le, like Orpheus, of descending to Hell, not to soften Pluto and
bring back your beautiful Emilie, but to pursue into that Abode of Woe
an enemy whom your wrath has only too much persecuted in the world: for
shame!" [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiii. 61-65 ("Wilsdruf, 17th November,
1759").]--and rebukes him, more than once elsewhere, in very serious
terms.

IN WINTER-QUARTERS, ON PEACE AND THE STOLEN EDITION. (Starts in verse,
which we abridge:) With how many laurels you have covered yourself in
all the fields of Literature! One laurel yet is wanting to the brow
of Voltaire. If, as the crown of so many perfect works, he could by a
skilful manoeuvre bring back Peace, I, and Europe with me, would think
that his masterpiece! [Takes to prose:]

"This is my thought and all Europe's. Virgil made as fine Verses as you;
but he never made a Peace. It will be a distinction you will have over
all your brethren of Parnassus, if you succeed.

"I know not who has betrayed me, and thought of printing [the
EDITION;--not you, surely!] a pack of rhapsodies which were good enough
to amuse myself, but were never meant for publication. After all, I
am so used to treacheries and bad manoeuvres,"--what matters this
insignificant one?

"I know not who the Bredow is [whom you speak of having met]; but he has
told you true. The sword and death have made frightful ravages among
us. And the worst is, we are not yet at the end of the tragedy. You may
judge what effect these cruel shocks made on me. I wrap myself in my
stoicism, the best I can. Flesh and blood revolt against such tyrannous
command; but it must be followed. If you saw me, you would scarcely know
me again: I am old, broken, gray-headed, wrinkled; I am losing my teeth
and my gayety: if this go on, there will be nothing of me left, but the
mania of making verses, and an inviolable attachment to my duties and
to the few virtuous men whom I know." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiii. 69
("Freyberg, 24th Feb. 1760").]

IN WINTER-QUARTERS, A MONTH LATER (comes still on "Peace" again). ...
"I will have you paid that bit of debt [perhaps of postage or the like],
that Louis of the Mill (Louis du Moulin," at Fontenoy, who got upon a
Windmill with his Dauphin, and caught that nickname from the common men)
"may have wherewithal to make war on me. Add tenth-penny tax to your tax
of twentieth-penny; impose new capitations, make titular offices to get
money; do, in a word, whatever you like. In spite of