History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVI Part 10

... (Ten or twelve verses on another point; then suddenly--)

--"Que la veine hemorroidale De votre personne royale Cesse de troubler le repos!

Quand pourrai-je d'une style honnete Dire: 'Le cul de mon heros Va tout aussi bien que sa tete'?"-- [In--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 283, 267.]

A kittenish grace in these things, which is pleasant in so old a cat.

Smelfungus says: "He is a consummate Artist in Speech, our Voltaire: that, if you take the word SPEECH in its widest sense, and consider the much that can be spoken, and the infinitely more that cannot and should not, is Voltaire's supreme excellency among his fellow-creatures; never rivalled (to my poor judgment) anywhere before or since,--nor worth rivalling, if we knew it well."

Another fine circ.u.mstance is, that Voltaire has frequent leave of absence; and in effect pa.s.ses a great deal of his time altogether by himself, or in his own way otherwise. What with Friedrich's Review Journeys and Business Circuits, considerable separations do occur of themselves; and at any time, Voltaire has but to plead illness, which he often does; with ground and without, and get away for weeks, safe into the distance more or less remote. He is at the Marquisat (as we laboriously make out); at Berlin, in the empty Palace, perhaps in Lodgings of his own (though one would prefer the GRATIS method); nursing his maladies, which are many; writing his LOUIS QUATORZE; "lonely altogether, your Majesty, and sad of humor,"--yet giving his cosy little dinners, and running out, pretty often, if well invited, into the brilliancies and gayeties. No want of brilliant social life here, which can s.h.i.+ne, more or less, and appreciate one's s.h.i.+ning. The King's Supper-parties--Yes, and these, though the brightest, are not the only bright things in our Potsdam-Berlin world. Take with you, reader, one or two of the then and there Chief Figures; Voltaire's fellow-players; strutting and fretting their hour on that Stage of Life. They are mostly not quite strangers to you.

We know the sublime Perpetual President in his red wig, and sublime supremacy of Pure Science. A gloomy set figure; affecting the sententious, the emphatic and a composed impregnability,--like the Jove of Science. With immensities of gloomy vanity, not compressible at all times. Friedrich always strove to honor his Perpetual President, and duly adore the Pure Sciences in him; but inwardly could not quite manage it, though outwardly he failed in nothing. Impartial witnesses confess, the King had a great deal of trouble with his gloomings and him. "Who is this Voltaire?" gloomily thinks the Perpetual President to himself. "A fellow with a nimble tongue, that is all. Knows nothing whatever of Pure Sciences, except what fraction or tincture he has begged or stolen from myself. And here is the King of the world in raptures with him!"

Voltaire from of old had faithfully done his kowtows to this King of the Sciences; and, with a sort of terror, had suffered with incredible patience a great deal from him. But there comes an end to all things; Voltaire's patience not excepted. It lay in the fates that Maupertuis should steadily acc.u.mulate, day after day, and now more than ever heretofore, upon the sensitive Voltaire. Till, as will be seen, the sensitive Voltaire could endure it no longer; but had to explode upon this big Bully (accident lending a spark); to go off like a Vesuvius of crackers, fire-serpents and sky-rockets; envelop the red wig, and much else, in delirious conflagration;--and produce the catastrophe of this Berlin Drama.

D'Argens, poor dissolute creature, is the best of the French lot. He has married, after so many temporary marriages with Actresses, one Actress in permanence, Mamsell Cochois, a patient kind being; and settled now, at Potsdam here, into perfectly composed household life. Really loves Friedrich, they say; the only Frenchman of them that does. Has abundance of light sputtery wit, and Provencal fire and ingenuity; no ill-nature against any man. Never injures anybody, nor lies at all about anything.

A great friend of fine weather; regrets, of his inheritances in Provence, chiefly one item, and this not overmuch,--the bright southern sun. Sits s.h.i.+vering in winter-time, wrapping himself in more and more flannel, two dressing-gowns, two nightcaps:--loyal to this King, in good times and in evil.

