de Cachet, nor can the minilters cabal againft them ; neither is this King com-
pelled to appeal to the love and patriotifm of his fubjeéts, as often as the invention of
the minifter of finance is exhaufted, and the poor man has no artifice, fave flattery, left
to wring the laft penny from their purfes; he knows nothing of {tate lotteries, nor of
annuities, nor of loans, nor of new vingticmes; nor of augmenting the capitation; he has
no dons gratuits to expect from his clergy, nor is he obliged to threaten them with re-
formation in religion, if they will not make him the prefents required; he has no bifhops
nor /orbenne, who imprifon fenfible men, and take away their charaéter in the public
eftimation, in order to preferve their own places; his minifters can neither make par-
ties amongft themfelves, nor play at the blind cow with him.—All this muft in truth
render the governmert very uniform, and affords very little fubjeét for news.
I fpent many days in confidering in what part of this adminiftration it would be pof-
fible to intreduce myftery, without being able to make a probable conjeture. There
is, indeed, a myftery incidental to foreign affairs, from the very nature of them, which
even the Englifh miniftry contrive religioufly to conceal from the eyes of parliament 5
but as to home occafions, neither the religion, the nobility, nor any part of the {tate is
ever at variance with the whole. ar from endeavouring to undermine the rights of
the nobility, the King takes all poffible pains to maintain them in the full poffeffion of
them. He has affifted the Silefian nobility, who are the moft powerful in his country,
by lending them large fums of money, at one and a half per cent. The fame thing has
been done for the nobility of other countries who have wanted his affiftance. No com-
munity, city, or religious order, is in the leaft danger of having their privileges intruded
upon, as long as they are not detrimental to the advantage of the whole. The rich
cloyfters in Silefia and the Weftern Pruffia, have not the leaft thing to apprehend.
15 ; The
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