communicate his discoveries. He had some talent for sarcasm, and
considerable skill in detecting the sore places where sarcasm would be
most acutely felt. His vanity, as well as his malignity, found
gratification in the vexation and confusion of those who smarted under
his caustic jests. Yet in truth his success on these occasions belonged
quite as much to the king as to the wit. We read that Commodus
descended, sword in hand, into the arena against a wretched gladiator,
armed only with a foil of lead, and after shedding the blood of the
helpless victim, struck medals to commemorate the inglorious victory.
The triumphs of Frederic in the war of repartee were of much the same
kind. How to deal with him was the most puzzling of questions. To appear
constrained in his presence was to disobey his commands, and to spoil
his amusement. Yet if his associates were enticed by his graciousness to
indulge in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was certain to make
them repent of their presumption by some cruel humiliation. To resent
his affronts was perilous; yet not to resent them was to deserve and to
invite them. In his view, those who mutinied were insolent and
ungrateful; those who submitted were curs made to receive bones and
kickings with the same fawning patience. It is, indeed, difficult to
conceive how anything short of the rage of hunger should have induced
men to bear the misery of being the associates of the Great King. It was
no lucrative post. His Majesty was as severe and economical in his
friendships as in the other charges of his establishment, and as
unlikely to give a rix-dollar too much for his guests as for his
dinners. The sum which he allowed to a poet or a philosopher was the
very smallest sum for which such poet or philosopher could be induced to
sell himself into slavery; and the bondsman might think himself
fortunate, if what had been so grudgingly given was not, after years of
suffering, rudely and arbitrarily withdrawn.
Potsdam was, in truth, what it was called by one of its most illustrious
inmates, the Palace of Alcina. At the first glance it seemed to be a
delightful spot, where every intellectual and physical enjoyment awaited
the happy adventurer. Every newcomer was received with eager
hospitality, intoxicated with flattery, encouraged to expect prosperity
and greatness. It was in vain that a long succession of favorites who
had entered that abode with delight and hope, and who, after a short
term of delusive happiness, had been doomed to expiate their folly by
years of wretchedness and degradation, raised their voices to warn the
aspirant who approached the charmed threshold. Some had wisdom enough to
discover the truth early, and spirit enough to fly without looking back;
others lingered on to a cheerless and unhonored old age. We have no
hesitation in saying that the poorest author of that time in London,
sleeping on a bulk, dining in a cellar, with a cravat of paper, and a
skewer for a shirt-pin, was a happier man than any of the literary
inmates of Frederic's court.
But of all who entered the enchanted garden in the inebriation of
delight, and quitted it in agonies of rage and shame, the most
remarkable was Voltaire. Many circumstances had made him desirous of
finding a home at a distance from his country. His fame had raised him
up enemies. His sensibility gave them a formidable advantage over him.
They were, indeed, contemptible assailants. Of all that they wrote
against him, nothing has survived except what he has himself preserved.
But the constitution of his mind resembled the constitution of those
bodies in which the slightest scratch of a bramble, or the bite of a
gnat, never fails to fester. Though his reputation was rather raised
than lowered by the abuse of such writers as Freron and Desfontaines,
though the vengeance which he took on Freron and Desfontaines was such
that scourging, branding, pillorying, would have been a trifle to it,
there is reason to believe that they gave him far more pain than he ever
gave them. Though he enjoyed during his own lifetime the reputation of a
classic, though he was extolled by his contemporaries above all poets,
philosophers, and historians, though his works were read with as much
delight and admiration at Moscow and Westminster, at Florence and
Stockholm, as at Paris itself, he was yet tormented by that restless
jealousy which should seem to belong only to minds burning with the
desire of fame, and yet conscious of impotence. To men of letters who
could by no possibility be his rivals, he was, if they behaved well to
him, not merely just, not merely courteous, but often a hearty friend
and a munificent benefactor. But to every writer who rose to a celebrity
approaching his own, he became either a disguised or an avowed enemy. He