Was the King's friend for thirty years; helped several meritorious people to his Majesty's notice; and never did any man a mischief in that quarter. An erect, guileless figure; very tall; with vivid countenance, chaotically vivid mind: full of bright sallies, irregular ingenuities; had a hot temper too, which did not often run away with him, but sometimes did. He thrice made a visit to Provence,--in fact ran away from the King, feeling bantered and roasted to a merciless degree,--but thrice came back. "At the end of the first stage, he had always privately forgiven the King, and determined that the pretended visit should really be a visit only." "Reads the King's Letters," which are many to him, "always bare-headed, in spite of the draughts!"

[Nicolai,--Anekdoten,--i. 11-75, &c. &c.]

Algarotti is too prudent, politely egoistic and self-contained, to take the trouble of hurting anybody, or get himself into trouble for love or hatred. He fell into disfavor not long after that unsuccessful little mission in the first Silesian War, of which the reader has lost remembrance. Good for nothing in diplomacy, thought Friedrich, but agreeable as company. "Company in tents, in the seat of War, has its unpleasantness," thought Algarotti;--and began very privately sounding the waters at Dresden for an eligible situation; so that there has ensued a quarrel since; then humble apologies followed by profound silence,--till now there is reconcilement. It is admitted Friedrich had some real love for Algarotti; Algarotti, as we gather, none at all for him; but only for his greatness. They parted again (February, 1753) without quarrel, but for the last time; [Algarotti-Correspondence (--OEuvres de Frederic,--xviii. 86).]--and I confess to a relief on the occasion.

Friedrich, readers know by this time, had a great appet.i.te for conversation: he talked well, listened well; one of his chief enjoyments was, to give and receive from his fellow-creatures in that way. I hope, and indeed have evidence, that he required good sense as the staple; but in the form, he allowed great lat.i.tude. He by no means affected solemnity, rather the reverse; goes much upon the bantering vein; far too much, according to the complaining parties. Took pleasure (cruel mortal!) in stirring up his company by the whip, and even by the whip applied to RAWS; for we find he had "established," like the Dublin Hackney-Coachman, "raws for himself;" and habitually plied his implement there, when desirous to get into the gallop. In an inhuman manner, said the suffering Cattle; who used to rebel against it, and go off in the sulks from time to time. It is certain he could, especially in his younger years, put up with a great deal of zanyism, ingenious foolery and rough tumbling, if it had any basis to tumble on; though with years he became more saturnine.

By far his chief Artist in this kind, indeed properly the only one, was La Mettrie, whom we once saw transiently as Army-Surgeon at Fontenoy: he is now out of all that (flung out, with the dogs at his heels); has been safe in Berlin for three years past. Friedrich not only tolerates the poor madcap, but takes some pleasure in him: madcap we say, though poor La Mettrie had remarkable gifts, exuberant laughter one of them, and was far from intending to be mad. Not Zanyism, but Wisdom of the highest nature, was what he drove at,--unluckily, with open mouth, and mind all in tumult. La Mettrie had left the Army, soon after that busy Fontenoy evening: Chivalrous Grammont, his patron and protector, who had saved him from many sc.r.a.pes, lay shot on the field. La Mettrie, rus.h.i.+ng on with mouth open and mind in tumult, had, from of old, been continually getting into sc.r.a.pes. Unorthodox to a degree; the Sorbonne greedy for him long since; such his audacities in print, his heavy hits, boisterous, quizzical, logical. And now he had set to attacking the Medical Faculty, to quizzing Medicine in his wild way; Doctor Astruc, Doctor This and That, of the first celebrity, taking it very ill. So that La Mettrie had to demit; to get out of France rather in a hurry, lest worse befell.

