Frederick died in 1786. He had raised Prussia to the position of a first-rate power and, in Disraeli's phrase, left it "regarded if not respected." His successor, Frederick William II, is remembered mostly because of the scandalous character of his life, and he showed none of the characteristics of the energetic Hohenzollerns. A contemporary says of him: "He bears the greatest resemblance to an Asiatic prince, who, living within his harem with his slaves of both sexes, leaves the business of the state to his viziers. The wall, twelve feet in height, by which the new garden at Potsdam is enclosed, reminds one of the enclosure of a seraglio." He was succeeded by his son, Frederick William III, in 1797. This conscientious but ill-starred ruler was to be rendered famous through his misfortunes in the time of Napoleon and has been overshadowed somewhat in history by his beautiful, devoted, and heroic wife Louise. They stand closer to modern history than is generally realized. The present Emperor often mentions them for their heroism and the brave part they played in the War of Liberation and in freeing their country from the incubus of the Napoleonic Empire. They were the parents of Emperor William I, the illustrious grandfather of the present sovereign. If, then, Emperor William II frequently takes occasion to recall the memory of 1813 it should be remembered that in his own family these events were very near to him, since his grandfather had spent his childhood in those years of humiliation and had served in the allied armies in the time of Napoleon. The man who was to become Emperor William I had been born as the second son of Frederick William III in 1797. He was to be preceded on the throne by his elder brother, Frederick William IV, who, like the present Emperor and like Frederick the Great, was an accomplished lover of the arts, but who lacked the strength to guide his country with a sure hand through the troubled years of the forties. He became afflicted in his last years with hopeless mental disease, and his brother, after having served as regent, became King of Prussia as William I in 1861. The idea of uniting Germany into a single empire had already been seriously agitated in the time of Frederick William IV, but it was under his brother, largely through the tireless activity and wonderfully successful diplomacy of Bismarck, that this great aim was to be achieved in the lifetime of the present Emperor. It was in the chapel at Königsberg that William I arranged for and held his coronation. He cannot be said to have been crowned; for although his brother had granted Prussia a constitution William himself raised the crown from the altar, set it on his own head, and announced in a loud voice: "I receive this crown from God's hand and from none other."