History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVI Part 13

"OCTOBER 7th (1751), Maupertuis summons his Academy: 'Messieurs, permit me to submit a case perhaps requiring your attention. One of our number dissents from your President's Discovery of the Law of Thrift; which surely he is free to do: but furthermore he gives an Excerpt purporting to be from Leibnitz; whereby it would appear that your President's Discovery, sanctioned in your Acts as new, is not new, but Leibnitz's (so far as it is good for anything),--possibly stolen, therefore; and, at any rate, fifty-four years old. In self-defence, I have demanded to see the Original of said Excerpt; and the Honorable Member in question does not produce it. What say you?' 'Shame to him!' say they all [there seem to be but few Scientific Members, and most of them, it is insinuated, have Pensions from the King through their Perpetual President];--and determine to make a Star-chamber matter of it!

"Accordingly, next day, OCTOBER 8th) Secretary Formey writes officially to Konig, 'Produce that Letter within one month,'--and has got his Majesty to order, That our Prussian Minister at the Hague shall take charge of delivering such message, and shall mark on what day. Thing serious, you see!--Prussian Minister at the Hague delivers, and dockets accordingly. To Konig's astonishment; who is in a scene of deep trouble at this time; Royal Highness the Stadtholder suddenly dead, or dying: 'died October 22d; leaving a very young Heir, and a very sorrowful Widow and Country.' Much to think of, that lies apart from the Maupertuis matter! Which latter, however, is so very serious too, his Prussian Majesty's Minister at Berne is now charged to make new perquisition for the Leibnitz Original there: In short, within one month that Doc.u.ment is peremptorily wanted at Berlin."

High proceedings these;--and calculated to have one result, if no other.

Namely, that, at this point, as readers can fancy, the idler Public, seeing a street-quarrel in progress, began to take interest in the Question of MINIMUM; and quasi-scientific gentlemen to gather round, and express, with cheery capable look, their opinions,--still legible in the vanished JUGEMENS LIBRES (of Hamburg), GAZETTE DE SAVANS (Leipzig), and other poor Shadows of JOURNALS, if you daringly evoke them from the other side of Styx. Which, the whole matter being now so indisputably extinct, shadowy, Stygian, we will not here be guilty of doing; but hasten to the catastrophes, that have still a memorability.

"Konig, having in fact nothing more to say about the Leibnitz Excerpt, was in no breathless haste to obey his summons; he sat almost two months before answering anything. Did then write however, in a friendly strain to Maupertuis (December 10th, 1751). [--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 132.]

Almost on which same day, as it chanced, the ACADEMIE, after two months'

dignified waiting, had in brief terms repeated its order on Konig.

[December 11th, 1751 (Ib. 137). To which Konig makes no special answer (having as good as answered the day before);--but does silently send off to Switzerland to make inquiries; and does write once or twice more, when there is occasion for explaining;--always in a clear, sonorous, manfully firm and respectful tone: 'That he himself had, or has, no kind of reason to doubt the authenticity of the Leibnitz Letter; that to himself (and, so far as he can judge, to Maupertuis) the question of its authenticity is without special interest;--he, Konig, having thrown it in as a mere marginal ill.u.s.tration, which decides nothing, either for or against the Law of Thrift. That he has, in obedience to the Academy, caused search to be made in Switzerland, especially at Basel, where he judged the chance might lie; but that of this particular Letter nothing has come to light; that he has two other Leibnitz Letters, of indifferent tenor, in the late Henzi's hand, if these will serve in aught, [--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 155; and ib. 172-192, the two Letters themselves.]--but what farther can he do?' In short, Konig speaks always in a clear business-like manful tone; the one person that makes a really respectful and respectable figure in this Controversy of the Infinitely Little. A man whom, viewed from this quiet distance, it seems almost inconceivably absurd to have suspected of forging for so small an object. Oh, my President, that DIRA REGNANDI CUPIDO!--

"Question is, however, What the Academy will do? One Member, 'the best Geometer among them' [whose name is not given, but which the Berlin Academy should write in big letters across this sad Page of their Annals, by way of erasure to the same], dissented from the high line of procedure; a.s.serting Konig's innocence in this matter; nay, hinting agreement with Konig's opinion. But was met by such a storm, that he withdrew from the deliberations; which henceforth went their own bad course, unanimous though slow. And so the matter pendulates all through Winter, 1751-52, and was much the theme of idle men."

Voltaire heard of it vaguely all along; but not with distinctness till the end of July following. As Spring advanced, Maupertuis had fallen ill of lungs,--threatened with spitting of blood ("owing to excess of brandy," hints the malicious Voltaire, "which is fas.h.i.+onable at St.

