Should my works survive me-should I be destined to leave a name behind me, some day, perhaps, the traveller guided by these Memoirs, may go to visit the places I have described. He will be able to recognize the castle, but he will look in vain for the great woods: the cradle of my dreams has disappeared like the dreams themselves. Standing alone on its rocky foundation, the old keep laments for the oaks, the ancient companions which surrounded it and protected it from the storm. Isolated like it, I have seen fall around me the family who adorned my days and afforded me shelter. Happily, my life is not so firmly attached to the earth as the tower in which I passed my youth; and man is less able to resist the storm than the monuments which he has raised.

Berlin, March, 1821.

Looked over in July, 1846.

BERLIN-POTSDAM-FREDERICK.

It is far from Combourg to Berlin-from a young visionary to an old minister. In the passage which precedes these words, on resuming my task, I found the following: "In how many places have I begun to write these Memoirs, and in what place shall I bring them to a close?"

Nearly four years have passed between the date of the events which I have just related and that at which I resume these Memoirs. A thousand things have supervened; I have become a second man-a politician; I am very little attached to the pursuit. I have defended the liberties of France, which alone can give permanence to the legitimate throne.

By the aid of the Conservateur, I have placed M. de Villèle in power; I have seen the death of the Duc de Berry, and I have done honour to his memory. And finally, to conciliate all, I have withdrawn; I have accepted the embassy at

Berlin.

Yesterday, I was at Potsdam, an ornamental barrack, at present without soldiers: I studied the counterfeit Julian, in his counterfeit Athens. At Sans-souci, the table was pointed out to me at which a great German Monarch reduced, into french versification, the maxims of the Encyclopædists; Voltaire's chamber, decorated with apes and parroquets, carved in wood; the Mill, which he who ravaged whole provinces, played at respecting; the tomb of his horse, Cæsar, and his greyhounds, Diana, Amourette, Biche, Superbe, and Par. The royal infidel took pleasure even in profaning the religion of the tomb, by erecting monuments to his dogs; he had marked a place for his own sepulture near them, less from a feeling of contempt for men, than an ostentation of annihilation.

I was conducted to the New Palace, already falling to decay. In the old Castle of Potsdam, great respect is shown to the stains of tobacco, the torn and dirty arm-chairs, and, in short, to all the marks of the uncleanliness of the renegade Prince. These places serve, at once, to immortalize the dirtiness of the cynic, the impudence of the atheist, the tyranny of the despot, and the glory of the soldier.

One thing alone attracted my attention. The hand of a clock stopped at the minute at which Frederick expired; I was deceived by the fixedness of the image; hours do not stay their flight; man does not arrest the flight of time, but time arrests man. Moreover it matters little, what characters we have played in life; the splendour or obscurity of our doctrines, our riches or our miseries, our joys or our sorrows, make no change in the measure of our days. Whether the hand goes round on a dial of gold, or of wood-be the dial itself great or small-in the setting of a ring, or on the tower of a cathedral, time is but of the same duration.

In a vault of the Protestant Church, immediately below the pulpit of the unfrocked schismatic, I saw the tomb of the royal sophist. The tomb is bronze, and re-echoes when struck. The gendarme who rests in this brazen bed, would not be roused from his slumbers even by the fame of his

renown. He will not awake till he hears the sound of that trumpet, which shall summon him to his last battle-field in presence of the God of Hosts.

It was so needful to change my impressions, that I found consolation in visiting the Maison-de-Marbre. The King who caused it to be constructed, had formerly addressed me in some complimentary words, when a poor officer, I passed through his army. This King, at least, shared the common weaknesses of men; vulgar, like them, he took refuge in his pleasures. Do the two skeletons give themselves any trouble now about the difference which was in their condition formerly, when one was Frederick the Great, and the other Frederick William? Sans-souci, and the Maisonde-Marbre, are equally ruins without a master.

On the whole, although the greatness of the events of our days has diminished past events; although Rosbach, Lissa, Liegnitz, Torgau, &c., are but skirmishes, when compared with the battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Moscow, &c., Frederick suffers less than others, when brought into comparison with the Giant chained on the rock of St. Helena. The King of Prussia and Voltaire, are two figures most oddly grouped, who will live: the second destroyed a society with the same philosophy, which the first employed to found a kingdom.

