"Let us deceive the fever, my dear Voltaire; and let me at least have the pleasure of embracing you. Make my best excuses [polite, rather than sincere] to Madame the MARQUISE, that I cannot have the satisfaction of seeing her at Brussels. All that are about me know the intention I was in; which certainly nothing but the fever could have made me change. "Sunday next I shall be at a little Place near Cleve,"--Schloss of Moyland, which, and the route to which, this Courier can tell you of;--"where I shall be able to possess you at my ease. If the sight of you don't cure me, I will send for a Confessor at once. Adieu; you know my sentiments and my heart. [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxii. 27.] FREDERIC." After which the Correspondence suddenly extinguishes itself; ceases for about a fortnight,--in the bad misdated Editions even does worse;--and we are left to thick darkness, to our own poor shifts; Dryasdust being grandly silent on this small interest of ours. What is to be done? PARTICULARS OF FIRST INTERVIEW, ON SEVERE SCRUTINY. Here, from a painful Predecessor whose Papers I inherit, are some old documents and Studies on the subject,--sorrowful collection, in fact, of what poor sparks of certainty were to be found hovering in that dark element;--which do at last (so luminous are certainties always, or "sparks" that will shine steady) coalesce into some feeble general twilight, feeble but indubitable; and even show the sympathetic reader how they were searched out and brought together. We number and label these poor Patches of Evidence on so small a matter; and leave them to the curious:-- No. 1. DATE OF THE FIRST INTERVIEW. It is certain Voltaire did arrive at the little Schloss of Moyland, September 11th, Sunday night,--which is the "Sunday" just specified in Friedrich's Letter. Voltaire had at once decided on complying,--what else?--and lost no time in packing himself: King's Courier on Thursday late; Voltaire on the road on Saturday early, or the night before. With Madame's shrill blessing (not the most musical in this vexing case), and plenty of fuss. "Was wont to travel in considerable style," I am told; "the innkeepers calling him 'Your Lordship' (M. LE COMTE)." Arrives, sure enough, Sunday night; old Schloss of Moyland, six miles from Cleve; "moonlight," I find,--the Harvest Moon. Visit lasted three days. [Rodenbeck, p. 21; Preuss, &c. &c.]