with its magnificence, its great extent, and its curious shell
grotto,--we leave the simple charms of Charlottenhof and its
neighborhood for another visit, and hasten to stand beside the coffin
of Frederick the Great beneath the pulpit of the Potsdam Garrison
Church.

Nearer to the station is the Old Schloss of Potsdam. An old lime-tree
opposite the entrance is shown as the place where the petitioners for
the favor of Frederick the Great used to station themselves, in order
to attract his Majesty's attention from the window of his bedroom, or
as he went in and out of the palace. Here we were almost bewildered by
the number and extent of the rooms, and the multitude of historical
associations connected with them. Here lived Frederick William I.,
father of Frederick the Great, in Carlyle's word-painting inferior to
no other figure in that great composition. Here are the rolling chairs
and the inclined planes along which that monarch was wheeled in the
course of his long and painful illness; in his study are the pictures
painted by him _in tormentis_, and looking forth from the south
windows we see the parade-ground where he used to drill his giant
soldiers. There stands a statue of this strange, eccentric monarch,
who, notwithstanding all that was bad, had so much in him that was
good and true. It was from this palace that his lifeless remains were
carried forth to rest in the Garrison Church, not far away.

As at Sans Souci, remembrance of Frederick the Great crowds upon us in
the Old Schloss also. Here is his round-corner room, with walls of
famous thickness, and a dumb-waiter lifting up through the floor the
table and all its viands, that here he might dine alone with his
intimates and no tell-tale sounds escape. Here is the heavy
solid-silver balustrade which separates his library from his
sleeping-room. In this place, not long before our visit, Prince and
Princess Wilhelm, whose winter residence was on an upper floor of this
palace, had brought their youngest son for baptism. All the later
sovereigns have occupied, at one time or another, apartments in this
interesting old palace, and here many souvenirs of the present as well
as former royal families are shown.

Charlottenhof, in the southern part of the grounds of Sans Souci, is
an unpretending villa, beautiful in its simplicity, and with all its
charms enhanced by its having been granted by the King as a summer
residence to Alexander von Humboldt while working