History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVI Part 11

DIRTY LINEN (Potsdam, 24th July, 1752, To Niece Denis).--... "Maupertuis has discreetly set the rumor going, that I found the King's Works very bad; that I said to some one, on Verses from the King coming in, 'Will he never tire, then, of sending me his dirty linen to wash?' You obliging Maupertuis!"

Rumor says, it was General Mannstein, once Aide-de-Camp in Russia, who had come to have his WORK ON RUSSIA revised (excellent Work, often quoted by us [Did get out at last,--in England, through Lord Marischal and David Hume: see PREFACE to it (London, 1760).]), when the unfortunate Royal Verses came. Perhaps M. de Voltaire did say it:--why not, had it only been prudent? He really likes those Verses much more than I; but knows well enough, SUB ROSA, what kind of Verses they are. This also is a horrible suspicion; that the King should hear of this,--as doubtless the King did, though without going delirious upon it at all. ["To Niece Denis," dates as above (--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 408, lxxv. 17).] Thank YOU, my Perpetual President, not the less!--

OF MAUPERTUIS, IN SUCCESSIVE PHASES.--... "Maupertuis is not of very engaging ways; he takes my dimensions harshly with his quadrant: it is said there enters something of envy into his DATA. ... A somewhat surly gentleman; not too sociable; and, truth to say, considerably sunk here [a.s.sEZ BAISSE, my D'Argental].

... "I endure Maupertuis, not having been able to soften him. In all countries there are insociable fellows, with whom you are obliged to live, though it is difficult. He has never forgiven me for"--omitting to cite him, &c.--At Paris he had got the Academy of Sciences into trouble, and himself into general dislike (DETESTER); then came this Berlin offer. "Old Fleuri, when Maupertuis called to take leave, repeated that verse of Virgil, NEC TIBI REGNANDI VENIAT TAM DIRA CUPIDO. Fleuri might have whispered as much to himself: but he was a mild sovereign lord, and reigned in a gentle polite manner. I swear to you, Maupertuis does not, in his shop [the Academy here]--where, G.o.d be thanked, I never go.

"He has printed a little Pamphlet on Happiness (SUR LE BONHEUR); it is very dry and miserable. Reminds you of Advertis.e.m.e.nts for things lost,--so poor a chance of finding them again. Happiness is not what he gives to those who read him, to those who live with him; he is not himself happy, and would be sorry that others were [to Niece Denis this].

... "A very sweet life here, Madame [Madame d'Argental, an outside party]: it would have been more so, if Maupertuis had liked. The wish to please, is no part of his geometrical studies; the problem of being agreeable to live with, is not one he has solved." [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 330, 504 (4th May, 1751, and 14th March, 1752), to the D'Argentals; to Niece Denis (6th November, 1750, and 24th August, 1751), lxxiv. 250, 385.]--Add this Anecdote, which is probably D'Arget's, and worth credit:--

"Voltaire had dinner-party, Maupertuis one of them; party still in the drawing-room, dinner just coming up. 'President, your Book, SUR LE BONHEUR, has given me pleasure,' said Voltaire, politely [very politely, considering what we have just read]; given me pleasure,--a few obscurities excepted, of which we will talk together some evening.'

'Obscurities?' said Maupertuis, in a gloomy arbitrary tone: 'There may be such for you, Monsieur!' Voltaire laid his hand on the President's shoulder [yellow wig near by], looked at him in silence, with many-twinkling glance, gayety the topmost expression, but by no means the sole one: 'President, I esteem you, JE VOUS ESTIME, MON PRESIDENT: you are brave; you want war: we will have it. But, in the mean while, let us eat the King's roast meat.'" [Duvernet (2d FORM of him, always, p. 176.]

