[By Ludwig Wichmann. Bronze. At Treptow.]
375. Frederic William I. King of Prussia.
[Born at Berlin, 1688. Died there, 1740. Aged 52.]
The son of Frederic I. and the father of Frederic the Great. The best that can be said of him is, that he left behind him a full treasury and an efficient army of 66,000 men. He was rough and rude in his manners, a hater of luxury, and parsimonious in all things but his expenditure for the increase of his military resources. He had a childish desire to fill all his regiments with very tall men, and was unscrupulous in his methods of gratifying the whim. An amusing story is told in connexion with this passion. Meeting with a fine, tall, and strong young peasant woman, who was on errand to the quarters of a regiment, he gave her a letter to deliver to the commanding officer, ordering him to marry the bearer to his tallest grenadier. The girl, hindered on her way, and not knowing the purport of her mission, entrusted it to a little old woman, and the marriage was effected accordingly. His contempt for science and literature was supreme, and he made no secret of his want of all respect for their professors. He was feared, not loved, in his country, and his death caused no regret.
[By Hopfgarten. Bronze. At Treptow. Done within the last ten years.]
376. Frederic II., Surnamed the Great. King of Prussia.
[Born at Berlin, 1712. Died 1786. Aged 74.]
The greatest soldier of his time, and the most famous king that Prussia has given to her throne. At the commencement of his reign, in 1740, his dominions contained two and a quarter millions of inhabitants. At the end of its 46 years, Prussia counted six millions of subjects. He held the field singly against Russia, Saxony, Sweden, France, and Austria; and came with honour and rich booty out of the conflict. A great worker, whether in the field or in the cabinet. His custom was to rise at five in the morning to read “papers.” These he dispatched with a word or two, written on the margin: the rest of the day was marked out with exact precision, a part of it being invariably devoted to literary pursuits, and to the cultivation of music, of which he was fond. No man ever gave less of his time to frivolity or inaction. His dress was plain, and never other than military; his toilet, when he rose, occupied him only a few minutes; he always wore high jack boots, and he never changed his dress during the day. An able administrator, a liberal encourager of art, science, and industry, and the personal friend of D’Alembert, Condorcet, and Voltaire, with all of whom he personally corresponded. His conversation was lively and brilliant, not unfrequently sarcastic: but, in action, he was not cruel. A free thinker, rejoicing in his intellectual independence. Besides his other acquisitions, he was one of the guilty sharers in the dismemberment of Poland. Nevertheless, dying, he left an illustrious name to his country, and a throne to his successor worthy the acceptance of a European monarch.
[For an account of the admirable and unique monument, by Rauch, of which this is the life-size model, see No. 195 in Handbook to Modern Sculpture.]
377. Frederic Louis Henry. Prince of Prussia.