History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVI Part 6

Voltaire had taken every precaution that this Visit should succeed, or at least be no loss to one of the parties. In a preliminary Letter from Paris,--prose and verse, one of the cleverest diplomatic pieces ever penned; Letter really worth looking at, cunning as the song of Apollo, Voltaire symbolically intimates: "Well, Sire, your old Danae, poor malingering old wretch, is coming to her Jove. It is Jove she wants, not the Shower of Jove; nevertheless"--And Friedrich (thank Hanbury, in part, for that bit of knowledge) had remitted him in hard money 600 pounds "to pay the tolls on his road." [Walpole, i. 451 ("Had it from Princess Amelia herself"); see Voltaire to Friedrich, "Paris, 9th June, 1750;" Friedrich to Voltaire, "Potsdam, 24th May" (--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 158, 155).] As a high gentleman would; to have done with those base elements of the business.

Nay furthermore, precisely two days before those splendors of the Carrousel, Friedrich,--in answer to new cunning croakeries and contrivances ("Sire, this Letter from my Niece, who is inconsolable that I should think of staying here;" where, finding oneself so divinized, one is disposed to stay),--has answered him like a King: By Gold Key of Chamberlain, Cross of the Order of Merit, and Pension of 20,000 francs (850 pounds) a year,--conveyed in as royal a Letter of Business as I have often read; melodious as Apollo, this too, though all in business prose, and, like Apollo, practical G.o.d of the SUN in this case.

["Berlin, 23d August, 1750" (--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii.

255);--Voltaire to Niece Denis, "24th August" (misprinted "14th"); to D'Argental, "28th August" (--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 185, 196).]

Dated 23d August, 1750. This Letter of Friedrich's I fancy to be what Voltaire calls, "Your Majesty's gracious Agreement with me," and often appeals to, in subsequent troubles. Not quite a Notarial Piece, on Friedrich's part; but strictly observed by him as such.

Four days after which, Collini sees Voltaire serenely s.h.i.+ning among the Princes and Princesses of the world; Amphitheatre all whispering with bated breath, "Voltaire! Voltaire!" But let us hear Voltaire himself, from the interior of the Phenomenon, at this its culminating point:--

Voltaire to his D'Argentals,--to Niece Denis even, with whom, if with no other, he is quite without reserve, in showing the bad and the good,--continues radiantly eloquent in these first months: ...

"Carrousel, twice over; the like never seen for splendor, for [rather copious on this sublimity]--After which we played ROME SAUVEE [my Anti-Crebillon masterpiece], in a pretty little Theatre, which I have got constructed in the Princess Amelia's Antechamber. I, who speak to you, I played CICERO." Yes; and was manager and general stage-king and contriver; being expert at this, if at anything. And these beautiful Theatricals had begun weeks ago, and still lasted many weeks; [Rodenbeck, "August-October," 1750.]--with such divine consultings, directings, even orderings of the brilliant Royalties concerned.-- Duvernet (probably on D'Arget's authority) informs us that "once, in one of the inter-acts, finding the soldiers allowed him for Pretorian Guards not to understand their business here," not here, as they did at Hohenfriedberg and elsewhere, "Voltaire shrilled volcanically out to them [happily unintelligible): 'F----, Devil take it, I asked for men; and they have sent me Germans (J'AI DEMANDE DES HOMMES, ET L'ON M'ENVOIE DES ALLEMANDS)!' At which the Princesses were good-natured enough to burst into laughter." [Duvernet (Second), p. 162,--time probably 15th October.] Voltaire continues: "There is an English Amba.s.sador here who knows Cicero's Orations IN CATILINAM by heart;" an excellent Etonian, surely. "It is not Milord Tyrconnell" (bl.u.s.terous Irish Jacobite), OUR Amba.s.sador, note him, fat Valori having been recalled); no, "it is the Envoy from England," Excellency Hanbury himself, who knows his Cicero by heart. "He has sent me some fine verses on ROME SAUVEE; he says it is my best work. It is a Piece appropriate for Ministerial people; Madame la Chanceliere," Cocceji's better half, "is well pleased with it.

[--OEuvres,--lxxiv. (LETTERS, to the D'Argentals and Denis, "20th August-23d September, 1750"), pp. 187, 219, 231, &c. &c.]

And then,"--But enough.

