left Berlin because the mother of Cocceji implored you to do so. I know you to be magnanimous enough to sacrifice yourself to the prayers and happiness of another, and for this reason alone you went to London, where Lord Stuart McKenzie awaited us.”
“Poor lord!” said Barbarina, thoughtfully. “I sinned greatly against him! He loved me fondly; he waited for me with constancy; he was so truly happy when I came at last, as he hoped, to fulfil my promise, and become his wife! God knows I meant to be true, and I swore to myself to make him a faithful wife; but my will was weaker than my heart. I could not marry him, and on my wedding-day I fled from London. Poor Lord Stuart!”
“And on that day, when, bathed in tears, you told me to prepare to leave London with you secretly; on that day you said to me, ‘I cannot, no, I cannot wed a man I do not love. The air chokes me, Marietta; I must return to Berlin; he is there whom I love, whom I will love eternally!’ I said again, ‘Whom do you love, my sister?’ and you replied, ‘I love Cocceji!’ And now you are amazed that I believe you! In it possible that I can doubt your word? Is it possible that Barbarina tells an untruth to her fond and faithful sister? that she shrouds her heart, and will not allow Marietta to read what is written there?”
“If I did that,” said Barbarina, uneasily, “it was because I shrank from reading my own heart. Be pitiful, Marietta, do not lift the veil; allow my poor heart to heal its wounds in peace and quiet.”
“It cannot heal, sister, if we remain here,” said Marietta, trembling with suppressed tears. “Let us fly far, far away; accept the offer of Binatelli; it is the call of God. Come, come, Barbarina, we will return to our own Italy, to beautiful Rome. Remain no longer in this cold north, by these icy hearts!”
“I cannot, I cannot!” cried Barbarina, with anguish. “I have no fatherland–no home. I am no longer a Roman, no longer an Italian. I am a wretched, homeless wanderer. Why will not my heart bleed and die? Why am I condemned to live, and be conscious of this torture?”
“Stop, stop, my sister!” cried Marietta, wildly; “not another word! You are right; we will not lift this fearful veil. Cover up your heart in darkness–it will heal!”
“It will heal!” repeated Barbarina, pressing Marietta to her bosom and weeping bitterly.
The entrance of a servant aroused them both; Barbarina turned away to hide her weeping eyes. The servant announced a lady, who desired anxiously to speak with the signora.
“Say to her that Barbarina is unwell, and can receive no one.”
In a few moments the servant returned with a card, which he handed to Marietta. “The lady declared she knew the signora would receive her when she saw the card.”
“Madame Cocceji,” said Marietta.
Barbarina rose up hastily.
“Will you receive her?” asked Marietta.
“I will receive her.”
And now a great change passed over Barbarina: all melancholy; all languor had disappeared; her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed with an engaging smile, as she advanced to greet the proud lady who stood upon the threshold.
“Ah, generous lady, how good you are!” said Barbarina, in a slightly mocking tone. “I have but just returned to Berlin, and you gladden my heart again by your visit, and grant me the distinction and privilege of receiving in my house one of the most eminent and virtuous ladies of Berlin.”
Madame Cocceji threw a contemptuous glance upon the beautiful young woman who dared to look in her face with such smiling composure.
“I have not come, madame, to visit you, but to speak to you!”
“I do not see the distinction; we visit those with whom we wish to speak.”
“We visit those with whom we wish to speak, and who are trying to evade an interview! I have sent to you twice, signora, and commanded you to come to me, but you have not obeyed!”
“I am accustomed to receive those who wish to see me at my own house,” said Barbarina, quietly. “Indeed, madame, I understand your language perhaps but poorly. Is it according to the forms of etiquette to say, ‘I have commanded you to come to me?’ In my own fair land we give a finer turn to our speech, and we beg for the honor of a visit.” As Barbarina said this, she bowed with laughing grace to the proud woman, who gazed at her with suppressed rage.
“This is the second time I have been forced to seek an interview with you.”
“The first time, madame, you came with a petition, and I was so happy as to be able to grant your request. May I be equally fortunate to-day! Without doubt you come again as a petitioner,” said Barbarina, with the cunning manner of a cat, who purrs while she scratches.
The proud Cocceji was wounded; she frowned sternly, but suppressed her anger. Barbarina was right–she came with a request.
“I called upon you a year ago,” said she, “and implored you to cure my son of that wild love which had fallen upon him like the fever of madness–which made him forget his duty, his rank, his parents. I besought you to leave Berlin, and withdraw from his sight that magical beauty which had seduced him.”
“And I declared myself ready to grant your petition,” interrupted Barbarina. “Yes, I conformed myself to your wishes, and left Berlin, not, however, I confess, to do you a service, but because I did not love your son; and there is nothing more dull and wearisome than to listen to protestations of love that you cannot return. But look you, gracious lady, that is a misfortune that pursues me at every step. I left Berlin to escape this evil, and fled to London, to find there the same old story of a love I could not return. I fled then from London, to escape the danger of becoming the wife of Lord Stuart McKenzie.”
“Why did you return to Berlin?” said Madame Cocceji, in an imperious tone.
Barbarina looked up surprised. “Madame,” said she, “for that step I am accountable to no one.”
“Yes, you are accountable to me!” cried Madame Cocceji, enraged to the utmost by Barbarina’s proud composure. “You are accountable to me–me, the mother of Cocceji! You have seduced him by your charms, and driven him to madness. He defies his parents and the anger of his king, and yields himself up to this shameful passion, which covers his family with disgrace.”
Barbarina uttered a cry of rage, and advanced a few steps. “Madame,” said she, laying her hand upon the arm of Madame Cocceji, “you have called this love shameful. You have said that an alliance with me would disgrace your family. Take back your words, I pray you!”
“I retract nothing. I said but the truth,” cried Madame Cocceji, freeing herself from Barbarina.
“Take back your words, madame, for your own sake!” said Barbarina, threateningly.
“I cannot, and will not!” she replied, imperiously, “and if your pride and arrogance has not completely blinded you, in your heart you will confess that I am right. The dancer Barbarina can never be the daughter of the Coccejis. That would be a mockery of all honorable customs, would cast contempt upon the graves of our ancestors, and bring shame upon our nobility. And yet my unhappy son dares think of this dishonor. In his insane folly, he rushed madly from my presence, uttering words of rage and bitter reproach, because I tried to show him that this marriage was impossible.”
“Ah, I love him for this!” cried Barbarina, with a genial smile.
Without regarding her, Madame Cocceji went on: “Even against his father, he has dared to oppose himself. He defies the anger of his king. Oh, signora, in the anguish of my soul I turn to you; have pity with me and with my most unhappy son! He is lost; he will go down to the grave dishonored, if you do not come to my help! If, indeed, you love him, your love will teach you to make the offering of self-sacrifice, and I will bless you, and forgive you all the anguish you have caused me. If you love him not, you will not be so cruel as to bury the happiness and honor of a whole family because of your lofty ambition and your relentless will. Hear my prayer– leave this city, and go so far away that my son can never follow, never reach you!”
“Then I must go into my grave,” said Barbarina; “there is no other refuge to which, if he truly loves, he cannot follow me. I, dear madame, cannot, like yourself, move unknown and unregarded through the world. My fame is the herald which announces my presence in every land, and every city offers me, with bended knee, the keys of her gates and the keys of her heart. I cannot hide myself. Nothing is known of the proud and noble family of Cocceji outside of Prussia; but the wide, wide world knows of the Barbarina, and the laurel-wreaths with which I have been crowned in every land have never been desecrated by an unworthy act or an impure thought. There is nothing in my life of which I repent, nothing for which I blush or am ashamed! And yet you have dared to reproach me–you have had the audacity to seek to humiliate me in my own house.”
“You forget with whom you have the honor to speak.”
“You, madame, were the first to forget yourself; I follow your example. I suppose Madame Cocceji knows and does ever that which is great and right. I said you had vilified me in my own house, and yet you ask of me an act of magnanimity! Why should I relinquish your son’s love?”
“Why? Because there remains even yet, perhaps, a spark of honorable feeling in your bosom. Because you know that my family will never receive you, but will curse and abhor you, if you dare to entice my son into a marriage. Because you know that the Prussian nobles, the king himself, are on my side. The king, signora, no longer favors you; the king has promised us his assistance. The king will use every means of grace and power to prevent a marriage, which he himself has written to me will cover my son with dishonor!” [Footnote: Schneider, “History of the Opera in Berlin.”]
“That is false!” cried Barbarina.
“It is true! and it is true that the king, in order to protect the house of Cocceji from this shame, has given my husband authority to arrest my son and cast him into prison, provided my prayers and tears and menaces should be of no avail! If we fail, we will make use of this authority, and give him over to General Hake. [Footnote: Ibid.] Think well what you do–do not drive us to this extremity. I say there is a point at which even a mother’s love will fail, and the head of our house will act with all the sternness which the law and the king permit. Go, then, Signora Barbarina–bow your proud head–leave Berlin. Return to your own land. I repeat to you, do not drive us to extremity!”
Barbarina listened to this with cool and mocking composure. Not a muscle of her face moved–she was indeed striking in her majesty and her beauty. Her imposing bearing, her pallid but clear complexion, her crimson, tightly-compressed lips, her great, fiery eyes, which spoke the scorn and contempt her proud lips disdained to utter, made a picture never to be forgotten.
“Madame,” said she, slowly, emphasizing every word, “you have, indeed, driven ME to extremity. It was not my intention to marry your son. But your conduct has now made that a point of honor. Now, madame, I will graciously yield to the passionate entreaties of your son, and I will wed him.”
“That is to say, you will force my husband to make use of the power the king has given him?”
Barbarina shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “Arrest your son, and cast him into prison, you will thereby add a new celebrity to your name, and quench the last spark of piety and obedience in his heart. Love has wings, and will follow him everywhere, and will waft him to the altar, where he will wed Barbarina. Neither your curse, nor your arrest, nor the will of the king, will now protect him. Before six months are over, will Barbarina the dancer be the wife of Cocceji.”
“Never, never shall that be!” cried Madame Cocceji, trembling with rage.
“That will be!” said Barbarina, smiling sadly, and bending low. “And now, madame, I think you have attained the object of your visit, and we have nothing more to say to each other. It only remains for me to commend myself to your grace and courtesy, and to thank you for the honor of your visit. Allow me to call my servant, to conduct you to your carriage.”
She rang and commanded the servant to open the folding doors, and carry the large muff of the countess to the carriage. Madame Cocceji was pale with rage. She wished to remain incognito, and now her name had been called before the servant. All Berlin would know before night that she had visited Barbarina!