Malo," birthplace of Maupertuis),--and could not farther direct the Academy in this affair. The Academy needs no direction farther. Here, very soon, for a sick President's consolation, is what the Academy decides on, by way of catastrophe:--

THURSDAY EVENING, 13th APRIL, 1752, The Academy met; Curator Monsieur de Keith, presiding; about a score of acting Members present. To whom Curator de Keith, as the first thing, reads a magnanimous brief Letter from our Perpetual President: "That, for two reasons, he cannot attend on this important occasion: First, because he is too ill, which would itself be conclusive; but secondly, and A FORTIORI, because he is in some sense a party to the cause, and ought not if he could." Whereupon, Secretary Formey having done his Doc.u.mentary flouris.h.i.+ngs, Curator Euler--(great in Algebra, apparently not very great in common sense and the rules of good temper)--reads considerable "Report;" [Is No.

1 of--Maupertuisiana.--] reciting, not in a dishonest, but in a dim wearisome way, the various steps of the Affair, as readers already know them; and concludes with this extraordinary practical result: "Things being so (LES CHOSES ETANT TELLES): the Fragment being of itself suspect [what could Leibnitz know of Maxima and Minima? They were not developed till one Euler did it, quite in late years!], [--Maupertuisians,--No.

i. 22.] of itself suspect; and Monsieur Konig having failed to" &c.

&c.,--"it is a.s.suredly manifest that his cause is one of the worst (DES PLUS MAUVAISES), and that this Fragment has been forged." Singular to think!"And the Academy, all things duly considered, will not hesitate to declare it false (SUPPOSE), and thereby deprive it publicly of all authority which may have been ascribed to it" (HEAR, HEAR! from all parts).

Curator de Keith then collects the votes,--twenty-three in all; some sixteen are of working Members; two are from accidental Strangers ("travelling students," say the enemy); the rest from Curators of Quality:--Vote is unanimous, "Adopt the Report. Fragment evidently forged, and cannot have the least shadow of authority (AUCUNE OMBRE D'AUTHORITE). Forged by whom, we do not now ask; nor what the Academy could, on plain grounds, now do to Monsieur Konig [NOT nail his ears to the pump, oh no!]; enough, it IS forged, and so remains." Signed, "Curator de Keith," and Six other Office-bearers; "Formey, Perpetual Secretary"' closing the list.

At the name Keith, a slight shadow (very slight, for how could Keith help himself?) crosses the mind: "Is this, by ill luck, the Feldmarschall Keith?" No, reader; this is Lieutenant-Colonel Keith; he of Wesel, with "Effigy nailed to the Gallows" long since; whom none of us cares for. Sulzer, 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 malignant length of ear, they are capable of going. "Thursday, 13th April," this is Forger Konig's doom:--and, what is observable, next morning, with a crash audible through Nature, the Powder-Magazine flew aloft, killing several persons! [Supra, p. 203.] 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 Newspapers) Konig, in a brief, proud enough, but perfectly quiet, mild and manful manner, resigns his Members.h.i.+p. "Ceases, from this day (June 18th, 1752), to have the honor of belonging to your Academy; 'an honor 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." [--Maupertuisiana,--No.

iv. 129.] 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 handsome 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." [Voltaire (infra).] Which her Most Serene Highness by no mean 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 accompanied by the mult.i.tude of Commentators,--appeared in due course.

["September, 1752, Konig's APPEL" (Preuss, in--OEuvres de Frederic,--xv.

60 n.).] Till, before long, the Public was thoroughly instructed; and n.o.body, hardly the signing Curators, 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.

Subject gone wholly to the Stygian Fens, long since; "forgery" not now imaginable by anybody!

The rumor of these things rose high and wide; and the quant.i.ty of publis.h.i.+ng upon them, quasi-scientifically and otherwise, in the serious vein and the jocose, was greater than we should fancy. ["Letter from a Marquis;" "Letter from Mr. T---to M. S---" (Mr. T. lives in London;--"JE TRAVERSE LE Queen's Square, ET JE RENCONTRE NOTRE AMI D---: 'AVEZ-VOUS LA l'Appel au Public?' DIT-IL"--); "Letter by Euler in the Berlin Gazette," &c. &c. (in--Maupertuisiana--).] Voltaire, for above a month past, had been fully aware of the case (24th July, 1752, writing to Niece, "heard yesterday"); 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 Kingdoms. Appeared in the BIBLIOTHEQUE RAISONNEE (mild-s.h.i.+ning Quarterly Review of those days), JULY-SEPTEMBER Number.

"ANSWER FROM [VERY PRIVATELY VOLTAIRE, CALLING HIMSELF] A BERLIN 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 ent.i.tled ESSAI DE COSMOLOGIE, pretended that the only proof of the Existence of G.o.d is the circ.u.mstance that AR+nRB is a Minimum. [ONLY proof:^??????^ (p.212 Book XVI) VOILA!] He a.s.serts that in all possible cases, 'Action is a Minimum,' what has been demonstrated false; and he says, 'He discovered this Law of Minimum,' what is not less false.

"M. Konig, as well as other Mathematicians, wrote against this strange a.s.sertion; 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 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 a.s.saulted 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 discussion, 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 displeasing the King, who is protector of it." [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxiii. 227 (in--Maupertuisiana,--No. xvi).]

