"On foot?" said Barbarina, laughing merrily. "Truly, you wished to remain incognito, and you would not leave your equipage with its coat of arms, standing before my door! I thank you once more for the honor of your visit, and commend myself to you with the glad wish that we may meet again."
"Never more!" said Madame Cocceji, casting a withering look upon the gay dancer, and hastening from the room.
CHAPTER VIII.
VOLTAIRE.
Voltaire was now a continuous guest of King Frederick. The latter had written a letter to Louis the Fifteenth, and begged him to relinquish his subject and historian, and this request was supposed to be acceded to. Besides this, the king, who was ever thoughtful of the happiness and comfort of his friends, had proposed to Madame Denis, Voltaire's beloved niece, to follow her uncle to Berlin, dwell in the royal castle at Potsdam, and accept from him an annuity of four thousand francs.
Voltaire himself besought her to come. He wrote to her that, as she had lived contentedly with her husband in Landau, she could surely be happy in Berlin and Potsdam. Berlin was certainly a much more beautiful city than Landau, and at Potsdam they could lead an agreeable and unceremonious life. "In Potsdam there are no tumultuous feasts. My soul rests, dreams, and works. I am content to find myself with a king who has neither a court nor a ministry. Truly, Potsdam is infested by many whiskered grenadiers, but, thank Heaven, I see little of them. I work peacefully in my room, while the drums beat without. I have withdrawn from the dinners of the king; there were too many princes and generals there. I could not accustom myself to be always vis-a-vis with a king and en ceremonie. But I sup with him—the suppers are shorter, gayer, and healthier. I would die with indigestion in three months if I dined every day in public with a king." [Footnote: OEuvres Completes, p. 360]
Madame Denis, however, seemed to doubt the happy life of Berlin and Potsdam. She wrote, declining the proposition, and expressing her fears that Voltaire would himself soon repent that he had left beautiful, glittering Paris, the capital of luxury and good taste, and taken refuge in a barbaric land, to be the slave of a king, while, in Paris, he had been the king of poetry.
Voltaire had the audacity to bring this letter to the king—perhaps to wound him, perhaps to draw from him further promises and assurances.
Frederick read the letter; his brow did not become clouded, and the friendly smile did not vanish from his lips. When he had read it to the end, he returned it, and his eyes met the distrustful, lowering glance of Voltaire with an expression of such goodness and candor that the latter cast his eyes ashamed to the ground.
"If I were Madame Denis," said Frederick, "I would think as she does; but, being myself, I view these things differently. I would be in despair if I had occasioned the unhappiness of a friend; and it will not be possible for me to allow trouble or sorrow to fall upon a man whom I esteem, whom I love, and who has sacrificed for me his fatherland and all that men hold most dear. If I could believe that your residence here could be to your disadvantage, I would be the first to counsel you to give it up. I know I would think more of your happiness than I would of the joy of having you with me. We are philosophers. What is more natural, more simple, than that two philosophers, who seem made for each other—who have the same studies, the same tastes, the same mode of thinking—should grant themselves the satisfaction of living together? I honor you as my teacher of eloquence and poetry; I love you as a virtuous and sympathetic friend. What sort of bondage, what misfortunes, what changes have you to fear in a realm where you are as highly honored as in your fatherland—where you have a powerful friend who advances to meet you with a thankful heart? I am not so prejudiced and foolish as to consider Berlin as handsome as Paris. If good taste has found a home in the world, I confess it is in Paris. But you, Voltaire, will you not inaugurate good taste wherever you are? We have organs sufficiently developed to applaud you; and, as to love, we will not allow any other land superiority in that respect. I yielded to the friendship which bound you to the Marquise du Chatelet, but I was, next to her, your oldest friend. How, when you have sought an asylum in my house, can it ever be THOUGHT it will become your prison? How, being your friend, can I ever become your tyrant? I do not understand this. I am convinced that, as long as I live, you will be happy here. You will be honored as the father of literature, and you will ever find in me that assistance and sympathy which a man of your worth has a right to demand of all who honor and appreciate him." [Footnote: The king's own words.—Oeuvres Posthumes.]