“Give me my muff,” she said impatiently to the servant; “it is not necessary you should carry it. I came on foot.”
“On foot?” said Barbarina, laughing merrily. “Truly, you wished to remain incognito, and you would not leave your equipage with its coat of arms, standing before my door! I thank you once more for the honor of your visit, and commend myself to you with the glad wish that we may meet again.”
“Never more!” said Madame Cocceji, casting a withering look upon the gay dancer, and hastening from the room.
CHAPTER VIII.
VOLTAIRE.
Voltaire was now a continuous guest of King Frederick. The latter had written a letter to Louis the Fifteenth, and begged him to relinquish his subject and historian, and this request was supposed to be acceded to. Besides this, the king, who was ever thoughtful of the happiness and comfort of his friends, had proposed to Madame Denis, Voltaire’s beloved niece, to follow her uncle to Berlin, dwell in the royal castle at Potsdam, and accept from him an annuity of four thousand francs.
Voltaire himself besought her to come. He wrote to her that, as she had lived contentedly with her husband in Landau, she could surely be happy in Berlin and Potsdam. Berlin was certainly a much more beautiful city than Landau, and at Potsdam they could lead an agreeable and unceremonious life. “In Potsdam there are no tumultuous feasts. My soul rests, dreams, and works. I am content to find myself with a king who has neither a court nor a ministry. Truly, Potsdam is infested by many whiskered grenadiers, but, thank Heaven, I see little of them. I work peacefully in my room, while the drums beat without. I have withdrawn from the dinners of the king; there were too many princes and generals there. I could not accustom myself to be always vis-a-vis with a king and en ceremonie. But I sup with him–the suppers are shorter, gayer, and healthier. I would die with indigestion in three months if I dined every day in public with a king.” [Footnote: OEuvres Completes, p. 360]
Madame Denis, however, seemed to doubt the happy life of Berlin and Potsdam. She wrote, declining the proposition, and expressing her fears that Voltaire would himself soon repent that he had left beautiful, glittering Paris, the capital of luxury and good taste, and taken refuge in a barbaric land, to be the slave of a king, while, in Paris, he had been the king of poetry.
Voltaire had the audacity to bring this letter to the king–perhaps to wound him, perhaps to draw from him further promises and assurances.
Frederick read the letter; his brow did not become clouded, and the friendly smile did not vanish from his lips. When he had read it to the end, he returned it, and his eyes met the distrustful, lowering glance of Voltaire with an expression of such goodness and candor that the latter cast his eyes ashamed to the ground.
“If I were Madame Denis,” said Frederick, “I would think as she does; but, being myself, I view these things differently. I would be in despair if I had occasioned the unhappiness of a friend; and it will not be possible for me to allow trouble or sorrow to fall upon a man whom I esteem, whom I love, and who has sacrificed for me his fatherland and all that men hold most dear. If I could believe that your residence here could be to your disadvantage, I would be the first to counsel you to give it up. I know I would think more of your happiness than I would of the joy of having you with me. We are philosophers. What is more natural, more simple, than that two philosophers, who seem made for each other–who have the same studies, the same tastes, the same mode of thinking–should grant themselves the satisfaction of living together? I honor you as my teacher of eloquence and poetry; I love you as a virtuous and sympathetic friend. What sort of bondage, what misfortunes, what changes have you to fear in a realm where you are as highly honored as in your fatherland–where you have a powerful friend who advances to meet you with a thankful heart? I am not so prejudiced and foolish as to consider Berlin as handsome as Paris. If good taste has found a home in the world, I confess it is in Paris. But you, Voltaire, will you not inaugurate good taste wherever you are? We have organs sufficiently developed to applaud you; and, as to love, we will not allow any other land superiority in that respect. I yielded to the friendship which bound you to the Marquise du Chatelet, but I was, next to her, your oldest friend. How, when you have sought an asylum in my house, can it ever be THOUGHT it will become your prison? How, being your friend, can I ever become your tyrant? I do not understand this. I am convinced that, as long as I live, you will be happy here. You will be honored as the father of literature, and you will ever find in me that assistance and sympathy which a man of your worth has a right to demand of all who honor and appreciate him.” [Footnote: The king’s own words.–Oeuvres Posthumes.]
“Alas! your majesty says that you honor me, but you no longer say that you love me,” cried Voltaire, who had listened to this eloquent and heart-felt speech of the king with eager impatience and lowering frowns. “Yes, yes, I feel it; I know it too well! Your majesty has already limited me to your consideration, your regard; but your love, your friendship, these are costly treasures from which I have been disinherited. But I know these hypocritical legacy-hunters, who have robbed me of that most beautiful portion of my inheritance. I know these poor, beggarly cousins, these D’Argens, these Algarottis, these La Mettries, this vainglorious peacock Maupertius. I–“
“Voltaire,” said the king, interrupting him, “you forget that you speak of my friends, and I do not allow any one to speak evil of them. I will never be partial, never unjust! My heart is capable of valuing and treasuring all my friends, but my friends must aim to deserve it; and if I give them my heart, I expect one in return.”
“Friendship is a bill of exchange, by which you give just so much as you are entitled to demand in return.”
“Give me, then, your whole heart, Voltaire, and I will restore mine to you! But I fear you have no longer a heart; Nature gave you but a small dose of this fleeting essence called love. She had much to do with your brain, and worked at that so long that no time remained to make the heart perfect; just as she was about to pour a few drops of this wonderful love-essence into your heart, the cock crew three times for your birth, and betrayed you into the world. You have long since used up the poor pair of drops which fell into your heart. Your brain was armed for centuries, with power to work, to be useful, to rejoice the souls of others. but I fear your heart was exhausted in your youthful years.”
“Ah, I wish your majesty were right!” cried Voltaire; “I should not then feel the anguish which now martyrs me, the torture of being misunderstood by the most amiable, the most intellectual, the most exalted of monarchs. Oh, sire, sire! I have a heart, and it bleeds because you doubt of its existence!”
“I would believe you if you were a little less pathetic,” said the king. “You not only assert, but you declaim. There is too little of nature and truth in your tone; you remind me a little of the stilted French tragedies, in which design and premeditation obscure all true passion; in which love is only a phrase, that no one believes in, dressed up with the tawdry gilding of sentiment and pathos.”
“Your majesty will crush me with your scorn and mockery!” cried Voltaire, whose eyes now flamed with anger. “You wish to make me feel how powerless, how pitiful I am. Where shall I find the strength to strive with you? I have won no battles. I have no hundred thousand men to oppose to you and no courts-martial to condemn those who sin against me!”
“It is true you have not a hundred thousand soldiers,” said the king, “but you have four-and-twenty, and with these four-and-twenty soldiers you have conquered the whole realm of spirits; with this little army you have brought the whole of educated Europe to your feet. You are, therefore, a much more powerful king than I am. I have, it is true, a hundred thousand men, but I dare not say that they will not run when it comes to the first battle. You, Voltaire, have your four-and-twenty soldiers of the alphabet, and so well have you exercised them, that you must win every battle, even if all the kings of the earth were allied against you. Let us make peace, then, my ‘invincible!’ do not turn this terrible army of the four-and- twenty, with their deadly weapons, against me, but graciously allow me to seize upon the hem of your purple robe, to sun myself in your dazzling rays, to be your humble scholar, and from you and your army of heroes to learn the secret art of winning battles with invisible troops!”
“Your majesty makes me feel more and more how poor I am; even my four-and-twenty, of whom you speak, have gone over to you, and you understand, as well as I do, how to exercise them.”
“No, no!” said Frederick, changing suddenly his jesting tone for one of grave earnestness. “No, I will learn of you. I am not satisfied to be a poor-souled dilettante in poetry, though assured I can. never be a Virgil or a Voltaire. I know that the study of poetry demands the life, the undivided heart and mind. I am but a poor galley-slave, chained to the ship of state; or, if you will, a pilot, who does not dare to leave the rudder, or even to sleep, lest the fate of the unhappy Palinurus might overtake him. The Muses demand solitude and rest for the soul, and that I can never consecrate to them. Often, when I have written three verses, I am interrupted, my muse is chilled, and my spirit cannot rise again into the heights of inspiration. I know there are privileged souls, who can make verses everywhere–in the tumult of court life, in the loneliness of Cirey, in the prisons of the Bastile, and in the stage-coach. My poor soul does not enjoy this freedom. It resembles an anana, which bears fruit only in the green-house, but fades and withers in the fresh air.” [Footnote: The king’s own words.–Oeuvres Posthumes.]
“Ah! this is the first time I have caught the Solomon of the North in an untruth,” cried Voltaire, eagerly. “Your soul is not like the anana, but like the wondrous southern tree which generously bears at the same time fruits and flowers; which inspires and sweetly intoxicates us with its fragrance, and at the same time strengthens and refreshes us by its celestial fruits. You, sire, are not the pupil of Apollo, you are Apollo himself!”
The king smiled, and, raising his arms to heaven, he exclaimed, with the mock pathos of a French tragedian:
“O Dieu! qui douez les poetes
De tant de sublime faveure;
Ah, rendez vos graces parfaites, Et qu’ils soient un peu moins menteurs.”
“In trying to punish me for what you are pleased to call my falsehood, your majesty proves that I have spoken the truth,” cried Voltaire, eagerly. “You wish to show me that the fruit of your muse ripens slowly, and you improvise a charming quatrain that Moliere himself would be proud to have composed.”
“Rendez vos graces parfaites,
Et qu’ils Boient un peu moins menteurs!”
repeated Frederick, nodding merrily to Voltaire. “Look you, friend, I am perhaps that mortal who incommodes the gods least with prayers and petitions. My first prayer to-day was for you; show, therefore, a little gratitude, and prove to me that the gods hear the earnest prayers of the faithful. Be less of a flatterer, and speak the simple truth. I desire now to look over with you my compositions of the last few days. I wish you, however, always to remember that when you write, you do so to add to the fame of your nation and to the honor of your fatherland. For myself, I scribble for my amusement; and I could easily be pardoned, if I were wise enough to burn my work as soon as it was finished. [Footnote: The king’s own words.– Oeuvres Posthumes.] When a man approaches his fortieth year and makes bad verses as I do, one might say, with Moliere’s ‘Misanthrope’–
“‘Si j’en faissis d’aussi mechants, Je me garderais bien de les montrer aux gens.'”
“Your majesty considers yourself already too old to make verses, and you are scarcely thirty-eight: am I not then a fool, worthy of condemnation, for daring to do homage to the Muses and striving to make verses–I, the gray-haired old man who already counts fifty- six?”
