THE COMEDY OF FRANKFORT
Frederick the Great had the misfortune to suffer now from subordinates
so loyal that they went beyond their master’s commands, and officials
with a blundering zeal not according to knowledge.
The second part of “Akakia” had flung him into one of the greatest
furies of his life. The unmeasured terms in which he wrote of Voltaire
to his sister have been recorded. Wilhelmina’s propitiating answer did
not propitiate him. Voltaire was maddeningly and devilishly clever. The
sting of the “Akakia” supplements lay in part for Frederick the Great in
the fact that he could hardly prevent himself from laughing at such an
exquisite humour, nor withhold his admiration of such a dazzling and
daring genius. But add to this, that in making a fool of his President,
Voltaire had also made a fool of the President’s friend and King; that
that King had cringed to win Voltaire to Prussia, and cringed to keep
him. Still extant were the royal letters filled with the wildest
hyperbole of devotion and of admiration. He had stooped to entreat. He
had licked dust to keep the Frenchman his property; and he had done it
in vain. It may be forgiven him that, like Naaman the Syrian, he went
away in a rage.
Before he went to Silesia he had caused to be written on April 11th that
memorable order to Freytag, before alluded to, wherein he commanded
Freytag to deprive Voltaire on his arrival at Frankfort of that Key,
Cross and Order, all papers in the King’s handwriting, and--“the book
specified in the note enclosed.” Only--there was no note enclosed, and
no book specified at all.
A conscientious and fussy old busybody was Freytag; worryingly anxious
to do right, and fretfully and rightly suspecting himself to be no match
for Voltaire. Back he writes to Potsdam on April 21st, asking further
instructions about that unspecified book; and “If Voltaire says he has
sent on his luggage ahead, are we to keep him a prisoner at Frankfort
till he has brought it back?”
“Yes,” comes back the answer on April 29th. “Keep him in sight till the
luggage is brought back and he has given to you the royal manuscripts,
especially the book called ‘Œuvre de Poésie.’”
For six weeks, while Voltaire was amusing himself with his Duchess and
his “Annals,” fussy Freytag awaited him. Voltaire spent the night of May
31st in perfect tranquillity at the inn of the “Golden Lion.” On June
1st, Freytag, Councillor Rucker, who represented a Councillor Schmidt
who was ill, and Lieutenant Brettwitz called upon Voltaire at eight
o’clock in the morning at the “Golden Lion,” and in the name of his
Prussian Majesty requested his Prussian Majesty’s ex-guest to deliver up
immediately all the royal manuscripts, the Key, the Cross and the Order.
It was not wonderful, perhaps, that at this request Voltaire flung
himself back in his chair and closed his eyes, overcome. Even to
Freytag’s unemotional vision the Frenchman appeared ill, and was nothing
better than a skeleton. Collini ransacked Voltaire’s trunks at his
order. He delivered up all the royal manuscripts--save one which he sent
to Freytag the next morning, saying he had found it later under a table.
The Key and the Ribbon--that Key which had long torn his pocket, and
that Ribbon which had been a halter round his neck--he also gave to
Freytag. He sent on to him in the evening his commission as King’s
Chamberlain. As for the “Œuvre de Poésie”--why, _that_, says Voltaire, I
packed up with other books in a box, and, for the life of me, cannot
tell you whether the box is at Leipsic or at Hamburg.
Considering the passionate nature of his desire to be out of this
Prussia; considering his wretched health, which really did need
Plombières waters, or some waters or some great change of scene and of
air; considering the affront that was being put upon him; considering
the fact that that “Œuvre de Poésie” was his own, a present from the
King, corrected and embellished by M. de Voltaire himself, it must be
conceded that he took the news that he was to be a prisoner at the
Frankfort inn until that unlucky book was forthcoming, pretty
philosophically. He did indeed beg vainly to be allowed to pursue his
journey. It was not pleasant to have to sign a parole not to go beyond
the garden of one’s hotel; to have for host a man under oath not to let
his guest depart. It was not pleasant to have three blundering German
officials turning over one’s effects for eight consecutive hours, from
nine in the morning till five o’clock in the afternoon. The facts that
Freytag--who certainly meant very well--confided Voltaire’s health to
the best doctor in the place, and offered the captive the pleasure of a
drive with himself, the great Freytag, the Resident, in the public
gardens, were insufficient consolations for delay and indignity. Freytag
signed a couple of agreements wherein he declared that as soon as the
book arrived, Voltaire could go where he liked. One copy of the
agreement Voltaire kept. He and Collini declared that Freytag spelled
Poésie, _Poëshie_; and on the second copy which Voltaire sent to Madame
Denis, to reassure her, her uncle wrote “Good for the Œuvre de _Poëshie_
of the King your master!” Voltaire could still joke; and still work. He
was not all unhappy.
