THE COUNTESS OF
RUDOLSTADT

A SEQUEL TO "CONSUELO."

By GEORGE SAND

AUTHOR OF "CONSUELO," ETC., ETC.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

By FAYETTE ROBINSON

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

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.

On this occasion the spectacle was excellent. It was the middle of the carnival; all the royal family, even those members who had moved into other parts of Germany, was collected in Berlin. The Titus of Metastasio and Hasse was being performed, and the two leading members of the Italian troupe, Porporina and Porporino, were cast in the principal parts.

If our readers will make a slight exertion of memory they will recall that these two dramatic personages were not husband and wife as their names might seem to indicate. The first was Signor Uberti, an excellent contralto. The second was the zingarella Consuelo, like the first a pupil of the Professor Porpora, who, according to the Italian custom in vogue at that time, had permitted them to assume his glorious name.

It must be confessed, that Porporina did not sing in Prussia with the power she had in other places exhibited. While the limpid contralto of the male singer swelled without any indication of delay, and protected by the consciousness of success and power—that too fortified by the possession of an invariable salary of fifteen thousand livres for two months' labor—the poor zingarella, more romantic and perhaps more disinterested, and certainly less used to the northern ices and a public of Prussian corporals was under the influence of an excitement and sang with that perfect and conscious method which affords criticism no hold, but which is altogether insufficient to excite enthusiasm.

The fervor of the dramatic artist and of the audience, cannot dispense with each other. Now, under the glorious reign of Frederick, there was no enthusiasm at Berlin. Regularity, obedience, and what in the eighteenth century—at Frederick's court especially—was known as Reason, were the only virtues recognized in this atmosphere, measured and weighed in the hand of the king. In every assembly over which he presided, no one hissed or sighed, without his permission. Amid all the crowd, there was but one spectator able to give vent to his impressions, and that was the king. He constituted the public; and though a good musician and fond of music, all his tastes were subjected to so cold a logic, that when his opera-glass was attached to every gesture, the vocal inflections of the singer's voice, far from being stimulated, were entirely paralyzed.

The singer was forced to submit to this painful fascination. The slightest inspiration, the slightest portion of enthusiasm, would probably have offended both the king and court, while artistic and difficult passages, executed with irreproachable mechanism, delighted the king, the court, and Voltaire. Voltaire said, as all know, "Italian music is far better than French, because it is more ornate, and a difficulty overcome is something at least." This was Voltaire's idea of art. He might have answered, had he been asked if he liked music, as a certain fop of our own days did—"It does not exactly annoy me."

All went off perfectly well, and the finale was being reached. The king was satisfied, and turned to his chapel-master from time to time, to express his approbation by a nod. He was preparing even to applaud Porporina, at the conclusion of the cavatina which he always did in person and judiciously, when, by some strange caprice, Porporina, in the midst of a brilliant rondeau, which she had never failed, stopped short, turned her haggard eyes towards a corner of the hall, clasped her hands, and crying "Oh my God!" fell at full length on the stage. Porporino bore her behind the stage, and a tempest of questions, thoughts, commentaries, swept through the house. In the interim the king spoke to the tenor, amid the noise which drowned his voice, "Well, what is this?" said he, in a brief, imperious tone. "Conciolini, hasten to find out." After a few seconds the latter returned, and bowing respectfully before the top of the railing on which the king leaned his elbow, replied, "Sire, the Signora Porporina is senseless, and they are afraid she will he unable to continue the opera."

"Ah!" said he, shrugging his shoulders. "Give her a glass of water. Get her some essence, and finish as soon as possible."

The tenor, who had no disposition to offend the king and expose himself to his bad humor in public, went again behind the scenes quietly, and the king began to talk quickly to the leader of the orchestra and musicians; the public being much more interested in what the king said and did than in poor Porporina, made rare efforts to catch the words that fell from the monarch's lips.

The Baron von Poelnitz, grand chamberlain and director of amusements, soon came to tell the king of Consuelo's condition. In Berlin nothing passed off with the solemnity imposed by an independent and powerful public. The king was everything, and the spectacle was his and for him. No one was surprised to see him thus become the principal actor of this unforeseen interlude.

"Well, let us see, baron," said he, loud enough to be heard by a part of the orchestra; "will this soon be over? Have you no doctor behind there? You should have one always."

"Sire, the doctor is there. He is unwilling to bleed the lady, lest he should weaken and prevent her from playing her part. He will be forced to do so, though, unless she recovers from her fainting fit."

"Then she is sick, and not feigning?"

"Sire, to me she seems very sick."

"Then let down the curtain, and we will go. But wait; let Porporino sing something to console us, so that we may be enabled to go home without a catastrophe."

Porporino obeyed, and sang two pieces deliciously. The king applauded, the public followed his example, and the performance was over. A minute afterwards, the court and people were going out, the king stood on the stage, and caused himself to be led to the dressing-room of the prima donna.

The public does not sympathize with an actress, taken sick on the stage, as it should. Adored as the idol may be, there is so much selfishness among the dilettani, that they are much annoyed at the loss of pleasure, than by the suffering and anguish of the victim. Some sensible women deplored, as was then said, the catastrophe of the evening—

"Poor thing! She had a cold, and when she came to make her trill, found it out, and became sick, rather than fail."

"I think she did not pretend," said a much more sensible woman; "people do not fall so hard, when they are not really sick."

"Ah, who knows?" said the first; "a great actress falls just as she pleases, and is not afraid of hurting herself. They do it so well."

"What possessed Porpora to make such a scene?" said, in another part of the room, whence the la mode was going out, La Mettrie to the Marquis D'Argens. "Has her lover beaten her?"

"Do not speak thus of a virtuous and charming girl," said the marquis. "She has no lover. If she had, she has not been abused by him, unless, indeed, he be the basest off men."

"Excuse me, marquis. I forgot that I was speaking to the champion of all actresses. By the by, how is Mademoiselle Cochois?"

* * * * * * * *

"Poor thing!" just at that moment said the Princess Amelia of Prussia, the king's sister, and canoness of Quedlimburgh, to her usual confidant, the beautiful Countess Von Kleist, as she was returning to the palace. "Did you observe my brother's agitation?"

"No, madame," said Madame de Maupertuis, gouvernante of the princess, an excellent but simple and absent-minded person; "I did not."

"Eh? I did not speak to you," said the princess, with the brusque and decided tone which sometimes made her so like Frederick. "Do you ever see anything? Look you here. Count those stars for a while. I have something to say to Von Kleist I do not wish you to hear."

Madame de Maupertuis closed her ears conscientiously, and the princess, leaning towards the countess, who sat opposite to her, said:

"Say what you please, it seems to me that for the first time, perhaps for fifteen or twenty years since I have been capable of observation, the king is in love."

"So your royal highness said last year about Barberini; yet his majesty never dreamed of her."

"Never? You are mistaken, my child. The young Chancellor Coccei married her, and my brother thought so much of the matter that he was in a rage more violent than any he had ever known before for three days."

"Your highness knows that his majesty cannot bear unequal matches."

"Yes; love matches are called unequal. That is a great phrase; just as empty as all those are which rule the world and enslave individuals." The princess uttered a deep sigh, and, as was her wont, rapidly changing her humor, said, with irony and impatience to her gouvernante, "Maupertuis, you are listening to us, and not counting the stars, as I bade you. What is the use of being the wife of a great philosopher, if you listen to the chattering of two such madcaps as we are?—Yes, I say," said she, again speaking to her favorite, "the king did love that Barberini. I have good reason to know that, after the performance, he used, with Jordon and Chazols, to take his tea frequently in her room, and that she went more than once to sup at Sans Souci, which, until her time, was never the fashion at Potsdam. Do you wish me to speak more plainly? She lived there for weeks, and, it may be, for months. You see I know what is going on well enough, and that my brother's mysterious airs do not impose on me."

