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Though the pay of the Prussian soldier was small, though every rixdollar of
extraordinary charge was scrutinized by Frederic with a vigilance and suspicion
such as Mr. Joseph Hume never brought to the examination of an army estimate,
the expense of such an establishment was, for the means of the country,
enormous. In order that it might not be utterly ruinous, it was necessary that
every other expense should be cut down to the lowest possible point. Accordingly
Frederic, though his dominions bordered on the sea, had no navy. He neither had
nor wished to have colonies. His judges, his fiscal officers, were meanly paid.
His ministers at foreign courts walked on foot, or drove shabby old carriages
till the axle-trees gave way. Even to his highest diplomatic agents, who resided
at London and Paris, he allowed less than a thousand pounds sterling a year. The
royal household was managed with a frugality unusual in the establishments of
opulent subjects, unexampled in any other palace. The King loved good eating and
drinking, and during great part of his life took pleasure in seeing his table
surrounded by guests; yet the whole charge of his kitchen was brought within the
sum of two thousand pounds sterling a year. He examined every extraordinary item
with a care which might be thought to suit the mistress of a boarding-house
better than a great prince. When more than four rixdollars were asked of him for
a hundred oysters, he stormed as if he had heard that one of his generals had
sold a fortress to the Empress Queen. Not a bottle of champagne was uncorked
without his express order. The game of the royal parks and forests, a serious
head of expenditure in most kingdoms, was to him a source of profit. The whole
was farmed out; and though the farmers were almost ruined by their contract, the
King would grant them no remission. His wardrobe consisted of one fine gala
dress, which lasted him all his life; of two or three old coats fit for Monmouth
Street, of yellow waistcoats soiled with snuff, and of huge boots embrowned by
time. One taste alone sometimes allured him beyond the limits of parsimony, nay,
even beyond the limits of prudence, the taste for building. In all other things
his economy was such as we might call by a harsher name, if we did not reflect
that his funds were drawn from a heavily taxed people, and that it was
impossible for him, without excessive tyranny, to keep up at once a formidable
army and a splendid court.
Considered as an administrator, Frederic had undoubtedly many titles to praise.
Order was strictly maintained throughout his dominions. Property was secure. A
great liberty of speaking and of writing was allowed. Confident in the
irresistible strength derived from a great army, the King looked down on
malcontents and libelers with a wise disdain; and gave little encouragement to
spies and informers. When he was told of the disaffection of one of his subject,
he merely asked, "How many thousand men can he bring into the field?" He once
saw a crowd staring at something on a wall. He rode up and found that the object
of curiosity was a scurrilous placard against himself. The placard had been
posted up so high that it was not easy to read it. Frederic ordered his
attendants to take it down and put it lower. "My people and I," he said, "have
come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please,
and I am to do what I please." No person would have dared to publish in London
satires on George the Second approaching to the atrocity of those satires on
Frederic, which the booksellers at Berlin sold with impunity. One bookseller
sent to the palace a copy of the most stinging lampoon that perhaps was ever
written in the world, the Memoirs of Voltaire, published by Beaumarchais, and
asked for his Majesty's orders. "Do not advertise it in an offensive manner,"
said the King; "but sell it by all means. I hope it will pay you well." Even
among statesmen accustomed to the license of a free press, such steadfastness of
mind as this is not very common.
It is due also to the memory of Frederic to say that he earnestly labored to
secure to his people the great blessing of cheap and speedy Justice. He was one
of the first rulers who abolished the cruel and absurd practice of torture. No
sentence of death, pronounced by the ordinary tribunals, was executed without
his sanction; and his sanction, except in cases of murder, was rarely given.
Towards his troops he acted in a very different manner. Military offences were
punished with such barbarous scourging that to be shot was considered by the
Prussian soldier as a secondary punishment. Indeed, the principle which pervaded
Frederic's whole policy was this, that the more severely the army is governed,
the safer it is to treat the rest of the community with lenity.
Religious persecution was unknown under his government, unless some foolish and
unjust restrictions which lay upon the Jews may be regarded as forming an
exception. His policy with respect to the Catholics of Silesia presented an
honorable contrast to the policy which, under very similar circumstances,
England long followed with respect to the Catholics of Ireland. Every form of
religion and irreligion found an asylum in the States. The scoffer whom the
parliaments of France had sentenced to a cruel death, was consoled by a
commission in the Prussian service. The Jesuit who could show his face nowhere
else, who in Britain was still subject to penal laws, who was proscribed by
France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples, who had been given up even by the Vatican,
found safety and the means of subsistence in the Prussian dominions.
