Democratic Enlightenment

278 Rationalizing the Ancien Régime
Worst of all was Frederick’s reluctance to move towards emancipating the serfs
whether in Pomerania, East Prussia, or Silesia. He would do nothing against the
interests of the nobility whom the king was always at pains to support as far as he
could, systematically discriminating in their favour in the army and bureaucracy. He
rigorously defended existing entail restrictions: noble lands could generally be sold
only to other nobles. 45 He biased the fiscal system in their favour. In Silesia, he fully
confirmed noble sway over the serfs along with the tithes and privileges of the
Catholic clergy. 46 Without the nobility’s strong support, the military character of
the kingdom would have been unsustainable. ‘On entering the states of the great
Frederick’ which appeared to me like a vast guard-house’, remarked Alfieri, in 1769,
‘my hatred was still more increased of the infamous trade of soldier, the sole basis of
all arbitrary authority, which must always rely on so many thousand hired minions.
On being presented to His Majesty [i.e. Frederick], I experienced not the slightest
emotion either of surprise or respect, but on the contrary, a rising feeling of
indignation which became daily strengthened in my mind on beholding oppression
and despotism assuming the mask of virtue.’ 47
2. THE GERMAN SMALL STATES
Could radical enlighteners hope for more from the small states? Loathing of Frederick,
Maria Theresa, and Catherine, and, from 1787, growing doubts about Joseph,
not infrequently encouraged radical minds to view the small German states with a
more positive eye, a proclivity with a certain logic, despite being distinctly problematic
given the ingrained conservatism of most of these. Many princely courts were in
fact havens of Enlightenment.
Arriving in Berlin in December 1785, shortly before Frederick’s death, Mirabeau
stayed with interruptions for nearly two years, forming an alliance with the reforming
circle around Dohm. 48 Used to expressing himself discreetly (being in Frederick’s
service) Dohm and his friends quietly sympathized with the American Revolution
against the British crown and colluded with Mirabeau, briefing him on German
topics, including Jewish emancipation, in which both men were keenly interested and
about which Dohm, a few years earlier, had published the pre-eminent text in
German On the Civic Improvement of the Jews (1781). Prominent in this group,
cautiously criticizing Prussian state policies, and Mirabeau’s closest ally in Berlin, was
Struensee’s younger brother Carl August who, after being expelled from Denmark in
1772, had become a financial official in the Prussian bureaucracy. 49 Another of
45 46
Mirabeau, De la monarchie, i. 148–9, 153–4, 268–9, 302–3, 352. Ibid. i. 354.
47
Alfieri, Memoirs, 97; D’Ancona, ‘Federico il Grande’, 13–14.
48
Luttrell, Mirabeau, 80–1; Heinrich, ‘Debatte’, 829, 884; Weber, ‘Mirabeau’, 177.
49
Weber, ‘Mirabeau’, 172.