But, as he wished to be on good terms with his father, he stayed at home, and travelled about to inspect his future kingdom. “C’est un peu plus honnête qu’en Sibérie,” he writes, “mais pas de beaucoup.” Frederic, after his marriage, took up his abode in the Castle of Rheinsberg, near Neu-Ruppin, and it was here that he spent the happiest part of his existence. M. de Schlözer has described this period in the life of the king with great art; and he has pointed out how Frederic, while he seemed to live for nothing but pleasure,—shooting, dancing, music, and poetry,—was given at the same time to much more serious occupations,—reading and composing works on history, strategy, and philosophy, and maturing plans which, when the time of their execution came, seemed to spring from his head full-grown and full-armed. He writes to his sister, the Markgravine of Baireuth, in 1737:— “Nous nous divertissons de rien, et n’avons aucun soin des choses de la vie, qui la rendent désagréable et qui jettent du dégoût sur les plaisirs. Nous faisons la tragédie et la comédie, nous avons bal, mascarade, et musique à toute sauce. Voilà un abrégé de nos amusements.” And again, he writes to his friend Suhm, at Petersburg:— “Nous allons représenter l’_Œdipe_ de Voltaire, dans lequel je ferai le héros de théâtre; j’ai choisi le rôle de Philoctéte.” A similar account of the royal household at Rheinsberg is given by Bielfeld:— “C’est ainsi que les jours s’écoulent ici dans une tranquillité assaisonneé de tous les plaisirs qui peuvent flatter une âme raisonnable. Chère de roi, vin des dieux, musique des anges, promenades délicieuses dans les jardins et dans les bois, parties sur l’eau, culture des lettres et des beaux-arts, conversation spirituelle, tout concourt à repandre dans ce palais enchanté des charmes sur la vie.” Frederic, however, was not a man to waste his time in mere pleasure. He shared in the revelries of his friends, but he was perhaps the only person at Rheinsberg who spent his evenings in reading Wolff’s “Metaphysics.” And here let us remark, that this German prince, in order to read that work, was obliged to have the German translated into French by his friend Suhm, the Saxon minister at Petersburg. Chasot, who had no very definite duties to perform at Rheinsberg, was commissioned to copy Suhm’s manuscript,—nay, he was nearly driven to despair when he had to copy it a second time, because Frederic’s monkey, Mimi, had set fire to the first copy. We have Frederic’s opinion on Wolff’s “Metaphysics,” in his “Works,” vol. i. p. 263:—