BAIREUTH, 12th SEPTEMBER, 1757 (TO VOLTAIRE).--"Your Letter has sensibly touched me; that which you addressed to me for the King [both Letters lost to us] has produced the same effect on him. I hope you will be satisfied with his Answer as to what concerns yourself; but you will be as little so as I am with the resolutions he has formed. I had flattered myself that your reflections would make some impression on his mind. You will see the contrary by the Letter adjoined. "To me there remains nothing but to follow his destiny if it is unfortunate. I have never piqued myself on being a philosopher; though I have made my efforts to become so. The small progress I made did teach me to despise grandeurs and riches: but I could never find in philosophy any cure for the wounds of the heart, except that of getting done with our miseries by ceasing to live. The state I am in is worse than death. I see the greatest man of his age, my Brother, my friend, reduced to the frightfulest extremity. I see my whole Family exposed to dangers and perhaps destruction; my native Country torn by pitiless enemies; the Country where I am [Reichs Army, Anspach, what not] menaced by perhaps similar misfortune. Would to Heaven I were alone loaded with all the miseries I have described to you! I would suffer them, and with firmness. "Pardon these details. You invite me, by the part you take in what regards me, to open my heart to you. Alas, hope is well-nigh banished from it. Fortune, when she changes, is as constant in her persecutions as in her favors. History is full of those examples:--but I have found none equal to the one we now see; nor any War as inhuman and as cruel among civilized nations. You would sigh if you knew the sad situation of Germany and Preussen. The cruelties which the Russians commit in that latter Country make nature shudder. [Details, horrible but authentic, in _Helden-Geschichte, _ already cited.] How happy you in your Hermitage; where you repose on your laurels, and can philosophize with a calm mind on the deliriums of men! I wish you all the happiness imaginable. If Fortune ever favor us again, count on all my gratitude. I will never forget the marks of attachment which you have given; my sensibility is your warrant; I am never half-and-half a friend, and I shall always be wholly so of Brother Voltaire.--WILHELMINA. "Many compliments to Madame Denis. Continue, I pray you, to write to the King." [In _Voltaire,_ ii. 197-199; lxxvii. 57.]