THREE:��The Crown Prince manifests in this tender age an uncommon capacity, nay, we may say, something quite extraordinary. He31 is a most alert and vivacious prince. He has fine and sprightly manners, and shows a certain kindly sociality and so affectionate a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French lady who has had charge of him hitherto can not speak of him without enthusiasm. ��He is a little angel,�� she is wont to say. He takes up and learns whatever is placed before him with the greatest facility.��Still the question of the marriages remained the subject of innumerable intrigues. There were several claimants for the hand of Wilhelmina, and many nuptial alliances suggested for Fritz. Frederick William proposed the marriage of Wilhelmina to Fred, the Prince of Wales, and to let the marriage of Fritz and Amelia for the present remain undecided. But England promptly replied ��No; both marriages or none.�� It is intimated by the ministers of the Prussian king that he was influenced in his vacillating course respecting the marriages not only by his doubts whether the English or a German alliance would be most desirable,55 but also by avarice, as he knew not what dowry he could secure with the English princess, and by jealousy, as he was very unwilling to add to the importance and the power of his hated son Fritz. He also disliked extremely his brother-in-law, George II.6 FORE:Wilhelmina, who was present, gives a graphic account, with her vivacious pen, of many of the scenes, both tragic and comic, which ensued.

THREE: FORE:

THREE:��Any room that was large enough, and had height of ceiling and air circulation, and no cloth furniture, would do. And in each palace is one, or more than one, that has been fixed upon and fitted out for that object. A high room, as the engravings give it us; contented, saturnine human figures, a dozen or so of them, sitting around a large, long table furnished for the occasion; a long Dutch pipe in the mouth of each man; supplies of knaster easily accessible; small pan of burning peat, in the Dutch fashion (sandy native charcoal, which burns slowly without smoke), is at your left hand; at your right a jug, which I find to consist of excellent, thin, bitter beer; other costlier materials for drinking, if you want such, are not beyond reach. On side-tables stand wholesome cold meats, royal rounds of beef not wanting, with bread thinly sliced and buttered; in a rustic, but neat and abundant way, such innocent accommodations, narcotic or nutritious, gaseous, fluid, and solid, as human nature can require.47 Perfect equality is the rule; no rising or no notice taken when any body enters or leaves. Let the entering man take his place and pipe without obligatory remarks. If he can not smoke, let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things. And so puff, slowly puff! and any comfortable speech that is in you, or none, if you authentically have not any.�� FORE:Fritz went in the royal carriage, with suitable escort, to meet the young marquis on the Prussian frontier, as he came to his bridals. They returned together in the carriage to Potsdam with great military display. The wedding took place on the 30th of May, 1729. It was very magnificent. Fritz was conspicuous on the occasion in a grand review of the giant grenadiers. Wilhelmina, in her journal, speaks quite contemptuously of her new brother-in-law, the Marquis of Anspach, describing him as a foolish young fellow. It was, indeed, a marriage of children. The bridegroom was a sickly, peevish, undeveloped boy of seventeen; and the bride was a self-willed and ungoverned little beauty of fifteen. The marriage proved a very unhappy one. There was no harmony between them. Frederick writes: ��They hate one another like the fire�� (comme le feu). They, however, lived together in incessant petty quarrelings for thirty years. Probably during all that time neither one of them saw a happy day. ��Adieu, my dear Voltaire! May Heaven preserve from misfortune the man I should so like to sup with at night after fighting in the morning. Do not forget the absent who love you.

THREE:Frederick caught eagerly at the suggestion, as the remark was reported to him by his brother. He drew up a new plan of partition, which he urged with all his powers of address upon both Russia and Austria. The conscience of Maria Theresa was strongly opposed to the deed. Catharine and Kaunitz were very greedy in their demands. Circumstances assumed such an aspect that it was very difficult for Maria Theresa to oppose the measure. At length, through the extraordinary efforts of Frederick, on the 5th of August, 1772, the following agreement was adopted: FORE:328 ��The minister for foreign affairs was charged to hasten my departure. A pretext, however, was necessary. I took that of my quarrel with the Bishop Mirepoix. I wrote accordingly to the King of Prussia that I could no longer endure the persecutions of this monk, and that I should take refuge under the protection of a philosophical sovereign, far from the disputes of this bigot. When I arrived at Berlin the king lodged me in his palace, as he had done in my former journeys. He then led the same sort of life which he had always done since he came to the throne. He rose at five in summer and six in winter.75 A single servant came to light his fire, to dress and shave him. Indeed, he dressed himself almost without any assistance. His bedroom was a handsome one. A rich and highly ornamented balustrade of silver inclosed apparently a bed hung with curtains, but behind the curtains, instead of a bed, there was a library. As for the royal couch, it was a wretched truckle-bed, with a thin mattress, behind a screen, in one corner of the room. Marcus Aurelius and Julian, his favorite heroes, and the greatest men among the Stoics, were not worse lodged.��In a very triumphant mood, the king, on the 19th of November, wrote a boastful and irreverent ��Ode to Fortune,�� in that easy rhyme which he called poetry. The substance of this ode, translated into prose, was as follows: