Chapter XII. - INTRIGUES.

Voltaire was faithful to his purpose: he made use of his residence in Prussia and the favor of the king to increase his fortune, and to injure and degrade, as far as possible, all those for whom the king manifested the slightest partiality. He not only added to his riches by the most abject niggardliness in his mode of life, thereby adding his pension to his capital, but by speculation in Saxon bonds, for which, in the beginning, he employed the aid of the Jew Hirsch. We have seen that he sent him to Dresden to purchase eighteen thousand thalers' worth of bonds, and gave him three drafts for that purpose.

One of these was drawn upon the banker Ephraim. He thus learned of Voltaire's speculation, and, as a cunning trafficker, he resolved to turn this knowledge to his own advantage. He went to Voltaire, and proposed to give him twenty thousand thalers' worth of Saxon bonds, and demand no payment for them till Voltaire should receive their full value from Dresden. The only profit he desired was Voltaire's good word and influence for him with the king.


This was a most profitable investment, and the great French writer could not resist it. He took the bonds; promised his protection and favor, and immediately sent to Paris to protest the draft he had given the Jew Hirsch.

Poor Hirsch had already bought the bonds in Dresden, and he was now placed in the most extreme embarrassment, not only by the protested draft, but by Voltaire's refusing to receive the bonds and to pay for them.

Voltaire tried to appease him; promised to repair his loss, and yet further to indemnify him. He declared he would purchase some of the diamonds left in his care by Hirsch, and he really did this; he bought three thousand thalers' worth of diamonds and returned the rest to Hirsch. A few days after he sent to him for a diamond cross and a few rings which he proposed to buy. Hirsch sent them, and not hearing from either the diamonds or the money, he went to Voltaire to get either the one or the other.

Voltaire received him furiously; declared that the diamonds which he had purchased were false, and in order to reimburse himself he had retained the others and would never return them! In wild rage he continued to raise his doubled fist to heaven in condemnation, or held it under the nose of the poor terrified Jew; and to crown all, he tore from his finger another diamond ring, and pushed him from the door.

And now the Jew indeed was to be pitied. He demanded of the courts the restoration of his diamonds, and payment for the Saxon bonds.

A wearisome and vexatious process was the result. Voltaire's plots and intrigues involved the case more and more, and he brought the judges themselves almost to despair. Voltaire declared that the Jew had sold him false diamonds. The Jew asserted that the false diamonds exhibited by Voltaire were not those Voltaire had purchased of him, and which the jeweller Reclam had valued. No one was present at this trade, so there were no witnesses. The judges were, therefore, obliged to confine themselves to administering the oath to Voltaire, as he would not consent to any compromise. But he resisted the taking of the oath also.

„What!“ said he, „I must swear upon the Bible; upon this book written in such wretched Latin! If it were Homer or Virgil, I would have nothing against it.“

When the judge assured him, that if he refused the oath, they would administer it to the Jew, he exclaimed: „What! you will allow the oath of this miserable creature, who crucified the Saviour, to decide this question?“

He took the oath at last, and as the Jew Ephraim swore at the same time that Voltaire had shown him the diamonds, and he had at once declared them to be false, the Jew Hirsch lost his case, and Voltaire triumphed. He wrote the following letter to Algarotti:

„If one had listened to my envious enemies, they would have heard that I was about to lose a great process, and that I had defrauded an honest Jewish banker. The king, who naturally takes the part of the Old Testament, would have looked upon me with disfavor. I should have been lost, and Freron would have derisively declared that I sickened and died of rage. Instead of this, I still live; and during my last illness the king manifested such warm and affectionate interest in me, that I should be the most ungrateful of men if I do not remain a few months longer with him! I am the only animal of my race whom he has ever lodged in his castle in Berlin; and when he left for Potsdam, and I could not follow him, his equipage, cooks, etc., remained for my use. He had my furniture and other effects removed to a beautiful country-seat near Sans-Souci, which was, for the time being, mine. Besides this, a lodging was reserved for me at Potsdam, where I slept a part of every week. In short, if I were not three hundred leagues away from you, whom I love so tenderly, and if I were in good health, I would be the happiest of men! I ask pardon, therefore, of my enemies; these men of small wit; these sly foxes, who cry out because I have a pension of twenty thousand francs, and they have nothing! I wear a golden cross on my breast, while they have not even a handkerchief in their pockets. I wear a great blue cross, set round with diamonds, around my neck; for this they would strangle me. These miserable creatures ought to know that I would cheerfully give up the cross, the key, the pension; these things would cost me no regret, but I am bound and attached to this great man, who in all things strives to promote my welfare.“ [Footnote: Voltaire, Oeuvres, p. 442.]

But this paradise of bliss, so extravagantly praised by Voltaire, was not entirely without clouds, and some fierce storms had been necessary to clear the atmosphere.