Most of the vices of Frederic's administration resolve selves into one vice, the
spirit of meddling. The indefatigable activity of his intellect, his dictatorial
temper, his military habits, all inclined him to this great fault. He drilled
his people as he drilled his grenadiers. Capital and industry were diverted from
their natural direction by a crowd of preposterous regulations. There was a
monopoly of coffee, a monopoly of tobacco, a monopoly of refined sugar. The
public money, of which the King was generally so sparing, was lavishly spent in
ploughing bogs, in planting mulberry trees amidst the sand, in bringing sheep
from Spain to improve the Saxon wool, in bestowing prizes for fine yarn, in
building manufactories of porcelain, manufactories of carpets, manufactories of
hardware, manufactories of lace. Neither the experience of other rulers, nor his
own, could ever teach him that something more than an edict and a grant of
public money was required to create a Lyons, a Brussels, or a Birmingham.
For his commercial policy, however, there was some excuse. He had on his side
illustrious examples and popular prejudice. Grievously as he erred, he erred in
company with his age. In other departments his meddling was altogether without
apology. He interfered with the course of justice as well as with the course of
trade; and set up his own crude notions of equity against the law as expounded
by the unanimous voice of the gravest magistrates. It never occurred to him that
men whose lives were passed in adjudicating on questions of civil right were
more likely to form correct opinions on such questions than a prince whose
attention was divided among a thousand objects, and who had never read a
law-book through. The resistance opposed to him by the tribunals inflamed him to
fury. He reviled his Chancellor. He kicked the shins of his judges. He did not,
it is true, intend to act unjustly. He firmly believed that he was doing right,
and defending the cause of the poor against the wealthy. Yet this well-meant
meddling probably did far more harm than all the explosions of his evil passions
during the whole of his long reign. We could make shift to live under a
debauchee or a tyrant; but to be ruled by a busybody is more than human nature
can bear.
The same passion for directing and regulating appeared in every part of the
King's policy. Every lad of a certain station in life was forced to go to
certain schools within the Prussian dominions. If a young Prussian repaired,
though but for a few weeks, to Leyden or Gottingen for the purpose of study, the
offence was punished with civil disabilities, and sometimes with the
confiscation of property. Nobody was to travel without the royal permission. If
the permission were granted, the pocket-money of the tourist was fixed by royal
ordinance. A merchant might take with him two hundred and fifty rixdollars in
gold, a noble was allowed to take four hundred; for it may be observed, in
passing, that Frederic studiously kept up the old distinction between the nobles
and the community. In speculation, he was a French philosopher, but in action, a
German prince. He talked and wrote about the privileges of blood in the style of
Sieyes; but in practice no chapter in the empire looked with a keener eye to
genealogies and quarterings.
Such was Frederic the Ruler. But there was another Frederic, the Frederic of
Rheinsberg, the fiddler and flute-player, the poetaster and metaphysician.
Amidst the cares of State the King had retained his passion for music, for
reading, for writing, for literary society. To these amusements he devoted all
the time that he could snatch from the business of war and government; and
perhaps more light is thrown on his character by what passed during his hours of
relaxation, than by his battles or his laws.
It was the just boast of Schiller that, in his country, no Augustus, no Lorenzo,
had watched over the infancy of poetry. The rich and energetic language of
Luther, driven by the Latin from the schools of pedants, and by the French from
the palaces of kings, had taken refuge among the people. Of the powers of that
language Frederic had no notion. He generally spoke of it, and of those who used
it, with the contempt of ignorance. His library consisted of French books; at
his table nothing was heard but French conversation. The associates of his hours
of relaxation were, for the most part, foreigners. Britain furnished to the
royal circle two distinguished men, born in the highest rank, and driven by
civil dissensions from the land to which, under happier circumstances, their
talents and virtues might have been a source of strength and glory. George
Keith, Earl Marischal of Scotland, had taken arms for the House of Stuart in
1715; and his younger brother James, then only seventeen years old, had fought
gallantly by his side. When all was lost they retired together to the Continent,
roved from country to country, served under various standards, and so bore
themselves as to win the respect and good-will of many who had no love for the
Jacobite cause. Their long wanderings terminated at Potsdam; nor had Frederic
any associates who deserved or obtained so large a share of his esteem. They
were not only accomplished men, but nobles and warriors, capable of serving him
in war and diplomacy, as well as of amusing him at supper. Alone of all his
companions, they appear never to have had reason to complain of his demeanor
towards them. Some of those who knew the palace best pronounced that the Lord
Marischal was the only human being whom Frederic ever really loved.
