arer of some news agreeable to my Court, I would
supplicate your Majesty to honor me with such a commission. [This does
not want for impudence, Monsieur! Friedrich answers, from aloft!]

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "8. I am not in any connection with France; I
have nothing to fear nor to hope from France. If you would like, I will
make a Panegyric on Louis XV. without a word of truth in it: but as to
political business, there is, at present, none to bring us together; and
neither is it I that am to speak first. When they put a question to me,
it will be time to reply: but you, who are so much a man of sense, you
see well what a ridiculous business it would be if, without ground given
me, I set to prescribing projects of policy to France, and even put them
on paper with my own hand!

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "9. Do whatsoever you may please, I shall always
love your Majesty with my whole heart."

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "9. I love you with all my heart; I esteem you:
I will do all to have you, except follies, and things which would make
me forever ridiculous over Europe, and at bottom would be contrary to my
interests and my glory. The only commission I can give you for France,
is to advise them to behave with more wisdom than they have done
hitherto. That Monarchy is a body with much strength, but without, soul
or energy (NERF)."

And so you may give it to Valori to put in cipher, my illustrious
Messenger from the Spheres. [_OEuvres de Voltaire,_ lxxiii. 101-105 (see
Ib. ii. 55); _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxii. 141-144.]

Worth reading, this, rather well. Very kingly, and characteristic of
the young Friedrich. Saved by Beaumarchais, who did not give it in his
famous Kehl Edition of VOLTAIRE, but "had it in Autograph ever after,
and printed it in his DECADE PHILOSOPHIQUE, 10 Messidor, An vii.
[Summer, 1799]: Beaumarchais had several other Pieces of the same sort;"
which, as bits of contemporary photographing, one would have liked to
see.

FRIEDRICH VISITS BAIREUTH: ON A PARTICULAR ERRAND;--VOLTAIRE ATTENDING,
AND PRIVATELY REPORTING.

This "BIRIBI" Document, I suppose to have been delivered perhaps on the
7th; and that Friedrich HAD it, but had not yet answered it, when he
wrote the following Letter:--

"POTSDAM, 8th SEPTEMBER, 1743 [Friedrich to Voltaire].--I dare not speak
to a son of Apollo about horses and carriages, relays and such things;
these are details with which the gods do not concern themselves, and