_ BOOK XVI. THE TEN YEARS OF PEACE.--1746-1756
(Chapter IX cont.)
__DETACHED FEATURES (NOT FABULOUS) OF VOLTAIRE AND HIS BERLIN-POTSDAM ENVIRONMENT IN 1751-1752
To the outside crowd of observers, and to himself in good moments, Voltaire represents his situation as the finest in the world:--
"Potsdam is Sparta and Athens joined in one; nothing but reviewing and poetry day by day. The Algarottis, the Maupertuises, are here; have each his work, serious for himself; then gay Supper with a King, who is a great man and the soul of good company."... Sparta and Athens, I tell you: "a Camp of Mars and the Garden of Epicurus; trumpets and violins, War and Philosophy. I have my time all to myself; am at Court and in freedom,--if I were not entirely free, neither an enormous Pension, nor a Gold Key tearing out one's pocket, nor a halter (LICOU), which they call CORDON of an ORDER, nor even the Suppers with a Philosopher who has gained Five Battles, could yield me the least happiness." [--OEuvres,--lxxiv. 325, 326, 333 (Letters, to D'Argental and others, "27th April-8th May, 1751").] Looked at by you, my outside friends,--ah, had I health and YOU here, what a situation!
But seen from within, it is far otherwise. Alongside of these warblings of a heart grateful to the first of Kings, there goes on a series of utterances to Niece Denis, remarkable for the misery driven into meanness, that can be read in them. Ill-health, discontent, vague terror, suspicion that dare not go to sleep; a strange vague terror, shapeless or taking all shapes--a body diseased and a mind diseased. Fear, quaking continually for nothing at all, is not to be borne in a handsome manner. And it passes, often enough (in these poor LETTERS), into transient malignity, into gusts of trembling hatred, with a tendency to relieve oneself by private scandal of the house we are in. Seldom was a miserabler wrong-side seen to a bit of royal tapestry. A man hunted by the little devils that dwell unchained within himself; like Pentheus by the Maenads, like Actaeon by his own Dogs. Nay, without devils, with only those terrible bowels of mine, and scorbutic gums, it is bad enough: "Glorious promotions to me here," sneers he bitterly; "but one thing is indisputable, I have lost seven of my poor residue of teeth since I came!" In truth, we are in a sadly scorbutic state; and that, and the devils we lodge within ourselves, is the one real evil. Could not Suspicion--why cannot she!--take her natural rest; and all these terrors vanish? Oh, M. de Voltaire!--The practical purport, to Niece Denis, always is: Keep my retreat to Paris open; in the name of Heaven, no obstruction that way!
Miserable indeed; a man fatally unfit for his present element! But he has Two considerable Sedatives, all along; two, and no third visible to me. Sedative FIRST: that, he can, at any time, quit this illustrious Tartarus-Elysium, the envy of mankind;--and indeed, practically, he is always as if on the slip; thinking to be off shortly, for a time, or in permanence; can be off at once, if things grow too bad. Sedative SECOND is far better: His own labor on LOUIS QUATORZE, which is steadily going on, and must have been a potent quietus in those Court-whirlwinds inward and outward.
From Berlin, already in Autumn, 1750, Voltaire writes to D'Argental: "I sha'n't go to Italy this Autumn [nor ever in my life], as I had projected. But I will come to see YOU in the course of November" (far from it, I got into STEUER-SCHEINE then!)--And again, after some weeks: "I have put off my journey to Italy for a year. Next Winter too, therefore, I shall see you," on the road thither. "To my Country, since you live in it, I will make frequent visits," very!" Italy and the King of Prussia are two old passions with me; but I cannot treat Frederic-le-Grand as I can the Holy Father, with a mere look in passing." [To D'Argental, "Berlin, 14th September,--Potsdam, 15th October, 1750" (--OEuvres,--lxxiv. 220, 237).] Let this one, to which many might be added, serve as sample of Sedative First, or the power and intention to be off before long.