The king was very angry with Voltaire, and wrote the following letter to him from Potsdam:

„I knew how to maintain peace in my house till your arrival; and I must confess to you, that if you continue to intrigue and cabal, you will be no longer welcome. I prefer kind and gentle people, who are not passionate and tragic in their daily life. In case you should resolve to live as a philosopher, I will rejoice to see you! But if you give full sway to your passion and are hot-brained with everybody, you will do better to remain in Berlin. Your arrival in Potsdam will give me no pleasure.“ [Footnote: Oeuvres Posthumes, p. 338.]

Only after Voltaire had solemnly sworn to preserve the peace, was he allowed to return to Potsdam. Keeping the peace was not, however, in harmony with Voltaire's character; plotting was a necessity with him; he could not resist it.

After he had succeeded in setting Arnaud aside and compelling him to leave Berlin, he turned his rage and sarcasm against the other friends of the king. One of them was removed by death. This was La Mettrie; he partook immoderately of a truffle-pie at the house of the French ambassador, Lord Tyrconnel, and died in consequence of a blood-letting, which he ordered himself, in opposition to the opinion of his physician. He laughingly said, „I will accustom my indigestion to blood-letting.“ He died at the first experiment. His death was in harmony with his life and his principles. He dismissed the priest rudely who came to him uncalled, and entreated him to be reconciled to God. Convulsed by his last agonies, he called out, „O my God! O Jesus Maria!“

„He repents!“ cried the delighted priest; „he calls upon God and His blessed Son.“

„No, no, no, father!“ stammered La Mettrie, with dying lips; „that was only a form of speech.“ [Footnote: Nicolai, p. 20.]

Voltaire's envy and jealousy were now turned against the Marquis d'Argens, who was indeed the dearest friend of the king. At first he tried to prejudice the king against him; he betrayed to him that the marquis had privately married the actress Barbe Cochois.

The king was at the moment very angry, but the prayers of Algarotti, and the regret of the poor marquis, reconciled him at last; he not only forgave, but he allowed the marquise to dwell at Sans-Souci with her husband.

When Voltaire found that he could not deprive the marquis of the king's favor, he resolved to occasion him some trouble, and to wound his vanity and sensibility. He knew that the marquis was an ardent admirer of the French writer Jean Baptiste Rousseau. One day Voltaire entered the room of the marquis, and said, in a sad, sympathetic tone, that he felt it his duty to undeceive him as to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, to prove to him that his love and respect for the great writer were returned with the blackest ingratitude. He had just received from his correspondent at Paris an epigram which Rousseau had made upon the marquis. It was true the epigram was only handed about in manuscript, and Rousseau swore every one who read it not to betray him; he was showing it, however, and it was thought it would be published. He, Voltaire, had commissioned his correspondent to do every thing in his power to prevent the publication of this epigram; or, if this took place, to use every means to excite the public, as well as the friends of the marquis, against Rousseau, because of his shameful treachery.

At all events, this epigram, which Voltaire now read aloud. to the marquis, and which described him as the Wandering Jew, was as malicious as it was mischievous and slanderous. The good marquis was deeply wounded, and swore to take a great revenge on Rousseau. Voltaire triumphed.

But, after a few days, he suspected that the whole was an artifice of Voltaire. In accordance with his open, noble character, he wrote immediately to Rousseau, made his complaint, and asked if he had written the epigram.

Rousseau swore that he was not the author, but he was persuaded that Voltaire had written it; he had sent some copies to Paris, and his friends were seeking to spread it abroad. [Footnote: Thiebault.]

The marquis was on his guard, and did not communicate this news to Voltaire. He resolved to escape from these assaults and intrigues quietly; with his young wife he made a journey to Paris, and did not return till Voltaire had left Berlin forever.

The most powerful and therefore the most abhorred of the enemies against whom Voltaire now turned in his rage, was the president of the Berlin Academy, Maupertius. Voltaire could never forgive him for daring to shine in his presence; for being the president of an academy of which he, Voltaire, was only a simple member. Above all this, the king loved him, and praised his extraordinary talent and scholarship. Voltaire only watched for an opportunity to clutch this dangerous enemy, and the occasion soon presented itself.

Maupertius had just published his „Lettres Philosophiques,“ in which it must be confessed there were passages which justified Voltaire's assertion that Maupertius was at one time insane, and was confined for some years in a madhouse at Montpellier. Maupertius proposed in these letters that a Latin city should be built, and this majestic and beautiful tongue brought to life again. He proposed, also, that a hole should be dug to the centre of the earth, in order to discover its condition and quality; also that the brain of Pythagoras should be searched for and opened, in order to ascertain the nature of the soul.

These ridiculous and fabulous propositions Voltaire replied to under the name of Dr. Akakia; he asserted that he was only anxious to heal the unhappy Maupertius. This publication was written in Voltaire's sharpest wit and his most biting, glittering irony, and was calculated to make Maupertius absurd in the eyes of the whole world.

The king, to whom Voltaire had shown his manuscript, felt this; and although he had listened to the „Akakia“ with the most lively pleasure, and often interrupted the reading by loud laughter and applause, he asked Voltaire to destroy the manuscript. He was not willing that the man who stood at the head of his academy, and whom he had once called „the light of science,“ should be held up to the laughter and mockery of the world.

