Then or later, sure enough, Akakia does blaze
aloft about that time; and all Berlin, and all the world,
is in conversation over Maupertuis and it, -- 30,000
copies sold in Paris: -- and Friedrich naturally was
in a towering passion at his Chamberlain.
aloft about that time; and all Berlin, and all the world,
is in conversation over Maupertuis and it, -- 30,000
copies sold in Paris: -- and Friedrich naturally was
in a towering passion at his Chamberlain.
Thomas Carlyle
?
Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl.
handle.
net/2027/hvd.
hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? 122 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
13thApril --18th June 1752.
I notice too, is of this long-eared Sanhedrim. Ach, mein lieber
Sulzer, you don't know (do you, then? ) diese verdammte Race,
-- to what heights and depths of stupid malice, and malig-
nant length of ear, they are capable of going. "Thursday,
"13th April," this is Forger Konig'sdoom: -- and, what is
observable, next morning, with a crash audible through
Nature, the Powder-Magazine flew aloft, killing several per-
sons ! * Had no hand, he, I hope, in that latter atrocity?
On authentic sight of this Sentence (for which Konig had
at once, on hearing of it, applied to Formey, and which comes
to him, without help of Formey, through the Public News-
papers), Konig, in a brief, proud enough, but perfectly quiet,
mild and manful manner, resigns his Membership. "Ceases,
"from this day (June 18th, 1752), to have the honour of be-
longing to your Academy; 'an honour I had been the
"' prouder of, as it came to me unasked;' -- and will wish you,
"from the outside henceforth, successful campaigns in the
"field of Science. "** And sets about preparing his Pamphlet
to instruct mankind on the subject. Maupertuis, it appears,
did write, and made others write to Konig s Sovereign Lady,
the Dowager Princess of Orange, "How extremely hand-
some it would be, could her Most Serene Highness, a friend
"to Pure Science, be pleased to induce Monsieur Konig not
"to continue this painful Controversy, but to sit quiet with
"what he had got. ",f Which her Most Serene Highness by
no means thought the suitable course. Still less did Konig
himself; whose Appeal to the Public, with Defence of Appeal, --
reasonably well done, as usual, and followed and accom-
panied by the multitude of Commentators, -- appeared in
due course. ff Till, before long, the Public was thoroughly
instructed; and nobody, hardly the signingCurators, or thin
Euler himself, not to speak of Perpetual Formey, who had
never been strong in the matter, could well believe in
"forgery," or care to speak farther on such a subject. Sub-
ject gone wholly to the Stygian Fens, long since; "forgery"
not now imaginable by anybody!
* Supra, p. 112. ** Maupertuisiana, No. iv. 129.
t Voltaire (infra), ft "September 1752, Kduig's Appel" (Preuss, in (Euvres ie Frederic,
XT. 60n. ).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 123
July--December 1752.
The rumour of these things rose high and wide;
and the quantity of publishing upon them, quasi-
scientifically and otherwise, in the serious vein and the
jocose, was greater than we should fancy. * Voltaire,
for above a month past, had been fully aware of the
case (24th July 1752, writing to Niece, "heard yester-
day"); not without commentary to oneself and others.
Voltaire, with a kind of love to Konig, and a very
real hatred to Maupertuis and to oppression generally,
took pen himself, among the others (Konig's Appeal just
out), -- could not help doing it, though he had better not!
The following small Piece is perhaps the one, if there
be one, still worth resuscitating from the Inane King-
doms. Appeared in the Bibliotheque Raisonne'e (mild-
shining Quarterly Review of those days), July -- Sep-
tember Number.
"Answer from" (very privately Voltaire, calling himself) "a Ber-
"lin Academician to a Paris One.
"Berlin, 18th September 1752. This is the exact truth, in
"reply to your inquiry. M. Moreau de Maupertuis, in a
"Pamphlet entitled Essai de Cosmologie, pretended that the
"only proof of the Existence of God is the circumstance that
"AK + nRB is a Minimum. " (Only proof! voila! ) "He
"asserts that in all possible cases, 'Action is a Minimum,'
"what has been demonstrated false; and he says, 'He dis-
"' covered this Law of Minimum,' what is not less false.
"M. Konig, as well as other Mathematicians, wrote against
"this strange assertion; and, among other things, M. Konig
"cited some sentences of a Letter by Leibnitz, in which that
"great man says, He has observed 'that, in the modifications
* "Letter from a Marquis;" "Letter from Mr. T<<">> toM. S*>>*"
(Mr. T. lives in London; -- "je traverse le Queen's Square, et je rencontre
"noire ami D*': 'Avez-wtts In l'Appel au Public? ' dit-il" --); "Letter
"by Euler in the Berlin Gazette," &c. &c. (in Maupertuisiana).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 124 THE TEN YEARS OF PEACE. [book XVI-
July -- December 1752.
"of motion, the Action usually becomes either a Maximum or
"else a Minimum. "
"M. Moreau de Maupertuis imagined that, by producing
"this Fragment, it had been intended to snatch from him the
"glory of his pretended discovery, -- though Leibnitz says
"precisely the contrary of what he advances. He forced some
"pensioned members of the Academy, who are dependent on
"him, to summon M. Konig"-- As we know too well; and
cannot bear to have repeated to us, even in the briefest and
spiciest form! "Sentence (Jugement) on M. Konig, which
"declares him guilty of having assaulted the glory of the
"Sieur Moreau Maupertuis by forging a Leibnitz Letter. " --
"Wrote then, and made write, to her Serene Highness the
"Princess of Orange, who was indignant at so insolent" -- * *
and in fine,
"Thus the Sieur Moreau Maupertuis has been convicted,
"in the face of Scientific Europe, not only of plagiarism and
"blunder, but of having abused his place to suppress free dis-
"cussion, and to persecute an honest man who had no crime
"but that of not being of his opinion. Several members of
"our Academy have protested against so crying a procedure;
"and would leave the Academy, were it not for fear of dis-
"pleasing the King, who is protector of it. " *
King Friedrich's position, in the middle of all this,
was becoming uncomfortable. Of the controversy he
understood, or cared to understand, nothing; had to
believe steadily that his Academy must be right; that
Konig was some loose bird, envious of an eagle
Maupertuis, sitting aloft on his high Academic perch:
this Friedrich took for the truth of the matter; -- and
could not let himself imagine that his sublime Perpetual
President, who was usually very prudent and Jove-
like, had been led, by his truculent vanity (which
Friedrich knew to be immense in the man, though
kept well out of sight), into such playing of fantastic
* (Enures de Voltaire, lxiu. 227 (in Maupertuisiana, No. xvi).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 125
July--December 1752.
tricks before high Heaven and other onlookers. This
view of the matter had hitherto been Friedrich's; nor
do I know that he ever inwardly departed from it; --
as outwardly he, for certain, never did; standing, King-
like, clear always for his Perpetual President, till this
hurricane of Pamphlets blew by. Voltaire's little Piece,
therefore, was the unwelcomest possible.
