As for the crown prince himself, deserting colonel of a regiment, the court-martial, with two dissentients, condemned him to death; sentence which the Junius Brutus of a king would have duly carried out.  But remonstrance is universal, and an autograph letter from the kaiser seemingly decisive.  Frederick was, as it were, retired to a house of his own and a court of his own—­court very strictly regulated—­at Cuestrin; not yet a soldier of the Prussian army, but hoping only to become so again; while he studied the domain sciences, more particularly the rigidly economical principles of state finance as practised by his father.  The tragedy has taught him a lesson, and he has more to learn.  That period is finally ended when he is restored to the army in 1732.

Reconciliation, complete submission, and obedience, a prince with due appreciation of facts has now made up his mind to; very soon shaped into acceptance of paternal demand that he shall wed Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevern, insipid niece of the kaiser.  In private correspondence he expresses himself none too submissively, but offers no open opposition to the king’s wishes.

The charmer of Brunswick turned out not so bad as might have been expected; not ill-looking; of an honest, guileless heart, if little articulate intellect; considerable inarticulate sense; after marriage, which took place in June 1733, shaped herself successfully to the prince’s taste, and grew yearly gracefuller and better-looking.  But the affair, before it came off, gave rise to a certain visit of Friedrich Wilhelm to the kaiser, of which in the long run the outcome was that complete distrust of the kaiser displaced the king’s heretofore determined loyalty to him.

Meanwhile an event has fallen out at Warsaw.  Augustus, the physically strong, is no more; transcendent king of edacious flunkies, father of 354 children, but not without fine qualities; and Poland has to find a new king.  His death kindled foolish Europe generally into fighting, and gave our crown prince his first actual sight and experience of the facts of war.  Stanislaus is overwhelmingly the favourite candidate, supported, too, by France.  The other candidate, August of Saxony, secures the kaiser’s favour by promise of support to his Pragmatic Sanction; and the appearance of Russian troops secures “freedom of election” and choice of August by the electors who are not absent.  August is crowned, and Poland in a flame.  Friedrich Wilhelm cares not for Polish elections, but, as by treaty bound, provides 10,000 men to support the kaiser on the Rhine, while he gives asylum to the fugitive Stanislaus.  Crown prince, now twenty-two, is with the force; sees something of warfare, but nothing big.