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True, he did not encourage the rising young
German poets Lessing and Goethe. He thought their work vulgar and
uninspired. But he invited literary Frenchmen to come to Berlin, and he
put new life into the Berlin Academy of Science. Even Voltaire was for
a time a guest at Frederick's court, and the amateurish poems written
in French by the Prussian king were corrected by the "prince of
philosophers."
[Sidenote: Catherine the Great of Russia, 1762-1796]
While Frederick was demonstrating that "the prince is but the first
servant of the state," Catherine II was playing the enlightened despot
in Russia. In the course of her remarkable career, [Footnote: See
above, pp. 380 ff.] Catherine found time to write flattering letters to
French philosophers, to make presents to Voltaire, and to invite
Diderot to tutor her son. She posed, too, as a liberal-minded monarch,
willing to discuss the advisability of giving Russia a written
constitution, or of emancipating the serfs. Schools and academies were
established, and French became the language of polite Russian society.


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