IN SEARCH OF OLD FRITZ 259the way I live, and my kitchen train consists of an attendant, a
chef and a pastry cook. I arrange my own menu, and in fact I see
to myself quite well. I know the country and I know where the
best game, fish and meats are to be found. When I arrive at my
destination I affect to be tired, and I always show myself to the
public wearing a dreadful overcoat and an unkempt wig. Such
trifles often make an extraordinary impression. (Toulongeon,
1881, 147)It was also of some relevance that Frederick's tastes and eccentri-
cities were of a kind to disengage him from some of the enthusiasms
that were beginning to move his contemporaries. In peacetime he
professed an indifference to public opinion, and he seemed to go to
earth in Potsdam 'as savage, bitter and hostile as a lion in his den,
who employs his leisure to lap up the blood of his victims' (Count
Karl Gustav von Tessin, in Volz, 1926-7, II, 194). He rejected all
attempts at ingratiation, even from his fellow Freemasons.
Likewise every impartial biographer has drawn attention to the
king's preference for the French language and culture, and his indif-
ference towards the men of the new German literature, who did
everything they could to gain, if not Frederick's active approval, at
least a sign of attention. Frederick was not attracted by the Anglo-
mania of the 1770s and 1780s, for he disliked the English for their
stiffness and gloom, their political faction, and their inclination
towards physical violence. He did not feel impelled by the writings of
Rousseau to go about on all fours, eating grass. Sturm und Drang was
contrary to his nature, and so, at the other extreme, were the cold,
pompous neo-classical forms of Winckelmann's rediscovery of the
architecture of ancient Greece. His visual world remained that of the
rococo. In their lightness, colour and movement the interiors of Sans
Souci surpass anything in that style at Schonbrunn, and, long after
fashions had changed, he insisted that the Berlin porcelain factory
must continue to set before the public the decorative floral patterns of
his youth. The paintings of Watteau continued to attract him, even
when he was purchasing a more representative selection of great
canvases for his Picture Gallery.
Frederick judged all music by reference to the Italianised German
masters of the earlier part of the century. He disliked what little he
knew of Gluck, and Haydn and Mozart remained virtual strangers to
him: 'Good things remain good, and even when you have heard them
before it is still nice to hear them again' (to Electress Maria-Antonia
of Saxony, 8 January 1778, Oeuvres, XXIV, 292).
Traits of character such as these help us to construct a wider
context for the military reaction which was so pronounced in