In Princess Amelia's Antechamber, there or in other celestial places, in Palace after Palace, it goes on. Gayety succeeding gayety; mere Princesses and Princes doing parts; in ROME SAUVEE, and in masterpieces of Voltaire's, Voltaire himself acting CICERO and elderly characters, LUSIGNAN and the like. Excellent in acting, say the witnesses; superlative, for certain, as Preceptor of the art,--though impatient now and then. And wears such Jewel-ornaments (borrowed partly from a Hebrew, of whom anon), such magnificence of tasteful dress;--and walks his minuet among the Morning Stars. Not to mention the Suppers of the King: chosen circle, with the King for centre; a radiant Friedrich flas.h.i.+ng out to right and left, till all kindles into coruscation round him; and it is such a blaze of spiritual sheet-lightnings,--wonderful to think of; Voltaire especially electric. Never, or seldom, were seen such suppers; such a life for a Supreme Man of Letters so fitted with the place due to him. Smelfungus says:--

"And so your Supreme of Literature has got into his due place at last,--at the top of the world, namely; though, alas, but for moments or for months. The King's own Friend; he whom the King delights to honor.

The most s.h.i.+ning thing in Berlin, at this moment. Virtually a kind of PAPA, or Intellectual Father of Mankind," sneers Smelfungus; "Pope improvised for the nonce. The new Fridericus Magnus does as the old Pipinus, old Carolus Magnus did: recognizes his Pope, in despite of the base vulgar; elevates him aloft into wors.h.i.+p, for the vulgar and for everybody! Carolus Magnus did that thrice-salutary feat [sublimely human, if you think of it, and for long centuries successful more or less]; Fridericus Magnus, under other omens, unconsciously does the like,--the best he can! Let the Opera Fiddlers, the Frerons, Travenols and Desfontaines-of-Sodom's Ghost look and consider!"--

Madame Denis, an expensive gay Lady, still only in her thirties, improvable by rouge, carries on great work in the Rue Traversiere; private theatricals, suppers, flirtations with Italian travelling Marquises;--finds Intendant Longchamp much in her way, with his rigorous account-books, and restriction to 100 louis per month; wishes even her Uncle were back, and cautions him, Not to believe in Friedrich's flattering unctions, or put his trust in Princes at all. Voltaire, with the due preliminaries, shows Friedrich her Letter, one of her Letters, [Now lost, as most of them are; Voltaire's Answer to it, already cited, is "24th August, 1750" (misprinted "14th August,"--OEuvres,--lxxiv. 185; see IB. lxxv. 135); King Friedrich's PRACTICAL Answer (so munificent to Denis and Voltaire), "Your Majesty's gracious Agreement," bore date "August 23d."]--with result as we saw above.

Formey says: "In the Carnival time, which Voltaire usually pa.s.sed at Berlin, in the Palace, people paid their court to him as to a declared Favorite. Princes, Marshals, Ministers of State, Foreign Amba.s.sadors, Lords of the highest rank, attended his audience; and were received,"

says Formey, nowhere free from spite on this subject, "in a sufficiently lofty style (HAUTEUR a.s.sEZ DEDAIGNEUSE). [Formey,--Souvenirs,--i. 235, 236.] A great Prince had the complaisance to play chess with him; and to let him win the pistoles that were staked. Sometimes even the pistole disappeared before the end of the game," continues Formey, green with spite;--and reports that sad story of the candle-ends; bits of wax-candle, which should have remained as perquisite to the valets, but which were confiscated by Voltaire and sent across to the wax-chandler's. So, doubtless, the spiteful rumor ran; probably little but spite and fable, Berlin being bitter in its gossip. Stupid Thiebault repeats that of the candle-ends, like a thing he had seen (twelve years BEFORE his arrival in those parts); and adds that Voltaire "put them in his pocket,"--like one both stupid and sordid. Alas, the brighter your s.h.i.+ne, the blacker is the shadow you cast.

