Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia. L. Muhlbach

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ "your majesty forgets—"

      "Silence, gentlemen!" he exclaimed, in an angry voice, pointing with his outstretched arm to the easy-chair, "do not flatter me in this room. I wish I had known Frederick the Great, for I believe we should have understood each other."

      "Sire," said the castellan, "it is true, his majesty did not know you; nevertheless, he dreamed of you."

      Napoleon hastily turned toward him and asked: "What? He dreamed of me? Tell me all about it. Approach!"

      The castellan, obeying the sign made to him, advanced a few steps slowly and hesitatingly.

      "Sire," he said, "it was a few years after the Seven Years' War. I had just entered the king's service, and was on duty during that night; that is to say, I slept in the anteroom, and had received strict orders to awaken the king at a fixed hour in the morning, and to enter his bedroom during the night as soon as he called me, or if I should hear any noise. Suddenly I heard the cry, 'Fire, fire!' I rushed immediately into the bedroom, but no fire was to be seen. My master lay on his couch, groaning, breathing heavily, and evidently under the influence of bad dreams. I, therefore, took the liberty to awaken him. 'Ah,' said he, heaving a deep sigh, 'I am glad you awakened me; I had a weird, terrible dream, and I will relate it to you. I dreamed I was standing on the terrace of Sans-souci, and around me I beheld my state and all my palaces close together, and behind them I thought I could descry the whole world, with all its cities and countries; it was spread out before my eyes like a painting of wondrous beauty, and I was rapturously gazing at it. All at once the sky grew dark; black clouds passed over it; profound darkness covered the beautiful world, and dreadful shrieks and groans resounded through the air. But from the midst of the black clouds a bright, dazzling star burst like a rocket, and set fire to every thing, until all countries were in ruins, and all cities burned down. And as I saw that, I cried in my anguish, "Fire! fire!" Fortunately, you came and awakened me.' That, sire," said the castellan, drawing a deep breath, "that was the dream. The king went on to say: 'The dream, I am sure, is a portentous one, and some remarkable event will doubtless happen in the course of this night. Write down every thing I told you, and remember the date and year!' I did as his majesty ordered me; I wrote down the date, the year, and even the hour in which the dream occurred."

      "Was the dream really a portentous one? Did any remarkable event occur in that night?"

      "Yes, sire, a very remarkable event occurred in that night, but his majesty did not hear of it; he died too early."

      "When did he have that dream?" asked Napoleon, fixing his eyes on the old man, who composedly bore the searching gaze.

      A pause ensued. The castellan replied: "Sire, Frederick the Great had that dream on the 15th of August, 1769."

      "On my birthday!" ejaculated Napoleon.

      "On the 15th of August, 1769," repeated the old man, "at three o'clock in the morning."

      "The hour of my birth," muttered the emperor to himself. After a short pause he turned again toward the castellan, and a strange, sarcastic smile played on his lips.

      "The star fell from the sky, and set fire to all the palaces and countries?" he asked.

      The castellan nodded.

      "And you believed that the dream referred to me, and that I am the fallen star?"

      "Sire, I only related what the king had dreamed, and in what night and in what hour he had the remarkable dream. His majesty spoke frequently about it, and all his friends heard of it. But nobody was able to interpret it. He died without obtaining the solution."

      "But you have solved it," said Napoleon, sneeringly. "I am the fallen star, and you think I have come to fulfil that dream?"

      "Sire, I—"

      "I shall burn down your palaces and scourge your country," added he, harshly. "Why did you irritate me? I did not commence the war; since you desired it, I gave it to you. But tell your friends and the good citizens of Potsdam that the dream of their king will not be entirely fulfilled. It may be that I shall be compelled to destroy royal palaces, but the house of the citizen and the cabin of the peasant will not feel my wrath, nor will I lay waste your fields. Tell the good denizens of this city—tell them not to be afraid of me; for never shall I assail their rights and privileges, nor interfere with their interests. And now, gentlemen, let us proceed!" He quickly crossed the room, and entered the adjoining apartment.

      "Sire, this is the reception-room of Frederick the Great," said the castellan, who had followed. "On that table lies the full suit in which his majesty gave his last audience—his uniform, his order of the Black Eagle, his hat and sword."

      Napoleon hastened to the table, and seized the sword. "Ah, the sword of Frederick II.," he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes. "He often wielded it with a victorious hand, and that hat covered a head adorned with the laurel-wreath of the poet and the great general! These are trophies that I prefer to all the treasures of Prussia. What a capital present for the Invalides, especially for those who formed part of the army of Hanover! They will be delighted, no doubt, when they see in our possession the sword of him who beat them at Rossbach! And as my dear brother, Frederick William III., has conferred the order of the Black Eagle on me, I suppose he will permit me to take this decoration as a souvenir of the greatest king of the house of Hohenzollern. What about the bell that is placed beside the hat?"

      "Sire," said the castellan, mournfully and hesitatingly, "it is the bell which the king used during his whole reign to call the gentlemen waiting in the anteroom, and the footmen at night."

      "That bell shall stand henceforward in my cabinet and on my desk," said Napoleon. "Grand marshal, order all these things to be packed up and to be sent immediately to Paris, and add to them also the clock in the other room—the clock that was so faithful to the great king as to stop at his death, and to refuse to mark the time for any one else. I will wind it up, and the clock of Frederick the Great must strike again for me. Conduct us to the other rooms, castellan."

      The old man cast a long and melancholy look on the precious relics that were about to be taken from him, and took leave of them with a profound sigh. He then conducted the party to the other rooms. He showed them the library, where Frederick, during the last years of his life, had spent every hour when not occupied with government affairs, longing for no other society than that of his books. He then took them to the rooms in which Voltaire had lived, and showed the emperor a paper on which the king had written verses that Voltaire had corrected and revised. Napoleon contemplated every thing with the greatest attention, and then caused himself to be conducted to the fine long hall, in which Frederick, accompanied by his dog, used to take his daily walk when the weather was too bad for him to do so in the open air. The walls of this hall were adorned with many paintings and engravings—all, however, did not apparently belong to the period of Frederick; for there were among them paintings and engravings representing his last hours, and his lonely nocturnal funeral.—Others again depicted the scene of young Frederick William II. standing by the corpse of his great uncle, and swearing with tearful eyes, his hand placed on the head of Frederick, that he would be a just and good ruler to his people.

      "And what does this picture represent?" asked Napoleon, pointing to an engraving by the side of the above-mentioned painting.

      "Sire," said the castellan, in confusion, "it is a copper-plate, representing the king's tomb. It does not properly belong here, but has been placed here temporarily. The artist sent it hither with the request to place it somewhere in Sans-souci, and I hung it up in this place until my master disposes of it in some other way."

      "But what СКАЧАТЬ