This new bolt of electric fire, launched upon the
storm-tost President, from Berlin itself, and even from
the King's House itself, -- by whom, too clearly re-
cognisable, -- what an irritating thing! Unseemly, in
fact, on Voltaire's part; but could not be helped by a
Voltaire charged with electricity. Friedrich, evidently
in considerable indignation, finding that public measures
would but worsen the uproar, took pen in hand; wrote
rapidly the indignant Letter from an Academician of
Berlin to an Academician of Paris:* which Piece, of
some length, we cannot give here; but will briefly
describe as manifesting no real knowledge of the Law-
of-Thrift Controversy; but as taking the above loose
view of it, and as directed principally against "the
"pretended Member of our Academy" (mischievous
Voltaire, to wit), whom it characterises as "such a
"manifest retailer of lies," a "concocter of stupid
"libels:" "have you ever seen an action more mali-
cious, more dastardly, more infamous? " -- and other
had terms, the hardest he can find. This is the pri-
vilege of anonymity, on both sides of it.
But imagine now a King and his Voltaire doing
witty discourse over their Supper of the gods (as, on
the set days, is duly the case); with such a conscious-
>> (Evvres de Frederic, iv. 59-64 (not dated; datable "October 1752").
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 126 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
July--December 1752.
ness, burning like Bude light, though close veiled, on
the part of Host and Guest! The Friedrich-Voltaire
relation is evidently under sore stress of weather, in
those winter-autumn months of 1752, -- brown leaves,
splashy rains, and winds moaning outwardly withal.
And, alas, the irrepressibly electric Voltaire, still far
from having ended, still only just beginning his Anti-
Maupertuis discharges, has, in the interim, privately
got his Doctor Akakia ready. Compared to which, the
former missile is as a popgun to a park of artillery
shotted with old nails and broken glass! -- Such a
constraint, at the Royal dinner-table, amid wine and
wit, could not continue. The credible account is, it
soon cracked asunder; and, after the conceivable sputter-
ings, sparklings and flashings of various complexion,
issued in lambent airs of "tacit mutual understanding;
"and in reading of Akakia together, -- with peals of
"laughter from the King," as the common French
Biographers assert.
"Readers know Akakia" * says Smelfungus: "it is one of
"the famous feats of Satirical Pyrotechny; only too pleasant
"to the corrupt Race of Adam! There is not much, orindeed
"anything, of true poetic humour in it: but there is a gaiety
"of malice, a dexterity, felicity, inexhaustibility of laughing
"mockery and light banter, capable of driving a Perpetual
"President delirious. What an Explosion of glass-crackers,
"fire-balls, flaming-serpents; --generally, of sleeping gun-
"powder, in its most artistic forms, --flaming out sky-high
"over all the Parish, on a sudden! The almost sublime of
"Maupertuis, which exists in large quantities, here is a new
"artist who knows how to treat it. The engineer of the Sub-
"lime (always painfully engineering thitherward without
"effect), -- an engineer of the Comic steps in on him, blows
* Diatribe <lu Docleur Akakia (in Voltaire, (Luvres, lxi. 19-62).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 127
July -- December 1752.
"him up with his own petards in the most unexampled
"manner. Not an owlery has that poor Maupertuis, in the
"struggle to be sublime (often nearly successful, but never
"once quite), happened to drop from him, but Voltaire picks
"it up; manipulates it, reduces it to the sublimely ridiculous;
"lodges it, in the form of burning dust, about the head of mon
"President. Needless to say of the Comic engineer that he is
"unfair, perversely exaggerative, reiterative, on the owleries
"of poor Maupertuis; -- it is his function to be all that.
"Clever, but wrong, do you say? Well, yes: -- and yet the
"ridiculous does require ridicule; wise Nature has silently so
"ordered. And if ever truculent President in red wig, with
"his absurd truculences, tyrannies, and perpetual struggles
"after the sublime, did deserve to be exploded in laughter,
"it could not have been more consummately done; -- though
"perversely always, as must be owned.
"' The hole bored through the Earth,' for instance: really,
"one sometimes reflects on such a thing; How you would see
"daylight, and the antipodal gentleman (if he bent a little
"over) foot to foot; how a little stone flung into it would
"exactly (but for air and friction) reach the other side of the
"world; would then, in a computable few moments, come
"back quiescent to your hand, and so continue forevermore;
"-- with other the like uncriminal fancies.
"'The Latin Town,' again: truly, if learning the Ancient
"Languages be human Education, it might, with a Greek
"Ditto, supersede the Universities, and prove excellently
"serviceable in our struggle Heavenward by that particular
"route. I can assure MTde Voltaire, it was once practically
"proposed to this King's Great-grandfather, the Grosse Kur-
"fiirst; -- who looked into it, with face puckered to the in-
"tensest, in his great care for furtherance of the Terrestrial
"Sciences and Wisdoms; but forbore for that time. * Then
"as to 'Dissecting the Brains of Patagonians;' what harm, if
"you can get them gross enough? And as to that of 'exalting
"' your mind to predict the future,' does not, in fact, man look
"before and after; are not Memory and (in a small degree)
"Prophecy the Two Faculties he has?
* Minute details about it in Stenzel, n. 234-238; who quotes "Erman"
(a poor old friend of ours) "Sur le Projet d'une VilleSavante dans le Brande-
bourg (Berlin, 1792):" date of the Project was 1667.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 128 THE TEN TEARS OF PEACE. [book XVI.
July--December 1752.
"These things, -- which are mostly to be found in the
"'Lettres de Maupertuis' (Dresden, 1752, then a brand-new
"Book), but are now dipt out from the Maupertuis Treatises,
"-- we can fancy to be almost sublimities. Almost, unfortun-
"ately not altogether. And then there is such a Sisyphus-
"effort visible in dragging them aloft so far: and the nimble
"wicked Voltaire so seizes his moment, trips poor Sisyphus;
"and sends him down, heels over head, in a torrent of roaring
"debris! 'From gradual transpiration of our vital force
"'comes Death; which perhaps, by precautions, might be
"'indefinitely retarded,' says Maupertuis. 'Yes, truly,'
"answers the other: 'if we gotourselves japanned, coated with
'"resinous varnish (induits depoix resineux); who knows! ' Not
"a sublime owlery can you drop, but it is manipulated, ground
"down, put in rifled cannon, comes back on you as tempests
"of burning dust. " Enough to send Maupertuis pirouetting
through the world, with red wig unquenchably on fire!
