So, with Geoff out last week and part of this to celebrate the nuptials of his brother, I have the chance to just talk about the labor theories of different monarchs for a week!! And by talk about, I mean, grossly exaggerate. Frederick cared a good deal about the welfare of his subjects, as we've talked about numerous times, but was also dedicated to the mercantilist ideal and as many of his attempts to drum up local industry failed as succeeded. Still, for one man starting and then single-handedly running an entire new system of economy goes, he did pretty damn well.

[Edit] My script for the Charles XII bit originally had "Congratulations, you have Hyper-Fatalistic Protestants" but that didn't seem to quite do it, pacing-wise, so I had some hours of soul-searching and decided that the punchiest way to express the particularly Swedish brand of Lutheranism that was prevalent among his army and people, that kind which said, "God will protect you until the time he has appointed for you to die, so be recklessly brave and self-sacrificing since you're untouchable until that moment" was to just call it Calvinism to get the pre-destination connotations. But then a few readers wrote in very correctly saying that he didn't ACTUALLY have an army comprised of Calvinists, and whereas I'm normally entirely happy to change history to make a joke, this time I had to admit that I Went Too Far, so I've changed the episode up a bit and have to thank our beloved readers for being awesome and keeping us honest! [Edit]

Oh, Peter, I've missed you.

And the peasantry of France are always fun in a sort of Cat On The Gaming Table way - huge amounts of power, absolutely no way of predicting which way that power is going to be directed.

- Count Dolby von Luckner