Friedrich, with the knowledge he already had of his yoke-fellow,--one of the most skittish, explosive, unruly creatures in harness,--cannot be counted wise to have plunged so heartily into such an adventure with him. "An undoubted Courser of the Sun!" thought Friedrich;--and forgot too much the signs of bad going he had sometimes noticed in him on the common highways. There is no doubt he was perfectly sincere and simple in all this high treatment of Voltaire. "The foremost, literary spirit of the world, a man to be honored by me, and by all men; the Trismegistus of Human Intellects, what a conquest to have made; how cheap is a little money, a little patience and guidance, for such solacement and ornament to one's barren Life!" He had rashly hoped that the dreams of his youth could hereby still be a little realized; and something of the old Reinsberg Program become a fruitful and blessed fact. Friedrich is loyally glad over his Voltaire; eager in all ways to content him, make him happy; and keep him here, as the Talking Bird, the Singing Tree and the Golden Water of intelligent mankind; the glory of one's own Court, and the envy of the world. "Will teach us the secret of the Muses, too; French Muses, and help us in our bits of Literature!"

This latter, too, is a consideration with Friedrich, as why should it not,--though by no means the sole or chief one, as the French give it out to be.

On his side, Voltaire is not disloyal either; but is nothing like so completely loyal. He has, and continued always to have, not unmixed with fear, a real admiration for Friedrich, that terrible practical Doer, with the cutting brilliances of mind and character, and the irrefragable common sense; nay he has even a kind of love to him, or something like it,--love made up of grat.i.tude for past favors, and lively antic.i.p.ation of future. Voltaire is, by nature, an attached or attachable creature; flinging out fond boughs to every kind of excellence, and especially holding firm by old ties he had made. One fancies in him a mixed set of emotions, direct and reflex,--the consciousness of safe shelter, were there nothing more; of glory to oneself, derived and still derivable from this high man:--in fine, a sum-total of actual desire to live with King Friedrich, which might, surely, have almost sufficed even for Voltaire, in a quieter element. But the element was not quiet,--far from it; nor was Voltaire easily sufficeable!

PERPETUAL PRESIDENT MAUPERTUIS HAS A VISIT FROM ONE KONIG, OUT OF HOLLAND, CONCERNING THE INFINITELY LITTLE.

Whether Maupertuis, in red wig with yellow bottom, saw these high gauderies of the Carrousel, the Plays in Princess Amelia's Antechamber, and the rest of it, I do not know: but if so, he was not in the top place; nor did anybody take notice of him, as everybody did of Voltaire.

Meanwhile, I have something to quote, as abridged and distilled from various sources, chiefly from Formey; which will be of much concernment farther on.

Some four weeks after those Carrousel effulgencies, Perpetual President Maupertuis had a visit (September 21st, just while the Sun was crossing the Line; thanks to Formey for the date, who keeps a Note-book, useful in these intricacies): visit from Professor Konig, an effective mathematical man from the Dutch parts. Whom readers have forgotten again; though they saw him once: in violent quarrel, about the Infinitely Little, with Madame du Chatelet, Voltaire witnessing with pain;--it was just as they quitted Cirey together, ten years ago, for these new courses of adventure. Do readers recall the circ.u.mstance?

Maupertuis, referee in that quarrel, had, with a bluntness offensive to the female mind, declared Konig indisputably in the right; and there had followed a dryness between the divine Emilie and the Flattener of the Earth, scarcely to be healed by Voltaire's best efforts.

Konig has gone his road since then; become a fine solid fellow; Professor in a Dutch University; more latterly Librarian to the Dutch Stadtholder: still frank of speech, and with a rugged free-and-easy turn, but of manful manners; really a person of various culture, and as is still noticeable, of a solid geometric turn of mind. Having now, as Librarian at the Hague, more leisure and more money, he has made a run to Berlin,--chiefly or entirely to see his Maupertuis again, whom he still remembers gratefully as his first Patron in older times, and a man of sound parts, though rather bl.u.s.terous now and then, A little bit of scientific business also he has with him. Konig is Member of the Berlin Academy, for some years back; and there is a thing he would speak with the Perpetual President upon. "Wants nothing else in Berlin," says Formey: a hearing by the road that Maupertuis was not there, he had actually turned homewards again: but got truer tidings, and came on.

"The more was the pity, as perhaps will appear!"He arrived September 20th [if you will be particular on cheese-parings]; called on me that day, being lodged in my neighborhood; and next day, found Maupertuis at home;" [Formey, i. 176-179.]--and flew into his arms again, like a good boy long absent.

