Frederick the Great and His Court

Berlin, 1740: the old king dies, and the son he beat, imprisoned and forced to watch his friend beheaded takes the throne — and within months has invaded Silesia. Mühlbach was Klara Mundt, who wrote nearly three hundred volumes and poured the courts of Europe into them; she is a gossip with archives, and her Frederick — flute, French verses, cold contempt — is the one the nineteenth century believed.