He went on with his “Annals.” He received visitors--as a famous person
whose extraordinary detention had already got wind in the town. He
walked in the garden with Collini. He wrote several letters, without
even alluding to his present circumstances. He was still a laughing
philosopher. He enjoyed that _Poëshie_ joke immensely. He also enjoyed
boxing the ears of Van Duren, once printer at The Hague and now retired
to Frankfort, who waited on him with a bill thirteen years old. Collini
found his master, as ever, good and benevolent.
Five days later he had begun to grow a little impatient. Worthy Freytag
was shocked when he visited his captive on that fifth day of his
detention, June 5th, to hear him ask if he could not change his
residence, and go and call on the Duke of Meiningen; and, worst of all,
break out into invectives against that solemn old conscientious
stupidity, the Resident himself. Freytag, not a little flurried, went
home and wrote for more explicit commands from Potsdam. Since that first
order, dated April 11th, none had proceeded directly from Frederick. He
was still away on his tour: and to Fredersdorff in Potsdam and Freytag
in Frankfort, his too zealous servants, belongs most of the dishonour
and ridicule the affair heaped on the name of Frederick.
Freytag was no sooner out of the house than Voltaire, who still pursued
his old, old policy of leaving no stone unturned, sat down and wrote a
very cunning letter to the Emperor of Austria beseeching his
interference in his, Voltaire’s, behalf. The day before, on June 4th, he
had written a similar one to d’Argenson, showing how it would really be
to the best interest of the French Ministry to come to his rescue. On
June 7th, he wrote to d’Argental of his detention with a calm and
philosophy which, as has been well said, people keep as a rule for the
misfortunes of others.
On the ninth day of his captivity, that is to say, June 9, 1753, there
drew up at the door of the “Golden Lion” a post-chaise containing a very
fat, hot, breathless, and excited lady of uncertain years, who fell upon
the captive’s neck and fervently embraced him, crying out “Uncle! I
always said that man would be the death of you.”
Marie Louise Denis was at this time about three-and-forty years old.
Idle, self-indulgent, and extravagant, she was a good-humoured person
enough if a vast appetite for pleasure were gratified to the full.
Voluble, bustling, and impetuous; foolish, but not without a certain
vulgar shrewdness; affectionate, until the objects of her affections
were out of sight, when she entirely forgot all about them; vain,
greedy, and good-natured; much too lazy to be long offended with anyone,
and quite incapable of speaking the truth--Madame Denis was a type of
woman which has never been uncommon in any age. So long as she was happy
and comfortable herself, she was quite ready to allow her neighbours to
be so too. She was a cordial hostess; and talked a great deal and at
the very top of her voice. With a mind as wholly incapable of real
cultivation as was her heart of any great or sustained feeling, from
long association with Voltaire she caught the accent of cleverness, as
after living in a foreign country one catches the accent of a language
though one may know nothing of its construction, its grammar, or its
literature.
If Voltaire had been in many respects unfortunate in the first woman who
influenced his life, he was a thousand times more so in the second. If
Madame du Châtelet had had a shrewish temper, she had had transcendent
mental gifts; Madame Denis had the shrew’s temper with a mind
essentially limited and commonplace. Madame du Châtelet had once loved
Voltaire; Madame Denis never loved anything but her pleasures. From the
first moment of her connection with him, his niece was a worry and a
care to him--making him, as well as herself, ludicrous with her
_penchant_ for bad playwriting and her elderly coquetries. It is not
insignificant that Longchamp, Collini, and Wagnière hated her from their
souls. (Collini, indeed, politely praised her in his memoirs, written
long after the events they chronicled, and roundly abused her in his
letters written at the time.) Voltaire kept her with him, partly no
doubt because the tie of relationship bound them. But his enemies may
concede that if he had not been in domestic life one of the most
generous, patient, good-humoured, forbearing, and philosophic of men, he
would have snapped that tie in the case of Louise Denis without
compunction.