Peals of laughter (once you are allowed to be
non-official) could not fail, as an ovation, from the
King; -- so report the French Biographers. But
there was, besides, strict promise that the Piece should
be suppressed: "Never do to send our President
pirouetting through the world, in this manner, with
his wig on fire; promise me, on your honour! " Voltaire
promised. But, alas, how could Voltaire perform!
Once more the rhadamanthine fact is: Voltaire, as
King's Chamberlain, was bound, without any pro-
mise, to forbear, and rigidly suppress such an Akakia
against the King's Perpetual President. But withal
let candid readers consider how difficult it was to do.
The absurd blusterous Turkey-cock, who has, every
now and then, been tyrannising over you for twenty
years, here you have him filled with gunpowder, so to
speak, and the train laid. There wants but one spark
-- (edition printed in Holland, edition done in Berlin,
plenty of editions made or makeable by a little sur-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 129
Jnly--December 1752.
reptitious legerdemain, -- and I never knew whether
it was Akakia in print, or Akakia in manuscript, that
King and King's Chamberlain were now reading
together, nor does it matter much): -- your Turkey
surreptitiously stuffed with gunpowder, I say; train
ready waiting; one flint-spark will shoot him aloft,
scatter him as flaming ruin on all the winds: and you
are, once and always, to withhold said spark. Perhaps,
Lad Akakia not yet been written -- But all lies ready
there; one spark will do it, at any moment; -- and
there are unguarded moments, and the Tempter must
prevail! --
On what day Akakia blazed out at Berlin, sur-
reptitiously forwarded from Holland or otherwise, I
could never yet learn (so stupid these reporters). But
"on November 2d," the King makes a Visit to sick
Maupertuis, which is published in all the Newspapers;*
-- and one might guess the Akakia conflagration, and
cruel haha-ings of mankind, to have been tacitly the
cause.
Then or later, sure enough, Akakia does blaze
aloft about that time; and all Berlin, and all the world,
is in conversation over Maupertuis and it, -- 30,000
copies sold in Paris: -- and Friedrich naturally was
in a towering passion at his Chamberlain. Nothing
for the Chamberlain but to fly his presence; to shriek,
piteously, "Accident, your Majesty! Fatal treachery
and accident; after such precautions too! " -- and fall
sick to death (which is always a resource one has);
and get into private lodgings in the Tauben-Strasse,**
* Rodenbeck, in: Die Helden-Geschichtc, m. 531, "2d November 1752,
5 P. M. "
** At a "Hofrath Francheville's " (kind of subaltern Literary Character,
see Denina, n. 57), "Tauben-Strasse (Dove-street), No. 20:" staid there till
"March 1753" (Note by Preuss: (Euvres de Frtderic, xxir. 306n. ).
Carlyle, Frederick the Great. IX. 9
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 130 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
24th December 1752.
till one either die, or grow fit to be seen again: "Ah,
Sire" -- let us give the Voltaire shriek of Not-guilty,
with the Friedrich Answer; both dateless unluckily:
Voltaire. "Ah, mon Dieu, Sire, in the state I am in! I
"swear to you again, on my life, which I could renounce
"without pain, that it is a frightful calumny. I conjure you to
"summon all my people, and confront them. What? You
"will judge me without hearing me! I demand justice or
"death. "
Friedrich. "Your effrontery astonishes me. After what
"you have done, and what is clear as day, you persist, instead
"of owning yourself culpable. Do not imagine you will make
"people believe that black is white; when one (on, meaning
/) "does not see, the reason is, one does not want to see
"everything. But if you drive the affair to extremity, -- all
"shall be made public; and it will be seen whether, if your
"Works deserve statues, your conduct does not deserve
chains. " *
Most dark element (not in date only), with 'ter-
rific thunder and lightning. Nothing for it but to
keep one's room, mostly one's bed, -- "Ah, sire, sick
to death! "
December 24th, 1752, there is one thing dismally
distinct, Voltaire himself looking on (they say), from
his windows in Dove-Street: the Public Burning of
Akakia, near there, by the common Hangman. Figure
it; and Voltaire's reflections on it: -- haggardly clear
that Act Third is culminating; and that the final
catastrophe is inevitable and nigh. We must be brief.
On the eighth day after this dread spectacle (New-
year's day 1753), Voltaire sends, in a Packet to ithe
Palace, his Gold Key and Cross of Merit. On the in-
* (Entires ie Frederic, xxn. 302, 301.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? PHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 131
1st Jan25th March 1753.
terior wrappage is an Inscription: "I received them
"with loving emotion, I return them with grief; as a
"broken-hearted Lover returns the Portrait of his "Mistress:
"Je les recus avec tendresse,
"3e vous les rends avec douleur;
'' Cest ainsi qu'un amant, dans son extreme ardeur,
"Rend le portrait desa maitresse. "
And, -- in a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of
Swans, -- has one wish: Permission for the waters of
Plombieres, some alleviations amid kind nursing
friends there; and to die craving blessings on your
Majesty. *
Friedrich, though in hot wrath, has not quite come
that length. Friedrich, the same day, towards evening,
sends Fredersdorf to him, with Decorations back. And
a long dialogue ensues between Fredersdorf and Vol-
taire; in which Collini, not eaves-dropping, "heard the
voice of M. de Voltaire at times very loud. " Precise
result unknown. After which, for three months more,
follows waiting and hesitation and negotiation, also
quite obscure. Confused hithering and thithering
about permission for Plombieres, about repentance,
sorrow, amendment, blame; in the end, reconciliation,
or what is to pass for such. Recorded for us in that
whirl of misdated Letter-clippings; in those Narratives,
ignorant, and pretending to know: perhaps the darkest
Section in History, Sacred or Profane, -- were it of
moment to us, here or elsewhere!
Voltaire has got permission to return to Potsdam;
Apartment in the Palace ready again: but he still
* Collini, p. 48; Letter, in (Euvres de Frederic, xxn. 305.
9*
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 132 THE TEN TEAKS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
1st Jan. -- 25th March 1753.
lingers in Dove-Street; too ill, in real truth, for Pots-
dam society on those new terms. Does not quit
Francheville's "till March 5th;" and then only for an-
other Lodging, called "the Belvedere," of suburban or
rural kind. His case is intricate to a degree. He is
sick of body; spectre-haunted withal, more than ever;
-- often thinks Friedrich, provoked, will refuse him
leave. And, alas, he would so fain not go, as well as
go! Leave for Plombieres, -- leave in the angrily con-
temptuous shape, "Go, then, forever and a day! " --
Voltaire can at once have: but to get it in the friendly
shape, and as if for a time only? His prospects at
Paris, at Versailles, are none of the best; to return as
if dismissed will never do! Would fain not go, withal';
-- and has to diplomatise at Potsdam, by D'Argens,
De Prades, and at Paris simultaneously, by Richelieu,
DArgenson and friends. He is greatly to be pitied;
-- even Friedrich pities him, the martyr of bodily ail-
ments and of spiritual; and sends him "extract of
quinquina" at one time. * Three miserable months;
which only an CEdipus could read, and an CEdipus
who had nothing else to do! The issue is well known.
