But the character of the princes produced still more effect than even the situation or character of the people. Their State was constituted differently from any other since the days of Charles the Great. Many princely houses have furnished a succession of Sovereigns who have been the fortunate aggrandisers of their States, as the Bourbons, who have collected wide territories into one great kingdom; many families of princes have produced generations of valiant warriors, none more so than the Vasas and the Protestant Wittelsbacher in Sweden. But there have been no trainers of the people like the old Hohenzollerns. As great landed proprietors on the desolated country they brought about an increase of population, guided the cultivation, for almost 150 years laboured as strict economists, thought, tolerated, dared and did injustice, in order to create for their State a people like themselves--hard, parsimonious, discreet, daring, and ambitious. In this sense one has a right to admire the providential character of the Prussian State. Of the four princes who have governed it, since the German War up to the day when the grey-headed Abbot closed his weary eyes in the monastery of Sans Souci, each one, with his virtues and failings, has acted as a necessary supplement to his predecessor. The Elector Frederic William, the greatest statesman from the school of the German War--the pompous Frederic, the first King--the parsimonious despot Frederic William I.--and, finally, he in whom were concentrated almost all the talents and great qualities of his ancestors, were the flowers of their race.