"And you believed that the dream referred to me, and that I am the fallen star?"
"Sire, I only related what the king had dreamed, and in what night and in what hour he had the remarkable dream. His majesty spoke frequently about it, and all his friends heard of it. But nobody was able to interpret it. He died without obtaining the solution."
"But you have solved it," said Napoleon, sneeringly. "I am the fallen star, and you think I have come to fulfil that dream?"
"Sire, I—"
"I shall burn down your palaces and scourge your country," added he, harshly. "Why did you irritate me? I did not commence the war; since you desired it, I gave it to you. But tell your friends and the good citizens of Potsdam that the dream of their king will not be entirely fulfilled. It may be that I shall be compelled to destroy royal palaces, but the house of the citizen and the cabin of the peasant will not feel my wrath, nor will I lay waste your fields. Tell the good denizens of this city—tell them not to be afraid of me; for never shall I assail their rights and privileges, nor interfere with their interests. And now, gentlemen, let us proceed!" He quickly crossed the room, and entered the adjoining apartment.
"Sire, this is the reception-room of Frederick the Great," said the castellan, who had followed. "On that table lies the full suit in which his majesty gave his last audience—his uniform, his order of the Black Eagle, his hat and sword."
Napoleon hastened to the table, and seized the sword. "Ah, the sword of Frederick II.," he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes. "He often wielded it with a victorious hand, and that hat covered a head adorned with the laurel-wreath of the poet and the great general! These are trophies that I prefer to all the treasures of Prussia. What a capital present for the Invalides, especially for those who formed part of the army of Hanover! They will be delighted, no doubt, when they see in our possession the sword of him who beat them at Rossbach! And as my dear brother, Frederick William III., has conferred the order of the Black Eagle on me, I suppose he will permit me to take this decoration as a souvenir of the greatest king of the house of Hohenzollern. What about the bell that is placed beside the hat?"
"Sire," said the castellan, mournfully and hesitatingly, "it is the bell which the king used during his whole reign to call the gentlemen waiting in the anteroom, and the footmen at night."
"That bell shall stand henceforward in my cabinet and on my desk," said Napoleon. "Grand marshal, order all these things to be packed up and to be sent immediately to Paris, and add to them also the clock in the other room—the clock that was so faithful to the great king as to stop at his death, and to refuse to mark the time for any one else. I will wind it up, and the clock of Frederick the Great must strike again for me. Conduct us to the other rooms, castellan."
The old man cast a long and melancholy look on the precious relics that were about to be taken from him, and took leave of them with a profound sigh. He then conducted the party to the other rooms. He showed them the library, where Frederick, during the last years of his life, had spent every hour when not occupied with government affairs, longing for no other society than that of his books. He then took them to the rooms in which Voltaire had lived, and showed the emperor a paper on which the king had written verses that Voltaire had corrected and revised. Napoleon contemplated every thing with the greatest attention, and then caused himself to be conducted to the fine long hall, in which Frederick, accompanied by his dog, used to take his daily walk when the weather was too bad for him to do so in the open air. The walls of this hall were adorned with many paintings and engravings—all, however, did not apparently belong to the period of Frederick; for there were among them paintings and engravings representing his last hours, and his lonely nocturnal funeral.—Others again depicted the scene of young Frederick William II. standing by the corpse of his great uncle, and swearing with tearful eyes, his hand placed on the head of Frederick, that he would be a just and good ruler to his people.