Following a rule of Frederic II., the Princes and Princesses of the Blood in Berlin do not see the diplomatic body; but, thanks to the carnival, to the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland with the Princess Frederica of Prussia, sister to the late Queen[111], thanks also to a certain relaxation of etiquette which they permitted themselves, it was said, because of my person, I had occasion to be oftener with the Royal Family than my colleagues. As from time to time I visited the Great Palace, I there met the Princess William[112]: she liked taking me over the apartments. I never saw a sadder expression than hers: in the uninhabited rooms at the back of the palace, on the Spree, she showed me a chamber haunted on certain days by a white lady, and, pressing herself against me with a certain terror, she looked like that white lady herself. On the other hand, the Duchess of Cumberland told me that she and her sister the Queen of Prussia, when both still very young, had heard their mother[113], who had recently died, talk to them from under her closed curtains. [Sidenote: Frederic William III.] The King, into whose presence I came as I finished my sight-seeing, took me to his oratories: he called my attention to the crucifixes and pictures, and ascribed the honour of those innovations to me, because, said he, having read in the _Génie du christianisme_ that the Protestants had stripped their cult too bare, he had thought my remark just: he had not yet reached the excess of his Lutheran fanaticism. In the evening, at the Opera, I had a box next to the Royal Box, situated facing the stage. I talked with the Princesses; the King went out between the acts; I met him in the corridor: he would look round to see that no one was near us and that we could not be overheard; then he would confess to me, in a whisper, his detestation of Rossini[114] and his love of Gluck[115]. He branched out into lamentations on the decadence of art, and, above all, on those gargling notes destructive of dramatic singing: he confided to me that he dared say this only to me, because of the people who surrounded him. If he saw any one coming, he hurried back into his box. I saw a performance of Schiller's[116] Joan of Arc; the Cathedral of Rheims was perfectly copied. The King, who was seriously religious, with difficulty endured the representation of Catholic worship on the stage. Signor Spontini[117], composer of the _Vestal_, was manager of the Opera. Madame Spontini, daughter of M. Érard[118], was pleasant, but she seemed to atone for the volubility of the language of women by her own slowness in speaking: any word divided into syllables died away on her lips; if she had tried to say to you, "I love you," a Frenchman's love would have had time to fly between the commencement and the end of those three words. She was unable to finish my name, and she did not come to the end without a certain grace.