It must be briefly noted here that those enemies declare that there was
another tie between Voltaire and Madame Denis than that of uncle and
niece. But if there had been why should it not have been legalised by
marriage? An appeal to the Pope and the payment of a certain sum alone
were necessary. Voltaire was not too moral, but he was too shrewd, and
had had far too much experience of the painful consequences of acting
illegally, to do so when it was totally unnecessary. He had been, too,
but a cold lover to Madame du Châtelet with her _éblouissante_
personality. What in the world was there to make a decrepit uncle of
nine-and-fifty fall in love with a lazy, ugly niece of forty-three, who
bored him? The thing is against nature. The tone in which he speaks of
Madame Denis in his letters--good-humoured and patronising--is certainly
not the tone of a lover. Add to this, that the foolish relict of M.
Denis was always the victim of gallant _penchants_ for quite other
persons than Voltaire, now for d’Arnaud, now for Ximenès, presently for
young secretary Collini, and a handsome major of twenty-seven.
The age was a vile one; and Voltaire was in it and of it. No woman, were
she ever so old and ugly, could have been at the head of his house and
escaped calumny. But he may be exonerated from being his niece’s lover.
It was a sin he had no mind to.
He was undoubtedly very sincerely glad to see her at the present moment.
And if she was not quite heroic enough to keep herself from saying, “I
told you so!” she was quite good-natured enough to sympathise with her
uncle, even if he had brought his misfortunes at least in part upon
himself. This meeting, too, had been so long planned, written of, and
delayed. Both uncle and niece--not yet knowing each other as fatally
well as they were soon to do--had heartily desired it. One of the very
first things practical Madame Denis did was to sit down and write on
June 11th a very sensible and moving letter to Frederick the Great,
which, if her uncle did not help in its composition, is an example of
the truth of the axiom that one intuition of a woman is worth all the
reasoning of a man. It was not Madame Denis’s fault that that appeal to
Frederick to let Voltaire go free did not reach Frederick until it was
too late to be of use. She had already implored the good offices of Lord
Keith, who had been of Frederick’s suppers, and was now in France as
Prussian envoy; and the prudent Scotchman had replied advising her to
recommend Uncle Voltaire to keep quiet, and to remember that “Kings have
long arms.” Nothing daunted, Madame Denis wrote to Keith again. This
letter, too, though in the niece’s hand, bears evidence of the uncle’s
brain. The energetic pair (Madame Denis declared in every letter that
they were both very ill) further wrote to d’Argenson and Madame de
Pompadour to lay before France the astonishing facts of their case.
It only remained for Madame Denis after this to try and cheer the
captivity of the prisoner of the “Golden Lion,” and to help him
entertain the illustrious local notables who came to call upon him.
Early on the morning of Monday, June 18th, the chest containing that
famous “Œuvre de _Poëshie_” was delivered at Freytag’s house. “Now we
can go!” thinks Voltaire. He completed his preparations. He sent Collini
to Freytag’s house to be present at the opening of the parcel. But
cautious Freytag was awaiting clearer orders from Potsdam: and would not
open the case. Voltaire sent Collini many times during that morning;
nay, many times in a single hour: and Freytag sent him away again. At
noon comes a despatch to Freytag from Fredersdorff. “Do nothing,” says
that official, “until the King returns here next Thursday, when you
shall have further orders.” And Freytag, in a note of the most excessive
politeness, conveys this message to Voltaire.
Voltaire’s patience had had eighteen days to run out: and the supply was
pretty well exhausted. At his side was his niece dying to go, and
anticipating, not unnaturally, that Frederick intended something very
sinister indeed by these delays. Voltaire went to Freytag and asked to
see Fredersdorff’s despatch. And Freytag refused, in a rage. That night
Madame Denis wrote to the Abbé de Prades--as the intimate of
Frederick--telling him of this new insult and delay. And Voltaire
resolved upon action.
Leaving Madame Denis to look after the luggage and await events at the
“Golden Lion,” on Wednesday, June 20th, about three o’clock in the
afternoon, Voltaire and Collini slipped out of the inn and went to
another hostelry, called the “Crown of the Empire,” where they got into
a post-chaise which was returning to Mayence. A servant followed them as
far as the “Crown of the Empire” and put into the post-chaise a cash-box
and two portfolios. But for the fact that one of the escaping criminals,
sombrely dressed in black velvet for the occasion, dropped a notebook in
the city and spent four minutes of priceless time looking for it, they
would have been out of Frankfort and the jurisdiction of Freytag before
that breathless and flurried official caught them up and arrested them,
with the assistance of the officer at the Mayence gate, which they had
actually reached.