Maupertuis, not many months ago, had, in Two successive Papers, I think Two, communicated to the Academy a Discovery of Metaphysico-Mathematical or altogether Metaphysical nature, on the Laws of Motion;--Discovery which he has, since that, brought to complete perfection, and sent forth to the Universe at large, in his sublime little Book of COSMOLOGY; [In La Beaumelle,--Vie de Maupertuis--(Paris, 1856), pp. 105-130, confused account of this "Discovery," and of the gradual Publication of it to mankind,--very gradual; first of all in the old Paris times; in the Berlin ACADEMY latterly; and in fine, to all the world, in this ESSAI DE COSMOLOGIE (Berlin, Summer of 1750).]--grateful Academy striving to admire, and believe, with its Perpetual President, that the Discovery was sublime to a degree; second only to the flattening of the Earth; and would probably stand thenceforth as a milestone in the Progress of Human Thought. "Which Discovery, then?" Be not too curious, reader; take only of it what shall concern you!

It is well known there have been, to the metaphysical head, difficulties almost insuperable as to How, in the System of Nature, Motion is?

How, in the name of wonder, it can be; and even, Whether it is at all?

Difficulties to the metaphysical head, sticking its nose into the gutter there;--not difficult to my readers and me, who can at all times walk across the room, and triumphantly get over them. But stick your nose into any gutter, ent.i.ty, or object, this of Motion or another, with obstinacy,--you will easily drown, if that be your determination!--Suffice it for us to know in this matter, that Maupertuis, intensely watching Nature, has discovered, That the key of her enigma (or at least the ultimate central DOOR, which hides all her Motional enigmas, the key to WHICH cannot even be imagined as discoverable!) is, that "Nature is superlatively THRIFTY in this affair of motion;" that she employs, for every Motion done or do-able, "a MINIMUM OF ACTION;" and that, if you well understand this, you will, at least, announce all her procedures in one proposition, and have found the DOOR which leads to everything. Which will be a comfort to you; still looking vainly for the key, if there is still no key conceivable.

Perpetual President Maupertuis, having surprised Nature in this manner, read Papers upon it to an Academy listening with upturned eyes; new Papers, perfected out of old,--for he has long been hatching these Phoenix-eggs; and has sent them out complete, quite lately, in a little Book called COSMOLOGIE, where alone I have had the questionable benefit of reading them. Grandly brief, as if coming from Delphi, the utterance is; loftily solemn, elaborately modest, abstruse to the now human mind; but intelligible, had it only been worth understanding:--a painful little Book, that COSMOLOGIE, as the Perpetual President's generally are. "Minimum of Action, LOI D'EPARGNE, Law of Thrift," he calls this sublime Discovery;--thinks it will be Sovereign in Natural Theology as well: "For how could Nature be a Save-all, without Designer present?"--and speaks, of course, among other technical points, about "VIS VIVA, or Velocity multiplied by the Square of the Time:" which two points, "LOI D'EPARGNE," and that "the VIS VIVA is always a Minimum,"

the reader can take along with him; I will permit him to shake the others into Limbo again, as forgettable by human nature at this epoch and henceforth.

In La Beaumelle's--Vie de Maupertuis--(printed at last, Paris, 1856, after lying nearly a century in ma.n.u.script, an obtuse worthless leaden little Book), there is much loud droning and detailing, about this COSMOLOGIE, this sublime "Discovery," and the other sublime Discoveries, Insights and Apocalyptic Utterances of Maupertuis; though in so confused a fas.h.i.+on, it is seldom you can have the poor pleasure of learning exactly when, or except by your own severe scrutiny, exactly what. For reasons that will appear, certain of those Apocalyptic Utterances by Perpetual President Maupertuis have since got a new interest, and one has actually a kind of wish to read the IPSISSIMA VERBA of them, at this date! But in La Beaumelle (his modern Editor lying fast asleep throughout) there is no vestige of help. Nay Maupertuis's own Book, [--OEuvres de Maupertuis,--Lyon, 1756, 4 vols. 4to.] luxurious cream-paper Quartos, or Octaves made four-square by margin,--which you buy for these and the cognate objects,--proves altogether worthless to you. The Maupertuis Quartos are not readable for their own sake (solemnly emphatic statement of what you already know; concentrated struggle to get on wing, and failure by so narrow a miss; struggle which gets only on tiptoe, and won't cease wriggling and flapping); and then (to your horror) they prove to be carefully cleaned of all the Maupertuis-VOLTAIRE matter;--edition being SUBSEQUENT to that world-famous explosion. CAVEAT EMPTOR.--Our Excerpt proceeds:--

