Tyrconnel had said, at first,--when Rothenburg, privately from

Friedrich, came to consult him, "What are, in practical form, those

'assistances from the Most Christian Majesty,' should we MAKE

Alliance with him, as your Excellency proposes, and chance to be

attacked?"--"MORBLEU, assistance enough [enumerating several]: MAIS

MORBLEU, SI VOUS NOUS TROMPEX, VOUS SEREZ ECRASES (if you deceive us,

you will be squelched)!" [Valori, ii. 130, &c.] "He had been chosen

for his rough tongue," says Valori; our French Court being piqued at

Friedrich and his sarcasms. Tyrconnel gives splendid dinners: Voltaire

often of them; does not love Potsdam, nor is loved by it. Nay, I

sometimes think a certain DEMON NEWSWRITER (of whom by and by), but do

not know, may be some hungry Attache of Tyrconnel's. Hungry Attache,

shut out from the divine Suppers and upper planetary movements, and

reduced to look on them from his cold hutch, in a dog-like angry and

hungry manner? His flying allusions to Voltaire, "SON (Friedrich's)

SQUELETTE D'APOLLON, skeleton of an Apollo," and the like, are barkings

almost rabid.

Of the military sort, about this time, Keith and Rothenburg appear

most frequently as guests or companions. Rothenburg had a great deal of

Friedrich's regard: Winterfeld is more a practical Counseller, and does

not shine in learned circles, as Rothenburg may. A fiery soldier too,

this Rothenburg, withal;--a man probably of many talents and qualities,

though of distinctly decipherable there is next to no record of him or

them. He had a Parisian Wife; who is sometimes on the point of

coming with Niece Denis to Berlin, and of setting up their two French

households there; but never did it, either of them, to make an Uncle

or a Husband happy. Rothenburg was bred a Catholic: "he headed the

subscription for the famous 'KATHOLISCHE KIRCHE,'" so delightful to the

Pope and liberal Christians in those years; "but never gave a sixpence

of money," says Voltaire once: Catholic KIRK was got completed with

difficulty; stands there yet, like a large washbowl set, bottom

uppermost, on the top of a narrowish tub; but none of Rothenburg's money

is in it. In Voltaire's Correspondence there is frequent mention of him;

not with any love, but with a certain secret respect, rather inclined

to be disrespectful, if it durst or could: the eloquent vocal individual

not quite at ease beside the more silent thinking and acting one. What

we know is, Friedrich greatly loved the man. There is some straggle of

CORRESPONDENCE between Friedrich and him left; but it is worth nothing;

gives no testimony of that, or of anything else noticeable:--and that is

the one fact now almost alone significant of Rothenburg. Much loved and

esteemed by the King; employed diplomatically, now and then; perhaps

talked with on such subjects, which was the highest distinction.

Poor man, he is in very bad health in these months; has never rightly

recovered of his wounds; and dies in the last days of 1751,--to the

bitter sorrow of the King, as is still on record. A highly respectable

dim figure, far more important in Friedrich's History than he looks. As

King's guest, he can in these months play no part.

Highly respectable too, and well worth talking to, though left very dim

to us in the Books, is Marshal Keith; who has been growing gradually

with the King, and with everybody, ever since he came to these parts

in 1747. A man of Scotch type; the broad accent, with its sagacities,

veracities, with its steadfastly fixed moderation, and its sly

twinkles of defensive humor, is still audible to us through the foreign

wrappages. Not given to talk, unless there is something to be said; but

well capable of it then. Friedrich, the more he knows him, likes him

the better. On all manner of subjects he can talk knowingly, and with

insight of his own. On Russian matters Friedrich likes especially to

hear him,--though they differ in regard to the worth of Russian troops.

"Very considerable military qualities in those Russians," thinks Keith:

"imperturbably obedient, patient; of a tough fibre, and are beautifully

strict to your order, on the parade-ground or off." "Pooh, mere rubbish,

MON CHER," thinks Friedrich always. To which Keith, unwilling to argue

too long, will answer: "Well, it is possible enough your Majesty may try

them, some day; if I am wrong, it will be all the better for us!" Which

Friedrich had occasion to remember by and by. Friedrich greatly respects

this sagacious gentleman with the broad accent: his Brother, the Lord

Marischal, is now in France: Ambassador at Paris, since September, 1751:

["Left Potsdam 28th August" (Rodenbeck, i. 220).] "Lord Marischal, a

Jacobite, for Prussian Ambassador in Paris; Tyrconnel, a Jacobite, for

French Ambassador in Berlin!" grumble the English.

FRACTIONS OF EVENTS AND INDICATIONS, FROM VOLTAIRE HIMSELF, IN THIS

TIME; MORE OR LESS ILLUMINATIVE WHEN REDUCED TO ORDER.

Here, selected from more, are a few "fire-flies,"--not dancing or

distracted, but authentic all, and stuck each on its spit; shedding a

feeble glimmer over the physiognomy of those Fifteen caliginous Months,

to an imagination that is diligent. Fractional utterances of Voltaire to

Friedrich and others (in abridged form, abridgment indicated): the

exact dates are oftenest irretrievably gone; but the glimmer of light

is indisputable, all the more as, on Voltaire's part, it is mostly

involuntary. Grouping and sequence must be other than that of Time.

POTSDAM, 5th JUNE, 1751.--King is off on that Ost-Friesland jaunt;

Voltaire at Potsdam, "at what they call the Marquisat," in complete

solitude,--preparing to die before long,--sends his Majesty some poor

trifles of Scribbling, proofs of my love, Sire: "since I live solitary,

when you are not at Potsdam, it would seem I came for you only" (note

that, your Majesty)!... "But in return for the rags here sent, I

expect the Sixth Canto of your ART [ART DE LA GUERRE, one of the Two

pupil-and-schoolmaster "Specimens" mentioned above]; I expect the

ROOF to the Temple of Mars. It is for you, alone of men, to build that

Temple; as it was for Ovid to sing of Love, and for Horace to give an

ART OF POETRY." (Laying it on pretty thick!)...

Then again, later (after severe study, ferula in hand): "Sire, I return

your Majesty your Six Cantos; I surrender at discretion (LUI LAISSE

CARTE-BLANCHE) on that question of 'VICTOIRE.' The whole Poem is worthy

of you: if I had made this Journey only to see a thing so unique, I

ought not to regret my Country."... And again (still no date): "GRAND

DIEU! is not all that [HISTORY OF THE GREAT ELECTOR, by your Majesty,

which I am devouring with such appetite] neat, elegant, precise, and,

above all, philosophical!"--"Sire, you are adorable; I will pass my days

at your feet. Oh, never make game of me (DES NICHES)!" Has he been at

that, say you! "If the Kings of Denmark, Portugal, Spain, &c. did it, I

should not care a pin; they are only Kings. But you are the greatest man

that perhaps ever reigned." [[In--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 271, 273.]

IS ON LEAVE OF ABSENCE, NEAR BY; WISHES TO BE CALLED AGAIN (No

date).--"Sire, if you like free criticism, if you tolerate sincere

praises, if you wish to perfect a Work [ART DE LA GUERRE, or some other

as sublime], which you alone in Europe are capable of doing, you have

only to bid a Hermit come upstairs. At your orders for all his life."

[Ib. 261.]

IN BERLIN PALACE: PLEASE DON'T TURN ME OUT! (No date)--... "Next to you,

I love work and retirement. Nobody whatever complains of me. I ask of

your Majesty, in order to keep unaltered the happiness I owe to you,

this favor, Not to turn me out of the Apartment you deigned to give me

at Berlin, till I go for Paris [always talking of that]. If I were to

leave it, they would put in the Gazettes that I"--Oh, what would n't

they put in, of one that, belonging to King Friedrich, lives as it were

in the Disc of the Sun, conspicuous to everybody!--"I will go out [of

the Apartment] when some Prince, with a Suite needing it to lodge in,

comes; and then the thing will be honorable. Chasot [gone to Paris]

has been talking"--unguarded things of me!"I have not uttered the least

complaint of Chasot: I never will of Chasot, nor of those who have set

him on [Maupertuis belike]: I forgive everything, I!" [Ib. 270.]

ROTHENBURG IS ILL; VOLTAIRE HAS BEEN TO SEE HIM ("Berlin, 14th,"

no month; year, too surely, 1751, as we shall find! Letter is IN

VERSE).--"Lieberkuhn was going to kill poor Rothenburg; to send him off

to Pluto,--for liking his dish a little;--monster Lieberkuhn! But

Doctor Joyous," your reader, La Mettrie,--led by, need I say whom?--"has

brought him back to us:--think of Lieberkuhn's solemn stare! Pretty

contrasts, those, of sublime Quacksalverism, with Sense under the mask

of Folly. May the haemorrhoidal vein"--follows HERE, note it, exquisite

reader, that of "CUL DE MON HEROS," cited above!--...

And then (a day or two after; King too haemorrhoidal to come twenty

miles, but anxious to know): "Sire, no doubt Doctor Joyous (LE MEDECIN

JOYEUX) has informed your Majesty that when we arrived, the Patient was

sleeping tranquil; and Cothenius assured us, in Latin, that there was

no danger. I know not what has passed since, but I am persuaded your

Majesty approves my journey" (of a street or two),--MUST you speak of

it, then!

GOES TO AN EVENING-PARTY NOW AND THEN (To Niece Denis).--... "Madame

Tyrconnel [French Excellency's Wife] has plenty of fine people at her

house on an evening; perhaps too many" (one of the first houses in

Berlin, this of my Lord Tyrcannel's, which we frequent a good deal)....

"Madame got very well through her part of ANDROMAQUE [in those old

play-acting times of ours]: never saw actresses with finer eyes,"--how

should you!

"As to Milord Tyrconnel, he is an Anglais of dignity,"--Irish in

reality, and a thought blusterous. "He has a condensed (SERRE) caustic

way of talk; and I know not what of frank which one finds in the

English, and does not usually find in persons of his trade. French

Tragedies played at Berlin, I myself taking part; an Englishman Envoy of

France there: strange circumstances these, are n't they?" [To D'Argental

this (--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 289).] Yes, that latter especially;

and Milord Marischal our Prussian Envoy with you! Which the English

note, sulkily, as a weather-symptom.

AT POTSDAM, BIG DEVILS OF GRENADIERS (No date).--... "But, Sire, one is

n't always perched on the summit of Parnassus; one is a man. There are

sicknesses about; I did not bring an athlete's health to these parts;

and the scorbutic humor which is eating my life renders me truly, of

all that are sick, the sickest. I am absolutely alone from morning till

night. My one solace is the necessary pleasure of taking the air, I

bethink me of walking, and clearing my head a little, in your Gardens at

Potsdam. I fancy it is a permitted thing; I present myself, musing;--I

find huge devils of Grenadiers, who clap bayonets in my belly, who

cry FURT, SACRAMENT, and DER KONIG [OFF, SACKERMENT, THE KING, quite

tolerably spelt]! And I take to my heels, as Austrians and Saxons would

do before them. Have you ever read, that in Titus's or Marcus-Aurelius's

Gardens, a poor devil of a Gaulish Poet"--In short, it shall be mended.

[--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 273.]

HAVE BEEN LAYING IT ON TOO THICK (No date; IN VERSE).--"Marcus Aurelius

was wont to"--(Well, we know who that is: What of Marcus, then?)--"A

certain lover of his glory [STILL IN VERSE] spoke once, at Supper, of

a magnanimity of Marcus's;--at which Marcus [flattery too thick] rather

gloomed, and sat quite silent,--which was another fine saying of his

[ENDS VERSE, STARTS PROSE]:--

"Pardon, Sire, some hearts that are full of you! To justify myself, I

dare supplicate your Majesty to give one glance at this Letter (lines

pencil-marked), which has just come from M. de Chauvelin, Nephew of the

famous GARDE-DES-SCEAUX. Your Majesty cannot gloom at him, writing these

from the fulness of his heart; nor at me, who"--Pooh; no, then! Perhaps

do you a NICHE again,--poor restless fellow! [Ib. 280.]

POTSDAM PALACE (No date): SIRE, NZAY I CHANGE MY ROOM?... "I ascend

to your antechambers, to find some one by whom I may ask permission to

speak with you. I find nobody: I have to return:" and what I wanted was

this, "your protection for my SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE, which I am about

to print in Berlin." Surely,--but also this:--

"I am unwell, I am a sick man born. And withal I am obliged to work,

almost as much as your Majesty. I pass the whole day alone. If you would

permit that I might shift to the Apartment next the one I have,--to

that where General Bredow slept last winter,--I should work more

commodiously. My Secretary (Collini) and I could work together there. I

should have a little more sun, which is a great point for me.--Only the

whim of a sick man, perhaps! Well, even so, your Majesty will have pity

on it. You promised to make me happy." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii.