He had studied at Leyden, under Boerhaave. He had in fact considerable medical and other talent, had he not been so tumultuous and open-mouthed. He fled to Leyden; and shot forth, in safety there, his fiery darts upon Sorbonne and Faculty, at his own discretion,--which was always a MINIMUM quant.i.ty:--he had, before long, made Leyden also too hot for him. His Books gained a kind of celebrity in the world; awoke laughter and attention, among the adventurous of readers; astonishment at the blazing madcap (a BON DIABLE, too, as one could see); and are still known to Catalogue-makers,--though, with one exception, L'HOMME MACHINE, not otherwise, nor read at all. L'HOMME MACHINE (Man a Machine) is the exceptional Book; smallest of Duodecimos to have so much wildfire in it, This MAN A MACHINE, though tumultuous La Mettrie meant nothing but open-mouthed Wisdom by it, gave scandal in abundance; so that even the Leyden Magistrates were scandalized; and had to burn the afflicting little Duodecimo by the common hangman, and order La Mettrie to disappear instantly from their City.

Which he had to do,--towards King Friedrich, usual refuge of the persecuted; seldom inexorable, where there was worth, even under bad forms, recognizable; and not a friend to burning poor men or their books, if it could be helped. La Mettrie got some post, like D'Arget's, or still more nominal; "readers.h.i.+p;" some small pension to live upon; and shelter to shoot forth his wildfire, when he could hold it no longer: fire, not of a malignant incendiary kind, but pleasantly lambent, though maddish, as Friedrich perceived. Thus had La Mettrie found a Goshen;--and stood in considerable favor, at Court and in Berlin Society in the years now current. According to Nicolai, Friedrich never esteemed La Mettrie, which is easy to believe, but found him a jester and ingenious madcap, out of whom a great deal of merriment could be had, over wine or the like. To judge by Nicolai's authentic specimen, their Colloquies ran sometimes pretty deep into the cynical, under showers of wildfire playing about; and the high-jinks must have been highish. [--Anekdoten,--vi. 197-227.] When there had been enough of this, Friedrich would lend his La Mettrie to the French Excellency, Milord Tyrconnel, to oblige his Excellency, and get La Mettrie out of the way for a while. Milord is at Berlin; a Jacobite Irishman, of bl.u.s.terous Irish qualities, though with plenty of sagacity and rough sense; likes La Mettrie; and is not much a favorite with Friedrich.

Tyrconnel had said, at first,--when Rothenburg, privately from Friedrich, came to consult him, "What are, in practical form, those 'a.s.sistances from the Most Christian Majesty,' should we MAKE Alliance with him, as your Excellency proposes, and chance to be attacked?"--"MORBLEU, a.s.sistance enough [enumerating several]: MAIS MORBLEU, SI VOUS NOUS TROMPEX, VOUS SEREZ ECRASES (if you deceive us, you will be squelched)!" [Valori, ii. 130, &c.] "He had been chosen for his rough tongue," says Valori; our French Court being piqued at Friedrich and his sarcasms. Tyrconnel gives splendid dinners: Voltaire often of them; does not love Potsdam, nor is loved by it. Nay, I sometimes think a certain DEMON NEWSWRITER (of whom by and by), but do not know, may be some hungry Attache of Tyrconnel's. Hungry Attache, shut out from the divine Suppers and upper planetary movements, and reduced to look on them from his cold hutch, in a dog-like angry and hungry manner? His flying allusions to Voltaire, "SON (Friedrich's) SQUELETTE D'APOLLON, skeleton of an Apollo," and the like, are barkings almost rabid.

