"ANSWER FROM [VERY PRIVATELY VOLTAIRE, CALLING HIMSELF] A BERLIN ACADEMICIAN TO A PARIS ONE.
"BERLIN, 18th SEPTEMBER, 1752. This is the exact truth, in reply to your inquiry. M. Moreau de Maupertuis in a Pamphlet entitled ESSAI DE COSMOLOGIE, pretended that the only proof of the Existence of God is the circumstance that AR+nRB is a Minimum. [ONLY proof:^??????^ (p.212 Book XVI) VOILA!] He asserts that in all possible cases, 'Action is a Minimum,' what has been demonstrated false; and he says, 'He discovered this Law of Minimum,' what is not less false.
"M. Konig, as well as other Mathematicians, wrote against this strange assertion; and, among other things, M. Konig cited some sentences of a Letter by Leibnitz, in which that great man says, He has observed 'that, in the modifications of motion, the Action usually becomes either a Maximum or else a Minimum.'
"M. Moreau de Maupertuis imagined that, by producing this Fragment, it had been intended to snatch from him the glory of his pretended discovery,—though Leibnitz says precisely the contrary of what he advances. He forced some pensioned members of the Academy, who are dependent on him, to summon M. Konig"—As we know too well; and cannot bear to have repeated to us, even in the briefest and spiciest form!"Sentence (JUGEMENT) on M. Konig, which declares him guilty of having assaulted the glory of the Sieur Moreau Maupertuis by FORGING a Leibnitz Letter.—Wrote then, and made write, to her Serene Highness the Princess of Orange, who was indignant at so insolent"—... and in fine,
"Thus the Sieur Moreau Maupertuis has been convicted, in the face of Scientific Europe, not only of plagiarism and blunder, but of having abused his place to suppress free discussion, and to persecute an honest man who had no crime but that of not being of his opinion. Several members of our Academy have protested against so crying a procedure; and would leave the Academy, were it not for fear of displeasing the King, who is protector of it." [—OEuvres de Voltaire,—lxiii. 227 (in—Maupertuisiana,—No. xvi).]
King Friedrich's position, in the middle of all this, was becoming uncomfortable. Of the controversy he understood, or cared to understand, nothing; had to believe steadily that his Academy must be right; that Konig was some loose bird, envious of an eagle Maupertuis, sitting aloft on his high Academic perch: this Friedrich took for the truth of the matter;—and could not let himself imagine that his sublime Perpetual President, who was usually very prudent and Jove-like, had been led, by his truculent vanity (which Friedrich knew to be immense in the man, though kept well out of sight), into such playing of fantastic tricks before high Heaven and other on-lookers. This view of the matter had hitherto been Friedrich's; nor do I know that he ever inwardly departed from it;—as outwardly he, for certain, never did; standing, King-like, clear always for his Perpetual President, till this hurricane of Pamphlets blew by. Voltaire's little Piece, therefore, was the unwelcomest possible.
This new bolt of electric fire, launched upon the storm-tost President from Berlin itself, and even from the King's House itself,—by whom, too clearly recognizable,—what an irritating thing! Unseemly, in fact, on Voltaire's part; but could not be helped by a Voltaire charged with electricity. Friedrich evidently in considerable indignation, finding that public measures would but worsen the uproar, took pen in hand; wrote rapidly the indignant LETTER FROM AN ACADEMICIAN OF BERLIN TO AN ACADEMICIAN OF PARIS: [—OEuvres de Frederic,—xv. 59-64 (not dated; datable "October, 1752").] which Piece, of some length, we cannot give here; but will briefly describe as manifesting no real knowledge of the LAW-OF-THRIFT Controversy; but as taking the above loose view of it, and as directed principally against "the pretended Member of our Academy" (mischievous Voltaire, to wit), whom it characterizes as "such a manifest retailer of lies," a "concocter of stupid libels:" "have you ever seen an action more malicious, more dastardly, more infamous?"—and other hard terms, the hardest he can find. This is the privilege of anonymity, on both sides of it.
