"Nonsense!" said the king, shrugging his shoulders, "that rough set out there are always anxious for war, and to be cutting and slashing at each other. Don't you listen to them, but rather tell me how you like this drawing. Don't you think these roses mixed with lilies look well? But I see you wish to know what it is intended for. Well, it is for a set of porcelain which I wish to have painted for the Marquis d'Argens." And, as he met Gotzkowsky's looks, he continued with a friendly smile: "Yes, you see, you are rich; you can make others presents. But the king of Prussia is a poor man; he has only his coat, his sword, and his porcelain. And this last even," continued he, with a slight frown, "I am obliged to get from Meissen."
"That your majesty need not do in future. Please God, your majesty shall make your porcelain in your own dominions!"
"Will you guarantee that? Will you undertake it?" asked the king, kindly.
"I will."
"And look ye, you are just the man to carry out what you wish. I am well satisfied with you. You have justified the confidence I placed in you when I was crown prince. You have redeemed the vow you made me then."
"I swore to your majesty that I would be faithful to the fatherland with life and property," cried Gotzkowsky, with noble ardor.
"And you have kept your word. It is not difficult in easy and prosperous times to find people to serve the state. Those are good citizens who serve her when she is in difficulty and danger.[2] You are a good citizen." And handing Gotzkowsky an open letter which lay on the writing-table, he said: "Read, it is a letter from the Marquis d'Argens. Read it aloud, I would like to hear it again."
And Gotzkowsky read with a trembling voice, and cheeks reddened with noble modesty, the following passage from a letter of the marquis, which the king pointed out to him with his finger: "Gotzkowsky is, indeed, an excellent man and a worthy citizen. I wish you had many such as he. The greatest gift which fortune can make a state is a citizen full of zeal for the welfare of his country and his prince. And in this respect I must say, to the credit of Berlin, that in these trying times I have met many of her citizens, Gotzkowsky the foremost among them, whose virtues, the old historians of Rome, had they lived at the present day, would have immortalized!"[3]
"Are you satisfied?" asked the king, as Gotzkowsky, having finished, handed him the paper. "Oh, I see you are a modest man, and blush like a young girl. But tell me, now, what brings you here? What does the city of Berlin wish?"
"Her rights, your majesty," said Gotzkowsky, seriously.