Friedrich's Answers to these Voltaire Letters, if he wrote any, are all gone. Probably he answered almost nothing; what we have of his relates always to specific business, receipt of LOUIS QUATORZE, and the like; and is always in friendly tone. Handsomely keeping Silence for Two! Here is a s.n.a.t.c.h from him, on neutral figures and movements of the time:--

FRIEDRICH TO WIILHELMINA (November 17th, 1751).--"I think the Margraf of Ans.p.a.ch will not have stayed long with you. He is not made to taste the sweets of society: his pa.s.sion for hunting, and the tippling life he leads this long time, throw him out when he comes among reasonable persons.... "I expect my Sister of Brunswick, with the Duke and their eldest Girl, the 4th of next month,"--to Carnival here. "It is seven years since the Queen (our Mamma) has seen her. She holds a small Board of Wit at Brunswick; of which your Doctor [Doctor Superville, Dutch-French, whose perennial merit now is, That he did not burn Wilhelmina's MEMOIRS, but left them safe to posterity, for long centuries],--of which your Doctor is the director and oracle. You would burst outright into laughing when she speaks of those matters. Her natural vivacity and haste has not left her time to get to the bottom of anything; she skips continually from one subject to the other, and gives twenty decisions in a minute." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxvii. i.

202:--On Superville, see Preuss's Note, ib. 56.]

About a month before Rothenburg's death, which was so tragical to Friedrich, there had fallen out, with a hideous dash of farce in it, the death of La Mettrie. Here are Two Accounts, by different hands,--which represent to us an immensity of babble in the then Voltaire circle.

LA METTRIE DIES.--Two Accounts: 1. King Friedrich's: to Wilhelmina.

"21st November, 1751.... We have lost poor La Mettrie. He died for a piece of fun: ate, out of banter, a whole pheasant-pie; had a horrible indigestion; took it into his head to have blood let, and convince the German Doctors that bleeding was good in indigestion. But it succeeded ill with him: he took a violent fever, which pa.s.sed into putrid; and carried him off. He is regretted by all that knew him. He was gay; BON DIABLE, good Doctor, and very bad Author: by avoiding to read his Books, one could manage to be well content with himself." [Ib. xxvii. i. 203.]

2. Voltaire's: to Niece Denis (NOT his first to her): Potsdam, 24th December, 1751.... "No end to my astonishment. Milord Tyrconnel," always ailing (died here himself), "sends to ask La Mettrie to come and see him, to cure him or amuse him. The King grudges to part with his Reader, who makes him laugh. La Mettrie sets out; arrives at his Patient's just when Madame Tyrconnel is sitting down to table: he eats and drinks, talks and laughs more than all the guests; when he has got crammed (EN A JUSQU'AU MENTON), they bring him a pie, of eagle disguised as pheasant, which had arrived from the North, plenty of bad lard, pork-hash and ginger in it; my gentleman eats the whole pie, and dies next day at Lord Tyrconnel's, a.s.sisted by two Doctors," Cothenius and Lieberkuhn, "whom he used to mock at.... How I should have liked to ask him, at the article of death, about that Orange-skin!" [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 439, 450.]

Add this trait too, from authentic Nicolai, to complete the matter: "An Irish Priest, Father Macmahon, Tyrconnel's Chaplain [more power to him], wanted to convert La Mettrie: he pushed into the sick-room;--encouraged by some who wished to make La Mettrie contemptible to Friedrich [the charitable souls]. La Mettrie would have nothing to do with this Priest and his talk; who, however, still sat and waited. La Mettrie, in a twinge of agony, cried out, 'JESUS MARIE!' 'AH, VOUS VOILA ENFIN RETOURNE A CES NOMS CONSOLATEURS!' exclaimed the Irishman. To which La Mettrie answered (in polite language, to the effect), 'Bother you!' and expired a few minutes after." [Nicolai,--Anekdoten,--i. 20 n.]

Enough of this poor madcap. Friedrich's ELOGE of him, read to the Academy some time after, it was generally thought (and with great justice), might as well have been spared. The Piece has nothing noisy, nothing untrue; but what has it of importance? And surely the subject was questionable, or more. La Mettrie might have done without Eulogy from a King of men.