„I ask this sacrifice from you as a proof of your friendship for me, and your self-control,“ said the king, earnestly. „I am tired of this everlasting disputing and wrangling; I will have peace in my house; I do not know how long we will have peace in the world. It seems to me that on the horizon of politics heavy clouds are beginning to tower up; let us therefore take care that our literary horizon is clear and peaceable.“

„Ah, sire!“ cried Voltaire, „when you look at me with your great, luminous eyes, I feel capable of plucking my heart from my breast and casting it into the fire for you. How gladly, then, will I offer up these stinging lines to a wish of my Solomon!“

„Will you indeed sacrifice 'Akakia?'„ said the king, joyfully.

„Look here! this is my manuscript, you know my hand-writing, you see that the ink is scarcely dry, the work just completed. Well, then, see now, sire, what I make of the 'Akakia.'„ He took the manuscript and cast it into the fire before which they were both sitting.

„What are you doing?“ cried the king, hastily; and, without regarding the flames, ho stretched out his hand to seize the manuscript.

Voltaire laughed heartily, seized the tongs, and pushed it farther into the flames. „Sire, sire, I am the devil, and I will not allow my victim to be torn from me. My 'Akakia' was only worthy of the lower regions; you condemned it, and therefore it must suffer. I, the devil, command it to burn.“

„But I, the angel of mercy, will redeem the poor 'Akakia,'„ cried the king, trying to obtain possession of the tongs. „Truly this 'Akakia' is too lusty and witty a boy to be laid, like the Emperor Guatimozin, upon the gridiron. It was enough to deny him a public exhibition--it was not necessary to destroy him.“

„Sire, I am a poor, weak man! If I kept the living 'Akakia' by my side, it would be a poisonous weapon, which I would hurl one day surely at the head of Maupertius. It is therefore better it should live only in my remembrance, and be only an imaginary dagger, with which I will sometimes tickle the haughty lord-president.“

„And you have really no copy?“ said the king, whose distrust was awakened by Voltaire's too ready compliance. „Was this the only manuscript of the 'Akakia?'„

„Sire, if you do not believe my word, send your servants and let them search my room. Here are my keys; they shall bring you every scrap of written paper; your majesty will then be convinced. I entreat you to do this, as you will not believe my simple word.“

The king fixed his eyes steadfastly upon Voltaire. „I believe you. It would be unworthy of you to deceive me, and unworthy of me to mistrust you. I believe you; but I will make assurance doubly sure. The 'Akakia' is no longer upon paper, but it is in your head, and I fear your head more than I do all the paper in the world. Promise me, Voltaire, that as long as you live with me you will engage in no written strifes or controversies--that you will not employ your bitter irony against the government, or against the authors.“

„I promise that cheerfully!“

„Will you do so in writing?“

Voltaire stepped to the table and took the pen. „Will your majesty dictate?“

The king dictated, and Voltaire wrote with a rapid but firm hand: „I promise your majesty that so long as you allow me to lodge in your castle, I will write against no one, neither against the French government nor any of the foreign ambassadors, nor the celebrated authors. I will constantly manifest a proper respect and regard to them. I will make no improper use of the letters of the king. I will in all things bear myself as becomes an historian and a scholar, who has the honor to be gentleman in waiting to the King of Prussia, and to associate with distinguished persons.“ [Footnote: Preus, „Friedrich der Grosse.“]

„Will you sign this?“ said the king.

„I will not only sign it,“ said Voltaire, „but I will add something to its force. Listen, your majesty.--I will strictly obey all your majesty's commands, and to do so gives me no trouble. I entreat your majesty to believe that I never have written any thing against any government--least of all against that under which I was born, and which I only left because I wished to close my life at the feet of your majesty. I am historian of France. In the discharge of this duty, I have written the history of Louis the Fourteenth, and the campaigns of Louis the Fifteenth. My voice and my pen were ever consecrated to my fatherland, as they are now subject to your command. I entreat you to look into my literary contest with Maupertius, and to believe that I give it up cheerfully to please you, sire; and because I will in all things submit to your will. I will also be obedient to your majesty in this. I will enter into no literary contest, and I beg you, sire, to believe that, in the hour of death, I will feel the same reverence and attachment for you which filled my heart the day I first appeared at your court. VOLTAIRE.“

The king took the paper, and read it over, then fixed his eyes steadily upon Voltaire's lowering face. „It is well! I thank you,“ said Frederick, nodding a friendly dismissal to Voltaire. He left the room, and the king looked after him long and thoughtfully.

„I do not trust him; he was too ready to burn the manuscript. And yet, he gave me his word of honor.“

Voltaire returned to his room, and, now alone and unobserved, a malicious, demoniac exultation was written on his face. „I judged rightly,“ said he, with a grimace; „the king wished to sacrifice me to Maupertius. I think this was a master-stroke. I have truly burned the original manuscript, but a copy of it was sent to Leyden eight days since. While the king thinks I am such a good-humored fool as to yield the contest to the proud beggar Maupertius, my 'Akakia' will be published in Leyden. Soon it will resound through the world, and show how genius binds puffed-up folly, which calls itself geniality, to the pillory.“