The Land of Nowhere

So yeah, Sand does not pull any punches about Frederick the Great being an awful person who does terrible things with his absolute power, but she does present him as interesting and human.

But philosophically, she's in dialogue with Voltaire (pretty sure someone could write a thesis on this), who she sees as intellectually facile and lacking heart -- she makes some comments about Voltaire having no taste in music, and in these books taste is music has been established as a pretty good indicator of character.

(Which is part of why Frederick the Great is one of the more interesting characters in the book -- he's a bad person in ways that don't come down to "has bad taste in music", but rather stem from being corrupted by absolute power. If you do want to read just for the Frederick the Great bits, I'd start with the bit at the end of *Consuelo* where Frederick is incognito as Kreutz, and then jump to the beginning of *La Comtesse de Rudolstadt*)