m unlucky; for now when I could
dispose of my person, and nothing hinders me from seeing you, the fever
gets its hand into the business, and seems to intend disputing me that
satisfaction.

"Let us deceive the fever, my dear Voltaire; and let me at least have
the pleasure of embracing you. Make my best excuses [polite, rather than
sincere] to Madame the MARQUISE, that I cannot have the satisfaction of
seeing her at Brussels. All that are about me know the intention I was
in; which certainly nothing but the fever could have made me change.

"Sunday next I shall be at a little Place near Cleve,"--Schloss of
Moyland, which, and the route to which, this Courier can tell you
of;--"where I shall be able to possess you at my ease. If the sight of
you don't cure me, I will send for a Confessor at once. Adieu; you know
my sentiments and my heart. [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxii. 27.]
FREDERIC."

After which the Correspondence suddenly extinguishes itself; ceases for
about a fortnight,--in the bad misdated Editions even does worse;--and
we are left to thick darkness, to our own poor shifts; Dryasdust being
grandly silent on this small interest of ours. What is to be done?

PARTICULARS OF FIRST INTERVIEW, ON SEVERE SCRUTINY.

Here, from a painful Predecessor whose Papers I inherit, are some old
documents and Studies on the subject,--sorrowful collection, in fact,
of what poor sparks of certainty were to be found hovering in that
dark element;--which do at last (so luminous are certainties always,
or "sparks" that will shine steady) coalesce into some feeble general
twilight, feeble but indubitable; and even show the sympathetic reader
how they were searched out and brought together. We number and label
these poor Patches of Evidence on so small a matter; and leave them to
the curious:--

No. 1. DATE OF THE FIRST INTERVIEW. It is certain Voltaire did arrive at
the little Schloss of Moyland, September 11th, Sunday night,--which is
the "Sunday" just specified in Friedrich's Letter. Voltaire had at once
decided on complying,--what else?--and lost no time in packing himself:
King's Courier on Thursday late; Voltaire on the road on Saturday early,
or the night before. With Madame's shrill blessing (not the most
musical in this vexing case), and plenty of fuss. "Was wont to travel
in considerable style," I am told; "the innkeepers calling him 'Your
Lordship' (M. LE COMTE)." Arrives, sure enough, Sunday night; old Schloss