“You have the privilege of the gods! you will never grow old; and the Muses and Graces, though women, must ever remain faithful to you–you understand how to lay new chains upon them.”
“No, no, sire! I am too old,” sighed Voltaire; “an old poet, an old lover, an old singer, and an old horse are alike useless things– good for nothing. [Footnote: Voltaire’s own words.–Oeuvres Posthumes, p. 364.] Well, your majesty can make me a little younger by reading me some of your verses.”
Frederick stepped to his writing-desk, and, seating himself, nodded to Voltaire to be seated also.
“You must know,” said the king, handing Voltaire a sheet of paper covered with verses–“you must know that I have come with six twin brothers, who desire in the name of Apollo to be baptized in the waters of Hippocrene, and the ‘Henriade’ is entreated to be godfather.”
Voltaire took the paper and read the verses aloud. The king listened attentively, and nodded approvingly over Voltaire’s glowing and passionate declamation.
“This is grand! this is sublime!” cried Voltaire. “Your majesty is a French writer, who lives by accident in Germany. You have our language wholly in your power.”
Frederick raised his finger threateningly. “Friend, friend, shall I weary the gods again with my prayer?”
“Your majesty, then, wishes to hear the whole truth?”
“The whole truth!”
“Then you must allow me, sire, to read the verses once more. I read them the first time as an amateur, now I will read them as a critic.”
As Voltaire now repeated the verses, he laid a sharp accent upon every word and every imperfect rhyme; scanned every line with stern precision. Sometimes when he came to a false Alexandrine, he gave himself the appearance of being absolutely unable to force his lips to utter such barbarisms; and then his eyes glowed with malicious fire, and a contemptuous smile played about his mouth.
The king’s brow clouded. “I understand,” said he, “the poem is utterly unworthy–good for nothing. Let us destroy it.”
“Not so, sire–the poem is excellent, and it requires but a few day’s study to make it perfect. On the Venus di Medici no finger must be too long, no nail badly formed; and what are such statues, with which we deck our gardens, to the monuments of the library? We must, therefore, make your work perfect. There is infinite grace and intellect in this little poem. Where have you found such treasures, sire? How can your sandy soil yield such blossoms? How can such charming grace and profound learning be combined? [Footnote: Voltaire’s own words.–Oeuvres Posthumes, p. 329.] But even the Graces must stand upon a sure footing, and here, sire, are a few feet which are too long. Truly, that is sometimes unimportant, but the work of a distinguished genius should be PERFECT. You work too rashly, sire–it is sometimes more easy to win a battle than to make a good poem. Your majesty loves the truth so well, that by speaking the truth in all sincerity I shall best prove to you my most profound reverence. All that you do must be perfectly done; you are fully endowed with the ability necessary. No one must say ‘Caesar est supra grammaticum.’ Caesar wrote as he fought, and was in both victorious. Frederick the Great plays the flute like Blavet, why should he not also write like the greatest of poets? [Footnote: Ibid., p. 823.] But your majesty must not disdain to give to the beautiful sentiment, the great thought, a lovely and attractive form.”
“Yes, you are right!” said Frederick; “I fail in that, but you must not think that it is from carelessness. Those of my verses which you have least criticised are exactly those which have cost me the least effort. When the sentiment and the rhyme come in competition, I make bad verses, and am not happy in my corrections. You cannot comprehend the difficulties I have to overcome in making a few tolerable verses. A happy combination by nature, an irrepressible and fruitful intellect, made you a great poet without any effort of your own. I feel and acknowledge the inferiority of my talent. I swim about in the ocean of poetry with my life-preserver under my arm. I do not write as well as I think. My ideas are stronger than my expressions; and in this embarrassment, I am often content if my verses are as little indifferent as possible, and do not expect them to be good.” [Footnote: The king’s own words, p. 346.]
“It is entirely in your majesty’s power to make them perfect. With you, sire, it is as with the gods–‘I will!’ and it is done. If your majesty will condescend to adorn the Graces and sylphs, the sages and scholars, who stumble about in this sublime poem with somewhat rugged feet, with artistic limbs, they will flutter about like graceful genii, and step with majesty like the three kings of the East. Now let us try–we will write this poem again.”
He made a long mark with a pen over the manuscript of the king, took a new sheet of paper, and commenced to write the first lines. He criticised every word with bitter humor, with flashing wit, with mocking irony. Inexorable in his censure, indifferent in his praise, his tongue seemed to be armed with arrows, every one of which was intended to strike and wound.
The face of Frederick remained calm and clear. He did not feel that he was a mighty king and ruler, injured by the fault-finding of a common man. He was the pupil, with his accomplished teacher; and as he really wished to learn, he was indifferent as to the mode by which his stern master would instruct him.
After this they read together a chapter from the king’s “Higtoire de Mon Temps.” A second edition was about to appear, and Voltaire had undertaken to correct it. He brought his copy with him, in order to give Frederick an account of his corrections.
“This book will be a masterwork, if your majesty will only take the pains to correct it properly? But has a king the time and patience?- -a king who governs his whole kingdom alone? Yes, it is this thought which confounds me! I cannot recover from my astonishment; it is this which makes me so stern in my judgment of your writings. I consider it a holy duty.”
“And I am glad you are harsh and independent,” said the king. “I learn more from ten stern and critical words, than from a lengthy speech full of praise and acknowledgment! But tell me, now, what means this red mark, with which you have covered one whole side of my manuscript?”
“Sire, this red mark asks for consideration for your grandfather, King Frederick the First; you have been harsh and cruel with him!”
“I dared not be otherwise, unless I would earn for myself the charge of partiality,” said the king. “It shall not be said that I closed my eyes to his foolishness and absurdity because he was my grandfather. Frederick the First was a vain and pompous fool; this is the truth!”
“And yet I entreat your grace for him, sire. I love this king because of his royal pomp, and the beautiful monument which he left behind him.”
“Well, that was vanity, that posterity might speak of him. From vanity he protected the arts; from vanity and foolish pride he placed the crown upon his head. His wife, the great Sophia Charlotte, was right when she said of him on her death-bed: ‘The king will not have time to mourn for me; the interest he will take in solemnizing my funeral with pomp and regal splendor will dissipate his grief; and if nothing is wanting, nothing fails in the august and beautiful ceremony, he will be entirely comforted.’ [Footnote: Thiebault.] He was only great in little things, and therefore when Sophia Charlotte received from her friend Leibnitz his memoir ‘On the Power of Small Things,’ she said, smiling: ‘Leibnitz will teach me to know small things; has he forgotten that I am the wife of Frederick the First, or does he think that I do not know my husband?'” [Footnote: Ibid.]
“Well, I pray for grace for the husband on his wife’s account. Sophia Charlotte was an exalted and genial woman; you should forgive her husband all other things, because he was wise enough to make her his wife and your grand-mother! And if your majesty reproaches him for the vanity of making himself king, that is a vanity from which his descendants have obtained some right solid advantages.”
“The title appears to me not in the least disagreeable! The title is beautiful, when given by a free people, or earned by a prince. Frederick the First had done nothing to stamp him a king, and that condemns him.”
“So let it be,” said Voltaire, shrugging his shoulders, “he is your grandfather, not mine. Do with him as you think best, sire; I have nothing more to say, and will content myself with softening a few phrases.” [Footnote: This conversation of the king and Voltaire is historic. Voltaire tells it in a letter to Madame Denis.]
When he saw that Frederick’s brow clouded at these words, he said, with a sly laugh: “Look you, how the office of a teacher, which your majesty forced upon me, makes me insolent and haughty! I, who would do well to correct my own works, undertake to improve the writings of a king. I remind myself of the Abbot von Milliers, who has written a book called ‘Reflections on the Faults of Others.’ On one occasion he went to hear a sermon of a Capuchin. The monk addressed his audience, in a nasal voice, in the following manner: ‘My dear brothers in the Lord, I had intended to-day to discourse upon hell, but at the door of the church I have read a bill posted up, “Reflections on the Faults of Others.” “Ha! my friend,” thought I, “why have you not rather made reflections over your own faults?” I will therefore speak to you of the pride and arrogance of men!'”
“Well, make such reflections always when occupied with the History of Louis the Fifteenth,” said the king, laughing; “only, I beseech you, when you are with me, not to be converted by the pious Capuchin, but make your reflections on the faults of others only.”
CHAPTER IX.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Voltaire enjoyed the rare privilege of speaking the truth to the king, and he made a cruel and bitter use of his opportunities in this respect. He was jealous and envious of the king’s fame and greatness, and sought to revenge him-self by continual fault-finding and criticism. He sought to mortify the great Frederick, who was admired and wondered at by all the world; to make him feel and confess that he could never equal the renowned writer Voltaire.
Frederick felt and acknowledged this frankly and without shame, but with that smiling composure and great self-consciousness which is ever ready to do justice to others, and demands at the same time a just recognition of its own claims. Voltaire might exalt himself to the clouds, he could not depreciate the king. He often made him angry, however, and this gratified the malice of the great French author.
The other friends of Frederick looked upon this conduct of Voltaire with regret; and the Marquis d’Argens, who was of a fine and gentle nature, soon saw the daily discontent of the king, and the wicked joy of Voltaire.
“My friend,” said he, “the king wrote a poem yesterday, which he read aloud to me this morning. He declares that there is one bad rhyme in his poem, and that it tortures him. I tried in vain to reassure him. I know that the rhyme is incorrect, but you will provoke him beyond measure if you tell him so. He has tried in vain to correct it, without impairing the sense of the passage. I have, therefore, withheld all criticism, and read to him some verses from La Fontaine, where the same fault is to be found. I have wished to convince him that the poem is worthy of praise, although not exactly conformed to rule. I beg of you, Voltaire, to follow my example.”
“And why should I do that?” said Voltaire, in his most snarling tone.
“Because, with your severe and continual criticisms you will disgust the king, and turn him aside from his favorite pursuit. I think it important to poetry and the fine arts that the great and powerful sovereign of Prussia should love and cherish them; should exalt those who cultivate them, and, indeed, rank himself amongst them. What difference does it make, Voltaire, if a bad rhyme is to be found in the poetry of the philosopher of Sans-Souci?” [Footnote: Thiebault, vol. v., p. 337.]
“The king wishes to learn of me how to make good poetry, and my love to him is not of that treasonable, womanly, and cowardly sort which shrinks from blaming him because it fears to wound his self-love. The king has read his poem to you, and it is your province to wonder at and praise your friend. He will read it to me as ‘Pedagogo de sua Maesta.’ I will be true and just, where you have dared to flatter him.”
