d from
Voltaire at her Suppers. The Chapter on Space is pitiable; the"--in
short, she is still raw in the Pure Sciences, and should have waited....

"Adieu, most learned, most scientific, most profound Jordan,--or rather
most gallant, most amiable, most jovial Jordan;--I salute thee, with
assurance of all those old feelings which thou hast the art of inspiring
in every one that knows thee. VALE.

"I write the moment of my arrival: be obliged to me, friend; for I have
been working, I am going to work still, like a Turk, or like a Jordan."
[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvii. 71.]

This is hastily thrown off for Friend Jordan, the instant after his
Majesty's circuitous return home. Readers cannot yet attend his
Majesty there, till they have brought the Affair of Herstal, and other
remainders of the Cleve Journey, along with them.

Chapter V. -- AFFAIR OF HERSTAL.

This Rambonet, whom Voltaire found walking in the court of the old
Castle of Moyland, is an official gentleman, otherwise unknown to
History, who has lately been engaged in a Public Affair; and is now
off again about it, "on a hired hack" or otherwise,--with very good
instructions in his head. Affair which, though in itself but small,
is now beginning to make great noise in the world, as Friedrich wends
homewards out of his Cleve Journey. He has set it fairly alight,
Voltaire and he, before quitting Moyland; and now it will go of itself.
The Affair of Herstal, or of the Bishop of Liege; Friedrich's first
appearance on the stage of politics. Concerning which some very brief
notice, if intelligible, will suffice readers of the present day.

Heristal, now called Herstal, was once a Castle known to all mankind;
King Pipin's Castle, who styled himself "Pipin of Heristal," before he
became King of the Franks and begot Charlemagne. It lies on the Maas, in
that fruitful Spa Country; left bank of the Maas, a little to the north
of Liege; and probably began existence as a grander place than Liege
(LUTTICH), which was, at first, some Monastery dependent on secular
Herstal and its grandeurs:--think only how the race has gone between
these two entities; spiritual Liege now a big City, black with the
smoke of forges and steam-mills; Herstal an insignificant Village,
accidentally talked of for a few weeks in 1740, and no chance ever to be
mentioned again by men.

Herstal, in the confused vicissitudes of a thousand years, had passed
through various fortunes, and undergone