slyly depreciated Montesquieu and Buffon. He publicly, and with violent
outrage, made war on Rousseau. Nor had he the art of hiding his feelings
under the semblance of good humor or of contempt. With all his great
talents, and all his long experience of the world, he had no more
self-command than a petted child or an hysterical woman. Whenever he was
mortified, he exhausted the whole rhetoric of anger and sorrow to
express his mortification. His torrents of bitter words, his stamping
and cursing, his grimaces and his tears of rage, were a rich feast to
those abject natures whose delight is in the agonies of powerful spirits
and in the abasement of immortal names. These creatures had now found
out a way of galling him to the very quick. In one walk, at least, it
had been admitted by envy itself that he was without a living
competitor. Since Racine had been laid among the great men whose dust
made the holy precinct of Port Royal holier, no tragic poet had appeared
who could contest the palm with the author of Zaire, of Alzire, and of
Merope. At length a rival was announced. Old Crebillon, who many years
before had obtained some theatrical success, and who had long been
forgotten, came forth from his garret in one of the meanest lanes near
the Rue St. Antoine, and was welcomed by the acclamations of envious men
of letters, and of a capricious populace. A thing called Catiline, which
he had written in his retirement, was acted with boundless applause. Of
this execrable piece it is sufficient to say that the plot turns on a
love affair, carried on in all the forms of Scudery, between Catiline,
whose confidant is the Praetor Lentulus, and Tullia, the daughter of
Cicero. The theatre resounded with acclamations. The king pensioned the
successful poet; and the coffee-houses pronounced that Voltaire was a
clever man, but that the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire
which had glowed in Corneille and Racine, was to be found in Crebillon
alone.
The blow went to Voltaire's heart. Had his wisdom and fortitude been in
proportion to the fertility of his intellect, and to the brilliancy of
his wit, he would have seen that it was out of the power of all the
puffers and detractors in Europe to put Catiline above Zaire; but he had
none of the magnanimous patience with which Milton and Bentley left
their claims to the unerring judgment of time. He eagerly engaged in an
undignified competition with Crebillon, and produced a series of plays
on the same subjects which his rival had treated. These pieces were
coolly received. Angry with the court, angry with the capital, Voltaire
began to find pleasure in the prospect of exile. His attachment for
Madame du Chatelet long prevented him from executing his purpose. Her
death set him at liberty; and he determined to take refuge at Berlin.
To Berlin he was invited by a series of letters, couched in terms of the
most enthusiastic friendship and admiration. For once the rigid
parsimony of Frederic seemed to have relaxed. Orders, honorable offices,
a liberal pension, a well-served table, stately apartments under a royal
roof, were offered in return for the pleasure and honor which were
expected from the society of the first wit of the age. A thousand louis
were remitted for the charges of the journey. No ambassador setting out
from Berlin for a court of the first rank had ever been more amply
supplied. But Voltaire was not satisfied. At a later period, when he
possessed an ample fortune, he was one of the most liberal of men; but
till his means had become equal to his wishes, his greediness for lucre
was unrestrained either by justice or by shame. He had the effrontery to
ask for a thousand louis more, in order to enable him to bring his
niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of coquettes, in his company. The
indelicate rapacity of the poet produced its natural effect on the
severe and frugal King. The answer was a dry refusal. "I did not," said
his Majesty, "solicit the honor of the lady's society." On this,
Voltaire went off into a paroxysm of childish rage. "Was there ever such
avarice? He has hundreds of tubs full of dollars in his vaults, and
haggles with me about a poor thousand louis." It seemed that the
negotiation would be broken off; but Frederic, with great dexterity,
affected indifference, and seemed inclined to transfer his idolatry to
Baculard d'Arnaud. His Majesty even wrote some bad verses, of which the
sense was, that Voltaire was a setting sun, and that Arnaud was rising.
Good-natured friends soon carried the lines to Voltaire. He was in his
bed. He jumped out in his shirt, danced about the room with rage, and
sent for his passport and his post-horses. It was not difficult to
foresee the end of a connection which had such a beginning.
