THE COUNTESS OF RUDOLSTADT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE]
[CHAPTER VI]
[CHAPTER VII]
[CHAPTER VIII]
[CHAPTER IX]
[CHAPTER X]
[CHAPTER XI]
[CHAPTER XII]
[CHAPTER XIII]
[CHAPTER XIV]
[CHAPTER XV]
[CHAPTER XVI]
[CHAPTER XVII]
[CHAPTER XVIII]
[CHAPTER XIX]
[CHAPTER XX]
[CHAPTER XXI]
[CHAPTER XXII]
[CHAPTER XXIII]
[CHAPTER XXIV]
[CHAPTER XXV]
[CHAPTER XXVI]
[CHAPTER XXVII]
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
[CHAPTER XXIX]
[CHAPTER XXX]
[CHAPTER XXXI]
[CHAPTER XXXII]
[CHAPTER XXXIII]
[CHAPTER XXXIV]
[CHAPTER XXXV]
[CHAPTER XXXVI]
[CHAPTER XXXVII]
[CHAPTER XXXVIII]
[CHAPTER XXXIX]
[CHAPTER XL]
[CHAPTER XLI]
[EPILOGUE]
[CHAPTER I]
The Italian Opera-house at Berlin had been built early in the reign of Frederick the Great, and was then one of the most beautiful in Europe. There was no charge for admission—all the actors being paid by the king. To be admitted, however, it was necessary to have a ticket, every box having its regular occupant. The princes and princesses of the royal family, the diplomatic corps, the illustrious travellers, the academy, the generals, the royal household, the employés and friends of the king, monopolized the house. No one could complain of this, for theatre and actors, all belonged to the king. There was open to the people of the good city of Berlin, a small portion of the parterre, the greater part of which was filled up by the military, each company and regiment having a right to send a certain number of men. Instead of the joyous, impressionable and sensitive Parisian public, the artists had a pit full of heroes six feet high, as Voltaire called them, the greater number of whom brought their wives on their backs. The aggregate was brutal enough, strongly perfumed with tobacco and brandy, knowing nothing of music, and neither admiring, hissing, nor applauding except in obedience to orders. In consequence of the perpetual motion, however, there was a great deal of noise.
Just behind these gentlemen there were two rows of boxes, the spectators in which neither saw nor heard. They were obliged, though, to be constantly present at the representations his majesty was graciously willing to provide for them. The king was present at every performance. In this way he contrived to maintain a military supervision of the many members of his family, and to control the swarms of courtiers around him. This habit he had inherited from his father, who, in a miserable frame building, occupied by wretched German buffoons, used to while away every winter evening, regardless of rain. The king used to sleep through the performance and the showers. This domestic tyranny, Frederick had undergone, suffering under it all the while; and when he became himself the possessor of power, rigidly enforced it, as well as many more despotic and cruel customs, the excellence of which he recognised as soon as he became the only person in the kingdom not obliged to submit to them.
No one dared to complain. The house was majestic and all the operatic appointments luxurious. The king almost always overlooked the orchestra, keeping his lorgnette in battery on the stage, and setting the example of perpetual applause.
All know how Voltaire, during the early years of his installation at Berlin, applauded the courtly splendor of the northern Solomon. Disdained by Louis XV, neglected by Madame de Pompadour, who had been his protectress, persecuted by the Jesuits, and hissed at the Theatre Français, in a moment of disappointed pride, he came to look for honors, a reward, and appointment of chamberlain and grand cordon, and the intimacy of a great king, by far more complimentary to him than the rest of his new acquisitions. Like a spoiled child, the great Voltaire pouted at all France and fancied he could mortify his countrymen. At that time, intoxicated by his newly-acquired glory, he wrote to his friends that Berlin was a more pleasant place than Versailles, that the opera of Phaeton was the most magnificent spectacle imaginable, and that the prima donna had the finest voice in all Europe.
At the time that we resume the thread of our story (and we will set our readers' minds at rest by saying that a year had passed since we saw Consuelo), winter displayed all its rigor at Berlin, and the great king had began to exhibit himself in his true aspect. Voltaire had begun to see his illusion in relation to Berlin. He sat in his box, between D'Argens and La Mettrie, not even pretending to love music, to which he was no more awake than he was to true poetry. His health was bad, and he regretted sadly the thankless crowds of Paris, the excitability, the obstinacy of which had been so bitter to him, and the contact with which had so overpowered him, that he determined never to expose himself to it again, although he continued to think and toil ceaselessly for it.