"HELAS," says Formey, "the poor Gentleman wrote to me of his endless satisfaction; and how he hoped to get through his building, and retire on half-pay this very season, thenceforth to belong to the Academy and me; he had been Member for twenty years past." With this view, thinks Formey, he most likely hastened on his buildings too fast: certain it is, a barrack he was building tumbled suddenly, and some workmen perished in the ruins. "Enemies at Court suggested," or the accident itself suggested without any enemy, "Has not he been playing false, using cheap bad materials?"--and Friedrich ordered him arrest in his own Apartments, till the question were investigated. Excitable Lefebvre was like to lose his wits, almost to leap out of his skin. "One evening at supper, he managed to smuggle away a knife; and, in the course of the night, gave himself sixteen stabs with it; which at length sufficed. The King said, 'He has used himself worse than I should have done;' and was very sorry." Of Lefebvre's scientific structures, globes of compression and the rest, I know not whether anything is left; the above Two Notes, thrown off to Formey, were accidentally a hit, and, in the great blank, may last a long while.

So,

The King found this young Kaiser a very pretty man; and could have liked him considerably, had their mutual positions permitted. "He had a frankness of manner which seemed natural to him," says the King; "in his amiable character, gayety and great vivacity were prominent features." By accidental chinks, however, one saw "an ambition beyond measure" burning in the interior of this young man, [ OEuvres de Frederic, (in Memoires de 1763 jusqu'a 1775, a Chapter which yields the briefest, and the one completely intelligible account we yet have of those affairs), vi. 25.]--let an old King be wary. A three days, clearly, to be marked in chalk; radiant outwardly to both; to a certain depth, sincere; and uncommonly pleasant for the time. King and Kaiser were seen walking about arm in arm. At one of the Reviews a Note was brought to Friedrich: he read it, a Note from her Imperial Majesty; and handing it to Kaiser Joseph, kissed it first. At parting, he had given Joseph, by way of keepsake, a copy of Marechal de Saxe's REVERIES (a strange Military Farrago, dictated, I should think, under opium ["MES REVERIES; OUVRAGE POSTHUME, par" &c. (2 vols. 4to: Amsterdam et Leipzig, 1757).]): this Book lay continually thereafter on the Kaiser's night-table; and was found there at his death, Twenty-one years hence,--not a page of it read, the leaves all sticking together under their bright gilding. [Preuss, iv. 24 n.]

So,

It was long believed, by persons capable of seeing into millstones, that, under cover of this Neisse Interview, there were important Political negotiations and consultings carried on;--that here, and in a Second Interview or Return-Visit, of which presently, lay the real foundation of the Polish Catastrophe. What of Political passed at the Second Interview readers shall see for themselves, from an excellent Authority. As to what passed at the present ("mutual word-of-honor: should England and France quarrel, we will stand neutral" [ OEuvres de Frederic, ubi supra.]), it is too insignificant for being shown to readers. Dialogues there were, delicately holding wide of the mark, and at length coming close enough; but, at neither the one Interview nor the other, was Poland at all a party concerned,--though, beyond doubt, the Turk War was; silently this first time, and with clear vocality on the second occasion.

So,

In spite of Galitzin's blunders, the Turk War is going on at a fine rate in these months; Turks, by the hundred thousand, getting scattered in panic rout:--but we will say nothing of it just yet. Polish Confederation--horror-struck, as may be imagined, at its auxiliary Brother of the Sun and Moon and his performances--is weltering in violently impotent spasms into deeper and ever deeper wretchedness, Friedrich sometimes thinking of a Burlesque Poem on the subject;--though the Russian successes, and the Austrian grudgings and gloomings, are rising on him as a very serious consideration. "Is there no method, then, of allowing Russia to prosecute its Turk War in spite of Austria and its umbrages?" thinks Friedrich sometimes, in his anxieties about Peace in Europe:--"If the Ukraine, and its meal for the Armies, were but Russia's! At present, Austria can strike in there, cut off the provisions, and at once put a spoke in Russia's wheel." Friedrich tells us, "he (ON," the King himself, what I do not find in any other Book) "sent to Petersburg, under the name of Count Lynar, the seraphic Danish Gentleman, who, in 1757, had brought about the Convention of Kloster-Zeven, a Project, or Sketch of Plan, for Partitioning certain Provinces of Poland, in that view;" --the Lynar opining, so far as I can see, somewhat as follows: "Russia to lay hold of the essential bit of Polish Territory for provisioning itself against the Turk, and allow to Austria and Prussia certain other bits; which would content everybody, and enable Russia and Christendom to extrude and suppress AD LIBITUM that abominable mass of Mahometan Sensualism, Darkness and Fanaticism from the fairest part of God's Creation." An excellent Project, though not successful! "To which Petersburg, intoxicated with its own outlooks on Turkey, paid not the least attention," says the King. [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 26.] He gives no date to this curious statement; nor does anybody else mention it at all; but we may fancy it to have been of Winter, 1769-1770,--and leave it with the curious, or the idly curious, since nothing came of it now or afterwards.