"Industrious Konig, like other mathematical people, has been listening to these Oracles on the 'Law of Minimum,' by the Perpetual President; and grieves to find, after study, That said Law does not quite hold; that in fact it is, like Descartes's old key or general door, worth little or nothing; as Leibnitz long ago seems to have transiently recognized. Konig has put his strictures on paper: but will not dream of publis.h.i.+ng, till the Perpetual President have examined them and satisfied himself; and that is Konig's business at present, as he knocks on Maupertuis, while Sol is crossing the Line. Maupertuis has a House of the due style: Wife a daughter of Minister Borck's (high Borcks, 'old as the DIUVEL'); no children;--his back courts always a good deal dirty with pelicans, bustards, perhaps snakes and other zoological wretches, which sometimes intrude into the drawing-rooms, otherwise very fine. A man of some whims, some habits; arbitrary by nature, but really honest, though rather sublimish in his interior, with red Wig and yellow bottom.

"Konig, all filial gladness, is received gladly;--though, by degrees, with some surprise, on the paternal part, to find Konig ripened out of son, client and pupil, into independent posture of a grown man. Frankly certain enough about himself, and about the axioms of mathematics.

Standing, evidently, on his own legs; kindly as ever, but on these new terms,--in fact rather an outspoken free-and-easy fellow (I should guess), not thinking that offence can be taken among friends. Formey confesses, this was uncomfortable to Maupertuis; in fact, a shock which he could not recover from. They had various meetings, over dinner aud otherwise, at the Perpetual President's, for perhaps two weeks at this time (dates all to be had in Formey's Note-book, if anybody would consult); in the whole course of which the shock to the Perpetual President increased, instead of diminis.h.i.+ng. Republican freedom and equality is evidently Konig's method; Konig heeds not a whit the oracular talent or majestic position of Maupertuis; argues with the frankest logic, when he feels dissent;--drives a majestic Perpetual President, especially in the presence of third parties, much out of patience. Thus, one evening, replying to some argument of the Perpetual President's, he begins: 'My poor friend, MON PAUVRE AMI, don't you perceive, then'--Upon which Maupertuis sprang from his chair, violently stamping, and pirouetted round the room, 'Poor friend, poor friend?

are you so rich: then!' frank Konig merely grinning till the paroxysm pa.s.sed. [Formey, i. 177.] Konig went home again, RE INFECTA about the end of the month."

Such a Konig--had better not have come! As to his strictures on the LAW OF THRIFT, the arguings on them, alone together, or with friends by, merely set Maupertuis pirouetting: and as to the Konig Ma.n.u.scripts on them "to be published in the Leipzig ACTA, after your remarks and permission," Maupertuis absolutely refused to look at said Ma.n.u.scripts: "Publish them there, here, everywhere, in the Devil and his Grandmother's name; and then there is an end, Monsieur!" Konig went his ways therefore, finding nothing else for it; published his strictures, in the Leipzig ACTA in March next,--and never saw Maupertuis again, for one result, out of several that followed! I have no doubt he was out to Voltaire, more than once, in this fortnight; and eat "the King's roast"

pleasantly with that eminent old friend. Voltaire always thought him a BON GARCON (justly, by all the evidence I have); and finds his talk agreeable, and his Berlin news--especially that of Maupertuis and his explosive pirouettings. Adieu, Herr Professor; you know not, with your Leipzig ACTA and Fragment of Leibnitz, what an explosion you are preparing!

Chapter VII.--M. DE VOLTAIRE HAS A PAINFUL JEW-LAWSUIT.

Voltaire's Terrestrial Paradise at Berlin did not long continue perfect.

Scarcely had that grand Carrousel vanished in the azure firmaments, when little clouds began rising in its stead; and before long, black thunder-storms of a very strange and even dangerous character.