The evenings are long in Berlin. I occupy an hotel belonging to the Duchesse de Dino. At night-fall, my secretaries leave me. When there are no festivities at Court, in honour of the Grand Duke Nicholas and his Duchess,* I stay at home. Shut up alone, with a very gloomy-looking stove, I hear nothing but the voice of the sentinel at the Brandenburg Gate, and the tread on the snow of the watchman. How shall I pass my time? With books?—I have none: suppose I go on with my Memoirs?

You left me on the road from Combourg to Rennes ; at the latter town I took up my quarters at the house of one of my relations. He annnounced to me, with great satisfaction,

*The present Emperor and Empress of Russia.

that a lady of his acquaintance was going to Paris, had a seat in her carriage to spare, and that he had got her to consent to take me with her. I accepted the offer, cursing the courtesy of my relation. He arranged the affair, and soon presented me to my fellow-traveller-a spruce and gay milliner, who fell a laughing as soon as she looked at me. At midnight the horses arrived, and we set out.

Now behold me in a post chaise, alone with a lady in the middle of the night. I, who in the whole course of my life, had never looked at a woman without blushing-how was I to descend from the height of my dreams to the frightful reality? I did not know where I was; I coiled myself up in the corner of the carriage, for fear of touching Madame Rose's dress. When she spoke to me, I stammered, and lost all power of speaking. She was obliged to pay the postillion, and take charge of every thing-for I was altogether useless. At break of day, she looked with new wonder at the simpleton with whom she regretted being shut up.

Soon after, the aspect of the country began to change, and I no longer recognized the dress or accent of the Breton peasants. I soon fell into a profound despondency, which increased the contempt Madame Rose already entertained towards me. I became sensible of the feeling which I inspired, and from this first contact with the world I received an impression which time has never completely effaced. I was born wild, but not shamefaced; I had all the modesty of my age, but none of its awkwardness. As soon as I divined that I was made ridiculous by my good qualities, my wildness changed into an insurmountable timidity. I could no longer utter a word; I felt that I had something to conceal, and that this something was a virtue; I resolved to retire within myself in order to wear my innocence in peace.

We were approaching Paris. At the descent of St. Cyr, I was struck with the width of the roads, and with the regularity of the plantations. We speedily reached Versailles ; the orangery and its flights of marble steps, roused me from my indifference. The success of the war in America had

brought back triumphs to the palace of Louis XIV; the Queen reigned there in all the splendour of youth and beauty. The throne, so near its fall, seemed never to have been so firm. And I, an obscure traveller, was to survive that pomp, I was to remain to see the woods of Trianon as desert as those from which I had just come.

At last we entered Paris. I fancied I saw on every countenance a mocking air; like the gentleman of Perigord, I believed that people only looked at me to turn me into ridicule. Madame Rose gave orders to be driven to the Rue de Mall, to the Hotel de l'Europe, and took the speediest means of disencumbering herself of her silly companion. I had scarcely alighted from the carriage, when she said to the porter, "Show this gentleman to a room-your servant," added she, making a hasty curtsey. I have never since met with Madame Rose.

Berlin, March, 1821.

MY BROTHER-MY COUSIN MOREAU-MY SISTER LA COMTESSE DE FARCY.

A woman preceded me up a black and worn staircase, with a ticketed key in her hand; a Savoyard followed me, carrying my small trunk. Having reached the third floor, the chamber-maid opened a room, and the Savoyard placed my portmanteau across the arms of an arm-chair. The woman then said to me, "Does Monsieur wish for any thing?" I replied, "No." Three blasts of a whistle were blown; the woman cried: "Off they go!" went quickly out of the room, shut the door, and ran down stairs with the Savoyard. When I found myself shut up alone, my heart was oppressed in so strange a manner that I was very near resuming my way back to Bretagne. All that I had heard of Paris recurred to my mind; I was embarrassed in a thousand ways. I should have liked to go to bed, but the bed was not made; I was I was hungry, but I knew not how to get my dinner.