Italy sent to the parties at Potsdam the ingenious and amiable Algarotti, and
Bastiani, the most crafty, cautious, and servile of Abbes. But the greater part
of the society which Frederic had assembled round him, was drawn from France.
Maupertuis had acquired some celebrity by the journey which he had made to
Lapland, for the purpose of ascertaining, by actual measurement, the shape of
our planet. He was placed in the chair of the Academy of Berlin, a humble
imitation of the renowned academy of Paris. Baculard D'Arnaud, a young poet, who
was thought to have given promise of great things, had been induced to quit his
country, and to reside at the Prussian Court. The Marquess D'Argens was among
the King's favorite companions, on account, as it should seem, of the strong
opposition between their characters. The parts of D'Argens were good, and his
manners those of a finished French gentleman; but his whole soul was dissolved
in sloth, timidity, and self-indulgence. He was one of that abject class of
minds which are superstitious without being religious. Hating Christianity with
a rancor which made him incapable of rational inquiry, unable to see in the
harmony and beauty of the universe the traces of divine power and wisdom, he was
the slave of dreams and omens, would not sit down to table with thirteen in
company, turned pale if the salt fell towards him, begged his guests not to
cross their knives and forks on their plates, and would not for the world
commence a journey on Friday. His health was a subject of constant anxiety to
him. Whenever his head ached, or his pulse beat quick, his dastardly fears and
effeminate precautions were the jest of all Berlin. All this suited the King's
purpose admirably. He wanted somebody by whom he might be amused, and whom he
might despise. When he wished to pass half an hour in easy polished
conversation, D'Argens was an excellent companion; when he wanted to vent his
spleen and contempt, D'Argens was an excellent butt.
With these associates, and others of the same class, Frederic loved to spend the
time which he could steal from public cares. He wished his supper parties to be
gay and easy. He invited his guests to lay aside all restraint, and to forget
that he was at the head of a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers, and was
absolute master of the life and liberty of ail who sat at meat with him. There
was, therefore, at these parties the outward show of ease. The wit and learning
of the company were ostentatiously displayed. The discussions on history and
literature were often highly interesting. But the absurdity of all the religions
known among men was the chief topic of conversation; and the audacity with which
doctrines and names venerated throughout Christendom were treated on these
occasions startled even persons accustomed to the society of French and English
freethinkers. Real liberty, however, or real affection, was in this brilliant
society not to be found. Absolute kings seldom have friends: and Frederic's
faults were such as, even where perfect equality exists, make friendship
exceedingly precarious. He had indeed many qualities which, on a first
acquaintance were captivating. His conversation was lively; his manners, to
those whom he desired to please, were even caressing. No man could flatter with
more delicacy. No man succeeded more completely in inspiring those who
approached him with vague hopes of some great advantage from his kindness. But
under this fair exterior he was a tyrant, suspicious, disdainful, and
malevolent. He had one taste which may be pardoned in a boy, but which, when
habitually and deliberately indulged by a man of mature age and strong
understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart--a taste for severe
practical jokes. If a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest
suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse more
than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe that he
had the dropsy. If he had particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a
letter was forged to frighten him from going thither. These things, it may be
said, are trifles. They are so; but they are indications, not to be mistaken, of
a nature to which the sight of human suffering and human degradation is an
agreeable excitement.
