she afterwards wedded Roucoulles, a refugee gentleman of her own Nation, who had gone into the Prussian Army, as was common for the like of him: She had again become a widow, Madame de Roucoulles this time, with her daughter Montbail still about her, when, by the grateful good sense of Friedrich Wilhelm, she was again intrusted as we see;--and so had the honor of governessing Frederick the Great for the first seven years of his life.
Respectable lady, she oversaw his nurses, pap-boats,--"beer-soup and bread," he himself tells us once, was his main diet in boyhood,--beer-soups, dress-frocks, first attempts at walking;and then also his little bits of intellectualities, moralities;his incipiencies of speech, demeanor, and spiritual development;and did her function very honestly, there is no doubt.
Wilhelmina mentions her, at a subsequent period; and we have a glimpse of this same Roucoulles, gliding about among the royal young-folk, "with only one tooth left" (figuratively speaking), and somewhat given to tattle, in Princess Wilhelmina's opinion.
Grown very old now, poor lady; and the dreadfulest bore, when she gets upon Hanover and her experiences, and Queen Sophie Charlotte's, in that stupendously magnificent court under Gentleman Ernst. Shun that topic, if you love your peace of mind!
[<italic> Memoires <end italic> (above cited).]--She did certainly superintend the Boy Fritzkin for his first seven years; that is a glory that cannot be taken from her. And her pupil, too, we agreeably perceive, was always grateful for her services in that capacity. Once a week, if he were in Berlin, during his youthful time, he was sure to appear at the Roucoulles Soiree, and say and look various pleasant things to his "CHER MAMAN (dear Mamma)," as he used to call her, and to the respectable small parts she had.
Not to speak of other more substantial services, which also were not wanting.
Roucoulles and the other female souls, mainly French, among whom the incipient Fritz now was, appear to have done their part as well as could be looked for. Respectable Edict-of-Nantes French ladies, with high head-gear, wide hoops; a clear, correct, but somewhat barren and meagre species, tight-laced and high-frizzled in mind and body. It is not a very fertile element for a young soul: not very much of silent piety in it; and perhaps of vocal piety more than enough in proportion. An element founding on what they call "enlightened Protestantism," "******* of thought," and the like, which is apt to become loquacious, and too conscious of itself; terming, on the whole, rather to contempt of the false, than to deep or very effective recognition of the true.
But it is, in some important senses, a clear and pure element withal. At lowest, there are no conscious semi-falsities, or volunteer hypocrisies, taught the poor Boy; honor, clearness, truth of word at least; a decorous dignified bearing;various thin good things, are honestly inculcated and exemplified;nor is any bad, ungraceful or suspicious thing permitted there, if recognized for such. It might have been a worse element;and we must be thankful for it. Friedrich, through life, carries deep traces of this French-Protestant incipiency: a very big wide-branching royal tree, in the end; but as small and flexible a seedling once as any one of us.
The good old Dame de Roucoulles just lived to witness his accession; on which grand juncture and afterwards, as he had done before, he continued to express, in graceful and useful ways, his gratitude and honest affection to her and hers. Tea services, presents in cut-glass and other kinds, with Letters that were still more precious to the old Lady, had come always at due intervals:, and one of his earliest kingly gifts was that of some suitable small pension for Montbail, the elderly daughter of this poor old Roucoulles, [Preuss, <italic> Friedrich der Grosse, eine Lebensgeschichte <end italic> (5 vols. Berlin, 1832-1834), v. (Urkundenbuch, p. 4). <italic> OEuvres de Frederic <end italic>
(same Preuss's Edition, Berlin, 1846-1850, &c.), xvi. 184, 191.--The Herr Doctor J. D. E. Preuss, "Historiographer of Brandenburg,"devoted wholly to the study of Friedrich for five-and-twenty years past, and for above a dozen years busily engaged in editing the <italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> --has, besides that <italic> Lebensgeschichte <end italic> just cited, three or four smaller Books, of indistinctly different titles, on the same subject. A meritoriously exact man; acquainted with the outer details of Friedrich's Biography (had he any way of arranging, organizing or setting them forth) as few men ever were or will be.
We shall mean always this <italic> Lebensgeschichte <end italic>
here, when no other title is given: and <italic> OEuvres de Frederic <end italic> shall signify HIS Edition, unless the contrary be stated.] who was just singing her DIMITTAES as it were, still in a blithe and pious manner. For she saw now (in 1740) her little nursling grown to be a brilliant man and King;King gone out to the Wars, too, with all Europe inquiring and wondering what the issue would be. As for her, she closed her poor old eyes, at this stage of the business; piously, in foreign parts, far from her native Normandy; and did not see farther what the issue was. Good old Dame, I have, as was observed, read some seven times over what they call biographical accounts of her;but have seven times (by Heaven's favor, I do partly believe)mostly forgotten them again; and would not, without cause, inflict on any reader the like sorrow. To remember one worthy thing, how many thousand unworthy things must a man be able to forget!