Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/61

 FREDERICK THE GREAT 241 all his differences with Saxony and Austria. The young and fortunate conqueror now proceeded to improve and adorn his dominions ; and it is almost impossible to speak in too high terms of the great things he effected with comparatively small means. At this period of his life Frederick was singularly beloved and admired by the new court and world with which he had surrounded himself. His wit, fortune, and activity a figure marked by distinguished bearing, by beauty of a peculiar kind, even by dress and apparel a total of personal appearance that impressed itself singularly on the eyes of the beholder, excited general enthusiasm. Imita- tion is a proof and consequence of it ; and many an orthodox believer, who trembled in private, ridiculed religion in public, because he had heard that the king was an atheist ; and many a gallant soldier, who hated the sight and smell of snuff, disfigured his nose and lip with rappee, because such was the royal fashion. As a general, he was looked upon as the first of his time. The feeble moment at Molwitz had not become generally known ; and the few who had witnessed the un- pleasant affair, were too loyal and well-disposed to call it back to their recollection. The king certainly did everything to deserve the favorable opinion entertained of him. Arts, science, commerce, and agriculture were encouraged ; more than. one hundred and thirty villages sprang up on newly drained lands along the banks of the Oder ; men of letters and talents were brought to Berlin ; theatres, operas, ballets, were established ; a sort of German Versailles arose amid the sands of Brandenburg; and the "Garden House outside the gate," which was Frederick William's summer residence and place of recreation, soon sank down to the hum- ble rank of a gardener's lodge to his son's palace ! The machinery of govern- ment was never carried on with such perfect regularity. The king superintended the whole himself, and that without any regular intercourse with his ministers, some of whom, it is said, he never saw in his life. They furnished him every morning with abridged statements of the business to be transacted, and he wrote his order on the margin of the paper ; the affairs of state were all settled in a couple of hours. Literary compositions, in prose and verse, military reviews, meals, and conversation, filled up the rest of the day. " Frederick," says Voltaire, in his vile and mischievous " Memoires," "governed without court, council, or religious establishment " i^culte). It was during this brilliant period of the king's reign that the French poet passed some time at Berlin. The Austrians, who had ridiculed the drilling and powdering, had paid for their folly in many a bloody field, but had profited by the lesson, and could now move as accurately and fire as quickly as their neighbors. The first combat of the great Seven Years' War, which began in 1 756, already proved this to the con- viction of all parties. The Prussians purchased a slight advantage by a great loss of blood ; and on the very battle-field the general remark was, "These are no longer the old Austrians." On the capture of the Saxon army, which surrendered at Pima, Frederick, who exacted such unlimited allegiance from his subjects and soldiers, gave a strange proof of inconsistency, and of that contempt with which he seemed to treat the feelings of other men ; for, without so much as asking 16