ases. Madame Denis, on receiving his bad news at Strasburg, sets
off towards him: arrives some days before the OEUVRE and its Big Case.
King Friedrich had gone, May 1st) for some weeks, to his Silesian
Reviews; June 1st (very day of this great sorting in the Lion d'Or), he
is off again, to utmost Prussia this time;--and knows, hitherto and till
quite the end, nothing, except that Voltaire has not turned up anywhere.

... Voltaire cannot have done much at his ANNALS, in this interim at the
Golden Lion, "where he has liberty to walk in the Garden." He has been,
and is, secretly corresponding, complaining and applying, all round,
at a great rate: to Count Stadion the Imperial Excellency at Mainz, to
French friends, to Princess Wilhelmina, ultimately to Friedrich himself.
[In--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxv. 207-214, &c., Letters to Stadion
(of strange enough tenor: see Varnhagen, pp. 30, &c.). In--OEuvres de
Frederic,--xxii. 303, and in--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxv. 185, is
the Letter to Friedrich (dateless, totally misplaced, and rendered
unintelligible, in both Works): Letter SENT through Wilhelmina (see her
fine remarks in forwarding it,--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxvii. iii.
234).] He has been receiving visits, from Serene Highnesses, "Duke of
Meiningen" and the like, who happen to be in Town. Visit from iniquitous
Dutch Bookseller, Van Duren (Printer of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL); with whom
we had such controversy once. Iniquitous, now opulent and prosperous,
Van Duren, happening to be here, will have the pleasure of calling on an
old distinguished friend: distinguished friend, at sight of him entering
the Garden, steps hastily up, gives him a box on the ear, without
words but an interjection or two; and vanishes within doors. That is
something! "Monsieur," said Collini, striving to weep, but unable, "you
have had a blow from the greatest man in the world." [Collini, p. 182.]
In short, Voltaire has been exciting great sensation in Frankfurt; and
keeping Freytag in perpetual fear and trouble.

MONDAY, 18th JUNE, the Big Case, lumbering along, does arrive. It is
carried straight to Freytag's; and at eleven in the morning, Collini
eagerly attends to have it opened. Freytag,--to whom Schmidt has
returned from Embden, but no Answer from Potsdam, or the least light
about those SKRIPTUREN,--is in the depths of embarrassment; cannot open,
till he know completely what items and SKRIPTUREN he is to make sure of
on opening: "I cannot, till the