277.]

I SUSPECT THAT I AM SUSPECTED (No date).--"Sire, if I am not brief,

forgive me. Yesterday the faithful D'Arget told me with sorrow that in

Paris people were talking of your Poem." Horrible; but, O Sire,--me?--"I

showed him the eighteen Letters that I received yesterday. They are from

Cadiz," all about Finance, no blabbing there! "Permit me to send you now

the last six from my Niece, numbered by her own hand [no forgery, no

suppression]; deign to cast your eyes on the places I have underlined,

where she speaks of your Majesty, of D'Argens, of Potsdam, of D'Ammon"

(to whom she can't be Phyllis, innocent being)!-MON CHER VOLTAIRE, must

I again do some NICHE upon you, then? Tie some tin-canister to your

too-sensitive tail? What an element you inhabit within that poor skin of

yours! [Ib. 269.]

MAJESTY INVITES US TO A LITERARY CHRISTENING, POTSDAM (No date. These

"Six Twins" are the "ART DE LA GUERRE," in Six Chants; part of that

revised Edition which is getting printed "AU DONJON DU CHATEAU;" time

must be, well on in 1751). Friedrich writes to Voltaire:--

"I have just been brought to bed of Six Twins; which require to be

baptized, in the name of Apollo, in the waters of Hippocrene. LA

HENRIADE is requested to become godmother: you will have the goodness

to bring her, this evening at five, to the Father's Apartment. D'Arget

LUCINA will be there; and the Imagination of MAN-A-MACHINE will hold the

poor infants over the Font." [Ib. 266.]

DEIGN TO SAY IF I HAVE OFFENDED.--... "As they write to me from Paris

that I am in disgrace with you, I dare to beg very earnestly that you

will deign to say if I have displeased in anything! May go wrong by

ignorance or from over-zeal; but with my heart never! I live in the

profoundest retreat; giving to study my whole"--"Your assurances once

vouchsafed [famous Document of August 23d]. I write only to my Niece.

I" (a page more of this)--have my sorrows and merits, and absolutely

no silence at all! [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 289.] "In the gift of

Speech he is the most brilliant of mankind," said Smelfungus; but in the

gift of Silence what a deficiency! Friedrich will have to do that for

Two, it would seem.

BERLIN, 28th DECEMBER, 1751: LOUIS QUATORZE; AND DEATH OF

ROTHENBURG.--"Our LOUIS QUATORZE is out. But, Heavens, see, your

Majesty: a Pirate Printer, at Frankfurt-on-Oder, has been going on

parallel with us, all the while; and here is his foul blotch of an

Edition on sale, too! Bielfeld," fantastic fellow, "had proof-sheets;

Bielfeld sent them to a Professor there, though I don't blame Bielfeld:

result too evident. Protect me, your Majesty; Order all wagons,

especially wagons for Leipzig, to be stopped, to be searched, and the

Books thrown out,--it costs you but a word!"

Quite a simple thing: "All Prussia to the rescue!" thinks an ardent

Proprietor of these Proof-sheets. But then, next day, hears that

Rothenburg is dead. That the silent Rothenburg lay dying, while the

vocal Voltaire was writing these fooleries, to a King sunk in grief.

"Repent, be sorry, be ashamed!" he says to himself; and does instantly

try;--but with little success; Frankfurt-on-Oder, with its Bielfeld

proof-sheets, still jangling along, contemptibly audible, for some time.

[Ib. 285-287.] And afterwards, from Frankfurt-on-Mayn new sorrow rises

on LOUIS QUATORZE, as will be seen.--Friedrich's grief for Rothenburg

was deep and severe; "he had visited him that last night," say the

Books; "and quitted his bedside, silent, and all in tears." It is mainly

what of Biography the silent Rothenburg now has.

From the current Narratives, as they are called, readers will recollect,

out of this Voltaire Period, two small particles of Event amid such an

ocean of noisy froth,--two and hardly more: that of the "Orange-Skin,"

and that of the "Dirty Linen." Let us put these two on their basis; and

pass on:--

THE ORANGE-SKIN (Potsdam, 2d September, 1751, to Niece Denis)--Good

Heavens, MON ENFANT, what is this I hear (through the great

Dionysius' Ear I maintain, at such expense to myself)!... "La Mettrie,

a man of no consequence, who talks familiarly with the King after their

reading; and with me too, now and then: La Mettrie swore to me, that,

speaking to the King, one of those days, of my supposed favor, and the

bit of jealousy it excites, the King answered him: "I shall want him

still about a year:--you squeeze the orange, you throw away the skin (ON

EN JETTE LECORCE)!'" Here is a pretty bit of babble (lie, most likely,

and bit of mischievous fun) from Dr. Joyous. "It cannot be true, No!

And yet--and yet--?" Words cannot express the agonizing doubts, the

questionings, occasionally the horror of Voltaire: poor sick soul,

keeping a Dionysius'-Ear to boot! This blurt of La Mettrie's goes

through him like a shot of electricity through an elderly sick

Household-Cat; and he speaks of it again and ever again,--though we will

not farther.

DIRTY LINEN (Potsdam, 24th July, 1752, To Niece Denis).--... "Maupertuis

has discreetly set the rumor going, that I found the King's Works very

bad; that I said to some one, on Verses from the King coming in,

'Will he never tire, then, of sending me his dirty linen to wash?' You

obliging Maupertuis!"

Rumor says, it was General Mannstein, once Aide-de-Camp in Russia,

who had come to have his WORK ON RUSSIA revised (excellent Work, often

quoted by us [Did get out at last,--in England, through Lord Marischal

and David Hume: see PREFACE to it (London, 1760).]), when the

unfortunate Royal Verses came. Perhaps M. de Voltaire did say it:--why

not, had it only been prudent? He really likes those Verses much more

than I; but knows well enough, SUB ROSA, what kind of Verses they

are. This also is a horrible suspicion; that the King should hear of

this,--as doubtless the King did, though without going delirious upon

it at all. ["To Niece Denis," dates as above (--OEuvres de

Voltaire,--lxxiv. 408, lxxv. 17).] Thank YOU, my Perpetual President,

not the less!--

OF MAUPERTUIS, IN SUCCESSIVE PHASES.--... "Maupertuis is not of very

engaging ways; he takes my dimensions harshly with his quadrant: it is

said there enters something of envy into his DATA. ... A somewhat surly

gentleman; not too sociable; and, truth to say, considerably sunk here

[ASSEZ BAISSE, my D'Argental].

... "I endure Maupertuis, not having been able to soften him. In all

countries there are insociable fellows, with whom you are obliged to

live, though it is difficult. He has never forgiven me for"--omitting to

cite him, &c.--At Paris he had got the Academy of Sciences into trouble,

and himself into general dislike (DETESTER); then came this Berlin

offer. "Old Fleuri, when Maupertuis called to take leave, repeated that

verse of Virgil, NEC TIBI REGNANDI VENIAT TAM DIRA CUPIDO. Fleuri might

have whispered as much to himself: but he was a mild sovereign lord, and

reigned in a gentle polite manner. I swear to you, Maupertuis does not,

in his shop [the Academy here]--where, God be thanked, I never go.

"He has printed a little Pamphlet on Happiness (SUR LE BONHEUR); it

is very dry and miserable. Reminds you of Advertisements for things

lost,--so poor a chance of finding them again. Happiness is not what

he gives to those who read him, to those who live with him; he is not

himself happy, and would be sorry that others were [to Niece Denis

this].

... "A very sweet life here, Madame [Madame d'Argental, an outside

party]: it would have been more so, if Maupertuis had liked. The wish

to please, is no part of his geometrical studies; the problem of

being agreeable to live with, is not one he has solved." [--OEuvres de

Voltaire,--lxxiv. 330, 504 (4th May, 1751, and 14th March, 1752), to the

D'Argentals; to Niece Denis (6th November, 1750, and 24th August, 1751),

lxxiv. 250, 385.]--Add this Anecdote, which is probably D'Arget's, and

worth credit:--

"Voltaire had dinner-party, Maupertuis one of them; party still in the

drawing-room, dinner just coming up. 'President, your Book, SUR LE

BONHEUR, has given me pleasure,' said Voltaire, politely [very politely,

considering what we have just read]; given me pleasure,--a few

obscurities excepted, of which we will talk together some evening.'

'Obscurities?' said Maupertuis, in a gloomy arbitrary tone: 'There may

be such for you, Monsieur!' Voltaire laid his hand on the President's

shoulder [yellow wig near by], looked at him in silence, with

many-twinkling glance, gayety the topmost expression, but by no means

the sole one: 'President, I esteem you, JE VOUS ESTIME, MON PRESIDENT:

you are brave; you want war: we will have it. But, in the mean while,

let us eat the King's roast meat.'" [Duvernet (2d FORM of him, always,

p. 176.]

Friedrich's Answers to these Voltaire Letters, if he wrote any, are all

gone. Probably he answered almost nothing; what we have of his relates

always to specific business, receipt of LOUIS QUATORZE, and the like;

and is always in friendly tone. Handsomely keeping Silence for Two! Here

is a snatch from him, on neutral figures and movements of the time:--

FRIEDRICH TO WIILHELMINA (November 17th, 1751).--"I think the Margraf of

Anspach will not have stayed long with you. He is not made to taste the

sweets of society: his passion for hunting, and the tippling life he

leads this long time, throw him out when he comes among reasonable

persons.... "I expect my Sister of Brunswick, with the Duke and their

eldest Girl, the 4th of next month,"--to Carnival here. "It is seven

years since the Queen (our Mamma) has seen her. She holds a small

Board of Wit at Brunswick; of which your Doctor [Doctor Superville,

Dutch-French, whose perennial merit now is, That he did not burn

Wilhelmina's MEMOIRS, but left them safe to posterity, for long

centuries],--of which your Doctor is the director and oracle. You would

burst outright into laughing when she speaks of those matters. Her

natural vivacity and haste has not left her time to get to the bottom of

anything; she skips continually from one subject to the other, and

gives twenty decisions in a minute." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxvii. i.

202:--On Superville, see Preuss's Note, ib. 56.]

About a month before Rothenburg's death, which was so tragical to

Friedrich, there had fallen out, with a hideous dash of farce in it, the

death of La Mettrie. Here are Two Accounts, by different hands,--which

represent to us an immensity of babble in the then Voltaire circle.

LA METTRIE DIES.--Two Accounts: 1. King Friedrich's: to Wilhelmina.

"21st November, 1751.... We have lost poor La Mettrie. He died for a

piece of fun: ate, out of banter, a whole pheasant-pie; had a horrible

indigestion; took it into his head to have blood let, and convince the

German Doctors that bleeding was good in indigestion. But it succeeded

ill with him: he took a violent fever, which passed into putrid; and

carried him off. He is regretted by all that knew him. He was gay; BON

DIABLE, good Doctor, and very bad Author: by avoiding to read his Books,

one could manage to be well content with himself." [Ib. xxvii. i. 203.]

2. Voltaire's: to Niece Denis (NOT his first to her): Potsdam, 24th

December, 1751.... "No end to my astonishment. Milord Tyrconnel," always

ailing (died here himself), "sends to ask La Mettrie to come and see

him, to cure him or amuse him. The King grudges to part with his Reader,

who makes him laugh. La Mettrie sets out; arrives at his Patient's just

when Madame Tyrconnel is sitting down to table: he eats and drinks,

talks and laughs more than all the guests; when he has got crammed (EN A

JUSQU'AU MENTON), they bring him a pie, of eagle disguised as pheasant,

which had arrived from the North, plenty of bad lard, pork-hash and

ginger in it; my gentleman eats the whole pie, and dies next day at Lord

Tyrconnel's, assisted by two Doctors," Cothenius and Lieberkuhn, "whom

he used to mock at.... How I should have liked to ask him, at

the article of death, about that Orange-skin!" [--OEuvres de

Voltaire,--lxxiv. 439, 450.]

Add this trait too, from authentic Nicolai, to complete the matter: "An

Irish Priest, Father Macmahon, Tyrconnel's Chaplain [more power to him],

wanted to convert La Mettrie: he pushed into the sick-room;--encouraged

by some who wished to make La Mettrie contemptible to Friedrich [the

charitable souls]. La Mettrie would have nothing to do with this Priest

and his talk; who, however, still sat and waited. La Mettrie, in

a twinge of agony, cried out, 'JESUS MARIE!' 'AH, VOUS VOILA ENFIN

RETOURNE A CES NOMS CONSOLATEURS!' exclaimed the Irishman. To which La

Mettrie answered (in polite language, to the effect), 'Bother you!' and

expired a few minutes after." [Nicolai,--Anekdoten,--i. 20 n.]

