and the estimates of the income from the domains, forests, and taxes.  For his ability to judge with precision the smallest things as well as the greatest, his people were in great part indebted to the years during which he had sat unwillingly as assessor at the green table at Ruppin.  Sometimes, however, there befell him also what in his father’s time had been vexatious—­that his knowledge of business details was, after all, not extensive enough, and that he, like his father, gave orders which arbitrarily interfered with the life of his Prussians, and could not be carried out.

Scarcely had Frederick partially recovered from the blows of the great catastrophe of his youth, when a new misfortune fell upon him, just as terrible as the first, and in its consequences still more momentous for his life.  He was forced by the King to marry.  Heartrending is the sorrow with which he struggles to free himself from the bride chosen for him.  “She may be as frivolous as she pleases if only she is not a simpleton!  That I cannot bear.”  It was all in vain.  He looked upon this alliance with bitterness and anger almost to the very day of his wedding, and never outgrew the bitter belief that his father had thus destroyed his emotional life.  His sensitive feelings, his affectionate heart, were bartered away in the most reckless manner.  Nor by this act was he alone made unhappy, but also a good woman who was worthy of a better fate.  Princess Elizabeth of Bevern had many noble qualities of heart; she was not a simpleton, she did not lack beauty, and could pass muster before the fierce criticism of the princesses of the royal house.  But we fear that, if she had been an angel from heaven, the pride of the Prince would have protested against her, for he was offended to the depths of his nature by the needless barbarity of a compulsory marriage.  And yet the relation was not always so cold as has sometimes been assumed.  For six years the kindness of heart and tact of the Princess succeeded time after time in reconciling the crown prince to her.  In the retirement of Rheinsberg she was really his helpmeet and an amiable hostess for his guests, and it was reported by the Austrian agents to the Court of Vienna that her influence was increasing.  But her modest, clinging nature had too little of the qualities which can permanently hold an intellectual man.  The wide-awake members of the Brandenburg line felt the need of giving quick and pointed expression to every easily aroused feeling.  When the Princess was excited, she grew quiet as if paralyzed; she also lacked the easy graces of society.  The two natures did not agree.  Then, too, her manner of showing affection toward her husband, always dutiful, and subordinating herself as if under a spell and overwhelmed by his great mind, was not very interesting for the Prince, who had acquired, with the French intellectual culture, no little of the frivolity of French society.