On this day, the author, campaigning in the first full year of the Seven Years War, arrives in Halberstedt with a French army:
“It is a large town in the middle of a rich and fertile plain. The King of Prussia does not have any better land. There is a chapter of a dozen canons, of which 4 Catholics, 4 Lutherans, and 4 Calvinists. Each religion is practised there. It is Prince Henry of Prussia who is the dean. That position is worth 40,000 German écus to him. There was a significant revenue in the diocese; the King of Prussia has helped himself to it. He has given canonries to former lieutenant-colonels who have served him well, who sell them to clerics for 10,000 écus. They are worth 5,000 to 6,000 in revenue.”
Interestingly, Valfons records that there is a Huguenot community in the town:
“The King gave asylum to 72 refugee families from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes…these Frenchmen have found, 300 leagues from their country, in the heart of Germany, the conservation of their customs, their religion, and their laws…they were most useful to the country and to us because often the greatest disorders are born of the difference of language and the difficulty of understanding one another.”
Commentary:
Halberstedt, or Halberstadt, is located in the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. In the 18th century, it is a bishopric in the possession of the King of Prussia. According to Wikipedia, it is home at this time to a significant Jewish community in addition to the Christian ones mentioned by our author. Unlike most rulers of their time, the Kings of Prussia, who are also the Electors of Brandenburg, are religiously tolerant.
Pictured: A view of Halberstadt as it appears today.
Credit — By Wolfgang Pehlemann Wiesbaden Germany - Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32946445
Prince Henry of Prussia is one of Frederick II’s younger brothers and one of his most effective generals. Like Frederick, Henry is agnostic if not atheist and likely attaches little or no importance to his religious duties as dean of the Halberstadt chapter of canons.
Pictured: Prince Henry of Prussia (1720-1802) as painted in 1769 by Tischbein.
As for the Huguenots, the Elector Frederick William I, not King but merely Duke of Prussia — his son Frederick I took the title of King in 1701 — was quick to offer asylum to them after the news of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes reached Berlin in late 1685. Tens of thousands of Huguenots settled in Brandenburg or other possessions of its rulers, such as Halberstadt. Some aristocratic Huguenots found places at court. Frederick II and his elder sister Wilhelmine, for example, were raised by a Huguenot governess, Mme de Roucoulle.
The translation from the French is my own, as it always is unless I credit someone else. If you have questions that I have not addressed in the commentary, please ask in the comments.