... "He had been used to put himself at once on the most familiar footing with the King [says Thiebault, UNbelievable]. Entered the King's apartment as he would that of a friend; plunged down whenever he liked, which was often, and lay upon the sofas; if it was warm, took off his stock, unb.u.t.toned his waistcoat, flung his periwig on the floor;" [Thiebault, v. 405 (calls him "La Metherie;" knows, as usual, nothing).]--highly probable, thinks stupid Thiebault!

"The truth is," says Nicolai, "the King put no real value on La Mettrie.

He considered him as a merry-andrew fellow, who might amuse you, when half seas-over (ENTRE DEUX VINS). De la Mettrie showed himself unworthy of any favor he had. Not only did he babble, and repeat about Town what he heard at the King's table; but he told everything in a false way, and with malicious twists and additions. This he especially did at Lord Tyrconnel, the then French Amba.s.sador's table, where at last he died."

[Nicolai,--Anekdoten,--i. 20.] But could not take the ORANGE-SKIN along with him; alas, no!--

On the whole, be not too severe on poor Voltaire! He is very fidgety, noisy; something of a pickthank, of a wheedler; but, above all, he is s...o...b..tic, dyspeptic; hag-ridden, as soul seldom was; and (in his oblique way) APPEALS to Friedrich and us,--not in vain. And, in short, we perceive, after the First Act of the Piece, beginning in preternatural radiances, ending in whirlwinds of flaming soot, he has been getting on with his Second Act better than could be expected.

Gyrating again among the bright planets, circ.u.m-jovial moons, in the Court Firmament; is again in favor, and might--Alas, he had his FELLOW-moons, his Maupertuis above all! Incurable that Maupertuis misery; gets worse and worse, steadily from the first day. No smallest ent.i.ty that intervenes, not even a wandering La Beaumelle with his Book of PENSEES, but is capable of worsening it. Take this of Smelfungus; this Pair of Cabinet Sketches,--"hasty outlines; extant chiefly," he declares, "by Voltaire's blame:"--

LA BEAUMELLE.--"Voltaire has a fatal talent of getting into I quarrels with insignificant accidental people; and instead of silently, with cautious finger, disengaging any bramble that catches to him, and thankfully pa.s.sing on, attacks it indignantly with potent steel implements, wood-axes, war-axes; brandis.h.i.+ng and hewing;--till he has stirred up a whole wilderness of bramble-bush, and is himself bramble-chips all over. M. Angliviel de la Beaumelle, for example, was nothing but a bramble: some conceited Licentiate of Theology, who, finding the Presbytery of Geneva too narrow a field, had gone to Copenhagen, as Professor of Rhetoric or some such thing; and, finding that field also too narrow, and not to be widened by attempts at Literature, MES PENSEES and the like, in such barbarous Country",--had now [end of 1751] come to Berlin; and has Presentation copies of MES PENSEES, OU LE QU'EN DIRA-T-ON, flying right and left, in hopes of doing better there. Of these PENSEES (Thoughts so called) I will give but one specimen" (another, that of "King Friedrich a common man,"

being carefully suppressed in the Berlin Copies, of La Beaumelle's distributing):--

"There have been greater Poets than Voltaire; there was never any so well recompensed: and why? Because Taste (GOUT, inclination) sets no limits to its recompenses. The King of Prussia overloads men of talent with his benefits for precisely the reasons which induce a little German Prince to overload with benefits a buffoon or a dwarf." [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--xxvii. 220 n.] Could there be a phenomenon more indisputably of bramble nature?

"He had no success at Berlin, in spite of his merits; could not come near the King at all; but a.s.siduously frequented Maupertuis, the flower of human thinkers in that era,--who was very humane to him in consequence. 'How is it, O flower of human thinkers, that I cannot get on with his Majesty, or make the least way?' (HELAS, MONSIEUR, you have enemies!' answered he of the red wig; and told La Beaumelle (hear it, ye Heavens), That M. de Voltaire had called his Majesty's attention to the PENSEE given above, one evening at Supper Royal; 'heard it myself, Monsieur--husht!' Upon which--

"'Upon which, see, paltry La Beaumelle has become my enemy for life!'

shrieks Voltaire many times afterwards: 'And it was false, I declare to Heaven, and again declare; it was not I, it was D'Argens quizzing me about it, that called his Majesty's attention to that PENSEE of Blockhead La Beaumelle,--you treacherous Perpetual President, stirring up enemies against me, and betraying secrets of the King's table.'