It is not necessary to say that Voltaire did not submit to this arrest
tamely. He argued with no little passion and adroitness. Collini
supported all his statements impartially. “The worst bandits could not
have struggled more to get away,” said unfortunate Freytag. But the
Resident had might on his side, if not right. He left Voltaire and
Collini under a guard of six soldiers and “flew” back to the Burgomaster
of Frankfort, who confirmed the arrest. When the unhappy official got
back to the city gate, he found Voltaire had spent his time burning
papers. What he did not know, was that Voltaire had further taken
advantage of his absence to abstract a sheaf of manuscript from one of
the portfolios and to give it to Collini, saying, “Hide that somewhere
about you.”
Freytag brought his prisoners back to the city in his carriage, which
was surrounded by a guard of soldiers, and very soon by a crowd. He took
them to the house of that Councillor Schmidt (whose office had been
temporarily filled on June 1st by Councillor Rucker) because, said
Freytag, the landlord of the “Golden Lion” would not have Voltaire in
his house any longer “on account of his incredible meanness.” Freytag
then made the prisoners give up the cash-box and their money. “Count the
money,” said Schmidt; “they are quite capable of pretending they had
more than they really had.” From Voltaire were also taken “his watch,
his snuff-box, and some jewels that he wears.” Collini recounts that
Voltaire feigned illness to soften the hearts of his captors. But this
very transparent ruse failed entirely; as might have been expected.
After two hours’ waiting, Dorn, Freytag’s clerk, a disgraced solicitor
of Frankfort, took the pair to a low tavern called the “Goat,” where
Voltaire was shut up in one room guarded by three soldiers with
bayonets; and Collini in another. Voltaire’s cash-box and portfolios had
been left in a trunk at Schmidt’s, and the trunk padlocked.
Madame Denis, hearing of Voltaire’s arrest, had flown to try the effect
of feminine eloquence upon the Burgomaster.
He replied by putting her under arrest at the “Golden Lion”; and
presently sent her, under guard of Dorn and three soldiers, to the
“Goat” tavern, where she was placed in a garret with no furniture in it
but a bed; “soldiers for _femmes de chambre_, and bayonets for
curtains.” Madame Denis appears to have spent the night in hysterics.
The miscreant Dorn actually persisted in taking his supper in her room
and emptying bottle after bottle in her presence and treating her with
insult. The truth was, Freytag and Dorn did not believe in her nieceship
to Voltaire and mistook the poor lady for a wholly disreputable
character.
Collini spent _his_ night, dressed, on his bed. Beneath the shelter of
its curtains he drew forth from his breeches that sheaf of manuscript
Voltaire had given him at the Mayence gate. It was the manuscript of the
“Pucelle,” so far as it was then written.
If Voltaire spent _his_ night in a rage, he had every excuse for it. At
ten o’clock in the evening he wrote to that good friend of his, the
Margravine, laying his desperate case before her and begging her to send
his letter on to her brother. He had broken his parole--true; but not
until Freytag had broken his written agreement that when that “Œuvre de
_Poëshie_” arrived he should go where he listed. He had borne a most
galling delay not impatiently. For being in possession of a book which
had been given to him, he, his niece, and his servant had been hustled,
jostled, and insulted. If the book was blasphemous, indecent, and a
dangerous work for a king to have written, was that Voltaire’s fault? He
had but corrected its blunders and its grammar. If its model was the
“Pucelle”--the royal author had chosen that model himself. Voltaire
suffered for the King’s imprudence and for the King’s official’s folly.
He was in a situation not too common to him--he really was not the
aggressor.
The following day, Thursday, June 21st, the Potsdam mail arrived
bringing orders dated June 16th from Frederick--just returned from his
tour--that Voltaire, on giving his promise and a written agreement that
he would send back the “_Poëshie_” to Freytag within a given time, and
without making any copies of it, was to be allowed to go “in peace and
with civility.”
That is all very well, thinks fussy Freytag. But when the King wrote
that, he did not know this Voltaire had set at naught his Resident’s
solemn authority and had had the audacity to try and escape. He must
wait to go until we hear what the King’s commands are when he knows of
this abominable breach of discipline.
