Chapter 19
The man handed the document to Voltaire, and retired. When the old man had opened and read it, he fell on his knees before the King and exclaimed, “Save me, sire!”
“That is your law-suit with Hirschel about the Saxon state papers. You thought to deceive each other and the public, but the Jew did not let you lead him by the nose, Monsieur, and now you are exposed as a falsifier!”
“Save me, your Majesty!”
“How can I?”
“With a word--a single good word before the court....”
“For shame, old man! Do you think I can bend the law? Do you want me to bribe the judges? No, Monsieur, there are judges in Berlin who cannot be bribed! My word counts as little as that of the meanest. Stand up, go to your room, and meet me at supper.”
“Sire, I beg to be excused coming to supper this evening.”
“Good! then we will meet to-morrow.”
* * * * *
When Voltaire reached his room, he began to search through his papers which he had left in disorder. He looked for a whole hour for the letter he had written to the Marquise, without being able to find it. Then he perceived that the letter had been seized, and he conceived a suspicion against the King. He stormed about in the room till it had become dark outside. He felt that it was all over with friendship and hospitality, with high position and honour, and that he must depart--perhaps by flight.
Accordingly he closed the window-shutters, and made a fire in the stove in order to burn dangerous papers. When he had finished, he went to bed, and rang for a servant: “Ask Monsieur La Mettrie to come; I am ill,” he ordered.
La Mettrie, the author of _L’Homme Machine_, a most rigorous materialist and atheist, enjoyed Frederick’s favour on account of his writings. After his death the King himself delivered a funeral oration over him in the Academy. Voltaire was jealous of him, as he was of everyone who stood in his way, but La Mettrie was a physician, and Voltaire could be amiable to anyone of whom he stood in need.
The doctor came, not out of philanthropy, but from curiosity and a certain malicious satisfaction at seeing the favourite in disgrace.
“My dear friend,” said the old man, “I am sick in body and soul.”
“You haven’t got a soul.”
“But the trouble is in the heart.”
“_Cor, cordis_, the heart; then you have eaten too much. Take a purge, Monsieur; then you will be lighter than lightmindedness itself.”
“Prescribe me some proper medicine, man; I am dying.”
“Then go to a watering-place.”
“Like a minister who is in disgrace; no, thank you.”
“Go home to your own country; you are suffering from homesickness.”
“Yes, there you are right! The air here does not suit me.”
“You are beginning to get stout.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“And the Marquises are longing for you.”
“Are they? What nonsense you talk! But I must have a watering-place.”
“Well, take Plombières! There you will meet the court.”
“That is an excellent idea! Plombières! But I will return, of course.”
“Of course!”
“I will be back in three weeks--let us say a month. If only the King will not be vexed....”
“Let me assure you, the King will console himself.”
“Yes, yes, I will consider the matter. But say--he is not angry with me?”
“Who?”
“The King!”
“He is not angry with you, otherwise he would have been so long ago! No, you are belated in thinking that.”
“Give me a sleeping powder, and then you can go.”
The doctor took the powder, and poured it in a glass of water.
The old man drank, but his large eyes followed the changing expressions of the doctor’s face, who looked very amused. He did not altogether trust him.
“Monsieur Voltaire,” said the doctor, “when you make a fire in the oven, draw up the small oven-shutters, else there is too much smoke. The Potsdam fire-engines would very likely be summoned.”
“Oh! That too! Well! _La comedia è finita!_ Good-night!”
“_Sic transit gloria mundi!_ Sleep well!”
Voltaire slept during the night, but not well, and was awakened on the following morning by the sound of salutes fired at Potsdam; from which he concluded that the King was holding manoeuvres. Neither did he see any sign of the King, but about noonday he received a letter bearing the royal arms which ran as follows:--
“MONSIEUR,--Doctor La Mettrie has told me of your determination to travel to a watering-place. Although I shall miss your pleasant and instructive conversation, I will not resist your wish, since I am sure that a thorough course of treatment will benefit your nerves and the wretched state of your heart. Wishing you a good recovery, or at any rate hoping that you will not be worse than you are,
“I am
“F. R.”
