'Tis done! And that we need waste no time in choice--let him discuss--me.

ALL (_startled_).

Your Majesty?

KING.

It's very warm here. [_Opens his coat_.] Let's make ourselves comfortable, Eversmann. Well, Prince--begin. Give us a speech about me.

HOTHAM.

Please--

KING.

No hesitation--let it be as if I had just died--

HOTHAM.

Your Majesty--

KING.

Quiet! Silence all. The Prince of Baireuth will give us a speech about me. [_Aside_.] _In vino veritas_. I am curious to know whether such a French windbag is composed entirely of falsehoods.

HOTHAM (_aside_).

This is the decisive moment.

PRINCE (_steps forward, he staggers slightly then controls himself_).

Merry company!

KING.

Merry? I'm dead.

PRINCE.

No matter, they're merry just the same.

KING.

Gad! is that true?

PRINCE.

Merry company--cheerful mourners--permit me to interrupt your enjoyment by a few painful remarks on the qualities of the deceased.

KING.

Painful remarks? That's a good beginning.

PRINCE.

Friedrich Wilhelm I., King of Prussia, was a great man, in whose character were united the strangest contradictions.

KING.

Contradictions!

PRINCE.

As with all those who owe their education to their own efforts, so his mind, n.o.ble in itself, fell under the influence of disturbing emotions, the saddest of which was distrust.

KING.

These are nice things I hear.

PRINCE.

He brought his country to a high degree of prosperity, he simplified administration, he improved judicial procedure. But the enjoyment of all these blessings was spoiled for him by his own fault.

KING.

Well--well--by his own fault!

SECKENDORF (_aside_).

The young man must indeed have been drinking heavily.

PRINCE.

His vivacity of spirit kept him in a continual unrest which was as painful to others as to himself. When fatigued he could not conceal his desire for pleasant recreation, but his tastes were sufficiently simple to let him prefer satisfying this desire in the bosom of his own family.

EVERSMANN.

There'll be a misfortune, surely!

PRINCE.

But even here, where he might have reposed on a couch of roses, this unfortunate sovereign made for himself a bed of thorns. His son's unhappy history is so well known that I can pa.s.s over it in silence....

KING.

In silence--?

PRINCE.