In regard to Sedative Second, again:... "The happiest circumstance is, brought with me all my LOUIS-FOURTEENTH Papers and Excerpts. 'I get from Leipzig, if no nearer, whatever Books are needed;'" and labor faithfully at this immortal Production. Yes, day by day, to see growing, by the cunning of one's own right hand, such perennial Solomon's-Temple of a SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE:--which of your Kings, or truculent, Tiglath-Pilesers, could do that? To poor me, even in the Potsdam tempests, it is possible: what ugliest day is not beautiful that sees a stone or two added there!--Daily Voltaire sees himself at work on his SIECLE, on those fine terms; trowel in one hand, weapon of war in the other. And does actually accomplish it, in the course of this Year 1751,--with a great deal of punctuality and severe painstaking; which readers of our day, fallen careless of the subject, are little aware of, on Voltaire's behalf. Voltaire's reward was, that he did NOT go mad in that Berlin element, but had throughout a bower-anchor to ride by. "The King of France continues me as Gentleman of the Chamber, say you; but has taken away my Title of Historiographer? That latter, however, shall still be my function. 'My present independence has given weight to my verdicts on matters. Probably I never could have written this Book at Paris.' A consolation for one's exile, MON ENFANT." [To Niece Denis (--OEuvres,--lxxiv. 247, &c. &c.), "28th October, 1750," and subsequent dates.]
It is proper also to observe that, besides shining at the King's Suppers like no other, Voltaire applies himself honestly to do for his Majesty the small work required of him,--that of Verse-correcting now and then. Two Specimens exist; two Pieces criticised, ODE AUX PRUSSIENS, and THE ART OF WAR: portions of that Reprint now going on ("to the extent of Twelve Copies,"--woe lies in one of them, most unexpected at this time!) "AU DONJON DU CHATEAU;"--under benefit of Voltaire's remarks. Which one reads curiously, not without some surprise. [In--OEuvres de Frederic,--x. 276-303.] Surprise, first at Voltaire's official fidelity; his frankness, rigorous strictness in this small duty: then at the kind of correcting, instructing and lessoning, that had been demanded of him by his Royal Pupil. Mere grammatical stylistic skin-deep work: nothing (or, at least, in these Specimens nothing) of attempt upon the interior structure, or the interior harmony even of utterance: solely the Parisian niceties, graces, laws of poetic language, the FAS and the NEFAS in regard to all that: this is what his Majesty would fain be taught from the fountain-head;--one wonders his Majesty did not learn to spell, which might have been got from a lower source!--And all this Voltaire does teach with great strictness. For example, in the very first line, in the very first word, set, before him:--
"PRUSSIENS, QUE LA VALEUR CONDUISIT A LA GLOIRE," so Friedrich had written (ODE AUX PRUSSIENS, which is specimen First); and thus Voltaire criticises: "The Hero here makes his PRUSSIENS of two syllables; and afterwards, in another strophe, he grants them three. A King is master of his favors. At the same time, one does require a little uniformity; and the IENS are usually of two syllables, as LIENS, SILESIENS, AUTRICHIENS; excepting the monosyllables BIEN, RIEN"--Enough, enough!--A severe, punctual, painstaking Voltaire, sitting with the schoolmaster's bonnet on head; ferula visible, if not actually in hand. For which, as appears, his Majesty was very grateful to the Trismegistus of men.
Voltaire's flatteries to Friedrich, in those scattered little Billets with their snatches of verse, are the prettiest in the world,--and approach very near to sincerity, though seldom quite attaining it. Something traceable of false, of suspicious, feline, nearly always, in those seductive warblings; which otherwise are the most melodious bits of idle ingenuity the human brain has ever spun from itself. For instance, this heading of a Note sent from one room to another,--perhaps with pieces of an ODE AUX PRUSSIENS accompanying:--
--"Vou gui daignez me departir
Les fruits d'une Muse divine,
O roi! je ne puis consentir
Que, sans daigner m'en avertir,
Vous alliez prendre medecine.
Je suis votre malade-ne,
Et sur la casse et le sene,
J'ai des notions non communes.
Nous sommes de mene metier;
Faut-il de moi vous defier,
Et cacher vos bonnes fortunes?"--
Was there ever such a turn given to taking physic! Still better is this other, the topic worse,--HAEMORRHOIDS (a kind of annual or periodical affair with the Royal Patient, who used to feel improved after):--
... (Ten or twelve verses on another point; then suddenly--)
--"Que la veine hemorroidale
De votre personne royale
Cesse de troubler le repos!
Quand pourrai-je d'une style honnete
Dire: 'Le cul de mon heros
Va tout aussi bien que sa tete'?"--
[In--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 283, 267.]
A kittenish grace in these things, which is pleasant in so old a cat.
Smelfungus says: "He is a consummate Artist in Speech, our Voltaire: that, if you take the word SPEECH in its widest sense, and consider the much that can be spoken, and the infinitely more that cannot and should not, is Voltaire's supreme excellency among his fellow-creatures; never rivalled (to my poor judgment) anywhere before or since,--nor worth rivalling, if we knew it well."