Of the military sort, about this time, Keith and Rothenburg appear most frequently as guests or companions. Rothenburg had a great deal of Friedrich's regard: Winterfeld is more a practical Counseller, and does not s.h.i.+ne in learned circles, as Rothenburg may. A fiery soldier too, this Rothenburg, withal;--a man probably of many talents and qualities, though of distinctly decipherable there is next to no record of him or them. He had a Parisian Wife; who is sometimes on the point of coming with Niece Denis to Berlin, and of setting up their two French households there; but never did it, either of them, to make an Uncle or a Husband happy. Rothenburg was bred a Catholic: "he headed the subscription for the famous 'KATHOLISCHE KIRCHE,'" so delightful to the Pope and liberal Christians in those years; "but never gave a sixpence of money," says Voltaire once: Catholic KIRK was got completed with difficulty; stands there yet, like a large washbowl set, bottom uppermost, on the top of a narrowish tub; but none of Rothenburg's money is in it. In Voltaire's Correspondence there is frequent mention of him; not with any love, but with a certain secret respect, rather inclined to be disrespectful, if it durst or could: the eloquent vocal individual not quite at ease beside the more silent thinking and acting one. What we know is, Friedrich greatly loved the man. There is some straggle of CORRESPONDENCE between Friedrich and him left; but it is worth nothing; gives no testimony of that, or of anything else noticeable:--and that is the one fact now almost alone significant of Rothenburg. Much loved and esteemed by the King; employed diplomatically, now and then; perhaps talked with on such subjects, which was the highest distinction.

Poor man, he is in very bad health in these months; has never rightly recovered of his wounds; and dies in the last days of 1751,--to the bitter sorrow of the King, as is still on record. A highly respectable dim figure, far more important in Friedrich's History than he looks. As King's guest, he can in these months play no part.

Highly respectable too, and well worth talking to, though left very dim to us in the Books, is Marshal Keith; who has been growing gradually with the King, and with everybody, ever since he came to these parts in 1747. A man of Scotch type; the broad accent, with its sagacities, veracities, with its steadfastly fixed moderation, and its sly twinkles of defensive humor, is still audible to us through the foreign wrappages. Not given to talk, unless there is something to be said; but well capable of it then. Friedrich, the more he knows him, likes him the better. On all manner of subjects he can talk knowingly, and with insight of his own. On Russian matters Friedrich likes especially to hear him,--though they differ in regard to the worth of Russian troops.

"Very considerable military qualities in those Russians," thinks Keith: "imperturbably obedient, patient; of a tough fibre, and are beautifully strict to your order, on the parade-ground or off." "Pooh, mere rubbish, MON CHER," thinks Friedrich always. To which Keith, unwilling to argue too long, will answer: "Well, it is possible enough your Majesty may try them, some day; if I am wrong, it will be all the better for us!" Which Friedrich had occasion to remember by and by. Friedrich greatly respects this sagacious gentleman with the broad accent: his Brother, the Lord Marischal, is now in France: Amba.s.sador at Paris, since September, 1751: ["Left Potsdam 28th August" (Rodenbeck, i. 220).] "Lord Marischal, a Jacobite, for Prussian Amba.s.sador in Paris; Tyrconnel, a Jacobite, for French Amba.s.sador in Berlin!" grumble the English.

FRACTIONS OF EVENTS AND INDICATIONS, FROM VOLTAIRE HIMSELF, IN THIS TIME; MORE OR LESS ILLUMINATIVE WHEN REDUCED TO ORDER.

Here, selected from more, are a few "fire-flies,"--not dancing or distracted, but authentic all, and stuck each on its spit; shedding a feeble glimmer over the physiognomy of those Fifteen caliginous Months, to an imagination that is diligent. Fractional utterances of Voltaire to Friedrich and others (in abridged form, abridgment indicated): the exact dates are oftenest irretrievably gone; but the glimmer of light is indisputable, all the more as, on Voltaire's part, it is mostly involuntary. Grouping and sequence must be other than that of Time.

POTSDAM, 5th JUNE, 1751.--King is off on that Ost-Friesland jaunt; Voltaire at Potsdam, "at what they call the Marquisat," in complete solitude,--preparing to die before long,--sends his Majesty some poor trifles of Scribbling, proofs of my love, Sire: "since I live solitary, when you are not at Potsdam, it would seem I came for you only" (note that, your Majesty)!... "But in return for the rags here sent, I expect the Sixth Canto of your ART [ART DE LA GUERRE, one of the Two pupil-and-schoolmaster "Specimens" mentioned above]; I expect the ROOF to the Temple of Mars. It is for you, alone of men, to build that Temple; as it was for Ovid to sing of Love, and for Horace to give an ART OF POETRY." (Laying it on pretty thick!)...

