Part 10

With these feelings, it is not strange that he listened to his royal friend's request, that he should resign his places in the court of France, and accept that of chamberlain in Prussia, as well as a pension for his life and that of his niece, and that he should permanently fix himself in his royal friend's dominions; yet, while he accepted these offers, he had many qualms. Madame Denis, his niece, to whom he communicated his new plans, argued warmly against them. Her letter has not come down to us; but she evidently took a keen and true view of the annoyances and mortifications to which he might be exposed. She was acquainted with her uncle's irritable temper,--his unguarded conversation when carried away by the spirit of wit,--his vehemence when struggling against control. She felt, and truly, that a king accustomed to command was the last person to show indulgence for such foibles when they clashed with himself. She prophesied that Frederic would, in the end, be the death of his friend. Voltaire showed this letter to the king, and he, in answer, wrote one to the poet, the expressions of which won him entirely. "How," wrote Frederic, "could I cause the unhappiness of a man whom I esteem, whom I love, and who sacrifices for me his country, and all that is dear to man? I respect you as my master in eloquence,--I love you as a virtuous friend. What slavery, what misfortune, what change can you fear in a country where you are as much esteemed as in your own, and with a friend who has a grateful heart? I promise you that you shall be happy here as long as you live."

Voltaire sent this letter to count d'Argental, whom he always named his guardian angel, as his apology for expatriating himself. "Judge," he writes, "whether I am excusable? I send you his letter,--you will think that you are reading one written by Trajan or Marcus Aurelius,--yet I am not the less agitated while I deliver myself over to fate, and throw myself, head foremost, into the whirlpool of destiny which absorbs all things. But how can I resist? How can I forget the barbarous manner with which I have been treated in my own country? You know what I have gone through. I enter port after a storm that has lasted thirty years. I enjoy the protection of a king; I find the conversation of a philosopher--the society of a delightful man--united in one, who, for the space of sixteen years, has exerted himself to comfort me in my misfortunes, and to shelter me from my enemies. All is to be feared for me in Paris; here I am sure of tranquillity: if I can answer for anything, it is for the character of the king of Prussia." He wrote with even more enthusiasm to his niece. "He is the most amiable of men; he is a king; it is a passion of sixteen years' standing; he has turned my head. I have the insolence to think that nature formed me for him. There is a singular conformity in our tastes. I forget that he is master of half Germany, and see in him only a good, a friendly man."

To establish the poet at his court, Frederic named him his chamberlain, and gave him the brevet of a pension of twenty thousand francs for himself, and four thousand for his niece, who was invited to come and take up her abode with her uncle at Potzdam. Before he accepted these bounties, it was necessary to obtain permission from his own sovereign, of whom he was placeman and pensioner. Frederic himself wrote to solicit the consent of the king of France. To Voltaire's surprise, Louis showed displeasure. Monarchs are usually averse to any display of independence on the part of their subjects and servants. He accepted the poet's resignation of the place of historiographer, which Voltaire had hoped to keep, but permitted him to retain his title of gentleman in ordinary and his pension. Yet this was done in a manner that showed Voltaire that if he were forced to leave Prussia, his position in his native country would be more perilous and stormy than ever.

He felt, also, deeply disappointed in finding himself obliged to give up the idea of having his niece, Madame Denis, with him in Prussia. "The life we lead at Potzdam," he writes, "which pleases me, would drive a woman to despair; so I leave her my house in Paris, my plate, and my horses, and I add to her income." Still his niece and his friends were not content at his throwing himself so entirely into the power of Frederic, and their suggestions inspired a thousand doubts as to the prudence of his choice, especially when the severity of the winter made him feel that the climate was ill suited to his feeble constitution.

However, he manfully opposed himself to the objections raised against his choice, and the sufferings which the long icy winter caused him to endure. He devoted himself to authorship. His chief occupation was his "Age of Louis XIV.," of which he was justly proud. He felt that he could write with greater freedom while absent from France. "I shall here finish," he writes, "the 'Age of Louis XIV.,' which, perhaps, I had never written in Paris. The stones with which I erect this monument in honour of my country had, there, served but to crush me; a bold word had seemed a lawless licence, and the most innocent expressions had been interpreted with that charity that spreads poison through all." Again he writes: "I shall be historiographer of France in spite of my enemies, and I was never so desirous of doing well the duties of my place as since I lost it. This vast picture of so illustrious an age turns my head. If Louis XIV. be not great, at least his age is. It is an immense work: I shall revise it severely, and shall endeavour, above all, to render the truth neither odious nor dangerous."

