256 IN SEARCH OF OLD FRITZ^256want to know what it is like to be hanged', he once declared, 'just
take a drink of Rhenish wine' (Volz, 1926-7, III, 205).
The Frederician lunches were an undeniable ordeal for the
guests, on account of the king's revolting table manners, and those
dreadful royal monologues that reduced his officers and brothers to
an overawed silence, tormented Mitchell in the course of the Seven
Years War, and consigned the Austrian generals to sleep during the
conference at Neisse in 1769.
Late in the afternoon Frederick got down to a final hour's work
with his secretaries and heads of department, and he made sure that
all his messages and letters were sealed and dispatched by six. There
was no supper, and Frederick did not share Maria Theresa's addiction
to cards. In the evening he betook himself to the music room, and
played through a short programme in private with his orchestra. He
might walk alone for some time in the open air, and then, usually
before ten at night, he retired to his bedroom. He chatted with his
reader Catt (who read aloud to him) or other intimate friends, and
before taking to his bed he summoned his household officials and
argued through the next day's menu and the accounts of the stables
and palace.
The filthy state of Frederick's surroundings, clothing and person-
al hygiene was a matter of public knowledge. The youthful dandy was
long dead. Now the interior of the king's coach resembled the prover-
bial Zigeunerlager, and his little greyhounds were allowed to rip up
cushions and commit still worse atrocities in the royal apartments.
On the evidence of the royal attendant Schoning we know that
Frederick stood about five feet five inches tall, and that he was of
average proportions (and therefore probably not as thin as he is
usually depicted). His head inclined slightly to the right, from
playing the flute for so long, and his back was humped, but he was an
expert and hard-riding horseman, and his gait on foot was easy,
natural and rapid. 'The pitch of his conversation was a most pure and
agreeable tenor. When he commanded his troops his voice was loud,
and carried with the utmost clarity to a considerable distance'
(Anon., 1787-9, I, 7).
All of this detail, and a good deal more, was readily accessible to
the foreigner who read the travellers' tales, interrogated the gossips of
Berlin, or caught a glimpse of the king on parade. However, the
moving principles of Frederick's life, and the lineaments of his char-
acter, were things that escaped his contemporaries, and which have
remained impenetrable to historians ever since.
The foreign soldiers naturally looked first at what military
literature could tell them about the great man. Some of the most
celebrated sources were not yet available to them. The first volume of