It is easy to see that this machine of government, however cumbrous, was admirably designed to serve a despotic king. An army of clerks and inspectors was always at his disposal. If he desired to know what was passing in the furthest corner of his dominions, a curt note of enquiry to the General Directory sufficed to set the machine in motion. The Directory met five times a week, with no vacations. At its bidding, commissioners were appointed by the Provincial Chamber to ascertain the facts. In due course the Chamber received, digested, and annotated their report, and supplied the necessary information to the Directory. There, in the department which presided over the province in question, the papers were again sifted and abstracted. The Directory could not often be hoodwinked by its subordinates, for Frederick William had furnished it with an army of local spies. Check after check was applied. When the member of the department before whom the affair was brought had satisfied himself, he procured the assent of his colleagues. The department procured the assent of the Directory as a whole. The Directory then reported to the confidential servants of the King. Eventually the most concise and accurate information obtainable, together with a table of arguments for and against a given course of action, was laid before the King by Eichel and his colleagues in the Cabinet. Frederick had only to glance at the paper and scrawl a few words upon it in the morning and in the afternoon to sign a royal order embodying his decision. Then General Directory, Provincial Chamber, Sheriff, and Bailiff set to work in turn to procure the execution of his commands. It was objected that little Prussia had thirteen or fourteen ministers when France required no more than five. But the multiplication of high officials had this advantage—that it prevented them from leaving the real conduct of affairs in the hands of obscure subordinates. Not only must every State paper be signed by one or more ministers, but every signature implied actual knowledge of its contents. The system, too, prevented the rise of any single man or board that could challenge comparison with the King by reason of its ascendancy in any great function of government. Even Cocceji appeared to the people merely as a royal commissioner appointed to accomplish a definite mission.