"Since your royal highness is so well informed, I need not say that for state reasons, the king sometimes wishes persons to think he is not so austere as he is represented, though, in fact—"

"Though in fact my brother never really loved any woman, not even his wife. Well, I have no faith in this virtue, or rather in this coldness. He has always been a hypocrite. You cannot make me think La Barberini always remained in his palace merely to seem to be his mistress. She is beautiful as an angel, intellectual as a devil, educated, and speaks, I know not how many languages."

"She is virtuous; she adores her husband."

"And her husband adores her the more because their marriage was unequal. Will you answer me, Von Kleist? I suspect you, my noble widow, of being in love with some page or bachelor?"

"Would your highness like to see such an unequal union as that of a king and an actress?"

"Ah, with Porporina, the thing would not be so terrible. There is on the stage, as at court, a perfect hierarchy. You know that is a whim and disease of the human heart. A singer must have more self-respect than a dancing-girl, and Porporina, they say, has more accomplishments and knows more languages even than La Barberini. My brother has a passion for speaking tongues he does not understand. Music, too, he seems very fond of, you see, and that is another point of contact with the prima donna. She too, goes to Potsdam and has the rooms in the new Sans Souci the Barberini used to occupy, and sings at the king's private concerts. Is not this enough to make my conjectures probable?"

"Your highness seeks in vain to discover any weakness in our great prince. All passes too openly and aboveboard for love to have anything to do with it."

"Love! Certainly not. He knows nothing about that. There is, however, a certain charm—a kind of intrigue; everybody, you must confess, says that."

"No one says so, madame. All say that to relax his mind, the king laughs at the chatter and listens to the songs of a pretty actress. After a quarter of an hour thus passed, he says, 'Enough for to-day. If I want you to-morrow, I will send for you.'"

"This is not gallant. If that is the way he courted Coccei's wife, I am not amazed that she did not listen to him. Do they say whether this Porporina is as stern as she was?"

"They say she is modest, well-behaved, timid, and sad."

"Well, that is the best way to please the king. Perhaps she is shrewd. If it were possible, and one could trust her—"

"Trust no one, madame, not even Madame de Maupertuis, who is now so fast asleep, I beg you."

"Let her snore away. Awake or asleep she is always the same. But, Von Kleist, I would wish to know this Porporina, and see if anything can be done with her. I regret that I refused, when the king proposed to accompany her to my rooms, to receive her. You know I had a prejudice against her."

"An unjust one. It was impossible—"

"Ah, God's will be done. Chagrin and fear have had such influence over me for the last year, that all secondary cares are effaced. I wish to see that girl. Who knows if she may not win from the king what we have vainly asked for? That idea has been in my mind for some days, and I have thought of nothing else. Seeing Frederick thus excited and uneasy about her, I was confirmed in the idea that I would find in her a gate of safety."

"Be careful, your highness. There is great danger."

"That is what you always say. I am more distrustful, yet more prudent than you. We must think of this matter. Now, my dear gouvernante wake up! We are at the palace."

[CHAPTER II]

While the young and beautiful abbess[1] thus gave vent to her thoughts, the king, without knocking, entered Porporina's dressing-room, just as she was regaining her consciousness.

"Well, signora," said he, in a kind and even polite tone, "how are you now? Are you subject to such accidents? In your profession it is most inconvenient. Has anything put you out? Are you too ill to speak?—Tell me, you, sir," said he to the doctor, "if she be very ill."

"Yes, sire," said the medical man, "the pulse is scarcely perceptible. There is much irregularity in the circulation, the functions of life appear to be suspended. Her skin is icy."

"That is true," said the king, taking the hand of the young girl in his. "The eye is fixed, and the mouth discolored. Give her some of Hoffman's drops. D—n! I was afraid this was only a little extra scene. This girl is sick, and is neither malicious nor depraved. That is true. Porporino, no one has put her out this evening? Eh? No one has complained of her?"

"Sire," said Porporino, "she is not an actress, but an angel."

"Indeed! Are you in love with her?"

"No, sire; I respect her greatly, and look on her as my sister."

"Thank you two, and God, who has given up the condemnation of comedians, my theatre has become a school of virtue. Ah, she now revives! Porporina, do you not know me?"

"No, sir," said she, looking at the king, who rubbed the palms of her hands in a terrified manner.

"She has perhaps a rush of blood to the head. Have you ever observed that she was epileptic?"

"Oh, sire, never! This would be terrible," said Porporino, wounded at the rude manner in which the king spoke of so interesting a person.

"Wait; do not bleed her," said the king, who saw the doctor open his lancet. "I do not like to see blood spilled anywhere but on the battle-field. You people are not soldiers, but assassins. Let her alone. Give her air. Porporino, do not suffer them to bleed her. That, you see, may kill her. These people suspect nothing. I confide her to you. Take her home in your carriage, Poelnitz. You do not answer me. She is the greatest singer we have seen, and we will not find another soon. Apropos—What will you sing to me to-morrow, Conciolini?"

The king went down the stairway with the tenor, speaking of other things, and sate soon after at the table with Voltaire, La Mettrie, D'Argens, Algarotti, and General Quintus Icilius.

Frederick was stern, violent, and an intense egotist. In other respects, he was generous and good, ever tender and affectionate at times. Every one knows the terrible, yet seductive and multiple-faced character of this man, the organization of whom was so complicated and full of contrasts—like all other powerful natures, especially when they are invested with supreme power, and an agitated career develops their senses.

While eating, jesting, and chatting with graceful bitterness and coarse wit, amid dear friends he did not love, and men of mind he did not admire, Frederick became at once meditative, and after a few moments arose, saying to his friends, "Talk away, I shall hear you." He then went into the next room, took his hat and sword, bade a page follow him, and passed into the dark galleries and mysterious passages of his old palace, his guests yet fancying him near and measuring their words—not daring to think he did not hear them. Besides, they (and for good cause) so distrusted each other, that, whenever they chanced to be in Prussia, they ever saw soaring over them the fearful and malicious phantom of Frederick.

La Mettrie, a physician rarely consulted and a reader scarcely listened to by the king, was the only person present who feared, and was feared, by no one. He was esteemed altogether inoffensive, and had discovered the means of keeping any one from hurting him. This consisted in committing so many mad, foolish, and impertinent acts in the king's presence, that no informer could charge him with aught he had not done face to face with Frederick. He seemed to take the philosophic equality the king professed, as a fixed fact (for seven or eight persons were honored by this familiarity.) At this period, though he had reigned eighteen years, Frederick had not entirely abandoned the popular familiarity of the Prince Royal and hardy philosopher of Remunsberg. Those who knew him, had not forborne to confide in him. Voltaire, the most spoiled and the newest, began to be alarmed, and to see the tyrant appear beneath the good prince—a Dionysius in Marcus Aurelius. La Mettrie, however, whether from innate candor or deep calculation, treated the king carelessly, or affected to do so. He took off his cravat and wig in the royal rooms, sometimes he took off even his shoes, lolled on the sofas, and had his little chat with him, pottered about the small esteem he had for earthly greatness, of royalty as of religion, and other prejudices in which a breach had been made by the Reason of the day. In a word, he was a true cynic, and did so much to justify disgrace and dismissal, that it was impossible to see how he maintained himself, when so many others had been dismissed for trifling peccadillos.

