Berlin, May 1821;
Revised in July 1846
IT IS A long way from Combourg to Berlin, and a long way from a young dreamer to an old minister. Among the pages I have written, I find these words: “In how many places have I already begun to write these Memoirs, and in what place shall I bring them to an end?”
Between the last date attached to these Memoirs and today, when I pick up the pen again, nearly four years have passed. A thousand things have intervened. Another man has appeared in me, a political man: I do not much care for him. I have defended the liberties of France, which alone can make the legitimate monarchy endure. With the Conservateur, I have put M. de Villèle in power. I have seen the Duc de Berry die, and I have honored his memory.[1] With the aim of reconciling all parties, I have left France; I have accepted an ambassadorship in Berlin.
Yesterday I was in Potsdam, an ornate barrack now devoid of soldiers: I made a study of the false Julian in his false Athens.[2] I was shown, at Sans-Souci, the table where a great German monarch put the Encyclopedists’ maxims into French versets; Voltaire’s room, decorated with carved wooden monkeys and parrots; the mill which he who laid waste to whole provinces played at respecting; and the tombs of the horse César and the greyhounds Diane, Amourette, Biche, Superbe, and Pax. The impious king took pleasure in profaning even the sanctity of tombs by raising mausoleums for his dogs; he marked out a place for his sepulcher near theirs, less out of contempt for humanity than out of an ostentatious belief in nothingness.
I was taken to the New Palace, which is already falling down. In the old castle of Potsdam, the tobacco stains, the torn and soiled armchairs, indeed every trace of the renegade prince’s uncleanliness, is preserved. These rooms immortalize the filthiness of a cynic, the impudence of an atheist, the tyranny of a despot, and the glory of a soldier.
Only one thing held my attention: the hands of a clock stopped at the minute that Frederick expired. I was deceived by the stillness of the image. The hours never suspend their flight; it is not man who stops time, but time that stops man. In the end it matters little what part we have played in life. The brilliance or obscurity of our doctrines, our wealth or poverty, our joy or pain: these things have no effect on the measure of our days. Whether the hand moves around a golden face or a wooden one, whether the dial fills the bezel of a ring or the rose window of a cathedral, the length of the hour is still the same.
Down in the crypt of the Protestant church, immediately beneath the pulpit of the defrocked schismatic, I saw the tomb of the sophist to the crown.[3] The tomb is made of bronze; if one taps it, it rings aloud. But the gendarme who sleeps forever in this bronze bed would not be torn from sleep even by the rumor of his reputation. He will not wake until the trumpet sounds to summon him to his final battlefield, where he shall come face to face with the Lord of Hosts.
I had such a need to alter my impressions that I found relief in visiting the Marble Palace. The king who ordered its construction had once addressed a few honorable words to me, when, as a humble officer, I passed through his army. At least this king shared the ordinary weaknesses of men: vulgar like them, he took refuge in his pleasures. These two skeletons, do they trouble themselves about the differences that once existed between them, when one was Frederick the Great and the other was Frederick William II? Today, Sans-Souci and the Marble Palace are both ruins without masters.
Taken all together, though the enormity of events in our time has dwarfed the events of the past, and though Rosbach, Lissa, Liegnitz, Torgau, etc., etc., were merely skirmishes compared with the battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, and Moscow, Frederick suffers less than others by comparison with the giant chained on Saint-Helena. The King of Prussia and Voltaire are two of the most bizarrely grouped figures who ever lived: the latter destroyed a society with the same philosophy that helped the former to found a kingdom.
The evenings are long in Berlin. I live in a house that belongs to Madame la Duchesse de Dino. At nightfall, my secretaries abandon me. When there aren’t festivities at Court celebrating the marriage of the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess Nicholas,* I stay at home. Shut up in my room, alone with a very gloomy-looking stove, I hear nothing but the shouts of the sentinels at the Brandenburg Gate and, outside in the snow, the footsteps of the watchman who whistles the hours. What should I do with my time? Read? I have scarcely any books. What if I were to continue my Memoirs?
•
You last saw me on the road from Combourg to Rennes. I alighted in this latter town at the house of a relative. This man announced to me with great enthusiasm that a lady of his acquaintance, who was going to Paris, had a spare seat in her carriage, and that he had managed to persuade this lady to take me with her. Cursing my kinsman’s courtesy, I accepted. He settled the matter and soon presented me to my traveling companion, a blithe and uninhibited fashionmonger, who burst into laughter the moment she saw me. At midnight the horses came and we departed.
There I was in a post-chaise, alone with a woman in the middle of the night. I, who had never looked at a woman without blushing—how was I to stoop from the heights of my dreams to this dreadful reality? I did not know where I was; I stuck myself in a corner of the carriage for fear of touching Madame Rose’s dress. When she spoke to me, I babbled, then lost the power of speech entirely. She had to pay the postilion and see to everything else as well, for I was capable of nothing. At daybreak, she looked with renewed amazement at this simpleton with whom she must have regretted entangling herself.
As the look of the countryside began to change and I no longer recognized the clothing and the accent of Brittany, I fell into a deep despondency, which only increased Madame Rose’s contempt for me. I took note of the feelings that I inspired in her, and this first contact with the judgments of the wider world left me with an impression that time has not completely effaced. I was born savage, but not ashamed; I had the modesty of my years, but not the embarrassment. When I surmised that I was made ridiculous by my good side, my savagery turned into an insurmountable timidity. I would not say another word. I felt that I had something to conceal, and that this something was a virtue: I resolved to sink within myself so that I might wear my innocence in peace.
We were now approaching Paris. On the descent from Saint-Cyr, I was struck by the width of the roads and the symmetry of the fields. Soon we reached Versailles: the orangery and the marble staircases enthralled me. The success of the American war had brought back triumphs to Louis XIV’s palace; the Queen reigned there in all the splendor of her youth and beauty; the throne, so near its downfall, never seemed to have been more solid. And I, an obscure traveler, I was destined to outlive all this pomp: I would remain to see the woods of Trianon as deserted as the woods that I had just abandoned.
At last, we entered Paris. I saw a mocking expression on every face: like Molière’s Gentleman of Périgord, I believed that everyone was looking at me only to jeer at me. Madame Rose told the postilion to take me to the Hôtel de l’Europe in the rue du Mail and wasted no time disburdening herself of her imbecile. I had hardly stepped down from the carriage before she said to the porter, “Give this gentleman a room.”
She nodded at me.
“Your servant,” she said, making a brief curtsy.
I never saw Madame Rose again in my life.
*Now Emperor and Empress of Russia. (Paris, 1832)