IN SEARCH OF OLD FRITZ 251means of orientation until the central axis of the park was opened up
after the Seven Years War. Without a guide or map, the foreigners
needed some time to discover that the most interesting establish-
ments were arrayed along a ridge which followed the northern side of
the park.
The palace of Sans Souci proper (1745-7) was readily accessible
to strangers when the king was not in residence. For the pedestrian it
was normally reached by the steps which led to the right up the
hillside, which had been reworked into six broad terraces. These were
retained by walls ten feet high, which were at first furnished with
glazed niches for exotic fruit trees, and then in 1773 entirely encased
in continuous greenhouses 'so that the palace, seen from below,
seems to float in an amphitheatre of glass. It is one of the most
extraordinary sights you can conceive' (Toulongeon (1786), 1881,
126). At the top the visitor encountered what was essentially a
single-storey pavilion, set back a little way from the crest.
Knobelsdorff, the nominal architect, would have preferred some-
thing higher, standing at the veiy edge so as to make a greater
impression, but Frederick was intent on pleasing nobody but himself.
Generals and other grand folk reached the pavilion from the rear,
driving up a ramp through a double colonnade to the modest en-
trance, which lay on the northern side. A coolly decorated vestibule
led on to the central hall, an oval chamber which was floored and
walled with marbles of the most delicate vein and hue. Corinthian
columns of Carrara marble reached up to the central cupola, and the
excellence of the proportions and the subtlety of the treatment
conspired to make this space seem much bigger than it really was. The
king who commissioned and supervised this work was a man of
exquisite taste.
In warm weather Frederick liked to dine in the central hall, and
favoured guests needed to take only a few steps to join him from their
rooms in the western wing. The most famous of these chambers, the
so-called 'Voltaire Room', owed its cheerful decor to the work that
was carried out, almost as a fumigation, after that sage's disastrous
visit of 1751-3.
Frederick himself lived and worked in the eastern wing. Much of
the business of army and state was conducted from a small drawing
room, which represented the first of the range of apartments leading
from the central hall. A dirty old sofa contrasted with the rococo
elegance of the decoration, and an open fireplace was standing where
the stranger might have expected one of those great earthenware
stoves of Central Europe. Frederick loved the liveliness of an open
fire.
The adjacent concert room (Plate 22) was given over entirely to