The life of Voltaire

by Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Collini spent his night, dressed, on his bed. Beneath the shelter of its curtains he drew forth from his breeches that sheaf of manuscript Voltaire had given him at the Mayence gate. It was the manuscript of the “Pucelle,” so far as it was then written.

If Voltaire spent his night in a rage, he had every excuse for it. At ten o’clock in the evening he wrote to that good friend of his, the Margravine, laying his desperate case before her and begging her to send his letter on to her brother. He had broken his parole—true; but not until Freytag had broken his written agreement that when that “Œuvre de Poëshie” arrived he should go where he listed. He had borne a most galling delay not impatiently. For being in possession of a book which had been given to him, he, his niece, and his servant had been hustled, jostled, and insulted. If the book was blasphemous, indecent, and a dangerous work for a king to have written, was that Voltaire’s fault? He had but corrected its blunders and its grammar. If its model was the “Pucelle”—the royal author had chosen that model himself. Voltaire suffered for the King’s imprudence and for the King’s official’s folly. He was in a situation not too common to him—he really was not the aggressor.

The following day, Thursday, June 21st, the Potsdam mail arrived bringing orders dated June 16th from Frederick—just returned from his tour—that Voltaire, on giving his promise and a written agreement that he would send back the “Poëshie” to Freytag within a given time, and without making any copies of it, was to be allowed to go “in peace and with civility.”

That is all very well, thinks fussy Freytag. But when the King wrote that, he did not know this Voltaire had set at naught his Resident’s solemn authority and had had the audacity to try and escape. He must wait to go until we hear what the King’s commands are when he knows of this abominable breach of discipline.

Voltaire, goaded to desperation, wrote again to the Margravine of Bayreuth, begging her to send to his Majesty a most indignant statement of the wrongs done to Madame Denis—the statement having been drawn up by that outraged lady herself. As a good niece, she also wrote again passionately, direct to the King, on behalf of her uncle. He himself implored Freytag in quite humble terms to at least let them go back to the “Golden Lion,” which was a more decent habitation than the “Goat”; and, besides, would save the prisoners from paying for two prisons.

A few hours after, he appealed again to the mercy of that harassed and unfortunate jailer. All these letters are of June 21st. It must have been a busy day. It is strange that at such a juncture Voltaire himself did not write direct to the King. It could not have been his pride that prevented him. If pride was an obstacle in the way of attaining his end, an impulsive Voltaire could always kick it aside. Besides, he stooped to entreat a Dorn and a Freytag. In answer to his requests Madame Denis and Collini were allowed to go out of doors. But Voltaire was kept to his room in that wretched “Goat” and guarded by two sentinels as if he had been a dangerous criminal awaiting hanging. Four days went by. Then, on June 25th, came clearer and more positive orders from Frederick to let the prisoners go. Frederick was sick of the business and ashamed of it. But still, argues Freytag, when he sent those orders, he did not know of the attempt to escape. So the only effect of them was that the guards were removed from the door, and Voltaire was put on his honour not to leave the room.

The chest of books from Strasburg had meanwhile been opened; and the “Poèshie” extracted therefrom. But for the punctilious idiocy of one dull official, Voltaire might long ago have been at his Plombières and have done with Prussia for ever. The very burgomaster began to pity him. Frankfort was near regarding him as a martyr. Freytag, a little nervous, splendidly allowed the captive the freedom of the whole inn; and then he and that captive fought tooth and nail over money matters. For Voltaire had not only endured the miseries of arrest and detention, but had had to pay their whole expenses. He and Collini swore they had been robbed of jewels, money, and papers, and of various trifles as well.

On July 5th—after they had been detained thirty-five days—came sharp orders from Potsdam that Voltaire was to be released at once. Even a Freytag could doubt and delay no more. On July 6th the party returned to the “Golden Lion”: where Voltaire called in a lawyer and laid before him a succinct account of the events of those five-and-thirty days. Collini completed their preparations for departure. On the very morning when they were going, the impetuous Voltaire caught sight of Dorn passing his door and rushed out at him with a loaded pistol. Collini intervened. They had been in scrapes enough already.

On July 7, 1753, Voltaire and Collini left Frankfort. That fighting, scrambling, wearying month of folly and indignity was over. The same night they reached Mayence-on-the-Rhine—a city which knew not Frederick. The day following, Madame Denis left Frankfort for Paris.

Nothing is more remarkable about the Frankfort affair than the moderation Voltaire, considering he was Voltaire, displayed in it. When the Margravine wrote on the subject to her brother and described Voltaire as “intense and bilious” and “capable of every imprudence,” the description was not unfair. When Frederick wrote to his sister and said plainly that Voltaire and Madame Denis lied in their descriptions of the event and coloured it and embroidered on it to suit their own ends, he was not precisely lying, though he was not precisely truthful, himself. But leaving the account of Voltaire, Madame Denis, and Collini altogether alone, from the account of Freytag the prejudiced, it is proved that Voltaire behaved, all things considered, with a great deal of philosophy and an unusual amount of patience.