Another fine circumstance is, that Voltaire has frequent leave of absence; and in effect passes a great deal of his time altogether by himself, or in his own way otherwise. What with Friedrich's Review Journeys and Business Circuits, considerable separations do occur of themselves; and at any time, Voltaire has but to plead illness, which he often does; with ground and without, and get away for weeks, safe into the distance more or less remote. He is at the Marquisat (as we laboriously make out); at Berlin, in the empty Palace, perhaps in Lodgings of his own (though one would prefer the GRATIS method); nursing his maladies, which are many; writing his LOUIS QUATORZE; "lonely altogether, your Majesty, and sad of humor,"--yet giving his cosy little dinners, and running out, pretty often, if well invited, into the brilliancies and gayeties. No want of brilliant social life here, which can shine, more or less, and appreciate one's shining. The King's Supper-parties--Yes, and these, though the brightest, are not the only bright things in our Potsdam-Berlin world. Take with you, reader, one or two of the then and there Chief Figures; Voltaire's fellow-players; strutting and fretting their hour on that Stage of Life. They are mostly not quite strangers to you.
We know the sublime Perpetual President in his red wig, and sublime supremacy of Pure Science. A gloomy set figure; affecting the sententious, the emphatic and a composed impregnability,--like the Jove of Science. With immensities of gloomy vanity, not compressible at all times. Friedrich always strove to honor his Perpetual President, and duly adore the Pure Sciences in him; but inwardly could not quite manage it, though outwardly he failed in nothing. Impartial witnesses confess, the King had a great deal of trouble with his gloomings and him. "Who is this Voltaire?" gloomily thinks the Perpetual President to himself. "A fellow with a nimble tongue, that is all. Knows nothing whatever of Pure Sciences, except what fraction or tincture he has begged or stolen from myself. And here is the King of the world in raptures with him!"
Voltaire from of old had faithfully done his kowtows to this King of the Sciences; and, with a sort of terror, had suffered with incredible patience a great deal from him. But there comes an end to all things; Voltaire's patience not excepted. It lay in the fates that Maupertuis should steadily accumulate, day after day, and now more than ever heretofore, upon the sensitive Voltaire. Till, as will be seen, the sensitive Voltaire could endure it no longer; but had to explode upon this big Bully (accident lending a spark); to go off like a Vesuvius of crackers, fire-serpents and sky-rockets; envelop the red wig, and much else, in delirious conflagration;--and produce the catastrophe of this Berlin Drama.
D'Argens, poor dissolute creature, is the best of the French lot. He has married, after so many temporary marriages with Actresses, one Actress in permanence, Mamsell Cochois, a patient kind being; and settled now, at Potsdam here, into perfectly composed household life. Really loves Friedrich, they say; the only Frenchman of them that does. Has abundance of light sputtery wit, and Provencal fire and ingenuity; no ill-nature against any man. Never injures anybody, nor lies at all about anything. A great friend of fine weather; regrets, of his inheritances in Provence, chiefly one item, and this not overmuch,--the bright southern sun. Sits shivering in winter-time, wrapping himself in more and more flannel, two dressing-gowns, two nightcaps:--loyal to this King, in good times and in evil.
Was the King's friend for thirty years; helped several meritorious people to his Majesty's notice; and never did any man a mischief in that quarter. An erect, guileless figure; very tall; with vivid countenance, chaotically vivid mind: full of bright sallies, irregular ingenuities; had a hot temper too, which did not often run away with him, but sometimes did. He thrice made a visit to Provence,--in fact ran away from the King, feeling bantered and roasted to a merciless degree,--but thrice came back. "At the end of the first stage, he had always privately forgiven the King, and determined that the pretended visit should really be a visit only." "Reads the King's Letters," which are many to him, "always bare-headed, in spite of the draughts!" [Nicolai,--Anekdoten,--i. 11-75, &c. &c.]
Algarotti is too prudent, politely egoistic and self-contained, to take the trouble of hurting anybody, or get himself into trouble for love or hatred. He fell into disfavor not long after that unsuccessful little mission in the first Silesian War, of which the reader has lost remembrance. Good for nothing in diplomacy, thought Friedrich, but agreeable as company. "Company in tents, in the seat of War, has its unpleasantness," thought Algarotti;--and began very privately sounding the waters at Dresden for an eligible situation; so that there has ensued a quarrel since; then humble apologies followed by profound silence,--till now there is reconcilement. It is admitted Friedrich had some real love for Algarotti; Algarotti, as we gather, none at all for him; but only for his greatness. They parted again (February, 1753) without quarrel, but for the last time; [Algarotti-Correspondence (--OEuvres de Frederic,--xviii. 86).]--and I confess to a relief on the occasion.
