The King’s handiwork may be discerned in the increasing poverty of affection that his son displayed. Frederick William had killed his friend, proscribed his associates, banished his sister, placed his mother under a cloud, and forced upon him a wife whom he despised. It is not surprising that Frederick’s heart, never of the tenderest, grew harder year by year. He turned to the friendship of men, always difficult for kings to win, and doubly difficult for an autocrat who was not prone to self-sacrifice. It was remarked of him in later life that he softened only in illness, and that the sure sign of his recovery was renewed harshness towards those about him. His intimates were chiefly devotees of art and letters, among whom Voltaire was chief. But the very name of Voltaire, whom Frederick first adored and then expelled, hints at the transient nature of these ties. As his sister, his mother, and Madame de Camas were one by one removed by death, he became bankrupt of affection, and his old age was consoled only by the fidelity of his servants and of his dogs. Such was Frederick at his marriage, but his very defects contributed for a time to his social success. An accomplished man, with great flashing eyes and flexible, resonant voice, “musical even in cursing,” he had a genuine relish for the circle of which he was the centre. His schooling had given him skill in seeming what he pleased, and whatever affection he possessed was given to his friends. At Rheinsberg, where he built himself a house and lived from 1736 till 1740, he was gay, hospitable, and refined, living in apparent amity with his wife and fitting himself by study and by administration to fill the throne in his turn. The year after Frederick’s marriage, the year 1734, was of high importance in his career. The war of the Polish Succession had broken out between France and the Empire, and Prussia fulfilled her obligations by sending an auxiliary force of ten thousand men to serve on the Rhine under Eugene. In this campaign, which proved inglorious, Frederick played the part of an eager novice, dogging the footsteps of the aged hero and copying even his curt manner. There he laid to heart several fruitful facts—that the great commander never accepted praise to his face, that the enemy feared him more than they feared his army, and that other German troops cut a sorry figure beside the men of Prussia. And—though his father had ordered him to keep out of harm’s way—he proved by his calm while cannon-balls were splintering trees around him that the traditional courage of the Hohenzollerns had descended to him.