It must have been a painful surprise to Friedrich to hear from his Voltaire, some few weeks after those munificences, That he, Voltaire, was in very considerable distress of mind, from the bad, not to call it the felonious and traitorous, conduct of M. D'Arnaud,--once Friedrich's shoeing-horn and "rising-sun" for Voltaire's behoof; now a vague flaunting creature, without significance to Friedrich or anybody! That D'Arnaud had done this and done that, of an Anti-Voltairian, treasonous nature;--and that, in short, life was impossible in the neighborhood of such a D'Arnaud!"D'Arnaud has corrupted my Clerk (Prince Henri hungering in vain for LA PUCELLE, has got sight of it, in this way); [Clerk was dismissed accordingly (one Tinois, an ingenious creature),--and COLLINI appointed in his stead.] D'Arnaud has been gossiping to Freron and the Paris Newspapers; D'Arnaud has" [Voltaire to Friedrich (--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 257), undated, "November, 1750."]--Has, in effect, been a flaunting young fool; of dissolute, esurient, slightly profligate turn; occasionally helping in the Theatricals, and much studious to make himself notable, and useful to the Princely kind. A D'Arnaud of nearly no significance, to Friedrich or to anybody. A D'Arnaud whose bits of fooleries and struttings about, in the peac.o.c.k or jackdaw way, might surely have been below the notice of a Trismegistus!

Friedrich, painfully made sensible what a skinless explosive Trismegistus he has got on hand, answers, I suppose, in words little or nothing,--in Letters, I observe, answers absolutely nothing, to Voltaire repeating and re-repeating;--does simply dismiss D'Arnaud (a "BON DIABLE," as Voltaire, to impartial people, calls him), or accept D'Arnaud's demission, and cut the poor fool adrift. Who sallies out into infinite s.p.a.ce, to Paris latterly ("alive there in 1805"); and claims henceforth perpetual oblivion from us and mankind. And now there will be peace in our garden of the G.o.ds, and perpetual azure will return?

Alas, D'Arnaud is not well gone, when there has begun brewing in threefold secrecy a ma.s.s of galvanic matter, which, in few weeks more, filled the Heavens with miraculous foul gases and the blackness of darkness;--which, in short, exploded about New-year's time, as the world-famous VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH LAWSUIT, still remembered, though only as a portent and mystery, by observant on-lookers. Of which it is now our sad duty to say something; though nowhere, in the Annals of Jurisprudence, is there a more despicable thing, or a deeper involved in lies and deliriums by current reporters of it, about which the sane mind can be called upon accidentally to speak a word. Beaten, riddled, shovelled, washed in many waters, by a patient though disgusted Predecessor in this field, there lies by me a copious but wearisome Narrative of this matter;--the more vivid portions of which, if rightly disengaged, and shown in sequence, may satisfy the curious.

Duvernet (who, I can guess, had talked with D'Arget on the subject) has, alone of the French Biographers, some glimmer of knowledge about it; Duvernet admits that it was a thing of Illegal Stock-jobbing; that--

1. "That M. de Voltaire had agreed with a Jew named Hirsch to go to Dresden and, illegally, PURCHASE a good lot of STEUER-SCHEINE [Saxon Exchequer Bills, which are payable in gold to a BONA FIDE PRUSSIAN holding them, but are much in discount otherwise, as readers may remember]; and given Hirsch a Draft on Paris, due after some weeks, for payment of the same; Hirsch leaving him a stock of jewels in pledge till the STEUER-SCHEINE themselves come to hand.

2. "That Hirsch, having things of his own in view with the money, sent no STEUER-SCHEINE from Dresden, nothing but vague lying talk instead of STEUER: so that Voltaire's suspicions naturally kindling, he stopped payment of the Paris Draft, and ordered Hirsch to come home at once.

3. "That Hirsch coming, a settlement was tried: 'Give me back my Draft on Paris, you objectionable blockhead of a Hirsch; there are your Diamonds, there is something even for your expenses (some fair moiety, I think); and let me never see your unpleasant face again!' To which Hirsch, examining the diamonds, answered [says Duvernet, not substantially incorrect hitherto, though stepping along in total darkness, and very partial on Voltaire's behalf],--Hirsch, examining the diamonds, answered, 'But you have changed some of them! I cannot take these!'--and drove Voltaire quite to despair, and into the Law-Courts; which imprisoned Hirsch, and made him do justice." [Duvernet (T.J.D.V.), 170, 173, 175:--vague utterly; dateless (tries one date, and is mistaken even in the Year); wrong in nearly every detail; "the 'STAIRE or STEUER was a BANK?" &c. &c.]

