With the death of the Great Elector in 1688 the age of iron gave way to the age of tinsel. Frederick, who ruled in his father’s place for a quarter of a century (1688–1713), was a prince who prized culture above character and strove to imitate in his provincial court the splendours of Versailles. From time to time, though less often than in other royal lines, the business instinct of the Hohenzollerns fails, and of such a lapse Frederick is an example. Despising the domestic labours of the Great Elector, he was captivated by those ceremonious shadows which the German nation is always wont to pursue. Frail, even maimed, since childhood, he developed a passion for pageants, robes, and titles. He could not endure the promotion of his equals to rank higher than his own. If the Dutch Statthalter rose to be William III. of England and the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg to be Elector George of Hanover, might not he himself, as master of the best troops in Germany, also claim to rise? When in 1696 he was about to visit William of Orange at the Hague he declared that he could not consent to sit upon an ordinary seat while an armchair was placed for the King. The interview therefore was accomplished standing, and when William returned the visit he found armchairs of equal dignity set for the Elector and for himself. Seldom has a ruler’s weakness done better service to his State. Brandenburg was shielded by its poverty from the ordinary fate of German states whose rulers tried to copy the profusion of the kings of France. Frederick, moreover, had not the force of will to break with all the traditions of the Great Elector. He continued to take part in every struggle as an auxiliary, but in none as a principal. His country thus enjoyed the glories of war without its penalties. It was under the command of Prince Eugene, Austria’s greatest general, that Brandenburgers helped to overthrow the French before Turin (1706). And since a large army is the most splendid trapping of monarchy, Frederick made his army very large. He inherited 27,000 men, he bequeathed nearly 50,000 to his son.