"Who completely understands it ?" the King might ask.

"Helvetius, against the world!" D'Alembert could justly answer.

"Invite Helvetius to leave his London exile, and accept an asylum here, where he may be of vital use to me!" concludes Friedrich.
Helvetius came in March, 1765; stayed till June, 1766: [Rodenbeck, ii.
254; Preuss, iii.

11.]--within which time a French Excise system, which he had been devising and putting together, had just got in gear, and been in action for a month, to Helvetius's satisfaction.

Who thereupon went his way, and never returned;--taking with him, as man and tax-gatherer, the King's lasting gratitude; but by no means that of the Prussian Nation, in his tax-gathering capacity! All Prussia, or all of it that fell under this Helvetius Excise system, united to condemn it, in all manner of dialects, louder and louder: here, for instance, is the utterance of Herr Hamann, himself a kind of Custom-house Clerk (at Konigsberg, in East Preussen), and on modest terms a Literary man of real merit and originality, who may be supposed to understand this subject: "And so," says Hamann, "the State has declared its own subjects incapable of managing its Finance system; and in this way has intrusted its heart, that is the purse of its subjects, to a company of Foreign Scoundrels, ignorant of everything relating to it!" ["Hamann to Jacobi" (see Preuss, iii.