I left Paris on çoisRenéthe 1st of January 1821: the Seine was frozen, and for the first time I was racing along the roads with the comforts of money. I was gradually recovering from my contempt for riches; I was beginning to feel that it was not unpleasant to roll in a good carriage, to be well served, not to have to trouble about anything, and to be preceded by an enormous Warsaw courier, who was always famished and who, in default of the Tsars, would have devoured Poland unaided. But I soon got used to my good fortune; I had the presentiment that it would not last long and that I should soon be made to go on foot again, as was right and proper. Before I reached my destination, all that remained to me of the journey was my primitive taste for travel itself, the taste for independence, the satisfaction of having broken the bonds of society.
You shall see, when I am returning from Prague in 1833, what I say of my old memories of the Rhine: I was obliged, because of the ice, to ascend its banks and to cross it above Mayence. I troubled myself little with "Moguntia," its archbishop, its three or four sieges, and the invention of printing, through which however I reigned. Frankfort, the city of the Jews, delayed me only for one of their transactions: to change some money.
The road was sad: the highway was snowy and hoar-frost covered the branches of the pine-trees. I caught sight of Jena in the distance, with the worms of its double battle[63]. I passed through Erfurt and Weimar: at Erfurt, the Emperor was wanting; at Weimar dwelt Goethe[64], whom I had admired so much, and whom I admire much less. The singer of matter lived, and his old dust still adhered around his genius. I might have seen Goethe and did not see him; he leaves a gap in the procession of the celebrated persons who have defiled before my eyes.
Luther's[65] tomb at Wittenberg did not tempt me: Protestantism in religion is only an illogical heresy, in politics only an abortive revolution. After eating, while crossing the Elbe, a little black loaf kneaded in tobacco-smoke, I should have wanted to drink out of Luther's big glass, which is preserved as a relic. From there, passing through Potsdam and crossing the Spree, a river of ink along which crawl barges guarded by a white dog, I arrived in Berlin. There lived, as I have said, "the mock Julian in his mock Athens." I sought in vain the sun of Mount Hymettus. I wrote in Berlin the fourth book of these Memoirs. You have found in it the description of that city, my trip to Potsdam, my memories of the Great Frederic, of his horse, of his greyhounds and of Voltaire.