Prussia, officially named Friedrich II., and popularly Frederick
the Great. This First Elector is his lineal ancestor, twelve times
removed. [Rentsch, pp. 349-372; Hubner, t. 176.]



Chapter II.

MATINEES DU ROI DE PRUSSE.

Eleven successive Kurfursts followed Friedrich in Brandenburg.
Of whom and their births, deaths, wars, marriages, negotiations
and continual multitudinous stream of smaller or greater
adventures, much has been written, of a dreary confused nature;
next to nothing of which ought to be repeated here. Some list of
their Names, with what rememberable human feature or event (if
any) still speaks to us in them, we must try to give. Their Names,
well dated, with any actions, incidents, or phases of life, which
may in this way get to adhere to them in the reader's memory, the
reader can insert, each at its right place, in the grand Tide of
European Events, or in such Picture as the reader may have of
that. Thereby with diligence he may produce for himself some faint
twilight notion of the Flight of Time in remote Brandenburg,--
convince himself that remote Brandenburg was present all along,
alive after its sort, and assisting, dumbly or otherwise, in the
great World-Drama as that went on.

We have to say in general, the history of Brandenburg under the
Hohenzollerns has very little in it to excite a vulgar curiosity,
though perhaps a great deal to interest an intelligent one.