10th Sept., 1742. ways) is quite gone from the world, and your lowest blockhead and scoundrel (usually one entity) shall have perfect freedom to spit in the face of your highest sage and hero, what a remarkably Free World shall we be!

Voltaire, keeping good silence as to all this, and minded for Brussels again, receives the King of Prussia's invitation; lays it at his Eminency Fleury's feet; will not accept unless his Eminency and my own King of France (possibly to their advantage, if one might hint such a thing!) will permit it. 32 "By all means; go, and"-The rest is in dumb-show, meaning, "Try to pump him for us!" Under such omens, Voltaire and his divine Émilie return to their Honsbruck Lawsuit: "Silent Brussels, how preferable to Paris and its mad cries!" Voltaire, leaving the divine Émilie at Brussels, September 2d, sets out for Aix -Aix attainable within the day. He is back at Brussels late in the evening, September 9th: how he had fared, and what extent of pumping there was, learn from the following Excerpts, which are all dated the morrow after his return:

Three Letters of Voltaire, dated Brussels, 10th Sept., 1742. 1o. To Cideville (the Rouen Advocate, who has sometimes troubled us). * * 66 ** "I have been to see the King of Prussia since I began this Letter" (beginning of it dates September 1st). "I have courageously resisted his fine proposals. He offers me a beautiful House in Berlin, a pretty Estate; but I prefer my second-floor in Madame du Châtelet's here. He assures me of his favor, of the perfect freedom I should have; and I am running to Paris" (did not just yet run) "to my slavery and persecution. I could fancy myself a small Athenian, refusing the bounties of the King of Persia; with this difference, however, one had liberty" (not slavery) "at Athens; and I am sure there were many Cidevilles there instead of one"-Hélas, my Cideville!

2o. To Marquis D'Argenson (worthy official Gentleman, not WarMinister now or afterward; War-Minister's senior brother-Voltaire's old schoolfellows in the College of Louis le Grand). **"I have just been to see the King of Prussia in these late days” (in fact, quitted him only yesterday; both of us, after a week together, leaving Aix yesterday): "I have seen him as one seldom sees Kings-much at my ease, in my own room, in the chimney-nook, whither the same man who has

32 Euvres de Voltaire, lxxii., 555 (Letter to Fleury, "Paris, Aug. 22d”).

10th Sept., 1742.

gained two Battles would come and talk familiarly, as Scipio did with Terence. You will tell me I am not Terence; true, but neither is he altogether Scipio.

"I learned some extraordinary things"-things not from Friedrich at all; mere dinner-table rumors-about the 16,000 English landing here ("18,000" he calls them, and farther on, "20,000"), with the other 16,000 plus 6000 of Hanoverian-Hessian sort, expecting 20,000 Dutch to join them-who perhaps will not? "M. de Neipperg” (Governor of Luxemburg now) "is come hither to Brussels, but brings no Dutch troops with him, as he had hoped”—Dutch perhaps won't rise, after all this flogging and hoisting? "Perhaps we may soon get a useful and glorious Peace, in spite of my Lord Stair, and of M. Van Haren, the Tyrtæus of the States-General" (famed Van Haren, eyes in a fine Dutch frenzy rolling, whose Cause-of-Liberty verses let no man inquire after): "Stair prints Memoirs, Van Haren makes Odes; and with so much prose and so much verse, perhaps their High and Slow Mightinesses" (Excellency Fénélon sleeplessly busy persuading them, and native Gravitation sleepily ditto)" will sit quiet. God grant it!

"The English want to attack us on our own soil" (actually Stair's plan), "and we can not pay them in that kind. The match is too unfair! If we kill the whole 20,000 of them, we merely send 20,000 Heretics to-What shall I say?—à l'Enfer, and gain nothing; if they kill us, they even feed at our expense in doing it. Better have no quarrels except on Locke and Newton! The quarrel I have on Mahomet is happily only ridiculous.” * * Adieu, M. le Marquis.

