ourney rather complex to arrange. He has several businesses ahead in those parts; and, as usual, will group them with good judgment, and thrift of time. Not inspections merely, but amusements, mee
ack, with his own load of impediments, Voltaire with his Madame for instance, are a difficult element in such
r-web Palace for correcting Proof-sheets; doing one's own private studies, which we never quite neglect. Fain would Friedrich see him, fain he Friedrich; but there is a divine Emilie, there is a Maupertuis, there are-In short, never were such difficulties, in the cooking of an egg with water boiling; and much vain correspondence has already been on that subject, as on others equally extinct. Correspondence which is not pleasant reading at this time; the rather as no reader can, without endless searching, even understand it. Correspondence left to us, not in the cosmic, eluci
DE VOLTAIRE (at the H
l, and perhaps farther. Promise that you will come and join me; for I could not live happy, nor die tranquil, without having embraced you! Thousand compliments to the Marquise," divine E
reader. "To speak to you frankly concerning her journey, it is Voltaire, it is you, it is my Friend that
been rumors, perhaps private wishes; but-... "Adieu, dear friend; sublime spirit, first-born of thinking bei
her. If it must be (FAUT) that Emilie accompany Apollo, I consent; but if I could see you alone, that is what I would prefer. I should be too much dazzled; I could not stand so m
INT, then, as you wish [your own edition of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, to go along with his, and trip the feet from it]. FAITES ROULER LA PRESSE; erase, change, correct; do as you see best; your judgment about it shall be mine."-"In eight days I leave for [where thinks the reader? "DANTZIG" deliberately print all the Editors, careful Preuss among them; overturning the t
s nothing like so waste and dreary as it looks in the chaotic or sacked-city condition. Friedrich writes with brevity, oftenest on practicalities (the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, the coming Interview, and the like), evidently no time to spare; writes always with considerable sincerity; with friendliness, much admiration, and an ingenuou
he scoundrel of a Van Duren; well worth while, Sire,-"IT is a monument for the l
; and even this has a kind of sincerity. Safer, however, to do i
than on the Emperor Julian's CAESAR, or on the MAXIMS of Marcus Aurelius,"-I do indeed, having
a Crowned Head, the cynosure of mankind:--Perhaps even you, my best friend, did not quite know me, and what merits I had! Plumes himself a little; but studies to be modest withal; has not much of the peacock, and of the turkey has nothing, to his old friends. All which is very naive and transparent; nat
ks!-Enough, on Monday morning, 15th August, 1740, [Rodenbeck, p. 15, slightly in error: see Dickens's Interview, supra, p. 187.] Friedrich and Suite leave Potsdam; early enough; go, by Leipzig, by the route already known to readers, through Coburg and the Voigtland regions; Wilhelmina has got warning, sits eagerly expecting her Brother in the Hermitage at Baireuth, gladdest of shrill sisters; and full of anxieties how her Brother would now be. The travelling party consisted, besides the King, of seven persons: Prince August Wilhelm, King's next Brother, Heir-apparent if there come no children, now a brisk youth of eighteen; Leopold Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, Old Dessauer's eldest, what we may call the "Young Dessauer;" Colonel von Borck, whom we shall hear of again; Colonel von Stille, already heard of (grave men of fifty, these two); milk-bea
espectable Books on the Opera and other topics are now all forgotten, and crave not to be mentioned. To me he is not supremely beautiful, though much the gentleman in manners as in ruffles, and ingeniously logical:-rather yellow to me, in mind as in skin, and with a taint of obsolete Venetian Macassar. But to Friedrich he is thrice-dear; who loves the Sharp faceted cut of the man, and does not object to his yellow or Extinct-Macassar qualities of mind. Thanks to that wandering Baltimore fo
