Historical Miniatures Part 53

"With a word--a single good word before the court...."

"For shame, old man! Do you think I can bend the law? Do you want me to bribe the judges? No, Monsieur, there are judges in Berlin who cannot be bribed! My word counts as little as that of the meanest. Stand up, go to your room, and meet me at supper."

"Sire, I beg to be excused coming to supper this evening."

"Good! then we will meet to-morrow."

When Voltaire reached his room, he began to search through his papers which he had left in disorder. He looked for a whole hour for the letter he had written to the Marquise, without being able to find it. Then he perceived that the letter had been seized, and he conceived a suspicion against the King. He stormed about in the room till it had become dark outside. He felt that it was all over with friendship and hospitality, with high position and honour, and that he must depart--perhaps by flight.

Accordingly he closed the window-shutters, and made a fire in the stove in order to burn dangerous papers. When he had finished, he went to bed, and rang for a servant: "Ask Monsieur La Mettrie to come; I am ill," he ordered.

La Mettrie, the author of _L'Homme Machine_, a most rigorous materialist and atheist, enjoyed Frederick's favour on account of his writings.

After his death the King himself delivered a funeral oration over him in the Academy. Voltaire was jealous of him, as he was of everyone who stood in his way, but La Mettrie was a physician, and Voltaire could be amiable to anyone of whom he stood in need.

The doctor came, not out of philanthropy, but from curiosity and a certain malicious satisfaction at seeing the favourite in disgrace.

"My dear friend," said the old man, "I am sick in body and soul."

"You haven't got a soul."

"But the trouble is in the heart."

"_Cor, cordis_, the heart; then you have eaten too much. Take a purge, Monsieur; then you will be lighter than lightmindedness itself."

"Prescribe me some proper medicine, man; I am dying."

"Then go to a watering-place."

"Like a minister who is in disgrace; no, thank you."

"Go home to your own country; you are suffering from homesickness."

"Yes, there you are right! The air here does not suit me."

"You are beginning to get stout."

"What do you mean by that?"

"And the Marquises are longing for you."

"Are they? What nonsense you talk! But I must have a watering-place."

"Well, take Plombieres! There you will meet the court."

"That is an excellent idea! Plombieres! But I will return, of course."

"Of course!"

"I will be back in three weeks--let us say a month. If only the King will not be vexed...."

"Let me a.s.sure you, the King will console himself."

"Yes, yes, I will consider the matter. But say--he is not angry with me?"

"Who?"

"The King!"

"He is not angry with you, otherwise he would have been so long ago! No, you are belated in thinking that."

"Give me a sleeping powder, and then you can go."

The doctor took the powder, and poured it in a gla.s.s of water.

The old man drank, but his large eyes followed the changing expressions of the doctor's face, who looked very amused. He did not altogether trust him.

"Monsieur Voltaire," said the doctor, "when you make a fire in the oven, draw up the small oven-shutters, else there is too much smoke. The Potsdam fire-engines would very likely be summoned."

"Oh! That too! Well! _La comedia e finita!_ Good-night!"

"_Sic transit gloria mundi!_ Sleep well!"

Voltaire slept during the night, but not well, and was awakened on the following morning by the sound of salutes fired at Potsdam; from which he concluded that the King was holding manoeuvres. Neither did he see any sign of the King, but about noonday he received a letter bearing the royal arms which ran as follows:--

"MONSIEUR,--Doctor La Mettrie has told me of your determination to travel to a watering-place. Although I shall miss your pleasant and instructive conversation, I will not resist your wish, since I am sure that a thorough course of treatment will benefit your nerves and the wretched state of your heart. Wishing you a good recovery, or at any rate hoping that you will not be worse than you are,

"I am

"F. R."

That was his pa.s.sport for the journey. The same evening Voltaire travelled to Leipzig, where he read extracts from Frederick's collection of satires which he also thought of having printed. But in Frankfurt he was arrested and deprived of the precious ma.n.u.scripts, which might have made more enemies for Frederick than he actually did make later on.

Rebuked, and again liberated, Voltaire fled at first to France, where he published in the _Dictionnaire Historique_ the most abominable a.s.sertions regarding Frederick's private life.

Two years later he was settled at Ferney, on the Lake of Geneva, as a multi-millionaire, patriarch, and king.

Many years pa.s.sed, and still the old Voltaire reigned at his Sans-Souci called Ferney--just as energetic as ever, just as restless and vain.

His little chateau was a modest two-storied building in a circular enclosure, surrounded by a courtyard planted with trees. On the left of the entrance stood a small stone chapel. A tablet over the door bore the inscription, "Deo erexit Voltaire," which roused the mirth of his literary friends and the hatred of the ecclesiastical party.

Below in the garden he had an arbour-walk of hornbeam covered in, and resembling a long hall with windows cut in the side, looking towards the lake. From thence he could see Mont Blanc, which especially at sunset showed all its splendour, and the blue levels of the lake stretching towards Clarens and the Rhone Valley, where the unfortunate Rousseau had wandered, loved, and suffered. Just now in the twilight, the old man sat in his arbour walk and played bezique with the local pastor, when the post arrived. There were many letters with shining seals.

"Excuse me, Abbe, I must read my letters!"

"Pray do so," answered the priest, and stood up in order to promenade up and down the arbour walk.