3o. To the Cardinal de Fleury. "Monseigneur," * * "to give your Eminency, as I am bound, some account of my journey to Aix-la-Chapelle." Friedrich's guest there; let us hear, let us look.

"I could not get away from Brussels till the 2d of this month. On the road I met a courier from the King of Prussia, coming to reiterate his Master's orders on me. The King had me lodged near his own Apartment; and he passed, for two consecutive days, four hours at a time in my room, with all that goodness and familiarity which forms, as you know, part of his character, and which does not lower the King's dignity, because one is duly careful not to abuse it" (be careful!). I had abundant time to speak, with a great deal of freedom, on what your Eminency had prescribed to me, and the King spoke to me with an equal frankness.

"First he asked me If it was true that the French Nation was so angered against him; if the king was, and if you were? I answered”

mildly reprobatory, yet conciliative," Hm, No, nothing permanent, nothing to speak of." "He then deigned to speak to me, at large, of the reasons which had induced him to be so hasty with the Peace."

10th Sept., 1742.

Extremely remarkable reasons ;' " "dare not trust them to this Paper" (Broglio-Belleisle discrepancies, we guess, distracted Broglio procedures)—they have no concern with that Pallandt-Letter Story-" they do not turn on the pretended Secret Negotiations at the Court of Vienna" (which are not pretended at all, as I among others well know)," in regard to which your Eminency has condescended to clear yourself” (by denying the truth, poor Eminency; there was no help otherwise). "All I dare state is that it seems to me easy to lead back the mind of this Sovereign, whom the situation of his Territories, his interest, and his taste would appear to mark as the natural ally of France."

"He said farther" (what may be relied on as true by his Eminency Fleury and my readers here), "That he passionately wished to see Bohemia in the Emperor's hands" (small chance for it, as things now go!); "that he renounced, with the best faith in the world, all claim whatever on Berg and Jülich; and that, in spite of the advantageous proposals which Lord Stair was making him, he thought only of keeping Silesia. That he knew well enough the House of Austria would one day wish to recover that fine Province, but that he trusted he could keep his conquest; that he had at this time 130,000 soldiers always ready; that he would make of Neisse, Glogau, Brieg, fortresses as strong as Wesel" (which he is now diligently doing, and will soon have done); “that, besides, he was well informed the Queen of Hungary already owed 80,000,000 German crowns, which is about 300 millions of our money" (about 12 millions sterling); "that her Provinces, exhausted, and lying wide apart, would not be able to make long efforts; and that the Austrians, for a good while to come, could not of themselves be formidable." Of themselves, no; but with Britannic soup-royal in quantity?

"My Lord Hyndford had spoken to him” as if France were entirely discouraged and done for: How false, Monseigneur! "And Lord Stair, in his letters, represented France a month ago as ready to give in. Lord Stair has not ceased to press his Majesty during this Aix Excursion even;" and, in spite of what your Eminency hears from the Hague," there was, on the 30th of August, an Englishman at Aix on the part of Milord Stair; and he had speech with the King of Prussia" (croyez moi !) "in a little Village called Boschet" (Burtscheid, where are hot wells)," a quarter of a league from Aix. I have been assured, moreover, that the Englishman returned in much discontent. On the other hand, General Schmettau, who was with the King" (elder Schmettau, Graf Samuel, who does a great deal of envoying for his Majesty), sent at that very time to Brussels for Maps of the Moselle and of the Three Bishoprics, and purchased five copies"-means to examine Milord Stair's proposed Seat of War, at any rate. (Here is a pleasant friend to have on visit to you, in the next apartment, with such an eye and such a nose!)

*

Dec., 1742. 'Monseigneur," finely insinuates Voltaire in conclusion, “is not there” a certain Frenchman, true to his Country, to his King, and to your Eminency, with perhaps peculiar facilities for being of use, in such delicate case? "Je suis" much your Eminency's.