Enough of this poor madcap. Friedrich's ELOGE of him, read to the

Academy some time after, it was generally thought (and with great

justice), might as well have been spared. The Piece has nothing noisy,

nothing untrue; but what has it of importance? And surely the subject

was questionable, or more. La Mettrie might have done without Eulogy

from a King of men.

... "He had been used to put himself at once on the most familiar

footing with the King [says Thiebault, UNbelievable]. Entered the King's

apartment as he would that of a friend; plunged down whenever he liked,

which was often, and lay upon the sofas; if it was warm, took off

his stock, unbuttoned his waistcoat, flung his periwig on the

floor;" [Thiebault, v. 405 (calls him "La Metherie;" knows, as usual,

nothing).]--highly probable, thinks stupid Thiebault!

"The truth is," says Nicolai, "the King put no real value on La Mettrie.

He considered him as a merry-andrew fellow, who might amuse you, when

half seas-over (ENTRE DEUX VINS). De la Mettrie showed himself unworthy

of any favor he had. Not only did he babble, and repeat about Town what

he heard at the King's table; but he told everything in a false way,

and with malicious twists and additions. This he especially did at Lord

Tyrconnel, the then French Ambassador's table, where at last he died."

[Nicolai,--Anekdoten,--i. 20.] But could not take the ORANGE-SKIN along

with him; alas, no!--

On the whole, be not too severe on poor Voltaire! He is very fidgety,

noisy; something of a pickthank, of a wheedler; but, above all, he

is scorbutic, dyspeptic; hag-ridden, as soul seldom was; and (in his

oblique way) APPEALS to Friedrich and us,--not in vain. And, in

short, we perceive, after the First Act of the Piece, beginning in

preternatural radiances, ending in whirlwinds of flaming soot, he has

been getting on with his Second Act better than could be expected.

Gyrating again among the bright planets, circum-jovial moons, in

the Court Firmament; is again in favor, and might--Alas, he had his

FELLOW-moons, his Maupertuis above all! Incurable that Maupertuis

misery; gets worse and worse, steadily from the first day. No smallest

entity that intervenes, not even a wandering La Beaumelle with his Book

of PENSEES, but is capable of worsening it. Take this of Smelfungus;

this Pair of Cabinet Sketches,--"hasty outlines; extant chiefly," he

declares, "by Voltaire's blame:"--

LA BEAUMELLE.--"Voltaire has a fatal talent of getting into I quarrels

with insignificant accidental people; and instead of silently, with

cautious finger, disengaging any bramble that catches to him, and

thankfully passing on, attacks it indignantly with potent steel

implements, wood-axes, war-axes; brandishing and hewing;--till he

has stirred up a whole wilderness of bramble-bush, and is himself

bramble-chips all over. M. Angliviel de la Beaumelle, for example,

was nothing but a bramble: some conceited Licentiate of Theology,

who, finding the Presbytery of Geneva too narrow a field, had gone to

Copenhagen, as Professor of Rhetoric or some such thing; and, finding

that field also too narrow, and not to be widened by attempts at

Literature, MES PENSEES and the like, in such barbarous Country",--had

now [end of 1751] come to Berlin; and has Presentation copies of MES

PENSEES, OU LE QU'EN DIRA-T-ON, flying right and left, in hopes of doing

better there. Of these PENSEES (Thoughts so called) I will give but

one specimen" (another, that of "King Friedrich a common man,"

being carefully suppressed in the Berlin Copies, of La Beaumelle's

distributing):--

"There have been greater Poets than Voltaire; there was never any so

well recompensed: and why? Because Taste (GOUT, inclination) sets no

limits to its recompenses. The King of Prussia overloads men of talent

with his benefits for precisely the reasons which induce a little German

Prince to overload with benefits a buffoon or a dwarf." [--OEuvres de

Voltaire,--xxvii. 220 n.] Could there be a phenomenon more indisputably

of bramble nature?

"He had no success at Berlin, in spite of his merits; could not come

near the King at all; but assiduously frequented Maupertuis, the

flower of human thinkers in that era,--who was very humane to him in

consequence. 'How is it, O flower of human thinkers, that I cannot get

on with his Majesty, or make the least way?' (HELAS, MONSIEUR, you have

enemies!' answered he of the red wig; and told La Beaumelle (hear it, ye

Heavens), That M. de Voltaire had called his Majesty's attention to

the PENSEE given above, one evening at Supper Royal; 'heard it myself,

Monsieur--husht!' Upon which--

"'Upon which, see, paltry La Beaumelle has become my enemy for life!'

shrieks Voltaire many times afterwards: 'And it was false, I declare

to Heaven, and again declare; it was not I, it was D'Argens quizzing

me about it, that called his Majesty's attention to that PENSEE of

Blockhead La Beaumelle,--you treacherous Perpetual President, stirring

up enemies against me, and betraying secrets of the King's table.'

Sorrow on your red wig, and you!--It is certain La Beaumelle, soon after

this, left Berlin: not in love with Voltaire. And there soon appeared,

at Franfurt-on-Mayn, a Pirate Edition of our brand-new SIECLE DE LOUIS

QUATORZE (with Annotations scurrilous and flimsy);--La Beaumelle the

professed Perpetrator; 'who received for the job 7 pounds 10s. net!'

[Ib. xx.] asseverates the well-informed Voltaire. Oh, M. de Voltaire,

and why not leave it to him, then? Poor devil, he got put into the

Bastille too, by and by; Royal Persons being touched by some of his

stupid foot-notes.

"La Beaumelle had a long course of it, up and down the world, in and

out of the Bastille; writing much, with inconsiderable recompense, and

always in a wooden manure worthy of his First vocation in the Geneva

time. 'A man of pleasing physiognomy,' says Formey, 'and expressed

himself well. I received his visit 14th January, 1752,'--to which latter

small circumstance (welcome as a fixed date to us here) La Beaumelle's

Biography is now pretty much reduced for mankind. [Formey, ii. 221.] He

continued Maupertuis's adorer: and was not a bad creature, only a dull

wooden one, with obstinate temper. A LIFE OF MAUPERTUIS of his writing

was sent forth lately, [--Vie de Maupertuis--(cited above), Paris,

1866.] after lying hidden a hundred years: but it is dull, dead,

painfully ligneous, like all the rest; and of new or of pleasant tells

us nothing.

"His enmity to M. de Voltaire did prove perpetual:--a bramble that might

have been dealt with by fingers, or by fingers and scissors, but could

not by axes, and their hewing and brandishing. 'This is the ninety-fifth

anonymous Calumny of La Beaumelle's, this that you have sent me!' says

Voltaire once. The first stroke or two had torn the bramble quite

on end: 'He says he will pursue you to Hell even,' writes one of the

Voltaire kind friends from Frankfurt, on that 7 pounds 10s. business. 'A

L'ENFER?' answers M. de Voltaire, with a toss: 'Well, I should think so,

he, and at a good rate of speed. But whether he will find me there, must

be a question!' If you want to have an insignificant accidental fellow

trouble you all your days, this is the way of handling him when he first

catches hold."

ABBE DE PRADES.--"De Prades, 'Abbe de Prades, Reader to the King,'

though happily not an enemy of Voltaire's, is in some sort La

Beaumelle's counterpart, or brother with a difference; concerning

whom also, one wants only to know the exact date of his arrival. As La

Beaumelle felt too strait-tied in the Geneva vestures (where it had

been good for him to adjust himself, and stay); so did De Prades in

the Sorbonne ditto,--and burst out, on taking Orders, not into eloquent

Preachings or edifying Devotional Exercises; but into loud blurts of

mere heresy and heterodoxy. Blurts which were very loud, and I believe

very stupid; which failed of being sublime even to the Philosophic

world; and kindled the Sorbonne into burning his Book, and almost

burning himself, had not he at once run for it.

"Ran to Holland, and there continued blurting more at large,--decidedly

stupid for most part, thinks Voltaire, 'but with glorious Passages,

worth your Majesty's attention;'--upon which, D'Alembert too helping,

poor De Prades was invited to the Readership, vacant by La Mettrie's

eagle-pie; and came gladly, and stayed. At what date? one occasionally

asks: for there are Royal Letters, dateless, but written in his hand,

that raise such question in the utter dimness otherwise. Date is

'September, 1752.' [Preuss, i. 368; ii. 115.] Farther question one does

not ask about De Prades. Rather an emphatic intrusive kind of fellow,

I should guess;--wrote, he, not Friedrich, that ABRIDGMENT OF PLEURY'S

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, and other the like dreary Pieces, which used to

be inflicted on mankind as Friedrich's.

"For the rest, having place and small pension,--not, like La Beaumelle,

obliged to pirate and annotate for 7 pounds 10s.--he went on steadily, a

good while; got a Canonry of Glogau [small Catholic benefice, bad if

it was not better than its now occupant];--and unluckily, in the

Seven-Years-War time, fell into treasonous Correspondence with his

countrymen; which it was feared might be fatal, when found out. But no,

not fatal. Friedrich did lock him in Magdeburg for some months; then let

him out: 'Home to Glogau, sirrah; stick to your Canonry henceforth, and

let us hear no more of you at all!' Which shall be his fate in these

pages also."

Good, my friend; no more of him, then! Only recollect "September, 1752,"

if dateless Royal Letters in De Prades's hand turn up.

Chapter X. DEMON NEWSWRITER, OF 1752.

It must be owned, the King's French Colony of Wits were a sorry set of

people. They tempt one to ask, What is the good of wit, then, if this

be it? Here are people sparkling with wit, and have not understanding

enough to discern what lies under their nose. Cannot live wisely with

anybody, least of all with one another.

In fact, it is tragic to think how ill this King succeeded in the matter

of gathering friends. With the whole world to choose from, one fancies

always he might have done better! But no, he could not;--and chiefly for

this reason: His love of Wisdom was nothing like deep enough, reverent

enough; and his love of ESPRIT (the mere Garment or Phantasm of Wisdom)

was too deep. Friends do not drop into one's mouth. One must know how

to choose friends; and that of ESPRIT, though a pretty thing, is by

no means the one requisite, if indeed it be a requisite at all. This

present Wit Colony was the best that Friedrich ever had; and we may all

see how good it was. He took, at last more and more, into bantering his

Table-Companions (which I do not wonder at), as the chief good he could

get of them. And had, as we said, especially in his later time, in the

manner of Dublin Hackney-Coachmen, established upon each animal its

RAW; and makes it skip amazingly at touch of the whip. "Cruel mortal!"

thought his cattle:--but, after all, how could he well help it, with

such a set?

Native Literary Men, German or Swiss, there also were about Friedrich's

Court: of them happily he did not require ESPRIT; but put them into his

Academy; or employed them in practical functions, where honesty and

good sense were the qualities needed. Worthy men, several of these;

but unmemorable nearly all. We will mention Sulzer alone,--and not for

THEORIES and PHILOSOPHIES OF THE FINE ARTS [--Allgemeine Theorie der

Schonen Kunste,--3 vols.; &c. &c.] (which then had their multitudes of

readers); but for a Speech of Friedrich's to him once, which has

often been repeated. Sulzer has a fine rugged wholesome Swiss-German

physiognomy, both of face and mind; and got his admirations, as the

Berlin HUGH BLAIR that then was: a Sulzer whom Friedrich always rather

liked.

Friedrich had made him School Inspector; loved to talk a little with

him, about business, were it nothing else. "Well, Monsieur Sulzer, how

are your Schools getting on?" asked the King one day,--long after this,

but nobody will tell me exactly when, though the fact is certain enough:

"How goes our Education business?" "Surely not ill, your Majesty; and

much better in late years," answered Sulzer.--"In late years: why?"

"Well, your Majesty, in former time, the notion being that mankind were

naturally inclined to evil, a system of severity prevailed in schools:

but now, when we recognize that the inborn inclination of men is

rather to good than to evil, schoolmasters have adopted a more generous

procedure."--"Inclination rather to good?" said Friedrich, shaking his

old head, with a sad smile: "Alas, dear Sulzer, ACH MEIN LIEBER SULZER,

I see you don't know that damned race of creatures (ER KENNT NICHT DIESE

VERDAMMTE RACE) as I do!" [Nicolai, iii. 274;--the thing appears to

have been said in French ("JE VOIS BIEN, MON CHER SULZER, QUE VOUS

NE CONNAISSEZ PAS, COMME MOI, CETTE RACE MAUDITE A LAQUELLE NOUS

APPARTENONS"); but the German form is irresistibly attractive, and is

now heard proverbially from time to time in certain mouths.] Here is

a speech for you!"Pardon the King, who was himself so beneficent and

excellent a King!" cry several Editors of the rose-pink type. This

present Editor, for his share, will at once forgive; but how can he ever

forget!--

"Perhaps I mistake," owns Voltaire, in his Pasquinade of a VIE PRIVEE,

"but it seems to me, at these Suppers there was a great deal of ESPRIT

(real wit and brilliancy) going. The King had it, and made others have;

and, what is extraordinary, I never felt myself so free at any table."