Then again, later (after severe study, ferula in hand): "Sire, I return your Majesty your Six Cantos; I surrender at discretion (LUI LAISSE CARTE-BLANCHE) on that question of 'VICTOIRE.' The whole Poem is worthy of you: if I had made this Journey only to see a thing so unique, I ought not to regret my Country."... And again (still no date): "GRAND DIEU! is not all that [HISTORY OF THE GREAT ELECTOR, by your Majesty, which I am devouring with such appet.i.te] neat, elegant, precise, and, above all, philosophical!"--"Sire, you are adorable; I will pa.s.s my days at your feet. Oh, never make game of me (DES NICHES)!" Has he been at that, say you! "If the Kings of Denmark, Portugal, Spain, &c. did it, I should not care a pin; they are only Kings. But you are the greatest man that perhaps ever reigned." [[In--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 271, 273.]

IS ON LEAVE OF ABSENCE, NEAR BY; WISHES TO BE CALLED AGAIN (No date).--"Sire, if you like free criticism, if you tolerate sincere praises, if you wish to perfect a Work [ART DE LA GUERRE, or some other as sublime], which you alone in Europe are capable of doing, you have only to bid a Hermit come upstairs. At your orders for all his life."

[Ib. 261.]

IN BERLIN PALACE: PLEASE DON'T TURN ME OUT! (No date)--... "Next to you, I love work and retirement. n.o.body whatever complains of me. I ask of your Majesty, in order to keep unaltered the happiness I owe to you, this favor, Not to turn me out of the Apartment you deigned to give me at Berlin, till I go for Paris [always talking of that]. If I were to leave it, they would put in the Gazettes that I"--Oh, what would n't they put in, of one that, belonging to King Friedrich, lives as it were in the Disc of the Sun, conspicuous to everybody!--"I will go out [of the Apartment] when some Prince, with a Suite needing it to lodge in, comes; and then the thing will be honorable. Chasot [gone to Paris]

has been talking"--unguarded things of me!"I have not uttered the least complaint of Chasot: I never will of Chasot, nor of those who have set him on [Maupertuis belike]: I forgive everything, I!" [Ib. 270.]

ROTHENBURG IS ILL; VOLTAIRE HAS BEEN TO SEE HIM ("Berlin, 14th,"

no month; year, too surely, 1751, as we shall find! Letter is IN VERSE).--"Lieberkuhn was going to kill poor Rothenburg; to send him off to Pluto,--for liking his dish a little;--monster Lieberkuhn! But Doctor Joyous," your reader, La Mettrie,--led by, need I say whom?--"has brought him back to us:--think of Lieberkuhn's solemn stare! Pretty contrasts, those, of sublime Quacksalverism, with Sense under the mask of Folly. May the haemorrhoidal vein"--follows HERE, note it, exquisite reader, that of "CUL DE MON HEROS," cited above!--...

And then (a day or two after; King too haemorrhoidal to come twenty miles, but anxious to know): "Sire, no doubt Doctor Joyous (LE MEDECIN JOYEUX) has informed your Majesty that when we arrived, the Patient was sleeping tranquil; and Cothenius a.s.sured us, in Latin, that there was no danger. I know not what has pa.s.sed since, but I am persuaded your Majesty approves my journey" (of a street or two),--MUST you speak of it, then!

GOES TO AN EVENING-PARTY NOW AND THEN (To Niece Denis).--... "Madame Tyrconnel [French Excellency's Wife] has plenty of fine people at her house on an evening; perhaps too many" (one of the first houses in Berlin, this of my Lord Tyrcannel's, which we frequent a good deal)....

"Madame got very well through her part of ANDROMAQUE [in those old play-acting times of ours]: never saw actresses with finer eyes,"--how should you!