Never was Voltaire more severe in his criticism, more cutting in his satire, than to-day. His eyes sparkled with malicious joy, and a wicked smile played still upon his lip as he left the king and returned to his own apartment.
“Ah,” said he, seating himself at his writing-table, with a loud laugh, “I shall write well to-day, for I have had a lesson. Frederick does not know how far he is my benefactor. In correcting him, I correct myself; and in directing his studies, I gain strength and judgment for my own works. [Footnote: Voltaire’s own words.– Oeuvres, p. 363.] I will now write a chapter in my History of Louis XIV. My style will be good. The chapter which I have read this morning, in Frederick’s ‘Histoire de Mon Temps’ has taught me what faults to avoid. Yes, I will write of Louis XIV. Truly I owe him some compensation. King Frederick has had the naivete to compare his great grandfather, the so-called great Prince-Elector, to the great Louis. I was amiable enough to pardon him for this little compliment to his ancestors, and not to strike it from his ‘Histoire.’ And, indeed, why should I have done that? The world will not be so foolish as to charge this amusing weakness to me! After all, the king writes but for himself, and a few false, flattering friends; he can, therefore, say what he will. I, however, I write for France– for the world! But I fear, alas, that fools will condemn me, because I have sought to write as a wise man.” [Footnote: CEuvres, p. 341.]
Voltaire commenced to write, but, he was soon interrupted by his servant, Tripot, who announced that the Jew Hirsch, for whom Voltaire had sent, was at the door. Voltaire rose hastily, and called him to enter.
“I have business with you, my friend,” said he to the Jew. “Close the door, Tripot, and see that we are not disturbed.”
Voltaire hastened with youthful agility through the saloon, and beckoned to the Jew to follow him into his bedroom.
“First of all, friend, we will make a small mercantile operation.” So saying, he opened the door of a large commode. “See, here are twelve pounds of the purest wax-lights. I am a poor man, with weak eyes. I have no use for these lights; I can never hope to profit by them. Here, also, are several pounds of sugar and coffee, the savings of the last two months. You will buy all this of me; we will agree upon a fixed price, and the last day of every month you will come for the same purpose. Name your price, sir.”
Hirsch named his price; but it seemed that the great poet understood how to bargain better than the Jew. He knew exactly the worth of the sugar and the coffee, he spoke so eloquently of the beauty and purity of the thick white wax-lights, that the Hebrew increased his offer,
“And now to more important business,” said Voltaire. “You are going to Dresden–you will there execute a commission for me. I wish to invest eighteen thousand thalers in Saxon bonds. They can now be purchased at thirty-five, and will be redeemed at a hundred.”
“But your excellency knows that the king has forbidden his subjects to buy these bonds. He demanded and obtained for his subjects a pledge that they should be paid at par for the bonds they now hold, while the subjects of the King of Saxony receive only their present value. The king promised, however, that the Prussians should make no further investments in these bonds. You see, then, that it is impossible for me to fulfil this commission.”
“I see that you are a fool!” cried Voltaire, angrily. “If you were not a fool, you would know that Voltaire, the chamberlain of the king, would not undertake a business transaction which would stain his reputation or cast a shadow on his name. When Voltaire makes this investment, you can understand that he is authorized to do so.”
“That being the case,” said Hirsch, humbly, “I am entirely satisfied, and will gladly serve your excellency.”
“If you fill this commission handsomely and promptly, you may feel assured of a reward. Are you ambitious? Would you not like a title?”
“Certainly I am ambitious. I should be truly happy if I could obtain the title of ‘royal court agent.'”
“Well, buy these bonds for me in Dresden cheap, and you shall have this coveted title,” said the noble author of the “Henriade,” and other world-renowned works.
“I will buy them at thirty-five thalers.”
“And you will invest eighteen thousand thalers at this rate. Our contract is made; now we will count the gold. I have not the ready money–I will give you drafts–come into my study.–There are three drafts,” said he, “one on Paris, one on your father, and one on the Jew Ephraim. Get them cashed, good Hirsch, and bring me my Saxon bonds.”
“In eight days, your excellency, I will return with them, and you will have a clear profit of eleven thousand thalers.”
Voltaire’s eyes sparkled with joy. “Eleven thousand thalers!” said he; “for a poor poet, who lives by his wits and his pen, that is a considerable sum.”
“You will realize that sum,” said Hirsch, with the solemn earnestness of a Jew when he has made a good trade.
Hirsch was about to withdraw, but Voltaire hastened after him, and seizing his arm, he cried out threateningly: “You are not going without giving me your note? You do not think that I am such a fool as to give you eighteen thousand thalers, and have nothing to prove it?”
“You excellency has my word of honor,” said the Jew, earnestly.
Voltaire laughed aloud. “Your word! the honorable word of a man for eighteen thousand thalers! My dear friend, we do not live in paradise, but in a so-called Christian city–your worthy forefathers obtained for us this privilege. Do you believe that I will trust one of their descendants? Who will go my security that you will not, nail my innocence and my confiding heart upon the cross, and slay them if I should be unsuspicious enough to trust my money with you in this simple way?”
“I will give you ample security,” said Hirsch, taking a morocco case from his pocket. “I did not know why your excellency sent for me. I thought perhaps you wished to buy diamonds, and brought some along with me. Look, sir! here are diamonds worth twenty-two thousand thalers! I will leave them with you–I, the poor Jew, do not fear that the great poet Voltaire will deceive and betray me.”
“These diamonds are beautiful,” said Voltaire–“very beautiful, and perhaps if my speculation succeeds, I may buy some from you. Until then, I will take care of them.”
Voltaire was about to lock them up, but he paused suddenly, and fixed his eyes upon the calm countenance of the Jew.
“How do I know that these are real diamonds?” he cried; and as Hirsch, exasperated by this base suspicion, frowned and turned pale, he exclaimed fiercely: “The diamonds are false! I know it by your terror. Oh, oh, you thought that a poet was a good, credulous creature who could be easily deceived. Ah! you thought I had heard nothing of those famous lapidaries in St. Germain, who cut diamonds from glass, and cook up in their laboratories the rarest jewels! Yes, yes, I know all these arts, and all the brewing of St. Germain will not suffice to deceive me.”
“These diamonds are pure!” cried Hirsch.
“We will have them tested by a Christian jeweller,” said Voltaire.– “Tripot! Tripot! run quickly to the jeweller Reclam–beg him to come to me for a few moments.”
Tripot soon returned with Reclam. The diamonds were pronounced pure and of the first water; and the jeweller declared they were fully worth twenty-two thousand thalers. Voltaire was now fully satisfied, and, when once more alone, he looked long and rapturously upon these glittering stones.
“What woman can boast of such dazzling fire in her eyes?” said he, laughing; “what woman can say that their color is worth twenty-two thousand thalers? It is true they glisten and shimmer in all lights and shades–that is their weakness and their folly. With you, beautiful gems! these changing hues are a virtue. Oh, to think that with this handful of flashing stones I could buy a bag of ducats! How dull and stupid are mankind–how wise is God! Sinking those diamonds in the bowels of the earth was a good speculation. They are truffles to tempt the snouts of men; and they root after them as zealously as the swine in Perigord root after the true truffles. Gold! gold! that is the magic word with which the world is ruled. I will have gold–I will rule the world. I will not give place to dukes or princes. I will have my seigneuries and my castles; my servants in rich livery, and my obedient subjects. I will be a grand seigneur. Kings and princes shall visit me in my castle, and wait in my antechamber, as I have been compelled to wait in theirs. I will be rich that I may be every man’s master, even master of the fools. I will enslave the wise by my intellect–I will reduce the foolish to bondage with gold. I must be rich! rich! rich! therefore am I here; therefore do I correct the poor rhymes of the king; therefore do I live now as a modest poet, and add copper to copper, and save my pension of five thousand thalers, and sell my wax-lights and my coffee to the Jew. Let the world call me a miser. When I become rich, I will be a spendthrift: and men who are now envious and angry at my fame shall burst with rage at my fortune. Ah, ah, it is not worth the cost to be a celebrated writer! There are too many humiliations connected with this doubtful social position. It gives no rank–it is a pitiful thing in the eyes of those who have actual standing, and is only envied by those who are unnoticed and unknown. For my own part, I am so exhausted by the discomforts of my position, I would gladly cast it from me, and make for myself what the canaille call a good thing–an enormous fortune. I will scrape together all the gold that is possible. I will give for gold all the honor and freedom and fame which come to me. I am a rich gainer in all these things by my residence with King Frederick. He has this virtue: he is unprejudiced, and cares nothing even for his own royal rank. I will therefore remain in this haven, whither the storms, which have so long driven me from shore to shore, have now safely moored me. My happiness will last just as long as God pleases.” [Footnote: Voltaire’s own words.–Oeuvres, p. 110.]
He laughed heartily, and took his cash-book, in which he entered receipts and expenditures. It was Voltaire’s greatest pleasure to add up his accounts from time to time, and gloat over the growth of his fortune; to compare, day by day, his receipts and expenses, and to find that a handsome sum was almost daily placed to his credit. The smallest necessary expenditure angered him. With a dark frown he said to himself: “It is unjust and mean to require of me to buy provender for my horse, and to have my carriage repaired; if the king furnishes me with an equipage, he should not allow it to be any expense to me. The major-domo is an old miser, who cheats me every month out of some pounds of sugar and coffee, and the wax-lights are becoming thinner and poorer. I will complain to King Frederick of all this; he must see that order prevails in his palace.”
Voltaire closed his account-book, and murmured: “When I have an income of a hundred and fifty thousand francs, I will cease to economize. God be praised, I have almost reached the goal! But,” said he, impatiently, “in order to effect this, I must remain here a few years, and add my pension to my income. Nothing must prevent this–I must overcome every obstacle. What! who can hinder me? my so-called friends, who naturally are my most bitter enemies? Ha, ha! what a romantic idea of this genial king to assemble six friends around him at Sans-Souci, the most of them being authors–that is to say, natural enemies! I believe if two authors, two women, or two pietists, were placed alone upon a desert isle, they would forget their dependence upon each other, and commence intriguing at once. This, alas! is humanity, and being so, one must withdraw from the poor affair advantageously and cunningly. [Footnote: Voltaire, Oeuvres, p. 375.] No one can live peacefully in this world; least of all, in the neighborhood of a king. It is with kings as with coquettes, their glances kindle jealousy–and Frederick is a great coquette. I must, therefore, drive my rivals from the field, and enjoy in peace the favor of the king. Now which of my rivals are dangerous to me? All! all! I must banish them all! I will sow such discontent and rage and malice and strife amongst them, that they will fly in hot haste, and thank God if I do not bite off their noses before they escape. I will turn this, their laughing paradise, into a hell, and I will be the devil to chase them with glowing pitchforks. Yes, even to Siberia will I drive this long-legged peacock, Maupertius–him, first of all; then D’Argens, then Algarotti, then this over-wise and good Lord Marshal, and all others like him! When Voltaire’s sun is in the ascendant, not even stars shall glitter; It shall not be! I will prove to them that Voltaire’s fiery rays have burned them to ashes!” [Footnote: Voltaire, OEuvres, p. 378.]
