doning King Stanislaus,
cheating Spain, cheating Sardinia, to get Lorraine! And now this manner
of abandoning the Emperor [respectable Karl VII. of your making];
sacrificing Bavaria; and reducing that worthy Prince to the lowest
poverty,--poverty, I say not, of a Prince, but into the frightfulest
state for a private man!" Ah, Monsieur.

"And yet your France is the most charming of Nations; and if it is not
feared, it deserves well to be loved. A King worthy to command it,
who governs sagely, and acquires for himself the esteem of all
Europe,--[there, won't that do!] may restore its ancient splendor,
which the Broglios, and so many others even more inept, have a little
eclipsed. That is assuredly a work worthy of a Prince endowed with
such gifts! To reverse the sad posture of affairs, nobly repairing what
others have spoiled; to defend his country against furious enemies,
reducing them to beg Peace, instead of scornfully rejecting it when
offered: never was more glory acquirable by any King! I shall admire
whatsoever this great man [CE GRAND HOMME, Louis XV., not yet visibly
tending to the dung-heap, let us hope better things!] may achieve in
that way; and of all the Sovereigns of Europe none will be less jealous
of his success than I:"--there, my spheral friend, show that! [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ xxii. 139: see, for what followed, _OEuvres de Voltaire,_
lxxiii. 129 (report to Amelot, 27th October).]

Which the spheral friend does. Nor was it "irony," as the new
Commentators think; not at all; sincere enough, what you call
sincere;--Voltaire himself had a nose for "irony"! This was what you
call sincere Panegyric in liberal measure; why be stingy with your
measure? It costs half an hour: it will end Voltaire's importunities;
and so may, if anything, oil the business-wheels withal. For Friedrich
foresees business enough with Louis and the French Ministries, though
he will not enter on it with Voltaire. This Journey to Baireuth and
Anspach, for example, this is not for a visit to his Sisters, as
Friedrich labels it; but has extensive purposes hidden under that
title,--meetings with Franconian Potentates, earnest survey, earnest
consultation on a state of things altogether grave for Germany and
Friedrich; though he understands whom to treat with about it, whom
to answer with a "BIRIBIRI, MON AMI." That Austrian Exorbitancy of a
message to the Diet has come out (August 16th, and is struggling
to DICTATUR); the Austrian pro