"Conversation most pleasant," testifies another, "most instructive,

animated; not to be matched, I should guess, elsewhere in the world."

[Bielfeld, LETTERS; Voltaire, Vie Privee.] Very sprightly indeed: and a

fund of good sense, a basis of practicality and fact, necessary to be

in it withal; though otherwise it can foam over (if some La Mettrie be

there, and a good deal of wine in him) to very great heights.

A DEMON NEWSWRITER GIVES AN "IDEA" OF FRIEDRICH; INTELLIGIBLE TO THE

KNOWING CLASSES IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE.

Practically, I can add only, That these Suppers of the gods begin

commonly at half-past eight ("Concert just over"); and last till towards

midnight,--not later conveniently, as the King must be up at five (in

Summer-time at four), and "needs between five and six hours of sleep."

Or would the reader care to consult a Piece expressly treating on all

these points; kind of MANUSCRIPT NEWSPAPER, fallen into my hands,

which seems to have had a widish circulation in its day. ["IDEE DE LA

PERSONNE, DE LA MANIERE DE VIVRE, ET DE LA COUR DU ROI DE PRUSSE: juin,

1752." In the--Robinson Papers--(one Copy) now in the British Museum.]

I have met with Two Copies of it, in this Country: one of them, to

appearance, once the property of George Selwyn. The other is among the

Robinson Papers: doubtless very luculent to Robinson, who is now home

in England, but remembers many a thing. Judging from various symptoms,

I could guess this MS. to have been much about, in the English

Aristocratic Circles of that time; and to have, in some measure, given

said Circles their "Idea" (as they were pleased to reckon it) of that

wonderful and questionable King:--highly distracted "Idea;" which, in

diluted form, is still the staple English one.

By the label, DEMON NEWSWRITER, it is not meant that the Author of

this poor Paper was an actual Devil, or infernal Spiritual Essence of

miraculous spectral nature. By no means! Beyond doubt, he is some poor

Frenchman, more or less definable as flesh-and-blood; gesturing about,

visibly, at Berlin in 1752; in cocked-hat and bright shoe-buckles;

grinning elaborate salutations to certain of his fellow-creatures there.

Possibly some hungry ATTACHE of Milord Tyrconnel's Legation; fatally

shut out from the beatitudes of this barbarous Court, and willing to

seek solacement, and turn a dishonest penny, in the PER-CONTRA course?

Who he is, we need not know or care: too evident, he has the sad quality

of transmuting, in his dirty organs, heavenly Brilliancy, more or less,

into infernal Darkness and Hatefulness; which I reckon to have been, at

all times, the principal function of a Devil;--function still carried on

extensively, under Firms of another title, in this world.

Some snatches we will give. For, though it does not much concern a Man

or King, seriously busy, what the idle outer world may see good to talk

of him, his Biographers, in time subsequent, are called to notice the

matter, as part of his Life-element, and characteristic of the world

he had round him. Friedrich's affairs were much a wonder to his

contemporaries. Especially his Domesticities, an item naturally obscure

to the outer world, were wonderful; sure to be commented upon, to

all lengths; and by the unintelligent, first of all. Of contemporary

mankind, as we have sometimes said, nobody was more lied of:--of which,

let this of the Demon Newswriter be example, one instead of many. The

Demon Newswriter, deriving only from outside gossip and eavesdropping,

is wrong very often,--in fact, he is seldom right, except on points

which have been Officially fixed, and are within reach of an inquisitive

Clerk of Legation. Wrong often enough, even in regard to external

particulars, how much more as to internal;--and will need checking, as

we go along.

Demon speaks first of Friedrich's stature, 5ft. 6in. (as we know better

than this Demon); "pretty well proportioned, not handsome, and even

something of awkward (GAUCHE), acquired by a constrained bearing

[head slightly off the perpendicular, acquired by his flute, say

the better-informed]. Is of the greatest politeness. Fine tone of

voice,--fine even in swearing, which is as common with him as with a

grenadier," adds this Demon; not worth attending to, on such points.

"Has never had a nightcap [sleeps bareheaded; in his later times, would

sleep in his hat, which was always soft as duffel, kneaded to softness

as its first duty, and did very well]: Never a nightcap, dressing-gown,

or pair of slippers [TRUE]; only a kind of cloth cloak [NOT QUITE], much

worn and very dirty, for being powdered in. The whole year round he goes

in the uniform of his First Battalion of Guards:--blue with red facings,

button-hole trimmings in silver, frogs at the inner end; his coat

buttons close to the shape; waistcoat is plain yellow [straw-color]; hat

[three-cornered] has edging of Spanish lace, white plume [horizontal,

resting on the lace all round]: boots on his legs all his life. He

cannot walk with shoes [pooh, you--!].

"He rises daily at five:"--No, he does n't at all! In fact, we had

better clap the lid on this Demon, ill-informed as to all these points;

and, on such suggestion, give the real account of them, distilled from

Preuss, and the abundant authentic sources.

Preuss says (if readers could but remember him): "An Almanac lies on

the King's Table, marking for each day what specific duties the day will

bring. From five to six hours of sleep: in summer he rises about three,

seldom after four; in winter perhaps an hour later. In his older time,

seven hours' sleep came to be the stipulated quantity; and he would

sleep occasionally eight hours or even nine, in certain medical

predicaments. Not so in his younger years: four A.M. and five, the set

hours then. Summer and winter, fire is lighted for him a quarter of an

hour before. King rises; gets into his clothes: 'stockings, breeches,

boots, he did sitting on the bed' (for one loves to be particular); the

rest in front of the fire, in standing posture. Washing followed; more

compendious than his Father's used to be.

"Letters specifically to his address, a courier (leaving Berlin, 9

P.M.) had brought him in the dead of night: these, on the instant of the

King's calling 'Here!' a valet in the ante chamber brought in to him, to

be read while his hair was being done. His uniform the King did not at

once put on; but got into a CASAQUIN [loose article of the dressing-gown

kind, only shorter than ours] of rich stuff, sometimes of velvet with

precious silver embroideries. These Casaquins were commonly sky-blue

(which color he liked), presents from his Sisters and Nieces. Letters

being glanced over, and hair-club done, the Life-guard General-Adjutant

hands in the Potsdam Report (all strangers that have entered Potsdam or

left it, the principal item): this, with a Berlin Report, which had come

with the Letters; and what of Army-Reports had arrived (Adjutant-General

delivering these),--were now glanced over. And so, by five o'clock in

the summer morning, by six in the winter, one sees, in the gross, what

one's day's-work is to be; the miscellaneous STONES of it are now mostly

here, only mortar and walling of them to be thought of. General-Adjutant

and his affairs are first settled: on each thing a word or two, which

the General-Adjutant (always a highly confidential Officer, a Hacke, a

Winterfeld, or the like) pointedly takes down.

"General-Adjutant gone, the King, in sky-blue casaquin [often in very

faded condition] steps into his writing-room; walks about, reading his

Letters more completely; drinking, first, several glasses of water; then

coffee, perhaps three cups with or without milk [likes coffee, and

very strong]. After coffee he takes his flute; steps about practising,

fantasying: he has been heard to say, speaking of music and its effects

on the soul, That during this fantasying he would get to considering

all manner of things, with no thought of what he was playing; and that

sometimes even the luckiest ideas about business-matters have occurred

to him while dandling with the flute. Sauntering so, he is gradually

breakfasting withal: will eat, intermittently, small chocolate cakes;

and after his coffee, cherries, figs, grapes, fruits in their season

[very fond of fruit, and has elaborate hot-houses]. So passes the early

morning.

"Between nine and ten, most of one's plan-work being got through, the

questions of the day are settled, or laid hold of for settling. Between

nine and ten, King takes to reading the 'Excerpts' (I suppose, of

the more intricate or lengthier things) of Yesterday, which his three

Cabinet Raths [Clerk Eichel and the other Two] have prepared for him.

King summons these Three, one after the other, according to their

Department; hands them the Letters just read, the Excerpts now decided

on, and signifies, in a minimum of words, what the answers are to

be,--Clerk, always in full dress, listening with both his ears, and

pencil in hand. May have, of Answers, CABINET-ORDERS so called, perhaps

a dozen, to be ready with before evening. ["In a certain Copy or

Final-Register Book [Herr Preuss's Windfall, of which INFRA] entitled

KABINETSORDENKOPIALBUCH, of One of the three Clerks, years 1746-1752,

there are, on the average, ten CABINET-ORDERS daily, Sundays included"

(Preuss, i. 352 n.).]

"Eichel and Company dismissed, King flings off his casaquin, takes his

regimental coat; has his hair touched off with pomade, with powder; and

is buttoned and ready in about five minutes;--ready for Parade, which

is at the stroke of eleven, instead of later, as it used to be in Papa's

time. If eleven is not yet come, he will get on horseback; go sweeping

about, oftenest with errands still, at all events in the free solitude

of air, till Parade-time do come. The Parole [Sentry's-WORD of the

Day] he has already given his Adjutant-General. Parole, which only the

Adjutant and Commandant had known till now, is formally given out; and

the troops go through their exercises, manoeuvres, under a strictness

of criticism which never abates." "Parade he by no chance ever misses,"

says our Demon friend.

"At the stroke of twelve," continues Preuss, "dinner is served. Dinner

threefold; that is, a second table and a third. Only two courses, dishes

only eight, even at the King's Table, (eight also at the Marshal's or

second Table); guests from seven to ten. Dinner plentiful and savory

(for the King had his favorites among edibles), by no means caring to

be splendid,--yearly expense of threefold Dinner (done accurately by

contract) was 1,800 pounds." Linsenbarth we saw at the Third Table,

and how he fared. "The dinner-service was of beautiful porcelain; not

silver, still less gold, except on the grandest occasions. Every guest

eats at discretion,--of course!--and drinks at discretion, Moselle or

Pontac [kind of claret]; Champagne and Hungary are handed round on the

King's signal. King himself drinks Bergerac, or other clarets, with

water. Dinner lasts till two;--if the conversation be seductive, it has

been known to stretch to four. The King's great passion is for talk of

the right kind; he himself talks a great deal, tippling wine-and-water

to the end, and keeps on a level with the rising tide.

"With a bow from Majesty, dinner ends; guests gently, with a little

saunter of talk to some of them, all vanish; and the King is in his own

Apartment again. Generally flute-playing for about half an hour;

till Eichel and the others come with their day's work: tray-loads of

Cabinet-Orders, I can fancy; which are to be 'executed,' that is, to be

glanced through, and signed. Signature for most part is all; but there

are Marginalia and Postscripts, too, in great number, often of a spicy

biting character; which, in our time, are in request among the curious."

Herr Preuss, who has right to speak, declares that the spice of mockery

has been exaggerated; and that serious sense is always the aim both of

Document and of Signer. Preuss had a windfall; 12,000 of these

Pieces, or more, in a lump, in the way of gift; which fell on him like

manna,--and led, it is said, to those Friedrich studies, extensive

faithful quarryings in that vast wilderness of sliding shingle and

chaotic boulders.

"Coffee follows this despatch of Eichel and Consorts; the day now one's

own." Scandalous rumors, prose and verse, connect themselves with this

particular epoch of the day; which appear to be wholly LIES. Of which

presently. "In this after-dinner period fall the literary labors,"

says Preuss:--a facile pen, this King's; only two hours of an afternoon

allowed it, instead of all day and the top of the morning. "About six,

or earlier even, came the Reader [La Mettrie or another], came artists,

came learned talk. At seven is Concert, which lasts for an

hour; half-past eight is Supper." [Preuss, i. 344-347 (and, with

intermittencies, pp. 356, 361, 363 &c. to 376), abridged.]

Demon Newswriter says, of the Concert: "It is mostly of

wind-instruments," King himself often taking part with his flute;

"performers the best in Europe. He has three"--what shall we call them?

of male gender,--"a counter-alt, and Mamsell Astrua, an Italian; they

are unique voices. He cannot bear mediocrity. It is but seldom he has

any singing here. To be admitted, needs the most intimate favor; now and

then some young Lord, of distinction, if he meet with such." Concert,

very well;--but let us now, suppressing any little abhorrences, hear him

on another subject:--

"Dinner lasts one hour [says our Demon, no better informed]: upon which

the King returns to his Apartment with bows. It pretty often happens

that he takes with him one of his young fellows. These are all handsome,

like a picture (FAITS A PEINDRE), and of the beautifulest face,"--adds

he, still worse informed; poisonous malice mixing itself, this time,

with the human darkness, and reducing it to diabolic. This Demon's

Paper abounds with similar allusions; as do the more desperate sort of

Voltaire utterances,--VIE PRIVEE treating it as known fact; Letters to

Denis in occasional paroxysms, as rumor of detestable nature, probably

true of one who is so detestable, at least so formidable, to a guilty

sinner his Guest. Others, not to be called diabolical, as Herr Dr.

