ONE:Regardless himself of comfort, insensible to fatigue, dead to affection, he created perhaps the most potent military machine earth has ever known. Prussia was an armed camp. The king prized his soldiers as a miser prizes his gold coin, and was as unwilling to expose them to any danger as the miser is to hazard his treasures. War would thin his regiments, soil his uniforms, destroy his materiel. He hated war. But his army caused Prussia to be respected. If needful, he could throw one hundred thousand of the best drilled and best furnished troops in Europe, like a thunderbolt, upon any point. Unprincipled monarchs would think twice before they would encroach upon a man thus armed.Fritz, however, had not his fathers strength to resist the allurements of this wicked court. He was but sixteen years of age. From childhood he had been kept secluded from the world, and had been reared under the sternest discipline. He was remarkably handsome, full of vivacity, which qualified him to shine52 in any society, and was heir to the Prussian monarchy. He was, consequently, greatly caressed, and every conceivable inducement was presented to him to lure him into the paths of guilty pleasure. He fell. From such a fall one never on earth recovers. Even though repentance and reformation come, a scar is left upon the soul which time can not efface.