But imagine now a King and his Voltaire doing witty discourse over their Supper of the gods (as, on the set days, is duly the case); with such a consciousness, burning like Bude light, though close veiled, on the part of Host and Guest! The Friedrich-Voltaire relation is evidently under sore stress of weather, in those winter-autumn months of 1752,—brown leaves, splashy rains and winds moaning outwardly withal. And, alas, the irrepressibly electric Voltaire, still far from having ended, still only just beginning his Anti-Maupertuis discharges, has, in the interim, privately got his DOCTOR AKAKIA ready. Compared to which, the former missile is as a popgun to a park of artillery shotted with old nails and broken glass!—Such a constraint, at the Royal dinner-table, amid wine and wit, could not continue. The credible account is, it soon cracked asunder; and, after the conceivable sputterings, sparklings and flashings of various complexion, issued in lambent airs of "tacit mutual understanding; and in reading of AKAKIA together,—with peals of laughter from the King," as the common French Biographers assert.
"Readers know AKAKIA," [DIATRIBE DU DOCTEUR AKAKIA (in Voltaire,—OEuvres,—lxi. 19-62).] says Smelfungus: "it is one of the famous feats of Satirical Pyrotechny; only too pleasant to the corrupt Race of Adam! There is not much, or indeed anything, of true poetic humor in it: but there is a gayety of malice, a dexterity, felicity, inexhaustibility of laughing mockery and light banter, capable of driving a Perpetual President delirious. What an Explosion of glass-crackers, fire-balls, flaming-serpents;—generally, of sleeping gunpowder, in its most artistic forms,—flaming out sky-high over all the Parish, on a sudden! The almost-sublime of Maupertuis, which exists in large quantities, here is a new artist who knows how to treat it. The engineer of the Sublime (always painfully engineering thitherward without effect),—an engineer of the Comic steps in on him, blows him up with his own petards in a most unexampled manner. Not an owlery has that poor Maupertuis, in the struggle to be sublime (often nearly successful, but never once quite), happened to drop from him, but Voltaire picks it up; manipulates it, reduces it to the sublimely ridiculous; lodges it, in the form of burning dust, about the head of MON PRESIDENT. Needless to say of the Comic engineer that he is unfair, perversely exaggerative, reiterative, on the owleries of poor Maupertuis;—it is his function to BE all that. Clever, but wrong, do you say? Well, yes:—and yet the ridiculous does require ridicule; wise Nature has silently so ordered. And if ever truculent President in red wig, with his absurd truculences, tyrannies and perpetual struggles after the sublime, did deserve to be exploded in laughter, it could not have been more consummately done;—though perversely always, as must be owned.
"'The hole bored through the Earth,' for instance: really, one sometimes reflects on such a thing; How you would see daylight, and the antipodal gentleman (if he bent a little over) foot to foot; how a little stone flung into it would exactly (but for air and friction) reach the other side of the world; would then, in a computable few moments, come back quiescent to your hand, and so continue forevermore;—with other the like uncriminal fancies.
"'The Latin Town,' again: truly, if learning the Ancient Languages be human Education, it might, with a Greek Ditto, supersede the Universities, and prove excellently serviceable in our struggle Heavenward by that particular route. I can assure M. de Voltaire, it was once practically proposed to this King's Great-grandfather, the Grosse Kurfurst;—who looked into it, with face puckered to the intensest, in his great care for furtherance of the Terrestrial Sciences and Wisdoms; but forbore for that time. [Minute details about it in Stenzel, ii. 234-238; who quotes "Erman" (a poor old friend of ours) "SUR LE PROJET D'UNE VILLE SAVANTE DANS LE BRANDEBOURG (Berlin, 1792):" date of the Project was 1667.] Then as to 'Dissecting the Brains of Patagonians;' what harm, if you can get them gross enough? And as to that of (exalting your mind to predict the future,' does not, in fact, man look BEFORE and AFTER; are not Memory and (in a small degree) Prophecy the Two Faculties he has?
"These things—which are mostly to be found in the 'LETTRES DE MAUPERTUIS' (Dresden, 1752, then a brand-new Book), but are now clipt out from the Maupertuis Treatises—we can fancy to be almost sublimities.—Almost, unfortunately not altogether. And then there is such a Sisyphus-effort visible in dragging them aloft so far: and the nimble wicked Voltaire so seizes his moment, trips poor Sisyphus; and sends him down, heels-over-head, in a torrent of roaring debris! 'From gradual transpiration of our vital force comes Death; which perhaps, by precautions, might be indefinitely retarded,' says Maupertuis. 'Yes, truly,' answers the other: 'if we got ourselves japanned, coated with resinous varnish (INDUITS DE POIX RESINEUX); who knows!' Not a sublime owlery can you drop, but it is manipulated, ground down, put in rifled cannon, comes back on you as tempests of burning dust." Enough to send Maupertuis pirouetting through the world, with red wig unquenchably on fire!
