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So that the place, "A DEUX LIEUES DE CLEVES," is, even by Voltaire's showing, this Moyland; were there otherwise any doubt upon it. "CHATEAU DE MEUSE" hanging out a prospect of MORS to us is bad usage to readers. Of an intelligent man, not to say a Trismegistus of men, one expects he will know in what town he is, after three days' experience, as here.
Rambonet, I judge, enjoyed only one of those divine Suppers at Moyland; and dashed off again, "on hired hack" or otherwise, the very next morning; that contingency of No-answer having been the anticipated one, and all things put in perfect readiness for it. Succinct good Manifestoes, said to be of Friedrich's own writing; the essential of the two is this:
Getting no written answer, or distinct verbal one; getting only some vague mumblement as good as none, Rambonet had disappeared from Liege on the 9th; and was home at Moyland when Voltaire arrived that Sunday evening, just walking about to come to heat again, after reporting progress to the above effect.
Voltaire had at once decided on complying, what else? and lost no time in packing himself: King's Courier on Thursday late; Voltaire on the road on Saturday early, or the night before. No. 2. VOLTAIRE'S DRIVE THITHER. Schloss Moyland: How far from Brussels, and by what route? Flat damp country; tolerably under tillage; original constituents bog and sand.
Accordingly the Rath Rambonet, whom Voltaire found at Moyland that Sunday night, had been over at Liege; went exactly a week before; with this message of very peremptory tenor from his Majesty: "WESEL, 4th September, 1740.
This Rambonet, whom Voltaire found walking in the court of the old Castle of Moyland, is an official gentleman, otherwise unknown to History, who has lately been engaged in a Public Affair; and is now off again about it, "on a hired hack" or otherwise, with very good instructions in his head.
Affair which, though in itself but small, is now beginning to make great noise in the world, as Friedrich wends homewards out of his Cleve Journey. He has set it fairly alight, Voltaire and he, before quitting Moyland; and now it will go of itself. The Affair of Herstal, or of the Bishop of Liege; Friedrich's first appearance on the stage of politics.
"Sunday next I shall be at a little Place near Cleve," Schloss of Moyland, which, and the route to which, this Courier can tell you of; "where I shall be able to possess you at my ease. If the sight of you don't cure me, I will send for a Confessor at once.
So that all our knowledge reduces itself to this one point: of finding Moyland in the Map, with DATE, with REMINISCENCE to us, hanging by it henceforth! Mors which is near the Town of Ruhrort, about midway between Wesel and Dusseldorf must be some forty miles from Moyland, forty-five from Cleve; southward of both.
The little Schloss of Moyland by no means "Meuse," nor even MORS, which Voltaire probably means in saying CHATEAU DE MEUSE was, as the least inquiry settles beyond question, the place where Voltaire and Friedrich first met.
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