Sorrow on your red wig, and you!--It is certain La Beaumelle, soon after this, left Berlin: not in love with Voltaire. And there soon appeared, at Franfurt-on-Mayn, a Pirate Edition of our brand-new SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE (with Annotations scurrilous and flimsy);--La Beaumelle the professed Perpetrator; 'who received for the job 7 pounds 10s. net!'

[Ib. xx.] a.s.severates the well-informed Voltaire. Oh, M. de Voltaire, and why not leave it to him, then? Poor devil, he got put into the Bastille too, by and by; Royal Persons being touched by some of his stupid foot-notes.

"La Beaumelle had a long course of it, up and down the world, in and out of the Bastille; writing much, with inconsiderable recompense, and always in a wooden manure worthy of his First vocation in the Geneva time. 'A man of pleasing physiognomy,' says Formey, 'and expressed himself well. I received his visit 14th January, 1752,'--to which latter small circ.u.mstance (welcome as a fixed date to us here) La Beaumelle's Biography is now pretty much reduced for mankind. [Formey, ii. 221.] He continued Maupertuis's adorer: and was not a bad creature, only a dull wooden one, with obstinate temper. A LIFE OF MAUPERTUIS of his writing was sent forth lately, [--Vie de Maupertuis--(cited above), Paris, 1866.] after lying hidden a hundred years: but it is dull, dead, painfully ligneous, like all the rest; and of new or of pleasant tells us nothing.

"His enmity to M. de Voltaire did prove perpetual:--a bramble that might have been dealt with by fingers, or by fingers and scissors, but could not by axes, and their hewing and brandis.h.i.+ng. 'This is the ninety-fifth anonymous Calumny of La Beaumelle's, this that you have sent me!' says Voltaire once. The first stroke or two had torn the bramble quite on end: 'He says he will pursue you to h.e.l.l even,' writes one of the Voltaire kind friends from Frankfurt, on that 7 pounds 10s. business. 'A L'ENFER?' answers M. de Voltaire, with a toss: 'Well, I should think so, he, and at a good rate of speed. But whether he will find me there, must be a question!' If you want to have an insignificant accidental fellow trouble you all your days, this is the way of handling him when he first catches hold."

ABBE DE PRADES.--"De Prades, 'Abbe de Prades, Reader to the King,'

though happily not an enemy of Voltaire's, is in some sort La Beaumelle's counterpart, or brother with a difference; concerning whom also, one wants only to know the exact date of his arrival. As La Beaumelle felt too strait-tied in the Geneva vestures (where it had been good for him to adjust himself, and stay); so did De Prades in the Sorbonne ditto,--and burst out, on taking Orders, not into eloquent Preachings or edifying Devotional Exercises; but into loud blurts of mere heresy and heterodoxy. Blurts which were very loud, and I believe very stupid; which failed of being sublime even to the Philosophic world; and kindled the Sorbonne into burning his Book, and almost burning himself, had not he at once run for it.

"Ran to Holland, and there continued blurting more at large,--decidedly stupid for most part, thinks Voltaire, 'but with glorious Pa.s.sages, worth your Majesty's attention;'--upon which, D'Alembert too helping, poor De Prades was invited to the Readers.h.i.+p, vacant by La Mettrie's eagle-pie; and came gladly, and stayed. At what date? one occasionally asks: for there are Royal Letters, dateless, but written in his hand, that raise such question in the utter dimness otherwise. Date is 'September, 1752.' [Preuss, i. 368; ii. 115.] Farther question one does not ask about De Prades. Rather an emphatic intrusive kind of fellow, I should guess;--wrote, he, not Friedrich, that ABRIDGMENT OF PLEURY'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, and other the like dreary Pieces, which used to be inflicted on mankind as Friedrich's.

