The chief cause of this conduct, however, was a task which the artist had undertaken on his own account.  Everybody knew that the Emperor Francis cherished a strong liking for jewels, and especially for colored stones.  Lautensak had expended a considerable sum, and, as it afterwards turned out, larger than his means, on such gems, out of which he had begun to shape a nosegay, in which every stone was to be tastefully disposed, according to its shape and color, and the whole form a work of art worthy to stand in the treasure-vaults of an emperor.  He had, in his desultory way, labored at it for many years, and now hastened—­because after the hoped-for peace the arrival of the emperor, for the coronation of his son, was expected in Frankfort—­to complete it and finally to put it together.  My desire to become acquainted with such things he used very dexterously to divert my attention by sending me forth as his dun, and to turn me away from my intention.  He strove to impart a knowledge of these stones to me, and made me attentive to their properties and value; so that in the end I knew his whole bouquet by heart, and quite as well as he could have demonstrated its virtues to a customer.  It is even now present to my mind; and I have since seen more costly, but not more graceful, specimens of show and magnificence in this sort.  He possessed, moreover, a pretty collection of engravings, and other works of art, with which he liked to amuse himself; and I passed many hours with him, not without profit.  Finally, when the Congress of Hubertsburg was finally fixed, he did for my sake more than was due; and the dove and flowers actually reached my mother’s hands on the festival in celebration of the peace.

I then received also many similar commissions to urge on painters with respect to pictures which had been ordered.  My father had confirmed himself in the notion—­and few men were free from it—­that a picture painted on wood was greatly to be preferred to one that was merely put on canvas.  It was therefore his great care to possess good oak boards, of every shape; because he well knew that just on this important point the more careless artists trusted to the joiners.  The oldest planks were hunted up, the joiners were obliged to go accurately to work with gluing, painting, and arranging; and they were then kept for years in an upper room, where they could be sufficiently dried.  A precious board of this kind was intrusted to the painter Junker, who was to represent on it an ornamental flower-pot, with the most important flowers drawn after nature in his artistic and elegant manner.  It was just about the spring-time; and I did not fail to take him several times a week the most beautiful flowers that fell in my way, which he immediately put in, and by degrees composed the whole out of these elements with the utmost care and fidelity.  On one occasion I had caught a mouse, which I took to him, and which he desired to copy as a very pretty animal; nay, really represented it, as accurately as possible, gnawing an ear of corn at the foot of the flower-pot.  Many such inoffensive natural objects, such as butterflies and chafers, were brought in and represented; so that finally, as far as imitation and execution were concerned, a highly valuable picture was put together.