duty nearest hand, and therefore first to be done, as it seemed to
him. It was about one in the afternoon, 25th February, 1713;
his Father dead half an hour before: "Tears at a Father's
death-bed, must they be dashed with rage by such a set of greedy
Histrios?" thought Friedrich Wilhelm. He summoned these his
Court-people, that is to say, summoned their OBER-HOFMARSCHALL and
representative; and through him signified to them, That, till the
Funeral was over, their service would continue; and that on the
morrow after the Funeral, they were, every soul of them,
discharged; and from the highest Goldstick down to the lowest
Page-in-waiting, the King's House should be swept entirely clean
of them;--said House intending to start afresh upon a quite new
footing. [Forster, i. 174; Pollnitz, Memoiren, italic> ii. 4.] Which spread such a consternation among the
courtier people, say the Histories, as was never seen before.

The thing was done, however; and nobody durst whisper discontent
with it; this rugged young King, with his plangent metallic voice,
with his steady-beaming eyes, seeming dreadfully in earnest about
it, and a person that might prove dangerous if you crossed him.
He reduced his Household accordingly, at once, to the lowest
footing of the indispensable; and discharged a whole regiment of
superfluous official persons, court-flunkies, inferior, superior
and supreme, in the most ruthless manner. He does not intend
keeping any OBER-HOFMARSCHALL, or the like idle person,
henceforth; thinks a minimum of the Goldsticks ought to suffice
every man.

Eight Lackeys, in the ante-chambers and elsewhere, these, with
each a JAGERBURSCH (what we should call an UNDER-KEEPER) to assist