"As a fit of illness [MALADIE, alas!] has come on me,--which I do not think will have dangerous results,--I have for the present left the command of my Troops to Lieutenant-General von Finck;whose Orders you are to execute as if coming to you directly from myself. On this I pray God to have you in his holy and worthy keeping.--F." [Preuss, ii. Urkundenbuch,
p. 43.]
At Berlin, on this 13th,--with the Five Couriers coming in successively (and not in the order of their despatch, but the fatal Fifth arriving some time AHEAD of the Fourth, who still spoke of progress and victory),--there was such a day as Sulzer (ACH MEINLIEBER SULZER!) had never seen in the world. "'Above 50,000 human beings on the Palace Esplanade and streets about;' swaying hither and thither, in agony of expectation, in alternate paroxysm of joy and of terror and woe; often enough the opposite paroxysms simultaneous in the different groups, and men crushed down in despair met by men leaping into the air for very gladness:" Sulzer (whose sympathy is of very aesthetic type) "would not, for any consideration, have missed such a scene." [ Briefe der Schweitzer Bodmer, Sulzer, Gessner; aus Gleim's literarischen Nachlasse: herausgegeben von Wilhelm Korte (Zurich, 1804), pp. 316-319.] The "scene" is much obliged to you, MEIN LIEBER!--Practically we find, in Rodenbeck, or straggling elsewhere, this Note: "On the day after Kunersdorf, Queen and Court fly to Magdeburg: this is their second flight. Their first was on Haddick's Visit, October, 1757; but after Rossbach they soon returned, and Berlin and the Court were then extremely gay:
different gentlemen, French and others of every Nation, fallen prisoners, made the Queen's soirees the finest in the world for splendor and variety, at that time." [Rodenbeck, i. 390; &c. &c.]
One other Note we save, for the sake of poor Major Kleist, "Poet of the Spring," as he was then called. A valiant, punctual Soldier, and with a turn for Literature as well; who wrote really pleasant fine things, new at that time and rapturously welcome, though too much in the sentimental vein for the times which have followed.
Major Kleist,--there is a General Kleist, a Colonel Kleist of the Green Hussars (called GRUNE Kleist, a terrible cutting fellow):--this is not Grune Kleist; this is the Poet of THE SPRING;whose fate at Kunersdorf made a tragic impression in all intelligent circles of Teutschland. Here is Kriele's Note (abridged):--"Christian Ewald von Kleist, 'Poet of the Spring' [a Pommern gentleman, now in his forty-fourth year], was of Finck's Division;had come on, after those Eight Battalions took the first Russian battery [that is, Muhlberg]; and had been assisting, with zeal, at the taking of three other batteries, regardless of twelve contusions, which he gradually got. At the third battery, he was farther badly hurt on the left arm and the right. Took his Colonel's place nevertheless, whom he now saw fall; led the regiment MUTHIG forward on the fourth battery. A case-shot smashed his right leg to pieces; he fell from his horse [hour not given, shall we say 3 P.M.]; sank, exclaiming: 'KINDER, My children, don't forsake your King!' and fainted there. Was carried to rear and leftward; laid down on some dry spot in the Elsbruch, not far from the Kuhgrund, and a Surgeon brought. The Surgeon, while examining, was torn away by case-shot: Kleist lay bleeding without help.
A friend of his, Pfau [who told Kriele], one of Finck's Generals, came riding that way: Kleist called to him; asked how the Battle went; uncommonly glad to hear we are still progressive.
Pfau undertook, and tried his utmost, for a carriage to Kleist;did send one of Finck's own carriages; but after such delays that the Prussians were now yielding: poor Kleist's had become Russian ground, and the carriage could not get in.
"Kleist lay helpless; no luck worse than his. In the evening, Cossacks came round him; stript him stark-naked; threw him, face foremost, into the nearest swampy place, and went their way. One of these devils had something so absurd and Teniers-like in the face of him, that Kleist, in his pains, could not help laughing at remembrance of it. In the night some Russian Hussars, human and not Cossack, found Kleist in this situation; took him to a dry place;put a cloak over him, kindled a watch-fire for themselves, and gave him water and bread. Towards morning they hastened away, throwing an 8-GROSCHEN STUCK [ninepenny piece, shilling, say half-crown] on his cloak,--with human farewell. But Cossacks again came;again stript him naked and bare. Towards noon of the 13th, Kleist contrived to attract some Russian Cavalry troop passing that way, and got speech of the Captain (one Fackelberg, a German); who at once set about helping him;--and had him actually sent into Frankfurt, in a carriage, that evening. To the House of a Professor Nikolai; where was plenty of surgery and watchful affection.
After near thirty hours of such a lair, his wounds seemed still curable; there was hope for ten days. In the tenth night (22d-23d August), the shivered pieces of bone disunited themselves; cut an artery,--which, after many trials, could not be tied. August 24th, at two in the morning, he died.--Great sorrow. August 26th, there was soldier's funeral; poor Kleist's coffin borne by twelve Russian grenadiers; very many Russian Officers attending, who had come from the Camp for that end; one Russian Staff-Officer of them unbuckling his own sword to lay on the bier, as there was want of one.
King Friedrich had Kleist's Portrait hung in the Garnison Kirche.
Freemason Lodge, in 1788, set up a monument to him," [Kriele, pp.
39-43.]--which still stands on the Frankfurt pavement, and is now in sadly ruinous state.
