Five years were thus spent in acquiring and maintaining possession of this important province. The next ten years of Frederic II.’s life passed in profound peace. During this period he applied himself diligently and successfully to recruit his army, and renovate the drained resources of Prussia. His habits of life were singularly uniform. He resided chiefly at Potsdam, apportioning his time and his employments with methodical exactness; and, by this strict attention to method, he was enabled to exercise a minute superintendence over every branch of government, without estranging himself from social pleasures, or abandoning his literary pursuits. After the peace of Dresden he commenced his ‘Histoire de mon Temps,’ which, in addition to the history of his own wars in Silesia, contains a general account of European politics. About the same period he wrote his ‘Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg,’ the best of his historical works. He maintained an active correspondence with Voltaire, and others of the most distinguished men of Europe. He established, or rather restored, the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and was eager to enrol eminent foreigners among its members, and to induce them to resort to his capital; and the names of Voltaire, Euler, Maupertuis, La Grange, and others of less note, testify his success. But his avowed contempt for the German, and admiration of the French literature and language, in which all the transactions of the Society were carried on, gave an exotic character to the institution, and crippled the national benefits which might have been expected to arise from it. In 1751, after a considerable expenditure of flattery, Frederic induced Voltaire to take up his residence at Potsdam. From this step he anticipated much pleasure and advantage, and for a time every thing appeared to proceed according to his wishes. The social suppers in which he loved to indulge after the labours of the day, were enlivened by the poet’s brilliant talents; and the poet’s gratitude for the royal friendship and condescension was manifested in his assiduous correction of the royal writings. For a time each was delighted with the other; but the mutual regard which these two singular characters had conceived was soon dissipated upon closer acquaintance, and after many undignified quarrels, they parted in the spring of 1753 in a manner discreditable to both. In the cause of education Frederic was active, both by favouring the universities, to which he sought to secure the services of the best professors, and by the establishment of schools wherever the circumstances of the neighbourhood rendered it desirable. It is said that he sometimes founded as many as sixty schools in a single year. This period of his reign is also marked by the commencement of that revision of the Prussian law (a confused and corrupt mixture of Roman and Saxon jurisprudence) which led to the substitution of an entirely new code.