When Frederick entered Sans-Souci he laid aside all prejudices and all considerations of rank.  He wished to forget that he was king, and desired his friends also to forget it, and to show him only that consideration which is due to the man of genius and of letters.  Some of his friends had abused this privilege, and Frederick had been forced to humiliate them.  There were others who never forgot at Sans-Souci the respect and reverence due to the royal house.  Amongst these was his ever-devoted, ever-uniform friend, the Marquis d’Argens.  He loved him, not because he was king, hut because he believed him to be the greatest, best, most exalted of men.  In the midst of his brilliant court circle and all his earthly pomp, D’Argens did not forget that Frederick was a man of letters, and his dear friend; even so, while enjoying the hospitalities of Sans-Souci, he remembered always that the genial scholar and gentleman was a great and powerful king.

Frederick had the greatest confidence in D’Argens, and granted him more privileges than any other of his friends.  Frederick invited many friends to visit him during the day, but the marquis was the only guest whose bedchamber was arranged for him at Sans-Souci.

Four years have elapsed since D’Argens consecrated Weinberg—­since the day in which we closed our last chapter.  We take advantage of the liberty allowed to authors, and pass over these four years and recommence our story in 1750, the year which historians are accustomed to consider the most glorious and happy in the life of Frederick the Second.  We all know, alas! that earthly happiness resembles the purple rose, which, even while rejoicing the heart with her beauty and fragrance, wounds us with her thorns.  We know that the sunshine makes the flowers bloom in the gardens, on the breezy mountains, and also on the graves; when we pluck and wear these roses, who can decide if we are influenced by joy in the present or sad remembrances of the past?

Frederick the Great appeared to be gay and happy, but these four years had not passed away without leaving a mark upon his brow and a shadow on his heart; his youthful smile had vanished, and the expression of his lip was stern and resolved.  He was now thirty-eight years of age, and was still a handsome man, but the sunshine of life had left him; his eyes could flash and threaten like Jove’s, but the soft and loving glance was quenched.  Like Polycrates, King Frederick, in order to propitiate fate, had sacrificed his idol.  He had thus lost his rarest jewel, had become poor in love.  Perhaps his crown rested more firmly upon his head, but his heart had received an almost mortal wound; it had healed, but he was hardened!

Frederick thought not of the past four years, and their griefs and losses, as he stood now upon the terrace of Sans-Souci, illuminated by the evening sun, and gazed with ravished eyes upon the panorama spread out before him.