Peals of laughter (once you are allowed to be non-official) could not fail, as an ovation, from the King;—so report the French Biographers. But there was, besides, strict promise that the Piece should be suppressed: "Never do to send our President pirouetting through the world in this manner, with his wig on fire; promise me, on your honor!" Voltaire promised. But, alas, how could Voltaire perform! Once more the Rhadamanthine fact is: Voltaire, as King's Chamberlain, was bound, without any promise, to forbear, and rigidly suppress such an AKAKIA against the King's Perpetual President. But withal let candid readers consider how difficult it was to do. The absurd blusterous Turkey-cock, who has, every now and then, been tyrannizing over you for twenty years, here you have him filled with gunpowder, so to speak, and the train laid. There wants but one spark,—(edition printed in Holland, edition done in Berlin, plenty of editions made or makable by a little surreptitious legerdemain,—and I never knew whether it was AKAKIA in print, or AKAKIA in manuscript, that King and King's Chamberlain were now reading together, nor does it matter much):—your Turkey surreptitiously stuffed with gunpowder, I say; train ready waiting; one flint-spark will shoot him aloft, scatter him as flaming ruin on all the winds: and you are, once and always, to withhold said spark. Perhaps, had AKAKIA not yet been written—But all lies ready there; one spark will do it, at any moment;—and there are unguarded moments, and the Tempter must prevail!—
On what day AKAKIA blazed out at Berlin, surreptitiously forwarded from Holland or otherwise, I could never yet learn (so stupid these reporters). But "on November 2d" the King makes a Visit to sick Maupertuis, which is published in all the Newspapers; [Rodenbeck, IN DIE;—Helden-Geschichte,—iii. 531, "2d November, 1752, 5 P.M."]—and one might guess the AKAKIA conflagration, and cruel haha-ings of mankind, to have been tacitly the cause. Then or later, sure enough, AKAKIA does blaze aloft about that time; and all Berlin, and all the world, is in conversation over Maupertuis and it,—30,000 copies sold in Paris:—and Friedrich naturally was in a towering passion at his Chamberlain. Nothing for the Chamberlain but to fly his presence; to shriek, piteously, "Accident, your Majesty! Fatal treachery and accident; after such precautions too!"—and fall sick to death (which is always a resource one has); and get into private lodgings in the TAUBEN-STRASSE, [At a "Hofrath Francheville's" (kind of subaltern Literary Character, see Denina, ii. 67), "TAUBEN-STRASSE (Dove Street), No. 20:" stayed there till "March, 1753" (Note by Preuss,—OEuvres de Frederic,—xxii. 306 n.).] till one either die, or grow fit to be seen again: "Ah, Sire"—let us give the Voltaire shriek of NOT-GUILTY, with the Friedrich Answer; both dateless unluckily:—
VOLTAIRE. "AH, MON DIEU, Sire, in the state I am in! I swear to you again, on my life, which I could renounce without pain, that it is a frightful calumny. I conjure you to summon all my people, and confront them. What? You will judge me without hearing me! I demand justice or death."
FRIEDRICH. "Your effrontery astonishes me. After what you have done, and what is clear as day, you persist, instead of owning yourself culpable. Do not imagine you will make people believe that black is white; when one [ON, meaning I] does not see, the reason [sic]? ONE p. 218, book XVI +++++++++++++++++ is, one does not want to see everything. But if you drive the affair to extremity,—all shall be made public; and it will be seen whether, if your Works deserve statues, your conduct does not deserve chains." [—OEuvres de Frederic,—xxii. 302, 301.]
Most dark element (not in date only), with terrific thunder-and- lightning. Nothing for it but to keep one's room, mostly one's bed,—"Ah, Sire, sick to death!"
December 24th, 1752, there is one thing dismally distinct, Voltaire himself looking on (they say), from his windows in Dove Street: the Public Burning of AKAKIA, near there, by the common Hangman. Figure it; and Voltaire's reflections on it:—haggardly clear that Act Third is culminating; and that the final catastrophe is inevitable and nigh. We must be brief. On the eighth day after this dread spectacle (New-year's-day 1753), Voltaire sends, in a Packet to the Palace, his Gold Key and Cross of Merit. On the interior wrappage is an Inscription in verse: "I received them with loving emotion, I return them with grief; as a broken-hearted Lover returns the Portrait of his Mistress:—
—Je les recus avec tendresse,
Je vous les rends avec douleur;
C'est ainsi qu'un amant, dans son extreme ardeur,
Rend le portrait de sa maitresse."—
And—in a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of Swans—has one wish: Permission for the waters of Plonbieres, some alleviations amid kind nursing friends there; and to die craving blessings on your Majesty. [Collini, p. 48; LETTER, in—OEuvres de Frederic,—xxii. 305.]
