258 IN SEARCH OF OLD FRITZ^258
if indeed it was ever printed at all, but their opinions were well
known in the officer corps, and some of their memoirs were circulated
widely in manuscript form. The military diarist Henckel von Don-
nersmarck and the staff officers Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst von Gaudi
and Georg Heinrich von Berenhorst were associated in the public
mind with the circle of Prince Henry. Then again Captain F. A. von
Retzow and Friedrich Wilhelm Carl von Schmettau were respectively
the son and nephew of generals who had been harshly used by
Frederick. The old hussar colonel Charles-Emanuel von Warnery had
been banished from active service in 1758, but it is more than possible
that his astringent comments represented at second hand the opin-
ions of Seydlitz, his friend and neighbour in Silesia. The resentments
of Friedrich Adolph von Kalkreuth also dated from the middle of the
Seven Years War, when as a young Garde du Corps he had been
disciplined by the king. He dictated his recollections in 1818, and they
gave the impression of having been 'distilled through poison and gall'
Ganson, 1913, 209).
Sentiments of revenge were harboured by Frederick's own inti-
mate, that man of letters and unwilling free-corps brigand 'Quintus
Icilius' (Colonel Carl Gottlieb Guischardt). At once attracted and
humiliated by the king, Quintus Icilius assembled great quantities of
material with a view to compiling a history that would reveal the
dominant role played by accident and blunder in the Seven Years War
(Guibert, 1803, I, 21). He died in 1775, and Frederick at once bought
up his books and papers. They were never seen again.
Foreigners and natives alike were tempted, as we must be, by the
ambition to form a rounded and convincing view of Frederick as
soldier, king and private man. For a number of reasons, this enterprise
is probably hopeless. For a start, Frederick was lacking in basic
'integrity', when we use this word in the strict sense of the force
which binds together public and private conduct. Maria Theresa
owned this integrity when Frederick patently did not. Old Fritz once
advised his nephew concerning la politique particuli&re:
when I was crown prince I showed little inclination towards
military things. I was fond of my comforts, good food and wine,
and I was often frantic with love. When I became king I put on
the guise of soldier, philosopher and poet. I slept on straw, I
camped among my soldiers eating ration bread, and I affected to
despise women.
Here is how I carry on. On my journeys I dispense with an
escort, and I travel night and day. My suite is tiny and well
chosen. My carriage is simple, but it is well sprung and I can
sleep in it as well as in my bed. I pay little apparent attention to