Queen Sophie Charlotte had liked her society; and finding her of prudent intelligent turn, and with the style of manners suitable, had given her Friedrich Wilhelm to take charge of.

She was at that time Madame de Montbail; widow, as we said: 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! [_Memoires_ (above cited).]--She did certainly superintend the Boy Fritzkin for his first seven years; that is a glory that cannot be taken from her.