Frederic had a keen eye for the foibles of others, and loved to communicate his
discoveries. He had some talent for sarcasm, and considerable skill in detecting
the sore places where sarcasm would be most acutely felt. His vanity, as well as
his malignity, found gratification in the vexation and confusion of those who
smarted under his caustic jests. Yet in truth his success on these occasions
belonged quite as much to the king as to the wit. We read that Commodus
descended, sword in hand, into the arena, against a wretched gladiator, armed
only with a foil of lead, and, after shedding the blood of the helpless victim,
struck medals to commemorate the inglorious victory. The triumphs of Frederic in
the war of repartee were of much the same kind. How to deal with him was the
most puzzling of questions. To appear constrained in his presence was to disobey
his commands, and to spoil his amusement. Yet if his associates were enticed by
his graciousness to indulge in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was
certain to make them repent of their presumption by some cruel humiliation. To
resent his affronts was perilous; yet not to resent them was to deserve and to
invite them. In his view, those who mutinied were insolent and ungrateful; those
who submitted were curs made to receive bones and kickings with the same fawning
patience. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive how anything short of the rage of
hunger should have induced men to bear the misery of being the associates of the
Great King. It was no lucrative post. His Majesty was as severe and economical
in his friendships as in the other charges of his establishment, and as unlikely
to give a rixdollar too much for his guests as for his dinners. The sum which he
allowed to a poet or a philosopher was the very smallest sum for which such poet
or philosopher could be induced to sell himself into slavery; and the bondsman
might think himself fortunate, if what had been so grudgingly given was not,
after years of suffering, rudely and arbitrarily withdrawn.
Potsdam was, in truth, what it was called by one of its most illustrious
inmates, the Palace of Alcina, At the first glance it seemed to be a delightful
spot, where every intellectual and physical enjoyment awaited the happy
adventurer. Every newcomer was received with eager hospitality, intoxicated with
flattery, encouraged to expect prosperity and greatness. It was in vain that a
long succession of favorites who had entered that abode with delight and hope,
and who, after a short term of delusive happiness, had been doomed to expiate
their folly by years of wretchedness and degradation, raised their voices to
warn the aspirant who approached the charmed threshold. Some had wisdom enough
to discover the truth early, and spirit enough to fly without looking back;
others lingered on to a cheerless and unhonored old age. We have no hesitation
in saying that the poorest author of that time in London, sleeping on a bulk,
dining in a cellar, with a cravat of paper, and a skewer for a shirt-pin, was a
happier man than any of the literary inmates of Frederic's Court.
But of all who entered the enchanted garden in the inebriation of delight, and
quitted it in agonies of rage and shame, the most remarkable was Voltaire. Many
circumstances had made him desirous of finding a home at a distance from his
country. His fame had raised him up enemies. His sensibility gave them a
formidable advantage over him. They were, indeed, contemptible assailants. Of
all that they wrote against him, nothing has survived except what he has himself
preserved. But the constitution of his mind resembled the constitution of those
bodies in which the slightest scratch of a bramble, or the bite of a gnat, never
fails to fester. Though his reputation was rather raised than lowered by the
abuse of such writers as Freron and Desfontaines, though the vengeance which he
took on Freron and Desfontaines was such, that scourging, branding, pillorying,
would have been a trifle to it, there is reason to believe that they gave him
far more pain than he ever gave them. Though he enjoyed during his own lifetime
the reputation of a classic, though he was extolled by his contemporaries above
all poets, philosophers, and historians, though his works were read with as much
delight and admiration at Moscow and Westminster, at Florence and Stockholm, as
at Paris itself, he was yet tormented by that restless jealousy which should
seem to belong only to minds burning with the desire of fame, and yet conscious
of impotence. To men of letters who could by no possibility be his rivals, he
was, if they behaved well to him, not merely just, not merely courteous, but
often a hearty friend and a munificent benefactor. But to every writer who rose
to a celebrity approaching his own, he became either a disguised or an avowed
enemy. He slily depreciated Montesquieu and Buffon. He publicly, and with
violent outrage, made war on Rousseau. Nor had he the heart of hiding his
feelings under the semblance of good humor or of contempt. With all his great
talents, and all his long experience of the world, he had no more self-command
than a petted child, or a hysterical woman. Whenever he was mortified, he
exhausted the whole rhetoric of anger and sorrow to express his mortification.