"As to Milord Tyrconnel, he is an Anglais of dignity,"--Irish in reality, and a thought bl.u.s.terous. "He has a condensed (SERRE) caustic way of talk; and I know not what of frank which one finds in the English, and does not usually find in persons of his trade. French Tragedies played at Berlin, I myself taking part; an Englishman Envoy of France there: strange circ.u.mstances these, are n't they?" [To D'Argental this (--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 289).] Yes, that latter especially; and Milord Marischal our Prussian Envoy with you! Which the English note, sulkily, as a weather-symptom.

AT POTSDAM, BIG DEVILS OF GRENADIERS (No date).--... "But, Sire, one is n't always perched on the summit of Parna.s.sus; one is a man. There are sicknesses about; I did not bring an athlete's health to these parts; and the s...o...b..tic humor which is eating my life renders me truly, of all that are sick, the sickest. I am absolutely alone from morning till night. My one solace is the necessary pleasure of taking the air, I bethink me of walking, and clearing my head a little, in your Gardens at Potsdam. I fancy it is a permitted thing; I present myself, musing;--I find huge devils of Grenadiers, who clap bayonets in my belly, who cry FURT, SACRAMENT, and DER KONIG [OFF, SACKERMENT, THE KING, quite tolerably spelt]! And I take to my heels, as Austrians and Saxons would do before them. Have you ever read, that in t.i.tus's or Marcus-Aurelius's Gardens, a poor devil of a Gaulish Poet"--In short, it shall be mended.

[--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 273.]

HAVE BEEN LAYING IT ON TOO THICK (No date; IN VERSE).--"Marcus Aurelius was wont to"--(Well, we know who that is: What of Marcus, then?)--"A certain lover of his glory [STILL IN VERSE] spoke once, at Supper, of a magnanimity of Marcus's;--at which Marcus [flattery too thick] rather gloomed, and sat quite silent,--which was another fine saying of his [ENDS VERSE, STARTS PROSE]:--

"Pardon, Sire, some hearts that are full of you! To justify myself, I dare supplicate your Majesty to give one glance at this Letter (lines pencil-marked), which has just come from M. de Chauvelin, Nephew of the famous GARDE-DES-SCEAUX. Your Majesty cannot gloom at him, writing these from the fulness of his heart; nor at me, who"--Pooh; no, then! Perhaps do you a NICHE again,--poor restless fellow! [Ib. 280.]

POTSDAM PALACE (No date): SIRE, NZAY I CHANGE MY ROOM?... "I ascend to your antechambers, to find some one by whom I may ask permission to speak with you. I find n.o.body: I have to return:" and what I wanted was this, "your protection for my SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE, which I am about to print in Berlin." Surely,--but also this:--

"I am unwell, I am a sick man born. And withal I am obliged to work, almost as much as your Majesty. I pa.s.s the whole day alone. If you would permit that I might s.h.i.+ft to the Apartment next the one I have,--to that where General Bredow slept last winter,--I should work more commodiously. My Secretary (Collini) and I could work together there. I should have a little more sun, which is a great point for me.--Only the whim of a sick man, perhaps! Well, even so, your Majesty will have pity on it. You promised to make me happy." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii.

277.]

I SUSPECT THAT I AM SUSPECTED (No date).--"Sire, if I am not brief, forgive me. Yesterday the faithful D'Arget told me with sorrow that in Paris people were talking of your Poem." Horrible; but, O Sire,--me?--"I showed him the eighteen Letters that I received yesterday. They are from Cadiz," all about Finance, no blabbing there! "Permit me to send you now the last six from my Niece, numbered by her own hand [no forgery, no suppression]; deign to cast your eyes on the places I have underlined, where she speaks of your Majesty, of D'Argens, of Potsdam, of D'Ammon"

(to whom she can't be Phyllis, innocent being)!-MON CHER VOLTAIRE, must I again do some NICHE upon you, then? Tie some tin-canister to your too-sensitive tail? What an element you inhabit within that poor skin of yours! [Ib. 269.]

