ount of it!' and the like. Black Care devouring Monseigueur;
but nothing definite; except the fact too evident, That Hirsch does not
send or bring the smallest shadow of Steuer-Scheine,--'Peltries,' or
'Diamonds,' we mean,--or any value whatever for that Paris Bill of ours,
payable shortly, and which he has already got cashed in Dresden. Nothing
but excuses, prevarications; stupid, incoherently deceptive jargon,
as of a mule intent on playing fox with you. Vivid Correspondence is
conceivable; but nothing of it definite to us, except this sample"
(which we give translated):--

DOCUMENT THIRD (torn fraction in Voltaire's hand: To Hirsch, doubtless;
early in December).... "Not proper (IL NE FALLAIT PAS) to negotiate
Bills of Exchange, and never produce a single diamond"--bit of peltry,
or ware of any kind, you son of Amalek! "Not proper to say: I have got
money for your bills of exchange, and I bring you nothing back; and I
will repay your money when you shall no longer be here [in Germany at
all]. Not proper to promise at 35 louis, and then say 30. To say 30,
and then next morning 25. You should at least have produced goods (IL
FALLAIT EN DONNER) at the price current; very easy to do when one was
on the spot. All your procedures have been faults hitherto. [Klein, v.
259.]

"These are dreadful symptoms. Steuer-Notes, promised at 35 discount, are
not to be had except at 30. Say 30 then, and get done with it, mule of
a scoundrel! Next day the 30 sinks to 25; and not a Steuer-Note, on any
terms, comes to hand. And the mule of a scoundrel has drawn money, in
Dresden yonder, for my Bill on Paris,--excellent to him for trade of his
own! What is to be done with such an Ass of Balaam? He has got the bit
in his teeth, it would seem. Heavens, he too is capable of stopping
short, careless of spur and cudgel; and miraculously speaking to a NEW
Prophet [strange new "Revealer of the Lord's Will," in modern dialect],
in this enlightened Eighteenth Century itself!--One thing the new
Prophet, can do: protest his Paris Bill.

"DECEMBER 12th [our next bit of certainty], Voltaire writes, haste,
haste, to Paris, 'Don't pay;' and intimates to Hirsch, 'You will have
to return your Dresden Banker his money for that Paris Bill. At Paris
I have protested it, mark me; and there it never will be paid to him
or you. And you must come home again instantly, job undone, lies not
untold, you--!' Hirsch, with money in hand, appears not to have wanted
fo