--"returns, I believe, to Baireuth; where she will find another Princess of a different sort; I mean Mademoiselle Clairon, who cultivates Natural History, and is Lady Philosopher to Monseigneur the Margraf,"--high-rouged Tragedy-Queen, rather tyrannous upon him, they say: a young man destined to adorn Hammersmith by and by, and not go a good road.
... "I renounce my beautiful hopes of seeing the Mahometans driven out of Europe, and Athens become again the Seat of the Muses. Neither you nor the Kaiser are"--are inclined in the Crusading way at all.... "The old sick man of Ferney is always at the feet of your Majesty; he feels very sorry that he cannot talk of you farther with Madam the Duchess of Wurtemberg, who adores you.--LE VIEUX MALADE." [_OEuvres de Voltaire,_ xcii. 390.]
To which Friedrich makes answer: "If it is forevermore forbidden me to see you again, I am not the less glad that the Duchess of Wurtemberg has seen you. I should certainly have mixed my tears with yours, had I been present at that touching scene! Be it weakness, be it excess of regard, I have built for her lost Mother, what Cicero projected for his Tullia, a TEMPLE OF FRIENDSHIP: her Statue occupies the background, and on each pillar stands a mask (MASCARON) containing the Bust of some Hero in Friendship: I send you the drawing of it." ["Potsdam, 24th October, 1773:" _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxiii. 259:--"Temple" was built in 1768 (Ib. p. 259 n.).] Which again sets Voltaire weeping, and will the Duchess when she sees it. [Voltaire's next Letter: _OEuvres de Voltaire,_ xcii. 434.]
We said there hitherto was nearly nothing anywhere discoverable as History of this high Lady but the dates only; these we now give. She was "born 30th August, 1732,"--her Mother's and Father's one Child;--four years older than her Anspach Cousin, who inherited Baireuth too, and finished off that genealogy. She was "wedded 26th September, 1748;" her age then about 16; her gloomy Duke of Wurtemberg, age 20, all sunshine and goodness to her then: she was "divorced in 1757:" "died 6th April, 1780,"--Tradition says, "in great poverty [great for her rank, I suppose, proud as she might be, and above complaining],--at Neustadt-on-the-Aisch" (in the Nurnberg region), whither she had retired, I know not how long after her Papa's death and Cousin's accession. She is bound for her Cousin's Court, we observe, just now; and, considering her Cousin's ways and her own turn of mind, it is easy to fancy she had not a pleasant time there.