Of precise or indisputable, on the road thither, here
are fractions that will suffice:
Voltaire to one Bagieu his Doctor, at Paris ("Berlin, 19th "December" 1752, week before his Akakia was burnt). * *
"Wish 1 could set out on the instant, and put myself into your
"hands and into the arms of my family! I brought to Berlin
"about a score of teeth, there remain to me something like
"six; I brought two eyes, I have nearly lost one of them; 1
"brought no erysipelas, and I have got one, which I take a
"great deal of care of. " "Meanwhile I have buried almost
* Letter of Voltaire's.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. J THIRD ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 133
1st Jan. --25th March 1753.
"all my Doctors; even La Mettrie. Eemains only that I bury
"Coddnius" (Cothenius), "who looks too stiff, however," --
and, at any rate, return to you in Spring, when roads and
weather improve. *
Friedrich to Voltaire (Potsdam, uncertain date). "There
"was no need of that pretext about the waters of Plombieres,
"in demanding your leave (conge). You can quit my service
"when you like: but, before going, be so good as return me
"the Contract of your Engagement, the Key" (Chamber-
lain's), "the Cross" (of Merit), "and the Volume of Verses
"which I confided to you.
"I wish my Works, and only they, had been what you and
"Konig attacked. Them I sacrifice, with a great deal of
"willingness, to persons who think of increasing their own
"reputation by lessening that of others. I have not the folly
"nor vanity ofcertain Authors. The cabals of literary people
"seem to me the disgrace of Literature. I do not the less
"esteem honourable cultivators of Literature; it is only the
"caballers and their leaders that are degraded in my eyes.
"On this, I pray God to have you in his holy and worthy
"keeping. -- Friedrich. " **
Voltaire spectrally given (Collini loquitur). "One evening
"walking in the garden" (at rural Belvedere, -- after March
"5th), talking of our situation, he asked me, 'Could you drive
'"a coach and two? ' I stared at him a moment; butknowing
"that there must be no direct contradiction of his ideas, I said
"' Yes. ' --'Well, then, listen; I have thought of a method for
"'getting away. You could buy two horses; a chariot after
"' that. So soon as we have horses, it will not appear strange
"'that we lay in a little hay. ' -- 'Yes, Monsieur; and what
'"should we do with that? ' said I. 'Levoicif this is it). We
'"will fill the chariot with hay. In the middle of the hay we
"'will put all our baggage. I will place myself, disguised,
'"on the top of the hay; and give myself out for a Calvinist
"'Curate going to see one of his Daughters married in the
"'next Town. You shall drive: we take the shortest road for
* (Euvres de Voltaire, lxxv. 141. ** In De Prades's hand; (Euvres de Frederic, xxn. 308-9: Friedrich's own Minute to De Prades has, instead of these last three lines: "That I
"have not the folly and vanity of authors, and that the cabals of literary
"people seem to me the depth of degradation," &c.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 134 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
1st Jan. -- 25th March 1753.
'"the Saxon Border; safe there, we sell chariot, horses, hay;
'"then straight to Leipzig, by post. ' At which point, or soon
"after, he burst into laughing. *
Voltaire to Friedrich ("Berlin, Belvedere," rural lodg-
ing, ** "12th March" 1753). "Sire, I have had a Letter from
"Konig, quite open, as my heart is. I think it my duty to
"send your Majesty a duplicate of my Answer. "Will
"submit to you every step of my conduct; of my whole life, in
"whatever place I end it. I am Konig's friend; but assuredly
"I am much more attached to your Majesty; and if he were
"capable the least in the world of failing in respect" (as is
rumoured), "Iwould" -- Enough!
Friedrich relents (To Voltaire; De Prades writing, Fried-
rich covertly dictating: no date). "The King has held his "Consistory; and it has there been discussed, Whether your
"case was a mortal sin or a venial? In truth, all the Doctors
"owned that it was mortal, and even exceedingly confirmed
"as such by repeated lapses and relapses. Nevertheless, by
"the plenitude of the grace of Beelzebub, which rests in the
"said King, he thinks he can absolve you, if not in whole, yet
"in part. This would be, of course, in virtue of some act of
"contrition and penitence imposed on you: but as, in the
"Empire of Satan, there is a great respect had of genius, I
"think, on the whole, that, for the sake of your talents, one
"might pardon a good many things which do discredit to your
"heart. These are the Sovereign Pontiff's words; which I
"have carefully taken down. They are a Prophecy rather. "***
Voltaire to De Prades ("Belvedere, 15th March" 1753).
"Dear Abbe", -- Your style has not appeared to me soft. You
"are a frank Secretary of State: -- nevertheless I give you
"warning, it is to be a settled point that I embrace you before
"going. I shall not be able to kiss you; my lips are too
"choppy from my devil of a disorder" (scurvy, 1 hear). "You
"will easily dispense with my kisses; but don't dispense, I
"pray you, with my warm and true friendship.
"I own I am in despair at quitting you, and quitting the
"King; but it is a thing indispensable. Consider with our
* CoIIini, p. 53.
** "In the Stralauer Vorstadt Ihodie, Woodmarket Street): " Preuss's
Note to this Letter, ffiuures de Frederic, xxn. 306 n.
*** (Eurres de Frederic, xxn. 307.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 135
lit J<<n. -- 25th March 1753.
"dear Marquis" (D'Argens), "with Fredersdorf, -- parbleu,
"with the King himself, How you can manage that I have the
"consolation of seeing him before I go. I absolutely will
"have it; I will embrace with my two arms the Abbe and the
"Marquis. The Marquis shan't be kissed, any more than
"you; nor the King either. But I shall perhaps fall blubber-
"ing; I am weak, I am a drenched hen. I shall make a
"foolish figure: never mind; I must, once more, have sight of
"you two. If I cannot throw myself at the King's feet, the
"Plombieres waters will kill me. I await your answer, to
"quit this Country as a happy or as a miserable man. Depend
"on me for life. -- V. " * -- This is the last of these obscure
Documents.
Three days after which, "evening of March 18th,"**
Voltaire, Collini with him and all his packages, sets
out for Potsdam; King's guest once more. Sees the
King in person "after dinner, next day;" stays with
him almost a week, "quite gay together," "some pri-
vate quizzing even of Maupertuis" (if we could believe
Collini or his master on that point); means "to return
in October, when quite refitted," -- does at least (note
it, reader), on that ground, retain his Cross and Key,
and his Gift of the CEuvre de Poesies: which he had
much better have left!