In which last clause, still more in the conclusion, that it was "to the triumph of Voltaire," Duvernet does substantially mistake! And indeed, except as the best Parisian reflex of this matter, his Account is worth nothing:--though it may serve as Introduction to the following irrefragable Doc.u.ments and more explicit featurings. We learn from him, and it is the one thing we learn of credible, That "Voltaire, when it came to Law Procedures, begged Maupertuis to speak for him to M.

Jarriges," a Prussian Frenchman, "one of the Judges; and that Maupertuis answered, 'I cannot interfere in a bad business (ME MELER D'UNE MAUVAISE AFFAIRE).'" The other French Biographies, definable as "IGNOR-AMUS speaking in a loud voice to IGNOR-ATIS," require to be altogether swept aside in this matter. Even "Clog." jumbling Voltaire's undated LETTERS into confusion thrice confounded, and droning out vituperatively in the dark, becomes a MINUS quant.i.ty in these Friedrich affairs. In regard to the Hirsch Process, our one irrefragable set of evidences is: The Prussian LAW-REPORT by KLEIN,--especially the Doc.u.ments produced in Court, and the Sentence given. [Ernst Ferdinand Klein,--Annalen der Gesetzgebung und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit in den Preussischen Staaten--(Berlin und Stettin), 1790, v. 215-260.] Other lights are to be gathered, with severe scrutiny and caution, from the circ.u.mambient contemporary rumor,--especially from the PREFACE to a "Comedy" so called of "TANTALE EN PROCES (Tantalus," Voltaire, "at Law");--which PREFACE is evidently Hirsch's own Story, put into language for him by some humane friend, and addressed to a "clear-seeing Public." [TANTALE EN PROCES (ascribed to Friedrich himself, by some wonderful persons!) is in--Supplement aux OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic II.--(Cologne, 1789), i. 319 et seq. Among the weakest of Comedies (might be by D'Arnaud, or some such hand); nothing in it worth reading except the Preface.] "And in fine," says my Ma.n.u.script, "by sweeping out the distinctly false, and well discriminating the indubitable from what is still in part dubitable, sufficient twilight [abridgable in a high degree, I hope!]

rises over the Affair, to render it visible in all its main features."

THE VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH TRANSACTION: PART I. ORIGIN OF LAWSUIT (10th November-25th December, 1750).

"Saxon STEUER-SCHEIN, some readers know, is, in the rough, equivalent to Exchequer Bill. Payable at the Saxon Treasury; to Prussians, in gold; to all other men, in paper only,--which (thanks to Bruhl and his unheard-of expenditures and financierings) is now at a discount say of 25, or even 30 per cent. By Article Eleventh of the Dresden TREATY OF PEACE, King Friedrich, if our readers have not forgotten, got stipulated, That all Prussian holders of these SCHEINE should be paid in gold; interest at the due days; and at the due days princ.i.p.al itself:--in gold they, whatever became of others. No farther specifications, as to proof, method, limits or conditions of any kind, occur in regard to this Eleventh Article; which is a just one, beyond doubt, but most carelessly drawn up. Apparently it trusts altogether to the personal honesty of all Prussian subjects: 'Prove yourself a Prussian subject, and we pay your Steuer-Schein in real money.' But now if a Saxon or other Non-Prussian, who can get no payment save in paper, were to have his Note smuggled or trafficked over into Prussia, and presented as a Prussian one? In our time, such traffic would start on the morrow morning; and in a week or two, all Notes whatsoever would be presented as Prussian, payable in gold! Not so in those days;--though a small contraband of that kind does by degrees threaten to establish itself, and Friedrich had to publish severe rescripts (one before this Hirsch-Voltaire business, [10th August, 1748 (Seyfarth, i. 62).] one still severer after), and menace it down again. The malpractice seems to have proved menaceable in that manner; nor was any new arrangement made upon it,--no change, till the Steuer-Scheine, by their gradual terms, were all paid either in real money or imaginary, and thus, in the course of years, the thing burnt to the socket, and went out."

Voltaire's rash Adventure, dangerous Navigation and gradual Wreck, in this Forbidden Sea of Steuer-Scheine,--will become conceivable to readers, on study diligent enough of the following Doc.u.ments and select Details:--

DOc.u.mENT FIRST (a small Missive, in Voltaire's hand).