That was his passport for the journey. The same evening Voltaire travelled to Leipzig, where he read extracts from Frederick’s collection of satires which he also thought of having printed. But in Frankfurt he was arrested and deprived of the precious manuscripts, which might have made more enemies for Frederick than he actually did make later on. Rebuked, and again liberated, Voltaire fled at first to France, where he published in the _Dictionnaire Historique_ the most abominable assertions regarding Frederick’s private life.
Two years later he was settled at Ferney, on the Lake of Geneva, as a multi-millionaire, patriarch, and king.
* * * * *
Many years passed, and still the old Voltaire reigned at his Sans-Souci called Ferney--just as energetic as ever, just as restless and vain.
His little château was a modest two-storied building in a circular enclosure, surrounded by a courtyard planted with trees. On the left of the entrance stood a small stone chapel. A tablet over the door bore the inscription, “Deo erexit Voltaire,” which roused the mirth of his literary friends and the hatred of the ecclesiastical party.
Below in the garden he had an arbour-walk of hornbeam covered in, and resembling a long hall with windows cut in the side, looking towards the lake. From thence he could see Mont Blanc, which especially at sunset showed all its splendour, and the blue levels of the lake stretching towards Clarens and the Rhone Valley, where the unfortunate Rousseau had wandered, loved, and suffered. Just now in the twilight, the old man sat in his arbour walk and played bezique with the local pastor, when the post arrived. There were many letters with shining seals.
“Excuse me, Abbé, I must read my letters!”
“Pray do so,” answered the priest, and stood up in order to promenade up and down the arbour walk.
After a while the old man called his friend back: “Come, Abbé, come! You must hear something!”
The Abbé, who, for the sake of his flock, kept on good terms with Voltaire, and humoured his whims, without, however, yielding to him in theological discussions, came at the summons.
“You must hear a letter from Frederick the Great, the Unique, the Incomparable. He has pardoned me, and I am ashamed. My last evening in Sans-Souci I was irritated, and in my cruelty I was mean enough to remind him of his father’s stick. The moment that the word escaped, I felt his retort in the air, but he restrained it. He had only needed to return the thrust with a reference to the stick which had played a certain part in my youth, but he kept silent, whether out of regard for my years or for some other reason. (It is remarkable that the stick has also had an influence on the development of the great Shakespeare and others.) Excuse, Abbé, this _garrulitas senilis_--he has pardoned me, and writes, ‘My old friend!’
“‘The years have passed; to the seven good years which you shared with me succeeded the seven lean ones--the Seven Years’ War and all that it brought with it. Friends have departed, and a great loneliness enfolds the ageing man, who now, among other things, begins to be far-sighted, after being formerly short-sighted. He sees life in a perspective where the apparently shorter lines are the longest. He knows that from experience, and therefore lets himself no longer be deceived. Standing on the height which he has gained, he is glad to look back, but he can also now see in front of him.
“‘What is now impending? Who can say? This century, which has seen all the sovereigns leading revolutionary movements, is the strangest of all. We despots, who forced enlightenment and freedom on the peoples--we were the demagogues and they rewarded us with ingratitude. It was a perverse world! I have suffered for my doctrines and actions, but the fate of Joseph II is tragic. They are slowly but surely murdering him.
“‘You do not love war: nor do I, but I was forced to it by Providence and solicitude for my country. What have I effected thereby? you ask. I have made a “re-distribution,” as land-surveyors call it, and out of scattered patches and scraps of territory I have woven together a Prussia, so that we can now walk on our own ground, without treading on our neighbour’s. Do not fear Prussia; you need it as a bulwark against Russia, which now, since the time of the Czar Peter, has a voice and vote in the Council of Europe. You disapprove of my sharing in the partition of Poland, but I was obliged to do so; otherwise Russia would have taken all. Poland had lost its significance in the geographical economy of Europe; it was Russianised, and the role it had played was taken over by the Sarmatian.... Silesia was ours, and thank God that the Swedes did not obtain it, as they at first wished. Moreover, we have sent the Goths home to their own country, and look after our own affairs ourselves.’”
“And so on! Then he says something about Rousseau.”
