Berlin, of course, is loud on these matters. "The man whom the King delighted to honor, this is he, then!" King Friedrich has quitted Town, some while ago; returned to Potsdam "January 30th."Glad enough, I suppose, to be out of all this unmusical blowing of catcalls and indecent exposure. To Voltaire he has taken no notice;silently leaves Voltaire, in his nook of the Berlin Schloss, till the foul business get done. "VOLTAIRE FILOUTE LES JUIFS (picks Jew pockets)," writes he once to Wilhelmina: "will get out of it by some GAMBADE (summerset)," writes he another time; "but" ["31st December, 1750" ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii, i. 198); "3d February, 1751" (ib. 201).]-- And takes the matter with boundless contempt, doubtless with some vexation, but with the minimum of noise, as a Royal gentleman might. Jew Hirsch is busy preparing for his new desperate Action; getting together proof that the Jewels have been changed. In proof Jew Hirsch will be weak;but in pleading, in public pamphlets, and keeping a winged Apollo fluttering disastrously in such a mud-bath, Jew Hirsch will be strong. Voltaire, "out of magnanimous pity to him," consents next week to an Agreement. Agreement is signed on Thursday, 26th February, 1751:--Papers all to be returned, Jewels nearly all, except one or two, paid at Hirsch's own price. Whereby, on the whole, as Klein computes, Voltaire lost about 150 pounds;--elsewhere I have seen it computed at 187 pounds: not the least matter which. Old Hirsch has died in the interim ("Of broken heart!" blubbers the Son); day not known.
And, on these terms, Voltaire gets out of the business; glad to close the intolerable rumor, at some cost of money. For all tongues were wagging; and, in defect of a TIMES Newspaper, it appears, there had Pamphlets come out; printed Satires, bound or in broadside;--sapid, exhilarative, for a season, and interesting to the idle mind. Of which, TANTALE EN PROCES may still, for the sake of that PREFACE to it, be considered to have an obscure existence.
And such, reduced to its authenticities, was the Adventure of the Steuer-Notes. A very bad Adventure indeed; unspeakably the worst that Voltaire ever tried, who had such talent in the finance line.
On which poor History is really ashamed to have spent so much time;sorting it into clearness, in the disgust and sorrow of her soul.
But perhaps it needed to be done. Let us hope, at least, it may not now need to be done again. [Besides the KLEIN, the TANTALE ENPROCES and the Voltaire LETTERS cited above, there is (in
OEuvres de Voltaire, lxiv. pp. 61-106, as SUPPLEMENTthere), written off-hand, in the very thick of the Hirsch Affair, a considerable set of NOTES TO D'ARGET, which might have been still more elucidative; but are, in their present dateless topsy-turvied condition; a very wonder of confusion to the studious reader!]
This is the FIRST ACT of Voltaire's Tragic-Farce at the Court of Berlin: readers may conceive to what a bleared frost-bitten condition it has reduced the first Favonian efflorescence there.
He considerably recovered in the SECOND ACT, such the indelible charm of the Voltaire genius to Friedrich. But it is well known, the First Act rules all the others; and here, accordingly, the Third Act failed not to prove tragical. Out of First Act into Second the following EXTRACTS OF CORRESPONDENCE will guide the reader, without commentary of ours.
Voltaire, left languishing at Berlin, has fallen sick, now that all is over;--no doubt, in part really sick, the unfortunate Phoenix-Peafowl, with such a tremor in his bones;--and would fain be near Friedrich and warmth again; fain persuade the outside world that all is sunshine with him. Voltaire's Letters to Friedrich, if he wrote any, in this Jew time, are lost; here are Friedrich's Answers to Two,--one lost, which had been written from Berlin AFTER the Jew affair was out of Court; and to another (not lost) after the Jew affair was done.
1. KING FRIEDRICH TO VOLTAIRE AT BERLIN.
"POTSDAM, 24th February, 1751.
"I was glad to receive you in my house; I esteemed your genius, your talents and acquirements; and I had reason to think that a man of your age, wearied with fencing against Authors, and exposing himself to the storm, came hither to take refuge as in a safe harbor.
"But, on arriving, you exacted of me, in a rather singular manner, Not to take Freron to write me news from Paris; and I had the weakness, or the complaisance, to grant you this, though it is not for you to decide what persons I shall take into my service.
D'Arnaud had faults towards you; a generous man would have pardoned them; a vindictive man hunts down those whom he takes to hating.
In a word, though to me D'Arnaud had done nothing, it was on your account that he had to go. You were with the Russian Minister, speaking of things you had no concern with [Russian Excellency Gross, off home lately, in sudden dudgeon, like an angry sky-rocket, nobody can guess why! [Adelung, vii. 133 (about 1st December, 1750).]--and it was thought I had given you Commission.""You have had the most villanous affair in the world with a Jew.
It has made a frightful scandal all over Town. And that Steuer-Schein business is so well known in Saxony, that they have made grievous complaints of it to me.
"For my own share, I have preserved peace in my house till your arrival: and I warn you, that if you have the passion of intriguing and caballing, you have applied to the wrong hand. I like peaceable composed people; who do not put into their conduct the violent passions of Tragedy. In case you can resolve to live like a Philosopher, I shall be glad to see you; but if you abandon yourself to all the violences of your passions, and get into quarrels with all the world, you will do me no good by coming hither, and you may as well stay in Berlin." [Preuss, xxii. 262(WANTING in the French Editions).]--F.