Berlin was crowded with noble and distinguished guests from all lands. Frederick rode about the city on horseback, personally supervising the preparations for the fête. Red of face, portly of figure, eight-and-thirty years old, and much addicted to snuff—one of his English guests thus described him, not ungraphically. With his five great battles behind him and such a future before him as might well surpass the wildest flights of fancy, he was a great man to call “friend.”
And in Berlin, among the notables of all Europe convened to celebrate a Carrousel which should make Louis XIV.’s famous fête of the Tuileries dull and obscure, the great Voltaire was only less honoured than the great Frederick himself. He may be forgiven for thinking he had chosen well.
Among the guests was the Margravine of Bayreuth, Frederick’s sister, and very much Voltaire’s friend. In 1743, he had spent ten days with her at Bayreuth. French plays were acted—but, strangely enough, no plays by M. Arouet de Voltaire. He was a spectator on the occasion. He had said truly of himself that he loved good verses so much that he loved other people’s—“which is a great deal for a poet.” On August 17th the French players acted the “Mauvais Riche” of his vain little rival, Baculard d’Arnaud. But Voltaire was in the mood when he was ready to be pleased with anything. On August 26th was played the “Iphigénie” of Racine, and on the 27th the “Médecin Malgré Lui.”
“The language least talked at Court was German,” said Voltaire. “Our tongue and literature have made more conquests than Charlemagne.” He wrote delightedly of the King’s brother and sister, Henry and Amelia, as the most charming reciters of French verse. His spectacles were rose-coloured indeed.
August 25th was the crowning point of the fête, one of those splendid revelries which were the boast of the old régime—and died with it. The Carrousel of the Sun King had been glorious. The Berlin Carrousel far outvied it. It was, too, one of the golden nights of Voltaire’s life, and lives in history for that reason.
The courtyard of the great palace in Berlin had been turned into an amphitheatre. Three thousand soldiers under arms lined the approaches to the place. Forty-six thousand lights illuminated it. Tier above tier, brilliantly apparelled, blazing with jewels, the nobility of all lands, sat the spectators. Among them were Lord Melton and Jonas Hanway—“a chiel amang ye, takin’ notes”—and Collini, a young Florentine. Save only the royal box, every seat was occupied. The hush of expectation was on the audience. And then, on a sudden, gorgeous in dress, as that period alone knew how to be gorgeous, “among a group of great lords,” a lean figure moved towards the King’s enclosure. For an instant the house was silent. And then there swept through it a murmur like the wind among the trees—“Voltaire!” “Voltaire!”
It was a moment worth life and worth death. A stranger and foreigner raised by genius alone to that mighty eminence of fame to which genius, a proud line of royal ancestors, and five great battles had raised Frederick the King! Every eye was upon this son of a notary, this Paris bourgeois, Voltaire. Collini noticed the delight in the piercing eyes, and a certain modesty of demeanour very pleasing. Voltaire had chosen rightly after all! There could have been no doubt in his impressionable mind at that magnificent minute.
Then in the arena the tournament began. Voltaire described it as fairyland, the fête of Chinese lanterns, and the Carrousel of Louis the Magnificent, all in one. The competitors in the fray were royal, and a princess—Venus and the apple—gave away the prizes. After the tournament was a supper, and after the supper a ball. Voltaire did not go to that. He was surfeited with delight—las with adulation. He had already written of his great host that he scratched with one hand and caressed, with the other. To-night it had been all caresses. And would surely be caresses for ever! “When a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one.”
The plan as now formed was that Voltaire, with Prussia as home, should travel in Italy in this autumn of 1750 and so gratify a desire of years, and that in the spring of 1751 Madame Denis should join him in Berlin. In the meantime, Prussia was heaven.
On September 12th, he wrote again to his niece earnestly trying to persuade her of its charms. And would have succeeded very likely if she had not had particular reasons of her own at the time for preferring Paris.