e done
with those base elements of the business.

Nay furthermore, precisely two days before those splendors of the
Carrousel, Friedrich,--in answer to new cunning croakeries and
contrivances ("Sire, this Letter from my Niece, who is inconsolable that
I should think of staying here;" where, finding oneself so divinized,
one is disposed to stay),--has answered him like a King: By Gold Key of
Chamberlain, Cross of the Order of Merit, and Pension of 20,000 francs
(850 pounds) a year,--conveyed in as royal a Letter of Business as I
have often read; melodious as Apollo, this too, though all in business
prose, and, like Apollo, practical God of the SUN in this case.
["Berlin, 23d August, 1750" (--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii.
255);--Voltaire to Niece Denis, "24th August" (misprinted "14th"); to
D'Argental, "28th August" (--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 185, 196).]
Dated 23d August, 1750. This Letter of Friedrich's I fancy to be what
Voltaire calls, "Your Majesty's gracious Agreement with me," and often
appeals to, in subsequent troubles. Not quite a Notarial Piece, on
Friedrich's part; but strictly observed by him as such.

Four days after which, Collini sees Voltaire serenely shining among the
Princes and Princesses of the world; Amphitheatre all whispering with
bated breath, "Voltaire! Voltaire!" But let us hear Voltaire himself,
from the interior of the Phenomenon, at this its culminating point:--

Voltaire to his D'Argentals,--to Niece Denis even, with whom, if with
no other, he is quite without reserve, in showing the bad and the
good,--continues radiantly eloquent in these first months: ...
"Carrousel, twice over; the like never seen for splendor, for [rather
copious on this sublimity]--After which we played ROME SAUVEE [my
Anti-Crebillon masterpiece], in a pretty little Theatre, which I have
got constructed in the Princess Amelia's Antechamber. I, who speak to
you, I played CICERO." Yes; and was manager and general stage-king and
contriver; being expert at this, if at anything. And these beautiful
Theatricals had begun weeks ago, and still lasted many weeks;
[Rodenbeck, "August-October," 1750.]--with such divine consultings,
directings, even orderings of the brilliant Royalties concerned.--
Duvernet (probably on D'Arget's authority) informs us that "once, in one
of the inter-acts, finding the soldiers allowed him for Pretorian Guards
not to understand their business here," not here, as they did at
Hohenfriedberg and el