It was in the year 1750 that Voltaire left the great capital, which he
was not to see again till, after the lapse of near thirty years, he
returned, bowed down by extreme old age, to die in the midst of a
splendid and ghastly triumph. His reception in Prussia was such as might
well have elated a less vain and excitable mind. He wrote to his friends
at Paris that the kindness and the attention with which he had been
welcomed surpassed description, that the King was the most amiable of
men, that Potsdam was the paradise of philosophers. He was created
chamberlain, and received, together with his gold key, the cross of an
order, and a patent insuring to him a pension of eight hundred pounds
sterling a year for life. A hundred and sixty pounds a year were
promised to his niece if she survived him. The royal cooks and coachmen
were put at his disposal. He was lodged in the same apartments in which
Saxe had lived, when, at the height of power and glory, he visited
Prussia. Frederic, indeed, stooped for a time even to use the language
of adulation. He pressed to his lips the meagre hand of the little
grinning skeleton, whom he regarded as the dispenser of immortal renown.
He would add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his ancestors and
his sword, another title, derived from his last and proudest
acquisition. His style should run thus: Frederic, King of Prussia,
Margrave of Brandenburg, Sovereign Duke of Silesia, Possessor of
Voltaire. But even amidst the delights of the honeymoon, Voltaire's
sensitive vanity began to take alarm. A few days after his arrival, he
could not help telling his niece that the amiable King had a trick of
giving a sly scratch with one hand, while patting and stroking with the
other. Soon came hints not the less alarming, because mysterious. "The
supper parties are delicious. The King is the life of the company.
But--I have operas and comedies, reviews and concerts, my studies and
books. But--but--Berlin is fine, the princesses charming, the maids of
honor handsome. But"--
This eccentric friendship was fast cooling. Never had there met two
persons so exquisitely fitted to plague each other. Each of them had
exactly the fault of which the other was most impatient; and they were,
in different ways, the most impatient of mankind. Frederic was frugal,
almost niggardly. When he had secured his plaything, he began to think
that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the other hand, was greedy,
even to the extent of impudence and knavery; and conceived that the
favorite of a monarch who had barrels full of gold and silver laid up in
cellars ought to make a fortune which a receiver-general might envy.
They soon discovered each other's feelings. Both were angry; and a war
began, in which Frederic stooped to the part of Harpagon, and Voltaire
to that of Scapin. It is humiliating to relate, that the great warrior
and statesman gave orders that his guest's allowance of sugar and
chocolate should be curtailed. It is, if possible, a still more
humiliating fact that Voltaire indemnified himself by pocketing the wax
candles in the royal antechamber. Disputes about money, however, were
not the most serious disputes of these extraordinary associates. The
sarcasms of the King soon galled the sensitive temper of the poet.
D'Arnaud and D'Argens, Guichard and La Metrie, might, for the sake of a
morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence of a master; but
Voltaire was of another order. He knew that he was a potentate as well
as Frederic, that his European reputation, and his incomparable power of
covering whatever he hated with ridicule, made him an object of dread
even to the leaders of armies and the rulers of nations. In truth, of
all the intellectual weapons which have ever been wielded by man, the
most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had
never been moved by the wailing and cursing of millions, turned pale at
his name. Principles unassailable by reason, principles which had
withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the most valuable truths, the
most generous sentiments, the noblest and most graceful images, the
purest reputations, the most august institutions, began to look mean and
loathsome as soon as that withering smile was turned upon them. To every
opponent, however strong in his cause and his talents, in his station
and his character, who ventured to encounter the great scoffer, might be
addressed the caution which was given of old to the Archangel:--
"I forewarn thee, shun
His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
To be invulnerable in those bright arms,
Though temper'd heavenly; for that fatal dint,
Save Him who reigns above, none can resist."
We cannot pause to recount how often that rare talent was exercised
against rivals worthy of esteem; how often it was used to crush and
torture enemies worthy only of silent disdain; how often it was
perverted to the more noxious purpose of destroying the last solace of
earthly misery, and the last restraint on earthly power. Neither can we
pause to tell how often it was used to vindicate justice, humanity, and
toleration, the principles of sound philosophy, the principles of free
government. This is not the place for a full character of Voltaire.
Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, who, partly from love of
money, and partly from love of excitement, was always fond of
stockjobbing, became implicated in transactions of at least a dubious
character. The King was delighted at having such an opportunity to
humble his guest; and bitter reproaches and complaints were exchanged.