"For the rest, having place and small pension,--not, like La Beaumelle, obliged to pirate and annotate for 7 pounds 10s.--he went on steadily, a good while; got a Canonry of Glogau [small Catholic benefice, bad if it was not better than its now occupant];--and unluckily, in the Seven-Years-War time, fell into treasonous Correspondence with his countrymen; which it was feared might be fatal, when found out. But no, not fatal. Friedrich did lock him in Magdeburg for some months; then let him out: 'Home to Glogau, sirrah; stick to your Canonry henceforth, and let us hear no more of you at all!' Which shall be his fate in these pages also."

Good, my friend; no more of him, then! Only recollect "September, 1752,"

if dateless Royal Letters in De Prades's hand turn up.

Chapter X. DEMON NEWSWRITER, OF 1752.

It must be owned, the King's French Colony of Wits were a sorry set of people. They tempt one to ask, What is the good of wit, then, if this be it? Here are people sparkling with wit, and have not understanding enough to discern what lies under their nose. Cannot live wisely with anybody, least of all with one another.

In fact, it is tragic to think how ill this King succeeded in the matter of gathering friends. With the whole world to choose from, one fancies always he might have done better! But no, he could not;--and chiefly for this reason: His love of Wisdom was nothing like deep enough, reverent enough; and his love of ESPRIT (the mere Garment or Phantasm of Wisdom) was too deep. Friends do not drop into one's mouth. One must know how to choose friends; and that of ESPRIT, though a pretty thing, is by no means the one requisite, if indeed it be a requisite at all. This present Wit Colony was the best that Friedrich ever had; and we may all see how good it was. He took, at last more and more, into bantering his Table-Companions (which I do not wonder at), as the chief good he could get of them. And had, as we said, especially in his later time, in the manner of Dublin Hackney-Coachmen, established upon each animal its RAW; and makes it skip amazingly at touch of the whip. "Cruel mortal!"

thought his cattle:--but, after all, how could he well help it, with such a set?

Native Literary Men, German or Swiss, there also were about Friedrich's Court: of them happily he did not require ESPRIT; but put them into his Academy; or employed them in practical functions, where honesty and good sense were the qualities needed. Worthy men, several of these; but unmemorable nearly all. We will mention Sulzer alone,--and not for THEORIES and PHILOSOPHIES OF THE FINE ARTS [--Allgemeine Theorie der Schonen Kunste,--3 vols.; &c. &c.] (which then had their mult.i.tudes of readers); but for a Speech of Friedrich's to him once, which has often been repeated. Sulzer has a fine rugged wholesome Swiss-German physiognomy, both of face and mind; and got his admirations, as the Berlin HUGH BLAIR that then was: a Sulzer whom Friedrich always rather liked.

Friedrich had made him School Inspector; loved to talk a little with him, about business, were it nothing else. "Well, Monsieur Sulzer, how are your Schools getting on?" asked the King one day,--long after this, but n.o.body will tell me exactly when, though the fact is certain enough: "How goes our Education business?" "Surely not ill, your Majesty; and much better in late years," answered Sulzer.--"In late years: why?"

"Well, your Majesty, in former time, the notion being that mankind were naturally inclined to evil, a system of severity prevailed in schools: but now, when we recognize that the inborn inclination of men is rather to good than to evil, schoolmasters have adopted a more generous procedure."--"Inclination rather to good?" said Friedrich, shaking his old head, with a sad smile: "Alas, dear Sulzer, ACH MEIN LIEBER SULZER, I see you don't know that d.a.m.ned race of creatures (ER KENNT NICHT DIESE VERDAMMTE RACE) as I do!" [Nicolai, iii. 274;--the thing appears to have been said in French ("JE VOIS BIEN, MON CHER SULZER, QUE VOUS NE CONNAISSEZ PAS, COMME MOI, CETTE RACE MAUDITE A LAQUELLE NOUS APPARTENONS"); but the German form is irresistibly attractive, and is now heard proverbially from time to time in certain mouths.] Here is a speech for you!"Pardon the King, who was himself so beneficent and excellent a King!" cry several Editors of the rose-pink type. This present Editor, for his share, will at once forgive; but how can he ever forget!--

"Perhaps I mistake," owns Voltaire, in his Pasquinade of a VIE PRIVEE, "but it seems to me, at these Suppers there was a great deal of ESPRIT (real wit and brilliancy) going. The King had it, and made others have; and, what is extraordinary, I never felt myself so free at any table."

