loss and spent some of his time
there, it was at Potsdam that, when not campaigning, he may be said to
have lived and died. To this day, for the foreigner, his personality
still pervades the place, and that of the Emperor sinks,
comparatively, into the background. The tourist who has pored over his
Baedeker will learn that Potsdam has 53,000 inhabitants and is
"charmingly situated"--it depends on your temperament what the charm
is, and to guide-book framers all tourists have the same
temperament--on an island in the Havel "which here expands into a
series of lakes bounded by wooded hills." He will learn that the old
town-palace, which few visitors give a thought to, was built by the
Great Elector, that Frederick the Great lived here in "richly
decorated apartments with sumptuous furniture and noteworthy pictures
by Pater, Lancret, and Pesne"; that it contains a cabinet in which the
dining-table could be let up and down by means of a trap-door, and
"where the King occasionally dined with friends without risk of being
overheard by his attendants"; that the present Emperor, then Prince
William, lived here with his young wife when he was still only a
lieutenant. He will drive to the New Palace--now old, for it was built
by Frederick the Great in 1769, during the Seven Years' War, at a cost
of nearly half a million sterling--and gaze with interest at the
summer residence of the Emperor. If he is an American he may think of
his multi-millionaire fellow-citizen, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who, when
driving up to call on his erstwhile imperial schoolfellow and friend,
was nearly shot at by a sentry for whom the name Vanderbilt was no
"Open Sesame." He will see before him a main building, seven hundred
feet in length, three stories high, with the central portion
surmounted by a dome, its chief facade looking towards a park. The
whole, of course--for Baedeker is talking--forms an "imposing pile,"
with "mediocre sculptures, but the effect of the weathered sandstone
figures against the red brick is very pleasing." Here the Emperor's
father, Frederick III, was born, lived as Crown Prince, reigned for
ninety-nine days, and died. Here, too, are more "apartments of
Frederick the Great," with pictures by Rubens, including an "Adoration
of the Magi," a good example of Watteau and a portrait of Voltaire
drawn by Frederick's own hand. In the north wing are situated the
present Emperor's suite of chambers, where distinguished men of all
countrie