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.
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]