it of business before long. As to Munchow, the JEUNE MORVEUX of an Adjutant, he, though his manners are well enough, and he wears military plumes in his hat, is still an unfledged young creature, "bill still yellow," so to speak;-and marks himself chiefly by a visible hankering after that troublesome creature Marwitz, who is always coquetting. Friedrich's conversation, especially to me Wilhelmina, seems "GUINDE, set on stilts," likewise there are frequent cuts of banter in him
Bamberg, whom a Friend of Busching's, touring there about that same time, saw dining in a very extraordinary manner, with medieval trumpeters, "with waiters in spurs and buff-belts;" [Busching's Beitrage;-Schlosser (History of the Eighteenth Century) also quotes the scene.] if it is not, I have not the slightest shadow of acquaintance with him,-there have been so many Bishops of Bamberg with whom one wishes to have none! On the third day Friedrich and his company went
THE LEFT, AND HAS A VIEW
hward,-up the Rhine-Valley; direct towards Strasburg, for a sight of France in that quarter! So has Friedrich decided,-not quite suddenly, on new Letters here, or new computations about Cleve; b
rs, or whether the others were there at all, and not shoved on, direct towards Wesel, out of the way as is likelier,-can remain uncertain to readers and me. From Frankfurt, then, on Monday morning, 22d August, 1740, as I compute, through old known Philipsburg Camp
gy Piece, partly rhyme, "in the manner of Bachaumont and La Chapelle;" written at the gallop, a few days hence, and despatched to Voltaire:-"You," dear Voltaire, "wish to know what I have been about, since leaving Berlin; annexed you will find a description of it," writes Friedrich. [OEuvres, xxii. 25 (Wesel, 2d Septemher, 1740).] Out of Voltaire's and other people's waste-baskets, it has at length been fished up, patch by patch, and pasted together by victorious modern Editors; and here it is again entire. The other Narrative, which got int
, 2d September, 1740), CHIEFLY IN DOGG
e Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse), ii. 24-26; finally, in Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, xi
I love no less than esteem. On the road [thither or thence; or likeliest, THERE], Algarotti and I consulted the map, to settle our route for returning by Wesel. Frankfurt-on-Mayn comes always as a principal stage;-Strasburg was no great roundabout: we chose that
hich disposes
regulated
k-sided
endants fro
in the dress
of impertin
king fast a hundre
ith gravity at
against t
in uproar wit
nts streaming
th the Day of Judgmen
te of our
days are,
er in thes
l, qui de t
feremment
oursiers
ites issus d
ns en postil
race imp
se en cent l
avement, d'une
contre l
s par le bru
d'eau repandu
ur menacaient
notre im
s jours en
is perdus dans
ed on the journey, we should have taken patience; but, a
eedy l
pressed
ore than fr
inferna
instead
om us ou
n good cheer] from
hotes in
nous voya
on plus q
chaumiere
empois
laient
erent des tem
undergo a variety of accidents; and certainly our equipage must have had a singu
ok us f
kpockets wel
r old acq
he people
us in t
impertinen
talian [Alga
f I took
gay younger Brother,
and fr
pparent of Dessau] si
fine Journe
s heart, most chris
prenaient p
ur des filo
r gens de c
peuple s'
yeux nou
ieux, remplis
f Italie
je prenai
Comte f
Comte se
u vogage
son coeur chreti
ng; at last we arrived in that Stronghold, where [
garrison,
red so p
irst blurt
annon of t
son, troup
t si pit
premiere
francais
the breaches are still lying unrepaired [Reich being a slow corpus in regard to such thin
to him; o
r had t
I believe
o our side o
Pluto King
the Germ
llant and c
etty Frenchmen,-A jo
es, not igno
orts which, legible
duces to you
is-je, des
mes jamai
ait, je cro
susciter
uton le ro
'empire g
galant e
rs vos jol
bondissan
rouge et
se-ports qu'
it ici not
us in the dilemma of either manufacturing passports ourselves or not entering Strasburg, we took the former branch of the
st, somewhat taken aback, bethought him of his watch-seal with the Royal Arms on it; and soon manufactured the necessary Passport, signeted in due form;-which, however, gave a suspicion to the Innkeeper as to
tom-house corsair, with his inspector
oundrels
e reading o
ther oglin
was always
t, Jove to t
whom he
hich Caesa
happy unde
divinity than
ing Gold in
ithin the walls
i. 24-26;-the remainder, long unknown, had to be fished up,
rats nous
e passe-por
lorgnaient
ujours fut d
el Jupin
, qu'il
qui Cesar
ureux sous
ieu que Mars
s les murs d