? 122 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
13thApril --18th June 1752.
I notice too, is of this long-eared Sanhedrim. Ach, mein lieber
Sulzer, you don't know (do you, then? ) diese verdammte Race,
-- to what heights and depths of stupid malice, and malig-
nant length of ear, they are capable of going. "Thursday,
"13th April," this is Forger Konig'sdoom: -- and, what is
observable, next morning, with a crash audible through
Nature, the Powder-Magazine flew aloft, killing several per-
sons ! * Had no hand, he, I hope, in that latter atrocity?
On authentic sight of this Sentence (for which Konig had
at once, on hearing of it, applied to Formey, and which comes
to him, without help of Formey, through the Public News-
papers), Konig, in a brief, proud enough, but perfectly quiet,
mild and manful manner, resigns his Membership. "Ceases,
"from this day (June 18th, 1752), to have the honour of be-
longing to your Academy; 'an honour I had been the
"' prouder of, as it came to me unasked;' -- and will wish you,
"from the outside henceforth, successful campaigns in the
"field of Science. "** And sets about preparing his Pamphlet
to instruct mankind on the subject. Maupertuis, it appears,
did write, and made others write to Konig s Sovereign Lady,
the Dowager Princess of Orange, "How extremely hand-
some it would be, could her Most Serene Highness, a friend
"to Pure Science, be pleased to induce Monsieur Konig not
"to continue this painful Controversy, but to sit quiet with
"what he had got. ",f Which her Most Serene Highness by
no means thought the suitable course. Still less did Konig
himself; whose Appeal to the Public, with Defence of Appeal, --
reasonably well done, as usual, and followed and accom-
panied by the multitude of Commentators, -- appeared in
due course. ff Till, before long, the Public was thoroughly
instructed; and nobody, hardly the signingCurators, or thin
Euler himself, not to speak of Perpetual Formey, who had
never been strong in the matter, could well believe in
"forgery," or care to speak farther on such a subject. Sub-
ject gone wholly to the Stygian Fens, long since; "forgery"
not now imaginable by anybody!
* Supra, p. 112. ** Maupertuisiana, No. iv. 129.
t Voltaire (infra), ft "September 1752, Kduig's Appel" (Preuss, in (Euvres ie Frederic,
XT. 60n. ).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 123
July--December 1752.
The rumour of these things rose high and wide;
and the quantity of publishing upon them, quasi-
scientifically and otherwise, in the serious vein and the
jocose, was greater than we should fancy. * Voltaire,
for above a month past, had been fully aware of the
case (24th July 1752, writing to Niece, "heard yester-
day"); not without commentary to oneself and others.
Voltaire, with a kind of love to Konig, and a very
real hatred to Maupertuis and to oppression generally,
took pen himself, among the others (Konig's Appeal just
out), -- could not help doing it, though he had better not!
The following small Piece is perhaps the one, if there
be one, still worth resuscitating from the Inane King-
doms. Appeared in the Bibliotheque Raisonne'e (mild-
shining Quarterly Review of those days), July -- Sep-
tember Number.
"Answer from" (very privately Voltaire, calling himself) "a Ber-
"lin Academician to a Paris One.
"Berlin, 18th September 1752. This is the exact truth, in
"reply to your inquiry. M. Moreau de Maupertuis, in a
"Pamphlet entitled Essai de Cosmologie, pretended that the
"only proof of the Existence of God is the circumstance that
"AK + nRB is a Minimum. " (Only proof! voila! ) "He
"asserts that in all possible cases, 'Action is a Minimum,'
"what has been demonstrated false; and he says, 'He dis-
"' covered this Law of Minimum,' what is not less false.
"M. Konig, as well as other Mathematicians, wrote against
"this strange assertion; and, among other things, M. Konig
"cited some sentences of a Letter by Leibnitz, in which that
"great man says, He has observed 'that, in the modifications
* "Letter from a Marquis;" "Letter from Mr. T<<">> toM. S*>>*"
(Mr. T. lives in London; -- "je traverse le Queen's Square, et je rencontre
"noire ami D*': 'Avez-wtts In l'Appel au Public? ' dit-il" --); "Letter
"by Euler in the Berlin Gazette," &c. &c. (in Maupertuisiana).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 124 THE TEN YEARS OF PEACE. [book XVI-
July -- December 1752.
"of motion, the Action usually becomes either a Maximum or
"else a Minimum. "
"M. Moreau de Maupertuis imagined that, by producing
"this Fragment, it had been intended to snatch from him the
"glory of his pretended discovery, -- though Leibnitz says
"precisely the contrary of what he advances. He forced some
"pensioned members of the Academy, who are dependent on
"him, to summon M. Konig"-- As we know too well; and
cannot bear to have repeated to us, even in the briefest and
spiciest form! "Sentence (Jugement) on M. Konig, which
"declares him guilty of having assaulted the glory of the
"Sieur Moreau Maupertuis by forging a Leibnitz Letter. " --
"Wrote then, and made write, to her Serene Highness the
"Princess of Orange, who was indignant at so insolent" -- * *
and in fine,
"Thus the Sieur Moreau Maupertuis has been convicted,
"in the face of Scientific Europe, not only of plagiarism and
"blunder, but of having abused his place to suppress free dis-
"cussion, and to persecute an honest man who had no crime
"but that of not being of his opinion. Several members of
"our Academy have protested against so crying a procedure;
"and would leave the Academy, were it not for fear of dis-
"pleasing the King, who is protector of it. " *
King Friedrich's position, in the middle of all this,
was becoming uncomfortable. Of the controversy he
understood, or cared to understand, nothing; had to
believe steadily that his Academy must be right; that
Konig was some loose bird, envious of an eagle
Maupertuis, sitting aloft on his high Academic perch:
this Friedrich took for the truth of the matter; -- and
could not let himself imagine that his sublime Perpetual
President, who was usually very prudent and Jove-
like, had been led, by his truculent vanity (which
Friedrich knew to be immense in the man, though
kept well out of sight), into such playing of fantastic
* (Enures de Voltaire, lxiu. 227 (in Maupertuisiana, No. xvi).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 125
July--December 1752.
tricks before high Heaven and other onlookers. This
view of the matter had hitherto been Friedrich's; nor
do I know that he ever inwardly departed from it; --
as outwardly he, for certain, never did; standing, King-
like, clear always for his Perpetual President, till this
hurricane of Pamphlets blew by. Voltaire's little Piece,
therefore, was the unwelcomest possible.
