ge and only haven, loved Sister, is in the arms
of Death:--

Ainsi mon seul asile et mon unique port
Se trouve, chere soeur, dans les bras de la mort."
[OEuvres, xii. 36-42; is sent off to Wilhelmina 24th August.]

2. WILHELMINA TO VOLTAIRE, WITH SOMETHING OF ANSWER (First of certain
intercalary Prose Pieces).--Wilhelmina has been writing to Voltaire
before, and getting consolations since Kolin; but her Letters are lost,
till this the earliest that is left us:--

BAIREUTH, 19th AUGUST, 1757 (TO VOLTAIRE).--"One first knows one's
friends when misfortunes arrive. The Letter you have written does honor
to your way of thinking. I cannot tell you how much I am sensible to
what you have done [set Cardinal Tencin astir, with result we will
hope]. The King, my Brother, is as much so as I. You will find a Note
here, which he bids me transmit to you [Note lost]. That great man
is still the same. He supports his misfortunes with a courage and a
firmness worthy of him. He could not get the Note transcribed. It began
by verses. Instead of throwing sand on it, he took the ink-bottle; that
is the reason why it is cut in two." --This Note, we say, is lost to
us;--all but accidentally thus: Voltaire, 12th September, writes twice
to friends. Writing to his D'Argentals, he says: "The affairs of this
King [Friedrich] go from bad to worse. I know not if I told you of the
Letter he wrote to me about three weeks ago [say August 17th-18th: this
same Note through Wilhelmina, evidently]: 'I have learned,' says he,
'that you had interested yourself in my successes and misfortunes. There
remains to me nothing but to sell my life dear,' &c. His Sister writes
me one much more lamentable;" the one we are now reading:--

"I am in a frightful state; and will not survive the destruction of my
House and Family. That is the one consolation that remains to me. You
will have fine subjects for making Tragedies of. O times! O manners!
You will, by the illusory representation, perhaps draw tears; while all
contemplate with dry eyes the reality of these miseries: the downfall of
a whole House, against which, if the truth were known, there is no solid
complaint. I cannot write farther of it: my soul is so troubled that I
know not what I am doing. But whatever happen, be persuaded that I am
more than ever your friend,--WILHELMINA." [In _OEuvres de Frederic,_
lxxvii. 30.]

Friedrich, while Wilhelmina writes so, is at the foot of the