THREE:Distinguished strangers were often admitted to the Tabagie. The Crown Prince Fritz was occasionally present, though always reluctantly. The other children of this numerous family not unfrequently came in to bid papa good-night. Here every thing was talked of, with entire freedom, all court gossip, the adventures of the chase, diplomacy, and the administrative measures of the government. Frederick William had but very little respect for academic culture. He had scarcely the slightest acquaintance with books, and gathered around him mainly men whose knowledge was gained in the practical employments of life. It would seem, from many well-authenticated anecdotes, which have come down to us from the Tabagie, that these smoking companions of the king, like Frederick William himself, must have been generally a coarse set of men.Fritz had been for some time confined to his chamber and to his bed. He was now getting out again. By his mother��s persuasion he wrote to his aunt, Queen Caroline of England, expressing, in the strongest terms, his love for her daughter the Princess Amelia, and his unalterable determination never to marry unless he could lead her to the altar. Though Frederick William knew nothing of these intrigues, he hated his son with daily increasing venom. Sometimes, in a surly fit, he would not speak to him or recognize him. Again he would treat him with studied contempt, at the table refusing to give him any food, leaving him to fast while the others were eating. Not unfrequently, according to Wilhelmina��s account, he even boxed his ears, and smote him with his cane. Wilhelmina gives us one of the letters of her brother to his father about this time, and the characteristic paternal answer. Frederick writes, under date of September 11, 1728, from Wusterhausen:

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THREE:On Monday morning, the 9th of October, 1741, the British minister, Lord Hyndford, accompanied by General Neipperg and General Lentulus from the Austrian camp, repaired to this castle, ostensibly to fix some cartel for the exchange of prisoners. Frederick rode out that morning with General Goltz, assuming that he was going to visit some of his outposts. In leaving, he said to the French minister Valori, ��I am afraid that I shall not be home to dinner.�� At the same time, to occupy the attention of M. Valori, he was invited to dine with Prince Leopold. By circuitous and unfrequented paths, the king and his companion hied to the castle.

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THREE:The day in which the treaty was signed Frederick wrote to the Marquis D��Argens as follows: ��The best thing I have now to tell you of, my dear marquis, is the peace. And it is right that the good citizens and the public should rejoice at it. For me, poor old man that I am, I return to a town where I know nothing but the walls, where I find no longer any of my friends, where great and laborious duties await me, and where I shall soon lay my old bones in an asylum which can neither be troubled by war, by calamities, nor by the wickedness of men.��

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