6173. AU LORD MARÉCHAL D'ÉCOSSE A PARIS.
[Berlin], 17 janvier [1754].
Je vous avoue, mon cher Milord, que je me fais une secrète joie de vous revoir;1 pour plus de sûreté votre frère vous marquera un itinéraire2 dont je crois que votre prudence fera son profit. On dit que le Cäpten3 n'honorera pas cette année son peuple chéri de sa présence; en ce cas, nous pourrons nous arranger ensemble sur votre départ.
Nous avons ici une foule d'Anglais, mais je ne vois parmi eux aucune semence des Chesterfield ni des Bolingbroke; ils logent chez M. Cari4 et ils vont à Hénouvér.
Le fol s'est dit mort et s'est fait annoncer comme tel dans les gazettes; cela lui a valu l'épigramme que je vous envoie pour vous amuser :
Ci-gît le seigneur Arouet,
Qui de friponner eut manie;
Ce bel esprit toujours adroit
N'oublia pas son intérêt
En passant même en l'autre vie:
1 Lord Marschall hatte aus Gesundheitsrücksichten um seine Abberufung gebeten. Vergl. S. 182.
2 Der Feldmarschall Keith schreibt an Lord Marschall, 17. Januar 1754: „I'm glad my dearest brother says nothing of bis health in the letter I have just now received of the 27 of december, for count Podewils had alarmed me a good deal by telling me that you had been obliged more than once to send Mr. Knyphausen in your place to Versailles on occasion of incommodity's and tho' I hope you wou'd not disguise to me the State of your health and that therfore your silence on the subject has made me more easy, yet a conversation I had some days ago with the King gives me still reason to suspect that it is not so good as I ought to wish it. He told me that for sometime past you had solicitated him to allow you to retire from the service he had employed you in, and at your earnest désire he had granted your request, but at the same time had acquainted you, how absolutely necessary it was for his interest that you should continue in the same post tili the end of harvest, by which time he must think of some other to replace you, he asked me at the same time if your intention was to return here; to which I answer'd him that I was persuaded it was, tho' I said this without any authority from you, yet when I consider the King's generosity in giving you a pension, without any advances on your side, and the esteem you have gained with every body here, which won'd enduce you rather to retire here than to any other place, I hope I have advanced nothing, but what must be agreeable to your intentions; he told me in that case he thought you shou'd keep the time of your journey and route as private as possible, and that after taking leave of the Court of France you should give it out that your health required your going for some time to the south of France, that it was easy on the way to take a cross road to Strasbourg and Francfort and after passing the Hessian dominions to turn into Saxony by which you wou'd évite all the Hannoverian territories and arrive safely here. Every thing he said was more like a friend than a souvereign, and showed a real tenderness for your préservation, and I do assure you without flattering you that you have gained the général good will and friendship of every body that is valuable here; tho' I write all this to you without any cypher, count Podewils assures me there is no danger of it's being known as the letter goes by a particular conveyance.“
3 König Georg II. Vergl. Bd. I, 247.
4 In den damaligen berliner Adresskalendern findet ein ähnlicher Name sich nicht.