Voltaire, too, was soon at war with the other men of letters who
surrounded the King; and this irritated Frederic, who, however, had
himself chiefly to blame; for, from that love of tormenting which was in
him a ruling passion, he perpetually lavished extravagant praises on
small men and bad books, merely in order that he might enjoy the
mortification and rage which, on such occasions, Voltaire took no pains
to conceal. His Majesty, however, soon had reason to regret the pains
which he had taken to kindle jealousy among the members of his
household. The whole palace was in a ferment with literary intrigues and
cabals. It was to no purpose that the imperial voice, which kept a
hundred and sixty thousand soldiers in order, was raised to quiet the
contention of the exasperated wits. It was far easier to stir up such a
storm than to lull it. Nor was Frederic, in his capacity of wit, by any
means without his own share of vexations. He had sent a large quantity
of verses to Voltaire, and requested that they might be returned with
remarks and corrections. "See," exclaimed Voltaire, "what a quantity of
his dirty linen the King has sent me to wash!" Talebearers were not
wanting to carry the sarcasm to the royal ear; and Frederic was as much
incensed as a Grub Street writer who had found his name in the Dunciad.
This could not last. A circumstance which, when the mutual regard of the
friends was in its first glow, would merely have been matter for
laughter produced a violent explosion. Maupertuis enjoyed as much of
Frederic's good will as any man of letters. He was President of the
Academy of Berlin; and he stood second to Voltaire, though at an immense
distance, in the literary society which had been assembled at the
Prussian Court. Frederic had, by playing for his own amusement on the
feelings of the two jealous and vainglorious Frenchmen, succeeded in
producing a bitter enmity between them. Voltaire resolved to set his
mark--a mark never to be effaced;--on the forehead of Maupertuis, and
wrote the exquisitely ludicrous Diatribe of Doctor Akakia. He showed
this little piece to Frederic, who had too much taste and too much
malice not to relish such delicious pleasantry. In truth, even at this
time of day, it is not easy for any person who has the least perception
of the ridiculous to read the jokes on the Latin city, the Patagonians,
and the hole to the centre of the earth, without laughing till he cries.
But though Frederic was diverted by this charming pasquinade, he was
unwilling that it should get abroad. His self-love was interested. He
had selected Maupertuis to fill the chair of his Academy. If all Europe
were taught to laugh at Maupertuis, would not the reputation of the
Academy, would not even the dignity of its royal patron, be in some
degree compromised? The King, therefore, begged Voltaire to suppress
this performance. Voltaire promised to do so, and broke his word. The
Diatribe was published, and received with shouts of merriment and
applause by all who could read the French language. The King stormed.
Voltaire, with his usual disregard of truth, asserted his innocence,
and made up some lie about a printer or an amanuensis. The King was not
to be so imposed upon. He ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the
common hangman, and insisted upon having an apology from Voltaire,
couched in the most abject terms. Voltaire sent back to the King his
cross, his key, and the patent of his pension. After this burst of rage,
the strange pair began to be ashamed of their violence, and went through
the forms of reconciliation. But the breach was irreparable; and
Voltaire took his leave of Frederic forever. They parted with cold
civility; but their hearts were big with resentment. Voltaire had in his
keeping a volume of the King's poetry, and forgot to return it. This
was, we believe, merely one of the oversights which men setting out upon
a journey often commit. That Voltaire could have meditated plagiarism is
quite incredible. He would not, we are confident, for the half of
Frederic's kingdom have consented to father Frederic's verses. The King,
however, who rated his own writings much above their value, and who was
inclined to see all Voltaire's actions in the worst light, was enraged
to think that his favorite compositions were in the hands of an enemy,
as thievish as a daw and as mischievous as a monkey. In the anger
excited by this thought, he lost sight of reason and decency, and
determined on committing an outrage at once odious and ridiculous.
Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, Madame Denis, came thither to
meet him. He conceived himself secure from the power of his late master,
when he was arrested by order of the Prussian president. The precious
volume was delivered up. But the Prussian agents had, no doubt, been
instructed not to let Voltaire escape without some gross indignity. He
was confined twelve days in a wretched hovel. Sentinels with fixed
bayonets kept guard over him. His niece was dragged through the mire by
the soldiers. Sixteen hundred dollars were extorted from him by his
insolent jailers. It is absurd to say that this outrage is not to be
attributed to the King. Was anybody punished for it? Was anybody called
in question for it? Was it not consistent with Frederic's character? Was
it not of a piece with his conduct on other similar occasions? Is it not
notorious that he repeatedly gave private directions to his officers to
pillage and demolish the houses of persons against whom he had a grudge,
charging them at the same time to take their measures in such a way that
his name might not be compromised? He acted thus towards Count Bruhl in
the Seven Years' War. Why should we believe that he would have been more
scrupulous with regard to Voltaire?
When at length the illustrious prisoner regained his liberty, the
prospect before him was but dreary. He was an exile both from the
country of his birth and from the country of his adoption. The French
government had taken offence at his journey to Prussia, and would not
permit him to return to Paris; and in the vicinity of Prussia it was not
safe for him to remain.
He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Leman. There, loosed from
every tie which had hitherto restrained him, and having little to hope
or to fear from courts and churches, he began his long war against all
that, whether for good or evil, had authority over man; for what Burke
said of the Constituent Assembly was eminently true of this its great
forerunner: Voltaire could not build; he could only pull down; he was
the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single
doctrine to be called by his name, not a single addition to the stock of
our positive knowledge. But no human teacher ever left behind him so
vast and terrible a wreck of truths and falsehoods, of things noble and
things base, of things useful and things pernicious. From the time when
his sojourn beneath the Alps commenced, the dramatist, the wit, the
historian, was merged in a more important character. He was now the
patriarch, the founder of a sect, the chief of a conspiracy, the prince
of a wide intellectual commonwealth. He often enjoyed a pleasure dear
to the better part of his nature, the pleasure of vindicating innocence
which had no other helper, of repairing cruel wrongs, of punishing
tyranny in high places. He had also the satisfaction, not less
acceptable to his ravenous vanity, of hearing terrified Capuchins call
him the Anti-christ. But whether employed in works of benevolence, or in
works of mischief, he never forgot Potsdam and Frankfort; and he
listened anxiously to every murmur which indicated that a tempest was
gathering in Europe, and that his vengeance was at hand.
He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa had never for a moment forgotten the
great wrong which she had received at the hand of Frederic. Young and
delicate, just left an orphan, just about to be a mother, she had been
compelled to fly from the ancient capital of her race; she had seen her
fair inheritance dismembered by robbers, and of those robbers he had
been the foremost. Without a pretext, without a provocation, in defiance
of the most sacred engagements, he had attacked the helpless ally whom
he was bound to defend. The Empress Queen had the faults as well as the
virtues which are connected with quick sensibility and a high spirit.
There was no peril which she was not ready to brave, no calamity which
she was not ready to bring on her subjects, or on the whole human race,
if only she might once taste the sweetness of a complete revenge.
Revenge, too, presented itself to her narrow and superstitious mind in
the guise of duty. Silesia had been wrested not only from the House of
Austria, but from the Church of Rome. The conqueror had indeed permitted
his new subjects to worship God after their own fashion; but this was
not enough. To bigotry it seemed an intolerable hardship that the
Catholic Church, having long enjoyed ascendency, should be compelled to
content itself with equality. Nor was this the only circumstance which
led Maria Theresa to regard her enemy as the enemy of God. The
profaneness of Frederic's writings and conversation, and the frightful
rumors which were circulated respecting the immorality of his private
life, naturally shocked a woman who believed with the firmest faith all
that her confessor told her, and who, though surrounded by temptations,
though young and beautiful, though ardent in all her passions, though
possessed of absolute power, had preserved her fame unsullied even by
the breath of slander.
To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohenzollern to the dust,
was the great object of her life. She toiled during many years for this
end, with zeal as indefatigable as that which the poet ascribes to the
stately goddess who tired out her immortal horses in the work of raising
the nations against Troy, and who offered to give up to destruction her
darling Sparta and Mycenae, if only she might once see the smoke going up
from the palace of Priam. With even such a spirit did the proud Austrian
Juno strive to array against her foe a coalition such as Europe had
never seen. Nothing would content her but that the whole civilized
world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, from the Bay of Biscay to the
pastures of the wild horses of the Tanais, should be combined in arms
against one petty state.