[160] We may remind the reader that it was a syndicate of Berlin merchants who at an earlier date sought, it is said, to purchase from Böttger his secret. There is little doubt, however, that the anecdotes about Ringler, which abound in the notices on German porcelain, are little more than ‘porcelain myths.’ Very similar anecdotes are told of the early days at Vincennes, and in Japan, as we have seen, such stories sometimes take a more tragical form. There is a strong temptation, no doubt, in traversing the somewhat arid ground of German ceramics, to fall back on such tales. At all events they belong to the class of _tendenz Mährchen_, and illustrate the difficulties to be overcome at that time in starting a new factory. [161] Not but that we have proof of his interest in the subject, as the following letter, dated Meissen, March 28, 1761, will show. It is written to Madame Camas, his _chère Maman_, who was then with the queen at Magdeburg:--‘I send you, my dear mamma, a little trifle, by way of keepsake and memento. You may use the box for your rouge, for your patches, or you may put snuff in it or bonbons or pills.... I have ordered porcelain for all the world, for Schönhausen, for my sisters-in-law,--in fact I am rich in this brittle material only. And I hope the receivers will accept it as current money: for the truth is, we are poor as can be, good mamma. I have nothing left but my honour, my coat, my sword, and my porcelain.’--Carlyle’s _Frederick the Great_, Book xx. chap. vi. Marryat, who gives this letter in his notes, mixes up Carlyle’s comments with the text. [162] The Hohenzollern shield bears two sceptres in saltire _en surtout_. [163] Another account gives the credit to Von Löwenfinck, a porcelain painter from Meissen. [164] Politically, that is to say; for the town formed part of the ‘Pays d’Étrangers,’ and its commercial and social relations were still rather with Germany than with France. [165] I take these facts about the Hannong family from Sir A. Wollaston Franks’s _Catalogue of Continental Porcelain_, 1896. [166] In the same year we find Count Schimmelmann, who at a later date interested himself in the Copenhagen factory, selling by auction at Hamburg some of the vast stocks of Meissen china that Frederick had thrown on the market. [167] As a royal factory, however, it became extinct in 1864. See chap. xxiii. [168] Thus we have, during the Seven Years’ War, Frederick’s three bitter opponents--Maria Theresa in Austria, Elizabeth in Russia, and the Marquise de Pompadour in France--all taking an active interest in promoting the manufacture of porcelain, and this rivalry may have added to the zest of Frederick when he looted Meissen and sought to make Berlin take its place as the metropolis of porcelain.