Berlin and Sans-Souci Part 60

"Then I must fulfil one of the darling dreams of my whole life. I must go to Italy, to the holy city of Rome, and kneel upon the graves of Cicero and Caesar. I must see St. Peter's, the Venus de Medici, and the pope."

"You will never go to Rome," said Frederick. "The Holy Father will not have the happiness of converting the blasphemous Saul into the pious and believing Paul. You will remain in Berlin; if you do not yield willingly, I must compel you to yield. I will make you my subject; I will bind you with orders and t.i.tles; I will compel you to accept a salary from me; and then, should they seek to ravish you from me, I will have a right to withhold you from all the potentates of the world."

Voltaire's face was again radiant. "Ah! sire, no power or chains will be necessary to bind me here; your majesty's command alone would suffice."

"And your duty! My gentleman of the bedchamber dare not withdraw himself for a single day without my permission. I make you gentleman of the bedchamber. I lay the ribbon of my order, 'pour le merite,'

around your neck, and that I may always have a rope around you, and make you completely my prisoner, I give you an apartment in my palace at Potsdam; and that you may not feel yourself a hermit, you will have every day six covers laid for your friends; and to mock you with the appearance of liberty, you shall have your own equipage and servants, who will obey you in all things with one exception--if you order your valet to pack up your effects, and your coachman to take the road to Paris, they will disobey."

Voltaire heard the words of the king with breathless attention.

Sullen suspicion and discontent were written on his face. This did not, escape the king; he understood the cause, but he said nothing.

Voltaire exhausted himself in words of joy and grat.i.tude, but they had not the ring of truth, and the joy which his lips expressed found no echo in his face.

"I have but one other thing to add," said Frederick, at last. "Can your greatness pardon a poor earthworm, if he dare speak in your presence of so common and villanous a thing as money?"

Voltaire's eyes sparkled; the subject of conversation did not seem disagreeable to him.

"You have relinquished a pension of six thousand livres in France, It is but just that you receive full compensation. Your great spirit is certainly above all earthly considerations, but our fleshy existence has its rights. So long as you are with me, you shall not be troubled by even a shadow of privation. You will therefore receive a salary of five thousand thalers from me. Your lodging and your table cost you nothing, and I think you can be very comfortable."

Voltaire's heart bounded for joy, but he forced himself to seem calm and indifferent.

"Your majesty has forgotten an important matter," said he. "You have named lodging and food, but you say nothing of light and fire. I am an old man, and cannot produce them myself."

"Truly said--I find it quite in order that the great free-thinker and poet of this century is troubled for the light which should illuminate him. You shall have twelve pounds of wax-lights every month; I think this will be sufficient for your purposes. As for the other little necessities of life, have the goodness to apply to the castellan of the castle. On the first day of every month he will supply them regularly. The contract is made; you will remain with me?"

"I remain, sire!--not for the t.i.tle, or the pension, or the order--I remain with you, because I love you. My heart offers up to you the dream of my life, my journey to Italy. Oh, I wish I could make greater, more dangerous sacrifices! I wish I could find a means to prove my love, my adoration, my worship!"

The king laid his hand softly on Voltaire's shoulder, and looked earnestly in his eyes.

"Be as good a man as you are a great poet. That is the most beautiful offering you can bring me."

"Ah! I see," said Voltaire, enraged; "some one has slandered me.

Your majesty has opened your cars to my enemies, and already their h.e.l.lish poison has reached your heart. As they cannot destroy Voltaire the poet, they seize upon Voltaire the man, and slander his character because they cannot obscure his fame. I will advance to meet them with an open visor and without a shield. From their place of ambush, with their poisoned arrows, let them slay me. It is better to die than to be suspected and contemned by my great and worshipped king."

"See, now, what curious creatures you poets are!" said Frederick; "always in wild tumult and agitation; either storming heaven or h.e.l.l; contending with demons, or revelling with angels! You have no daily quiet, patience, and perseverance. If you see a man who tells you he is planting potatoes, you do not believe him--you convince yourself he is sowing dragons' teeth to raise an army to contend against you. If you meet one of your fellows with a particularly quiet aspect, you are sure you can read curses against you upon his lip. When one begs you to be good, you look upon it as an accusation. No, no, my poet! no one has poured the poison of slander into my ears--no one has accused you to me. I am, moreover, accustomed to form my own conclusions, and the opinions of others have but little weight with me."

"But your majesty is pleased to lend your ears to my enemies," said Voltaire, sullenly; "exactly those who attack me most virulently receive the highest honors at the hands of your majesty. You are as cruel with me as a beautiful and ravishing coquette. So soon as by a love-glance you have made me the happiest of men, you turn away with cold contempt, and smile alluringly upon my rivals. I have yet two dagger-strokes in my heart, which cause me death-agony. If your majesty would make me truly happy, you must cure the wounds with your own hands."

"I will, if it is possible," said the king, gravely. "Let us hear of what you complain."

"Sire, your majesty has made Freron your correspondent in Paris-- Freron, my most bitter enemy, my irreconcilable adversary. But it is not because he is my foe that I entreat you to dismiss him; you will not think so pitifully of me as to suppose that this is the reason I entreat you to dismiss him from your service. My personal dislike will not make me blind to the worth of Freron as a writer. No, sire, Freron is not worthy of your favor; he is an openly dishonored scoundrel, who has committed more than one common fraud. You may imagine what an excitement it produced in Paris when it was known that you had honored this scamp with a position which should be filled by a man of wisdom and integrity. Freron is only my enemy because, in spite of all entreaties, I have closed my house upon him. I took this step for reasons which should have closed the doors of every respectable house against him. [Footnote: Voltaire's own words.] Sire, I implore you, do not let the world believe for a single day longer that Freron is your correspondent. Dismiss him at once from your service."