Busching, for example, speak of it as a thing credible; as good as

known to the well-informed. And, beyond the least question, there did a

thrice-abominable rumor of that kind run, whispering audibly, over

all the world; and gain belief from those who had appetite. A most

melancholy business. Solacing to human envy;--explaining also, to the

dark human intellect, why this King had commonly no Women at his Court.

A most melancholy portion of my raw-material, this; concerning which,

since one must speak of it, here is what little I have to say:--

1. That proof of the NEGATIVE, in this or in any such case, is by the

nature of it impossible. That it is indisputable Friedrich did not now

live with his Wife, nor seem to concern himself with the empire of

women at all; having, except now and then his Sisters and some Foreign

Princess on short visit, no women in his Court; and though a great judge

of Female merits, graces and accomplishments, seems to worship women

in that remote way alone, and not in any nearer. Which occasioned great

astonishment in a world used so much to the contrary. And gave rise to

many conjectures among the idle of mankind, "What, on Earth, or under

Earth, can be the meaning of it?"--and among others, to the above

scandalous rumor, as some solacement to human malice and impertinent

curiosity.

2. That an opposite rumor--which would indeed have been pretty fatal

to this one, but perhaps still more disgraceful in the eyes of a Demon

Newswriter--was equally current; and was much elaborated by the curious

impertinent. Till Nicolai got hold of it, in Herr Dr. Zimmermann's

responsible hands; and conclusively knocked it on the head. [See

Zimmermann's--Fragmente,--and Nicolai patiently pounding it to powder

(whoever is curious on this disgusting subject).]

3". That, for me, proof in the affirmative, or probable indication that

way, has not anywhere turned up. Nowhere for me, in these extensive

minings and siftings. Not the least of probable indication; but

contrariwise, here and there, rather definite indications pointing

directly the opposite way. [For example ("CORRESPONDENCE WITH

FREDERSDORF"),--OEuvres,--xxvii. iii. 145.] Friedrich, in his own

utterances and occasional rhymes, is abundantly cynical; now and then

rises to a kind of epic cynicism, on this very matter. But at no time

can the painful critic call it cynicism as of OTHER than an observer;

always a kind of vinegar cleanness in it, EXCEPT in theory. Cynicism

of an impartial observer in a dirty element; observer epically sensible

(when provoked to it) of the brutal contemptibilities which lie in Human

Life, alongside of its big struttings and pretensions. In Friedrich's

utterances there is that kind of cynicism undeniable;--and yet he had

a modesty almost female in regard to his own person; "no servant

having ever seen him in an exposed state." [Preuss, i. 376.] Which

had considerably strengthened rumor No. 2. O ye poor impious

Long-eared,--Long-eared I will call you, instead of Two-horned and with

only One hoof cloven! Among the tragical platitudes of Human Nature,

nothing so fills a considering brother mortal with sorrow and despair,

as this innate tendency of the common crowd in regard to its Great Men,

whensoever, or almost whensoever, the Heavens do, at long intervals,

vouchsafe us, as their all-including blessing, anything of such!

Practical "BLASPHEMY," is it not, if you reflect? Strangely possible

that sin, even now. And ought to be religiously abhorred by every soul

that has the least piety or nobleness. Act not the mutinous flunky, my

friend; though there be great wages going in that line.

4. That in these circumstances, and taking into view the otherwise known

qualities of this high Fellow-Creature, the present Editor does not,

for his own share, value the rumor at a pin's fee. And leaves it, and

recommends his readers to leave it, hanging by its own head, in the sad

subterranean regions,--till (probably not for a long while yet) it drop

to a far Deeper and dolefuler Region, out of our way altogether.

"Lamentable, yes," comments Diogenes; "and especially so, that the idle

public has a hankering for such things! But are there no obscene details

at all, then? grumbles the disappointed idle public to itself, something

of reproach in its tone. A public idle-minded; much depraved in every

way. Thus, too, you will observe of dogs: two dogs, at meeting, run,

first of all, to the shameful parts of the constitution; institute a

strict examination, more or less satisfactory, in that department. That

once settled, their interest in ulterior matters seems pretty much

to die away, and they are ready to part again, as from a problem

done."--Enough, oh, enough!

Practically we are getting no good of our Demon;--and will dismiss him,

after a taste or two more.

This Demon Newswriter has, evidently, never been to Potsdam; which

he figures as the abode of horrid cruelty, a kind of Tartarus on

Earth;--where there is a dreadful scarcity of women, for one item;

lamentable to one's moral feelings. Scarcity nothing like so great, even

among the soldier-classes, as the Demon Newswriter imagines to himself;

nor productive of the results lamented. Prussian soldiers are not

encouraged to marry, if it will hurt the service; nor do their wives

march with the Regiment except in such proportions as there may be

sewing, washing and the like women's work fairly wanted in their

respective Companies: the Potsdam First Battalion, I understand, is

hardly permitted to marry at all. And in regard to lamentable results,

that of "LIEBSTEN-SCHEINE, Sweetheart-TICKETS,"--or actual military

legalizing of Temporary Marriages, with regular privileges attached, and

fixed rules to be observed,--might perhaps be the notablest point, and

the SEMI-lamentablest, to a man or demon in the habit of lamenting.

[Preuss, i. 426.] For the rest, a considerably dreadful place this

Potsdam, to the flaccid, esurient and disorderly of mankind;--"and

strict as Fate [Demon correct for once] in inexorably punishing military

sins.

"This King," he says, "has a great deal of ESPRIT; much less of real,

knowledge (CONNAISSANCES) than is pretended. He excels only in the

military part; really excellent there. Has a facile expeditious pen and

head; understands what you say to him, at the first word. Not taking nor

wishing advice; never suffering replies or remonstrances, not even from

his Mother. Pretty well acquainted with Works of ESPRIT, whether in

Prose or in Verse: burning [very hot indeed] to distinguish himself by

performance of that kind; but unable to reach the Beautiful, unless

held up by somebody (ETAYE). It is said that, in a splenetic moment, his

Skeleton of an Apollo [SQUELETTE D'APOLLON, M. de Voltaire, who is lean

exceedingly] exclaimed once, some time ago, 'When is it, then, that he

will have done sending me his dirty linen to wash?'

"The King is of a sharp mocking tongue withal; pricking into whoever

displeases him; often careless of policy in that. Understands nothing

of Finance, or still less of Trade; always looking direct towards more

money, which he loves much; incapable of sowing [as some of US do!]

for a distant harvest. Treats, almost all the world as slaves. All his

subjects are held in hard shackles. Rigorous for the least shortcoming,

where his interest is hurt:--never pardons any fault which tends to

inexactitude in the Military Service. Spandau very full,"--though I did

not myself count. "Keeps in his pay nobody but those useful to him, and

capable of doing employments well [TRUE, ALWAYS]; and the instant he has

no more need of them, dismissing them with nothing [FALSE, GENERALLY].

The Subsidies imposed on his subjects are heavy; in constant proportion

to their Feudal Properties, and their Leases of Domains (CONTRATS ET

BAUX); and, what is dreadful, are exacted with the same rigor if your

Property gets into debt,"--no remission by the iron grip of this King

in the name of the State! Sell, if you can find a Purchaser; or get

confiscated altogether; that is your only remedy. Surely a tyrant of a

King.

"People who get nearest him will tell you that his Politeness is not

natural, but a remnant of old habit, when he had need of everybody,

against the persecutions of his Father. He respects his Mother; the only

Female for whom he has a sort of attention. He esteems his Wife, and

cannot endure her; has been married nineteen years, and has not yet

addressed one word to her [how true!]. It was but a few days ago she

handed him a Letter, petitioning some things of which she had the

most pressing want. He took the Letter, with that smiling, polite and

gracious air which he assumes at pleasure; and without breaking the

seal, tore the Letter up before her face, made her a profound bow, and

turned his back on her." Was there ever such a Pluto varnished into

Literary Rose-pink? Very proper Majesty for the Tartarus that here is.

... "The Queen-Mother," continues our Small Devil, "is a good fat woman,

who lives and moves in her own way (RONDEMENT). She has l6,000 pounds a

year for keeping up her House. It is said she hoards. Four days in the

week she has Apartment [Royal Soiree]; to which you cannot go without

express invitation. There is supper-table of twenty-four covers; only

eight dishes, served in a shabby manner (INDECEMMENT) by six little

scoundrels of Pages. Men and women of the Country [shivering Natives,

cheering their dull abode] go and eat there. Steward Royal sends the

invitations. At eleven, everybody has withdrawn. Other days, this Queen

eats by herself. Stewardess Royal and three Maids of Honor have their

separate table; two dishes the whole. She is shabbily lodged [in my

opinion], when at the Palace. Her Monbijou, which is close to Berlin

[now well within it], would be pretty enough, for a private person.

"The Queen Regnant is the best woman in the world. All the year [NOT

QUITE] she dines alone. Has Apartment on Thursdays; everybody gone at

nine o'clock. Her morsels are cut for her, her steps are counted, and

her words are dictated; she is miserable, and does what she can to hide

it"--according to our Small Devil. "She has scarcely the necessaries

of life allowed her,"--spends regularly two-thirds of her income in

charitable objects; translates French-Calvinist Devotional Works, for

benefit of the German mind; and complains to no Small Devil, of never

so sympathizing nature. "At Court she is lodged on the second floor

[scandalous]. Schonhausen her Country House, with the exception of the

Garden which is pretty enough,--our Shopkeepers of the Rue St. Honore

would sniff at such a lodging.

"Princess Amelia is rather amiable [thank you for nothing, Small Devil];

often out of temper because--this is so shocking a place for Ladies,

especially for maiden Ladies. Lives with her Mother; special income very

small;--Coadjutress of Quedlinburg; will be actual Abbess" in a year or

two. [11th April, 1756: Preuss, xxvii. p. xxxiv (of PREFACE).]

"Eldest Prince, Heir-Apparent,"--do not speak of him, Small Devil, for

you are misinformed in every feature and particular:--enough, "he is

fac-simile of his Brother. He has only 18,000 pounds a year, for self,

Wife, Household and Children [two, both Boys];--and is said [falsely] to

hoard, and to follow Trade, extensive Trade with his Brother's Woods.

"Prince Henri, who is just going to be married,"--thank you, Demon, for

reminding us of that. Bride is Wilhelmina, Princess of Hessen-Cassel.

Marriage, 25th June, 1752;--did not prove, in the end, very happy. A

small contemporary event; which would concern Voltaire and others

that concern us. Three months ago, April 14th, 1752, the

Berlin Powder-Magazine flew aloft with horrible crash;

[In--Helden-Geschichte--(iii. 531) the details.]--and would be audible

to Voltaire, in this his Second Act. Events, audible or not, never

cease.

"Prince Henri," in Demon's opinion, "is the amiablest of the House. He

is polite, generous, and loves good company. Has 12,000 pounds a year

left him by Papa." Not enough, as it proved. "If, on this Marriage, his

Brother, who detests him [witness Reinsberg and other evidences, now and

onward], gives him nothing, he won't be well off. They are furnishing

a House for him, where he will lodge after wedding. Is reported to

be--POTZDAMISTE [says the scandalous Small Devil, whom we are weary of

contradicting],--Potsdamite, in certain respects. Poor Princess, what a

destiny for you!

"Prince Ferdinand, little scraping of a creature (PETIT CHAFOUIN),

crapulous to excess, niggardly in the extreme, whom everybody

avoids,"--much more whose Portrait, by a Magic-lantern of this

kind: which let us hastily shut, and fling into the cellar!--"Little

Ferdinand, besides his 15,000 pounds a year, Papa's bequest, gets

considerable sums given him. Has lodging in the King's House; goes

shifting and visiting about, wherever he can live gratis; and strives

all he can to amass money. Has to be in boots and uniform every three

days. Three months of the year practically with his regiment: but the

shifts he has for avoiding expense are astonishing."...

What an illuminative "Idea" are the Walpole-Selwyn Circles picking up

for their money!--

Chapter XI. THIRD ACT AND CATASTROPHE OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT.