He laughed aloud, and seated himself to write a poem. He was invited that evening to a soiree by the queen-mother, where he wished to shine as an improvisator. Above all other things, he wished to win the heart of the Princess Amelia. Since she had played the part of Aurelia, in “Rome Sauvee,” he had felt a passion for the princess, who had betrayed to the life the ardor and the pains of love, and whose great flaming eyes seemed, from their mysterious depths, to rouse the soul of the poet. Voltaire had promised the Princess Amelia to improvise upon any subject she should select, and he relied upon his cunning to incline her choice in such a direction as to make the poem he was now writing appropriate and seem impromptu.
While thus occupied, his servant entered and announced a number of distinguished gentlemen, who were in the parlor, and wished to make the great author a morning visit. “Let them all wait!” said Voltaire, angrily; declaring that this disturbance had cost him a piquant rhyme.
“But, gracious sir,” stammered the servant, “some of the most distinguished men of the court and the oldest generals, are there!”
“What do I care for their epaulets or their excellencies? Let them wait, or go to the devil–if they prefer it.”
Well, the eminent gentlemen waited; indeed, they waited patiently, until the great Voltaire, the favorite of the king, the universal French author, in his pride and arrogance was graciously pleased to show himself amongst the Dutch barbarians, and allow some rays of his intellect to fall upon and inspire them!
The saloon was indeed crowded with princes, generals, and nobles. Voltaire had just returned to Berlin from Potsdam, and all hastened to pay their respects and commend themselves to his grace and favor. [Footnote: Forney writes thus in his “Memoirs”: “During the winter months which Voltaire spent in the palace of Berlin, he was the favorite of the court. Princes, ambassadors, ministers, generals, nobles of the highest rank went to his morning receptions, and were often received by him with contemptuous scorn. A great prince was pleased to play chess with him, and allowed him every time to win the stake of two louis d’or. It was declared, however, that sometimes the gold disappeared before the end of the game, and could not be found.”–“Souvenirs d’un Citoyen.”]
Voltaire was very gracious this morning. As he was to play the part of improvisator that night, he thought it politic to make favor with all those who would be present. He hoped that all the world would thunder out their enraptured applause, and that Maupertius, D’Argens, Algarotti, La Mettrie, and all other friends of the king, would be filled with envy and rage. He smiled, therefore, benignantly, and had kind and flattering words for all. His bon-mots and piquant witticisms seemed inexhaustible.
Suddenly his servant drew near, and said it was necessary to speak to him on a matter of great importance. Voltaire turned with a winning smile to his guests, and, praying them to wait for his return, entered his private room.
“Well, Tripot, what have you to say that is important?”
“Gracious sir, the court is in mourning.”
Voltaire looked at him enraged. “Fool! what is that to me?”
“It is of the utmost importance to you, sir, if you are going this evening to the soiree of the queen-mother.”
“Will you run me mad, Tripot? What has the court mourning to do with the queen’s soiree?”
“Gracious sir, the explanation is very simple. When the court is in mourning, no one can appear there in embroidered clothes; you must wear a plain black coat.”
“I have no plain black coat,” said Voltaire, with a frowning brow.
“It is necessary, then, for you to order one, and I have sent Monsieur Pilleneure to come and take your measure.”
“Are you insane, Tripot?” cried Voltaire. “Do you regard me as so vile a spendthrift, so brainless a fool, as to order a new coat for the sake of one evening’s amusement–a coat which will cost an immense sum of money, and must then hang in the wardrobe to be destroyed by moths? In eight days this mourning will be over, and I would be several hundred francs poorer, and possess a black coat I could never wear! I will not go this evening to the soiree of the queen-mother; this is decided. I will announce myself sick. Go and countermand the tailor.”
He turned to leave the room, but paused suddenly. “I cannot decline this invitation,” murmured he. “It is widely known that I have promised to improvise. The world is looking on eagerly. If I do not go, or if I announce myself sick, they will say I shrink from this ordeal. My enemies will triumph!–Tripot, I am obliged to go to the soiree of the queen.”
“Then the tailor must come to take your measure?”
“Fool!” cried Voltaire, stamping furiously. “I have told you I have no gold for such follies. Gather up your small amount of understanding, and think of some other expedient.”
“Well, your excellency. I know a mode of escape from this embarrassment, but I scarcely dare propose it.”
“Speak out–any means are good which attain their object.”
“Below, in the court, dwells the merchant Fromery. His servant is my very good friend. I have learned from him that his master has just purchased a beautiful black coat. I think he has about the figure of your excellency.”
“Ah, I understand,” said Voltaire, whose countenance became clearer, “You will borrow for me, from your friend, the coat of his master?”
“Yes, if your excellency is not offended at my proposal?”
“On the contrary, I find the idea capital. Go, Tripot, and borrow the coat of Fromery.”
Voltaire returned once more to his distinguished guests, and enraptured them again by his witty slanders and brilliant conversation. As the last visitor departed, he rang for his servant.
“Well, Tripot, have you the coat?”
“I have, your excellency.”
Voltaire rubbed his hands with delight. “It seems this is a happy day for me–I make the most advantageous business arrangements.”
“But it will be necessary for your grace to try on this coat. I fear it is too large; since I saw Fromery, he has grown fat.”
“The ass!” cried Voltaire. “How does he dare to fatten, when all the people of intellect and celebrity, like myself, grow thinner every day?” So saying, he put on the coat of the merchant Fromery. “Yes, truly, it is far too large for me. Oh, oh! to think that the coat of a pitiful Dutch tradesman is too large for the great French poet! Well, that is because these Dutch barbarians think of nothing but gormandizing. They puff up their gross bodies with common food, and they daily become fatter; but the spirit suffers. Miserable slaves of their appetites, they are of no use themselves, and their coats are also useless!”
“Does your excellency believe that it is impossible to wear the coat?”
“Do I believe it is impossible? Look at me! Do I not look like a hungry heir in the testamentary coat of his rich cousin the brewer? Would it not be thought that I was a scarecrow, to drive the birds from the cornfields?”
At this moment Monsieur Pilleneure was announced.
“Good Heaven! I forgot to countermand the tailor!” cried Tripot.
“That is fortunate!” said Voltaire, calming himself. “God sends this tailor here to put an end to my vexations. This coat is good and handsome, only a little too large–the tailor will alter it immediately.”
“That will be splendid!” said Tripot. “He will take in the seams, and to-morrow enlarge it again.”
“Not so!” cried Voltaire. “The coat could not possibly look well; he must cut away the seams.”
“But then,” said Tripot, hesitatingly, “Fromery could never wear his coat again.”
“Fromery will learn that Voltaire has done him the honor to borrow his coat, and I think that will be a sufficient compensation. Tell the tailor to enter.”
Thanks to the adroitness of Pilleneure, Voltaire appeared at the soiree of the queen-mother in a handsome, well-fitting black coat. No one guessed that the mourning dress of the celebrated French writer belonged to the merchant Fromery, and that the glittering diamond agraffes in his bosom, and the costly rings on his fingers, were the property of the Jew Hirsch. Voltaire’s eyes were more sparkling than diamonds, and the glances which he fixed upon the Princess Amelia more glowing; her pale and earnest beauty inspired him to finer wit and richer hymns of praise.
No one dared to say that this passionate adoration offered to the princess was unbecoming and offensive to etiquette. Voltaire was the man of his age, and therefore justified in offering his worship even to a princess. He was also the favorite of the king, who allowed him privileges granted to no other man. There was one present, however, who found these words of passion and of rapture too bold, and that one was King Frederick. He had entered noiselessly and unannounced, as was his custom, and he saw, with a derisive smile, how every one surrounded Voltaire, and all were zealous in expressing their rapture over his improvised poem, and entreating him to repeat it.
“How can I repeat what I no longer know?” said he. “An angel floated by me in the air, and, by a glance alone, she whispered words which my enraptured lips uttered as in a wild hallucination.”
“The centuries to come are to be pitied if they are to be deprived of this enchanting poem,” said the Princess Amelia. She had remarked the entrance of the king, knew that his eye was fixed upon her, and wished to please him by flattering his beloved favorite.
“If your royal highness thinks thus, I will now write out a poem which I had designed only to recite,” said Voltaire, seating himself at the card-table; and, taking a card and pencil, he wrote with a swift hand and handed the card, bowing profoundly.
The king, who was a silent spectator of this scene, looked at the Princess Amelia, and saw that she blushed as she read, and her brow was clouded.
“Allow me, also, to read the poem of the great Voltaire, my sister,” said the king, drawing near.
The princess handed him the card, and while Frederick read, all stood around him in respectful silence.
“This poem is sublime,” said the king, smiling. He saw that the princess was no longer grave, and that Voltaire breathed freely, as if relieved from a great apprehension. “This little poem is so enchanting, that you must allow me to copy it, my sister. Go on with your conversation, messieurs, it does not disturb me.”
A request from the lips of a king is a command; all exerted themselves therefore to keep up a gay and animated conversation, and to seem thoughtless and unoccupied. Frederick seated himself at the table, and read once more the poem of Voltaire, which was as follows:
“Souvent un pen de verite
Se mele au plus grossier mensonge. Cette nuit dans l’erreur d’un songe,
Au rang des rois j’etais monte,
Je vous aimais alors, et j’osais vous le dire, Les dieux a mon reveil ne m’ont pas tout ote, Je n’ai perdu que mon empire.”
“Insolent!” cried the king, and his scornful glance wandered away to Voltaire, who was seated near the queen engaged in lively conversation. “We will damp his ardor,” said he, smiling; and, taking a card, he commenced writing hastily.
Truly at this moment the stem master Voltaire might have been content with his royal pupil; the rhymes were good and flowed freely. When Frederick had finished his poem, he put Voltaire’s card in his bosom and drew near to the princess.
“The poem is piquant,” said he; “read it yourself, and then ask Voltaire to read it aloud.”
Amelia looked strangely at the king, but as she read, a soft smile lighted up her lovely, melancholy face. Bowing to her brother, she said in low tones, “I thank your highness.”
“Now give the card to Voltaire, and ask him to read it,” said the king.