The reason is, that in the minds of moody, distrustful persons like Frederick, an insidious word reported by espionage, an appearance of hypocrisy, or a slight doubt, make more impression than a thousand imprudences. Frederick looked on La Mettrie as a madman, and often seemed petrified by surprise at his conduct, saying, "That creature is scandalously impudent." He would, however, say to himself, "But he is sincere, and has no two opinions about me. He cannot treat me behind my back worse than he does to my face. The others who are at my feet, what do they not say and think when my back is turned, and when they leave the table? La Mettrie is, then, the most honest man I have, and I must put up with him, because no one else does." Thenceforth, all was decided. La Mettrie could not make the king angry, and contrived to please him with what would have disgusted in another. While Voltaire at first forced himself into a system of adulation which it was impossible to maintain, and which began to fatigue and disgust himself strangely, the cynic La Mettrie went on amusing himself as frankly with Frederick as with any stranger, and never felt inclined to reverse or overturn an idol to which he had never made either sacrifice or promise. The consequence was, that, when the king began to weary sadly of Voltaire, he was highly amused by La Mettrie, whom he could not dispense with, simply because he never seemed to wish to amuse him.

The Marquis d'Argens, a chamberlain, with 6,000 francs (the first chamberlain, Voltaire, had 20,000f.) was a volatile thinker, a rapid and superficial writer; a very impersonation of the Frenchman of his day,—kind, blundering, gay, and, at the same time, brave and effeminate, intelligent, generous and satirical. He was a man between two eras, for he had the romance of youth and the skepticism of age. Having passed all his youth with actresses, successively deceiving and deceived, and always in love with the last one, he had married Mademoiselle Cochois, first lady of the French theatre at Berlin, a very ugly but sensible woman, whom he took a pleasure in instructing. Frederick was ignorant of this secret marriage, and d'Argens took care not to tell any one who could betray him of it. Voltaire was in his confidence. D'Argens really was attached to the king, who was not fonder of him than he was of others. Frederick had no faith in the sincerity of any one, and poor d'Argens was sometimes the accomplice and sometimes the butt of his cruelest jests.

All know that the colonel, dubbed by Frederick, Quintus Icilius, was a Frenchman, named Guilhard, an excellent and decided tactician. He was, like such characters in general, a robber and a courtier, in the full sense of the terms.

To avoid fatiguing our readers with a gallery of portraits of historical personages, we will say nothing of Algarotti. It will suffice to indicate the opinions of the guests of Frederick, during his absence; and we will say that, instead of feeling relieved of a burden by his absence, they felt very uncomfortable, and could not speak a word without looking at the half opened door through which the king had passed, and whence he probably watched them.

La Mettrie was the only exception. Remarking that the service of the table was neglected after the king's departure, he said—"On my word, I think the master of this house very neglectful in leaving us no servants or wine, and I will complain to him of the fact, if he be in that room."

He arose, and without any fear of being indiscreet, went into the next room. He returned, saying, "Nobody there. That is odd. He is just the man to go out and drill his regiment by torchlight, to promote his digestion. He is odd enough."

"Not so. You are the odd one," said Quintus Icilius, who could not accustom himself to La Mettrie's strange manners.

"Then the king is gone out," said Voltaire, beginning to breathe more freely.

"Yes, the king has gone out," said the Baron Von Poelnitz, who just came in. "I met him in the back court, with no escort but a single page. He had put on his famous incognito, the coat the color of the wall. I did not recognise him."

We must say a word of the third chamberlain, Von Poelnitz, or the reader will not understand how any one but La Mettrie could speak so slightingly of the king. The age of Poelnitz was about as problematical as his salary and duties. He was a Prussian baron; and was that roué of the regency who had been so conspicuous a member of the court of Madame la Palatine, the mother of the Duke of Orleans, the headlong gamester, the debts of whom the King of Prussia refused to pay. He was a cynical libertine, a spy, a scamp, a courtier, fed, chained, and contemned. His master scolded and paid him badly, but could not do without him, because an absolute king must always have some one at hand to do his dirty work, revenging himself for the necessity of such an attendant in the humiliation of his victim. Poelnitz was, moreover, at this time, the director of the Royal Theatre, and, as it were, a supreme attendant of Frederick's pleasures. He was a perpetual courtier. Having been the page of the last king, he added the refined vices of the regency to the cynical grossness of William, and the impertinence and severity of the military and philosophical sternness of Frederick the Great. His favor with the latter was a kind of chronic disgrace, which he took care not to shake off. Besides always playing the part of master of the dirty work, he really was not afraid of being injured by any one in his master's good opinion.

"Ah, baron, you should have followed the king, and told us afterwards whither he went. We would have made him swear on his return, if we had been able to tell him whither he went, and that we saw his acts and gestures."

"We might do better than that," said Poelnitz, laughing. "We might have been able to postpone that till to-morrow, and accounted for it by the fact of having consulted the sorcerer."

"What sorcerer?" asked Voltaire.

"The famous Count de St. Germain, who has been here since morning."

"Indeed! I wish to find out if he be a charlatan or a fool."

"That is hard to say. He plays his game so well that no one can tell."

"Fools do not act thus," said Algarotti.

"Tell me about Frederick," said La Mettrie. "I wish to pique his curiosity by some good story, so that he may treat us some day to a supper with Saint Germain, who may indulge us with an account of his adventures before the deluge. That will be amusing. Let us think! Where can the king be just now? Baron, you know, for you are too curious not to have followed him."

"Do you wish me to say?" said Poelnitz.

"I hope, sir," said Quintus, flushing with anger, "that you will reply to none of M. de la Mettrie's strange questions. If his majesty——"

"Bah! my dear friend," said La Mettrie, "there is no majesty between ten at night and two in the morning. Frederick has made it statute law, and I am familiar with all its clauses. There is no king at the supper table. Do you not see the poor king is wearied, and, bad servant as you are, you will not aid him for a few hours of the night to forget the weight of greatness."

"I do not wish to know," said Quintus, rising and leaving the table.

"As you please," said Poelnitz. "Let all who do, open their ears and hear."

"Mine are wide open," said La Mettrie.

"Yes, and so are mine," said Algarotti, laughing.

"Gentlemen," said the baron, "his majesty is at the house of La Porporina."

"You play the game well," said La Mettrie; and he made a Latin quotation I do not translate because I do not understand Latin.

Quintus Icilius became pale, and left the room. Algarotti recited an Italian sonnet, which was understood scarcely better; and Voltaire improvised four verses, comparing Frederick with Julius Cesar. After this the three philosophers looked at each other and smiled. Poelnitz then said seriously, "I pledge you my honor, gentlemen, that the king is at Porporina's house."

"Can you tell us nothing else?" asked D'Argens, whom all this displeased; for he was not a man to betray others to increase his own credit.

Poelnitz answered, without troubling himself, "The devil, marquis! When the king tells us you are gone to the house of Mademoiselle Cochois, we are not scandalized. Why should you be, because he has gone to Porporina's?"

"It should, on the other hand, please you," said Algarotti; "and if it be true, I will tell it at Rome."

"And his holiness, who is fond of gossip, will be witty on the matter," said Voltaire.

"About what will his holiness be witty?" said the king, entering the dining-room unexpectedly.

"About the amours of Frederick the Great and the Venetian La Porporina," said La Mettrie, boldly.