Friedrich, readers know by this time, had a great appetite for conversation: he talked well, listened well; one of his chief enjoyments was, to give and receive from his fellow-creatures in that way. I hope, and indeed have evidence, that he required good sense as the staple; but in the form, he allowed great latitude. He by no means affected solemnity, rather the reverse; goes much upon the bantering vein; far too much, according to the complaining parties. Took pleasure (cruel mortal!) in stirring up his company by the whip, and even by the whip applied to RAWS; for we find he had "established," like the Dublin Hackney-Coachman, "raws for himself;" and habitually plied his implement there, when desirous to get into the gallop. In an inhuman manner, said the suffering Cattle; who used to rebel against it, and go off in the sulks from time to time. It is certain he could, especially in his younger years, put up with a great deal of zanyism, ingenious foolery and rough tumbling, if it had any basis to tumble on; though with years he became more saturnine.
By far his chief Artist in this kind, indeed properly the only one, was La Mettrie, whom we once saw transiently as Army-Surgeon at Fontenoy: he is now out of all that (flung out, with the dogs at his heels); has been safe in Berlin for three years past. Friedrich not only tolerates the poor madcap, but takes some pleasure in him: madcap we say, though poor La Mettrie had remarkable gifts, exuberant laughter one of them, and was far from intending to be mad. Not Zanyism, but Wisdom of the highest nature, was what he drove at,--unluckily, with open mouth, and mind all in tumult. La Mettrie had left the Army, soon after that busy Fontenoy evening: Chivalrous Grammont, his patron and protector, who had saved him from many scrapes, lay shot on the field. La Mettrie, rushing on with mouth open and mind in tumult, had, from of old, been continually getting into scrapes. Unorthodox to a degree; the Sorbonne greedy for him long since; such his audacities in print, his heavy hits, boisterous, quizzical, logical. And now he had set to attacking the Medical Faculty, to quizzing Medicine in his wild way; Doctor Astruc, Doctor This and That, of the first celebrity, taking it very ill. So that La Mettrie had to demit; to get out of France rather in a hurry, lest worse befell.
He had studied at Leyden, under Boerhaave. He had in fact considerable medical and other talent, had he not been so tumultuous and open-mouthed. He fled to Leyden; and shot forth, in safety there, his fiery darts upon Sorbonne and Faculty, at his own discretion,--which was always a MINIMUM quantity:--he had, before long, made Leyden also too hot for him. His Books gained a kind of celebrity in the world; awoke laughter and attention, among the adventurous of readers; astonishment at the blazing madcap (a BON DIABLE, too, as one could see); and are still known to Catalogue-makers,--though, with one exception, L'HOMME MACHINE, not otherwise, nor read at all. L'HOMME MACHINE (Man a Machine) is the exceptional Book; smallest of Duodecimos to have so much wildfire in it, This MAN A MACHINE, though tumultuous La Mettrie meant nothing but open-mouthed Wisdom by it, gave scandal in abundance; so that even the Leyden Magistrates were scandalized; and had to burn the afflicting little Duodecimo by the common hangman, and order La Mettrie to disappear instantly from their City.
Which he had to do,--towards King Friedrich, usual refuge of the persecuted; seldom inexorable, where there was worth, even under bad forms, recognizable; and not a friend to burning poor men or their books, if it could be helped. La Mettrie got some post, like D'Arget's, or still more nominal; "readership;" some small pension to live upon; and shelter to shoot forth his wildfire, when he could hold it no longer: fire, not of a malignant incendiary kind, but pleasantly lambent, though maddish, as Friedrich perceived. Thus had La Mettrie found a Goshen;--and stood in considerable favor, at Court and in Berlin Society in the years now current. According to Nicolai, Friedrich never esteemed La Mettrie, which is easy to believe, but found him a jester and ingenious madcap, out of whom a great deal of merriment could be had, over wine or the like. To judge by Nicolai's authentic specimen, their Colloquies ran sometimes pretty deep into the cynical, under showers of wildfire playing about; and the high-jinks must have been highish. [--Anekdoten,--vi. 197-227.] When there had been enough of this, Friedrich would lend his La Mettrie to the French Excellency, Milord Tyrconnel, to oblige his Excellency, and get La Mettrie out of the way for a while. Milord is at Berlin; a Jacobite Irishman, of blusterous Irish qualities, though with plenty of sagacity and rough sense; likes La Mettrie; and is not much a favorite with Friedrich.
