346 ("22d December, 1759").] TO PERPETUAL SECRETARY FORMEY (in forwarding a "Letter left with me").
"Health and peace, Monsieur; and be SECRETAIRE ETERNEL.

Your King is always a man unique, astonishing, inimitable.

He makes charming verses, in times when another could not write a line of prose; he deserves to be happy: but will he be so?
And if not, what becomes of you?
For my own part, I will not die between two Capuchins.

Hardly worth while, exalting one's soul for such a future as that.

What a stupid and detestable farce this world is!" [Ib.