XI.
Frederick William loved women. Women, however, did not govern him. But if he escaped the influence of mistresses, he fell under the influence of favourites, and the people were none the better off. Badly brought up, kept apart from State affairs by his uncle, distrusting others because he was very distrustful of himself, he knew nothing of the art of government, and dallied with vague reform projects. The Ministers whom Frederick left behind, although very second-rate, made him ill at ease. He was afraid of being considered under their thumb; besides, these Ministers represented ideas and a system which he affected to condemn. “The King will be led just because he is afraid of being so,” wrote Mirabeau. The fear of being governed by his Ministers delivered him into the hands of underlings, who promptly gained a mastery over him by humbling themselves before him, reassuring his suspicious pride, flattering his passions—above all, exploiting the shortcomings of his mind. Frederick William desired the good of the State; he had a hazy but quite keen idea of the necessity of counteracting the excesses of Frederick’s Government; but his intentions rambled, and his reform fancies, more mystical then political, proceeded not so much from the idea of the interests of the State as from the influence of a secret doctrine with which he was imbued. The statesman in him was but an adept in magic; for Ministers he took mere charlatans. Skilled conjurers replaced at Potsdam Frederick’s “judicious Ministers.”