So,

POTSDAM, 20th-29th OCTOBER, 1769. Only two months after Neisse, what kindles Potsdam into sudden splendor, Electress Marie-Antoine makes a Visit of nine days to the King. "In July last," says a certain Note of ours, "the Electress was invited to Berlin, to a Wedding; 'would have been delighted to come, but letter of invitation arrived too late. Will, however, not give up the plan of seeing the great Friedrich.' Comes to Potsdam 20th-29th October. Stays nine days; much delighted, both, with the visit. 'Magnificent palaces, pleasant gardens, ravishing concerts, charming Princes and Princesses: the pleasantest nine days I ever had in my life,' says the Electress. Friedrich grants, to her intercession, pardon for some culprit. 'DIVA ANTONIA' he calls her henceforth for some time; she him, 'PLUS GRAND DES MORTELS,' 'SALOMON DU NORD,' and the like names." [ OEuvres de Frederic, (CORRESPONDANCE AVEC L'ELECTRICE MARIE- ANTOINE), xxiv. 179-186.] Next year too (September 26th-October 5th, 1770), the bright Lady made a second visit; [Rodenbeck, iii. 24.] no third,--the times growing too political, perhaps; the times not suiting. The Correspondence continues to the end; and is really pretty. And would be instructive withal, were it well edited. For example,--if we might look backwards, and shoot a momentary spark into the vacant darkness of the Past,--Friedrich wrote (the year before this):--

So,

POTSDAM, 3d MAY, 1768. ... "Jesuits have got all cut adrift: A dim rumor spreads that his Holiness will not rest with that first anathema, but that a fulminating Bull is coming out against the Most Christian, the Most Catholic and the Most Faithful. If that be so, my notion is, Madam, that the Holy Father, to fill his table, will admit the Defender of the Faith [poor George III.] and your Servant; for it does not suit a Pope to sit solitary. ...

So,

"A pity for the human race, Madam, that men cannot be tranquil,-- but they never and nowhere can! Not even the little Town of Neufchatel but has had its troubles; your Royal Highness will be astonished to learn how. A Parson there [this was above seven years ago, in old Marischal's reign [See Letters to Marischal, "Leipzig, 9th March, 1761," "Breslau, 14th May, 1762:" in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 282, 287.]] had set forth in a sermon, That considering the immense mercy of God, the pains of Hell could not last forever. The Synod shouted murder at such scandal; and has been struggling, ever since, to get the Parson exterminated. The affair was of my jurisdiction; for your Royal Highness must know that I am Pope in that Country;--here is my decision: Let the parsons, who make for themselves a cruel and barbarous God, be eternally damned, as they desire, and deserve; and let those parsons, who conceive God gentle and merciful, enjoy the plenitude of his mercy! However, Madam, my sentence has failed to calm men's minds; the schism continues; and the number of the damnatory theologians prevails over the others." ["April 2d, 1768" (a month before this Letter to Madam), there is "riot at Neufchatel; and Avocat Gardot [heterodox Parson's ADVOCATE] killed in it" (Rodenbeck, ii. 303).]--Or again:--

So,

POTSDAM, 1st DECEMBER, 1766. "At present I have with me my Niece [Sister's Daughter, of Schwedt], the Duchess of Wurtemberg; who remembers with pleasure to have had the happiness of seeing your Royal Highness in former times. She is very unhappy and much to be pitied; her Husband [Eugen of Wurtemberg, whom we heard much of, and last at Colberg] gives her a deal of trouble: he is a violent man, from whom she has everything to fear; who gives her chagrins, and makes her no allowances. I try my best to bring him to reason;"--but am little successful. Three years after this, "May 3d, 1769," we find Eugen, who once talked of running his august Reigning Brother through the body, has ended by returning to Stuttgard and him; where, or at Mumpelgard, his Apanage, he continued thenceforth. And was Reigning Duke himself, long afterwards, for two years, at the very end of his life. ["Succeeded," on his Brother Karl's death, "20th May, 1795; died 23d December, 1797, age 75."] At this date of 1766, "my poor Niece and he" have been married thirteen years, and have half a score of children;--the eldest of them Czar Paul's Second Wife that is to be, and Mother of the now Czars.

So,

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