Tyrconnel had said, at first,--when Rothenburg, privately from Friedrich, came to consult him, "What are, in practical form, those 'assistances from the Most Christian Majesty,' should we MAKE Alliance with him, as your Excellency proposes, and chance to be attacked?"--"MORBLEU, assistance enough [enumerating several]: MAIS MORBLEU, SI VOUS NOUS TROMPEX, VOUS SEREZ ECRASES (if you deceive us, you will be squelched)!" [Valori, ii. 130, &c.] "He had been chosen for his rough tongue," says Valori; our French Court being piqued at Friedrich and his sarcasms. Tyrconnel gives splendid dinners: Voltaire often of them; does not love Potsdam, nor is loved by it. Nay, I sometimes think a certain DEMON NEWSWRITER (of whom by and by), but do not know, may be some hungry Attache of Tyrconnel's. Hungry Attache, shut out from the divine Suppers and upper planetary movements, and reduced to look on them from his cold hutch, in a dog-like angry and hungry manner? His flying allusions to Voltaire, "SON (Friedrich's) SQUELETTE D'APOLLON, skeleton of an Apollo," and the like, are barkings almost rabid.
Of the military sort, about this time, Keith and Rothenburg appear most frequently as guests or companions. Rothenburg had a great deal of Friedrich's regard: Winterfeld is more a practical Counseller, and does not shine in learned circles, as Rothenburg may. A fiery soldier too, this Rothenburg, withal;--a man probably of many talents and qualities, though of distinctly decipherable there is next to no record of him or them. He had a Parisian Wife; who is sometimes on the point of coming with Niece Denis to Berlin, and of setting up their two French households there; but never did it, either of them, to make an Uncle or a Husband happy. Rothenburg was bred a Catholic: "he headed the subscription for the famous 'KATHOLISCHE KIRCHE,'" so delightful to the Pope and liberal Christians in those years; "but never gave a sixpence of money," says Voltaire once: Catholic KIRK was got completed with difficulty; stands there yet, like a large washbowl set, bottom uppermost, on the top of a narrowish tub; but none of Rothenburg's money is in it. In Voltaire's Correspondence there is frequent mention of him; not with any love, but with a certain secret respect, rather inclined to be disrespectful, if it durst or could: the eloquent vocal individual not quite at ease beside the more silent thinking and acting one. What we know is, Friedrich greatly loved the man. There is some straggle of CORRESPONDENCE between Friedrich and him left; but it is worth nothing; gives no testimony of that, or of anything else noticeable:--and that is the one fact now almost alone significant of Rothenburg. Much loved and esteemed by the King; employed diplomatically, now and then; perhaps talked with on such subjects, which was the highest distinction. Poor man, he is in very bad health in these months; has never rightly recovered of his wounds; and dies in the last days of 1751,--to the bitter sorrow of the King, as is still on record. A highly respectable dim figure, far more important in Friedrich's History than he looks. As King's guest, he can in these months play no part.
Highly respectable too, and well worth talking to, though left very dim to us in the Books, is Marshal Keith; who has been growing gradually with the King, and with everybody, ever since he came to these parts in 1747. A man of Scotch type; the broad accent, with its sagacities, veracities, with its steadfastly fixed moderation, and its sly twinkles of defensive humor, is still audible to us through the foreign wrappages. Not given to talk, unless there is something to be said; but well capable of it then. Friedrich, the more he knows him, likes him the better. On all manner of subjects he can talk knowingly, and with insight of his own. On Russian matters Friedrich likes especially to hear him,--though they differ in regard to the worth of Russian troops. "Very considerable military qualities in those Russians," thinks Keith: "imperturbably obedient, patient; of a tough fibre, and are beautifully strict to your order, on the parade-ground or off." "Pooh, mere rubbish, MON CHER," thinks Friedrich always. To which Keith, unwilling to argue too long, will answer: "Well, it is possible enough your Majesty may try them, some day; if I am wrong, it will be all the better for us!" Which Friedrich had occasion to remember by and by. Friedrich greatly respects this sagacious gentleman with the broad accent: his Brother, the Lord Marischal, is now in France: Ambassador at Paris, since September, 1751: ["Left Potsdam 28th August" (Rodenbeck, i. 220).] "Lord Marischal, a Jacobite, for Prussian Ambassador in Paris; Tyrconnel, a Jacobite, for French Ambassador in Berlin!" grumble the English. _