Meantime there has a fine Controversy risen, of mathematical,

philosophical and at length of very miscellaneous nature, concerning

that Konig-Maupertuis dissentience on the LAW OF THRIFT. Wonderful

Controversy, much occupying the so-called Philosophic or Scientific

world; especially the idler population that inhabit there. Upon

this item of the Infinitely Little,--which has in our time sunk into

Nothing-at-all, and but for Voltaire, and the accident of his living

near it, would be forgotten altogether,--we must not enter into details;

but a few words to render Voltaire's share in it intelligible will be,

in the highest degree, necessary. Here, in brief form, rough and ready,

are the successive stages of the Business; the origin and first stage of

which have been known to us for some time past:--

"SEPTEMBER, 1750, Konig, his well-meant visit to Berlin proving so

futile, had left Maupertuis in the humor we saw;--pirouetting round his

Apartment, in tempests of rage at such contradiction of sinners on his

sublime Law of Thrift; and fulminating permission to Konig: 'No time to

read your Paper of Contradictions; publish it in Leipzig, in Jericho;

anywhere in the Earth, in Heaven, in the Other Place, where you have the

opportunity!' Konig, returning on these terms, had nothing for it but

to publish his Paper; and did publish it, in the Leipzig--Acta

Eruditorum--for March, 1751. There it stands, legible to this day: and

if any of the human species should again think of reading it, I believe

it will be found a reasonable, solid and decisive Paper; of steadfast,

openly articulate, by no means insolent, tone; considerably modifying

Maupertuis's Law of Thrift, or Minimum of Action;--fatal to the claim

of its being a 'Sublime Discovery,' or indeed, so far as TRUE, any

discovery at all. [In--Acta Eruditorum--(Lipsiae, 1751):--"De universali

Principio AEquilibrii et Motus."--By no means uncivil to Maupertuis;

though obliged to controvert him. For example:--"Quoe itaque de Minima

Actionis in modificationibus modum obtinente in genere proferuntur

vehementer laudo;" "continent nempe facundum longeque pulcherrimum

Dynamices sublimioris principium, cujus vim in difficillimis

quoestionibus soepe expertus fui."--] By way of finis to the Paper,

there is given, what proves extremely important to us, an Excerpt from

an old LETTER OF LEIBNITZ'S; which perhaps it will be better to present

here IN CORPORE, as so much turned on it afterwards. Konig thus winds

up:--

"I add only a word, in finishing; and that is, that it appears Mr.

Leibnitz had a theory of Action, perhaps much more extensive than

one would suspect at present. There is a Letter written by him to Mr.

Hermann [an ancient mathematical sage at Basel], where he uses these

expressions: 'Action, is not what you think; the consideration of Time

enters into it; Action is as the product of the mass by the space and

the velocity, or as the time by the VIS VIVA. I have remarked that in

the modifications of motion, the action becomes usually a maximum or

a minimum:--and from this there might several propositions of great

consequence be deduced. It might serve to determine the curves described

by bodies under attraction to one or more centres. I had meant to treat

of these things in the Second Part of my DYNAMIQUE; which I suppressed,

the reception of the First, by prejudice in many quarters, having

disgusted me.'" [MAUPERTUISIANA, No. ii. 22 (from--Acta Eruditorum,--ubi

supra). In MAUPERTUISIANA, No. iv. 166, is the whole Letter, "Hanover,

16th October, 1707;" no ADDRESS left, judged to be to Hermann.

MAUPERTUISIANA (Hamburg, 1753) is a mere Bookseller's or even

Bookbinder's Farrago, with printed TITLE-PAGE and LIST, of the chief

Pamphlets which had appeared on this Business (sixteen by count, various

type, all 8vo size, in my copy). Of which only No. ii. (Konig's APPEL

AU PUBLIC) and No. iv. (2d edition of said APPEL, with APPENDIX OF

CORRESPONDENCE) are illuminative to read.] Your Minimum of Action, it

would appear, then, is in some cases a Maximum; nothing can be said but

that, in every case it is EITHER a Maximum or Minimum. What a stroke

for our LAW OF THRIFT, the "at last conclusive Proof" of an Intelligent

Creator, as the Perpetual President had fancied it!"So-ho, what is this!

My Discovery an Error? And Leibnitz discovered it, so far as true?"--

"May 28th-8th OCTOBER, 1751. Maupertuis, compressing himself what he

can, writes to Konig: 'Very good, Monsieur. But please inform me

where is that Letter of Leibnitz's; I have never seen or heard of it

before,--and I want to make use of it myself.' To which Konig answers:

'Henzi gave it me, in Copy [unfortunate Conspirator Henzi, who lost his

head three years ago, by sentence of the Oligarch Government at Berne]:

[Government by "The Two Hundred;" of Select-Vestry nature, very stiff,

arbitrary and become rife in abuses; against whom had risen angry

mutterings more than once, and in 1749 a Select Plot (not select ENOUGH,

for they discovered it in time). Poor Ex-Captain Henzi, "Clerk *of the

Salt-Office," most frugal, studious and quiet of men; a very miracle, It

would appear, of genius, solid learning, philosophy and piety,--not

the chief or first of the conspirators, but by far the most

distinguished,--was laid hold of, July 2d, 1749, and beheaded, with

another of them, a day or two after. Much bewailed in a private

way, even by the better kinds of people. (Copious account of him

in--Adelung,--vii. 86-91.)]--he, poor fellow, had no end of Papers and

Excerpts; had, as we know, above a hundred volumes of the latter kind;

this, and some other Letters of Leibnitz's, among them,--I send you the

whole Letter, copied faithfully from his Copy.' ["The Hague, 26th June,"

in--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 130.] To that effect, still in perfect

good-humor, was Konig's reply to his Maupertuis.

"'Hm, Copy? By Henzi?' grumbles Maupertuis to himself:--'Search in

Berne, then; it must be there, if anywhere!' To Konig Maupertuis answers

nothing: but sulkily resolves on having Search made;--and, to give

solemnity to the matter, requests his Excellency Marquis de Paulmy, the

French Ambassador at Berne, to ask the Government there,--Government

having seized all Henzi's Papers, on beheading him. Excellency Paulmy

does, accordingly, make inquiry in the highest quarter; some inquiries

up and down. Not the least account of this, or of any Leibnitz Letter,

to be had from among Henzi's Papers,--the 'hundred volumes,' seemingly,

exist no longer;--Original of this Leibnitz Piece is nowhere. For eight

months the highest Authorities have been looking about (with one

knows not what vivacity or skill in searching), and have found nothing

whatever." Stage second of the Business finishes in this manner.

How lucky for the Perpetual President, had he stopped here! To Konig

and the common contradiction of sinners he could have opposed, as it was

apparently his purpose to do, an Olympian silence, "Pshaw!" Whereby

the small matter, interesting to few, would have dropped gently into

dubiety, into oblivion, and been got well rid of. But this of the great

Leibnitz, touching on one's LAW OF THRIFT; and not only "discovering"

it, half a century beforehand, but discovering that it was not true: to

Leibnitz one must speak;--and the abstruse question is, What is one to

say? "Find me the original; let us be certain, first:" that you can say;

that is one dear point; and pretty much the only one. The rest, at

this time, as I conjecture, may have been not a little abstruse to the

Perpetual President!

And now, had the Perpetual President but stopped here, there might still

have rested a saving shadow of suspicion on Konig's Excerpt, That it

was not exact, that it might be wrong in some vital point:--"You never

showed me the Original, Monsieur!" Unluckily, the Perpetual President

did not stop. One cannot well fancy him believing, now or ever, that

Konig had forged the Excerpt. Most likely he had the fatal persuasion

that these were Leibnitz's words; and the question, What was to be said

or done, if the Original SHOULD turn up? might justly be alarming to

a Son of the Pure Sciences. But at this point a new door of escape

disclosed itself: "Where is the Original, I say!"--and he rushed, full

speed, into that; galloping triumphantly, feeling all safe.

"OCTOBER 7th (1751), Maupertuis summons his Academy: 'Messieurs, permit

me to submit a case perhaps requiring your attention. One of our number

dissents from your President's Discovery of the Law of Thrift; which

surely he is free to do: but furthermore he gives an Excerpt purporting

to be from Leibnitz; whereby it would appear that your President's

Discovery, sanctioned in your Acts as new, is not new, but Leibnitz's

(so far as it is good for anything),--possibly stolen, therefore; and,

at any rate, fifty-four years old. In self-defence, I have demanded to

see the Original of said Excerpt; and the Honorable Member in question

does not produce it. What say you?' 'Shame to him!' say they all

[there seem to be but few Scientific Members, and most of them, it

is insinuated, have Pensions from the King through their Perpetual

President];--and determine to make a Star-chamber matter of it!

"Accordingly, next day, OCTOBER 8th) Secretary Formey writes officially

to Konig, 'Produce that Letter within one month,'--and has got his

Majesty to order, That our Prussian Minister at the Hague shall take

charge of delivering such message, and shall mark on what day. Thing

serious, you see!--Prussian Minister at the Hague delivers, and dockets

accordingly. To Konig's astonishment; who is in a scene of deep trouble

at this time; Royal Highness the Stadtholder suddenly dead, or dying:

'died October 22d; leaving a very young Heir, and a very sorrowful Widow

and Country.' Much to think of, that lies apart from the Maupertuis

matter! Which latter, however, is so very serious too, his Prussian

Majesty's Minister at Berne is now charged to make new perquisition for

the Leibnitz Original there: In short, within one month that Document is

peremptorily wanted at Berlin."

High proceedings these;--and calculated to have one result, if no other.

Namely, that, at this point, as readers can fancy, the idler Public,

seeing a street-quarrel in progress, began to take interest in the

Question of MINIMUM; and quasi-scientific gentlemen to gather round, and

express, with cheery capable look, their opinions,--still legible in the

vanished JUGEMENS LIBRES (of Hamburg), GAZETTE DE SAVANS (Leipzig),

and other poor Shadows of JOURNALS, if you daringly evoke them from the

other side of Styx. Which, the whole matter being now so indisputably

extinct, shadowy, Stygian, we will not here be guilty of doing; but

hasten to the catastrophes, that have still a memorability.

"Konig, having in fact nothing more to say about the Leibnitz Excerpt,

was in no breathless haste to obey his summons; he sat almost two months

before answering anything. Did then write however, in a friendly strain

to Maupertuis (December 10th, 1751). [--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 132.]

Almost on which same day, as it chanced, the ACADEMIE, after two months'

dignified waiting, had in brief terms repeated its order on Konig.

[December 11th, 1751 (Ib. 137). To which Konig makes no special answer

(having as good as answered the day before);--but does silently send

off to Switzerland to make inquiries; and does write once or twice more,

when there is occasion for explaining;--always in a clear, sonorous,

manfully firm and respectful tone: 'That he himself had, or has, no

kind of reason to doubt the authenticity of the Leibnitz Letter; that to

himself (and, so far as he can judge, to Maupertuis) the question of its

authenticity is without special interest;--he, Konig, having thrown it

in as a mere marginal illustration, which decides nothing, either for

or against the Law of Thrift. That he has, in obedience to the Academy,

caused search to be made in Switzerland, especially at Basel, where he

judged the chance might lie; but that of this particular Letter

nothing has come to light; that he has two other Leibnitz Letters, of

indifferent tenor, in the late Henzi's hand, if these will serve in

aught, [--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 155; and ib. 172-192, the two Letters

themselves.]--but what farther can he do?' In short, Konig speaks always

in a clear business-like manful tone; the one person that makes a really

respectful and respectable figure in this Controversy of the Infinitely

Little. A man whom, viewed from this quiet distance, it seems almost

inconceivably absurd to have suspected of forging for so small an

object. Oh, my President, that DIRA REGNANDI CUPIDO!--

"Question is, however, What the Academy will do? One Member, 'the best

Geometer among them' [whose name is not given, but which the Berlin

Academy should write in big letters across this sad Page of their

Annals, by way of erasure to the same], dissented from the high line

of procedure; asserting Konig's innocence in this matter; nay, hinting

agreement with Konig's opinion. But was met by such a storm, that he

withdrew from the deliberations; which henceforth went their own bad

course, unanimous though slow. And so the matter pendulates all through

Winter, 1751-52, and was much the theme of idle men."

Voltaire heard of it vaguely all along; but not with distinctness till

the end of July following. As Spring advanced, Maupertuis had fallen

ill of lungs,--threatened with spitting of blood ("owing to excess of

brandy," hints the malicious Voltaire, "which is fashionable at St.

Malo," birthplace of Maupertuis),--and could not farther direct the

Academy in this affair. The Academy needs no direction farther. Here,

very soon, for a sick President's consolation, is what the Academy

decides on, by way of catastrophe:--

THURSDAY EVENING, 13th APRIL, 1752, The Academy met; Curator Monsieur

de Keith, presiding; about a score of acting Members present. To whom

Curator de Keith, as the first thing, reads a magnanimous brief Letter

from our Perpetual President: "That, for two reasons, he cannot attend

on this important occasion: First, because he is too ill, which would

itself be conclusive; but secondly, and A FORTIORI, because he is in

some sense a party to the cause, and ought not if he could." Whereupon,

Secretary Formey having done his Documentary flourishings, Curator

Euler--(great in Algebra, apparently not very great in common sense

and the rules of good temper)--reads considerable "Report;" [Is No.