“‘You call Rousseau a swindler; that is a somewhat severe expression. Even if he did really steal a piece of ribbon, or a silver spoon, it is not worth talking about. I share his love for nature and his hatred of mankind. One evening lately, as the sun went down, I thought: “God! how beautiful are Thy natural creations, and how hideous are Thy human creatures!” We men, I mean--for I except neither myself nor you, Monsieur. This cursed race truly belongs to the Iron Age as described by Hesiod. And we are asked to believe that they are created after God’s image! After the image of the Devil, I would rather say! Rousseau is right when he believes in a past Golden Age.’
“What do you say to that, Monsieur l’Abbé?”
“It is what the Church teaches regarding the lost Paradise and the Fall, and also agrees with the Greek legend of Prometheus, who ate of the tree of knowledge, and thereby brought misfortune on men.”
“Good heavens! Have you too become a freethinker? Shoemaker, stick to your last! If you are a priest, then be a priest, but don’t try to make a botch of my work. And don’t think you need to flatter me for an increase of wages. But let us return to Frederick:”
“‘History rolls on like an avalanche; the race improves, the conditions of life become easier, but men are still the same--faithless, unthankful, criminal; and he just as well as the unjust go to hell. I do not dare to put down on paper the conclusions to be drawn from this observation, for that would be to acquit Lazarus, and to crucify Christ.... Great men have little weaknesses or rather great weaknesses. We, Monsieur, have been no angels, but Providence has used us for great objects. Is it a matter of indifference to Providence whom it takes in hand, or how we live in the flesh, provided we keep the spirit uppermost? _Sursum corda!_’”
“What do you say to that, Abbé?”
“The Law cannot be fulfilled, says St. Paul, but the Law rouses the sense of guilt, and therefore it is only imposed in order to drive us to grace.”
“That was not such a stupid remark of Paul’s. But I should like to add,--in the prison of the flesh grows the longing for liberation: ‘Who shall deliver me, wretched man, from this body of sin?’ Yes, Abbé, _Vanitas vanitatum! Vanitas!_ You are young, but you must not despise the old man when he turns round and spits behind him all the unpleasantness of his past life. Might but a generation be born which knew at once the value of life, as long as a mud-bath is not part of the treatment!”
Just then a dark lean man came tortuously along the garden path.
“See! there is my Jesuit!” said Voltaire.
The old man kept on friendly terms with a Jesuit, partly because the Pope had expelled them, partly because Frederick the Great had patronised them; but his chief object was to have someone to dispute with. Perhaps also he wished to show his freedom from prejudice, for he did not like the uncongenial man.
“Now, you child of Satan!” was the old man’s greeting, “what mischief have you got in your mind? You look so maliciously pleased!”
“I come from Geneva,” answered the Jesuit with an evil smile.
“What are they doing there?”
“I saw the executioner burn Rousseau’s _Emile_.”
“They may do that, as far as I am concerned, and throw the fool himself into the fire.”
“Monsieur Voltaire!”
“Yes: one cannot tolerate lunatics: there are limits!”
“Where?”
“Imposed by a sound intelligence.”
“Yes, and saw them burn the new edition of Monsieur Voltaire’s _Candide_.”
“For shame! But it is merely a mob in Geneva.”
“A Protestant mob, with your permission.”
“Don’t trouble yourself; I hate Protestants equally with Catholics! This terrible Calvin burnt his friend Servetus in Geneva, because he did not believe in the Trinity. And had Jean Calas in Toulouse been a Catholic, and his son a Protestant, I would still have attacked the judges, although I am nothing. I am nothing; only, what I write is something.”
“Then some day we will raise a monument to Monsieur Voltaire’s writings--not to Voltaire.”
“You have no need; I have already raised my monument myself in the hundred volumes of my collected works. The world has nothing to do with how the old ass looked; there is nothing to see in that. We know my weaknesses; I have lied, I have stolen, I have been ungrateful; something of a scoundrel, something of a brute! That is the dirty part of me, and I bequeath it to Jesuits, pettifoggers, hair-splitters and collectors of anecdotes;--but my spirit to God who gave it, and to men an honest purpose to understand their Monsieur Voltaire.”
He rose, for the sun had descended.
“Good-night, Mont Blanc; you have a white head like myself, and stand with your feet in cold water, as I do! Now I go and lie down! Tomorrow I travel to Paris, where I will die.”
