My mother offered us the most affectionate welcome, and was delighted to see us again.

My brother remained four years in that pleasant city, constantly engaged in the study of his art, and copying all the fine paintings of battles by the great masters in the celebrated Electoral Gallery.
He went back to Paris only when he felt certain that he could set criticism at defiance; I shall say hereafter how it was that we both reached that city about the same time.

But before that period, dear, reader, you will see what good and adverse fortune did for or against me.
My life in Dresden until the end of the carnival in 1753 does not offer any extraordinary adventure.

To please the actors, and especially my mother, I wrote a kind of melodrama, in which I brought out two harlequins.

It was a parody of the 'Freres Ennemis', by Racine.