1 of--Maupertuisiana.--] reciting, not in a dishonest, but in a dim

wearisome way, the various steps of the Affair, as readers already know

them; and concludes with this extraordinary practical result: "Things

being so (LES CHOSES ETANT TELLES): the Fragment being of itself suspect

[what could Leibnitz know of Maxima and Minima? They were not developed

till one Euler did it, quite in late years!], [--Maupertuisians,--No.

i. 22.] of itself suspect; and Monsieur Konig having failed to" &c.

&c.,--"it is assuredly manifest that his cause is one of the worst (DES

PLUS MAUVAISES), and that this Fragment has been forged." Singular to

think!"And the Academy, all things duly considered, will not hesitate

to declare it false (SUPPOSE), and thereby deprive it publicly of all

authority which may have been ascribed to it" (HEAR, HEAR! from all

parts).

Curator de Keith then collects the votes,--twenty-three in all; some

sixteen are of working Members; two are from accidental Strangers

("travelling students," say the enemy); the rest from Curators of

Quality:--Vote is unanimous, "Adopt the Report. Fragment evidently

forged, and cannot have the least shadow of authority (AUCUNE OMBRE

D'AUTHORITE). Forged by whom, we do not now ask; nor what the Academy

could, on plain grounds, now do to Monsieur Konig [NOT nail his ears

to the pump, oh no!]; enough, it IS forged, and so remains." Signed,

"Curator de Keith," and Six other Office-bearers; "Formey, Perpetual

Secretary"' closing the list.

At the name Keith, a slight shadow (very slight, for how could

Keith help himself?) crosses the mind: "Is this, by ill luck, the

Feldmarschall Keith?" No, reader; this is Lieutenant-Colonel Keith; he

of Wesel, with "Effigy nailed to the Gallows" long since; whom none of

us cares for. Sulzer, I notice too, is of this long-eared Sanhedrim.

ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER, you don't know (do you, then?) DIESE VERDAMMTE

RACE, to what heights and depths of stupid malice, and malignant length

of ear, they are capable of going. "Thursday, 13th April," this is

Forger Konig's doom:--and, what is observable, next morning, with a

crash audible through Nature, the Powder-Magazine flew aloft, killing

several persons! [Supra, p. 203.] Had no hand, he, I hope, in that

latter atrocity?

On authentic sight of this Sentence (for which Konig had at once, on

hearing of it, applied to Formey, and which comes to him, without help

of Formey, through the Public Newspapers) Konig, in a brief, proud

enough, but perfectly quiet, mild and manful manner, resigns his

Membership. "Ceases, from this day (June 18th, 1752), to have the honor

of belonging to your Academy; 'an honor I had been the prouder of, as it

came to me unasked;'--and will wish, you, from the outside henceforth,

successful campaigns in the field of Science." [--Maupertuisiana,--No.

iv. 129.] And sets about preparing his Pamphlet to instruct mankind on

the subject. Maupertuis, it appears, did write, and made others write to

Konig's Sovereign Lady, the Dowager Princess of Orange, "How extremely

handsome it would be, could her Most Serene Highness, a friend to

Pure Science, be pleased to induce Monsieur Konig not to continue this

painful Controversy, but to sit quiet with what he had got." [Voltaire

(infra).] Which her Most Serene Highness by no mean thought the suitable

course. Still less did Konig himself; whose APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC, with

DEFENCE OF APPEAL,--reasonably well done, as usual, and followed and

accompanied by the multitude of Commentators,--appeared in due course.

["September, 1752, Konig's APPEL" (Preuss, in--OEuvres de Frederic,--xv.

60 n.).] Till, before long, the Public was thoroughly instructed; and

nobody, hardly the signing Curators, or thin Euler himself, not to speak

of Perpetual Formey, who had never been strong in the matter, could well

believe in "forgery" or care to speak farther on such a subject.

Subject gone wholly to the Stygian Fens, long since; "forgery" not now

imaginable by anybody!

The rumor of these things rose high and wide; and the quantity of

publishing upon them, quasi-scientifically and otherwise, in the serious

vein and the jocose, was greater than we should fancy. ["Letter from a

Marquis;" "Letter from Mr. T---to M. S---" (Mr. T. lives in London;--"JE

TRAVERSE LE Queen's Square, ET JE RENCONTRE NOTRE AMI D---: 'AVEZ-VOUS

LA l'Appel au Public?' DIT-IL"--); "Letter by Euler in the Berlin

Gazette," &c. &c. (in--Maupertuisiana--).] Voltaire, for above a month

past, had been fully aware of the case (24th July, 1752, writing to

Niece, "heard yesterday"); not without commentary to oneself and others.

Voltaire, with a kind of love to Konig, and a very real hatred to

Maupertuis and to oppression generally, took pen himself, among the

others (Konig's APPEAL just out),--could not help doing it, though he

had better not! The following small Piece is perhaps the one, if there

be one, still worth resuscitating from the Inane Kingdoms. Appeared

in the BIBLIOTHEQUE RAISONNEE (mild-shining Quarterly Review of those

days), JULY-SEPTEMBER Number.

"ANSWER FROM [VERY PRIVATELY VOLTAIRE, CALLING HIMSELF] A BERLIN

ACADEMICIAN TO A PARIS ONE.

"BERLIN, 18th SEPTEMBER, 1752. This is the exact truth, in reply to

your inquiry. M. Moreau de Maupertuis in a Pamphlet entitled ESSAI DE

COSMOLOGIE, pretended that the only proof of the Existence of God is the

circumstance that AR+nRB is a Minimum. [ONLY proof:^??????^ (p.212

Book XVI) VOILA!] He asserts that in all possible cases, 'Action is a

Minimum,' what has been demonstrated false; and he says, 'He discovered

this Law of Minimum,' what is not less false.

"M. Konig, as well as other Mathematicians, wrote against this strange

assertion; and, among other things, M. Konig cited some sentences of a

Letter by Leibnitz, in which that great man says, He has observed 'that,

in the modifications of motion, the Action usually becomes either a

Maximum or else a Minimum.'

"M. Moreau de Maupertuis imagined that, by producing this Fragment,

it had been intended to snatch from him the glory of his pretended

discovery,--though Leibnitz says precisely the contrary of what he

advances. He forced some pensioned members of the Academy, who are

dependent on him, to summon M. Konig"--As we know too well; and

cannot bear to have repeated to us, even in the briefest and spiciest

form!"Sentence (JUGEMENT) on M. Konig, which declares him guilty of

having assaulted the glory of the Sieur Moreau Maupertuis by FORGING a

Leibnitz Letter.--Wrote then, and made write, to her Serene Highness the

Princess of Orange, who was indignant at so insolent"--... and in fine,

"Thus the Sieur Moreau Maupertuis has been convicted, in the face of

Scientific Europe, not only of plagiarism and blunder, but of having

abused his place to suppress free discussion, and to persecute an honest

man who had no crime but that of not being of his opinion. Several

members of our Academy have protested against so crying a procedure; and

would leave the Academy, were it not for fear of displeasing the

King, who is protector of it." [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxiii. 227

(in--Maupertuisiana,--No. xvi).]

King Friedrich's position, in the middle of all this, was becoming

uncomfortable. Of the controversy he understood, or cared to understand,

nothing; had to believe steadily that his Academy must be right; that

Konig was some loose bird, envious of an eagle Maupertuis, sitting aloft

on his high Academic perch: this Friedrich took for the truth of the

matter;--and could not let himself imagine that his sublime Perpetual

President, who was usually very prudent and Jove-like, had been led,

by his truculent vanity (which Friedrich knew to be immense in the man,

though kept well out of sight), into such playing of fantastic tricks

before high Heaven and other on-lookers. This view of the matter had

hitherto been Friedrich's; nor do I know that he ever inwardly departed

from it;--as outwardly he, for certain, never did; standing, King-like,

clear always for his Perpetual President, till this hurricane of

Pamphlets blew by. Voltaire's little Piece, therefore, was the

unwelcomest possible.

This new bolt of electric fire, launched upon the storm-tost President

from Berlin itself, and even from the King's House itself,--by whom, too

clearly recognizable,--what an irritating thing! Unseemly, in fact,

on Voltaire's part; but could not be helped by a Voltaire charged with

electricity. Friedrich evidently in considerable indignation, finding

that public measures would but worsen the uproar, took pen in hand;

wrote rapidly the indignant LETTER FROM AN ACADEMICIAN OF BERLIN TO AN

ACADEMICIAN OF PARIS: [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xv. 59-64 (not dated;

datable "October, 1752").] which Piece, of some length, we cannot give

here; but will briefly describe as manifesting no real knowledge of the

LAW-OF-THRIFT Controversy; but as taking the above loose view of it, and

as directed principally against "the pretended Member of our Academy"

(mischievous Voltaire, to wit), whom it characterizes as "such a

manifest retailer of lies," a "concocter of stupid libels:" "have you

ever seen an action more malicious, more dastardly, more infamous?"--and

other hard terms, the hardest he can find. This is the privilege of

anonymity, on both sides of it.

But imagine now a King and his Voltaire doing witty discourse over their

Supper of the gods (as, on the set days, is duly the case); with such a

consciousness, burning like Bude light, though close veiled, on the part

of Host and Guest! The Friedrich-Voltaire relation is evidently under

sore stress of weather, in those winter-autumn months of 1752,--brown

leaves, splashy rains and winds moaning outwardly withal. And, alas, the

irrepressibly electric Voltaire, still far from having ended, still

only just beginning his Anti-Maupertuis discharges, has, in the interim,

privately got his DOCTOR AKAKIA ready. Compared to which, the former

missile is as a popgun to a park of artillery shotted with old nails and

broken glass!--Such a constraint, at the Royal dinner-table, amid wine

and wit, could not continue. The credible account is, it soon cracked

asunder; and, after the conceivable sputterings, sparklings and

flashings of various complexion, issued in lambent airs of "tacit

mutual understanding; and in reading of AKAKIA together,--with peals of

laughter from the King," as the common French Biographers assert.

"Readers know AKAKIA," [DIATRIBE DU DOCTEUR AKAKIA (in

Voltaire,--OEuvres,--lxi. 19-62).] says Smelfungus: "it is one of the

famous feats of Satirical Pyrotechny; only too pleasant to the corrupt

Race of Adam! There is not much, or indeed anything, of true poetic

humor in it: but there is a gayety of malice, a dexterity, felicity,

inexhaustibility of laughing mockery and light banter, capable

of driving a Perpetual President delirious. What an Explosion of

glass-crackers, fire-balls, flaming-serpents;--generally, of sleeping

gunpowder, in its most artistic forms,--flaming out sky-high over all

the Parish, on a sudden! The almost-sublime of Maupertuis, which exists

in large quantities, here is a new artist who knows how to treat it.

The engineer of the Sublime (always painfully engineering thitherward

without effect),--an engineer of the Comic steps in on him, blows him up

with his own petards in a most unexampled manner. Not an owlery has that

poor Maupertuis, in the struggle to be sublime (often nearly successful,

but never once quite), happened to drop from him, but Voltaire picks it

up; manipulates it, reduces it to the sublimely ridiculous; lodges it,

in the form of burning dust, about the head of MON PRESIDENT. Needless

to say of the Comic engineer that he is unfair, perversely exaggerative,

reiterative, on the owleries of poor Maupertuis;--it is his function

to BE all that. Clever, but wrong, do you say? Well, yes:--and yet the

ridiculous does require ridicule; wise Nature has silently so ordered.

And if ever truculent President in red wig, with his absurd truculences,

tyrannies and perpetual struggles after the sublime, did deserve to

be exploded in laughter, it could not have been more consummately

done;--though perversely always, as must be owned.

"'The hole bored through the Earth,' for instance: really, one sometimes

reflects on such a thing; How you would see daylight, and the antipodal

gentleman (if he bent a little over) foot to foot; how a little stone

flung into it would exactly (but for air and friction) reach the other

side of the world; would then, in a computable few moments, come back

quiescent to your hand, and so continue forevermore;--with other the

like uncriminal fancies.

"'The Latin Town,' again: truly, if learning the Ancient Languages

be human Education, it might, with a Greek Ditto, supersede the

Universities, and prove excellently serviceable in our struggle

Heavenward by that particular route. I can assure M. de Voltaire, it was

once practically proposed to this King's Great-grandfather, the Grosse

Kurfurst;--who looked into it, with face puckered to the intensest, in

his great care for furtherance of the Terrestrial Sciences and Wisdoms;

but forbore for that time. [Minute details about it in Stenzel, ii.