DAYS OF JUDGMENT
In the northern tower of the Church of Notre Dame de Paris was the tower-watchman’s chamber. But it had been arranged like a bookbinder’s workshop, for the watchman’s day-duty was not particularly heavy, and the hours of the night passed with sleep or without sleep, no one troubling themselves to oversee this now superfluous church servant.
Nobody entered the church, which had been damaged in various ways, and no one ascended the northern tower, for the bells hung in the southern one. There the watchman’s duty was regarded more seriously, for on all extraordinary occasions the alarm-bell had to sound.
The watchman kept up a sort of telegraphic communication with the bellringer in the southern tower. In calm weather they could chat with each other, but when it was windy, they had to use speaking trumpets.
The workshop had, in the course of years, developed into a very comfortable room. Its southern side was occupied by a single large bookcase. There the first edition of the _Encyclopédie_ in five and thirty volumes, shone resplendent in red morocco with gilt letters. There stood Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, Hume--all the authors who ought to have been present. There were also periodicals, the _Moniteur_, Père Duchesne and Marat’s _L’Ami du Peuple_. This last was bound in somewhat greasy leather, which resembled pig’s-skin, and had curled up at the corners.
Another wall was covered with engravings, some coloured and some plain. They hung in chronological order from left to right, from top to bottom, so that one could read the whole history of the Revolution pictorially. The Oath in the ball-room on June 20, 1789, with Mirabeau’s portrait; the burning of the Bastille, and the head of the commandant; the Jacobite Club, with Marat, Saint-Just, Couthon, Robespierre; the Feast of Brotherhood on the Champ du Mars; the King’s Flight to Varennes; Lafayette; the Girondists; the execution of the King and Queen; the Committee of Public Welfare, with Danton and the newly hatched Robespierre; the Reign of Terror; Charlotte Corday stabbing Marat in the bath; Robespierre again; Feast of the Supreme Being; Voltaire’s Funeral; Robespierre again, this time on the 9th Thermidor. Then came Buonaparte and the Directory, mixed with Pyramids and Alps.
In the middle of the room stood a very large table. At the one end were the bookbinder’s tools; at the other, writing materials. The inkstand was a skull; the ruler was a fore-arm; the paper-weight was a guillotine, and the penholder a rib.
The bookbinder himself, a centenarian, with an apostolic beard, sat and wrote under a lantern which hung from the roof. He was the only person visible in the room. Outside it was stormy, and the roof-plates rattled from time to time; it was cool in the room, but not cold, for a stove was lit in a corner, where lay the watchman’s belongings--a great wolfskin fur-coat, a speaking trumpet, some flags, and a lantern with variously coloured glass sides. The old man pushed his glasses up his forehead, looked up, and spoke, though the person with whom he talked could not be seen.
“Are you hungry?”
A voice behind the bookcase answered: “Fairly so.”
“Are you cold?”
“No, not yet.”
“Wait a little; I must just go outside and make an observation.”
“What are you writing?”
“My reminiscences.”
“Is it quiet in the town?”
“Yes, but they have gone out to Saint Cloud.”
“Then it will soon come to shooting.”
“It won’t come to shooting, but we may expect a proclamation. Be quiet now; I must step out, and send a message. Then you will get some food and drink; perhaps a pipe of tobacco also.”
There was silence behind the bookcase, and the old man put on his fur-coat, lit his many-coloured lamp, took up a speaking-trumpet, and stepped out on the balcony.
It was very dark, but the old man was familiar with his menagerie out there on the parapet; he loved his stone monsters--the owl, the griffin, the gorgon, and stroked them every time that he passed them. But the creature with a man’s body, goat’s feet and horns, inspired him with a certain awe, as it stood there leaning on its hands like a priest, and bending forward as if to preach to the godless city or to hurl anathemas at it. He took his stand near it, and began to signal with the lantern. But the wind was so violent that the old man swayed, and had to put his arm round the creature’s body, in order to support himself.
After he had stood for a time signalling with the lantern, and gazing out into the darkness, he suddenly raised himself upright, put down the lantern, and raised the speaking-trumpet to his mouth. Holding on to the stone balustrade, he turned to the southern tower, and cried “Hullo! Francis! Hallo!”
After a while a reply came through the darkness.