33

Friedrich, on the day while Voltaire at Brussels sat so busy writing of him, was at Salzdahl, visiting his Brunswick kindred there, on the road home to his usual affairs. Old Fleury, age ninety gone, died 29th January, 1743, five months and nineteen days after this Letter. War-Minister Breteuil had died January 1st. Here is room for new Ministers and Ministries; for the two D'Argensons, if it could avail their old Schoolfellow, or France, or us, which it can not much.

CHAPTER III.

CARNIVAL PHENOMENA IN WAR-TIME.

READERS were anticipating it-readers have no sympathy; but the sad fact is, Britannic Majesty has not got out his sword; this second paroxysm of his proves vain as the first did! Those laggard Dutch, dead to the Cause of Liberty, it is they again. Just as the hour was striking, they-plump down, in spite of magnanimous Stair, into their mud again; can not be hoisted by engineering. And, after all that filling and emptying of water-casks, and pumping and puffing, and straining of every fibre for a twelvemonth past, Britannic Majesty had to sit down again, panting in an Olympian manner, with that expensive long sword of his still sticking in the scabbard.

Tongue can not tell what his poor little Majesty has suffered from those Dutch, checking one's noble rage into mere zero always; making of one's own glorious Army a mere expensive Phantasm! Hanoverian, Hessian, British, 40,000 fighters standing in harness, year after year, at such cost, and not the killing of a French turkey to be had of them in return. Patience, Olympian patience withal! He cantons his troops in the Netherlands Towns; many of the British about Ghent (who

33 Euvres, lxxii., p. 568 (to Cideville), p. 579 (D'Argenson), p. 574 (Fleury).

Dec., 1742.

consider the provisions and customs none of the best);1 his Hanoverians, Hessians, farther northward, Hanover way; and, greatly daring, determines to try again next Spring. Carteret himself shall go and flagitate the Dutch. Patience; whip and hoist! What a conclusion, snorts the indignant British Public through its Gazetteers.

“Next year—yes, exclaims one indignant Editor: 'if talking will do business, we shall no doubt perform wonders; for we have had as much talking and puffing since February last as during any ten years of the late Administration'" (under poor Walpole, whom you could not enough condemn)! "The Dutch? exclaims another: 'If we were a Free People' (F— P— he puts it, joining caution with his rage),' quære, Whether Holland would not, at this juncture, come cap in hand to sue for our protection and alliance, instead of making us dance attendance at the Hague?" Yes, indeed; and then the Case of the Hanover Forces (fear not, reader; I understand your terror of locked-jaw, and will never mention said Case again); but it is singular to the Gazetteer mind that these Hanover Forces are to be paid by England, as appears, Hanover, as if without interest in the matter, paying nothing! Upon which, in covert form of symbolic adumbration, of witty parable, what stinging commentaries, not the first, nor by many thousands the last (very sad reading in our day) on this paltry Hanover Connection altogether: What immensities it has cost poor England, and is like to cost, the Lord of the Manor' (great George our King) being the gentleman he is; and how England, or, as it is adumbratively called,' the Manor of St. James's,' is become a mere fee-farm to Mumland.' Unendurable to think of. 'Bob Monopoly, the late Tallyman' (adumbrative for Walpole, late Prime Minister), was much blamed on this account; and John the Carter' (John Lord Carteret), ' Clerk of the Vestry and present favorite of his Lordship, is not behind Robin in his care for the Manor of Mumland" (that contemptible Country, where their very beer is called mum), and no remedy within view!"

Retreat from Prag; Army of the Oriflamme, Bohemian Section of it, makes Exit.

"And Belleisle in Prag, left solitary there, with his heroic remnant -gone now to 17,000, the fourth man of them in hospital, with Festititz

1 Letters of Officers, from Ghent (Westminster Journal, Oct. 23d, &c.).

2 The Daily Post, December 31st (O.S.), 1742.

3 In Westminster Journal (February 12th, N.S., 1743), a long Apologue in this strain.