If he met an idler in the
streets, he would belabor him with his cane and probably put him in the
army. And a funny craze for tall soldiers led to the creation of the
famous Potsdam Guard of Giants, a special company whose members must
measure at least six feet in height, and for whose service he attracted
many foreigners by liberal financial offers: it was the only luxury
which the parsimonious king allowed himself.
[Sidenote: Accession of Frederick the Great, 1740]
During a portion of his reign the crabbed old king feared that all his
labors and savings would go for naught, for he was supremely
disappointed in his son, the crown-prince Frederick. The stern father
had no sympathy for the literary, musical, artistic tastes of his son,
whom he thought effeminate, and whom he abused roundly with a quick and
violent temper. When Prince Frederick tried to run away, the king
arrested him and for punishment put him through such an arduous, slave-
like training in the civil and military administration, from the lowest
grades upward, as perhaps no other royal personage ever received.
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