I SUSPECT THAT I AM SUSPECTED (No date).--"Sire, if I am not brief, forgive me. Yesterday the faithful D'Arget told me with sorrow that in Paris people were talking of your Poem." Horrible; but, O Sire, --me?--"I showed him the eighteen Letters that I received yesterday. They are from Cadiz," all about Finance, no blabbing there! "Permit me to send you now the last six from my Niece, numbered by her own hand [no forgery, no suppression]; deign to cast your eyes on the places I have underlined, where she speaks of your Majesty, of D'Argens, of Potsdam, of D'Ammon" (to whom she can't be Phyllis, innocent being)!-MON CHER VOLTAIRE, must I again do some NICHE upon you, then? Tie some tin-canister to your too-sensitive tail? What an element you inhabit within that poor skin of yours! [Ib. 269.]
MAJESTY INVITES US TO A LITERARY CHRISTENING, POTSDAM (No date.
These "Six Twins" are the "ART DE LA GUERRE," in Six Chants;part of that revised Edition which is getting printed "AU DONJONDU CHATEAU;" time must be, well on in 1751). Friedrich writes to Voltaire:--"I have just been brought to bed of Six Twins; which require to be baptized, in the name of Apollo, in the waters of Hippocrene.
LA HENRIADE is requested to become godmother: you will have the goodness to bring her, this evening at five, to the Father's Apartment. D'Arget LUCINA will be there; and the Imagination of MAN-A-MACHINE will hold the poor infants over the Font."[Ib. 266.]
DEIGN TO SAY IF I HAVE OFFENDED.-- ... "As they write to me from Paris that I am in disgrace with you, I dare to beg very earnestly that you will deign to say if I have displeased in anything! May go wrong by ignorance or from over-zeal; but with my heart never!
I live in the profoundest retreat; giving to study my whole"--"Your assurances once vouchsafed [famous Document of August 23d].
I write only to my Niece. I" (a page more of this)--have my sorrows and merits, and absolutely no silence at all! [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 289.] "In the gift of Speech he is the most brilliant of mankind," said Smelfungus; but in the gift of Silence what a deficiency! Friedrich will have to do that for Two, it would seem.
BERLIN, 28th DECEMBER, 1751: LOUIS QUATORZE; AND DEATH OFROTHENBURG.--"Our LOUIS QUATORZE is out. But, Heavens, see, your Majesty: a Pirate Printer, at Frankfurt-on-Oder, has been going on parallel with us, all the while; and here is his foul blotch of an Edition on sale, too! Bielfeld," fantastic fellow, "had proof-sheets; Bielfeld sent them to a Professor there, though I don't blame Bielfeld: result too evident. Protect me, your Majesty;Order all wagons, especially wagons for Leipzig, to be stopped, to be searched, and the Books thrown out,--it costs you but a word!"Quite a simple thing: "All Prussia to the rescue!" thinks an ardent Proprietor of these Proof-sheets. But then, next day, hears that Rothenburg is dead. That the silent Rothenburg lay dying, while the vocal Voltaire was writing these fooleries, to a King sunk in grief. "Repent, be sorry, be ashamed!" he says to himself; and does instantly try;--but with little success; Frankfurt-on-Oder, with its Bielfeld proof-sheets, still jangling along, contemptibly audible, for some time. [Ib. 285-287.] And afterwards, from Frankfurt-on-Mayn new sorrow rises on LOUIS QUATORZE, as will be seen.--Friedrich's grief for Rothenburg was deep and severe;"he had visited him that last night," say the Books; "and quitted his bedside, silent, and all in tears." It is mainly what of Biography the silent Rothenburg now has.
From the current Narratives, as they are called, readers will recollect, out of this Voltaire Period, two small particles of Event amid such an ocean of noisy froth,--two and hardly more:
that of the "Orange-Skin," and that of the "Dirty Linen." Let us put these two on their basis; and pass on:--THE ORANGE-SKIN (Potsdam, 2d September, 1751, to Niece Denis)--Good Heavens, MON ENFANT, what is this I hear (through the great Dionysius'-Ear I maintain, at such expense to myself)! ...
"La Mettrie, a man of no consequence, who talks familiarly with the King after their reading; and with me too, now and then: La Mettrie swore to me, that, speaking to the King, one of those days, of my supposed favor, and the bit of jealousy it excites, the King answered him: "I shall want him still about a year:--you squeeze the orange, you throw away the skin (ON EN JETTE LECORCE)!'"Here is a pretty bit of babble (lie, most likely, and bit of mischievous fun) from Dr. Joyous. "It cannot be true, No! And yet--and yet--?" Words cannot express the agonizing doubts, the questionings, occasionally the horror of Voltaire: poor sick soul, keeping a Dionysius'-Ear to boot! This blurt of La Mettrie's goes through him like a shot of electricity through an elderly sick Household-Cat; and he speaks of it again and ever again,--though we will not farther.
DIRTY LINEN (Potsdam, 24th July, 1752, To Niece Denis).-- ...