Besides this great undertaking, he corrected his tragedies. As usual, he infected all round with his love of the drama. A theatre was established at court; the brothers and sisters of the king took parts in his plays, and submitted to his instructions. This was a species of flattery well suited to turn a poet's head; yet soon, very soon, the dark cloud appeared in the horizon, and his attention became roused to assure himself whether indeed he heard the far off thunder of an approaching storm. These dawnings of fear and distrust are ingenuously detailed in his letters to his niece. [Sidenote: Nov. 6. 1750.] "It is known, then, at Paris," he writes, "that we have acted the death of Cæsar at Potzdam; that prince Henri is a good actor, has no accent, and is very amiable; and that pleasures may be found here. All this is true--but--the suppers of the king are delicious--seasoned by reason, wit, and science--liberty reigns over them--he is the soul of all--no ill-humour, no clouds--at least, no storms; my life is independent and occupied; but--but--operas, plays, carousals, suppers at Sans-souci--warlike manœuvres, concerts, study, readings; but--but--the weather, my dear child, begins to be very cold----"

Such were the first expressions of distrust inspired by observing a certain degree of deceit in the king. He found that he could turn those into ridicule whom he flattered most to their face; and he also found that such blowing of hot and cold with the same breath, which is deemed almost fair in some societies, was fertile of annoyance when practised by a king whose word is law, whose smiles are the ruling influence of the day, whose slightest remark is reported, magnified, and becomes the rule of action to all around; and he began to feel that the chain that bound him and the king, which he flattered would be worn equally by both, fell heavily round him only. He became aware that the king was not the less despotic and self-willed for being a philosopher. In truth, Frederic and Voltaire had a mutual and sincere love for each other. They agreed in their opinions, they sympathised in their views. Each enjoyed the conversation, the wit, the gaiety, the genius of the other; but Voltaire panted for entire independence: to think, to speak, to write freely, was as necessary as the air he breathed. To gain these privileges he had quitted France; and though he passionately loved flattery and distinction, yet these were only pleasing when they waited upon his every caprice; and became valueless when he was called upon to sacrifice the humour of the moment to gain them. The king delighted in Voltaire's talents; but, then, he wished them to be as much at his command as a soldier's valour, which deserves reward, but which may only be displayed at the word of command.

The moment a feeling of injustice on one side, and of assumption of direction on the other, showed themselves, a thousand circumstances arose to embitter the intercourse of the unequal friends. The king had a favourite guest, la Metrie, a physician by profession, the worst, Voltaire tells us, that ever practised, an unprincipled fellow, but witty and vivacious; whose good spirits, and bold and infidel opinions, pleased Frederic, who made him his reader. This sort of man is never suited to a court. The same restless aspiration after independence that renders a man an infidel in opinions makes him a bad courtier. [Sidenote: Sept. 2. 1751. Ætat. 57.] "La Metrie," writes Voltaire to his niece, "boasts in his prefaces of his extreme felicity in being near a great king, who sometimes reads his poems to him; but, in secret, he weeps with me; he would leave this place on foot: and I--why am I here? You will be astonished at what I tell you. La Metrie swore to me the other day, that, when speaking to the king of my pretended favour, and of the petty jealousy that it excites, he replied, 'I shall not want him for more than a year longer: one squeezes the orange, and throws away the peel.'"

These words sank deep in Voltaire's mind; and not less deeply did the king feel an expression of the irritable poet, who called himself Frederic's laundress, and said, when he corrected the royal poems, that he was washing the king's dirty linen. Such heedless speeches, carried from one to the other by the thoughtless or the malicious, destroyed every feeling of attachment, and circumstances soon concurred to inspire both with mistrust, to inspire the weaker with a desire of throwing off his chains, and the stronger with a more unworthy determination of adding to their weight.

