Oct. 15.—After three days’ and a half journey through the most tiresome, flat, and sandy country I have ever seen in so long a continuity, arrived at Berlin.
Oct. 20, Berlin.—I have been here since Wednesday, and am now settled in the apartments last inhabited by Prince Augustus; I pay ten louis d’or a month for the rooms he occupied, but of course have not hired any of those that were occupied by his suite. I have as yet made no new acquaintance except that of Lord and Lady Carysfort; an excellent and an amiable pair. She is made for her situation, having both the desire and the power of pleasing, appears to possess quick parts and strong feelings, has great pleasantry and a graceful flowing elocution. I have been there thrice by appointment, and have received a general invitation for every evening.
Oct. 21.—Went to a supper at Prince Ferdinand’s. He is almost unintelligible from his manner of speaking, and it is difficult to persuade oneself he was brother to the great Frederick, to the lively and highly intelligent Dowager Duchess of Brunswick. The Princess played cards with the gentleman whom Mirabeau speaks of as ‘le père de ses enfants.’ She is good-looking, civil, and gentlewomanlike. The style of these suppers is triste and ceremonious.
Oct. 25.—Passed most of the evening with Mad. de Solms, a beautiful little widow, who is just going to make a second choice, and is evidently enchanted at the idea. Finished the evening with Mrs. Hunter and Miss Jones, with whom I have always found the same French gentleman. She took the unnecessary trouble of accounting for this, by saying he came to thread their needles.
Oct. 26.—Supped at Princess Henry’s—a very agreeable evening. The Princess talked much to me across the table, as her grande maitresse desired me to take the place opposite to her. I was a little embarrassed at hearing my own voice in that way; but received some compliments on what they were pleased to call (to use the Clarissa phrase) my charmante organe. Made the acquaintance of the Countess ——, who has married five husbands, and despatched four of these—by divorces. This she has done, it is said, for the sake of the jewels, which, except in cases of infidelity, remain with the wife; and which the German noblesse are not allowed to sell without going through some troublesome forms, that render it difficult, and, unless in cases of evident necessity, disgraceful.
Oct. 30.—Went to the Exhibition, or as some call it, Exposition. It really exposes the melancholy state of the arts at Berlin. The head of Herod, formed entirely of little children, whose bodies, artificially placed, represented his features without the assistance of any other object, was a curious specimen of misplaced ingenuity, and false taste of the most odious kind.—Supped at Prince Ferdinand’s; saw Prince Henry, who desired I should be presented to him. He looks like a little fiend of the minor class, not Belial, or any of the noblesse of hell. We conversed so little, I can speak but of his exterior. He appears as if he had just crept out of the embers, and was half-singed. He has two pretty women in his suite. They say Rheinsberg, his country house, is a scene of extraordinary wickedness and depravity.[30]
Nov. 1.—At a party at Mad. Podewitz’ conversed with Lord Carysfort, Mr. Adams the American Envoy, and Citoyen Beurnonville the French Minister.[31] The latter looks like a Newmarket bullying swindler, but was full of flourishing civility. Buonaparte, the Consul’s brother, and Envoy Extraordinary to this country, is short, very dark, and remarkably serious. His whiskers cover half of each cheek, and add to the dinginess of his appearance. He is going with Beurnonville’s aide-de-camp to Warsaw, in order, as he says, to inspect the forts—of which, wherever he has been, he takes the most exact plans and dimensions—in hope, I suppose, they will soon belong to his own country. People are astonished at the imprudence of the Court of Prussia in suffering this journey, as Warsaw is already filled with discontented minds, and has been half, some say quite, organized for revolution by the Abbé Sièyes. On the whole, the favourable manner in which this French mission has been received by the Court and the Ministers is so strongly marked, it cannot escape the most inattentive eye. Their preference of French politics and French principles to those of England appears a degree of infatuation in a monarchical state not to be accounted for by any of the common motives of action.