The body guards formed, at this time, a model and school for the Prussian cavalry; they consisted of one single squadron of men selected from the whole army, and their uniform was the most splendid in all Europe. Two thousand rix-dollars were necessary to equip an officer: the cuirass was wholly plated with silver; and the horse, furniture, and accoutrements alone cost four hundred rix-dollars.
This squadron only contained six officers and a hundred and forty-four men; but there were always fifty or sixty supernumeraries, and as many horses, for the King incorporated all the most handsome men he found in the guards. The officers were the best taught of any the army contained; the King himself was their tutor, and he afterwards sent them to instruct the cavalry in the manoeuvres they had learnt. Their rise was rapid if they behaved well; but they were broken for the least fault, and punished by being sent to garrison regiments. It was likewise necessary they should be tolerably rich, as well as possess such talents as might be successfully employed, both at court and in the army.
There are no soldiers in the world who undergo so much as this body guard; and during the time I was in the service of Frederic, I often had not eight hours’ sleep in eight days. Exercise began at four in the morning, and experiments were made of all the alterations the King meant to introduce in his cavalry. Ditches of three, four, five, six feet, and still wider, were leaped, till that someone broke his neck; hedges, in like manner, were freed, and the horses ran careers, meeting each other full speed in a kind of lists of more than half a league in length. We had often, in these our exercises, several men and horses killed or wounded.
It happened more frequently than otherwise that the same experiments were repeated after dinner with fresh horses; and it was not uncommon, at Potzdam, to hear the alarm sounded twice in a night. The horses stood in the King’s stables; and whoever had not dressed, armed himself, saddled his horse, mounted, and appeared before the palace in eight minutes, was put under arrest for fourteen days.
Scarcely were the eyes closed before the trumpet again sounded, to accustom youth to vigilance. I lost, in one year, three horses, which had either broken their legs, in leaping ditches, or died of fatigue.
I cannot give a stronger picture of this service than by saying that the body guard lost more men and horses in one year’s peace than they did, during the following year, in two battles.
We had, at this time, three stations; our service, in the winter, was at Berlin, where we attended the opera, and all public festivals: in the spring we were exercised at Charlottenberg; and at Potzdam, or wherever the King went, during the summer. The six officers of the guard dined with the King, and, on gala days, with the Queen. It may be presumed there was not at that time on earth a better school to form an officer and a man of the world than was the court of Berlin.
I had scarcely been six weeks a cadet before the King took me aside, one day, after the parade, and having examined me near half an hour, on various subjects, commanded me to come and speak to him on the morrow.
His intention was to find whether the accounts that had been given him of my memory had not been exaggerated; and that he might be convinced, he first gave me the names of fifty soldiers to learn by rote, which I did in five minutes. He next repeated the subjects of two letters, which I immediately composed in French and Latin; the one I wrote, the other I dictated. He afterwards ordered me to trace, with promptitude, a landscape from nature, which I executed with equal success; and he then gave me a cornet’s commission in his body guards.
Each mark of bounty from the monarch increased an ardour already great, inspired me with gratitude, and the first of my wishes was to devote my whole life to the service of my King and country. He spoke to me as a Sovereign should speak, like a father, like one who knew well how to estimate the gifts bestowed on me by nature; and perceiving, or rather feeling, how much he might expect from me, became at once my instructor and my friend.