Friedrich, though in hot wrath, has not quite come that length. Friedrich, the same day, towards evening, sends Fredersdorf to him, with Decorations back. And a long dialogue ensues between Fredersdorf and Voltaire; in which Collini, not eavesdropping, "heard the voice of M. de Voltaire at times very loud." Precise result unknown. After which, for three months more, follows waiting and hesitation and negotiation, also quite obscure. Confused hithering and thithering about permission for Plombieres, about repentance, sorrow, amendment, blame; in the end, reconciliation, or what is to pass for such. Recorded for us in that whirl of misdated Letter-clippings; in those Narratives, ignorant, and pretending to know: perhaps the darkest Section in History, Sacred or Profane,—were it of moment to us, here or elsewhere!
Voltaire has got permission to return to Potsdam; Apartment in the Palace ready again: but he still lingers in Dove Street; too ill, in real truth, for Potsdam society on those new terms. Does not quit Francheville's "till March 5th;" and then only for another Lodging, called "the Belvedere", of suburban or rural kind. His case is intricate to a degree. He is sick of body; spectre-haunted withal, more than ever;—often thinks Friedrich, provoked, will refuse him leave. And, alas, he would so fain NOT go, as well as go! Leave for Plombieres,—leave in the angrily contemptuous shape, "Go, then, forever and a day!"—Voltaire can at once have: but to get it in the friendly shape, and as if for a time only? His prospects at Paris, at Versailles, are none of the best; to return as if dismissed will never do! Would fain not go, withal;—and has to diplomatize at Potsdam, by D'Argens, De Prades, and at Paris simultaneously, by Richelieu, D'Argenson and friends. He is greatly to be pitied;—even Friedrich pities him, the martyr of bodily ailments and of spiritual; and sends him "extract of quinquina" at one time. [Letter of Voltaire's.] Three miserable months; which only an OEdipus could read, and an OEdipus who had nothing else to do! The issue is well known. Of precise or indisputable, on the road thither, here are fractions that will suffice:—
VOLTAIRE TO ONE BAGIEU HIS DOCTOR AT PARIS ("Berlin, 19th December," 1752, week BEFORE his AKAKIA was burnt).... "Wish I could set out on the instant, and put myself into your hands and into the arms of my family! I brought to Berlin about a score of teeth, there remain to me something like six; I brought two eyes, I have nearly lost one of them; I brought no erysipelas, and I have got one, which I take a great deal of care of.... Meanwhile I have buried almost all my Doctors; even La Mettrie. Remains only that I bury Codenius [Cothenius], who looks too stiff, however,"—and, at any rate, return to you in Spring, when roads and weather improve. [—OEuvres de Voltaire,—lxxxv. 141.]
FRIEDRICH TO VOLTAIRE (Potsdam, uncertain date). "There was no need of that pretext about the waters of Plombieres, in demanding your leave (CONGE). You can quit my service when you like: but, before going, be so good as return me the Contract of your Engagement, the Key [Chamberlain's], the Cross [of Merit], and the Volume of Verses which I confided to you.
"I wish my Works, and only they, had been what you and Konig attacked. Them I sacrifice, with a great deal of willingness, to persons who think of increasing their own reputation by lessening that of others. I have not the folly nor vanity of certain Authors. The cabals of literary people seem to me the disgrace of Literature. I do not the less esteem honorable cultivators of Literature; it is only the caballers and their leaders that are degraded in my eyes. On this, I pray God to have you in his holy and worthy keeping.—FRIEDRICH."
[In De Prades's hand;—OEuvres de Frederic,—xxii. 308, 309: Friedrich's own Minute to De Prades has, instead of these last three lines: "That I have not the folly and vanity of authors, and that the cabals of literary people seem to me the depth of degradation," &c.]
