which we mortals take upon us. You will set out on Monday afternoon,
if you like the journey, for Baireuth, and you will dine with me in
passing, if you please [at Potsdam here].

"The rest of my MEMOIRE [Paper before given?] is so blurred and in so
bad a state, I cannot yet send it you.--I am getting Cantos 8 and 9 of
LA PUCELLE copied; I at present have Cantos 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 9: I keep
them under three keys, that the eye of mortal may not see them.

"I hear you supped yesternight in good company [great gathering in some
high house, gone all asunder now];

"The finest wits of the Canton All collected in your name, People all
who could not but be pleased with you, All devout believers in Voltaire,
Unanimously took you For the god of their Paradise.

"'Paradise,' that you may not be scandalized, is taken here in a general
sense for a place of pleasure and joy. See the 'remark' on the last
verse of the MONDAIN." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxii. 144; Voltaire,
lxxiii. 100] (scandalously MISdated in Edition 1818, xxxix. 466). As to
MONDAIN, and "remark" upon it,--the ghost of what was once a sparkle of
successful coterie-speech and epistolary allusion,--take this: "In the
MONDAIN Voltaire had written, 'LE PARADIS TERRESTRE EST OU JE SUIS;'
and as the Priests made outcry, had with airs of orthodoxy explained the
phrase away,"--as Friedrich now affects to do; obliquely quizzing, in
the Friedrich manner.

Voltaire is to go upon the Baireuth Journey, then, according to prayer.
Whether Voltaire ever got that all-important "word which he could show,"
I cannot say: though there is some appearance that Friedrich may have
dashed off for him the Panegyric of Louis, in these very hours, to serve
his turn, and have done with him. Under date 7th September, day before
the Letter just read, here are snatches from another to the same
address:--

"POTSDAM, 7th SEPTEMBER, 1743 [Friedrich to Voltaire].--You tell me so
much good of France and of its King, it were to be wished all Sovereigns
had subjects like you, and all Commonwealths such citizens,--[you
can show that, I suppose?] What a pity France and Sweden had not had
Military Chiefs of your way of thinking! But it is very certain, say
what you will, that the feebleness of their Generals, and the timidity
of their counsels, have almost ruined in public repute two Nations
which, not half a century ago, inspired terror over Europe."--...
"Scandalous Peace, that of Fleury, in 1735; aban