The king grew pale, and cast a terrible glance at his guests, all of whom grew white as sheets, except La Mettrie, who said,—

"Well, what of it? M. de Saint Germain predicted this evening, at the opera, that at the time when Saturn was passing between Regulus and the Virgin, his majesty, with a single page——"

"Who on earth is this Count of St. Germain?" said the king, seating himself calmly as possible, and holding out his glass to La Mettrie to be filled with champagne.

They then talked of St Germain, and the storm passed off without an explosion. At first the impertinence of Poelnitz, who had betrayed him, and the audacity of La Mettrie, who had dared to taunt him, filled the king with rage. While, however, the latter was speaking a single phrase, Frederick remembered that he had advised Poelnitz to gossip on a certain matter and induce others also to do so. He then restrained himself with that facility which was so peculiar to him, and nothing was said of the king's nocturnal visit. La Mettrie, had he thought of it, would have returned to the charge; but his volatile mind readily followed the new thread of conversation. Frederick in this way often restrained La Mettrie, whom he treated as we would treat a child on the point of breaking a mirror or springing out of a window, to distract the attention of whom a toy is shown. Each one made his commentary about the famous Count of St Germain. Each had an anecdote. Poelnitz pretended to have seen him twenty years before in France. He added—

"I saw him this morning, and in all the time that has passed he does not seem to have grown older than those I saw yesterday. I remember once, in France, hearing him say of the passion of Jesus Christ, with inconceivable seriousness—'I said that he could not but have trouble with those wicked Jews. I told him what would happen, but he would not hear me. His zeal made him despise all dangers. His tragical death, however, distressed me as I had never been before, and I cannot think of it without tears.' As he spoke, this queer count wept so naturally, that I could scarcely refrain from following his example."

"You are," said the king, "so good a Christian, that it does not amaze me." Poelnitz had changed his religion three or four times to obtain benefices and places with which, for joke's sake, the king had tempted him.

"Your anecdote," said D'Argens, "is but a fancy sketch. I have heard many better.—What makes this Count de Saint Germain an interesting and remarkable personage, in my opinion, is the number of new and ingenious claims, by which he unravels the doubtful points of the obscurer history of States. Question him about any subject or epoch of history, and you will be surprised to hear him unfold or invent an infinity of probable and interesting things, which throw a new light on what has been doubtful and mysterious."

"If what he says is probable," observed Algarotti, "he must be wonderfully learned, and gifted with a prodigious memory."

"He is something better than that," said the king; "mere erudition does not suffice to explain history. This man must have a mighty mind, and great knowledge of humanity. The only questions are whether this noble organization has been distorted by the desire of playing a whimsical part, and a disposition to attribute to himself eternal life and a knowledge of matters that happened before the birth of any that live, or whether deep study and meditation has not deranged his brain, and struck him with monomania?"

"I can at least assure your majesty of the good faith and modesty of our man. It is with great difficulty that he can be made to talk of the wonderful things he fancies he has seen. He is aware that he is treated as a dreamer and charlatan, and this seems to trouble him much. Now he refuses to explain his supernatural power."

"Well, sire, are you not anxious to see and hear him?" said La Mettrie. "I own I am."

"How so?" said the king. "Why be curious about that? The spectacle of folly is always sad."

"If it be folly, I own it. But what if it is not?"

"Listen, gentlemen," said Frederick. "This skeptic—this atheist pure—has faith in the wonderful, and believes in the eternal life of M. de Saint Germain! You need not be surprised; for La Mettrie believes in death, thunder and ghosts."

"I own that the latter is a weakness; but that my dread of death, and all that can inflict it, is but reason and wisdom. What the devil should one be anxious about, if not of safety and life?"

"Hurra for Panurge!" said Voltaire.

"I will return to Saint Germain," said La Mettrie; "Pontagruel must invite him to sup with us to-morrow."

"I will take care not to do so," said the king. "You are mad enough now, my poor friend; and were he once to put foot in my house, the superstitious imaginations which hang around us would, in a moment, fill Europe with countless strange tales. Ah! dear Voltaire, if the days of reason did but come—that is a prayer we should make every morning and evening."

"Reason!—reason," said La Mettrie, "is kind and beneficial, when it serves to excuse and legitimate my passions and vices—my appetites—call them as you please. When it becomes annoying, I wish to kick it out of doors. Damn!—I wish to know no reason which will make me pretend to be brave, when I am not; to be a stoic, when I suffer; and submissive, when I am in a rage. Away with such reason! I'll have none of it; for it is a monster and chimera of the imagination of those triflers of antiquity whom you all admire so much and know not why. I hope its reign may never come! I like absolute power of no kind; and if I were to be forced not to believe in God, which now is my state of mind, I am sure I would go straight to mass."

"You, it is well known," said D'Argens, "are capable of anything—even in believing in the philosopher's stone of the Count of Saint Germain."

"Why not? It would be pleasant, and I need such a thing."

"Well! that is true," said Poelnitz, putting his hand in his vast and empty pockets. "The sooner its reign comes the better. I pray for it every morning and night."

"Bah!" said Frederick, who always turned a deaf ear to every insinuation. "Monsieur de Saint Germain knows, then, the secret of making gold—you did not say that?"

"Then let me invite him to supper to-morrow," said La Mettrie; "for I have an idea, Royal Gargantua, his secret would do you no harm. You have great necessities, and a most capacious stomach, as a king and a reformer."

"Be silent, Panurge!" said Frederick. "We know all about your count, who is an impudent impostor, and a person I intend to place under close surveillance. We are assured, with his fine secrets he takes more money out of the country than he leaves in it. Eh, gentlemen; do you not remember the great magician, Cagliostro, whom I made march out of Berlin, in double quick time, about six months since?"

"And who robbed me of a hundred crowns! May the devil sue him for them, say I."

"And who would have also had a hundred more, if Poelnitz could have raised them," said D'Argens.

"You drove him away; yet he played you a good trick, notwithstanding."

"What?"

"Ah! you do not know. Then I have a good story to tell you."

"The greatest merit of a story is brevity," said the king.

"Mine is very short. On the day when your Pantagruelic[2] majesty ordered the sublime Cagliostro to pack up his alembics, spectres, and devils, it is well known that he left Berlin in his carriage, propria personâ, at twelve exactly, passed, at the same time, through each of the gates—at least, twenty thousand persons will swear to that. The guards at every gate saw the same hat, wig, carriage and horses, and you cannot convince them that on that day there were not at least six Cagliostros in the field."

All but Frederick thought the story amusing. Frederick alone did not laugh. He was in earnest about reason, and the superstition which amused Voltaire so much, filled him with indignation. "Bah!" said he, shrugging his shoulders; "that is the way with the people, Voltaire, at a time when you cast on the world the light of your torch. You have been exiled, persecuted, and imposed on in every way; yet as soon as Cagliostro comes, the people are fascinated—whenever he comes he has a triumphal march."

"Do you know," said La Mettrie, "that the noblest ladies have as much faith in Cagliostro as the merest street-walkers? I heard that story from one of the most beautiful of your court."

"I will bet it was that Von Kleist," said the king.

"You named her yourself," said La Mettrie.

"Listen how he speaks to the king," said Quintus Icilius, who had just come.

"Bah! the Von Kleist is mad," said Frederick. "She is a visionary, and has implicit faith in horoscopes and sorcery. She needs a good lesson, and had best take care. She makes the women mad, and even reduced her husband to such a state of mind that he used to sacrifice black rams to the devil, to discover the treasures buried in the Brandebourg sands."