The first circumstance of any importance that occurred was a pecuniary transaction between Voltaire and a Jew. Voltaire says, that after the speech of Frederic, reported to him by la Metrie, he wished to put his orange peel in safety. Whether his transaction with the Jew concerned the placing of his money cannot be told; it is enveloped in great obscurity; however, what is certain is, that it was submitted to a legal trial, the Jew condemned, and Voltaire entirely exonerated from blame. The mere fact, however, of an accusation being made against him, and fault found, was matter of triumph to his enemies. A thousand libels were circulated in Paris and Berlin, and a thousand falsehoods told. Frederic, when he heard of the dispute, referred it to the decision of the law. In this he did well. But he affected to distrust Voltaire; he forbade him to appear at court till the decision of the judges was known. Voltaire was far above peculation and pecuniary meanness. The king committed an irremissible crime in friendship, whether he really distrusted Voltaire, or merely pretended so to do. But a king of Prussia is an absolute monarch; all belonging to him are his creatures; and that one of these should venture out of bounds, either to secure his property or to augment it, was regarded as a deep offence. Voltaire must be humbled. Treated like a servant, not a friend, what wonder that the sensitive poet felt that the orange was squeezed a little too hardly, and began to earnestly desire to save as much of it as he could. A sort of reconciliation, however, ensued; again all appeared smiling on the surface, though all was hollow beneath. Voltaire engaged in printing his "Age of Louis XIV.," was desirous of finishing it before he quitted Prussia; meanwhile he had a sum of money to the amount of 300,000 livres, about 15,000_l_., which he wished to place; he took care not to put it in the Prussian funds, but secured it advantageously on certain estates which the duke of Wirtemburg possessed in France. Through the infidelity of the post Frederic discovered this transaction, and felt that it was a preparation for escape. Accordingly, he made more use of him than ever as a corrector of his literary works. In spite of all these disturbances, there was something in the life of Potzdam peculiarly agreeable to Voltaire. "I am lodged conveniently," he writes, "in a fine palace. I have a few friends about me of my own way of thinking, with whom I dine regularly and soberly. When I am well enough, I sup with the king; and conversation does not turn either upon individual gossip or general ineptities, but upon good taste, the arts, and true philosophy; on the means to attain happiness, on the mode of discerning the true from the false, upon liberty of thought: in short, during the two years I have spent at this place, which is called a court, but which is really a retreat for philosophers, not a day has passed during which I have not learnt something instructive." Thus Voltaire tried to blind himself, while he really enjoyed the conversation and friendship of Frederic, and while the cloven foot of despotism remained in shadow.

Among other modes of civilising Prussia and spreading the blessings of knowledge, Frederic had established an academy. This was a favourite creation, and it did him honour. The president was Maupertuis, a man of some ability, but whose talents were vitiated by the taint of envy. He had considered himself the first _bel esprit_ at court till Voltaire appeared. He and the poet had corresponded heretofore, and Voltaire had not spared flattery in his letters; but he neglected to mention Maupertuis's name in his speech when he took his seat in the French academy. This was not an injury to be forgiven; and though Voltaire paid him every sort of attention, the other could ill brook his superior favour, especially as Frederic, who had never relished his conversation, frequently excluded him from the royal suppers, and joined with Voltaire in making him the object of their endless pleasantries. At first Voltaire only jested, because he was a wit and could not help it; but Maupertuis contrived to rouse a more bitter spirit.

He had discovered a new principle in mechanics, that of the _least power_: this principle met much opposition, and Kœnig, a Prussian mathematician, not only argued against it, but quoted a fragment of a letter of Leibnitz, in which this principle was mentioned and objected to. Kœnig confessed that he possessed only a copy of the letter in question, acknowledging that the original was lost. Maupertuis took advantage of this circumstance; he induced the academy, of which he was president, to summon Kœnig to produce the original; and when this was allowed not to be found, he proceeded to accuse him of forgery. He got up a meeting of such academicians as he could influence, by whom Kœnig was declared unworthy to be any longer a member, and his name erased from the list.

Kœnig had formerly instructed madame du Châtelet in the philosophy of Leibnitz. Voltaire consequently knew and esteemed him, and was indignant at the persecution he suffered; he took his part openly, and was only restrained from crushing his adversary by Frederic's personal request not to make a jest of his academy or its president. The seeds of animosity, however, between him and Maupertuis, long sown, sprung up and flourished with vigour. Maupertuis contrived to excite a disreputable person of the name of La Beaumelle to attack the poet. His calumnies ought to have met with contempt only; but Voltaire was irritated, and his dislike to Maupertuis increased. The president published a book full of philosophical follies, which Voltaire satirised unsparingly. He wrote a diatribe called "Akakia," and read it to the king; Maupertuis was the butt of a thousand witticisms, and the royal suppers rang with laughter at his expense. But Voltaire was not content to make a jest of Maupertuis only in the royal presence, and Frederic, beginning to think that to attack his president was to attack his academy and also himself, published two pamphlets against Kœnig, which also inculpated Voltaire. The poet was indignant. "I see," he writes to his niece, "that the orange is squeezed; I must now try to save the rind. I am going to write a small dictionary for the use of kings, in which it will be shown that _my friend, means my slave; my dear friend, you are becoming indifferent to me; I will make you happy, I will endure while I need you; sup with me this evening, you shall be my butt to-night._ Seriously, my heart is wounded. Speak to a man with tenderness, and write pamphlets against him--and what pamphlets! Tear a man from his country by the most solemn promises, and treat him with the blackest malignity. What a contrast!"

