I arrived at Weimar, where I resumed my courage, on seeing, through the difficulties of the language, the immense intellectual riches which existed out of France.  I learned to read German; I listened attentively to Goethe and Wieland, who, fortunately for me, spoke French extremely well.  I comprehended the mind and genius of Schiller, in spite of the difficulty he felt in expressing himself in a foreign language.  The society of the duke and duchess of Weimar pleased me exceedingly, and I passed three months there, during which the study of German literature gave all the occupation to my mind which it requires to prevent me from being devoured by my own feelings.

CHAPTER 13.

Berlin.—­Prince Louis-Ferdinand.

I left Weimar for Berlin, and there I saw that charming queen, since destined to so many misfortunes.  The king received me with great kindness, and I may say that during the six weeks I remained in that city, I never heard an individual who did not speak in praise of the justice of his government.  This, however does not prevent me from thinking it always desirable for a country to possess constitutional forms, to guarantee to it, by the permanent co-operation of the nation, the advantages it derives from the virtues of a good king.  Prussia, under the reign of its present monarch, no doubt possessed the greater part of these advantages; but the public spirit which misfortune has developed in it did not then exist; the military regime had prevented public opinion from acquiring strength, and the absence of a constitution, in which every individual could make himself known by his merit, had left the state unprovided with men of talent, capable of defending it.  The favor of a king, being necessarily arbitrary, cannot be sufficient to excite emulation; circumstances which are peculiar to the interior of courts, may keep a man of great merit from the helm of affairs, or place there a very ordinary person.  Routine, likewise, is singularly powerful in countries where the regal power has no one to contradict it; even the justice of a king leads him to place barriers around him, by keeping every one in his place; and it was almost without example in Prussia, to find a man deprived of his civil or military employments on account of incapacity.  What an advantage therefore ought not the French army to have, composed almost entirely of men born of the revolution, like the soldiers of Cadmus from the teeth of the dragon!  What an advantage it had over those old commanders of the Prussian fortified places and armies, to whom every thing that was new was entirely unknown!  A conscientious monarch who has not the happiness, and I use the word designedly, the happiness to have a parliament as in England, makes a habit of every thing, in order to avoid making too much use of his own will:  and in the present times we must abandon ancient usages, and look for strength of character and understanding, wherever they can be found.  Be that as it may, Berlin was one of the happiest and most enlightened cities in the world.