But the character of the princes was a more potent factor than the location of their country or the race-character of their people; for the way in which the Hohenzollerns molded their state was different from that of any other princes since the days of Charlemagne. Many a princely family can show a number of rulers who have successfully built up their state--the Bourbons, for instance, united a wide expanse of territory into one great political body;--or who have been brave warriors through several generations,--there never were any braver than the Vasas or the Protestant Wittelsbachs in Sweden. But none have been the educators of their people as were the early Hohenzollerns, who as great landed proprietors in a devastated country drew new men into their service and guided their education; who for almost a hundred and fifty years, as strict managers, worked, schemed, and endured, took risks, and even did injustice--all that they might build up for their state a people like themselves--hard, economical, clever, bold, with the highest civic ambitions. In this sense we are justified in admiring the providential character of the Prussian State. Of the four princes who ruled it from the Thirty Years' War to the day when the "hoary-headed abbot in the monastery of Sans Souci" closed his weary eyes, each one, with his virtues and vices, was the natural complement of his predecessor--Elector Frederick William, the greatest statesman produced by the school of the Thirty Years' War, the splendor-loving King Frederick I., the parsimonious despot Frederick William I., and finally, in the eighteenth century, he in whom were united the talents and great qualities of almost all his ancestors--the flower of the family.