“Qui vive?”
“Mont-joie--Saint-Denis.”
“Sacre!” answered the other. “Ring the great bell! Ring, for heaven’s sake!”
The watchman remained standing for a while looking at the coloured lights on the church tower of St. Cloud. In order to be quite certain, he repeated his signal, and received for answer: “Right understood.”
The old man sighed “Thy will be done, O Lord!” He was on the point of returning to the turret-chamber, when the wind blew so violently, that he had to seize the arm of the horned monster in order to stand fast. But the figure had got loose; it yielded, and moved a little.
“He too!” muttered the old man to himself. “Nothing stands fast, everything slips; nothing remains on which to support oneself.” He crouched down in order not to be blown away, and so stooping, as he walked, reached the door of the turret-chamber, which he flung open.
“The Revolution is over,” he called out to the bookcase.
“What do you say?”
“The Revolution is over! Come out, sire.”
He laid hold of the bookcase, and opened it like a door on its hinges. It concealed a neat little room furnished in the style of Louis XV. Out of it stepped a man of about thirty, with pale delicate features and a melancholy aspect.
“Sire,” said the bookbinder in a humble voice, “now your time is come, and mine runs out. I do not exactly know what has happened on this eighteenth of Brumaire in Saint Cloud, but one thing I know: Buonaparte has taken the helm.”
“Jaques,” answered the nobleman, “I do not wish to hurt your feelings, but I cannot conceal my joy.”
“Don’t conceal it, sire! You have saved me from the scaffold, and I have saved you; let us thank each other, and be quits.”
“To think that this bloody drama is ended--that this madness....”
“Sire, don’t speak so.”
His eyes began to sparkle, but he quickly changed his tone. “Let us eat our last meal together, but in love like fellow-men; let us talk of the past, and then part in peace. This evening we are still brothers, but to-morrow you are the lord and I am the servant.”
“You are right. To-day I am an emigrant, tomorrow I am a count.”
The old man brought out a cold fowl, a cheese, and a bottle of wine, and both took their places at the table.
“This wine, sire, was bottled in ‘89. It has a history, and therefore....”
“Have you no white wine? I do not like red.”
“Is it the colour you dislike?”
“Yes, it looks like blood! You have lost a wife and four sons.”
“Why should I weep for them? They fell on the field of honour.”
“The scaffold!”
“I call the scaffold the field of honour! But you want white wine! Good! You shall have it. You prefer the colour of tears; I prefer that of blood!”
He opened a bottle of white wine: “_Suum cuique!_ Tastes differ. We can now breathe again, and sleep quietly at night. That was the hardest thing to bear during this last decade--the loss of sleep at night. The fear of death was worse than death itself.”
“The worst for us--pardon the expression--was to see the State and society turned topsyturvy, and brutality enthroned.”
“Wait a little! Louis XIV paid two gentlemen of the chamber twenty thousand livres yearly to examine and carry away his night stool every morning. The Sansculottes could not be coarser than that. Marie Antoinette used to go and spend the night drinking with her boon-companions, so that she returned home about eleven o’clock the next morning exhausted; that was coarse conduct for such a fine lady.”
“You may draw the long bow to-night, Jaques; but to-morrow take care of your head! You ought not to speak so of these high personages who have suffered a martyr’s death.”
“Stop! stop! The King was what they call ‘a fine fellow,’ but the Queen was a wretch. But both were justly condemned to death--both! Look you! if Turgot could have remained at his post, the Revolution would not have broken out. All the reforms in the State, Church, and Society, which we--pardon the expression--have carried through could have been carried through then, if Turgot had been allowed to put his plans into operation. The Queen would not endure the Minister’s retrenchment of her revenue, and plotted for his removal, and the King supported her. That was a great crime. The second was the overthrow of Necker. Then the Queen and her Court minxes ruled. Both King and Queen sought to stir up foreign countries against their own; their correspondence relating to this was discovered, and then the betrayers of their country were condemned to death. Don’t talk of Martyrs, or I shall be angry. For I am angry when I hear lies, and cannot control myself.”
The Count laid his hand on his sword.
“Put your sword in its sheath, young man, or otherwise....”
They sat down on opposite sides of the table, and darted angry glances at each other.