Book 11. Friedrich Takes The Reins In Hand. Jun.-Dec., 1740 - __ What Voltaire Thought Of The Interview Twenty Years Afterwards

________________________________________________
_ BOOK XI. FRIEDRICH TAKES THE REINS IN HAND. JUN.-DEC., 1740

(Chapter IV cont.)
WHAT VOLTAIRE THOUGHT OF THE INTERVIEW TWENTY YEARS AFTERWARDS

Of the Interview itself, with general bird's-eye view of the Visit combined (in a very incorrect state), there is direct testimony by Voltaire himself. Voltaire himself, twenty years after, in far other humor, all jarred into angry sarcasm, for causes we shall see by and by,--Voltaire, at the request of friends, writes down, as his Friedrich Reminiscences, that scandalous VIE PRIVEE above spoken of, a most sad Document; and this is the passage referring to "the little Place in the neighborhood of Cleve," where Friedrich now waited for him: errors corrected by our laborious Friend. After quoting something of that Strasburg Doggerel, the whole of which is now too well known to us, Voltaire proceeds:--

"From Strasburg he," King Friedrich, "went to see his Lower German Provinces; he said he would come and see me incognito at Brussels. We prepared a fine house for him,"--were ready to prepare such hired house as we had for him, with many apologies for its slight degree of perfection (ERROR FIRST),--"but having fallen ill in the little Mansion-Royal of Meuse (CHATEAU DE MEUSE), a couple of leagues from Cleve,"--fell ill at Wesel; and there is no Chateau de MEUSE in the world (ERRORS 2d AND 3d),--"he wrote to me that he expected I would make the advances. I went, accordingly, to present my profound homages. Maupertuis, who already had his views, and was possessed with the rage of being President to an Academy, had of his own accord,"--no, being invited, and at my suggestion (ERROR 4th),--"presented himself there; and was lodged with Algarotti and Keyserling [which latter, I suppose, had come from Berlin, not being of the Strasburg party, he] in a garret of this Palace.

"At the door of the court, I found, by way of guard, one soldier. Privy-Councillor Rambonet, Minister of State--[very subaltern man; never heard of him except in the Herstal Business, and here] was walking in the court; blowing in his fingers to keep them warm." Sunday night, 11th September, 1740; world all bathed in moonshine; and mortals mostly shrunk into their huts, out of the raw air. "He" Rambonet "wore big linen ruffles at his wrists, very dirty [visibly so in the moonlight? ERROR 5th extends AD LIBITUM over all the following details]; a holed hat; an old official periwig,"--ruined into a totally unsymmetric state, as would seem,--"one side of which hung down into one of his pockets, and the other scarcely crossed his shoulder. I was told, this man was now intrusted with an affair of importance here; and that proved true,"--the Herstal Affair.

"I was led into his Majesty's apartment. Nothing but four bare walls there. By the light of a candle, I perceived, in a closet, a little truckle-bed two feet and a half broad, on which lay a man muffled up in a dressing-gown of coarse blue duffel: this was the King, sweating and shivering under a wretched blanket there, in a violent fit of fever. I made my reverence, and began the acquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I had been his chief physician. The fit over, he dressed himself, and took his place at table. Algarotti, Keyserling, Maupertuis, and the King's Envoy to the States-General"--one Rasfeld (skilled in HERSTAL matters, I could guess),--"we were of this supper, and discussed, naturally in a profound manner, the Immortality of the Soul, Liberty, Fate, the Androgynes of Plato [the ANDROGYNOI, or Men-Women, in Plato's CONVIVIUM; by no means the finest symbolic fancy of the divine Plato],--and other small topics of that nature." [Voltaire, OEuvres, (Piece once called VIE PRIVEE), ii. 26, 27.]

This is Voltaire's account of the Visit,--which included three "Suppers," all huddled into one by him here;--and he says nothing more of it; launching off now into new errors, about HERSTAL, the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, and so forth: new and uglier errors, with much more of mendacity and serious malice in them, than in this harmless half-dozen now put on the score against him.

Of this Supper-Party, I know by face four of the guests: Maupertuis, Voltaire, Algarotti, Keyserling;--Rasfeld, Rambonet can sit as simulacra or mute accompaniment. Voltaire arrived on Sunday evening; stayed till Wednesday. Wednesday morning, 14th of the month, the Party broke up: Voltaire rolling off to left hand, towards Brussels, or the Hague; King to right, on inspection business, and circuitously homewards. Three Suppers there had been, two busy Days intervening; discussions about Fate and the Androgynoi of Plato by no means the one thing done by Voltaire and the rest, on this occasion. We shall find elsewhere, "he declaimed his MAHOMET" (sublime new Tragedy, not yet come out), in the course of these three evenings, to the "speechless admiration" of his Royal Host, for one; and, in the daytime, that he even drew his pen about the Herstal Business, which is now getting to its crisis, and wrote one of the Manifestoes, still discoverable. And we need not doubt, in spite of his now sneering tone, that things ran high and grand here, in this paltry little Schloss of Moyland; and that those three were actually Suppers of the Gods, for the time being.

"Councillor Rambonet," with the holed hat and unsymmetric wig, continues Voltaire in the satirical vein, "had meanwhile mounted a hired hack (CHEVAL DE LOUAGE;" mischievous Voltaire, I have no doubt he went on wheels, probably of his own): "he rode all night; and next morning arrived at the gates of Liege; where he took Act in the name of the King his Master, whilst 2,000 men of the Wesel Troops laid Liege under contribution. The pretext of this fine Marching of Troops,"--not a pretext at all, but the assertion, correct in all points, of just claims long trodden down, and now made good with more spirit than had been expected,--"was certain rights which the King pretended to, over a suburb of Liege. He even charged me to work at a Manifesto; and I made one, good or bad; not doubting but a King with whom I supped, and who called me his friend, must be in the right. The affair soon settled itself by means of a million of ducats,"--nothing like the sum, as we shall see,--"which he exacted by weight, to clear the costs of the Tour to Strasburg, which, according to his complaint in that Poetic Letter [Doggerel above given], were so heavy."

That is Voltaire's view; grown very corrosive after Twenty Years. He admits, with all the satire: "I naturally felt myself attached to him; for he had wit, graces; and moreover he was a King, which always forms a potent seduction, so weak is human nature. Usually it is we of the writing sort that flatter Kings: but this King praised me from head to foot, while the Abbe Desfontaines and other scoundrels (GREDINS) were busy defaming me in Paris at least once a week." _

Read next: Book 11. Friedrich Takes The Reins In Hand. Jun.-Dec., 1740: __ What Voltaire Thought Of The Interview At The Time

Read previous: Book 11. Friedrich Takes The Reins In Hand. Jun.-Dec., 1740: __ Particulars Of First Interview, On Severe Scrutiny

Table of content of History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books I - XIV]


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book