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March!" and laughed inattentively; when he went on to philosophize the commonness of the sparse company always observable at the Sans-Souci as a just effect of its Laodicean situation between Pupp's and the Posthof, the girl sighed absently, and his wife frowned at him.
King Frederick appeared to have reached his goal; at least, that which, during the storm of war, he had often called his ideal; he could devote his life to philosophy and art in the enchanting retirement of his beloved Sans-Souci. The tumult and discord of the world did not trouble him; in fact, the whole world seemed to be at peace, and all Europe was glad and happy.
Sans-Souci, that had been heretofore the seat of joy and laughing wit Sans-Souci was now still and lonely; youth, beauty, and gladness had forsaken it forever; earnestness and duty had taken their place, and reigned in majesty within those walls that had so often echoed with the happy laugh and sparkling jest of the king's friends and contemporaries.
I beg you will now dismiss me, for you see I am a very man and no philosopher, unworthy to be a guest at Sans-Souci." He bowed to the king, who tenderly pressed his hand and silently left the room. Frederick looked after him with an expression of unutterable pity. "Three days will be long enough to deaden his pain, and then he will be more reasonable and form other resolutions."
Frederick regarded these oaths of Bavaria not as a security for the future, but as a payment on account of the past. "I did not go forth to render the Bavarian princes indebted to me," said he, to his only confidante, Count Herzberg, as he brought to him, at Sans-Souci, the renewed expression of thanks of the prince elector.
The Marquis d'Argens, however, the only one who had been allowed to accompany the king in this drive, sprang from his seat, and waving his hat in greeting, exclaimed: "I greet you, Sans-Souci, you temple of wisdom and happiness! Open wide your portals, for your lord is returning to you. Let your walls resound as did Memnon's pillar, when the sun's rays first greeted it, after a long night.
I will spare you all eulogy," cried Frederick, giving his hand warmly to Voltaire. At the close of the first day at Sans-Souci, the new gentleman of the bedchamber returned to Potsdam, adorned with the order "Pour le merite," and a written assurance from the king of a pension of five thousand thalers in his pocket.
He has forgotten for the time the care and bustle of war, and fancied himself in his beloved paradise, his Sans-Souci, where it was allowed the hero to be a poet, and where he could for some genial hours put aside his dignity, and, instead of the enthroned ruler, be the cheerful sage, the smiling son of the Muses.
The guard of honor, on duty upon the Sans-Souci terrace, halted suddenly, as the sad music fell upon his ear. The fresh spring breeze swept through the trees, and drove the laden-blossomed elder-bushes tapping against the windowpanes, as if to offer a May-greeting to the lonely king.
One of his masterpieces is entitled "The Flute Concert," and represents Frederick the Great in his palace at Sans-Souci, at a concert with the principal members of court and his household around him. One evening the emperor sent for old Menzel, and asked him to join the royal family at Sans-Souci.
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