th
all-obedientest respect and submission, continue till my end,

"My All-graciousest King's and Father's faithfully obedientest Servant
and Son,

"FRIEDRICH."

[Preuss, i. 56, 57; and Anonymous, _Friedrichs des Grossen Briefe an
seinen Vater_ (Berlin, Posen und Bromberg, 1838), p. 3.]

This new House of Friedrich's in the little Town of Custrin, he finds
arranged for him on rigorously thrifty principles, yet as a
real Household of his own; and even in the form of a Court, with
Hofmarschall, Kammerjunkers, and the other adjuncts;--Court reduced to
its simplest expression, as the French say, and probably the cheapest
that was ever set up. Hafmarschall (Court-marshal) is one Wolden, a
civilian Official here. The Kammerjunkers are Rohwedel and Natzmer;
Matzmer Junior, son of a distinguished Feldmarschall: "a good-hearted
but foolish forward young fellow," says Wilhelmina; "the failure of a
coxcomb (PETIT-MAITRE MANQUE)." For example, once, strolling about in
a solemn Kaiser's Soiree in Vienna, he found in some quiet corner the
young Duke of Lorraine, Franz, who it is thought will be the divine
Maria Theresa's husband, and Kaiser himself one day. Foolish Natzmer
found this noble young gentleman in a remote corner of the Soiree; went
up, nothing loath, to speak graciosities and insipidities to him: the
noble young gentleman yawned, as was too natural, a wide long yawn;
and in an insipid familiar manner, foolish Natzmer (Wilhelmina and the
Berlin circles know it) put his finger into the noble young gentleman's
mouth, and insipidly wagged it there. "Sir, you seem to forget where
you are!" said the noble young gentleman; and closing his mouth with
emphasis, turned away; but happily took no farther notice. [Wilhelmina,
i. 310.] This is all we yet know of the history of Natzmer, whose
heedless ways and slap-dash speculations, tinted with natural ingenuity
and good-humor, are not unattractive to the Prince.

Hofmarschall and these two Kammerjunkers are of the lawyer species; men
intended for Official business, in which the Prince himself is now to
be occupied. The Prince has four lackeys, two pages, one valet. He wears
his sword, but has no sword-tash (PORTE EPEE), much less an officer's
uniform: a mere Prince put upon his good behavior again; not yet a
soldier of the Prussian Army, only hoping to become so again. He wears
a light-gray dress, "HECHTGRAUER (pike-gray) frock with narrow silver
cordings;" and must recover his u