VOLTAIRE TO WILHELMINA (Day uncertain: THE DELICES, SEPTEMBER, 1757).--"Madam, my heart is touched more than ever by the goodness and the confidence your Royal Highness deigns to show me. How can I be but melted by emotion! I see that it is solely your nobleness of soul that renders you unhappy. I feel myself born to be attached with idolatry to superior and sympathetic minds, who think like you. "You know how much I have always, essentially and at heart, been attached to the King your Brother. The more my old age is tranquil, and come to renounce everything, and make my retreat here a home and country, the more am I devoted to that Philosopher-King. I write nothing to him but what I think from the bottom of my heart, nothing that I do not think most true; and if my Letter [dissuasive of seeking Death; wait, reader] appears to your Royal Highness to be suitable, I beg you to protect it with him, as you have done the foregoing." [In _Voltaire,_ lxxvii. 37, 39.] 4. FRIEDRICH TO WILHELMINA, AND, BY ANTICIPATION, HER ANSWER (Third of the Prose Pieces).--"KIRSCHLEBEN, NEAR ERFURT, 17th SEPTEMBER, 1757.--My dearest Sister, I find no other consolation but in your precious Letters. May Heaven reward so much virtue and such heroic sentiments! "Since I wrote last to you, my misfortunes have but gone on accumulating. It seems as though Destiny would discharge all its wrath and fury upon the poor Country which I had to rule over. The Swedes have entered Pommern. The French, after having concluded a Neutrality humiliating to the King of England and themselves [Kloster-Zeven, which we know], are in full march upon Halberstadt and Magdeburg. From Preussen I am in daily expectation of hearing of a battle having been fought: the proportion of combatants being 25,000 against 80,000 [was fought, Gross-Jagersdorf, 30th August, and lost accordingly]. The Austrians have marched into Silesia, whither the Prince of Bevern follows them. I have advanced this way to fall upon the corps of the allied Army; which has run off, and intrenched itself, behind Eisenach, amongst hills, whither to follow, still more to attack them, all rules of war forbid. The moment I retire towards Saxony, this whole swarm will be upon my heels. Happen what may, I am determined, at all risks, to fall upon whatever corps of the enemy approaches me nearest. I shall even bless Heaven for its mercy, if it grant me the favor to die sword in hand.