197:" cited in PREUSS, ii.

348.] The meeting in Cleve Country was, no doubt, a very pretty passage, with Two pretty Months following;--and if it be true that HELVETIUS was a consequence, the 11th of June, 1763, may almost claim to be a kind of epoch in Friedrich's later history.

The opulent and ingenious M.
Helvetius, who wrote DE L'ESPRIT, and has got banished for that feat (lost in the gloom of London in those months), had been a mighty Tax-gatherer as well; D'Alembert, as brother Philosophe, was familiar with Helvetius.

It is certain, also, King Friedrich, at this time, found he would require annually two million thalers more;--where to get them, seemed the impossibility.

A General Krockow, who had long been in French Service, and is much about the King, was often recommending the French Excise system;--he is the Krockow of DOMSTADTL, and that SIEGE OF OLMUTZ, memorable to some of us:--"A wonderful Excise system," Krockow is often saying, in this time of straits.