IN SEARCH OF OLD FRITZ 261your taste. May God keep you in his holy and fond care! (Preuss,
1832-4, IV, 296)The detailed business of killing, whether on the battlefield or by way
of discipline or judicial punishment, was something that Frederick
found repulsive. No punishment was inflicted on dishonest or careless
servants of the royal household, or on those officials who admini-
stered East Prussia for the Russian enemy in the course of the Seven
Years War. Frederick had a low opinion of humankind, and he was
never shocked when it lived down to his expectations.
None of this detracted from the terror evoked by Frederick's
presence. Countess Henriette Egloffistein describes how as a little girl
she heard a troop of horse riding past her family coach as it waited at
one of the gates of Potsdam:
I at once put my head out of the window, and saw that this
body of cavalry was led by the mummy-like figure of an old man
in a shabby uniform. A large plumed hat was jammed at an
angle above the face, which was deformed by a huge nose, a
small caved-in mouth and great bovine eyes. This frightening
creature rode so close to me that his arm... literally brushed
my upturned nose. The king glanced back, and those terrifying
eyes bored through me, compelling me to draw my head inside.
Only after he had passed did I pluck up the courage to alert my
companions to the presence of the king. They thought I had let
my imagination run away with me. (Volz, 1926-7, III, 198)Amid so much that is uncertain, the loneliness of Frederick's
later years is transmitted with all the greater force. We know from the
many biographies that Frederick remained a stranger to his queen,
and that the table circle of Sans Souci was never reconstituted in its
old glory after the Seven Years War. The survivors and the newcomers
bore the character of victims as much as of companions. Maria
Theresa delivers the terrible verdict: This hero who has everyone
talking about him, this conqueror, does he have a single friend7 Must
he not distrust the whole universe? What kind of life is it, from which
all humanity is banished?' (to Joseph II, 14 September 1766, in Volz,
1926-7, II, 213).
Among the famous military men, there was a tincture of re-
proach in the physical and mental distance they held between
themselves and the king. Prince Henry, who was probably the most
gifted of them, maintained at Rheinsberg what was virtually a rival
court, the focus of some of the most rancorous and resentful elements
in the officer corps. Fouqu6 received gracious messages and presents
of fruits from the king, but nothing could tempt him to make the