This new bolt of electric fire, launched upon the
storm-tost President, from Berlin itself, and even from
the King's House itself, -- by whom, too clearly re-
cognisable, -- what an irritating thing! Unseemly, in
fact, on Voltaire's part; but could not be helped by a
Voltaire charged with electricity. Friedrich, evidently
in considerable indignation, finding that public measures
would but worsen the uproar, took pen in hand; wrote
rapidly the indignant Letter from an Academician of
Berlin to an Academician of Paris:* which Piece, of
some length, we cannot give here; but will briefly
describe as manifesting no real knowledge of the Law-
of-Thrift Controversy; but as taking the above loose
view of it, and as directed principally against "the
"pretended Member of our Academy" (mischievous
Voltaire, to wit), whom it characterises as "such a
"manifest retailer of lies," a "concocter of stupid
"libels:" "have you ever seen an action more mali-
cious, more dastardly, more infamous? " -- and other
had terms, the hardest he can find. This is the pri-
vilege of anonymity, on both sides of it.
But imagine now a King and his Voltaire doing
witty discourse over their Supper of the gods (as, on
the set days, is duly the case); with such a conscious-
>> (Evvres de Frederic, iv. 59-64 (not dated; datable "October 1752").
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 126 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
July--December 1752.
ness, burning like Bude light, though close veiled, on
the part of Host and Guest! The Friedrich-Voltaire
relation is evidently under sore stress of weather, in
those winter-autumn months of 1752, -- brown leaves,
splashy rains, and winds moaning outwardly withal.
And, alas, the irrepressibly electric Voltaire, still far
from having ended, still only just beginning his Anti-
Maupertuis discharges, has, in the interim, privately
got his Doctor Akakia ready. Compared to which, the
former missile is as a popgun to a park of artillery
shotted with old nails and broken glass! -- Such a
constraint, at the Royal dinner-table, amid wine and
wit, could not continue. The credible account is, it
soon cracked asunder; and, after the conceivable sputter-
ings, sparklings and flashings of various complexion,
issued in lambent airs of "tacit mutual understanding;
"and in reading of Akakia together, -- with peals of
"laughter from the King," as the common French
Biographers assert.
"Readers know Akakia" * says Smelfungus: "it is one of
"the famous feats of Satirical Pyrotechny; only too pleasant
"to the corrupt Race of Adam! There is not much, orindeed
"anything, of true poetic humour in it: but there is a gaiety
"of malice, a dexterity, felicity, inexhaustibility of laughing
"mockery and light banter, capable of driving a Perpetual
"President delirious. What an Explosion of glass-crackers,
"fire-balls, flaming-serpents; --generally, of sleeping gun-
"powder, in its most artistic forms, --flaming out sky-high
"over all the Parish, on a sudden! The almost sublime of
"Maupertuis, which exists in large quantities, here is a new
"artist who knows how to treat it. The engineer of the Sub-
"lime (always painfully engineering thitherward without
"effect), -- an engineer of the Comic steps in on him, blows
* Diatribe <lu Docleur Akakia (in Voltaire, (Luvres, lxi. 19-62).
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 127
July -- December 1752.
"him up with his own petards in the most unexampled
"manner. Not an owlery has that poor Maupertuis, in the
"struggle to be sublime (often nearly successful, but never
"once quite), happened to drop from him, but Voltaire picks
"it up; manipulates it, reduces it to the sublimely ridiculous;
"lodges it, in the form of burning dust, about the head of mon
"President. Needless to say of the Comic engineer that he is
"unfair, perversely exaggerative, reiterative, on the owleries
"of poor Maupertuis; -- it is his function to be all that.
"Clever, but wrong, do you say? Well, yes: -- and yet the
"ridiculous does require ridicule; wise Nature has silently so
"ordered. And if ever truculent President in red wig, with
"his absurd truculences, tyrannies, and perpetual struggles
"after the sublime, did deserve to be exploded in laughter,
"it could not have been more consummately done; -- though
"perversely always, as must be owned.
"' The hole bored through the Earth,' for instance: really,
"one sometimes reflects on such a thing; How you would see
"daylight, and the antipodal gentleman (if he bent a little
"over) foot to foot; how a little stone flung into it would
"exactly (but for air and friction) reach the other side of the
"world; would then, in a computable few moments, come
"back quiescent to your hand, and so continue forevermore;
"-- with other the like uncriminal fancies.
"'The Latin Town,' again: truly, if learning the Ancient
"Languages be human Education, it might, with a Greek
"Ditto, supersede the Universities, and prove excellently
"serviceable in our struggle Heavenward by that particular
"route. I can assure MTde Voltaire, it was once practically
"proposed to this King's Great-grandfather, the Grosse Kur-
"fiirst; -- who looked into it, with face puckered to the in-
"tensest, in his great care for furtherance of the Terrestrial
"Sciences and Wisdoms; but forbore for that time. * Then
"as to 'Dissecting the Brains of Patagonians;' what harm, if
"you can get them gross enough? And as to that of 'exalting
"' your mind to predict the future,' does not, in fact, man look
"before and after; are not Memory and (in a small degree)
"Prophecy the Two Faculties he has?
* Minute details about it in Stenzel, n. 234-238; who quotes "Erman"
(a poor old friend of ours) "Sur le Projet d'une VilleSavante dans le Brande-
bourg (Berlin, 1792):" date of the Project was 1667.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 128 THE TEN TEARS OF PEACE. [book XVI.
July--December 1752.
"These things, -- which are mostly to be found in the
"'Lettres de Maupertuis' (Dresden, 1752, then a brand-new
"Book), but are now dipt out from the Maupertuis Treatises,
"-- we can fancy to be almost sublimities. Almost, unfortun-
"ately not altogether. And then there is such a Sisyphus-
"effort visible in dragging them aloft so far: and the nimble
"wicked Voltaire so seizes his moment, trips poor Sisyphus;
"and sends him down, heels over head, in a torrent of roaring
"debris! 'From gradual transpiration of our vital force
"'comes Death; which perhaps, by precautions, might be
"'indefinitely retarded,' says Maupertuis. 'Yes, truly,'
"answers the other: 'if we gotourselves japanned, coated with
'"resinous varnish (induits depoix resineux); who knows! ' Not
"a sublime owlery can you drop, but it is manipulated, ground
"down, put in rifled cannon, comes back on you as tempests
"of burning dust. " Enough to send Maupertuis pirouetting
through the world, with red wig unquenchably on fire!
Peals of laughter (once you are allowed to be
non-official) could not fail, as an ovation, from the
King; -- so report the French Biographers. But
there was, besides, strict promise that the Piece should
be suppressed: "Never do to send our President
pirouetting through the world, in this manner, with
his wig on fire; promise me, on your honour! " Voltaire
promised. But, alas, how could Voltaire perform!
