Nothing for it but to keep one's room, mostly one's bed,--"Ah, Sire, sick to death!" December 24th, 1752, there is one thing dismally distinct, Voltaire himself looking on (they say), from his windows in Dove Street: the Public Burning of AKAKIA, near there, by the common Hangman.

Figure it; and Voltaire's reflections on it:--haggardly clear that Act Third is culminating; and that the final catastrophe is inevitable and nigh.
We must be brief.

On the eighth day after this dread spectacle (New-year's-day 1753), Voltaire sends, in a Packet to the Palace, his Gold Key and Cross of Merit.

On the interior wrappage is an Inscription in verse: "I received them with loving emotion, I return them with grief; as a broken-hearted Lover returns the Portrait of his Mistress:-- -- Je les recus avec tendresse, Je vous les rends avec douleur; C'est ainsi qu'un amant, dans son extreme ardeur, Rend le portrait de sa maitresse."-- And--in a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of Swans--has one wish: Permission for the waters of Plonbieres, some alleviations amid kind nursing friends there; and to die craving blessings on your Majesty.
[Collini, p.

48; LETTER, in--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii.