"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.