Voltaire took the card, but as he read he did not smile as the princess had done–he turned pale and pressed his lips tightly together.
“Read it,” said the king.
“I beg your pardon,” said Voltaire, who had immediately recovered his self-possession; “this little poem, so hastily composed, was not worthy of the exalted princess to whom I dared address it. Your majesty will be graciously pleased to remember that it was born in a moment, and the next instant lost its value. As I now read it, I find it dull and trivial. You will not be so cruel as to force me to read aloud to your majesty that which I condemn utterly.”
“Oh, le coquin!” murmured Frederick, while Voltaire, with a profound bow, placed the card in his pocket.
When the soiree was over, and Voltaire returned to his rooms, the gay and genial expression which he had so carefully maintained during the evening disappeared; and his lips, which had smiled so kindly, muttered words of cursing and bitterness. He ordered Tripot to arrange his writing-table and leave the room. Being now alone, he drew the card from his bosom, and, as if to convince himself that what he saw was truth and no cruel dream, he read aloud, but with a trembling voice:
“On remarque, pour l’ordinaire,
Qu’un songe eat analoque a notre caractere, On heros peut rever, qu’il a passe le Rhin, Un chien qu’il aboie a la lune;
Un joueur, qu’il a fait fortune, Un voleur, qu’il a fait butin.
Mais que Voltaire, a l’aide d’un mensonge, Ose se croire roi lui que n’est qu’un faquin, Ma fois! c’est abuser du souge.”
“So I am already a scoundrel?” said Voltaire, grinning. “My enemies triumph, and he who a short time since was called the wise man of the age, the Virgil of France, is nothing but a scoundrel! This time, I confess, I merited my humiliation, and the consciousness of this increases my rage. I am a good-humored, credulous fool. Why was I so silly as to credit the solemn protestations of the king that I should never feel his superior rank; that he would never show himself the master? If I dare to claim an equality with him for an instant, he swings his rod of correction, and I am bowed in the dust! Voltaire is not the man to bow patiently. The day shall come in which I will revenge with rich interest the degradation of this evening. But enough of anger and excitement. I will sleep; perhaps in happy dreams I shall wander from the chilly borders of the Spree to my own beautiful Paris.”
He called Tripot, and commanded him to announce to Fredersdorf that he was ill, and could not accompany the king to Potsdam in the morning.
He then retired, and the gods, perhaps, heard his prayer, and allowed him in dreams to look upon Paris, where the Marquis de Pompadour reigned supreme, and the pious priests preached against the Atheist Voltaire, to whom the great-hearted King of Prussia had given an asylum. Perhaps he saw in his dreams the seigneurie of his glittering future, and his beautiful house at Ferney, where he built a temple, with the proud inscription, “Voltaire Deo erexit!”
At all events, his dreams must have been pleasant and refreshing. He laughed in his sleep; and his countenance, which was so often clouded by base and wicked passions, was bright and clear; it was the face of a poet, who, with closed eyes, looked up into the heaven of heavens.
The morning came, and Voltaire still slept–even the rolling of the carriages aroused him but for a moment; he wrapped himself up in his warm bed. the soft eider down of his pillow closed over his head and made him invisible. Tripot came lightly upon tiptoe and removed the black coat of the merchant Fromery. Voltaire heard nothing; he slept on. And now the door was noisily opened, and a young woman, with fresh, rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, entered the room; she was dressed as a chambermaid, a little white coquettish cap covered her hair, and a white apron with a little bodice was laced over her striped woollen robe. Upon her white, naked arm she carried linen which she threw carelessly upon the floor, and drew with rash steps near the bed. Voltaire still slept, and was still invisible.
The young chambermaid, believing that he had gone with the king to Potsdam, had come to arrange the room; with a quick movement she seized the bed with her sinewy hands and threw it off. A wild cry was heard! a white skeleton figure rose from the bed, now lying in the middle of the chamber, and danced about the floor with doubled fists and wild curses. The girl uttered a shriek of terror and rushed from the room; and if the form and the nightcap had not been purely white, she would have sworn she had seen the devil in person, and that she had cast him out from the bed of the great French poet. [Footnote: Thiebault, v., 281.]
CHAPTER X.
THE LOVERS.
The day of grace was at an end. The four weeks which the king had granted to his sister, in order that she might take counsel with herself, were passed, and the heart of the princess was unmoved– only her face was changed. Amelia hid her pallor with rouge, and the convulsive trembling of her lips with forced smiles; but it was evident that her cheeks became daily more hollow, and her eyes more inflamed. Even the king remarked this, and sent his physician to examine her eyes. The princess received this messenger of the king with a bitter, icy smile.
“The king is very good; but I am not ill–I do not suffer.”
“But, your royal highness, your eyes suffer. They are weak and inflamed: allow me to examine them.”
“Yes, as my brother has commanded it; but I warn you, you cannot heal them.”
Meckel, the physician, examined her eyes with the closest attention, then shook his head thoughtfully.
“Princess,” said he at last, in low, respectful tones, “if you grant your eyes no rest; if, instead of sleeping quietly, you pass the night pacing your room; if you continue to exhaust your eyes by constant weeping, the most fatal consequences may result.”
“Do you mean I will become blind?” said Amelia, quietly.
“I mean your eyes are suffering; that, however, is no acute disease; but your whole nervous system is in a dangerous condition, and all this must be rectified before your eyes can be healed.”
“Prescribe something, then, as his majesty has commanded it,” said Amelia, coldly.
“I will give your royal highness a remedy; but it is of so strong and dangerous a nature, that it must be used only with the utmost caution. It is a liquid; it must be heated, and you must allow the steam to pass into your eyes. Your highness must be very, very careful. The substances in this mixture are so strong, so corrosive, that if you approach too near the steam, it will not only endanger your eyes, but your face and your voice. You must keep your mouth firmly closed, and your eyes at least ten inches above the vessel from which the steam is rising. Will your highness remember all this, and act as I have directed?”
“I will remember it,” said Amelia, replying only to the first part of his question.
Meckel did not remark this. He wrote his prescription and withdrew, once more reminding Amelia of the caution necessary.
As has been said, this was the last day of grace. The princess seemed calm and resigned. Even to her confidential maid she uttered no complaints. The steaming mixture was prepared, and, while Amelia held herself some distance above it, as the physician had commanded, she said laughingly to Ernestine: “I must strive to make my eyes bright, that my brother may be pleased, or at least that he may not be excited against me.”
The prescription seemed to work wonders. The eyes of the princess were clear and bright, and upon her cheeks burned that dark, glowing carnation, which an energetic will and a strong and bold resolve sometimes call into life.
“Now, Ernestine, come! make me a careful and tasteful toilet. It seems to me that this is my wedding-day; that I am about to consecrate myself forever to a beloved friend.”
“Oh, princess, let it be thus!” cried Fraulein von Haak. imploringly. “Constrain your noble heart to follow the wishes of the king, and wed the King of Denmark.”
Amelia looked at her, amazed and angry. “You know that Trenck has received my warning, and has replied to me. He will listen to no suggestions; under no pretext, will he be influenced to cross the borders of Prussia, not even if full pardon and royal grace are offered him. I need not, therefore, be anxious on his account.”
“That being the case, your royal highness should now think a little of your own happiness. You should seek to be reconciled to your fate–to yield to that which is unalterable. The king, the royal family, yes, the whole land will rejoice if this marriage with the King of Denmark takes place. Oh, princess, be wise! do willingly, peacefully, What you will otherwise be forced to do! Consent to be Queen of Denmark.”
“You have never loved, Ernestine, and you do not know that it is a crime to break a holy oath sworn unto God. But let us be silent. I know what is before me–I am prepared!”
With calm indifference, Amelia completed her toilet; then stepped to the large Psyche, which stood in her boudoir, and examined herself with a searching eye.
“I think there is nothing in my appearance to enrage the king. I have laid rouge heavily upon my cheeks, and, thanks to Meckel’s prescription, my eyes are as brilliant as if they had shed no tears. If I meet my brother with this friendly, happy smile, he will not remark that my cheeks are sunken. He will be content with me, and perhaps listen to my prayers.”
Ernestine regarded her with a sad and troubled glance. “You look pale, princess, in spite of your rouge, and your laugh lacerates the heart. There is a tone, a ring in it, like a broken harp-string.”
“Still,” said Amelia, “still, Ernestine! my hour has come! I go to the king. Look, the hand of the clock points to twelve, and I ask an audience of the king at this hour. Farewell, Ernestine! Ernestine, pray for me.”
She wrapped herself in her mantle, and stepped slowly and proudly through the corridors to the wing of the castle occupied by the king. Frederick received her in his library. He advanced to the door to meet her, and with a kindly smile extended both his hands.
“Welcome, Amelia, a thousand times welcome! Your coming proves to me that your heart has found the strength which I expected; that my sweet sister has recovered herself, her maidenly pride, fully.
“The proud daughter of the Hohenzollerns is here to say to the king- -‘The King of Denmark demands my hand. I will bestow it upon him. My father’s daughter dare not wed beneath her. She must look onward and upward. There is no myrtle-wreath for me, but a crown is glittering, and I accept it. God has made both heart and brain strong enough to bear its weight. I shall be no happy shepherdess, but I shall be a great and good queen; I will make others happy.'”
“You have come, Amelia, to say this to the king; but you have also come to say to your brother–‘I am ready to fulfil your wishes. I know that no selfish views, no ambitious plans influence you. I know that you think only of my prosperity and my happiness; that you would save me from misfortune, humiliation, and shame; that you would guard me from the mistakes and weaknesses of my own heart, I accede to your wish, my brother–I will be queen of Denmark?’ Now, Amelia,” said Frederick, with an agitated voice, “have I not rightly divined? Have you not sought me for this purpose?”
“No, my brother, no, no!” cried Amelia, with wild, gushing tears. “No; I have come to implore your pity, your mercy.” Completely beside herself, mad with passion and pain, she fell upon her knees and raised her arms entreatingly to the king. “Mercy, my brother, mercy! Oh, spare my poor, martyred heart! Leave me at least the liberty to complain and to be wretched! Do not condemn me to marry Denmark!”
Frederick stepped backward, and his brow darkened; but he controlled his impatience, and drew near his sister with a kindly smile, and gently raising her from her knees, he led her to the divan.
“Come, Amelia, it does not become you to kneel to a man–to God only should a princess kneel. Let us be seated, and speak to each other as brother and sister should speak who love and wish to understand each other.”
“I am ready for all else, I will accommodate myself to all else– only be merciful! Do not compel me to wed Denmark!”
