ular manner, Not
to take Freron to write me news from Paris; and I had the weakness, or
the complaisance, to grant you this, though it is not for you to decide
what persons I shall take into my service. D'Arnaud had faults towards
you; a generous man would have pardoned them; a vindictive man hunts
down those whom he takes to hating. In a word, though to me D'Arnaud had
done nothing, it was on your account that he had to go. You were
with the Russian Minister, speaking of things you had no concern with
[Russian Excellency Gross, off home lately, in sudden dudgeon, like an
angry sky-rocket, nobody can guess why! Adelung, vii. 133 (about 1st
December, 1750).]--and it was thought I had given you Commission." "You
have had the most villanous affair in the world with a Jew. It has made
a frightful scandal all over Town. And that Steuer-Schein business is so
well known in Saxony, that they have made grievous complaints of it to
me.

"For my own share, I have preserved peace in my house till your
arrival: and I warn you, that if you have the passion of intriguing and
caballing, you have applied to the wrong hand. I like peaceable composed
people; who do not put into their conduct the violent passions of
Tragedy. In case you can resolve to live like a Philosopher, I shall
be glad to see you; but if you abandon yourself to all the violences of
your passions, and get into quarrels with all the world, you will do me
no good by coming hither, and you may as well stay in Berlin." [Preuss,
xxii. 262 (WANTING in the French Editions).]--F.

To which Voltaire sighing pathetically in response, "Wrong, ah yes, your
Majesty;--and sick to death" (see farther down),--here is Friedrich's
Second in Answer:--

2. FRIEDRICH TO VOLTAIRE AGAIN.

"POTSDAM, 28th February, 1751. "If you wish to come hither, you can do
so. I hear nothing of Lawsuits, not even of yours. Since you have gained
it, I congratulate you; and I am glad that this scurvy affair is done.
I hope you will have no more quarrels, neither with the OLD nor with the
New TESTAMENT. Such worryings (CES SORTES DE COMPROMIS) leave their mark
on a man; and with the talents of the finest genius in France, you will
not cover the stains which this conduct would fasten on your reputation
in the long-run. A Bookseller Gosse [read JORE, your Majesty? Nobody
ever heard of Gosse as an extant quantity: Jore, of Rouen, you mean, and
his celebrated Lawsuit, about printing the HENRIADE, or I know