Even at Berlin and during a Carrousel Voltaire had entire liberty. Or at least as much liberty as fame and distinctions allow any man. His days were his own. In the morning he studied “to the sound of the drum.” In the evening queens asked him to supper, he said, and were not offended when he denied them. He spent hours correcting Frederick’s works, and observed gallantly “Cæsar supra grammaticam” to excuse the noble pupil’s defects in that department. He gave up the kingly dinners presently—there were too many generals and princes, forsooth, for this M. de Voltaire.
On September 14th, “Rome Sauvée” was played in the rooms of the Princess Amelia at Berlin and on a stage especially erected by its author, who took the part of Cicero as he had done at Sceaux and in the Rue Traversière. He also trained the company and lost his temper with them, exactly as he had lost it with his troupe in Paris. When the tumult of fêtes was past the Court went back to Potsdam. Life was a thousand times more delightful than ever. “I have my whole time to myself, I am crossed in nothing.” “I find a port after thirty years of storm. I find the protection of a king, the conversation of a philosopher, the charms of an agreeable man united in one who for sixteen years consoled me in misfortune and sheltered me from my enemies.... If one can be certain of anything it is of the character of the King of Prussia.” “I have the audacity to think that nature has made me for him. I have found so singular a likeness between his tastes and mine that I have forgotten he is the ruler of half Germany and the other half trembles at his name....” “The conqueror of Austria loves belles-lettres, which I love with all my heart.” “My marriage is accomplished then. Will it be happy? I do not know. I cannot help myself saying ‘Yes.’ One had to finish by marriage after coquetting for so many years.”
Even the d’Arnaud affair “does not prevent the King of Prussia from being the most amiable and remarkable of men.” Nay, d’Arnaud himself was “bon diable” after all. And the Prussian climate so rigorous? Not a bit of it. What are a few rays of sunshine more or less to make us give ourselves such airs? The glamour was complete.
All the letters from which these extracts are taken were written less than four months after Voltaire’s arrival in Prussia, and when the contrast between his treatment there and the treatment meted to him in France, was fresh and glaring. All the letters were written to persons who only half approved or wholly disapproved, of what Lord Chesterfield called Voltaire’s “emigration.”
His friends, enemies, and niece were all united in fearing and disliking it. In Paris a caricature was being sold in the street: “Voltaire the famous Prussian! Look at him with his great bear skin bonnet to keep out the cold! Six sous for Voltaire the famous Prussian!”
At the French Court the offended attitude of King Louis had not changed. King Frederick wrote very civilly to borrow the great Voltaire from his brother of France. And his brother of France, says d’Argenson, replied he should be very glad to make the loan, and turning to his courtiers, added that there would be one fool more at the Court of the King of Prussia “and one fool less at mine.”
On October 27th, Voltaire wrote to tell the d’Argentals that his post of Historiographer had been taken away from him; though Madame de Pompadour had told him, in a little note, that King Louis had had the goodness to allow him to keep an old pension of two thousand livres.
“I do not know why the King should deprive me of the Historiographership and let me retain the title of his Gentleman-in-Ordinary,” Voltaire wrote rather disgustedly to Madame Denis on October 28th. But after all, what did it matter? In return for the Historiographership he had the post of Chamberlain to the King of Prussia, that Royal Prussian Order, and that yearly Prussian pension.
He had exchanged strife for peace; slights for honour; and Louis XV. for Frederick the Great. How could he be wrong?
It is always far harder to guess the mind of Frederick on any given occasion than the mind of Voltaire. Frederick at least was sure that Voltaire was worth keeping even at a heavy price to be “the glory of one’s own Court and the envy of the world.” Gay, witty, and easy—a past master of the art of conversation—and with an impulsive susceptibility to the impressions of the moment wholly fascinating—the King was not wrong in placing a high estimate on the companionship of Voltaire. The King knew genius when he saw it. He meant to keep it now he had it. So, after a day spent in the ardours of government and military duty, at five he became the verse-maker, the man of ease and letters, the polished Frenchman instead of the great German soldier.