The papers of those times exhibited
the conversation of their first interview; as if the king, who plans
campaigns in silence, would not accommodate a difference with his
wife, but with writers of news admitted as witnesses. It is certain
that he received her as queen, but whether he treats her as a wife is
yet in dispute.
In a few days his resolution was known with regard to the tall
regiment; for some recruits being offered him, he rejected them; and
this body of giants, by continued disregard, mouldered away.
He treated his mother with great respect, ordered that she should bear
the title of _queen mother_, and that, instead of addressing him
as _his majesty_, she should only call him _son_.
As he was passing soon after between Berlin and Potsdam, a thousand
boys, who had been marked out for military service, surrounded his
coach, and cried out: "merciful king! deliver us from our slavery." He
promised them their liberty, and ordered, the next day, that the badge
should be taken off.
He still continued that correspondence with learned men which he began
when he was prince; and the eyes of all scholars, a race of mortals
formed for dependence, were upon him, as a man likely to renew the
times of patronage, and to emulate the bounties of Lewis the
fourteenth.
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