the Crown Prince of Prussia, and therefore
substituted for Countess Orzelska the beautiful Italian Formera, who
became Frederick's first mistress. Later, however, at the return visit
of the Saxon court to Berlin, as Scherr reports, Frederick again met the
Countess Orzelska, a meeting which did not remain without consequences.
Other details of the court life of the time cannot be put on paper: we
must refer the reader to Scherr's discussion of Eighteenth Century Court
Society, to Lessing's Emilia Galotti, in which in Italian disguise the
great classicist chastises German princely rape, and to Schiller's
drama, Cabal and Love, which proves that, unfortunately, the victims of
princely lust were not always the willing courtesans; but frequently
victims chosen from the people.

The court of Berlin is said by some to have assumed a higher standard of
morality when Frederick ascended the throne. His consort, Princess
Elizabeth of Brunswick, though a noble and pure woman, had never won his
love, for he had been forced into the marriage by his father; she did
not reside with her royal husband, whose life was now filled with his
world-stirring military and political deeds and, for recreation, with
music, history, and philosophy. On the other hand, from the report of
the British ambassador, Lord Malmesbury (1772), it seems that the great
king had not succeeded in raising the standard of morality among the
inhabitants of his residence, as the ambassador, perhaps owing to
splenetic exaggeration, writes that "there is in that capital neither an
honest man nor a chaste woman. An absolute moral corruption prevails
among both sexes of all classes, to which must be added a general
impoverishment due to the fiscal oppressions of the actual king,
Frederick the Great, and their love of luxury since the times of the
king's grandfather. The men are constantly occupied with limited means
in leading an immoral life. The women are harpies who have sunk so low
more from want of modesty than anything else. They sell themselves to
him who pays best, and delicacy or true love are to them unknown
things." The great traveller and naturalist George Foster confirms that
statement at least as regards women, whom he describes as "generally
corrupted."

Though Frederick of Prussia and Joseph II. of Austria lived purely, at
least after their respective accessions, and were, politically, epoch
makers in history, they were both succeeded by rulers who were