234-238; who quotes "Erman" (a poor old friend of ours) "SUR LE PROJET

D'UNE VILLE SAVANTE DANS LE BRANDEBOURG (Berlin, 1792):" date of the

Project was 1667.] Then as to 'Dissecting the Brains of Patagonians;'

what harm, if you can get them gross enough? And as to that of (exalting

your mind to predict the future,' does not, in fact, man look BEFORE and

AFTER; are not Memory and (in a small degree) Prophecy the Two Faculties

he has?

"These things--which are mostly to be found in the 'LETTRES DE

MAUPERTUIS' (Dresden, 1752, then a brand-new Book), but are now

clipt out from the Maupertuis Treatises--we can fancy to be almost

sublimities.--Almost, unfortunately not altogether. And then there is

such a Sisyphus-effort visible in dragging them aloft so far: and the

nimble wicked Voltaire so seizes his moment, trips poor Sisyphus; and

sends him down, heels-over-head, in a torrent of roaring debris! 'From

gradual transpiration of our vital force comes Death; which perhaps,

by precautions, might be indefinitely retarded,' says Maupertuis. 'Yes,

truly,' answers the other: 'if we got ourselves japanned, coated with

resinous varnish (INDUITS DE POIX RESINEUX); who knows!' Not a sublime

owlery can you drop, but it is manipulated, ground down, put in rifled

cannon, comes back on you as tempests of burning dust." Enough to send

Maupertuis pirouetting through the world, with red wig unquenchably on

fire!

Peals of laughter (once you are allowed to be non-official) could not

fail, as an ovation, from the King;--so report the French Biographers.

But there was, besides, strict promise that the Piece should be

suppressed: "Never do to send our President pirouetting through the

world in this manner, with his wig on fire; promise me, on your honor!"

Voltaire promised. But, alas, how could Voltaire perform! Once more

the Rhadamanthine fact is: Voltaire, as King's Chamberlain, was bound,

without any promise, to forbear, and rigidly suppress such an AKAKIA

against the King's Perpetual President. But withal let candid readers

consider how difficult it was to do. The absurd blusterous Turkey-cock,

who has, every now and then, been tyrannizing over you for twenty years,

here you have him filled with gunpowder, so to speak, and the train

laid. There wants but one spark,--(edition printed in Holland,

edition done in Berlin, plenty of editions made or makable by a little

surreptitious legerdemain,--and I never knew whether it was AKAKIA in

print, or AKAKIA in manuscript, that King and King's Chamberlain

were now reading together, nor does it matter much):--your Turkey

surreptitiously stuffed with gunpowder, I say; train ready waiting; one

flint-spark will shoot him aloft, scatter him as flaming ruin on all the

winds: and you are, once and always, to withhold said spark. Perhaps,

had AKAKIA not yet been written--But all lies ready there; one spark

will do it, at any moment;--and there are unguarded moments, and the

Tempter must prevail!--

On what day AKAKIA blazed out at Berlin, surreptitiously forwarded

from Holland or otherwise, I could never yet learn (so stupid these

reporters). But "on November 2d" the King makes a Visit to sick

Maupertuis, which is published in all the Newspapers; [Rodenbeck, IN

DIE;--Helden-Geschichte,--iii. 531, "2d November, 1752, 5 P.M."]--and

one might guess the AKAKIA conflagration, and cruel haha-ings of

mankind, to have been tacitly the cause. Then or later, sure enough,

AKAKIA does blaze aloft about that time; and all Berlin, and all the

world, is in conversation over Maupertuis and it,--30,000 copies sold

in Paris:--and Friedrich naturally was in a towering passion at his

Chamberlain. Nothing for the Chamberlain but to fly his presence;

to shriek, piteously, "Accident, your Majesty! Fatal treachery and

accident; after such precautions too!"--and fall sick to death (which

is always a resource one has); and get into private lodgings in the

TAUBEN-STRASSE, [At a "Hofrath Francheville's" (kind of subaltern

Literary Character, see Denina, ii. 67), "TAUBEN-STRASSE (Dove Street),

No. 20:" stayed there till "March, 1753" (Note by Preuss,--OEuvres de

Frederic,--xxii. 306 n.).] till one either die, or grow fit to be seen

again: "Ah, Sire"--let us give the Voltaire shriek of NOT-GUILTY, with

the Friedrich Answer; both dateless unluckily:--

VOLTAIRE. "AH, MON DIEU, Sire, in the state I am in! I swear to you

again, on my life, which I could renounce without pain, that it is a

frightful calumny. I conjure you to summon all my people, and confront

them. What? You will judge me without hearing me! I demand justice or

death."

FRIEDRICH. "Your effrontery astonishes me. After what you have done, and

what is clear as day, you persist, instead of owning yourself culpable.

Do not imagine you will make people believe that black is white; when

one [ON, meaning _I_] does not see, the reason [sic]? ONE p. 218, book

XVI +++++++++++++++++ is, one does not want to see everything. But if

you drive the affair to extremity,--all shall be made public; and it

will be seen whether, if your Works deserve statues, your conduct does

not deserve chains." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 302, 301.]

Most dark element (not in date only), with terrific thunder-and-

lightning. Nothing for it but to keep one's room, mostly one's

bed,--"Ah, Sire, sick to death!"

December 24th, 1752, there is one thing dismally distinct, Voltaire

himself looking on (they say), from his windows in Dove Street: the

Public Burning of AKAKIA, near there, by the common Hangman. Figure it;

and Voltaire's reflections on it:--haggardly clear that Act Third is

culminating; and that the final catastrophe is inevitable and nigh.

We must be brief. On the eighth day after this dread spectacle

(New-year's-day 1753), Voltaire sends, in a Packet to the Palace, his

Gold Key and Cross of Merit. On the interior wrappage is an Inscription

in verse: "I received them with loving emotion, I return them with

grief; as a broken-hearted Lover returns the Portrait of his Mistress:--

--Je les recus avec tendresse,

Je vous les rends avec douleur;

C'est ainsi qu'un amant, dans son extreme ardeur,

Rend le portrait de sa maitresse."--

And--in a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of Swans--has one wish:

Permission for the waters of Plonbieres, some alleviations amid kind

nursing friends there; and to die craving blessings on your Majesty.

[Collini, p. 48; LETTER, in--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 305.]

Friedrich, though in hot wrath, has not quite come that length.

Friedrich, the same day, towards evening, sends Fredersdorf to him, with

Decorations back. And a long dialogue ensues between Fredersdorf and

Voltaire; in which Collini, not eavesdropping, "heard the voice of M. de

Voltaire at times very loud." Precise result unknown. After which, for

three months more, follows waiting and hesitation and negotiation, also

quite obscure. Confused hithering and thithering about permission for

Plombieres, about repentance, sorrow, amendment, blame; in the end,

reconciliation, or what is to pass for such. Recorded for us in that

whirl of misdated Letter-clippings; in those Narratives, ignorant, and

pretending to know: perhaps the darkest Section in History, Sacred or

Profane,--were it of moment to us, here or elsewhere!

Voltaire has got permission to return to Potsdam; Apartment in the

Palace ready again: but he still lingers in Dove Street; too ill,

in real truth, for Potsdam society on those new terms. Does not quit

Francheville's "till March 5th;" and then only for another Lodging,

called "the Belvedere", of suburban or rural kind. His case is intricate

to a degree. He is sick of body; spectre-haunted withal, more than

ever;--often thinks Friedrich, provoked, will refuse him leave.

And, alas, he would so fain NOT go, as well as go! Leave for

Plombieres,--leave in the angrily contemptuous shape, "Go, then, forever

and a day!"--Voltaire can at once have: but to get it in the friendly

shape, and as if for a time only? His prospects at Paris, at Versailles,

are none of the best; to return as if dismissed will never do! Would

fain not go, withal;--and has to diplomatize at Potsdam, by D'Argens,

De Prades, and at Paris simultaneously, by Richelieu, D'Argenson and

friends. He is greatly to be pitied;--even Friedrich pities him, the

martyr of bodily ailments and of spiritual; and sends him "extract of

quinquina" at one time. [Letter of Voltaire's.] Three miserable months;

which only an OEdipus could read, and an OEdipus who had nothing else

to do! The issue is well known. Of precise or indisputable, on the road

thither, here are fractions that will suffice:--

VOLTAIRE TO ONE BAGIEU HIS DOCTOR AT PARIS ("Berlin, 19th December,"

1752, week BEFORE his AKAKIA was burnt).... "Wish I could set out on the

instant, and put myself into your hands and into the arms of my family!

I brought to Berlin about a score of teeth, there remain to me something

like six; I brought two eyes, I have nearly lost one of them; I brought

no erysipelas, and I have got one, which I take a great deal of care

of.... Meanwhile I have buried almost all my Doctors; even La Mettrie.

Remains only that I bury Codenius [Cothenius], who looks too stiff,

however,"--and, at any rate, return to you in Spring, when roads and

weather improve. [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxxv. 141.]

FRIEDRICH TO VOLTAIRE (Potsdam, uncertain date). "There was no need of

that pretext about the waters of Plombieres, in demanding your leave

(CONGE). You can quit my service when you like: but, before going, be

so good as return me the Contract of your Engagement, the Key

[Chamberlain's], the Cross [of Merit], and the Volume of Verses which I

confided to you.

"I wish my Works, and only they, had been what you and Konig attacked.

Them I sacrifice, with a great deal of willingness, to persons who think

of increasing their own reputation by lessening that of others. I have

not the folly nor vanity of certain Authors. The cabals of literary

people seem to me the disgrace of Literature. I do not the less esteem

honorable cultivators of Literature; it is only the caballers and their

leaders that are degraded in my eyes. On this, I pray God to have you in

his holy and worthy keeping.--FRIEDRICH."

[In De Prades's hand;--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 308, 309: Friedrich's

own Minute to De Prades has, instead of these last three lines: "That

I have not the folly and vanity of authors, and that the cabals of

literary people seem to me the depth of degradation," &c.]

VOLTAIRE SPECTRALLY GIVEN (Collini LOQUITUR). "One evening walking

in the garden [at rural Belvedere,--after March 5th], talking of our

situation, he asked me, 'Could you drive a coach-and-two?' I stared at

him a moment; but knowing that there must be no direct contradiction

of his ideas, I said 'Yes.'--'Well, then, listen; I have thought of a

method for getting away. You could buy two horses; a chariot after that.

So soon as we have horses, it will not appear strange that we lay in a

little hay.'--'Yes, Monsieur; and what should we do with that?' said I.

'LE VOICI (this is it). We will fill the chariot with hay. In the middle

of the hay we will put all our baggage. I will place myself, disguised,

on the top of the hay; and give myself out for a Calvinist Curate going

to see one of his Daughters married in the next Town. You shall drive:

we take the shortest road for the Saxon Border; safe there, we sell

chariot, horses, hay; then straight to Leipzig, by post.' At which

point, or soon after, he burst into laughing." [Collini, p. 53.]

VOLTAIRE TO FRIEDRICH ("Berlin, Belvedere," rural lodging, ["In the

STRALAUER VORSTADT (HODIE, Woodmarket Street):" Preuss's Note to this

Letter,--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 306 n.] "12th March," 1753). "Sire,

I have had a Letter from Konig, quite open, as my heart is. I think it

my duty to send your Majesty a duplicate of my Answer.... Will submit to

you every step of my conduct; of my whole life, in whatever place I end

it. I am Konig's friend; but assuredly I am much more attached to your

Majesty; and if he were capable the least in the world of failing in

respect [as is rumored], I would"--Enough!

FRIEDRICH RELENTS (To Voltaire; De Prades writing, Friedrich covertly

dictating: no date). "The King has held his Consistory; and it has

there been discussed, Whether your case was a mortal sin or a venial?

In truth, all the Doctors owned that it was mortal, and even exceedingly

confirmed as such by repeated lapses and relapses. Nevertheless, by the

plenitude of the grace of Beelzebub, which rests in the said King, he

thinks he can absolve you, if not in whole, yet in part. This would be,

of course, in virtue of some act of contrition and penitence imposed

on you: but as, in the Empire of Satan, there is a great respect had of

genius, I think, on the whole, that, for the sake of your talents, one

might pardon a good many things which do discredit to your heart. These

are the Sovereign Pontiff's words; which I have carefully taken down.

They are a Prophecy rather." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 307.]

VOLTAIRE TO DE PRADES ("Belvedere, 15th March," 1753). "Dear Abbe,--Your

style has not appeared to me soft. You are a frank Secretary of

State:--nevertheless I give you warning, it is to be a settled point

that I embrace you before going. I shall not be able to kiss you; my

lips are too choppy from my devil of a disorder [SCURVY, I hear]. You

will easily dispense with my kisses; but don't dispense, I pray you,

with my warm and true friendship.