"Ah!" said I, "considering that it would have to be in verse, and in Voltairean verse, I would rather not undertake the task."
With a view to pleasing the actress the young author asked me how I would tell her that she was charming without using an 'r'.
"I should say that she enchanted me, made me in an ecstasy, that she is unique."
She wrote me a letter, which I still keep, in which the 'r' does not appear. If I could have stayed at Stuttgart, this device of mine might have won me her favours; but after a week of feasting and triumph the courier came one morning at ten o'clock and announced that his highness, the duke, would arrive at four.
As soon as I heard the news I told Baletti with the utmost coolness that I thought it would be only polite to meet my lord, and swell his train on his entry into Louisburg; and as I wished to meet him at a distance of two stages I should have to go at once. He thought my idea an excellent one, and went to order post-horses immediately; but when he saw me packing up all my belongings into my trunk, he guessed the truth and applauded the jest. I embraced him and confessed my hardihood. He was sorry to lose me, but he laughed when he thought of the feelings of the duke and of the three officers when they found out the trick. He promised to write to me at Mannheim, where I had decided on spending a week to see my beloved Algardi, who was in the service of the Elector. I
had also letters for M. de Sickirigen and Baron Becker, one of the Elector's ministers.
When the horses were put in I embraced Baletti, his little girl, and his pretty housekeeper, and ordered the postillion to drive to Mannheim.
When we reached Mannheim I heard that the Court was at Schwetzingen, and I bade the postillion drive on. I found everyone I had expected to see.
Algardi had got married, M. de Sickingen was soliciting the position of ambassador to Paris, and Baron Becker introduced me to the Elector. Five or six days after my arrival died Prince Frederic des Deux Ponts, and I
will here relate an anecdote I heard the day before he died.
Dr. Algardi had attended on the prince during his last illness. I was supping with Veraci, the poet-laureate, on the eve of the prince's death, and in the course of supper Algardi came in.
"How is the prince?" said I.
"The poor prince--he cannot possibly live more than twenty-four hours."
"Does he know it?"
"No, he still hopes. He grieved me to the heart by bidding me tell him the whole truth; he even bade me give my word of honour that I was speaking the truth. Then he asked me if he were positively in danger of death."
"And you told him the truth?"
"Certainly not. I told him his sickness was undoubtedly a mortal one, but that with the help of nature and art wonders might be worked."
"Then you deceived him, and told a lie?"
"I did not deceive him; his recovery comes under the category of the possible. I did not want to leave him in despair, for despair would most certainly kill him."
"Yes, yes; but you will confess that you told him a lie and broke your word of honour."
"I told no lie, for I know that he may possibly be cured."
"Then you lied just now?"
"Not at all, for lie will die to-morrow."
"It seems to me that your reasoning is a little Jesuitical."
"No, it is not. My duty was to prolong my patient's life and to spare him a sentence which would most certainly have shortened it, possibly by several hours; besides, it is not an absolute impossibility that he should recover, therefore I did not lie when I told him that he might recover, nor did I lie just now when I gave it as my opinion (the result of my experience) that he would die to-morrow. I would certainly wager a million to one that he will die to-morrow, but I would not wager my life."
