CHAPTER V.-- AFFAIR OF HERSTAL.
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.

Concerning which some very brief notice, if intelligible, will suffice readers of the present day.
Heristal, now called Herstal, was once a Castle known to all mankind; King Pipin's Castle, who styled himself "Pipin of Heristal," before he became King of the Franks and begot Charlemagne.

It lies on the Maas, in that fruitful Spa Country; left bank of the Maas, a little to the north of Liege; and probably began existence as a grander place than Liege (LUTTICH), which was, at first, some Monastery dependent on secular Herstal and its grandeurs:--think only how the race has gone between these two entities; spiritual Liege now a big City, black with the smoke of forges and steam-mills; Herstal an insignificant Village, accidentally talked of for a few weeks in 1740, and no chance ever to be mentioned again by men.
Herstal, in the confused vicissitudes of a thousand years, had passed through various fortunes, and undergone change of owners often enough.
Fifty years ago it was in the hands of the Nassau-Orange House; Dutch William, our English Protestant King, who probably scarce knew of his possessing it, was Lord of Herstal till his death.