The keen surprise and pleasure which attended its perusal are written in every line of Voltaire's reply:—
"My dear Sir, Providence has kept me here a day longer than we intended in order that I might receive the most pleasing letter that I have had since Madame du Châtelet has ceased to write. I have just been reading to her the extract you have been good enough to make for us from a work of which it may be said, more justly than of 'Télémaque,' that if any book could confer happiness upon mankind, it would be this.... We have not here the mere dreams of a good-hearted man, like the good Abbé de St. Pierre and M. de Fénélon; there is here something more real, and something which experience proves in the most striking manner.... Madame du Châtelet is enchanted with your plan. By this post I have received a letter from a prince, whose first minister you would be, if you had been born in his country."[250]
Upon earnest representations that they are "the most honest people in the world," and that they would return the book "without copying a word," the entire manuscript was forwarded to Brussels. It is acknowledged in a letter of the 21st of June:
"My dear Sir, I have just finished reading a work which consoles me for the flood of bad books wherewith we are inundated.... How have you had the courage, you, whose house is as old as M. de Boulainvilliers', to declare so generously against him and his fiefs? That is the thing I cannot get over; you have divested yourself in favour of the public of the dearest prejudice to which men can cling.... Good-bye. Go and make the French loved in Portugal, and leave me the hope that I shall see again a man who does so much honour to France. An Englishman had put upon his tomb: 'Here lies the friend of Philip Sidney;' allow me to write my own epitaph: 'Here lies the friend of the Marquis d'Argenson.'"[251]
"There is a place that one does not procure for cash down, and that I merit by the most respectful attachment and the most high esteem."
The last word is significant; Voltaire was attached to his friends; his esteem was reserved for his equals.
The book was kept for six weeks, when Voltaire returned by Moussinot
"the best and most instructive work that I have read for twenty years.[252]... I am assured that the author of this unique work is not going to Lisbon[253]to bury his talents for guiding men and making them happy. May he remain at Paris, and may I find him again in one of those posts where, up to the present, so much harm has been done and so little good. If I had myself to choose, I swear that I would not set foot again in Paris until I saw M. d'Argenson in the place of his father, and at the head of letters.... Madame du Châtelet is as charmed as I, and will praise you to much better purpose."
Never did Voltaire speak with more enthusiasm, and never was the feeling more generous and sincere. He had suddenly discovered among a crowd of other noble protectors a man of rare and unexpected power; and for some time the letters to d'Argenson are sufficient to show that he had sensibly risen in Voltaire's esteem. The praises he received were accompanied by a full and careful criticism, the hasty reading of which may have given rise to a gratuitous impeachment of the writer's sincerity. The suggestion will be presently considered;[254] here it is enough to say that it was no ordinary political work which, in 1739, could arouse the enthusiasm of Voltaire.
A third episode in the correspondence is of some importance. It was through Voltaire that d'Argenson acquired his first knowledge of a man to whom he was afterwards introduced more intimately by events, the young Prince Royal of Prussia. Among other marks of regard, Voltaire sent him some of the prince's letters, and asked him to share his admiration. It may be imagined that d'Argenson, in whom devotion to royalty was hereditary, and whose regard for merit was always so keen, was not slow to echo the enthusiasm of his friend.[255] From this time forward he watched with lively and appreciative interest the development of Frederick's career, and upon the frequent letters which found their way into his hands he formed a conception of the Prince's character which was not without its influence upon future events. Its essence is contained in some words he wrote on hearing of Frederick's accession (June, 1740):—
"Il fera ce qu'il faudra faire."[256]