marching of the Kaiser to
Rome on business); meaning fifty of the known QUOTAS, due from all and
sundry in such case,--which would amount to about 300,000 pounds (could
it, or the half of it, be collected from so wide a Parish), and would
prove a sensible relief to the poor man.

VOLTAIRE HAS BEEN ON VISIT AT AACHEN, IN THE INTERIM,--HIS THIRD VISIT
TO KING FRIEDRICH.

King Friedrich had come to the Baths of Aachen, August 25th; the
Maillebois Army of Redemption being then, to the last man of it, five
days across the Rhine on its high errand, which has since proved futile.
Friedrich left Aachen, taking leave of his Voltaire, who had been
lodging with him for a week by special invitation, September 9th; and
witnessed the later struggles and final inability of Maillebois to
redeem, not at Aix, but at Berlin, amid the ordinary course of his
employments there. We promised something of Voltaire's new visit, his
Third to Friedrich. Here is what little we have,--if the lively reader
will exert his fancy on it.

Voltaire and his Du Chatelet had been to Cirey, and thence been at Paris
through this Spring and Summer, 1742;--engaged in what to Voltaire and
Paris was a great thing, though a pacific one: The getting of MAHOMET
brought upon the boards. August 9th, precisely while the first vanguard
of the Army of Redemption got across the Rhine at Dusseldorf, Voltaire's
Tragedy of MAHOMET came on the stage.

August 9th, llth, 13th, Paris City was in transports of various kinds;
never were such crowds of Audience, lifting a man to the immortal
gods,--though a part too, majority by count of heads, were dragging him
to Tartarus again. "Exquisite, unparalleled!" exclaimed good judges (as
Fleury himself had anticipated, on examining the Piece):--"Infamous,
irreligious, accursed!" vociferously exclaimed the bad judges; Reverend
Desfontaines (of Sodom, so Voltaire persists to define him), Reverend
Desfontaines and others giving cue; hugely vociferous, these latter,
hugely in majority by count of heads. And there was such a bellowing
and such a shrieking, judicious Fleury, or Maurepas under him, had
to suggest, "Let an actor fall sick; let M. de Voltaire volunteer to
withdraw his Piece; otherwise--!" And so it had to be: Actor fell sick
on the 14th (Playbills sorry to retract their MAHOMET on the 14th);
and--in fact, it was not for nine years coming, and after Dedication to
the Pope, and other exquisite manoeuvres and unexpected tu