His words hit both friends and enemies unsparingly: even when silence and endurance were commanded by prudence, he could not control himself; his whole spirit seemed changed; with merciless exaggeration he distorted the image of others into a caricature. If one examines this more closely, one perceives that the main point in this was the intellectual pleasure; he freed himself from an unpleasant impression by violent outbursts against his victim; he had an inward satisfaction in painting him grotesquely, and was much surprised if, when deeply wounded, his friend turned his weapons against him. In this there was a striking similarity to Luther. Undoubtedly the club blows dealt by the great monk of the sixteenth century were far more formidable than the stabs which were distributed by the great Prince in the age of enlightenment. That it was neither dignified nor suitable was a point for which the great King cared as little as the Reformer: both were in a state of excitement as if in the chase, and both, in the pleasure of the struggle, forgot the consequences; both, also, seriously injured themselves and their great objects, and were honestly surprised when they discovered it. But when the King bantered and sneered, or maliciously teased, it was more difficult for him to draw back from his unamiable mood; for his was generally no equal struggle with his victim. Thus did the great Prince deal with all his political opponents, and excited deadly enmity against himself; he jeered at the Pompadour, the Empress Elizabeth, and the Empress Maria Theresa at the dinner table, and circulated biting verses and pamphlets. That bad man, Voltaire, he sometimes caressed, sometimes scolded and snarled at. But he also treated in the same way, men whom he really esteemed, and who were in his greatest confidence, whom he had received into the circle of his friends. He had drawn the Marquis d'Argens to his court, made him his chamberlain, and member of the Academy; he was one of his most intimate and dearest companions. The letters which he wrote to him from the camp during the Seven Years' War are among the most charming and touching reminiscences that remain to us of the King. When he returned from that war, his fondest hope was that the marquis would dwell with him at Sans Souci. A few years afterwards this delightful connection was dissolved. But how was this possible? The marquis was the best Frenchman to whom the King had attached himself; a man of honour and of refined feeling and cultivation, truly devoted to the King. But he was neither a remarkable nor a very superior man. For years the King had admired him as a man of learning, which he was not; he had formed to himself a pleasant poetical idea of him, as a wise, clear-sighted, safe philosopher, with agreeable wit and lively humour. Now, in the intercourse of daily life, the King found himself mistaken; a certain sentimental tendency in the Frenchman, which dwelt upon its own morbid