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While the young and beautiful abbess1 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 Pantagruelic2 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.