"The King was so changed, grown so much bigger (GRANDI), you could not have known him again;" stands finely erect and at full breadth, every inch a King; his very stature, you would say, increased .-- Adieu, my Princess, pearl of Princesses; all readers will expect your return-visit at Berlin, which is to be soon.
FRIEDRICH STRIKES OFF TO THE LEFT, AND HAS A VIEW OF STRASBURG FOR TWO DAYS.
Through Wurzburg, Frankfurt-on-Mayn, speeds Friedrich;--Wilhelmina and mankind understand that it is homewards and to Cleve; but at Frankfurt, in deepest privacy, there occurs a sudden whirl southward,--up the Rhine-Valley; direct towards Strasburg, for a sight of France in that quarter! So has Friedrich decided,--not quite suddenly, on new Letters here, or new computations about Cleve; but by forethought taken at Baireuth, as rather appears.

From Frankfurt to Strasburg, say 150 miles; from Strasburg home, is not much farther than from Frankfurt home: it can be done, then; husht! The incognito is to be rigorous: Friedrich becomes COMTE DUFOUR, a Prussian-French gentleman; Prince August Wilhelm is Graf von Schaffgotsch, Algarotti is Graf von Pfuhl, Germans these two; what Leopold, the Young Dessauer, called himself,--still less what the others, or whether the others were there at all, and not shoved on, direct towards Wesel, out of the way as is likelier,--can remain uncertain to readers and me.

From Frankfurt, then, on Monday morning, 22d August, 1740, as I compute, through old known Philipsburg Campaign country, and the lines of Ettlingen and Stollhofen; there the Royal Party speeds eagerly (weather very bad, as appears): and it is certain they are at Kehl on Tuesday evening; looking across the long Rhine Bridge, Strasburg and its steeples now close at hand.
This looks to be a romantic fine passage in the History of the young King;--though in truth it is not, and proves but a feeble story either to him or us.

Concerning which, however, the reader, especially if he should hear that there exists precise Account of it, Two Accounts indeed, one from the King's own hand, will not fail of a certain craving to become acquainted with details.

This craving, foolish rather than wise, we consider it thriftiest to satisfy at once; and shall give the King's NARRATIVE entire, though it is a jingling lean scraggy Piece, partly rhyme, "in the manner of Bachaumont and La Chapelle;" written at the gallop, a few days hence, and despatched to Voltaire:--"You," dear Voltaire, "wish to know what I have been about, since leaving Berlin; annexed you will find a description of it," writes Friedrich.
[_OEuvres,_ xxii.