His acuteness, however, showed itself also in savage moods as unsparingly, sarcastically, and maliciously destructive.  Where did he get this disposition?  Was it Brandenburg blood?  Was it an inheritance from his great-grandmother, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, and his grandmother, Queen Sophia Charlotte, those intellectual women with whom Leibniz had discussed the eternal harmony of the universe?  The harsh school of his youth certainly had had something to do with it.  His insight into the foibles of others was keen.  Wherever he saw a weak point, wherever any one’s manners annoyed or provoked him, his ready tongue was busy.  His gibes fell unsparingly upon friend and foe alike; and even where silence and patience were demanded by every consideration of prudence, he could not control himself.  At such times his soul seemed to suffer some strange transformation.  With merciless exaggeration he distorted the picture of his victim into a caricature.  On closer examination the principal motive here also appears to be pleasure in intellectual production.  He frees himself from an unpleasant impression by improvising against his victim.  He makes a grotesque picture with inner satisfaction and is astonished if the victim, deeply offended, in turn takes up arms against him.  His resemblance to Luther in this respect is very striking.  Neither the king nor the reformer cared whether his behavior was dignified or seemly, for both of them, excited like men on the hunting field, entirely forgot the consequences in the joy of the fight.  Both did themselves and their great causes serious injury in this way, and were honestly surprised when they discovered the fact.  To be sure, the blows with the cudgel or the whip which the great monk of the sixteenth century dealt were far more terrible than the pin-pricks of the great prince in the age of enlightenment.  But when a king teases and mocks and sometimes pinches maliciously, it is harder to forgive him for his undignified behavior; for he frequently engages in an unequal contest with his victims.  The great prince treated all his political opponents in this way, and aroused deadly enemies against himself.  He joked at the table, and put in circulation stinging verses and pamphlets about Madame de Pompadour in France and the Empresses Elizabeth and Maria Theresa.  Similarly, he sometimes caressed, sometimes scolded and scratched his poetical ideal, Voltaire; but he also proceeded in this way with people whom he really esteemed highly, in whom he put the greatest confidence, and whom he took into the circle of his intimate friends.  He brought the Marquis d’Argens to his court, made him chamberlain, member of the Academy, and one of his nearest and dearest friends.  The letters which he wrote to him from the camps of the Seven Years’ War are among the most beautiful and touching records that the King has left us.  When Frederick came home from the war it was his fond hope that the marquis would live with him in his palace at Sans Souci.