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 tricks before high Heaven and other on-lookers. 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 recognizable,--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: [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xv. 59-64 (not dated; datable "October, 1752").] 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 princ.i.p.ally against "the pretended Member of our Academy"

(mischievous Voltaire, to wit), whom it characterizes as "such a manifest retailer of lies," a "concocter of stupid libels:" "have you ever seen an action more malicious, more dastardly, more infamous?"--and other hard terms, the hardest he can find. This is the privilege of anonymity, on both sides of it.

But imagine now a King and his Voltaire doing witty discourse over their Supper of the G.o.ds (as, on the set days, is duly the case); with such a consciousness, 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 gla.s.s!--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 sputterings, sparklings and flas.h.i.+ngs 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 a.s.sert.

"Readers know AKAKIA," [DIATRIBE DU DOCTEUR AKAKIA (in Voltaire,--OEuvres,--lxi. 19-62).] 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, or indeed anything, of true poetic humor in it: but there is a gayety of malice, a dexterity, felicity, inexhaustibility of laughing mockery and light banter, capable of driving a Perpetual President delirious. What an Explosion of gla.s.s-crackers, fire-b.a.l.l.s, flaming-serpents;--generally, of sleeping gunpowder, 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 quant.i.ties, here is a new artist who knows how to treat it.

The engineer of the Sublime (always painfully engineering thitherward without effect),--an engineer of the Comic steps in on him, blows him up with his own petards in a 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 a.s.sure M. de Voltaire, it was once practically proposed to this King's Great-grandfather, the Grosse Kurfurst;--who looked into it, with face puckered to the intensest, in his great care for furtherance of the Terrestrial Sciences and Wisdoms; but forbore for that time. [Minute details about it in Stenzel, ii.

234-238; who quotes "Erman" (a poor old friend of ours) "SUR LE PROJET D'UNE VILLE SAVANTE DANS LE BRANDEBOURG (Berlin, 1792):" date of the Project was 1667.] 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?

"These things--which are mostly to be found in the 'LETTRES DE MAUPERTUIS' (Dresden, 1752, then a brand-new Book), but are now clipt out from the Maupertuis Treatises--we can fancy to be almost sublimities.--Almost, unfortunately 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded,' says Maupertuis. 'Yes, truly,' answers the other: 'if we got ourselves j.a.panned, coated with resinous varnish (INDUITS DE POIX 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 honor!"

Voltaire promised. But, alas, how could Voltaire perform! Once more the Rhadamanthine fact is: Voltaire, as King's Chamberlain, was bound, without any promise, 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 bl.u.s.terous Turkey-c.o.c.k, who has, every now and then, been tyrannizing 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 makable by a little surrept.i.tious legerdemain,--and I never knew whether it was AKAKIA in print, or AKAKIA in ma.n.u.script, that King and King's Chamberlain were now reading together, nor does it matter much):--your Turkey surrept.i.tiously 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, had 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, surrept.i.tiously 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; [Rodenbeck, IN DIE;--Helden-Geschichte,--iii. 531, "2d November, 1752, 5 P.M."]--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 pa.s.sion 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-STRa.s.sE, [At a "Hofrath Francheville's" (kind of subaltern Literary Character, see Denina, ii. 67), "TAUBEN-STRa.s.sE (Dove Street), No. 20:" stayed there till "March, 1753" (Note by Preuss,--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 306 n.).] 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 _I_] does not see, the reason [sic]? ONE p. 218, book XVI +++++++++++++++++ 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." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 302, 301.]

Most dark element (not in date only), with terrific 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 the Palace, his Gold Key and Cross of Merit. On the interior wrappage is an Inscription in verse: "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, Je vous les rends avec douleur; C'est ainsi qu'un amant, dans son extreme ardeur, Rend le portrait de sa maitresse."--

And--in a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of Swans--has one wish: Permission for the waters of Plonbieres, some alleviations amid kind nursing friends there; and to die craving blessings on your Majesty.

[Collini, p. 48; LETTER, in--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 305.]

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 Voltaire; in which Collini, not eavesdropping, "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 pa.s.s 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 lingers in Dove Street; too ill, in real truth, for Potsdam society on those new terms. Does not quit Francheville's "till March 5th;" and then only for another 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 contemptuous 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 diplomatize at Potsdam, by D'Argens, De Prades, and at Paris simultaneously, by Richelieu, D'Argenson and friends. He is greatly to be pitied;--even Friedrich pities him, the martyr of bodily ailments and of spiritual; and sends him "extract of quinquina" at one time. [Letter of Voltaire's.] Three miserable months; which only an OEdipus could read, and an OEdipus 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 I 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; I brought no erysipelas, and I have got one, which I take a great deal of care of.... Meanwhile I have buried almost all my Doctors; even La Mettrie.

Remains only that I bury Codenius [Cothenius], who looks too stiff, however,"--and, at any rate, return to you in Spring, when roads and weather improve. [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lx.x.xv. 141.]