Berlin--Potsdam--Frederic the Great--My brother--My cousin Moreau--My sister, the Comtesse de Farcy--Julie a worldly woman--Dinner--Pommereul--Madame de Chastenay--Cambrai--The Navarre Regiment--La Martinière--Death of my father--My regrets--Would my father have appreciated me?--I return to Brittany--I stay with my eldest sister--My brother sends for me to Paris--First inspiration of the muse--My lonely life in Paris--I am presented at Versailles--I hunt with the King--Adventure with my mare _Heureuse_ It is a far cry from Combourg to Berlin, from a young dreamer to an old ambassador. In the foregoing pages I find these words: "In how many places have I already commenced to write these Memoirs, and in what place shall I finish them?" Nearly four years have passed between the date at which I wrote down the facts I have just related and that at which I resume these Memoirs. A thousand things have happened; a second man has shown himself in me, the politician: I care very little for him. I have defended the liberties of France, which alone can secure the duration of the lawful Throne. With the aid of the _Conservateur_[177], I have set M. de Villèle in power; I have seen the Duc de Berry die, and done honor to his memory[178]. In order to reconcile everybody, I have gone away; I have accepted the Berlin Embassy[179]. Yesterday I was at Potsdam, an ornate barrack, now void of soldiers: I studied the mock Julian in his mock Athens. At Sans-Souci, I was shown the table on which a great German monarch turned the maxims of the Encyclopædists into little French verses; the room occupied by Voltaire, decorated with carved monkeys and parrots; the mill which he who laid provinces waste made light of respecting; the tomb of the horse César and of the greyhounds Diane, Amourette, Biche, Superbe, and Pax. The royal infidel took pleasure in profaning even the religion of the tomb by raising mausoleums to his dogs; he had marked out a burying-place near them for himself, less from contempt of mankind than an ostentation of annihilation.