em! Doggerel out of which no clear story, such story as there is, can be had; though, except the exaggeration and contortion, there is nothing of fiction in it. We fly to the Newspaper, happily at
he will not do a foreign Gentleman [seemingly of some distinction, signifies Boniface] the honor to sup with him at the Raven?"-"No, by Jupiter!" answer the most, in their various dialects: "who is he that we should sup with him?" Three, struck by the singularity of the thing, undertake; and with these we must be content. Friedrich-or call him M. le
turned on military matters, and was enlivened with the due sallies. This foreign Count speaks French wonderfully; a brilliant man, whom the others rather fear: perhaps something more than a Count? The Officers, loath to go, remembered tha
" This is Wednesday, the 24th of August, 1740; Field-Marshal Broglio is Commandant in Strasburg, and these obliging Officers are "of the regiment Piedmont,"-their names on the King's tablets I never heard mentioned by anybody (or never till the King's Doggerel was fished up again). Field-Marshal Broglio my readers have transiently seen, afar off;
an Cavaliers' they were called; who, I now find, must have been the Prince of Prussia and Algarotti. The Field-Marshal,"-a rather high-stalking white-headed old military gentleman, bordering on seventy, of Piedmontese air and breed, apt to be sudden and make flounderings, but t
o lottery-tickets fifteen pence each, begging the foreign Gentleman for the love of Heaven to buy them of her; which he did, tearing them up at once, and giving the poor creature four ducats," equivalent to two guineas, or say in effect even five pounds of th
rtly, and partly demand for privacy, intimated to the Marshal surprising news: That the Stranger in The Raven was the King of Prussia in person; he, the soldier, at present of the Regiment Luxemburg, had in other days, before he deserted,
le sends word to Broglio; Broglio despatches straightway an Officer and fine carriage: "Will the foreign Gentleman do me the honor?" The foreign Gentleman, still struggling for incognito, declines the uppermost seat of honor in the carriage; the two Officers, Loigle and this new one, insist on t
own Cabinet; sat there, an hour, talking to the Marechal [little admiring the Marechal's talk, as we shall find], still insisting on the incognito,"-to which Broglio, put out in his high paces by this sudden thing, and apt to flounder, as I have heard, was not polite enough to conform altogether. "What shall I
sch and the others within hearing; shot off like lightning; and was seen in Strasburg no more. Algarotti, who was in the box with Broglio, heard the news in the house; regretful rumor among the Officers, 'He is gone!' In about a quarter of an hour Algarotti too s
romantic at that time. Shall we now apply to the Royal Doggerel again, where we left off, and see the o
to exercise my curiosity; and what desire I h
at length
have sung
spised by t
ationality fills
ch, whom o
o be destitu
se History consis
ing kind of Love,
eople, headlon
gs beyond
od fortune, cra
ying extent
acancy of its
ing it is a
ne takes possess
ty, indiscre
he weathercock
esars those of the Lo
st, of Rome, tak
vile French y
hey do not t
enfin ce
avez chant
prise' de
raison remplit
is, que no
us prives
t l'amour pourrait
volage, et non
ou, brusque
ier insu
ortune, en son
rdage imp
creux d'un es
ant de la
seule en
discret,
uette il revir
esars ceux des Lo
is en tout sens
ancais vous n'et
, ils ne pe
s only of those in Strasburg I speak. To scrape acquaintance, I had t
them came
e content
with rus
heir amorou
a hor
s'en vinre
lus contents
d'une voi
urs amoureu
sur une
from the tablets, third wanting] had just come f
iendship I saw
d have taken us f
f good-night blew
sappeared wit
he wine, the tabl
amitie je vis c
eut pris pour d
es adieux en det
rut, ssns caus
vin, et la tab
of France, Chevalier of the Orders of the King, &c. &c.,-Marechal Du
al always
ret, young Lo
ut breech
but this sadder one, too, was current; and "Broglio's breeches," or the vain aspiration
to hide aw
mans, unpoli
l toujour
ret le j
culottes
our dero
ns, guerri
nviting people to supper that are perfect strangers. He took the poor Count for a sharper; and prudently adv
orn for
hair, his
reverend
are often
y the bind
k and it
r a page
recognize
ne pour l
blancs, sa
un sage
est souven
e par l
age et de
page de
nnaitre s
ing except in his gray hair and decrepit appearance. His fir
with his ow
f his name an