MAJESTY INVITES US TO A LITERARY CHRISTENING, POTSDAM (No date. These "Six Twins" are the "ART DE LA GUERRE," in Six Chants; part of that revised Edition which is getting printed "AU DONJON DU CHATEAU;" time must be, well on in 1751). Friedrich writes to Voltaire:--

"I have just been brought to bed of Six Twins; which require to be baptized, in the name of Apollo, in the waters of Hippocrene. LA HENRIADE is requested to become G.o.dmother: you will have the goodness to bring her, this evening at five, to the Father's Apartment. D'Arget LUCINA will be there; and the Imagination of MAN-A-MACHINE will hold the poor infants over the Font." [Ib. 266.]

DEIGN TO SAY IF I HAVE OFFENDED.--... "As they write to me from Paris that I am in disgrace with you, I dare to beg very earnestly that you will deign to say if I have displeased in anything! May go wrong by ignorance or from over-zeal; but with my heart never! I live in the profoundest retreat; giving to study my whole"--"Your a.s.surances once vouchsafed [famous Doc.u.ment of August 23d]. I write only to my Niece.

I" (a page more of this)--have my sorrows and merits, and absolutely no silence at all! [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 289.] "In the gift of Speech he is the most brilliant of mankind," said Smelfungus; but in the gift of Silence what a deficiency! Friedrich will have to do that for Two, it would seem.

BERLIN, 28th DECEMBER, 1751: LOUIS QUATORZE; AND DEATH OF ROTHENBURG.--"Our LOUIS QUATORZE is out. But, Heavens, see, your Majesty: a Pirate Printer, at Frankfurt-on-Oder, has been going on parallel with us, all the while; and here is his foul blotch of an Edition on sale, too! Bielfeld," fantastic fellow, "had proof-sheets; Bielfeld sent them to a Professor there, though I don't blame Bielfeld: result too evident. Protect me, your Majesty; Order all wagons, especially wagons for Leipzig, to be stopped, to be searched, and the Books thrown out,--it costs you but a word!"

Quite a simple thing: "All Prussia to the rescue!" thinks an ardent Proprietor of these Proof-sheets. But then, next day, hears that Rothenburg is dead. That the silent Rothenburg lay dying, while the vocal Voltaire was writing these fooleries, to a King sunk in grief.

"Repent, be sorry, be ashamed!" he says to himself; and does instantly try;--but with little success; Frankfurt-on-Oder, with its Bielfeld proof-sheets, still jangling along, contemptibly audible, for some time.

[Ib. 285-287.] And afterwards, from Frankfurt-on-Mayn new sorrow rises on LOUIS QUATORZE, as will be seen.--Friedrich's grief for Rothenburg was deep and severe; "he had visited him that last night," say the Books; "and quitted his bedside, silent, and all in tears." It is mainly what of Biography the silent Rothenburg now has.

From the current Narratives, as they are called, readers will recollect, out of this Voltaire Period, two small particles of Event amid such an ocean of noisy froth,--two and hardly more: that of the "Orange-Skin,"

and that of the "Dirty Linen." Let us put these two on their basis; and pa.s.s on:--

THE ORANGE-SKIN (Potsdam, 2d September, 1751, to Niece Denis)--Good Heavens, MON ENFANT, what is this I hear (through the great Dionysius' Ear I maintain, at such expense to myself)!... "La Mettrie, a man of no consequence, who talks familiarly with the King after their reading; and with me too, now and then: La Mettrie swore to me, that, speaking to the King, one of those days, of my supposed favor, and the bit of jealousy it excites, the King answered him: "I shall want him still about a year:--you squeeze the orange, you throw away the skin (ON EN JETTE LECORCE)!'" Here is a pretty bit of babble (lie, most likely, and bit of mischievous fun) from Dr. Joyous. "It cannot be true, No!

And yet--and yet--?" Words cannot express the agonizing doubts, the questionings, occasionally the horror of Voltaire: poor sick soul, keeping a Dionysius'-Ear to boot! This blurt of La Mettrie's goes through him like a shot of electricity through an elderly sick Household-Cat; and he speaks of it again and ever again,--though we will not farther.