The king did not reply for a few moments; he walked backward and forward several times, then stood quietly before Voltaire. The expression of his eye was stern.

"I sacrifice Freron to you," said he, "because I will deny you nothing on this, the day of your arrival; but I repeat to you what I said before, 'be not only a great poet, be also a good man.'"

Voltaire shook his head, sadly. "Sire," said he, "in your eyes I am not a great poet, only un soleil couchant. Remember Arnaud, my pupil, whom I sent to you!"

"Aha!" cried the king, laughing, "you have, then, read my little poem to Arnaud?"

"Sire, I have read it, and that was the second dagger-stroke which I received on this journey, to which my loving heart forced my weak and shrinking body; I felt that I must see you once more before I died. Yes, I have read this terrible poem, and the lines have burned into my heart these cruel words:"

'Deja sans etre temeraire, Prenant votre vol jusqu'aux cieux, Vous pouvez egaler Voltaire, Et pres de Virgile et d'Homere.

Jouir de vos succes heureux, Deja l'Apollon de la France, S'achemine a sa decadence, Venez briller a votre tour, Elevez vous s'il brille encore; Ainsi le couchant d'un beau jour, Promet une plus belle aurore.'

[Footnote: Supplement des Oeuvres Posthumes.]

"Yes," said the king, as Voltaire ceased declaiming, and stood in rather a tragic att.i.tude before him--"yes, I confess that a sensitive nature like yours might find a thorn in these innocent rhymes. My only intention was to give to the little Arnaud a few roses which he might weave into a wreath of fame. It seems I fulfilled my purpose poorly; it was high time that Voltaire should come to teach me to make better verses. See, I confess my injustice, and I allow you to punish me by writing a poem against me, which shall be published as extensively as my little verse to Arnaud."

"Does your majesty promise me this little revenge in earnest?"

"I promise it; give me your poem as soon as it is ready; it shall be published in 'Formey's Journal.'"

"Sire, it is ready: hear it now. [Footnote: Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire.]

"'Quel diable de Marc Antoine!

Et quelle malice est le votre, Vous egratinez d'une main Lorsque vous caressez de l'autre.'"

"Ah," said Frederick, "what a beautiful quatrain Monsieur Arouet has made."

"Arouet!" said Voltaire, astonished,

"Well, now, you would not surely wish me to believe that this little stinging, pitiful rhyme, was written by the great Voltaire. No, no!

this is the work of the young Arouet, and we will have it published with his signature."

Voltaire fixed his great eyes for a moment angrily upon the handsome face of the king, then bowed his head and looked down thoughtfully.

There was a pause, and his face a.s.sumed a n.o.ble expression--he was again the great poet.

"Sire," said he, softly, "I will not have this poem published. You are right, Voltaire does not acknowledge it. This poor verse was written by Arouet, or the 'old Adam,' who often strikes the poet Voltaire slyly in the back. But you, sire, who have already won five battles, and who find a few morning hours sufficient to govern a great kingdom with wisdom, consideration, and love; you, by one kindly glance of your eye, will be able to banish the old Adam, and call heavenly hymns of love and praise from the lips of Voltaire."

"I shall be content with hymns of love. I will spare you all eulogy," cried Frederick, giving his hand warmly to Voltaire.

At the close of the first day at Sans-Souci, the new gentleman of the bedchamber returned to Potsdam, adorned with the order "Pour le merite," and a written a.s.surance from the king of a pension of five thousand thalers in his pocket.

Two richly-liveried servants received him at the gate of the palace; one of them held a silver candelabrum, in which five wax-lights were burning. Voltaire leaned, exhausted and groaning, upon the arm of the other, who almost carried him into his apartment. Voltaire ordered the servant to place the lights on the table, and to wait in the anteroom for further orders.

Scarcely had the servant left the room when Voltaire, who had thrown himself, as if perfectly exhausted, in the arm-chair, sprang up actively and hastened to the table upon which the candelabrum stood; raising himself on tiptoe, he blew out three of the lights.

"Two are enough," said he, with a grimace. "I am to receive twelve pounds of wax-lights a month. I will be very economical, and out of the proceeds of this self-denial I can realize a little pin-money for my niece, Denis." He took the candelabrum and entered his study.

It was curious to look upon this lonely, wrinkled, decrepit old man, in the richly-furnished but half-obscure room; the dull light illuminated his malicious but smiling face; here and there as he advanced it flashed upon the gilding, or was reflected in a mirror, while behind him the gloom of night seemed to have thrown an impenetrable veil.

Voltaire seated himself at his desk and wrote to his niece, Madame Denis: "I have bound myself with all legal form to the King of Prussia. My marriage with him is determined upon. Will it be happy?

I do not know. I could no longer postpone the decisive yes. After coquetting for so many years, a wedding was the necessary consequence. How my heart beat at the altar! How could I have supposed, seven months ago, when we arranged our little house in Paris, that I should be to-day three hundred leagues from home in another man's house, and this other a ruler!" [Footnote: Oeuvres Completes, 301.]

At the same moment wrote Frederick, King of Prussia, to Algarotti: "Voltaire is here; he has of late, as you know, been guilty of an act unworthy of him. He deserves to be branded upon Parna.s.sus. It is a shame that so base a soul should be united to so exalted a genius.

Of all this, however, I shall take no notice; he is necessary to me in my study of the French language. One can learn beautiful things from an evil-doer. I must learn his French. I have nothing to do with his morals. He unites in himself the strangest opposites. The world worships his genius and despises his character." [Footnote: Oeuvres de Frederic le Grand.]