ty as good
o me all t
name is
out his im
valor, h
nce;-He forgot tha
September, 1734," if you
t praise h
a grandeu
n nom et s
uvoir a r
a tous le
om est e
son pouvoi
eur, de c
aires a
it, passe
ouait pas
eeing the Marechal, I
chmen, burnin
four sou
s and of Heroes t
d by the hand
erds whom
thither by the soun
ais brulant
uatre sous
s heros font fle
nnes des mains
malheureux
seul bruit
ter from our troops got eye on m
gallows-bird
lot of all e
f our fi
secret cam
reux pend
rt de toute
motre pot
ecret se
ruscations from a higher quarter;-and you can forget, if need be, the "Literature" of this young Majesty, as you would a staccato on the flute by him! In after months, on new occasion rising, "th
y by exaggeration and turning topsy-turvy; a rather barren species of wit. Of humor, in the fine poetic sense, no vestige. But there is surprising veracity,-truthfulness unimpeachable, if you will read well. What promptitude, too;-what funds for conversation, when needed! This scraggy Piece, which is better th
"but known to La Fontaine some time before." Good!-Bachaumont, practically an important and distinguished person, not literary by trade, or indeed otherwise than by ennui, was he that had given (some fifteen years before) the Nickname FRONDE (Bickering of Schoolboys) to the wretched Historical Object which is still so designated in French
ss, in a day or two; and had done, as we forever h
DE MAUPERTUIS; NOT
s, on the road hither; saw Voltaire and even Madame,-which latter was rather a ticklish operation, owing to grudges and tiffs of quarrel that had risen, but it proved successful under the delicate guidance of Voltaire. Voltaire is up to oiling the wheels: "There you are, Monsieur, like the [don't name What, though profane Voltaire does, writing to Maupertuis a month ago]-Three Kings running after you!" A new Pensi
dious ex-military man,-was Captain of Dragoons once, but too fond of study,-who is conscious to himself, or who would fain be conscious, that he is, in all points, mathematical, moral and other, the man. A difficult man to live with in society. Comes really near the limit of what we call genius, of originality, poetic greatness in thinking;-but never once can get fairly over said limit, though always struggling dreadfully to do so. Think of it! A fatal kind of man; especially if you have made a lion of him at any time. Of his envies, deep-hidd
ort that this heedless Konig has produced an explosion in Madame's feelings, such as little beseemed him. On the road to Paris, namely, as we drove hitherward to the Honsbruck Lawsuit by way of Paris, in Autumn last, there had fallen out some dispute, about the monads, the VIS VIVA, the infinitely little, between Madame and Konig; dispute which rose CRESCENDO in disharmonious duet, and "ended," testifies M. de Voltaire, "in a scene TRESDESAGREABLE." Madame, with an effort, forgave the thoughtless fellow, who is still rather young, and is without malice. But thoughtless Konig, strong in his opinion about the infinitely little, appealed to Maupertuis: "Am not I right, Monsieur?" "HE is right beyond question!" wrote Maupertuis to Madame; "s
Konig, about VIS VIVA, monads, gravitation and the infinitely little; above all, bows to the ground before the red-wigged Bashaw, Flattener of the Earth, whom for Madame's sake and his own he is anxious to be well with. "Fall on your face nine times, ye esoteric of only Impure Science!"-intimates Maupertuis to mankind. "By all means!" answers M. de Voltaire, doing it with a
alous of men, took me for the object of this passion, which has always been very dear to him." [VIE PRIVEE.] Husht, Monsieur!-He
S (at Wesel, waiting for th
t (1740), 3d year sin
o seek the King of Sages on his Journey somewhere. I had understood, too, they were so delighted to have you in
heard whispered). "No doubt M. de Camas is with you. For my own share, I think it is after you that he is running at present. But in truth, at the hour while I say this, you are with the King;"-a lucky guess; King did return to
ere on your route: it will be a scene in a fairy tale;-she will arrive with a SUFFICIENT REASON [as your Leibnitz says] and with MONADS. She does not love you the less though she now believes the universe a PLENUM, and has renounced the notion of VOID. Over her you have an
ly in red wig. Through the sensitive transparent being of M. de Voltaire, you may see th