Voltaire, goaded to desperation, wrote again to the Margravine of
Bayreuth, begging her to send to his Majesty a most indignant statement
of the wrongs done to Madame Denis--the statement having been drawn up
by that outraged lady herself. As a good niece, she also wrote again
passionately, direct to the King, on behalf of her uncle. He himself
implored Freytag in quite humble terms to at least let them go back to
the “Golden Lion,” which was a more decent habitation than the “Goat”;
and, besides, would save the prisoners from paying for two prisons.
A few hours after, he appealed again to the mercy of that harassed and
unfortunate jailer. All these letters are of June 21st. It must have
been a busy day. It is strange that at such a juncture Voltaire himself
did not write direct to the King. It could not have been his pride that
prevented him. If pride was an obstacle in the way of attaining his end,
an impulsive Voltaire could always kick it aside. Besides, he stooped to
entreat a Dorn and a Freytag. In answer to his requests Madame Denis and
Collini were allowed to go out of doors. But Voltaire was kept to his
room in that wretched “Goat” and guarded by two sentinels as if he had
been a dangerous criminal awaiting hanging. Four days went by. Then, on
June 25th, came clearer and more positive orders from Frederick to let
the prisoners go. Frederick was sick of the business and ashamed of it.
But still, argues Freytag, when he sent those orders, he did not know of
the attempt to escape. So the only effect of them was that the guards
were removed from the door, and Voltaire was put on his honour not to
leave the room.
The chest of books from Strasburg had meanwhile been opened; and the
“_Poèshie_” extracted therefrom. But for the punctilious idiocy of one
dull official, Voltaire might long ago have been at his Plombières and
have done with Prussia for ever. The very burgomaster began to pity him.
Frankfort was near regarding him as a martyr. Freytag, a little nervous,
splendidly allowed the captive the freedom of the whole inn; and then he
and that captive fought tooth and nail over money matters. For Voltaire
had not only endured the miseries of arrest and detention, but had had
to pay their whole expenses. He and Collini swore they had been robbed
of jewels, money, and papers, and of various trifles as well.
On July 5th--after they had been detained thirty-five days--came sharp
orders from Potsdam that Voltaire was to be released at once. Even a
Freytag could doubt and delay no more. On July 6th the party returned to
the “Golden Lion”: where Voltaire called in a lawyer and laid before him
a succinct account of the events of those five-and-thirty days. Collini
completed their preparations for departure. On the very morning when
they were going, the impetuous Voltaire caught sight of Dorn passing his
door and rushed out at him with a loaded pistol. Collini intervened.
They had been in scrapes enough already.
On July 7, 1753, Voltaire and Collini left Frankfort. That fighting,
scrambling, wearying month of folly and indignity was over. The same
night they reached Mayence-on-the-Rhine--a city which knew not
Frederick. The day following, Madame Denis left Frankfort for Paris.
Nothing is more remarkable about the Frankfort affair than the
moderation Voltaire, considering he was Voltaire, displayed in it. When
the Margravine wrote on the subject to her brother and described
Voltaire as “intense and bilious” and “capable of every imprudence,” the
description was not unfair. When Frederick wrote to his sister and said
plainly that Voltaire and Madame Denis lied in their descriptions of the
event and coloured it and embroidered on it to suit their own ends, he
was not precisely lying, though he was not precisely truthful, himself.
But leaving the account of Voltaire, Madame Denis, and Collini
altogether alone, from the account of Freytag the prejudiced, it is
proved that Voltaire behaved, all things considered, with a great deal
of philosophy and an unusual amount of patience.
Why?
He was leaving Prussia--with enormous difficulty to be sure--but he
_was_ leaving it at last. He was returning, as he hoped, to France. He
had made a final trial of courts and kings--and found them wanting.
Liberty was whispering and wooing him again--the siren he had loved and
deserted, and whom he was to love again and desert no more. His blessed
monotonous work at his “Annals” made him “forget all the Freytags.” For
five hours a day, whether he was living in palaces or in prison, with
princes or with jailers, he “laboured tranquilly” at that book. The
comic side of the situation appealed to him. He knew, or said he knew,
that he deserved some of his misfortunes. And above all--far above
all--the dream and the night were ending, and with the dawn of a new day
came the courage, the fight, and the energy to win it.