“Ah, see, my sister, although you are struggling against me, how justly you comprehend your position!” said the king, mildly. “You speak of wedding Denmark. Your exalted and great destiny sleeps in these words. A princess when she marries does not wed a man, but a whole people; she does not only make a man but a nation happy. There are the weeping, whose tears she will dry; the poor, whose hunger she will assuage; the unhappy, to whom she will bring consolation; the sick and dying, with whom she will pray. There is a whole people advancing to meet her with shouts of gladness, stretching out their hands, and asking for love. God has blessed the hearts of queens with the power to love their subjects, because they are women. Oh, my sister, this is a great, a noble destiny which Providence offers you–to be the beneficent, mediating, smiling angel, standing ever by the side of a king–a bond of love between a king and his subjects! Truly one might well offer up their poor, pitiful wishes, their own personal happiness, for such a noble destiny.”
“I have no more happiness to offer up,” sighed Amelia. “I have no happiness; I do not ask so much. I plead for the poor right of living for my great sorrow–of being faithful to myself.”
“He only is faithful to himself who lives to discharge his duties,” said the king. “He only is true to himself who governs himself, and if he cannot be happy, at least endeavors to make others so, and this vocation of making others happy is the noblest calling for a woman; by this shall she overcome her selfishness and find comfort, strength, and peace. And who, my sister, can say that he is happy? Our life consists in unfulfilled wishes, vain hopes destroyed, ideals, and lost illusions. Look at me, Amelia. Have I ever been happy? Do you believe that there is a day of my life I would live over? Have I not, from my earliest youth, been acquainted with grief, self-denial, and pain? Are not all the blossoms of my life broken? Am I not, have I not ever been, the slave of my rank?–a man, ‘cabined, cribbed, confined,’ though I appear to be a great king? Oh, I will not relate what I have suffered–how my heart has been lacerated and trampled upon! I will only say to you, that, notwithstanding this, I have never wished to be other than I am, that I have been always thankful for my fate; glad to be born to a throne, and not in a miserable hut. Believe me, Amelia, a sublime misfortune is better, more glorious, than a petty happiness. To have the brow wounded, because the crown presses too heavily upon the temples, is more desirable than to breathe out your sorrows in the midst of poverty and vulgarity, then sink into a dark and unknown grave. God, who has, perhaps, denied us the blessing of love, gives fame as a compensation. If we are not happy, we are powerful!”
“Ah, my brother, these are the views of a man and a king,” said Amelia. “I am a poor, weak woman. For me there is no fame, no power!”
“Isabella of Spain and Elizabeth of England were also women, and their fame has extended through centuries.”
“They, however, were independent queens. I can be nothing more than the wife of a king. Oh, my brother, let me remain only the sister of a king! Let there be no change in my fate–let all remain as it is! This is my only hope–my only prayer! My heart is dead, and every wish is buried–let it suffice, my brother! Do not ask the impossible!”
The king sprang from his seat, and his eyes glowed with scorn. “It is, then, all in vain!” said he, fiercely. “You will listen neither to reason nor entreaty!”
“Oh, sire, have mercy–I cannot wed the King of Denmark!”
“You cannot!” cried the king: “what does that mean?”
“That means that I have sworn never to become the wife of another than of him whom I love; that means that I have sworn to die unmarried, unless I go to the altar with my beloved!”
“This wild, mad wish can never be fulfilled!” said the king, threateningly. “You will marry–I, the king, command it!”
“Command me not, my brother!” cried Amelia, proudly, “command me not! You stand now upon the extremest boundary of your power; it will be easy now to teach you that a king is powerless against a firm, bold will!”
“Ah! you threaten me!”
“No, I pray to you–I pray wildly to your hard heart for pity! I clasp your knees–I pray to you, as the wretched, the hopeless pray to God–have mercy upon my torment, pity my unspeakable anguish! I am a poor, weak woman–oh, have mercy! My heart bleeds from a thousand wounds–comfort, heal it! I am alone, and oh, how lonely!– be with me, my brother, and protect and shield me! Oh, my brother! my brother! it is my life, my youth, my future which cries out to you! Mercy! grace! Drive me not to extremity! Be merciful, as God is merciful! Force me not into rebellion against God, against Nature, against myself! Make me not an unnatural daughter, an unthankful sister, a disobedient subject! My God! My God! Oh, let your heart be touched! I cannot wed the King of Denmark–say not that I shall!”
“And if I still say it? If, by the power of my authority, as your brother and your king, I command you to obey?”
“I may perhaps die, but your command will have no other result,” said she, rising slowly, and meeting the enraged glance of the king with a proud and calm aspect. “You have not listened to my prayers; well, then, I pray no more. But I swear to you, and God in heaven hears my oath, I will never marry! Now, my king, try how far your power reaches; what you may do and dare; how far you may prevail with a woman who struggles against the tyranny of her destiny. You can lead an army into desperate battle; you can conquer provinces, and make thrones totter to their base, but you cannot force a woman to do what she is resolved against! You cannot break my will! I repeat my oath–I swear I will never marry!”
A cry of rage burst from the lips of the king; with a hasty movement he advanced and seized the arm of the princess; then, however, as if ashamed of his impetuosity, he released her and stepped backward.
“Madame,” said he, “you will wed the King of Denmark. This is my unchangeable purpose, my inexorable command! The time of mourning for his dead wife is passed; and he has, through a special ambassador, renewed his suit for your hand. I will receive the ambassador to-morrow morning in solemn audience. I will say to him that I am ready to bestow the hand of my sister upon the King of Denmark. To-morrow you will be the bride and in four weeks you will be the wife of the King of Denmark!”
“And if I repeat to you, that I will never be his wife?”
“Madame, when the king commands, no one in his realm dare say ‘I will not!’ Farewell–to-morrow morning, then!” He bowed, left the room, and closed the door behind him.
Amelia sighed heavily, then slowly and quietly, even as she had come, she walked through the corridors, and as she passed by her maids she greeted them with a soft smile. Ernestine wished to follow her to her boudoir, but she nodded to her to remain outside; she entered and closed the door. She was alone; a wild shriek burst from her lips; with a despairing movement she raised her arms to heaven, then sank powerless, motionless to the floor.
How long she lay there; what martyrdom, what tortures her heart endured in those hours of solitude, who can know? It was twilight when Princess Amelia opened the door and bade her friend, Fraulein von Haak, enter.
“Oh, princess, dearly-beloved princess,” she said, weeping bitterly, pressing Amelia’s hand to her lips, “God be thanked that I see you again!”
“Poor child!” said Amelia, gently, “poor child! You thought I would destroy myself! is it not so, Ernestine? No, no, I must live! A dark and sad foreboding tells me that a day will come when Trenck will need me; when my life, my strength, my assistance will be necessary to him. I will be strong! I will live, and await that day!”
With calm indifference she now began to speak of trifling things, and listened kindly to all Ernestine related. There was, however, a certain solemnity in her movements, in her smile, in every word she uttered; her eyes turned from time to time with an indescribable expression to heaven, and anxious, alarmed sighs fell trembling from her lips.
At last the long and dreary hours of the evening were over. It was night. Amelia could dismiss her maids and be once more alone. They brought the spirit-lamp, upon which stood the vessel containing the steaming mixture for her eyes; she directed them to place it near, and go quietly to sleep. She would undress herself and read a while before she went to bed. She embraced Fraulein von Haak, and charged her to sleep peacefully.
“You have promised,” whispered Ernestine, lightly, “you will live!”
“I will live, for Trenck will one day need me. Goodnight!”
She kissed Ernestine upon the brow and smiled upon her till the door closed–then pressed the bolt forward hastily, and rushed forward to the large mirror, which reflected her image clearly and distinctly. With a curious expression she contemplated her still lovely, youthful, and charming image, and her lips lightly whispered, “Farewell, thou whom Trenck loved! Farewell, farewell!” she greeted her image with a weary smile, then stepped firmly to the table, where the mixture hissed and bubbled, and the dangerous steam ascended.
The next morning loud shrieks and groans were heard in the bedroom of the princess. Amelia’s maids had come to arrange her toilet, and found her stretched upon her couch, with disfigured face, with bloody eyes, which, swollen and rigid, appeared almost torn from their sockets! They ran for the physician, for the queen, for the king; all was confusion, excitement, anguish.
Ernestine knelt weeping by the bed of the princess, and implored her to say what frightful accident had so disfigured her. Princess Amelia was incapable of reply! Her lips were convulsively pressed together; she could only stammer out a few inarticulate sounds.
At last Heckel arrived, and when he saw the inflamed, swollen face, the eyeballs starting from their sockets, and then the vessel containing the powerful mixture upon the table, he was filled with horror.
“Ah, the unhappy!” murmured he; “she did not regard my warning. She drew too near the noxious vapor, and it has entered not only her eyes but her windpipe; she will suffer much, and never be wholly restored!”
Amelia understood these words, which were addressed to Fraulein von Haak, and a horrible wild laugh burst from her bloody, skinless lips.
“Will she recover?” asked Fraulein von Haak.
“She will recover, but her eyes will be always deformed and her voice is destroyed. I will hasten to the apothecary’s and prepare soothing ointments.”
He withdrew, and now another door opened, and the king entered. With hasty steps, and greatly excited, he drew near the bed of the princess. As he looked upon her deformed countenance, her bleeding, rigid eyes, he uttered a cry of horror, and bowed down over his sister.
She gazed up at him steadily; tried to open her lips; tried to speak, but only a dull, hollow sound was heard. Now she slightly raised herself up with a powerful effort of strength, and moved her hand slowly over the white wall near her bed.
“She wishes to write,” said the king; “perhaps she will tell the cause of her sufferings. Give her something quickly! there–a coal from the chimney!”
Fraulein von Haak brought the coal, and Amelia wrote, with trembling hand, in great, irregular letters, these words upon the wall:
“Now I will not wed the King of Denmark!–now I shall never marry!” then fell back on her pillow with a hollow laugh, which deformed her swollen and convulsed features in a frightful manner.