His torrents of bitter words, his stamping and cursing, his grimaces and his
tears of rage, were a rich feast to those abject natures, whose delight is in
the agonies of powerful spirits and in the abasement of immortal names. These
creatures had now found out a way of galling him to the very quick. In one walk,
at least, it had been admitted by envy itself that he was without a living
competitor. Since Racine had been laid among the great men whose dust made the
holy precinct of Port-Royal holier, no tragic poet had appeared who could
contest the palm with the author of Zaire, of Alzire, and of Merope. At length a
rival was announced. Old Crebillon, who, many years before, had obtained some
theatrical success, and who had long been forgotten, came forth from his garret
in one of the meanest lanes near the Rue St. Antoine, and was welcomed by the
acclamations of envious men of letters, and of a capricious populace. A thing
called Catiline, which he had written in his retirement, was acted with
boundless applause. Of this execrable piece it is sufficient to say, that the
plot turns on a love affair, carried on in all the forms of Scudery, between
Catiline, whose confidant is the Praetor Lentulus, and Tullia, the daughter of
Cicero. The theatre resounded with acclamations. The King pensioned the
successful poet; and the coffee-houses pronounced that Voltaire was a clever
man, but that the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire which had glowed
in Corneille and Racine, was to be found in Crebillon alone.
The blow went to Voltaire's heart. Had his wisdom and fortitude been in
proportion to the fertility of his intellect, and to the brilliancy of his wit,
he would have seen that it was out of the power of all the puffers and
detractors in Europe to put Catiline above Zaire; but he had none of the
magnanimous patience with which Milton and Bentley left their claims to the
unerring judgment of time. He eagerly engaged in an undignified competition with
Crebillon, and produced a series of plays on the same subjects which his rival
had treated. These pieces were coolly received. Angry with the court, angry with
the capital, Voltaire began to find pleasure in the prospect of exile. His
attachment for Madame du Chatelet long prevented him from executing his purpose.
Her death set him at liberty; and he determined to take refuge at Berlin.
To Berlin he was invited by a series of letters, couched in terms of the most
enthusiastic friendship and admiration. For once the rigid parsimony of Frederic
seemed to have relaxed. Orders, honorable offices, a liberal pension, a
well-served table, stately apartments under a royal roof, were offered in return
for the pleasure and honor which were expected from the society of the first wit
of the age. A thousand louis were remitted for the charges of the journey. No
ambassador setting out from Berlin for a court of the first rank, had ever been
more amply supplied. But Voltaire was not satisfied. At a later period, when he
possessed an ample fortune, he was one of the most liberal of men; but till his
means had become equal to his wishes, his greediness for lucre was unrestrained
either by justice or by shame. He had the effrontery to ask for a thousand louis
more, in order to enable him to bring his niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of
coquettes, in his company. The indelicate rapacity of the poet produced its
natural effect on the severe and frugal King. The answer was a dry refusal. "I
did not," said his Majesty, "solicit the honor of the lady's society." On this,
Voltaire went off into a paroxysm of childish rage. "Was there ever such
avarice? He has hundreds of tubs full of dollars in his vaults, and haggles with
me about a poor thousand louis." It seemed that the negotiation would be broken
off; but Frederic, with great dexterity, affected indifference, and seemed
inclined to transfer his idolatry to Baculard D'Arnaud. His Majesty even wrote
some bad verses, of which the sense was, that Voltaire was a setting sun, and
that D'Arnaud was rising. Good-natured friends soon carried the lines to
Voltaire. He was in his bed. He jumped out in his shirt, danced about the room
with rage, and sent for his passport and his post-horses. It was not difficult
to foresee the end of a connection which had such a beginning.
It was in the year 1750 that Voltaire left the great capital, which he was not
to see again till, after the lapse of near thirty years, he returned bowed down
by extreme old age, to die in the midst of a splendid and ghastly triumph. His
reception in Prussia was such as might well have elated a less vain and
excitable mind. He wrote to his friends at Paris, that the kindness and the
attention with which he had been welcomed surpassed description, that the King
was the most amiable of men, that Potsdam was the paradise of philosophers. He
was created chamberlain, and received, together with his gold key, the cross of
an order, and a patent ensuring to him a pension of eight hundred pounds
sterling a year for life. A hundred and sixty pounds a year were promised to his
niece if she survived him. The royal cooks and coachmen were put at his
disposal. He was lodged in the same apartments in which Saxe had lived, when, at
the height of power and glory, he visited Prussia. Frederic, indeed, stooped for
a time even to use the language of adulation. He pressed to his lips the meager
hand of the little grinning skeleton, whom he regarded as the dispenser of
immortal renown. He would add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his
ancestors and his sword, another title, derived from his last and proudest
acquisition. His style should run thus: Frederic, King of Prussia, Margrave of
Brandenburg, Sovereign Duke of Silesia, Possessor of Voltaire. But even amidst
the delights of the honeymoon, Voltaire's sensitive vanity began to take alarm.
