248 IN SEARCH OF OLD FRITZ^248war, and the re-shaping of the Unter den Linden, and the addition of
further buildings, like the Library and the Playhouse, gave unity to
the whole.
The two royal palaces were mostly the work of earlier times. The
Berlin Schloss was an assemblage of different periods, and it held little
appeal for Frederick, who disliked its position in the centre of the city.
However, a pleasant walk through the avenues of a park led to the
river Spree and the palace of Charlottenburg, which was originally
built for Sophie-Charlotte of Hanover, the second wife of Frederick I.
In the early 1740s our own Frederick had considered spending a good
deal of time there, and he commissioned Knobelsdorff and the painter
Antoine Pesne to fashion an elegant new east wing. Much devasta-
tion was caused here by the allies in 1760, and after the war Frederick
used Charlottenburg only as a base from which to supervise the
reviews and manoeuvres in the nearby open country.
The Prussian military identity was expressed more directly else-
where. In the secluded Wilhelmsplatz there arose commemorative
statues of Seydlitz, Keith, Winterfeldt, and of Schwerin at the
moment when he was killed at Prague. This ensemble was considered
to be a unique compliment for a king to pay to his generals. On the
main axis of the Unter den Linden the Great Elector's splendid
Arsenal still served an immediate military purpose. The ground floor
held all the field artillery for the Berlin and Potsdam forces. The upper
storey ran around all four sides of the building, and its broad, well-lit
halls were stacked with mountains of drums, piles of swords, huge
chests of ramrods, and stands of more than 100,000 muskets. No space
was given to antique weapons, and there was 'nothing but what is
ready for immediate service' (Marshall, 1772, III, 281).
Frederician Berlin succeeded least well in matters of detail.
Scarcely a traveller failed to notice the disparity between the inten-
tions expressed in the regular streets and impressive stucco facades,
and the reality which obtruded in the vandalised statues, the shoddy
brickwork showing through the plaster, and the common character of
most of the inhabitants.
For most of the year the air of Berlin was notoriously keen, but
the summers were short and hot and in that season the mosquitoes
swarmed in from the lake water round about, and the wind propelled
great clouds of troublesome dust. The moral climate was at once
louche and invested with an element of authorised violence. By
Frederick's admission, 'the way of life at Berlin is pretty wild'
(Taysen, 1886, 81). Observers were scandalised by the toleration of
atheism, prostitution and worse, and in his guide-book of 1758Johann
Peter Willebrandt warned the traveller to be on his guard not just
against perils of the Parisian kind, but a danger unique to Berlin.