To begin with he
threw his plate at my brother's head, who would have been struck had
he not got out of the way; a second one he threw at me, which I also
happily escaped; then torrents of abuse followed these first signs of
hostility. He reproached the Queen with having brought up her
children so badly. 'You will curse your mother,' he said to my
brother, 'for having made you such a good-for-nothing creature.' . . .
As my brother and I passed near him to leave the room, he hit out at
us with his crutch. Happily we escaped the blow; for it would
certainly have struck us down, and we at last escaped without harm.

Yet, as the Princess Christian remarks, 'despite the almost cruel
treatment Wilhelmine received from her father, it is noticeable that
throughout her memoirs she speaks of him with the greatest affection. She
makes constant reference to his "good heart"'; and says that his faults
'were more those of temper than of nature.' Nor could all the misery and
wretchedness of her home life dull the brightness of her intellect. What
would have made others morbid, made her satirical. Instead of weeping
over her own personal tragedies, she laughs at the general comedy of
life. Here, for instance, is her description of Peter the Great and his
wife, who arrived at Berlin in 1718:

The Czarina was small, broad, and brown-looking, without the slightest
dignity or appearance. You had only to look at her to detect her low
origin. She might have passed for a German actress, she had decked
herself out in such a manner. Her dress had been bought second-hand,
and was trimmed with some dirty looking silver embroidery; the bodice
was trimmed with precious stones, arranged in such a manner as to
represent the double eagle. She wore a dozen orders; and round the
bottom of her dress hung quantities of relics and pictures of saints,
which rattled when she walked, and reminded one of a smartly harnessed
mule. The orders too made a great noise, knocking against each other.

The Czar, on the other hand, was tall and well grown, with a handsome
face, but his expression was coarse, and impressed one with fear. He
wore a simple sailor's dress. His wife, who spoke German very badly,
called her court jester to her aid, and spoke Russian with her. This
poor creature was a Princess Gallizin, who had been obliged to
undertake this sorry office to save her life, as she had been mixed up
in a conspiracy against the Czar, and had twice been flogged with the
knout!

* * * * * *

The following day [the Czar] visited all the sights of Berlin, amongst
others the very curious collection of coins and antiques. Amongst
these last named was a statue, representing a heathen god. It was
anything but attractive, but was the most valuable in the collection.
The Czar admired it very much, and insisted on the Czarina kissing it.
On her refusing, he said to her in bad German that she should lose her
head if she did not at once obey him.