teenth century, just as the Pigtail does
through that of the eighteenth. On that account one need not give up the
general character of the period, and yet one can see how the Rococo
still presses forward in the Pigtail age. For in the battle of spirits
the columns do not advance with even step and even front like the
battalions on the parade ground, but here the file-leaders are often a
century in advance of the centre.

When, therefore, the history of art and morals of the previous century
shows us how at that time discordant spirits nevertheless wrestled with
one another on common ground, the excess of fantastic arbitrariness with
the most sober, universal pedantry, I call it simply a struggle of the
Rococo with the Pigtail.

Men despised real history and broke with it, to be subjected all the
more to the tyranny of historical ghosts. While the poets were fettered
in blind worship of the unities of Aristotle as of a fundamental
historical law, Houdart, without understanding a word of Greek,
corrected Homer, whose poetry did not seem to conform sufficiently to
rule.

In the characters of the great sovereigns of the eighteenth century,
who created new, stricter, more regular forms of government, the same
contrast appears between personal arbitrariness and devotion to this
universal law founded by them. Frederick the Great, Joseph II.,
Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa, Charles XII., Peter the Great, could
none of them quite escape from the eccentricity which was considered the
necessary attribute of genius. They furnished material, therefore, for
countless anecdotes; by personal whims, freaks, and caprices they freed
themselves at times from the new spirit of social uniformity and
political legal equality. One could not reconcile such anecdote-business
with the picture of the antique and medieval hero-kings. In the last two
centuries, on the contrary, a king had to be witty if his greatness was
not to be considered tedious by the people of the Pigtail. The
scandalous chronicle of the Courts was at least as important as the
political chronicles of the kingdoms. Through his mother-wit and his
good jokes Old Fritz became a popular figure even among his adversaries,
and among the people outside of Prussia he still lives on today in the
anecdotes of his private life rather than in his princely actions. All
the kings and heroes of the Rococo age therefore are rather material for
the historical _genre_ picture of the novel