[Illustration: _From the Painting by Adolph von Menzel_
FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS ROUND TABLE]
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.
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