[103] Corr., ii. 356.

[104] Ib., ii. 358, 369, etc.

[105] The principality of Neuchatel had fallen by marriage (1504) to the French house of Orleans-Longueville, which with certain interruptions retained it until the extinction of the line by the death of Marie, Duchess of Nemours (1707).  Fifteen claimants arose with fifteen varieties of far-off title, as well as a party for constituting Neuchatel a Republic and making it a fourteenth canton.  (Saint Simon, v. 276.) The Estates adjudged the sovereignty to the Protestant house of Prussia (Nov. 3, 1707).  Lewis XIV., as heir of the pretensions of the extinct line, protested.  Finally, at the peace of Utrecht (1713), Lewis surrendered his claim in exchange for the cession by Prussia of the Principality of Orange, and Prussia held it until 1806.  The disturbed history of the connection between Prussia and Neuchatel from 1814, when it became the twenty-first canton of the Swiss Confederation, down to 1857, does not here concern us.

[106] Corr., ii. 370.

[107] Corr., ii. 371.  July 1762.

[108] D’Alembert, who knew Frederick better than any of the philosophers, to Voltaire, Nov. 22, 1765.

[109] Letter to Hume; Burton’s Life of Hume, ii. 105, corroborating Conf., xii. 196.

[110] Marischal to J.J.R.; Streckeisen, ii. 70.

[111] Corr., iii. 40.  Nov. 1, 1762.

[112] Burton’s Life, ii. 113.

[113] Voltaire’s Corr. (1758). Oeuv., lxxv. pp. 31 and 80.

[114] Conf., xii. 237.

[115] Corr., iii. 41.  Nov. 11, 1762.

[116] Corr., iii. 38.  Oct. 30, 1762.

[117] Ib., iii. 110-115.  Jan. 28, 1763.

[118] Bernardin de St. Pierre, xii. 103, 59, etc.

[119] George Keith (1685-1778) was elder brother of Frederick’s famous field-marshal, James Keith.  They had taken part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, and fled abroad on its failure.  James Keith brought his brother into the service of the King of Prussia, who sent him as ambassador to Paris (1751), afterwards made him Governor of Neuchatel (1754), and eventually prevailed on the English Government to reinstate him in the rights which he had forfeited by his share in the rebellion (1763).

[120] Streckeisen, ii. 98, etc.

[121] One of Rousseau’s chief distresses hitherto arose from the indigence in which Theresa would be placed in case of his death.  Rey, the bookseller, gave her an annuity of about L16 a year, and Lord Marischal’s gift seems to have been 300 louis, the only money that Rousseau was ever induced to accept from any one in his life.  See Streckeisen, ii. 99; Corr., iii. 336.  The most delicate and sincere of the many offers to provide for Theresa was made by Madame de Verdelin (Streckeisen, ii. 506).  The language in which Madame de Verdelin speaks of Theresa in all her letters is the best testimony to character that this much-abused creature has to produce.