Once more the rhadamanthine fact is: Voltaire, as
King's Chamberlain, was bound, without any pro-
mise, to forbear, and rigidly suppress such an Akakia
against the King's Perpetual President. But withal
let candid readers consider how difficult it was to do.
The absurd blusterous Turkey-cock, who has, every
now and then, been tyrannising over you for twenty
years, here you have him filled with gunpowder, so to
speak, and the train laid. There wants but one spark
-- (edition printed in Holland, edition done in Berlin,
plenty of editions made or makeable by a little sur-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 129
Jnly--December 1752.
reptitious legerdemain, -- and I never knew whether
it was Akakia in print, or Akakia in manuscript, that
King and King's Chamberlain were now reading
together, nor does it matter much): -- your Turkey
surreptitiously stuffed with gunpowder, I say; train
ready waiting; one flint-spark will shoot him aloft,
scatter him as flaming ruin on all the winds: and you
are, once and always, to withhold said spark. Perhaps,
Lad Akakia not yet been written -- But all lies ready
there; one spark will do it, at any moment; -- and
there are unguarded moments, and the Tempter must
prevail! --
On what day Akakia blazed out at Berlin, sur-
reptitiously forwarded from Holland or otherwise, I
could never yet learn (so stupid these reporters). But
"on November 2d," the King makes a Visit to sick
Maupertuis, which is published in all the Newspapers;*
-- and one might guess the Akakia conflagration, and
cruel haha-ings of mankind, to have been tacitly the
cause.
Then or later, sure enough, Akakia does blaze
aloft about that time; and all Berlin, and all the world,
is in conversation over Maupertuis and it, -- 30,000
copies sold in Paris: -- and Friedrich naturally was
in a towering passion at his Chamberlain. Nothing
for the Chamberlain but to fly his presence; to shriek,
piteously, "Accident, your Majesty! Fatal treachery
and accident; after such precautions too! " -- and fall
sick to death (which is always a resource one has);
and get into private lodgings in the Tauben-Strasse,**
* Rodenbeck, in: Die Helden-Geschichtc, m. 531, "2d November 1752,
5 P. M. "
** At a "Hofrath Francheville's " (kind of subaltern Literary Character,
see Denina, n. 57), "Tauben-Strasse (Dove-street), No. 20:" staid there till
"March 1753" (Note by Preuss: (Euvres de Frtderic, xxir. 306n. ).
Carlyle, Frederick the Great. IX. 9
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 130 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
24th December 1752.
till one either die, or grow fit to be seen again: "Ah,
Sire" -- let us give the Voltaire shriek of Not-guilty,
with the Friedrich Answer; both dateless unluckily:
Voltaire. "Ah, mon Dieu, Sire, in the state I am in! I
"swear to you again, on my life, which I could renounce
"without pain, that it is a frightful calumny. I conjure you to
"summon all my people, and confront them. What? You
"will judge me without hearing me! I demand justice or
"death. "
Friedrich. "Your effrontery astonishes me. After what
"you have done, and what is clear as day, you persist, instead
"of owning yourself culpable. Do not imagine you will make
"people believe that black is white; when one (on, meaning
/) "does not see, the reason is, one does not want to see
"everything. But if you drive the affair to extremity, -- all
"shall be made public; and it will be seen whether, if your
"Works deserve statues, your conduct does not deserve
chains. " *
Most dark element (not in date only), with 'ter-
rific thunder and lightning. Nothing for it but to
keep one's room, mostly one's bed, -- "Ah, sire, sick
to death! "
December 24th, 1752, there is one thing dismally
distinct, Voltaire himself looking on (they say), from
his windows in Dove-Street: the Public Burning of
Akakia, near there, by the common Hangman. Figure
it; and Voltaire's reflections on it: -- haggardly clear
that Act Third is culminating; and that the final
catastrophe is inevitable and nigh. We must be brief.
On the eighth day after this dread spectacle (New-
year's day 1753), Voltaire sends, in a Packet to ithe
Palace, his Gold Key and Cross of Merit. On the in-
* (Entires ie Frederic, xxn. 302, 301.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? PHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OP THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 131
1st Jan25th March 1753.
terior wrappage is an Inscription: "I received them
"with loving emotion, I return them with grief; as a
"broken-hearted Lover returns the Portrait of his "Mistress:
"Je les recus avec tendresse,
"3e vous les rends avec douleur;
'' Cest ainsi qu'un amant, dans son extreme ardeur,
"Rend le portrait desa maitresse. "
And, -- in a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of
Swans, -- has one wish: Permission for the waters of
Plombieres, some alleviations amid kind nursing
friends there; and to die craving blessings on your
Majesty. *
Friedrich, though in hot wrath, has not quite come
that length. Friedrich, the same day, towards evening,
sends Fredersdorf to him, with Decorations back. And
a long dialogue ensues between Fredersdorf and Vol-
taire; in which Collini, not eaves-dropping, "heard the
voice of M. de Voltaire at times very loud. " Precise
result unknown. After which, for three months more,
follows waiting and hesitation and negotiation, also
quite obscure. Confused hithering and thithering
about permission for Plombieres, about repentance,
sorrow, amendment, blame; in the end, reconciliation,
or what is to pass for such. Recorded for us in that
whirl of misdated Letter-clippings; in those Narratives,
ignorant, and pretending to know: perhaps the darkest
Section in History, Sacred or Profane, -- were it of
moment to us, here or elsewhere!
Voltaire has got permission to return to Potsdam;
Apartment in the Palace ready again: but he still
* Collini, p. 48; Letter, in (Euvres de Frederic, xxn. 305.
9*
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 132 THE TEN TEAKS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
1st Jan. -- 25th March 1753.
lingers in Dove-Street; too ill, in real truth, for Pots-
dam society on those new terms. Does not quit
Francheville's "till March 5th;" and then only for an-
other Lodging, called "the Belvedere," of suburban or
rural kind. His case is intricate to a degree. He is
sick of body; spectre-haunted withal, more than ever;
-- often thinks Friedrich, provoked, will refuse him
leave. And, alas, he would so fain not go, as well as
go! Leave for Plombieres, -- leave in the angrily con-
temptuous shape, "Go, then, forever and a day! " --
Voltaire can at once have: but to get it in the friendly
shape, and as if for a time only? His prospects at
Paris, at Versailles, are none of the best; to return as
if dismissed will never do! Would fain not go, withal';
-- and has to diplomatise at Potsdam, by D'Argens,
De Prades, and at Paris simultaneously, by Richelieu,
DArgenson and friends. He is greatly to be pitied;
-- even Friedrich pities him, the martyr of bodily ail-
ments and of spiritual; and sends him "extract of
quinquina" at one time. * Three miserable months;
which only an CEdipus could read, and an CEdipus
who had nothing else to do! The issue is well known.
