King's answer come!"--"But your written
promise to Voltaire?" "Tush, that was my own private promise, Monsieur;
my own private prediction of what would happen; a thing PRO FORMA", and
to save Madame Denis's life. Patience; perhaps it will arrive this very
day. Come again to me at three P.M.;--there is Berlin post today; then
again in three days:--I surely expect the Order will come by this post
or next; God grant it may be by this!" Collini attends at three; there
is Note from Fredersdorf: King's Majesty absent in Preussen all this
while; expected now in two days. Freytag's face visibly brightens: "Wait
till next post; three days more, only wait!" [Varnhagen, pp. 39-41.] And
in fact, by next post, as we find, the OPEN-SESAME did punctually come.
Voltaire, and all this big cawing rookery of miseries and rages, would
have at once taken wing again, into the serene blue, could Voltaire but
have had patience three days more! But that was difficult for him, too
Difficult.

PART II. VOLTAIRE, IN SPITE OF HIS EFFORTS, DOES GET AWAY (June
20th-July 7th).

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20th, Voltaire and Collini ("word. of honor" fallen
dubious to them, dubious or more),--having laid their plan, striving
to think it fair in the circumstances,--walk out from the Lion d'Or,
"Voltaire in black-velvet coat," [Ib. p. 46.] with their valuablest
effects (LA PUCELLE and money-box included); leaving Madame Denis to
wait the disimprisonment of OEUVRE DE POESIE and wind up the general
business. Walk out, very gingerly,--duck into a hackney-coach; and
attempt to escape by the Mainz Gate! Freytag's spy runs breathless with
the news; never was a Freytag in such taking. Terrified Freytag has to
"throw on his coat;" order out three men to gallop by various routes;
jump into some Excellency's coach (kind Excellency lent it), which is
luckily standing yoked near by; and shoot with the velocity of life
and death towards Mainz Gate. Voltaire, whom the well-affected Porter,
suspecting something, has rather been retarding, is still there:
"Arrested, in the King's name!"--and there is such a scene! For Freytag,
too, is now raging, ignited by such percussion of the terrors; and
speaks, not like what they call "a learned sergeant", but like a
drilled sergeant in heat of battle: Vol-taire's tongue, also, and
Collini's,--"Your Excellenz never heard such brazen-faced lies thrown
on a man; that I had offered, for 1,000 thalers, to let them go; that
I had"--In shor