"All that is fashionable now in your house, my dear Pantagruel," said La Mettrie. "I do not see how women can submit to your exacting goddess, Reason. Women were made to amuse themselves and us. When they become wise, we must be fools. Madam Von Kleist is charming, with all those wild ghost-stories. With them she amuses Soror Amalia."

"What does that Soror Amalia mean?" asked Frederick, with amazement.

"Eh! your charming sister, the Abbess of Quedlimburg, who, we all know, devotes herself to magic."

"Be silent, Panurge!" said the king, in a voice of thunder, throwing his snuff-box on the table.

[1]It is well known Frederick used to give abbeys, canonicates, and episcopates to his officers, favorites, and relations, even when they were Protestants. The Princess Amelia, having refused to marry, had been made Abbess of Quedlimburgh, a prebend, with an income of a hundred thousand livres. She was addressed as the Catholic canonesses were.

[2]It is scarcely necessary to say that Pantagruel and Gargantua are two of the creations of the very great and very French Rabelais.—TRANSLATOR.

[CHAPTER III]

There was a moment of silence, during which the clock struck twelve.[3] Ordinarily, Voltaire was able to restore the tone of conversation, when a cloud passed over Trajan's brow, and to efface the bad impression of the other guests. On this evening, however, Voltaire was sad and suffering, and felt all the effects of the king's Prussian spleen. On that very morning La Mettrie had told him of the fatal remark of Frederick, which replaced a feigned friendship by a real animosity, which each of these great men felt for each other. Though he said nothing, he thought—

"He may throw the skin[4] of La Mettrie away when he chooses. Let him be ill tempered and suffer as he will, but I have the cholic, and all his flatteries will not cure it."

Frederick was thus forced to resume his philosophical serenity without assistance.

He said, "Since we are talking of Cagliostro and the hour for ghosts and stories has come, I will tell you one which will show how hard it is to have faith in sorcerers. My story is true; for I have it from the person to whom it happened last year. The accident at the theatre this evening recalls it to my mind, and that accident may have some connection with it."

"Is the story terrible?" asked La Mettrie.

"Perhaps," said Frederick.

"Then I will shut the door; for I cannot listen to ghost-stories with a door gaping."

La Mettrie shut the door, and the king spoke as follows:

"Cagliostro, as you know, had the trick of showing credulous people pictures, or rather magic mirrors, on which he caused the absent to appear. He pretended to be able to reveal the most secret occupations of their lives in this manner. Jealous women went to consult him about the infidelities of their husbands, and some lovers and husbands have learned a great deal about their ladies' capers. The magic mirror has, they say, betrayed mysteries of iniquity. Be that as it may, the opera-singers all met one night and offered him a good supper and admirable music, provided he would perform some of his feats. He consented, and appointed a day to meet Porporino, Conciolini, the Signora Asttha and Porporina, and show them heaven or hell, as they pleased.

"The Barberini family were also there. Giovanna Barberini asked to see the late Doge of Venice, and as Cagliostro gets up ghosts in very good style, she was very much frightened, and rushed completely overpowered from the cabinet, in which Cagliostro had placed her, tête-à-tête with the doge. I suspect the Barberini, who is very fond of a joke, of having pretended fear, to laugh at the Italian actors, who from the very nature of their profession are not expected to be at all courageous, and who positively refused to submit to this test. La Porporina, with the calm expression which, as you know is so peculiar to her, told Cagliostro she would have faith in his science, if he would show her the person of whom she then thought, but whom it was not necessary for her to name, for if he was a sorcerer, he must be able to read her soul as he would read a book.

"'What you ask is not a trifle,' said our count, 'yet, I think I can satisfy you, provided that you swear by all that is holy and terrible, not to speak to the person I shall evoke, to make no motion nor gesture, to utter no sound, while the apparition stands before you.'

"Porporina promised to do so, and went boldly into the dark closet.

"I need not tell you, gentlemen, that this young woman is one of the most intellectual and correct persons to be met with. She is well educated, thinks well about all matters, and I have reason to know no narrow or restricted idea makes any impression upon her.

"She remained in the ghost-room long enough to make her companions very uneasy. All was silent as possible and finally she came out very pale, and with tears streaming from her eyes. She immediately said to her companions, 'If Cagliostro be a sorcerer, he is a deceiving one. Have faith in nothing that he shows you. She would say no more. Conciolini, however, told me a few days after, at one of my concerts, of this wonderful entertainment. I promised myself to question Porporina about it, the first time she sang at Sans Souci. I had much difficulty in making her speak of it, but thus she told me:

"'Cagliostro has beyond a doubt the strange power of producing spectres so like truth that it is impossible for the calmest minds to be unmoved by them. He is no magician and his affectation of reading my thoughts was based on some knowledge, I know not how acquired, of my past life. His knowledge, however, is incomplete, and I would not advise you, sire, to make him your Minister of Police, for he would perpetrate strange mistakes. Thus, when I asked him to show me the absent person I wished to see, I thought of my music-master, Porpora, who is now at Vienna. Instead of him, I saw in the magic-room a very dear friend I lost during the current year.'"

"Peste!" said D'Argens, "that is more wonderful even than the apparition of a living person."

"Wait a moment, gentlemen. Cagliostro, badly informed, had no doubt but what he had shown was the phantom of a living person, and, when it had disappeared, asked Porporina if what she had seen was satisfactory. 'In the first place, monsieur,' said she, 'I wish to understand it. Will you explain?' 'That surpasses my power. Be assured that your friend is well, and usefully employed.' To this the signora replied, 'Alas! sir, you have done me much wrong; you showed me a person of whom I did not think, and who is, you say, now living. I closed his eyes six months ago.' Thus, gentlemen, in deceiving others, sorcerers deceive themselves, and thus their plans are foiled, by something which is wanting in their secret police. To a certain point they penetrate into family mysteries and secret intimacies. All human histories are more or less alike, and as people inclined to the wonderful are not close examiners, they fall twenty times out of thirty. Ten times, however, out of thirty, they are wrong. They care nothing about that, though they are very loud about those of their revelations which succeed. This is the case, too, with horoscopes, in which they predict a series of common-place events, which must happen to everybody, such as voyages, diseases, the loss of a friend, an inheritance, a meeting, an interesting letter, and the thousand other casualties of human life. Look at the catastrophes and domestic chagrins, to which the revelations of a Cagliostro expose weak and passionate minds. The husband who confides in them, kills an innocent wife; a mother goes mad with grief at the death of an absent son. This pretended magic art causes countless other disasters. All this is infamous; and none can say that I was wrong in exiling from my states this Cagliostro, who guesses so exactly, and has such a perfect understanding with the dead and buried."

"All this is very fine," said La Mettrie, "but does not explain how your majesty's Porporina saw the dead alive. If she is gifted with as much firmness and reason as your majesty says, the fact goes to disprove your majesty's argument. The sorcerer, it is true, was mistaken, in producing a dead rather than a living man. It, however, makes it the more certain that he controls both life and death. In that respect, he is greater than your majesty, which, if it does not displease your majesty, has killed many men, but never resuscitated a single one."

"Then, Mr. Wiseacre, we are to believe in the devil," said the king, laughing at the comic glances of La Mettrie at Quintus Icilius, as often as the former pronounced the phrase, "your majesty."

"Why should we not believe in Papa Satan? He has been so slandered, and has so much sense," said La Mettrie.

"Burn the Manichean," said Voltaire, placing a candle close to the doctor's wig.

