11th-14th Sept., 1740. the reader like to hear about him? If so, he has only to speak !)—“ is arguing at Marburg, at Berlin, or at Hall" (Halle, which is a very different place). Adieu, Monsieur; you can address your orders to me 'At the Hague :' they will be forwarded wherever I am; and I shall be, any where on earth, yours forever (à vous pour jamais)." 9910 Letter Second, of which a fragment may be given, is to one Cideville, a month later; all the more genuine, as there was no chance of the King's hearing about this one. Cideville, some kind of literary Advocate at Rouen (who is wearisomely known to the reader of Voltaire's Letters), had done, what is rather an endemical disorder at this time, some Verses for the King of Prussia, which he wished to be presented to his Majesty. The presentation, owing to accidents, did not take place; hear how Voltaire, from his cobweb Palace at the Hague, busy with AntiMachiavel, Van Duren, and many other things-18th October 1740, on which day we find him writing many Letters-explains the sad accident : Voltaire to M. de Cideville (at Rouen). "At the Hague, King of Prussia's Palace, 18th October, 1740. * * * “This is my case, dear Cideville. When you sent me, inclosed in your Letter, those Verses (among which there are some of charming and inimitable turn) for our Marcus Aurelius of the North, I did well design to pay my court to him with them. He was at that time to have come to Brussels incognito; we expected him there; but the Quartan Fever, which unhappily he still has, deranged all his projects. He sent me a courier to Brussels"-mark that point, my Cideville-" and so I set out to find him in the neighborhood of Cleve. "It was there I saw one of the amiablest men in the world, who forms the charm of society, who would be every where sought after if he were not King; a philosopher without austerity; full of sweetness, complaisance, and obliging ways (agrémens); not remembering that he is King when he meets his friends; indeed, so completely forgetting it that he made me too almost forget it, and I needed an effort of memory to recollect that I here saw sitting at the foot of my bed a Sovereign who had an Army of 100,000 men. That was the moment to have read your amiable Verses to him"-yes; but then?" Madame du Châtelet, who was to have sent them to me, did not, ne l'a pas fait." Alas! no, they are still at Brussels, those charming Verses; and I, for a month past, am 10 Voltaire, lxxii., 252. 11th-14th Sept., 1740. here in my cobweb Palace! But I swear to you, the instant I return to Brussels, I, &c., &c.11 11 Finally, here is what Friedrich thought of it, ten days after parting with Voltaire. We will read this also (though otherwise ahead of us as yet), to be certified on all sides, and sated for the rest of our lives concerning the Friedrich-Voltaire First Interview. King Friedrich to M. Jordan (at Berlin). "Potsdam, 24th September, 1740. "Most respectable Inspector of the poor, the invalids, orphans, crazy people, and Bedlams,—I have read with mature meditation the very profound Jordanic Letter which was waiting here," and do accept your learned proposal. "I have seen that Voltaire whom I was so curious to know; but I saw him with the Quartan hanging on me, and my mind as unstrung as my body. With men of his kind one ought not to be sick; one ought even to be specially well, and in better health than common, if one could. "He has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, the wisdom of Agrippa; he combines, in short, what is to be collected of virtues and talents from the three greatest men of Antiquity. His intellect is at work incessantly; every drop of ink is a trait of wit from his pen. He declaimed his Mahomet to us, an admirable Tragedy which he has done”—which the Official people smelling heresies in it (“toleration," "horrors of fanaticism," and the like) will not let him act, as readers too well know: "he transported us out of ourselves; I could only admire and hold my tongue. The Du Châtelet is lucky to have him; for of the good things he flings out at random, a person who had no faculty but memory might make a brilliant Book. That Minerva has just published her Work on Physics; not wholly bad. It was König❞—whom we know, and whose late tempest in a certain teapot-" that dictated the theme to her she has adjusted, ornamented here and there with some touch picked from Voltaire at her Suppers. The Chapter on Space is pitiable; the"-in short, she is still raw in the Pure Sciences, and should have waited. *** Adieu, most learned, most scientific, most profound Jordan-or, rather, most gallant, most amiable, most jovial Jordan; I salute thee, with assurance of all those old feelings which thou hast the art of inspiring in every one that knows thee. Vale. 11 lxxii., 282. 4th-28th Sept., 1740. "I write the moment of my arrival; be obliged to me, friend, for I have been working, I am going to work still, like a Turk, or like a Jordan."12 This is hastily thrown off for Friend Jordan the instant after his Majesty's circuitous return home. Readers can not yet attend his Majesty there till they have brought the Affair of Herstal, and other remainders of the Cleve Journey, along with them. CHAPTER V. AFFAIR OF HERSTAL. THIS Rambonet, whom Voltaire found walking in the court of the old Castle of Moyland, is an official gentleman, otherwise unknown to History, who has lately been engaged in a Public Affair, and is now off again about it, “on a hired hack" or otheraffair which, wise, with very good instructions in his head though in itself but small, is now beginning to make great noise in the world, as Friedrich wends homeward out of his Cleve Journey. He has set it fairly alight, Voltaire and he, before quitting Moyland, and now it will go of itself—the Affair of Herstal, or of the Bishop of Liége, Friedrich's