"FREYBERG, 18th December, 1759.
"MADAM,—You spoil me so by your indulgence, you so accustom me to have obligations to you, that I reproach myself a hundred times with this presumption. Certainly I should not continue to enclose these Letters to your care, had not I the hope that perhaps the Correspondence may be of some use to England, and even to Europe,—for without doubt Peace is the desirable, the natural and happy state for all Nations. It is to accelerate Peace, Madam, that I abuse your generosities. This motive excuses me to myself for the incongruity of my procedures.
"The goodness you have to take interest in my situation obliges me to give you some account of it. We have undergone all sorts of misfortune here [Maxen, what not], at the moment we were least expecting them. Nevertheless, there remains to us courage and hope; here are Auxiliaries [Hereditary Prince and 12,000] on the point of arriving; there is reason to think that the end of our Campaign will be less frightful than seemed likely three weeks ago. May you, Madam, enjoy all the happiness that I wish you. May all the world become acquainted with your virtues, imitate them, and admire you as I do. May you be persuaded that...—F."
3.
"FREYBERG, 16th February, 1760.
"MADAM,—It is to my great regret that I importune Your Highness so often with my Letters. Your bounties, Madam, have spoiled me;—it will teach you to be more chary of them to others. I regard you as an estimable Friend, to whose friendship I have recourse in straits. The question is still Peace, Madam; and were not the object of my importunities so beautiful, Madam, I should be inexcusable."—Goes then into practical considerations, about "Cocceji" (King's Aide-de-Camp, once Keith's, who carries this Letter), about a "Herr von Edelsheim," a "Bailli de Froulay", and the possible "Conditions of Peace,"—not of consequence to us just now. [OEuvres de Frederic, xviii. 174, 173, 172. Correspondence on this subject lasts from 22d September, 1759, to 8th May, 1760: IB. pp. 170-186. In that final Letter of 8th May is the phrase, hardly worth restoring to its real ownership, though the context considerably redeems it there,—"the prejudice I can't get rid of, that, in war, DIEU EST POUR LES GROS ESCADRONS.">[
As to Voltaire again, and the new Friedrich-Voltaire Style of Correspondence, something more of detail will be requisite. Ever since the black days of 1757, when poor Wilhelmina, with Rossbach and Leuthen still hidden from her in a future gloomy as death, desperately brought Voltaire to bear upon Cardinal Tencin in this matter, without success, there has been a kind of regular corresponding between Voltaire and Friedrich; characteristic on both sides. A pair of Lovers hopelessly estranged and divorced; and yet, in a sense, unique and priceless to one another. The Past, full of heavenly radiances, which issued, alas, in flames and sooty conflagrations as of Erebus,—let us forget it, and be taught by it! The Past is painful, and has been too didactic to some of us: but here still is the Present with its Future; better than blank nothing. Pleasant to hear the sound of that divine voice of my loved one, were it only in commonplace remarks on the weather,—perhaps intermixed with secret gibings on myself:—let us hear it while we can, amid those world-wide crashing discords and piping whirlwinds of war.
Friedrich sends his new Verses or light Proses, which he is ever and anon throwing off; Voltaire sends his, mostly in print, and of more elaborate turn: they talk on matters that are passing round them, round this King, the centre of them,—Friedrich usually in a rather swaggering way (lest his Correspondent think of blabbing), and always with something of banter audible in him;—as has Voltaire too, but in a finer TREBLE tone, being always female in this pretty duet of parted lovers. It rarely comes to any scolding between them; but there is or can be nothing of cordiality. Nothing, except in the mutual admiration, which one perceives to be sincere on both sides; and also, in the mutual practical estrangement: "Nothing more of you,—especially of YOU, Madam,—as a practical domestic article!"
After long reading, with Historical views, in this final section of the Friedrich-Voltaire Correspondence, at first so barren otherwise and of little entertainment, one finds that this too, when once you CAN "read" it (that is to say, when the scene and its details are visible to you), becomes highly dramatic, Shakspearean-comic or more, for this is Nature's self, who far excels even Shakspeare;—and that the inextricably dark condition of these Letters is a real loss to the ingenuous reader, and especially to the student of Friedrich. Among the frequently recurring topics, one that oftenest turns up on Voltaire's side is that of Peace: Oh, if your Majesty would but make Peace! Does it depend on me? thinks Friedrich always; and is, at last, once provoked to say so:—
FRIEDRICH TO VOLTAIRE.