"To conclude, most noble Fritz, I have gotten you into a tight place; your Porporina is either foolish or credulous, and saw her dead man, or she was philosophical, and saw nothing. She was frightened, however."

"Not so; she was distressed," said the king, "as all naturally would be, at the sight of a portrait which would exactly recall a person loved, but know we shall see no more. But if I must tell you all, I will say, that she subsequently was afraid, and that her moral power after this test, was not in so sound a state as it was previously. Thenceforth she has been liable to a dark melancholy, which is always the proof of weakness or disorder of our faculties. Her mind was touched, I am confident, though she denies it. No one can safely contend with falsehood. The attack she had this evening is a consequence of that, and I pledge myself there is in her mind some dread of the magic power attributed to M. de Saint Germain. I have heard, that since she returned home, she has done nothing but weep."

"Of all that part of the story I am utterly incredulous," said La Mettrie. "You have been to see her, and since that time her tears are dried."

"You are very curious, Panurge, to know the object of my visit. You, D'Argens, though you say little, seem to think a great deal. You, too, Voltaire, seem to think no less, though you do not open your lips."

"Should not one naturally enough be curious about all that Frederick the Great chooses to do?" replied Voltaire, who thus strained his complaisance in order to get the king to talk. "Perhaps certain men have no right to conceal anything, when their most indifferent word becomes a precept, and their most trilling action an example."

"My dear friend, you really gratify me. Who would not be pleased at the praise of Voltaire? All this, however, did not keep you from laughing at me during the half hour I was absent. Well, during that time you cannot suppose I could go to the opera, where Porporina lives, and recite a long madrigal, and return on foot, for on foot I was."

"Bah, sire, the opera is hard by, and you have gained a battle in the same time."

"You are mistaken. A much longer time is necessary," said the king, coldly; "ask Quintus Icilus. The marquis is so perfectly familiar with actresses, that he can tell you more than an hour is necessary to conquer them."

"Ah, sire, that is as the case may be."

"Yes, that is as the case may be: for your sake, though, I hope M'lle Cochois has given you more trouble. However, gentlemen, I did not see La Porporina during the night, having only spoken to her servant, and asked about her."

"You, sire!" said La Mettrie.

"I went to take her a flacon, the good effects of which I have personally tested, when I have had attacks of pain in the stomach, which sometimes destroyed my consciousness. Well, you say nothing. You are all amazed. You wish to praise my paternal and royal benevolence, but dare not do so, because you think me ridiculous."

"Sire, if you are in love, like other mortals, I have no objection," said La Mettrie, "and see no occasion either for praise or blame."

"Well, my good Panurge, if I must speak plainly, I am not at all in love. I am a simple man, it is true, and have not the honor to be King of France; consequently, the style of manners which are proper enough for a great monarch, like Louis XV., would be unbecoming to myself, a petty Marquis of Brandebourg. In managing my business, I have much besides to attend to, and have not time to slumber in the bowers of Cytherea."

"Then I do not understand your anxiety about this little opera-singer," said La Mettrie; "and I shall not be able to know what to think unless this results from mere musical enthusiasm."

"This being the case—know, my friends, that I am neither the lover, nor wish to be, of Porporina—yet that I am much attached to her, because in a matter too tedious to be told now, and before she knew me, she saved my life. It was a strange affair, and I will tell you of it on some other occasion. The night is now too far gone, and M. de Voltaire is going to sleep. Let it suffice to know that if I am here, and not elsewhere, as some good people wish, it is attributable to her. You know now, that seeing her dangerously indisposed, I may go to see whether she be dead or alive, and take a flacon of sthas to her, without your having any reason to think me a Duke de Richelieu or De Lauzun. Well, gentlemen adieu. Eight days ago I took off my boots, and in six more must resume them. I pray God to take you in his holy charge, as we say at the end of a letter."

* * * * * * * *

Just as the great clock of the palace struck twelve, the young and worldly Abbess of Quedlimburgh was about to get into her bed of rose-satin. Her first femme de chambre placed her slippers on the ermine carpet. The attendant suddenly began to tremble, and uttered a cry. Some one tapped at the door of the princess's chamber.

"Well, are you mad?" said the fair Amelia, half opening her curtain. "Why look around and utter such a cry?"

"Has not your royal highness heard some one knock?"

"Well, go and see who it is."

"Ah, madame, what living person would dare to knock at the door of your royal highness, when it is known that you are in bed?"

"No living person, you say? Then it is some one dead. Listen! some one knocks again. Go, for you make me impatient."

The femme de chambre, more dead than alive, went to the door, and asked "Who is there?"

"It is I, Baroness Von Kleist," replied a well known voice. "If the princess be not yet asleep, say I have something very important to communicate to her."

"Well, be quick," said the princess. "Let her in, and leave us."

As soon as the abbess and her favorite were alone, the latter sate at the foot of her mistress's bed, and said, "Your royal highness was not mistaken. The king is desperately in love with Porporina, but he is not yet her lover. The young woman, therefore, has just now the most unlimited influence over him."

"How came you during the last hour to find out all this?"

"Because, when I was undressing to go to bed, I made my femme de chambre talk to me, and learned from her that she had a sister in the service of Porporina. Immediately I began to question her, and picked out, as it were, with a needle's point, the fact that my woman had left her sister's house just as the king visited Porporina."

"Are you sure of that?"

"My woman had seen the king distinctly as I see you. He even spoke to her, taking her for her sister, who was in another room, attending to her sick mistress, if the illness of the latter was not pretence. The king inquired after Porporina's health with the greatest anxiety, and stamped his feet with much chagrin when he learned that she continued to weep. He did not ask to see her, lest he should annoy her, and having left a very precious flacon for her, and said if she remained unwell, he would come at eleven o'clock on the next night."

"Well, I hope all this may be so, yet I scarcely dare believe my ears. Does your woman know the king's face?"

"Every one knows a monarch who is always on horseback. Besides, a page had preceded the king five minutes, to see if there was any one at her house. During that time, the king, cloaked and wrapped up, waited, as he is wont to do, at the end of the street."

"Then, Von Kleist, the secret of this mystery and solicitude is love, or I am mistaken. And have you come, in spite of the cold, to tell me this! My dear friend, how good you are."

"You may add, in spite of ghosts. Do you know that for several days there has been a panic in the palace? My chasseur trembled like an idiot as he accompanied me through the passages."

"What is the matter? Is the white lady come again?"

"Yes. The woman with the broom."[5]

"My dear Von Kleist, we are not playing the trick now. Our phantoms are far away. God grant they may return!"

"I thought at first that perhaps the king wished to play the ghost, for now he has a good cause to desire all curious servants out of the passages. What astonished me very much, however, was the fact that the ghost does not appear near his rooms, nor on the road to Porporina's. The spirits hover around your highness; and as I have nothing to do with the matter, I will say I am not a little afraid."

"What are you talking of, my dear. How can you, who I know so much, have any faith in spectres?"

"That is the reason why. It is said when they are counterfeited they become offended, and do all they can to punish one."

"Then they have been a long time about punishing us, for they have left its unmolested more than a year. Bah! think no more of that, for we know well enough what we must think of these souls in trouble. Beyond doubt it was some page or subaltern, who comes in the night to ask the prayers of my prettiest woman,—the old one, therefore, of whom nothing is asked, is fearfully terrified. At first she did not wish to let you in. Why should we talk of that, though, Von Kleist? We know the king's secret, and must use it. How can we?"

"We must win this Porporina before she becomes spoiled by favor."