Voltaire was not a man to suffer these attacks without punishing them with a visitation of his unbridled wit. Fearful of attacking Frederic, he revenged himself on Maupertuis, and published "Akakia."

He belonged to the republic of letters, and did not understand that it should be ruled by the will of one man. And then, while he vehemently reprehended those authors who had made their literary enemies the objects of public satire, he, himself, indulged in the most bitter attacks. Frederic considered "Akakia" as a satire, deserved by Maupertuis, and thus a blameless source of merriment at his supper table, where he had no objection to turn his president into ridicule; but the publication was quite another affair; by this he considered his academy, and consequently himself, attacked; and he retaliated by a still more flagrant outrage. He caused the diatribe to be burnt by the hands of the hangman in the public square of Berlin. Voltaire had a right to be deeply incensed by this act. He did not attack the honour or morality of Maupertuis in his diatribe, but simply ridiculed his opinions; and though "Akakia" has only that slight merit, dependent on associations of the day, now lost, which rendered it amusing to a circle, and was not adapted for general reading nor posterity, still, as it was not libellous, the act of the king of Prussia was an insolent exertion of intolerable despotism. He meant, perhaps, to break Voltaire's spirit by such an insult. Knowing that he could not return to Paris, he fancied him at his mercy. Voltaire had, however, but one wish--to escape, and to feel himself once more free. On this outrage he instantly returned "the king's baubles," as he called them,--the key of chamberlain, his cross, and the brevet of his pension,--with these verses:--

"Je les reçus avec tendresse, Je les renvoie avec douleur, Comme un amant, dans sa jalouse ardeur, Rend le portrait de sa maitresse."

Thus trying to soften the acquisition of his freedom to Frederic himself. He at the same time said that he was ill, and asked permission to drink the waters of Plombières. The king, desirous of keeping him on his own terms, replied by sending some bark, and, observing that there were as medicinal waters in Silesia as at Plombières, refused permission for his journey.

Voltaire had but one other resource: he asked permission to see the king. They met, and the pleasure they took in each other's society seemed at once to obliterate the recollection of offence and wrong. It is said that Voltaire appeared before the king with "Akakia" in his hand; on entering the room, he threw it into the fire, saying, "There, sire, is the only remaining copy of that unhappy hook which caused me to lose your friendship." The king, in his German simplicity, fancied that the poet spoke the simple truth; he rushed to the fire to save the pamphlet from among the burning fagots. Voltaire struggled to poke it in. Frederic at length drew out the half-burnt pages in triumph. He embraced his friend. They supped together. "A supper of Damocles," Voltaire calls it; but to the king it was one of triumph, since it appeared to be the sign that he had bent Voltaire's spirit to pass over the indignities heaped on him, and secured him as a submissive courtier for ever. As a token of his renewed servitude, he gave him back "the baubles." Maupertuis, himself, was not spared by the friends, who, as far as wit could go, sacrificed him at the shrine of their reconciliation. Voltaire, however, had but one end in view. He used his regained influence to obtain permission for a journey to Plombières, promising to be absent only a few months--a promise he did not mean to keep. But as Francis I. broke the treaty which Charles V. forced him to make in prison in Madrid, so might Voltaire consider any promise he made to Frederic void, while the frontiers of Prussia were guarded by an hundred and fifty thousand men, and independence had become necessary to his existence.

Voltaire exulted in escaping from the palace of Alcina--as he named the abode of Frederic; but he did not think it prudent to venture to Paris, where his enemies were in vigour, and strengthened by the displeasure with which Louis XV. regarded the poet's having exchanged his court for that of Frederic. Instead, therefore, of taking refuge in his own country (if the subject of an arbitrary monarch can be said to have a country), he remained some time at Leipsic. Here he received a ridiculous challenge from Maupertuis, which only tended to add zest to his pleasantries upon him; and he then proceeded to the court of the duchess of Saxe Gotha, a most excellent and enlightened princess, "who, thank God," says Voltaire, "did not write verses." He breathed again without fear, believing that he hail secured his freedom. He continued his journey to Frankfort, where he was met by madame Denis. The bad state of Voltaire's health rendered a woman's presence and attentions necessary; and he was proud also of the heroic sacrifice it seemed in those days when a lady, enjoying the pleasures of Parisian society, quitted them to attend on a sick old uncle, even though that uncle were Voltaire. Here a sort of tragi-comic adventure ensued, to the temporary annoyance of the poet, and the lasting disgrace of the king of Prussia.