Of precise or indisputable, on the road thither, here
are fractions that will suffice:
Voltaire to one Bagieu his Doctor, at Paris ("Berlin, 19th "December" 1752, week before his Akakia was burnt). * *
"Wish 1 could set out on the instant, and put myself into your
"hands and into the arms of my family! I brought to Berlin
"about a score of teeth, there remain to me something like
"six; I brought two eyes, I have nearly lost one of them; 1
"brought no erysipelas, and I have got one, which I take a
"great deal of care of. " "Meanwhile I have buried almost
* Letter of Voltaire's.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. J THIRD ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 133
1st Jan. --25th March 1753.
"all my Doctors; even La Mettrie. Eemains only that I bury
"Coddnius" (Cothenius), "who looks too stiff, however," --
and, at any rate, return to you in Spring, when roads and
weather improve. *
Friedrich to Voltaire (Potsdam, uncertain date). "There
"was no need of that pretext about the waters of Plombieres,
"in demanding your leave (conge). You can quit my service
"when you like: but, before going, be so good as return me
"the Contract of your Engagement, the Key" (Chamber-
lain's), "the Cross" (of Merit), "and the Volume of Verses
"which I confided to you.
"I wish my Works, and only they, had been what you and
"Konig attacked. Them I sacrifice, with a great deal of
"willingness, to persons who think of increasing their own
"reputation by lessening that of others. I have not the folly
"nor vanity ofcertain Authors. The cabals of literary people
"seem to me the disgrace of Literature. I do not the less
"esteem honourable cultivators of Literature; it is only the
"caballers and their leaders that are degraded in my eyes.
"On this, I pray God to have you in his holy and worthy
"keeping. -- Friedrich. " **
Voltaire spectrally given (Collini loquitur). "One evening
"walking in the garden" (at rural Belvedere, -- after March
"5th), talking of our situation, he asked me, 'Could you drive
'"a coach and two? ' I stared at him a moment; butknowing
"that there must be no direct contradiction of his ideas, I said
"' Yes. ' --'Well, then, listen; I have thought of a method for
"'getting away. You could buy two horses; a chariot after
"' that. So soon as we have horses, it will not appear strange
"'that we lay in a little hay. ' -- 'Yes, Monsieur; and what
'"should we do with that? ' said I. 'Levoicif this is it). We
'"will fill the chariot with hay. In the middle of the hay we
"'will put all our baggage. I will place myself, disguised,
'"on the top of the hay; and give myself out for a Calvinist
"'Curate going to see one of his Daughters married in the
"'next Town. You shall drive: we take the shortest road for
* (Euvres de Voltaire, lxxv. 141. ** In De Prades's hand; (Euvres de Frederic, xxn. 308-9: Friedrich's own Minute to De Prades has, instead of these last three lines: "That I
"have not the folly and vanity of authors, and that the cabals of literary
"people seem to me the depth of degradation," &c.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 134 THE TEN YEARS OP PEACE. [book XVI.
1st Jan. -- 25th March 1753.
'"the Saxon Border; safe there, we sell chariot, horses, hay;
'"then straight to Leipzig, by post. ' At which point, or soon
"after, he burst into laughing. *
Voltaire to Friedrich ("Berlin, Belvedere," rural lodg-
ing, ** "12th March" 1753). "Sire, I have had a Letter from
"Konig, quite open, as my heart is. I think it my duty to
"send your Majesty a duplicate of my Answer. "Will
"submit to you every step of my conduct; of my whole life, in
"whatever place I end it. I am Konig's friend; but assuredly
"I am much more attached to your Majesty; and if he were
"capable the least in the world of failing in respect" (as is
rumoured), "Iwould" -- Enough!
Friedrich relents (To Voltaire; De Prades writing, Fried-
rich covertly dictating: no date). "The King has held his "Consistory; and it has there been discussed, Whether your
"case was a mortal sin or a venial? In truth, all the Doctors
"owned that it was mortal, and even exceedingly confirmed
"as such by repeated lapses and relapses. Nevertheless, by
"the plenitude of the grace of Beelzebub, which rests in the
"said King, he thinks he can absolve you, if not in whole, yet
"in part. This would be, of course, in virtue of some act of
"contrition and penitence imposed on you: but as, in the
"Empire of Satan, there is a great respect had of genius, I
"think, on the whole, that, for the sake of your talents, one
"might pardon a good many things which do discredit to your
"heart. These are the Sovereign Pontiff's words; which I
"have carefully taken down. They are a Prophecy rather. "***
Voltaire to De Prades ("Belvedere, 15th March" 1753).
"Dear Abbe", -- Your style has not appeared to me soft. You
"are a frank Secretary of State: -- nevertheless I give you
"warning, it is to be a settled point that I embrace you before
"going. I shall not be able to kiss you; my lips are too
"choppy from my devil of a disorder" (scurvy, 1 hear). "You
"will easily dispense with my kisses; but don't dispense, I
"pray you, with my warm and true friendship.
"I own I am in despair at quitting you, and quitting the
"King; but it is a thing indispensable. Consider with our
* CoIIini, p. 53.
** "In the Stralauer Vorstadt Ihodie, Woodmarket Street): " Preuss's
Note to this Letter, ffiuures de Frederic, xxn. 306 n.
*** (Eurres de Frederic, xxn. 307.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:31 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hwiijh Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CHAP. XI. ] THIRD ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. 135
lit J<<n. -- 25th March 1753.
"dear Marquis" (D'Argens), "with Fredersdorf, -- parbleu,
"with the King himself, How you can manage that I have the
"consolation of seeing him before I go. I absolutely will
"have it; I will embrace with my two arms the Abbe and the
"Marquis. The Marquis shan't be kissed, any more than
"you; nor the King either. But I shall perhaps fall blubber-
"ing; I am weak, I am a drenched hen. I shall make a
"foolish figure: never mind; I must, once more, have sight of
"you two. If I cannot throw myself at the King's feet, the
"Plombieres waters will kill me. I await your answer, to
"quit this Country as a happy or as a miserable man. Depend
"on me for life. -- V. " * -- This is the last of these obscure
Documents.
Three days after which, "evening of March 18th,"**
Voltaire, Collini with him and all his packages, sets
out for Potsdam; King's guest once more. Sees the
King in person "after dinner, next day;" stays with
him almost a week, "quite gay together," "some pri-
vate quizzing even of Maupertuis" (if we could believe
Collini or his master on that point); means "to return
in October, when quite refitted," -- does at least (note
it, reader), on that ground, retain his Cross and Key,
and his Gift of the CEuvre de Poesies: which he had
much better have left!