VOLTAIRE SPECTRALLY GIVEN (Collini LOQUITUR). "One evening walking in the garden [at rural Belvedere,—after March 5th], talking of our situation, he asked me, 'Could you drive a coach-and-two?' I stared at him a moment; but knowing that there must be no direct contradiction of his ideas, I said 'Yes.'—'Well, then, listen; I have thought of a method for getting away. You could buy two horses; a chariot after that. So soon as we have horses, it will not appear strange that we lay in a little hay.'—'Yes, Monsieur; and what should we do with that?' said I. 'LE VOICI (this is it). We will fill the chariot with hay. In the middle of the hay we will put all our baggage. I will place myself, disguised, on the top of the hay; and give myself out for a Calvinist Curate going to see one of his Daughters married in the next Town. You shall drive: we take the shortest road for the Saxon Border; safe there, we sell chariot, horses, hay; then straight to Leipzig, by post.' At which point, or soon after, he burst into laughing." [Collini, p. 53.]
VOLTAIRE TO FRIEDRICH ("Berlin, Belvedere," rural lodging, ["In the STRALAUER VORSTADT (HODIE, Woodmarket Street):" Preuss's Note to this Letter,—OEuvres de Frederic,—xxii. 306 n.] "12th March," 1753). "Sire, I have had a Letter from Konig, quite open, as my heart is. I think it my duty to send your Majesty a duplicate of my Answer.... Will submit to you every step of my conduct; of my whole life, in whatever place I end it. I am Konig's friend; but assuredly I am much more attached to your Majesty; and if he were capable the least in the world of failing in respect [as is rumored], I would"—Enough!
FRIEDRICH RELENTS (To Voltaire; De Prades writing, Friedrich covertly dictating: no date). "The King has held his Consistory; and it has there been discussed, Whether your case was a mortal sin or a venial? In truth, all the Doctors owned that it was mortal, and even exceedingly confirmed as such by repeated lapses and relapses. Nevertheless, by the plenitude of the grace of Beelzebub, which rests in the said King, he thinks he can absolve you, if not in whole, yet in part. This would be, of course, in virtue of some act of contrition and penitence imposed on you: but as, in the Empire of Satan, there is a great respect had of genius, I think, on the whole, that, for the sake of your talents, one might pardon a good many things which do discredit to your heart. These are the Sovereign Pontiff's words; which I have carefully taken down. They are a Prophecy rather." [—OEuvres de Frederic,—xxii. 307.]
VOLTAIRE TO DE PRADES ("Belvedere, 15th March," 1753). "Dear Abbe,—Your style has not appeared to me soft. You are a frank Secretary of State:—nevertheless I give you warning, it is to be a settled point that I embrace you before going. I shall not be able to kiss you; my lips are too choppy from my devil of a disorder [SCURVY, I hear]. You will easily dispense with my kisses; but don't dispense, I pray you, with my warm and true friendship.
"I own I am in despair at quitting you, and quitting the King; but it is a thing indispensable. Consider with our dear Marquis [D'Argens], with Fredersdorf,—PARBLEU, with the King himself, How you can manage that I have the consolation of seeing him before I go. I absolutely will have it; I will embrace with my two arms the Abbe and the Marquis. The Marquis sha'n't be kissed, any more than you; nor the King either. But I shall perhaps fall blubbering; I am weak, I am a drenched hen. I shall make a foolish figure: never mind; I must, once more, have sight of you two. If I cannot throw myself at the King's feet, the Plombieres waters will kill me. I await your answer, to quit this Country as a happy or as a miserable man. Depend on me for life.—V." [Ib. 308.]—This is the last of these obscure Documents.
Three days after which, "evening of March 18th", [Collini, pp. 55, 56.] Voltaire, Collini with him and all his packages, sets out for Potsdam; King's guest once more. Sees the King in person "after dinner, next day;" stays with him almost a week, "quite gay together," "some private quizzing even of Maupertuis" (if we could believe Collini or his master on that point); means "to return in October, when quite refitted,"—does at least (note it, reader), on that ground, retain his Cross and Key, and his Gift of the OEUVRE DE POESIES: which he had much better have left! And finally, morning of March 25th) 1753, [Collini, p. 56; see Rodenbeck, i. 252.] drives off,—towards Dresden, where there are Printing Affairs to settle, and which is the nearest safe City;—and Friedrich and he, intending so or not, have seen one another for the last time. Not quite intending that extremity, either of them, I should think; but both aware that living together was a thing to be avoided henceforth.
"Take care of your health, above all; and don't forget that I expect to see you again after the Waters!" such was Friedrich's adieu, say the French Biographers, [Collini, p. 57; Duvernet, p. 186;—OEuvres de Voltaire,—lxxv. 187 ("will return in October").] "who is himself just going off to the Silesian Reviews", add they;—who does, in reality, drive to Berlin that day; but not to the Silesian Reviews till May following. As Voltaire himself will experience, to his cost!