first appearance on the stage of politics, concerning which some very brief notice, if intelligible, will suffice readers of the present day. Heristal, now called Herstal, was once a Castle known to all mankind; King Pipin's Castle, who styled himself "Pipin of Heristal" before he became King of the Franks and begot Charlemagne. It lies on the Maas, in that fruitful Spa Country-left bank of the Maas, a little to the north of Liége; and probably began existence as a grander place than Liége (Lüttich), which was, at first, some Monastery dependent on secular Herstal and its grandeurs: think only how the race has gone between these two entities; spiritual Liége now a big City, black with the smoke of forges and steam-mills; Herstal an insignificant Village, accidentally talked of for a few weeks in 1740, and no chance ever to be mentioned again by men. Herstal, in the confused vicissitudes of a thousand years, had 12 Euvres de Frédéric, xvii., 71. 4th-28th Sept., 1740. passed through various fortunes, and undergone change of owners often enough. Fifty years ago it was in the hands of the Nassau-Orange House; Dutch William, our English Protestant King, who probably scarce knew of his possessing it, was Lord of Herstal till his death. Dutch William had no children to inherit Herstal: he was of kinship to the Prussian House, as readers are aware; and from that circumstance, not without a great deal of discussion, and difficult "Division of the Orange Heritage," this Herstal had, at the long last, fallen to Friedrich Wilhelm's share-it and Neuchâtel, and the Cobweb Palace, and some other places and pertinents. For Dutch William was of kin, we say; Friedrich I. of Prussia, by his Mother, the noble Wife of the Great Elector, was full cousin to Dutch William; and the Marriage Contracts were express, though the High Mightinesses made difficulties, and the collateral Orange branches were abundantly reluctant when it came to the fulfilling point. For, indeed, the matter was intricate. Orange itself, for example, what was to be done with the Principality of Orange? Clearly Prussia's; but it lies imbedded deep in the belly of France: that will be a Cæsarean-Operation for you! Had not Neuchâtel happened just then to fall home to France (or in some measure to France), and be heirless, Prussia's Heritage of Orange would have done little for Prussia ! Principality of Orange was by this chance, long since, mainly in the First King's time, got settled ;1 but there needed many years more of good waiting and of good pushing on Friedrich Wilhelm's part; and it was not till 1732 that Friedrich Wilhelm got the Dutch Heritages finally brought to the square-Neuchâtel and Valengin, as aforesaid, in lieu of Orange; and now, furthermore, the Old Palace at Loo (that Vieille Cour and biggest cobwebs), with pertinents, with Garden of Honslardik, and a string of items, bigger and less, not worth enumerating. Of the items, this Herstal was one; and truly, so far as this went, Friedrich Wilhelm often thought he had better never have seen it, so much trouble did it bring him. 1 Neuchâtel, 3d November, 1707, to Friedrich I., natives preferring him to "Fifteen other Claimants;" Louis XIV. loudly protesting: not till Treaty of Utrecht (14th March, 1713, first month of Friedrich Wilhelm's reign) would Louis XIV., on cession of Orange, consent and sanction. 4th-28th Sept., 1740. How the Herstallers had behaved to Friedrich Wilhelm. The Herstal people, knowing the Prussian recruiting-system and other rigors, were extremely unwilling to come under Friedrich Wilhelm's sway, could they have helped it. They refused fealty, swore they never would swear; nor did they, till the appearance or indubitable foreshine of Friedrich Wilhelm's bayonets advancing on them from the East brought compliance. And always after, spite of such quasi-fealty, they showed a piglike obstinacy of humor; a certain insignificant, and, as it were, impertinent, deep-rooted desire to thwart, irritate, and contradict the said Friedrich Wilhelm, especially in any recruiting matter that might arise, knowing that to be the weak side of his Prussian Majesty. All this would have amounted to nothing had it not been that their neighbor, the Prince Bishop of Liége, who imagined himself to have some obscure claims of sovereignty over Herstal, and thought the present a good opportunity for asserting these, was diligent to aid and abet the Herstal people in such their mutinous acts. Obscure claims, of which this is the summary, should the reader not prefer to skip it: “The Bishop of Liége's claims on Herstal (which lie wrapped from mankind in the extensive jungle of his law-pleadings, like a Bedlam happily fallen extinct) seem to me to have grown mainly from two facts more or less radical. Fact first.-In Kaiser Barbarossa's time, year 1171, Herstal had been given in pawn to the Church of Liége for a loan by the then proprietor, Duke of Lorraine and Brabant. Loan was repaid, I do not learn when, and the Pawn given back, to the satisfaction of said Duke, or Duke's Heirs; never quite to the satisfaction of the Church, which had been in possession, and was loth to quit, after hoping to continue. 'Give us back Herstal; it ought to be ours!' unappeasable sigh or grumble to this effect is heard thenceforth, at intervals, in the Chapter of Liége, and has not ceased in Friedrich's time. But as the world, in its loud thoroughfares, seldom or never heard, or could hear, such sighing in the Chapter, nothing had come of it till— "Fact second.-In Kaiser Karl V.'s time, the Prince Bishop of Liége happened to be a Natural Son of old Kaiser Max's, and had friends at headquarters of a very choice nature-had, namely, in this sort, Kaiser Karl for Nephew or Half-Nephew; and, what perhaps was still better, as nearer hand, had Karl's Aunt, Maria, Queen of Hungary, then Gov |