Style and poetry had a great effect upon him; he expressed
admiration for the form and was aroused to enthusiasm by
generous or noble ideas. Frederick the Great was the hero of
his choice, a model of which he never ceased dreaming, and
which, like his grandfather, he proposed as his own. It is
easy to conceive that after ten or twelve years of such
study, regularly and methodically pursued, the Prince must
have possessed a literary and scientific baggage more varied
and extensive than that of his companions. And he worked
hard for it, few lads so hard. To speak the truth, he was
much more disciplined and much more deprived of freedom and
recreation of all sorts than most children of his age."

_Par paranthèse_ may be introduced here a reference to Prince Henry,
of whom Monsieur Ayme writes less enthusiastically.

"One day," the tutor writes, "I was dictating to him
something in which mention of a queen occurs. I came to the
words '... in addition to her natural distinction she
possessed that August majesty which is the appanage of
princesses of the blood royal....'

"Prince Henry laid down his pen and remarked, 'The author
who wrote this piece did not live much with queens.'

"'Why?' I asked.

"'Because I never observed the August majesty which attaches
to princesses of the blood royal, and yet I have been
brought up among them,' was the reply.