ASSE, [At a "Hofrath Francheville's" (kind of subaltern
Literary Character, see Denina, ii. 67), "TAUBEN-STRASSE (Dove Street),
No. 20:" stayed there till "March, 1753" (Note by Preuss,--OEuvres de
Frederic,--xxii. 306 n.).] till one either die, or grow fit to be seen
again: "Ah, Sire"--let us give the Voltaire shriek of NOT-GUILTY, with
the Friedrich Answer; both dateless unluckily:--

VOLTAIRE. "AH, MON DIEU, Sire, in the state I am in! I swear to you
again, on my life, which I could renounce without pain, that it is a
frightful calumny. I conjure you to summon all my people, and confront
them. What? You will judge me without hearing me! I demand justice or
death."

FRIEDRICH. "Your effrontery astonishes me. After what you have done, and
what is clear as day, you persist, instead of owning yourself culpable.
Do not imagine you will make people believe that black is white; when
one [ON, meaning _I_] does not see, the reason [sic]? ONE p. 218, book
XVI +++++++++++++++++ is, one does not want to see everything. But if
you drive the affair to extremity,--all shall be made public; and it
will be seen whether, if your Works deserve statues, your conduct does
not deserve chains." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 302, 301.]

Most dark element (not in date only), with terrific thunder-and-
lightning. Nothing for it but to keep one's room, mostly one's
bed,--"Ah, Sire, sick to death!"

December 24th, 1752, there is one thing dismally distinct, Voltaire
himself looking on (they say), from his windows in Dove Street: the
Public Burning of AKAKIA, near there, by the common Hangman. Figure it;
and Voltaire's reflections on it:--haggardly clear that Act Third is
culminating; and that the final catastrophe is inevitable and nigh.
We must be brief. On the eighth day after this dread spectacle
(New-year's-day 1753), Voltaire sends, in a Packet to the Palace, his
Gold Key and Cross of Merit. On the interior wrappage is an Inscription
in verse: "I received them with loving emotion, I return them with
grief; as a broken-hearted Lover returns the Portrait of his Mistress:--

--Je les recus avec tendresse,
Je vous les rends avec douleur;
C'est ainsi qu'un amant, dans son extreme ardeur,
Rend le portrait de sa maitresse."--

And--in a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of Swans--has one wish:
Permission for the waters of Plonbieres, some alleviations amid kind
nursing friends there; and to die cravin