Crown Prince
Frederick grew up, the playmate of his elder sister, into a gentle
child with sparkling eyes and beautiful light hair. He was taught with
exactness what the king desired,--and that was little enough: French,
a certain amount of history, and the necessary accomplishments of a
soldier. Against the will of his father (the great King had never
surmounted the difficulties of the genitive and dative) he acquired
some knowledge of the Latin declensions. To the boy, who was easily
led and in the king's presence looked shy and defiant, the women
imparted his first interest in French literature. He himself later
gave his sister the credit for it, but his governess too was an
accomplished French woman. That the foreign atmosphere was hateful to
the king certainly contributed to make the son fond of it; for almost
systematically praise was bestowed in the queen's apartments upon
everything that was displeasing to the stern mind of the master. When
in the family circle the king made one of his clumsy, pious speeches,
Princess Wilhelmina and young Frederick would look at each other
significantly, until the mischievous face of one or the other aroused
childish laughter, and brought the king's wrath to the point of
explosion. For this reason, the son, even in his earliest years,
became a source of vexation to his father, who called him an
effeminate, untidy fellow with an unmanly pleasure in clothes and
trifles.
But from the report of his sister, for whose unsparing judgment
censure was easier than praise, it is evident that the amiability of
the talented boy had its effect upon those about him: as when, for
instance, he secretly read a French story with his sister, and recast
the whole Berlin Court into the comic characters of the novel; when
they made forbidden music with flute and lute; when he went in
disguise to her and they recited the parts of a French comedy to each
other.
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