The sketch which has been given of Frederick’s daily life suggests that whatever his power might be, it was not subjected to the interference of others. At Potsdam there was no place for the ordinary influences which were brought to bear upon Kings. Frederick would not endure the presence of any woman, and, strictly speaking, he had no courtiers. His intimates were not politicians, but wits and men of letters, for the most part of foreign birth. Even those who accused him of hideous vices admitted that he never suffered his accomplices to have the smallest influence over him. Eichel and the two other secretaries who worked with the King every day were slaves rather than counsellors. They lived in such seclusion that, according to the French ambassador, Eichel was never seen by any human being. During Frederick’s last illness, he forced their successors to attend him at four o’clock in the morning, so that the few weeks that might yet remain to him should be serviceable to the State. One of them fell to the ground in a fit, but the King merely summoned another, and went on with the business. Through their hands passed Frederick’s correspondence with his ministers, whom he rarely saw. “In his orders of two lines,” grumbled a subordinate, “he announced no reasons.” He was of course obliged to listen to the ambassadors of foreign Powers. As though to avenge himself for this, he tolerated no suggestions from his own. He desired spies rather than advisers, and often chose men of inferior intelligence to fill high diplomatic posts. On every hand we find tokens that Frederick looked to his own breast alone for inspiration in the exercise of his power. To realise how unfettered was the authority that Frederick wielded we must consider the peculiar structure of the society over which he ruled and of the machinery by which he ruled it. Frederick’s Prussia was a state which just a century of strong monarchical rule had manufactured out of a number of Hohenzollern fiefs. Its basis still remained feudal. There were few social classes, and strong barriers separated class from class. The career open to a Prussian was strictly limited by his birth. Between town and country the law reared a dividing wall, unseen but impassable. Townsmen alone were allowed to become manufacturers, merchants, and civil servants. They paid a special tax, the “Excise,” levied on the articles which they consumed. They had magistrates of their own choosing, a relic of the municipal independence which the Great Elector had broken down.