Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive Transcriber's Note: 1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/picturesgermanl03freygoog PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES. SECOND SERIES. * * * * * VOL. II. PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE In the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries. Second Series. BY GUSTAV FREYTAG. Translated from the Original by MRS. MALCOLM. _COPYRIGHT EDITION.--IN TWO VOLUMES_. VOL. II. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1863. LONDON: BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Away from the Garrison (1700).--The army, and the constitution of the State--The country militia and their history--The soldiery of the Sovereign--Change of organisation after the war--The beginning of compulsory levies about 1700--Gradual introduction of conscription--Recruiting and its illegalities--Desertions--Trafficking with armies--The Prussian army under Frederic William I.--The regiment of guards at Potsdam--Prussian officers--Ulrich Braecker--Narrative of a Prussian deserter CHAPTER VIII. The State of Frederic the Great (1700).--The kingdom of the Hohenzollerns, its small size; character of the people and princes--Childhood of Frederic--Opposition to his father--Catastrophe--Training and its influence on his character--His marriage and relations with women--Residence in Rheinsberg--His character when he became King--Striking contrast between his poetic warmth and his inexorable severity--Inward change in the course of the first Silesian war--Loss of the friends of his youth--The literary period till 1766--His poetry, historical writings, and literary versatility--Seven years of iron labour--His method of carrying on war, and heroic struggle--Admiration of Germans and foreigners--His sufferings and endurance--Extracts from Frederic's Letters from 1767-1762--Principles of his government--Improvement of Silesia--Difference betwixt the Prussian and Austrian government--Feeling of duty in the Prussian officials--Acquisition of West Prussia--Miserable condition in 1772--Agriculture of Frederic--His last years CHAPTER IX.