supernumeraries, and as many
horses, for the King incorporated all the most handsome men he found in
the guards. The officers were the best taught of any the army contained;
the King himself was their tutor, and he afterwards sent them to instruct
the cavalry in the manoeuvres they had learnt. Their rise was rapid if
they behaved well; but they were broken for the least fault, and punished
by being sent to garrison regiments. It was likewise necessary they
should be tolerably rich, as well as possess such talents as might be
successfully employed, both at court and in the army.

There are no soldiers in the world who undergo so much as this body
guard; and during the time I was in the service of Frederic, I often had
not eight hours' sleep in eight days. Exercise began at four in the
morning, and experiments were made of all the alterations the King meant
to introduce in his cavalry. Ditches of three, four, five, six feet, and
still wider, were leaped, till that someone broke his neck; hedges, in
like manner, were freed, and the horses ran careers, meeting each other
full speed in a kind of lists of more than half a league in length. We
had often, in these our exercises, several men and horses killed or
wounded.

It happened more frequently than otherwise that the same experiments were
repeated after dinner with fresh horses; and it was not uncommon, at
Potzdam, to hear the alarm sounded twice in a night. The horses stood in
the King's stables; and whoever had not dressed, armed himself, saddled
his horse, mounted, and appeared before the palace in eight minutes, was
put under arrest for fourteen days.

Scarcely were the eyes closed before the trumpet again sounded, to
accustom youth to vigilance. I lost, in one year, three horses, which
had either broken their legs, in leaping ditches, or died of fatigue.

I cannot give a stronger picture of this service than by saying that the
body guard lost more men and horses in one year's peace than they did,
during the following year, in two battles.

We had, at this time, three stations; our service, in the winter, was at
Berlin, where we attended the opera, and all public festivals: in the
spring we were exercised at Charlottenberg; and at Potzdam, or wherever
the King went, during the summer. The six officers of the guard dined
with the King, and, on gala days, with the Queen. It may be presumed
there was not at that time on earth a better school to form an offi