beheaded before Frederick's window, after the crown prince had asked his pardon and received the answer that there was nothing to forgive. On Frederick himself lay the terror of death, and the chaplain was able to send to the king a favourable report of his orthodoxy and his changed disposition. Frederick William, whose temper was by no means so ruthlessly Spartan as tradition has painted it,was overjoyed, and commissioned the clergyman to receive from the prince an oath of filial obedience, and in exchange for this proof of "his intention to improve in real earnest" his arrest was to be lightened, pending the earning of a full pardon. "The whole town shall be his prison," wrote the king; "I will give him employment, from morning to night, in the departments of war, and agriculture, and of the government. He shall work at financial matters, receive accounts, read minutes and make extracts.... But if he kicks or rears again, he shall forfeit the succession to the crown, and even, according to circumstances, life itself." For about fifteen months Frederick lived in Custrin, busy according to the royal programme with the details of the Prussian administrative system. He was very careful not to "kick or rear," and his good conduct earned him a further stage in the restoration to favour. During this period of probation he had been deprived of his status as a soldier and refused the right to wear uniform, while officers and soldiers were forbidden to give him the military salute; in 1732 he was made colonel in command of the regiment at Neuruppin. In the following year he married, in obedience to the king's orders, the princess Elizabeth Christina, daughter of the duke of Brunswick-Bevern. He was given the estate of Rheinsberg in the neighbourhood of Neuruppin, and there he lived until he succeeded to the throne. These years were perhaps the happiest of his life. He discharged his duties with so much spirit and so conscientiously that he ultimately gained the esteem of Frederick William, who no longer feared that he would leave the crown to one unworthy of wearing it. At the same time the crown prince was able to indulge to the full his personal tastes. He carried on a lively correspondence with Voltaire and other French men of letters, and was a diligent student of philosophy, history and poetry. Two of his best-known works were written at this time--_Considerations sur l'etat present du corps politique de l'Europe_ and his _Anti-Macchiavel_. In the former he calls attention to the growing strength of Austria and France, and insists on the necessity of some third power, by which he clearly means Prussia, counterbalancing their excessive influence. The second treatise, which was issued by Voltaire in Hague in 1740, contains a generous exposition of some of the favourite ideas of the 18th-century philosophers respecting the duties of sovereigns, which may be summed up in the famous sentence: "the prince is not the absolute master, but only