It is not at the Neues Palais that the spirit
of Frederick the Great still lingers. It is to the east, upon the little hillside where Knobels- dorff erected from the King's own designs the lovely little pavilion of Sans Souci. There, with his flute still lying upon the music stand, is the room in which he died ; the clock has stopped at 2.20 a.m.. which was the very moment at which, on August 17th, 1786, he breathed his last. Beside it is the marble dining-room, recorded in Menzel's popular painting, in which so many foreign visitors were received ; and beyond is the bed-room which Voltaire occupied, with its rich rococo decorations of monkeys and peacocks. Opening through high windows upon the orange tubs of the small terrace, is the study where the great King worked. It is a small room, smelling of cedar wood and leather, decorated only with book- shelves, a bust of Homer, and some faded manuscripts in frames. Snuffy, goggle-eyed and irritable, Frederick the Great would limp up and down his private terrace, surrounded by his little greyhounds. quarrelling in execrable German with his valet Fredersdorf, pinching with vicious malice the cheeks of the pages who handed him despatches. The peaches and the nectarines upon the retaining walls of the seven terraces which dropped down to the level of the park ripened slowly in the Prussian sun. Up and down he would pace in fury : he would be angrier today.
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