The king sank on a chair near the bed, and, clasping his hands over his face, he abandoned himself to despair. He saw, he comprehended all! He knew that she had intentionally disfigured herself; that she had offered up her beauty to her love! For this reason she had so piteously pleaded with him!–for this reason had she clamored for pity!–pity for her youth, her future, her life’s happiness! Love and faith she had offered up! Greater, braver than Juliet, she had not given herself up to death, but to deformity! She had destroyed her body, in order to treasure love and constancy in her heart for her beloved! All this the king knew, and a profound and boundless sorrow for this young woman, so strong in her love, came over him. He bowed his head and wept bitterly. [Footnote: La partie de l’histoire de la Princesse Amelie qui a ete la moins connue. et sur laquelle le public a flotte entre des opinions plus diverses et moins admissibles, c’est la cause de sea infirmites. Heureusement constituee sans etre grande, elle n’aurait pas du savoir a les craindre, meme dans un age tres-avance; et elle en a ete atteinte bien avant lage, qui pout les faire craindre. Encore, ne les a-t- elle pas eucs partiellement, elle en a ete spoutanement accablee. Il n’est pas douteux qu’elle ne les ait cherchees. J’en donnerai pour preuve un fait qui est certain. A une epoque ou elle avait les yeux inflammes en tenant ce liquide aux moins a sept ou huit pouces de distance; et lui recommenda bien de ne pas l’approeher davantage; et, cependant des qu’elle eut cette composition, elle s’empressa de s’en frotter les yeux, ce qui produisit un si funeste effet, qu’elle courut le plus grand danger de devenir aveugle; et que depuis elle a toujours do les yeux a moitic sortis de leurs orbites, et aussi hideux qu’ils avaient ete beaux jusque la. Frederic, a qui on n’osa pas dire combien la princesse avait de part a cette accident, n’a jamais eu depuis qu’une aversion tres-marquee et un vrai mepris pour M. Meckel, que la princesse fut obligee de quitter, et qui n’en etait pas moins un des meilleurs medecina de Berlin, et un des plus celebres anatomistes de l’Europe.
Une autre infirmite plus ctonnante, encore, o’est que cette princesse perdit presque totalementc la voix; aussi de sa fautc a ce qui l’on a pretendu il lui etait difficile de parlor, et tres- penible aux autres de l’entendre. Sa voix n’etait plus qu’un son vague, sourd et sepulcral, semblable a celui que forme une personne qui fait effort pour dire comme a voix basse qu’elle etrangle.
Je ne parlerai pas de sa tete chaneelante et se soutenant a peine de ses jambes, pour lesquelles son corps appauvri etait un poids si lourd de ses bras; et de ses mains plus d’a moitie paralyse; mais quels puissants motifs out pu amener cette belle et aimable princesse a se faire elle-meme un sort si triste? Quelle philosophie a pu lui donner assez de force pour le supporter, et ne pas s’en plaindre? quelle energie tous cea faits ne prouvent-ils pas?– Thiebault, ii., 287-289.]
CHAPTER XI.
BARBARINA.
The visit which the proud wife of the High-Chancellor Cocceji had made to the still prouder dancer, had brought the trembling and irresolute heart of Barbarina to a conclusion. This heart, which had not been influenced by her own wishes or the eloquent prayers of her young lover, was wounded by the insane pride of Madame Cocceji, and forced to a final resolve. The visit was unfortunate, and its results exactly the opposite of her hopes.
She had come to prove to Barbarina that she should not even dare to think of becoming the wife of her son. By her wild passion and abusive words she had so exasperated her, that she determined to do that for revenge which she had firmly refused to love. In flashing scorn she had sworn this to the proud wife of the high chancellor; and her honor and her pride demanded the fulfilment of her oath.
And now a fierce contest commenced between them–carried on by both parties with bitterness and energy. The high chancellor threatened his son with his curse. He solemnly declared he would disinherit him. Cocceji only loved the Barbarina the more glowingly; and, as his mother spoke to him of the dancer, and uttered passionate and abusive words, he replied respectfully but decisively that he would not listen to such accusations against the woman who was to be his wife, and must forbid them positively. Madame Cocceji was beside herself with rage; by her prayers and persuasions, she induced her husband to take refuge in the last and most violent resource that remained–in the power of arrest which the king had granted him. He resolved to confine his son in the castle of Mt. Landsberg, and thus break the magical bands of Ariadne.
One day, the Councillor Cocceji did not appear in the halls of justice, and no one knew what had become of him. The servants stated that a carriage stopped at his dwelling in the middle of the night; that General Haak with two soldiers entered Cocceji’s room, and remained with him some time. They had then all entered the general’s carriage, and driven away.
Cocceji had, however, found a secret opportunity to slip a piece of paper into the servant’s hand, and to whisper, “Quick, to the signora!”
The faithful servant obeyed this order. The paper contained only these words: “I am arrested; make all necessary preparations; expect me daily. As soon as I am free, our marriage will take place.”
Barbarina made her preparations. She undertook frequently little journeys, and sometimes remained away from Berlin several days. She bought a costly and beautiful house, to prove to the wife of the chancellor that she had no thought of leaving Berlin and returning to Italy.
Some months went by. The king, who had yielded to the prayers of the Coccejis, and allowed them to arrest their son, would not consent to his longer confinement. He had no trial; had committed no offence against the laws or the king; was guilty of no other crime than wishing to marry the woman he loved.
So the young councillor was released from the castle of Landsberg. He returned to Berlin; and his first visit was not to his parents, but to Barbarina, who received him in her new house in Behren Street.
A few hours later, a carriage stood before the door, which Barbarina, accompanied by her sister and Cocceji, entered, and drove rapidly away. No one knew where they went. Even the spies of the Coccejis, who continually watched the house of the dancer, could learn nothing from the servants who were left behind. A few days after, they brought the intelligence that Barbarina had returned; and the councillor dwelt with her in her new house; and the servants were commanded to call the signora Madame Cocceji. as she was his well-beloved and trusted wife.
The wife of the high chancellor laughed contemptuously at this narrative, and declared it to be only a coup de theatre. Suddenly an equipage drove to the door. Somewhat curious, Madame Cocceji stepped to the window; she saw that the coachman and footmen were dressed in liveries glittering with gold, and that the panels of the carriage were ornamented with the Cocceji coat-of-arms.
The Signora Barbarina was to be seen at the window. Horrified, the wife of the chancellor stepped back; a servant entered with a card, which he handed her respectfully.
“I am not at home; I receive no visits!” cried she, after looking at the card. The servant retired, and the carriage rolled away.
“Yes, it is true. She has triumphed!” groaned the countess, still gazing at the card, which had these words: “Monsieur de Cocceji and Madame de Cocceji, nee Barbarina.”–“But she shall not succeed; the Barbarina shall never be called my daughter; this marriage shall be set aside, the ceremony was not lawful, it is contrary to the laws of the land. Barbarina is a bourgeoise, and cannot wed a noble without the express consent of the king. I will throw myself at the feet of his majesty and implore him to annul this marriage!”
Frederick was much exasperated, and inclined to yield to the entreaties of his high chancellor. A short time before, he had commanded the Catholic clergy not to perform any marriage ceremony without special permission and legitimation; and his anger was aroused at their daring to disobey him, and in secrecy and silence to marry Barbarina and Cocceji.
He commanded his cabinet minister Uhden to ascertain by what right the dancer Barbarina dared to call herself Madame Cocceji, and, if she could establish her claim, he wished to be informed what priest had dared to bless the holy banns. He was resolved to punish him severely.
The minister Uhden was a warm personal friend of the high chancellor, and more than willing, therefore, to carry out sternly the king’s commands. The next day he ordered Barbarina to appear before him, stating that he had the king’s permission to pronounce judgment upon her.
When Barbarina read this order, she was lost in painful silence, and a profound melancholy was written upon her pale face.
“What will you do, sister?” said Marietta.
“I will go to the king!” replied Barbarina. rousing herself.
“But the king is at Potsdam.”
“Well, then, I will go to Potsdam. Order my carriage; I must go in a quarter of an hour.”
“What shall I say to your husband when he returns home?”
Barbarina looked at her steadily. “Tell him that Madame Cocceji has gone to Potsdam, to announce her marriage to the king, and ask him to acknowledge it.”
“Barbarina,” whispered her sister, “hear me! Your husband is troubled and sorrowful; he has confided in me. He says he fears you did not marry him from love, but for revenge, and that you love him not.”
“I am resolved to love him! I will learn how,” said she, sadly. “I have a strong will, and my heart shall obey me!”
She smiled, but her lovely face was overcast with grief, and Marietta’s eyes were filled with tears.
Frederick was alone in his study in the castle of Potsdam; he was busily engaged in writing. The door was lightly opened, and the Marquis d’Argens looked in. When he saw that the king had heard nothing, he beckoned to a lady who stood behind him to draw near. She entered the room silently and noiselessly; the marquis bowed to her, and, smiling kindly, he stepped back and closed the door.
The lady, who up to this time had closely concealed her features, now threw back her veil, and exposed the pale but lovely countenance and flashing eyes of Barbarina. She gazed at the king with a mingled expression of happiness and pain.
The king still heard nothing. Suddenly he was aroused by a low sigh; it seemed to him that a soft, sweet, long-silent voice whispered his name. He rose hastily and turned; Barbarina was kneeling at the door; it was that door before which, five years ago, she had kneeled bathed in tears and wild with despair. She was now, as then, upon her knees, weeping bitterly, and raising her hands importunately to the king, pleading for grace and pity.
Frederick was at first pallid from surprise, and a frown was on his brow; but, as he looked upon her, and saw once more those great, dark, unfathomable eyes, a painful but sweet emotion overcame him; the cloud was lifted up, his countenance was illuminated and his eyes were soft and misty.
With a kindly smile he drew near to Barbarina. “Rise,” said he, and the tones of his voice made her heart beat wildly, and brought fresh tears to her eyes. “You come strangely and unexpectedly, Barbarina, but you come with a beautiful retinue, with a crowd of sweet, fond remembrances–and I–of whom men say, ‘He has no religion’–have at least the religion of memory. I cannot be angry with you, Barbarina; rise, and tell me why you are here.”
He bowed, and took her by the hands and raised her; and now, as she stood near him, lovely as ever, her great eyes glowing with warmth and passion, intoxicating the senses with her odorous beauty, the king felt anguish in his heart which he had no words to express.
They stood silently, side by side, their eyes fixed upon each other, Frederick holding Barbarina’s hand in his; they seemed to be whispering mysterious fairy tales to each other’s hearts.
“I see you, surrounded by smiling, sacred genii,” at last, said Frederick. “These are the genii of the rosy hours which have been. Ah, Barbarina, thus attended, your face seems to me as the face of an angel. Why were you not an angel, Barbarina? Why were you only a woman–a passionate woman, who, not satisfied with loving and being loved, wished also to govern; who was not content to be worshipped by the man, but wished to subject the king, whom you thus forced to forget his humanity, to trample upon and torture his own heart in order to remain king? Oh, Barbarina, why were you this proud, exacting woman, rather than the angel which you now truly are?”
She raised her hands, as if imploring him to be silent. “I understand all that now, I have thought of it, night and day; I know and I confess that you acted right, sire. And now I am no longer an