A few days after his arrival, he could not help telling his niece that the
amiable King had a trick of giving a sly scratch with one hand while patting and
stroking with the other. Soon came hints not the less alarming, because
mysterious. "The supper parties are delicious. The King is the life of the
company. But--I have operas and comedies, reviews and concerts, my studies and
books. But--but--Berlin is fine, the princesses charming, the maids of honor
handsome. But--"
This eccentric friendship was fast cooling. Never had there met two persons so
exquisitely fitted to plague each other. Each of them had exactly the fault of
which the other was most impatient; and they were, in different ways, the most
impatient of mankind. Frederic was frugal, almost niggardly. When he had secured
his plaything he began to think that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the
other hand, was greedy, even to the extent of imprudence and knavery; and
conceived that the favorite of a monarch who had barrels full of gold and silver
laid up in cellars ought to make a fortune which a receiver-general might envy.
They soon discovered each other's feelings. Both were angry; and a war began, in
which Frederic stooped to the part of Harpagon, and Voltaire to that of Scapin.
It is humiliating to relate, that the great warrior and statesman gave orders
that his guest's allowance of sugar and chocolate should be curtailed. It is, if
possible, a still more humiliating fact, that Voltaire indemnified himself by
pocketing the wax candles in the royal antechamber. Disputes about money,
however, were not the most serious disputes of these extraordinary associates.
The sarcasms of the King soon galled the sensitive temper of the poet. D'Arnaud
and D'Argens, Guichard and La Metrie, might, for the sake of a morsel of bread,
be willing to bear the insolence of a master; but Voltaire was of another order.
He knew that he was a potentate as well as Frederic, that his European
reputation, and his incomparable power of covering whatever he hated with
ridicule, made him an object of dread even to the leaders of armies and the
rulers of nations. In truth, of all the intellectual weapons which have ever
been wielded by man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and
tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailing and cursing of millions, turned
pale at his name. Principles unassailable by reason, principles which had
withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the most valuable truths, the most
generous sentiments, the noblest and most graceful images, the purest
reputations, the most august institutions, began to look mean and loathsome as
soon as that withering smile was turned upon them. To every opponent, however
strong in his cause and his talents, in his station and his character, who
ventured to encounter the great scoffer, might be addressed the caution which
was given of old to the Archangel:
"I forewarn thee, shun His deadly arrow: neither vainly hope To be invulnerable
in those bright arms, Though temper'd heavenly; for that fatal dint, Save Him
who reigns above, none can resist."
We cannot pause to recount how often that rare talent was exercised against
rivals worthy of esteem; how often it was used to crush and torture enemies
worthy only of silent disdain; how often it was perverted to the more noxious
purpose of destroying the last solace of earthly misery, and the last restraint
on earthly power. Neither can we pause to tell how often it was used to
vindicate justice, humanity, and toleration, the principles of sound philosophy,
the principles of free government. This is not the place for a full character of
Voltaire.
Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, who, partly from love of money, and
partly from love of excitement, was always fond of stock-jobbing, became
implicated in transactions of at least a dubious character. The King was
delighted at having such an opportunity to humble his guest; and bitter
reproaches and complaints were exchanged. Voltaire, too, was soon at war with
the other men of letters who surrounded the King; and this irritated Frederic,
who, however, had himself chiefly to blame: for, from that love of tormenting
which was in him a ruling passion, he perpetually lavished extravagant praises
on small men and bad books, merely in order that he might enjoy the
mortification and rage which on such occasions Voltaire took no pains to
conceal. His Majesty, however, soon had reason to regret the pains which he had
taken to kindle jealousy among the members of his household. The whole palace
was in a ferment with literary intrigues and cabals. It was to no purpose that
the imperial voice, which kept a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers in order,
was raised to quiet the contention of the exasperated wits. It was far easier to
stir up such a storm than to lull it. Nor was Frederic, in his capacity of wit,
by any means without his own share of vexations. He had sent a large quantity of
verses to Voltaire, and requested that they might be returned, with remarks and
corrections. "See," exclaimed Voltaire, "what a quantity of his dirty linen the
King has sent me to wash!" Talebearers were not wanting to carry the sarcasm to
the royal ear; and Frederic was as much incensed as a Grub Street writer who had
found his name in the Dunciad.
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