It was a happy thought of M. Kurd von Schlözer to try a similar experiment with Frederic the Great, and to show him to us, not as the great king, looking history in the face, but as seen near and behind another person, for whom the author has felt so much sympathy as to make him the central figure of a very pretty historical picture. This person is Chasot. Frederic used to say of him, _C’est le matador de ma jeunesse_,—a saying which is not found in Frederic’s works, but which is nevertheless authentic. One of the chief magistrates of the old Hanseatic town of Lübeck, Syndicus Curtius,—the father, we believe, of the two distinguished scholars, Ernst and Georg Curtius,—was at school with the two sons of Chasot, and he remembers these royal words, when they were repeated in all the drawing-rooms of the city where Chasot spent many years of his life. Frederic’s friendship for Chasot is well known, for there are two poems of the king addressed to this young favorite. They do not give a very high idea either of the poetical power of the monarch, or of the moral character of his friend; but they contain some manly and straightforward remarks, which make up for a great deal of shallow declamation. This young Chasot was a French nobleman, a fresh, chivalrous, buoyant nature,—adventurous, careless, extravagant, brave, full of romance, happy with the happy, and galloping through life like a true cavalry officer. He met Frederic in 1734. Louis XV. had taken up the cause of Stanislas Lesczynski, King of Poland, his father-in-law, and Chasot served in the French army which, under the Duke of Berwick, attacked Germany on the Rhine, in order to relieve Poland from the simultaneous pressure of Austria and Russia. He had the misfortune to kill a French officer in a duel, and was obliged to take refuge in the camp of the old Prince Eugène. Here the young Prince of Prussia soon discovered the brilliant parts of the French nobleman, and when his father, Frederic William I., no longer allowed him to serve under Eugène, he asked Chasot to follow him to Prussia. The years from 1735 to 1740 were happy years for the prince, though he, no doubt, would have preferred taking an active part in the campaign. He writes to his sister:— “J’aurais répondu plus tôt, si je n’avais été très-affligé de ce que le roi ne veut pas me permettre d’aller en campagne. Je le lui ai demandé quatre fois, et lui ai rappelé la promesse qu’il m’en avait faite; mais point de nouvelle; il m’a dit qu’il avait des raisons très-cachées qui l’en empêchaient. Je le crois, car je suis persuadé qu’il ne les sait pas lui-même.”