Voltaire was at this time in Brussels. Frederick wrote him from Wesel, under date of 2d September, 1740, giving a narrative of his adventures, partly in prose, partly in verse. It was a long communication, the rhyme very much like that which a bright school-girl would write upon the gallop. The following specimen of this singular production will give the reader a sufficient idea of the whole:
“My dear Voltaire,—You wish to know what I have been about since leaving Berlin. Annexed you will find a description of it.
“I have just finished a journey intermingled with singular adventures, sometimes pleasant, sometimes the reverse. You know I had set out for Baireuth to see a sister whom I love no less than esteem. On the road Algarotti and I consulted the map to settle our route for returning by Wesel. Frankfort-on-the-Main comes always as a principal stage. Strasbourg was no great roundabout. We chose that route in preference. The incognito was decided, names pitched upon, story we were to tell. In fine, all was arranged as well as possible. We fancied we should get to Strasbourg in three days.
“Mais le ciel, qui de tout dispose,
Régla différemment la chose.
Avec de coursiers efflanqués,
Et des paysans en postillons masqués,
Butors de race impertinente,
Notre carrosse en cent lieux accroché,
Nous allions gravement d’une allure indolente,
Gravitant contre les rochers,
L’airs émus par le bruyant tonnere.
Les torrents d’eau répandus sur la terre
Du dernier jour menaçaient les humains.
Et malgré notre impatience,
Quatre bons jours en pénitence
Sont pour jamais perdus dans les charrains.”(But Heaven, which of all disposes,
Regulated differently the thing.
With coursers lank-sided,
And peasants as postillions disguised,
Blockheads of race impertinent,
Our carriages in a hundred places sticking,
We went gravely at a slow pace,
Knocking against the rocks,
The air agitated by loud thunder.
Torrents of water spread over the earth
With the last day threatened mankind.
And notwithstanding our impatience,
Four good days in penance
Are forever lost in these jumbles.)“Had all our fatalities been limited to stoppages of speed on the journey, we should have taken patience. But after frightful roads we found lodgings still more frightful.”
Then came another strain of verse. Thus the prose and the doggerel were interspersed through the long narrative. Though very truthful in character, it was a school-boy performance—a very singular document indeed to be sent to the most brilliant genius of that age, by one who soon proved himself to be the ablest sovereign in Europe.
At Wesel the king met Maupertuis, to whom we have already alluded, who was then one of the greatest of European celebrities. His discovery of the flattening of the earth at the poles had given him such renown that the kings of Russia, France, and Prussia were all lavishing honors upon him. It was a great gratification to Frederick that he had secured his services in organizing the Berlin Academy. While at Wesel the king was seized by a fever, which shut him up for a time in the small chateau of Moyland. He had never yet met Voltaire, and being very anxious to see him, wrote to him as follows, under date of September 6th, 1740:
“My dear Voltaire,—In spite of myself, I have to yield to the quartan fever, which is more tenacious than a Jansenist. And whatever desire I had of going to Antwerp and Brussels, I find myself not in a condition to undertake such a journey without risk. I would ask of you, then, if the road from Brussels to Cleves would not to you seem too long for a meeting? It is the one means of seeing you which remains to me. Confess that I am unlucky; for now, when I could dispose of my person, and nothing hinders me from seeing you, the fever gets its hand into the business, and seems to intend disputing me that satisfaction.
“Let us deceive the fever, my dear Voltaire, and let me have at least the pleasure of embracing you. Make my best excuses to Madame the Marquise that I can not have the satisfaction of seeing her at Brussels. All that are about me know the intention I was in, which certainly nothing but the fever could make me change.
“Sunday next I shall be at a little place near Cleves, where I shall be able to possess you at my ease. If the sight of you don’t cure me, I will send for a confessor at once. Adieu. You know my sentiments and my heart.
Frederick.”
In accordance with this request, Voltaire repaired to Cleves to visit the king. Many years afterward, having quarreled with Frederick, and being disposed to represent him in the most unfavorable light, he gave the following account of this interview in his Vie Privée:
“The king said that he would come and see me incognito at Brussels. But having fallen ill a couple of leagues from Cleves, he wrote me that he expected I would make the advances. I went accordingly to present my profound homages. I found at the gate of the court-yard a single soldier on guard. The privy councilor Rambonet, Minister of State, was walking about the court, blowing on his fingers to warm them. He had on great ruffles of dirty linen, a hat with holes in it, and an old periwig, one end of which hung down into one of his pockets, while the other hardly covered his shoulder.
“I was conducted into his majesty’s apartment, where there was nothing but the bare walls. I perceived in a closet, lit by a single wax candle, a small bed, two feet and a half wide, on which lay a little man wrapped up in a cloak of coarse blue cloth. It was the king, who perspired and shivered, under a miserable coverlet, in a violent access of fever. I made my bow, and began the acquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I had been his first physician. When the fit was passed he dressed himself and came to supper. Algarotti, Keyserling, Maupertuis, and the king’s embassador to the States General made up the party. We talked learnedly respecting the immortality of the soul, liberty, and the Androgynes of Plato, and other small topics of that nature.”
FREDERICK’S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH VOLTAIRE.