That of the king of Prussia was a present from himself, and the hard blue eye and inflexible features tell his character as well as volumes. There are besides likenesses of Madame Denis, Voltaire’s niece, and Madame du Châtelet, who was, tradition says, the only woman he ever loved; her appearance is by no means striking; and also those of his sweep and laundress; (an arch-looking boy, and a girl with the face of a Madonna,) in coloured crayons, and beautifully executed. The books of the library marked with his own notes were purchased by the Empress Catherine: and the little study which adjoined his bedroom is closed to his admirer’s eyes, being transformed to a shoe-blacking laboratory. We did not remain long, our before-mentioned lout being perfectly ignorant of all which regarded his show, and only anxious to force us to buy some wretched lithographic drawings of this small room, and its bedstead, and cenotaph, in which it looks as large as a reception chamber at Versailles.
Outside the house the old gardener’s part recommences; it would be difficult to feel no interest in the faithful servant, whose life seems to hang on the memory of his master’s. He smiles and looks happy when encouraged to talk of him, and is very downcast when he finds his visitors less curious about Monseigneur.
He led the way to the terrace, which commands the fine view of the glaciers and the lake shores. At some distance is a little wood, where he was fond of walking, and an avenue, planted by his orders, leads to it from the park. “The terrace was his place for study,” the old man said; “here he often came in the morning to rehearse the part he was to act at night on the stage of his own theatre, and (dressed for it, to save the trouble of a second toilet) he used to march backwards and forwards, gesticulating and declaiming with great vehemence, and giving doubts of his sanity to men less tragically minded.” At the extremity of the terrace is a long shady walk, a most charming berceau, for the hornbeam is completely met over head. “Here,” said the gardener, stopping almost at its entrance, “is the very spot where Monsieur Gibbon played the trick to Monseigneur; you recollect the story?”
We begged him to tell it. “It would do him an honour,” he said, “but his asthma impeded his doing so while he walked by our side; he would stand by the bench while we sate there.” A great deal of entreaty induced him to sit also, but not to cover his white head; that remained bare, partly in reverence to his listeners, but more to his subject, Monseigneur:—
“Monsieur Gibbon was at Lausanne, and Monseigneur and he, though they had never met, were very good friends, till Monsieur Gibbon presumed to criticize some work of my master’s, who was very angry and bought a caricature of Gibbon, and sent it to him at Lausanne. I have often had the honour of brushing Monsieur Gibbon’s coat, and he was a very short, corpulent man, with large head and flat nose. When he received his picture by the post, he said he must go to Ferney, and judge by his own eyes whether Monseigneur was not his match for ugliness. Here then he came. Monseigneur had not forgiven the criticism, and desiring Madame Denis to receive him, he refused to see his visitor himself. Monsieur Gibbon said he had come to look at Voltaire, and till he could do so, he would stay. So Monseigneur shut himself up in his study, and Monsieur Gibbon seated himself in the drawing-room. He staid two days; but the third Voltaire grew tired, and wrote him a note to say, that Don Quixote and he were the reverse of one another, as the Don took inns for châteaux, while he mistook châteaux for inns. Gibbon read the note and went away.
“Monseigneur had a little favourite mare, who ate bread from his hand, and allowed him to catch her when she would suffer no other person to approach. Monsieur Gibbon spoke to the groom before he went, and said he intended to buy her, and would not forget him if he would lead her round when he came next morning, and let her loose beneath Monseigneur’s windows.
“The following morning at five Voltaire heard a horse gallop, and looking from his window saw the mare, and called angrily to the groom, who said she had broken from him; and out came Monseigneur with a piece of bread in his hand to catch the favourite, while Monseigneur Gibbon hid behind the hazel foliage of the terrace walk, and as Monseigneur passed jumped out on him.
“‘Ah,’ said he, ‘Voltaire, I have seen you now, and you are not handsome neither;’ and turned his back on my master, who was foaming with rage: ‘Run after him,’ he called to his secretary: ‘and tell him to give you twelve sous for having seen the wonderful beast.’
“The secretary made haste and came up with Gibbon, who was walking down the avenue to the village, where he had left his carriage. ‘Very right,’ he said, when he heard the message; ‘twelve sous for seeing the beast: there are twenty-four, and say I have paid for twice, and will come back to get the worth of my money.’ Monseigneur stamped with his foot, and exclaimed that some future trick would be played him. ‘We had better be friends,’ he said to the secretary; ‘go and ask him to dinner.’ And so, madame,” added the old gardener, rising from the bench with a bow, “as I told you, I have often since had the honour of brushing Monseigneur Gibbon’s coat.” He next stopped at a splendid tree: “This,” he said, “was planted by Monseigneur’s own hand, and under it he received Franklin. My father dug the hole, and he held the sapling, the very spring I was born, seventy-six years ago. Almost all these trees were planted by my father, for the village stood here when Monseigneur bought the property; it was then only of twelve miserable huts, and he rebuilt them lower down: when he died there were eighty. Ah!” said the old man, sighing, “but for his attacks on religion”—A little further he stopped in a pretty green glade:—“Here was Monseigneur’s summer study; he built it here to free himself from the importunity of visitors.” When it fell into decay, the present proprietor raised in its place a black marble pyramid, bearing, among other inscriptions, in his honour, one recording Voltaire’s horror of the massacre of St. Barthelemy. One night, during the year 1819, it was broken, and its pieces scattered about by persons unknown, and nothing now marks the spot but the regrets of the white-headed gardener, soon likely to be silent also. He was often employed, he said, to carry the author’s portfolio up and down these walks when he paced them, as was his custom during composition. Every now and then he signed to his attendant to approach; wrote his notes rapidly in the portfolio, returned it to his hands, and recommenced the promenade. We left the park, passing the basin full of gold and silver fish, which come shooting to the surface at the old man’s whistle, and passed the church on our way to his house, which was the priest’s, and where he said he had some “petites antiquités” to show us, if we would honour him by entering. He pointed out the tomb built against the church wall, in the form of a pyramid. Voltaire had intended it should contain his bones; but, like his heart, they have had a different destination. The theatre was within the park wall, but a few yards from this intended grave and just opposite; it has been taken down.
The gardener’s abode was scrupulously clean, but guarded by a dame of vinegar aspect. Her ire was excited by the arrival of other visitors, as she feared, from her husband’s lingering with us, that he might miss the coming harvest. She had lost her keys and her memory when he demanded the various boxes which contained his treasures; but his positiveness conquered, and, one after the other, she produced Monseigneur’s cane, and his full-bottomed wig, and a soiled silk cap, embroidered and folded in five envelopes. The most interesting appeared last, in the form of a book, whose leaves were stuck all over with seals, and a line in Voltaire’s handwriting under each. He had found means of abridging the trouble of his extensive correspondence, for these were the correspondents’ seals, taken from their letters, and his remarks (concisely affording a comprehensive view of character) spared him often the trouble of looking farther: one was Fou de Genève; I saw little or no commendation.