I am pleased that my Victor was forbidden the court. Dismissal from court is generally a favor,--(now a deliverance from court-services may well deserve that name,)--which is not always bestowed on the worthiest, but often on a devil like Louvois,[186] as well as on an apostle like Tessin.[187] But does it not amount to taking away from an eminent favor, an order _pour le mérite_, all its value, when one tosses it to knaves, whereas it ought to be laid up as the greatest and last reward, as a premium and pike-bearer's reward,[188] as an ovation, for the most honest, candid, and oldest man at court? In the next chapter one may hold himself prepared for an uproar, the like of which is heard in few German chapters; the alarm-cannons of the court-party, the knocking down of scaffoldings and upsetting of chairs, in getting from the criminal court, I shall be able to hear even over on my island. The black-haired and black-hearted court-page, when he is discharged from arrest, with his ironical mien and his peculiar _low_ voice,--the ripieno-voice of his most malicious scorn, as it is with others that of the most exalted enthusiasm,--will stalk round everywhere and say, he wishes his Lordship would appear, he has hitherto labored in his matters to the best of his ability. At court one sometimes becomes sublime by an eminent wickedness,[189] as, according to Burke, no smell is sublime except the most stinking of all, and no taste except the bitterest. And just so every one easily conceals there his compassionate interest in the falling favorite, like the wise father, who, at the _fall_ of a child, disguises his compassionate face under a comic one. On the 21st of October, Matthieu is set at large, and is at liberty to go to Flamin,--he has begged the favor for himself--to announce to him his freedom and promotion at once.... In a few days the incidents, and my protocol of them, might run out of the hour-glass of one and the same time, if the dog should come regularly; but he comes when he will. 44. DOG-POST-DAY. Brotherly Love.--Friendly Love.--Maternal Love.--Love. The Dog is here, but not his Lordship,--the noise is small, but not the joy,--all is prepared for, and yet unexpected,--vice maintains the battle-field, but virtue the Elysian fields.--In short, it is very foolish, but very fine. I think this is the last chapter of the book. I look upon the Post-Dog--my Pomeranian messenger,[190] whose tail is his official pike--with real emotion, and it vexes me to think that he, too, has fallen in Adam, and has eaten a bone under the forbidden tree; for in Paradise the first canine parents shone like diamonds, and one could see through them, as Böhme asserts.--For this very reason, as the Mining Superintendent will soon have written himself out, let it be forgiven him that, in this chapter of love, he is more ardent and agreeable than ever, and in fact writes now as if he were possessed.