"Conversation most pleasant," testifies another, "most instructive, animated; not to be matched, I should guess, elsewhere in the world."

[Bielfeld, LETTERS; Voltaire, Vie Privee.] Very sprightly indeed: and a fund of good sense, a basis of practicality and fact, necessary to be in it withal; though otherwise it can foam over (if some La Mettrie be there, and a good deal of wine in him) to very great heights.

A DEMON NEWSWRITER GIVES AN "IDEA" OF FRIEDRICH; INTELLIGIBLE TO THE KNOWING CLa.s.sES IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE.

Practically, I can add only, That these Suppers of the G.o.ds begin commonly at half-past eight ("Concert just over"); and last till towards midnight,--not later conveniently, as the King must be up at five (in Summer-time at four), and "needs between five and six hours of sleep."

Or would the reader care to consult a Piece expressly treating on all these points; kind of Ma.n.u.sCRIPT NEWSPAPER, fallen into my hands, which seems to have had a widish circulation in its day. ["IDEE DE LA PERSONNE, DE LA MANIERE DE VIVRE, ET DE LA COUR DU ROI DE PRUSSE: juin, 1752." In the--Robinson Papers--(one Copy) now in the British Museum.]

I have met with Two Copies of it, in this Country: one of them, to appearance, once the property of George Selwyn. The other is among the Robinson Papers: doubtless very luculent to Robinson, who is now home in England, but remembers many a thing. Judging from various symptoms, I could guess this MS. to have been much about, in the English Aristocratic Circles of that time; and to have, in some measure, given said Circles their "Idea" (as they were pleased to reckon it) of that wonderful and questionable King:--highly distracted "Idea;" which, in diluted form, is still the staple English one.

By the label, DEMON NEWSWRITER, it is not meant that the Author of this poor Paper was an actual Devil, or infernal Spiritual Essence of miraculous spectral nature. By no means! Beyond doubt, he is some poor Frenchman, more or less definable as flesh-and-blood; gesturing about, visibly, at Berlin in 1752; in c.o.c.ked-hat and bright shoe-buckles; grinning elaborate salutations to certain of his fellow-creatures there.

Possibly some hungry ATTACHE of Milord Tyrconnel's Legation; fatally shut out from the beat.i.tudes of this barbarous Court, and willing to seek solacement, and turn a dishonest penny, in the PER-CONTRA course?

Who he is, we need not know or care: too evident, he has the sad quality of trans.m.u.ting, in his dirty organs, heavenly Brilliancy, more or less, into infernal Darkness and Hatefulness; which I reckon to have been, at all times, the princ.i.p.al function of a Devil;--function still carried on extensively, under Firms of another t.i.tle, in this world.

Some s.n.a.t.c.hes we will give. For, though it does not much concern a Man or King, seriously busy, what the idle outer world may see good to talk of him, his Biographers, in time subsequent, are called to notice the matter, as part of his Life-element, and characteristic of the world he had round him. Friedrich's affairs were much a wonder to his contemporaries. Especially his Domesticities, an item naturally obscure to the outer world, were wonderful; sure to be commented upon, to all lengths; and by the unintelligent, first of all. Of contemporary mankind, as we have sometimes said, n.o.body was more lied of:--of which, let this of the Demon Newswriter be example, one instead of many. The Demon Newswriter, deriving only from outside gossip and eavesdropping, is wrong very often,--in fact, he is seldom right, except on points which have been Officially fixed, and are within reach of an inquisitive Clerk of Legation. Wrong often enough, even in regard to external particulars, how much more as to internal;--and will need checking, as we go along.