"Certainly. We must spare neither presents, promises, nor flattery. You must go to her house to-morrow, and ask for music and Porpora's autographs for me. She must have much unpublished music by the Italian master. Promise that I will in return give her the manuscripts of Sebastian Bach. I have many of them. We will commence by exchanges. Then I will ask her to come and teach me the execution of her music. Let me get her once into my house, and I will endeavor to secure and control her."

"I will go to-morrow morning, madame."

"Good night, Von Kleist. Come, kiss me. You are my only friend. Go to bed; and if you meet the woman with the broom in the passage, look closely, and see if there be no spurs on her heels."

[3]The opera began earlier in Frederick's time than it does in Europe at the present day. The king sate down to supper at ten o'clock.

[4]It is well known that Voltaire was deeply wounded by Frederick saying, "I keep him because I need him. In a year I will have other things to do, and will get rid of him. I squeeze the orange, and throw away the skin."

[5]"La Balayeuse."

[CHAPTER IV]

On the next day, Porporina awoke from a deep slumber, completely overpowered, and found on her bed two things which her maid had just placed there. One was a flacon of rock crystal, with a gold stopper, on which was engraved an "F." with a royal crown. The second was a sealed package. The servant, on being questioned, said that the king had come in person on the previous day to bring the flacon. When she heard the circumstances of a visit which was so naïve and respectful, Porporina was much moved.

"Strange man!" thought she. "How can so much mildness in private life be reconciled with public sternness and despotism?" She fell at once into a reverie, and gradually forgetting the king and thinking of herself, retraced confusedly the events of the previous evening. She began to weep.

"What is the matter, signora?" said the maid, who was a kind soul, and an indifferently diffuse talker. "Are you going to cry again, as you did when you went to bed. This is enough to break one's heart; and the king, who was at the door when he heard you, shook his head two or three times, as if he was much distressed. Yet, signora, many would envy you. The king does not court everybody. They say he courts no one, yet it is very certain that he is in love with you."

"In love? What do you say?" said Porporina, shuddering. "Never say such an improper and absurd thing again. The king in love with me? Great God!"

"Well, signora, suppose he were?"

"God grant he may not be! He, however, neither is nor will be. What roll is this, Catharine?"

"A servant brought it early in the morning."

"Whose servant?"

"A person picked up in the streets. At last, though, he told me he had been employed by the servants of a certain Count of St. Germain, who came hither yesterday."

"Why did you ask the question?"

"Because I wanted to know, signora."

"That is frank, certainly. Now go."

As soon as Porporina was alone, she opened the roll, which she found contained a parchment, covered with strange and unintelligible characters. She had heard much of the Count of Saint Germain, but did not know him. She examined the manuscript carefully, and as she could not understand it, and could not perceive why a person with whom she had never had any acquaintance, should send her an enigma to unravel, she fancied that he was mad. As she examined this document more closely, a separate note fell out, and she read: "The Princess Amelia of Prussia takes much interest in divination and in horoscopes. Give her this parchment, and you will be certain to secure her protection and friendship." To these lines there was no signature, the hand was unknown, and the roll bore no address. She was amazed that the Count of Saint Germain, to reach the Princess Amelia, had come to her, who had never met her; and thinking that her servant had made some mistake, began to fold it up, for the purpose of returning it. When she took up the sheet of coarse paper, which had been around it, she observed there was music printed on the other side. An old recollection recurred to her; to look at one corner of the sheet for a mark, which had been agreed on—to recognise the deep pencil lines—to see that the music was a part of a piece which she had given away, as a token of remembrance, eighteen months before—was but the work of an instant. The emotion which she experienced at the remembrance of an absent and suffering friend, made her forget her own sorrows. She was only anxious to know what was to be done with the manuscript, and why she had been charged with transmitting it to the princess. Was the object to secure for her that personage's favor and protection? For that Porporina had neither the want nor the desire. Was it for the purpose of establishing a communication between the princess and the prisoner, which might be useful to the latter? She hesitated. In her doubt she recollected the proverb, "beware;" she then remembered that there were both good and bad proverbs, some of which came to the aid of prudent selfishness and others to bold devotion. She got up at once, saying to herself:

"When in doubt, act, provided that you do not compromise yourself, and have reason to hope that you can be useful to your friend and fellow-being."

Scarcely had she finished her toilette, which required some time, for she was much enfeebled by the attack of the previous evening, (and while tying up her beautiful dark hair,) she thought how she could best convey the parchment to the princess, when a servant in an embroidered livery came to ask if she was alone, and if she was willing to receive an unknown lady, who wished to visit her. The young singer had often repined at the manner in which at that time artistes were subjected to the great: she felt at first disposed to refuse the visit, and to say that the singers of the theatre were with her. She remembered, though, that this answer might offend the prudery of some ladies, but would have the effect of making others more anxious to trespass on her. She, therefore, consented to receive the visit, and the fair Von Kleist was soon introduced.

This lady was thoroughly used to society, and had determined to please the singer, and make her forget all differences of rank. She was ill at ease, however, because she had heard that Porporina was very haughty, and Von Kleist had also excellent reasons to wish, for her own sake, to penetrate her most hidden thoughts. Though young and inoffensive, there was, at this moment, in the court-lady's mind and countenance, something false and forced, which did not escape Porporina's attention. Curiosity approximates so closely to perfidy, that it destroys the beauty of the most perfect features.

Porporina knew the face of her visitor perfectly well; and her first movement when she saw a person who appeared every evening in the box of the Princess Amelia, was to ask, under the pretext of necromancy, of which she knew she was fond, an interview with the princess. Not daring, however, to confide in a person who had the reputation of being both imprudent and disposed to intrigues, she determined to let her lead the conversation, and began to bring to bear on her the quiet penetration of the defensive, which is so superior to the attacks of curiosity.

At last, the ice was broken; and the lady having presented the princess's request for music; the singer, concealing her satisfaction at this happy chance, went to get many unedited arrangements. Then, with an appearance as if suddenly inspired, she said, "I will be delighted, madame, to place all my treasures at her highness's disposal; and would feel honored were she to consent to receive me."

"And do you, indeed," said Madame Von Kleist, "wish to speak to her royal highness?"

"Yes, madame," said Porporina. "I would throw myself at her feet, and ask a favor which I am sure she would not refuse me. She is, they say, a great musician, and must protect artists. I have also heard that she is good as she is beautiful. I hope, then, if she deign to hear me, that she will aid me in obtaining from his majesty the recall of my master, who having been invited to Berlin, with the king's consent, was, when he reached the frontier, driven away, in consequence of a defect in his passport. Since then, in spite of the king's promises and assurances, I have been unable to bring this affair to an end. I dare no longer annoy the king with a request in which he takes but little interest, I am sure, for he always forgets it. But, if the princess would deign to say a word to the officers to whom such matters belong, I will have the happiness of being again with my adoptive father, the only friend I have in the world."

"What you say amazes me greatly," remarked Von Kleist. "What! the beautiful Porporina, whom I thought exerted an all-powerful influence over the king's mind, is obliged, forced, to obtain elsewhere a favor which seems so simple. Suffer me to conclude from these circumstances, that his majesty expects to find in your adoptive father, too vigilant a surveillance, or some counsel which will be of too much influence against his wishes."

"I strive in vain, madame, to understand what you honor me by saying," said Porporina, with a gravity which entirely disconcerted the baroness.

"Then, apparently, I have mistaken the extreme benevolence and limitless admiration which the king professes for the greatest of living singers."

"Does it become the dignity of the Baroness von Kleist to ridicule a poor artiste, like myself, without any influence, and perfectly inoffensive?"

