thing permitted there, if recognized for such. It might have been a
worse element; and we must be thankful for it. Friedrich, through life,
carries deep traces of this French-Protestant incipiency: a very big
wide-branching royal tree, in the end; but as small and flexible a
seedling once as any one of us.

The good old Dame de Roucoulles just lived to witness his accession; on
which grand juncture and afterwards, as he had done before, he continued
to express, in graceful and useful ways, his gratitude and honest
affection to her and hers. Tea services, presents in cut-glass and other
kinds, with Letters that were still more precious to the old Lady, had
come always at due intervals, and one of his earliest kingly gifts was
that of some suitable small pension for Montbail, the elderly daughter
of this poor old Roucoulles, [Preuss, _Friedrich der Grosse, eine
Lebensgeschichte_ (5 vols. Berlin, 1832-1834), v. (Urkundenbuch, p. 4).
_OEuvres de Frederic_ (same Preuss's Edition, Berlin, 1846-1850, &c.),
xvi. 184, 191.--The Herr Doctor J. D. E. Preuss, "Historiographer
of Brandenburg," devoted wholly to the study of Friedrich for
five-and-twenty years past, and for above a dozen years busily
engaged in editing the _OEuvres de Frederic,_--has, besides that
_Lebensgeschichte_ just cited, three or four smaller Books, of
indistinctly different titles, on the same subject. A meritoriously
exact man; acquainted with the outer details of Friedrich's Biography
(had he any way of arranging, organizing or setting them forth) as few
men ever were or will be. We shall mean always this _Lebensgeschichte_
here, when no other title is given: and _OEuvres de Frederic_ shall
signify HIS Edition, unless the contrary be stated.] who was just
singing her DIMITTAES as it were, still in a blithe and pious manner.
For she saw now (in 1740) her little nursling grown to be a brilliant
man and King; King gone out to the Wars, too, with all Europe inquiring
and wondering what the issue would be. As for her, she closed her poor
old eyes, at this stage of the business; piously, in foreign parts, far
from her native Normandy; and did not see farther what the issue was.
Good old Dame, I have, as was observed, read some seven times over
what they call biographical accounts of her; but have seven times (by
Heaven's favor, I do partly believe) mostly forgotten them again; and
would not, without cause, inflict on any reader the like sorrow. To
remember one