"I ridicule!—who would think of ridiculing so angelic a being as you are? You are ignorant, signora, of your merit, and your candor fills me with surprise and admiration. Listen to me: I am sure that you will make a conquest of the princess. She always acts from the impulse of the moment, and it is only necessary for you to meet her, to take as perfect possession of her with your person as you have with your mind."

"It has, on the contrary, been said that her royal highness has always been severe in relation to me; and that, unfortunately, my poor face displeased her, and also, that she was much dissatisfied with my method of singing."

"Who on earth can have told you such falsehoods?"

"If any have been told, the king is guilty," said the young girl, with a slight tone of malice.

"It was a snare—a test of your modesty and gentleness," said the baroness, "as though I intend to prove to you that being a simple mortal, I have no right to be false, like a mighty and ill-tempered king, I wish to take you at once to the princess, that you may give her the music in person."

"And do you think, madame, that she will receive me kindly?"

"Will you trust me?"

"Yet, if you be mistaken, on whom will the humiliation fall?"

"On me alone: I authorise you to say everywhere, that I am proud of the princess's friendship, and that she entertains both esteem and deference for me."

"I will go with you, madame," said Consuelo, ringing for her mantle and muff. "My toilette is very simple, but you have entirely surprised me."

"You are perfectly charming, and will find the princess in a yet more simple toilette.—Come."

Porporina put the mysterious roll in her pocket, filled the carriage of the baroness with music, and followed her resolutely.

"For a man who risked his life for me," thought she, "I might run the risk of waiting in vain in the antechamber of a princess."

Having been introduced into a dressing-room she waited for five minutes, during which the abbess and her confidant exchanged these few words in the next room.

"Madame, I have brought her. She is there."

"So soon? You are an admirable ambassadress. How must I receive her? What sort of person is she?"

"Reserved, prudent, or simple. She is either intensely artful, or strangely simple."

"Oh! we will see," said the princess, the eyes of whom glittered with the influence of a mind used to penetration and distrust. "Let her come in."

During her short stay in the dressing-room, Porporina saw the strangest array of furniture which ever decorated the boudoir of a beautiful princess: spheres, compasses, astrolabes, astrological charts, vials filled with nameless mixtures and deaths-heads—in fine, all the materials of sorcery. "My friend is not mistaken," said she, "and the public knows all about the secrets of the king's sister. She does not even seem to conceal them, as she suffers me to see all this apparatus.—Well—courage!"

The Abbess of Quedlimburgh was then twenty-eight or thirty years of age. She had been beautiful as an angel, and yet was when seen by candlelight at a distance. When she was close to her, however, Porporina was amazed to find her face wrinkled and covered with blotches. Her blue eyes, which had been beautiful as possible, now had a red rim around them, like those of a person who had been weeping, and had an evil glare and deep transparency, not calculated to inspire confidence. She had been adored by her family and by all the court, and for a long time had been the most affable, the most joyous and benevolent king's daughter ever described in the romances of royal personages, of the old patrician literature. During the few last years, however, her character had changed as much as her person had. She had attacks of ill-humor, and even something worse, which made her like Frederick in his worst point of view; without seeking to resemble him, and even while in secret she criticised him severely, she was irresistibly led to contract all the faults she censured in him, and to become an imperious and absolute mistress, a skeptical, bitter, learned and disdainful person. Yet, amid these fearful characteristics, which every day look fatal possession of her, there was yet seen to pierce a native kindness, a correct mind, a courageous soul, and passionate heart. What then was passing in the mind of this unfortunate princess? A terrible cause of suffering devoured her, which she was yet forced to conceal in her heart, and which she hid from the eyes of the curious, malicious, or careless world, under the disguise of a stoical and joyous bearing. By means, therefore, of dissimulation and constraint, she had unfolded in herself two different beings, one which she dared reveal to scarcely any one, and the other which she exhibited with a kind of hatred and despair. All observed that in conversation she was become more keen and animated: this uneasy and forced gaiety, though, was painful to the observer, and its icy and chilling effect cannot be described. Successively excited, almost to puerility, and stern even to cruelty, she astonished both others and herself. Torrents of tears extinguished the fire of her anger, and then a savage irony, an impious disdain, snatched her from those moments of salutary depression, she was permitted neither to feel nor to know.

The first thing that Porporina observed, when she met her, was this kind of duality. The princess had two aspects and two faces: the one was caressing, the other menacing: two voices, one soft and harmonious, which seemed to have been vouchsafed her by heaven that she might sing like an angel, and the other hoarse and stern, apparently coming from a burning heart, animated by some devilish inspiration. Our heroine, surprised at so strange a being, divided between fear and sympathy, asked herself if an evil genius was about to take possession of her.

The princess, too, found Porporina a far more formidable person than she had imagined. She had hoped that, without her theatrical garb and the paint which makes women so very ugly, whatever people please to say about it, she would justify what the Baroness von Kleist had said—that she was rather ugly than beautiful. Her clear dark complexion, so uniform and pure; her powerful and dark eyes; her fresh mouth; her suple form; her natural and easy movements—the array of all the qualities of an honest, kind and calm being, or, at least, of one possessed of that internal power conferred by justice and true wisdom, filled the uneasy Amelia with a species of respect, and even of shame, as if she knew herself in the presence of a person of unimpeachable loyalty.

Her efforts to hide how ill at ease she was were remarked by the young girl, who, as we may conceive, was amazed to see so great a princess intimidated before her. She began, then, to revive the failing conversation, to open a piece of the music into which she had placed the cabalistic letter, and arranged it so that the great sheet covered with large characters, should meet the princess's eye. As soon as the effect was produced, she pretended to wish to withdraw the sheet, just as if she had been surprised at its being there. The abbess took possession of it immediately, however, saying—

"What is the meaning of this signora? For Heaven's sake, whence had you it?"

"If I must own all to your highness," said Porporina, significantly, "it is an astrological calculation I have been intending to present, when it shall be your highness's wish to question me about a matter to which I am not entirely a stranger."

The princess fixed her burning eyes on the singer, glanced at the magic characters, ran to the embrasure of a window, and, having examined the scroll for a time, uttered a loud cry, and fell almost suffocated into the arms of the Baroness von Kleist, who, when she saw her tremble, had hurried to her.

"Leave the room, signora," said the favorite, precipitately. "Go into that cabinet, and say nothing. Call no one. Do you understand?"

"No, no; she must not go!" said the princess, faintly. "Let her come hither—here, near me. Ah! my friend," said she, "how great a service you have rendered me!"

Clasping Porporina in her thin white arms, which were animated with a convulsive power, the princess pressed her to her heart, and covered her cheeks with eager burning kisses, which flushed her cheek and terrified her heart.

"Certainly people become mad in this country," thought she. "I have often feared this would be the case with me, and I see more important personages than I am run the same risk. There is madness in the air!"

"The princess at last loosened her neck to clasp her favorite's, crying and weeping, and shouting in the strongest voice;—

"Saved! saved!—my friends!—my kind friends! Trenck has escaped from the fortress of Glatz! He escapes! He is yet—yet at liberty!"

The poor princess had an attack of convulsive laughter, interrupted by sobs, terrible to see and hear.

"Madame! for heaven's sake!" said the baroness, "restrain your joy! Take care lest you be heard!"

Taking up the pretended magic scroll, which was nothing but a letter in cypher from Trenck, she aided her mistress in reading it, in spite of a thousand interruptions of forced and feverish laughter.

[Transcriber's Note]