Symptomatic, surely, of a haggly settlement, these THREE shots instead of one!—"Voltaire's return is:—
—"'Pour quittance generale de tout compte solde entre nous, tout paye au sieur abraham hersch a berlin, 16 Decembre, 1750.—Voltaire'— "'Account all settled between us, payment of the Sieur Abraham Hirsch in full: Berlin, 16th Deember, 1750.'
[which Second Piece, we perceive, is to lie in Hirsch's hand, to keep, if he find it valuable].
"This 'COMPLETE SETTLEMENT,'—little less than miraculous to Voltaire and us,—one finds, after sifting, to have been the fruit of Voltaire's exquisite skill in treating and tuning his Hirsch (no harshness of rebuke, rather some gleam of hope, of future bargains, help at Court): (Your expenses; compensation for protesting of that Bill on Paris? Tush, cannot we make all that good! In the first place, I will BUY of you these Jewels [this one discovers to have been the essence of the operation!], all or the best part of them, which I have here in pawn for Papa's Bill: 650 pounds was it not? Well, suppose I on the instant take 450 pounds worth, or so, of these Jewels (I want a great many jewels); and you to pay me down a 200 or so of gold LOUIS as balance,—gold LOUIS, no, we will say FREDERICS rather. There now, that is settled. Nothing more between us but settles itself, if we continue friends!' Upon which Hirsch walked home, thankful for the good job in Jewels; wondering only what the Allowance for Expenses and Compensation will be. And Voltaire steps out, new-burnished, into the Royal Carnival splendors, with a load rolled from his mind.
"This COMPLETE SETTLEMENT, meanwhile, rests evidently on two legs, both of which are hollow. 'What will the handsome Compensation be, I wonder?' thinks Hirsch;—and is horror-struck to find shortly, that Voltaire considers 60 thalers (about 9 pounds) will be the fair sum! 'More than ten times that!' is Hirsch's privately fixed idea. On the other hand, Voltaire has been asking himself, 'My 450 pounds worth of Jewels, were they justly valued, though?' Jew Ephraim (exaggerative and an enemy to this Hirsch House) answers, 'Justly? I would give from 300 pounds to 250 pounds for them!'—So that the legs both crumbling to powder, Complete Settlement crashes down into chaos: and there ensues,"—But we must endeavor to be briefer!
There ensues, for about a week following, such an inextricable scramble between the Sieur Hirsch and M. de Voltaire as,—as no reader, not himself in the Jew-Bill line, or paid for understanding it, could consent to have explained to him. Voltaire, by way of mending the bad jewel-bargain, will buy of Hirsch 200 pounds worth more jewels; gets the new 200 pounds worth in hand, cannot quite settle what articles will suit: "This, think you? That, think you?" And intricately shuffles them about, to Hirsch and back. Hirsch, singular to notice, holds fast by that Protested Paris Bill; on frivolous pretexts, always forgets to bring that: "May have its uses, that, in a Court of Justice yet!" Meetings there are, almost daily, in the Voltaire Palace-Apartment; DECEMBER 19th and DECEMBER 24th) there are Two DOCUMENTS (which we must spare the reader, though he will hear of them again, as highly notable, especially of one of them, as notable in the extreme!)—indicating the abstrusest jewel-bargainings, scramblings, re-bargainings.
"My Jewels are truly valued!" asseverates Hirsch always: "Ephraim is my enemy; ask Herr Reklam, chief Jeweller in Berlin, an impartial man!" The meetings are occasionally of stormy character; Voltaire's patience nearly out: "But did n't I return you that Topaz Ring, value 75 pounds? And you have NOT deducted it; you—!" "One day, Picard and he pulled a Ring [doubtless this Topaz] off my finger," says the pathetic Hirsch, "and violently shoved me out of the room, slamming their door,"—and sent me home, along the corridors, in a very scurvy humor! Thus, under a skin of second settlement, there are two galvanic elements, getting ever more galvanic, which no skin of settlement can prevent exploding before long.
Explosion there accordingly was; most sad and dismal; which rang through all the Court circles of Berlin; and, like a sound of hooting and of weeping mixed, is audible over seas to this day. But let not the reader insist on tracing the course of it henceforth. Klein, though faithful and exact, is not a Pitaval; and we find in him errors of the press. The acutest Actuary might spend weeks over these distracted Money-accounts, and inconsistent Lists of Jewels bought and not bought; and would be unreadable if successful. Let us say, The business catches fire at this point; the Voltaire-Hirsch theatre is as if blown up into mere whirlwinds of igneous rum and smoky darkness. Henceforth all plunges into Lawsuit, into chaos of conflicting lies,—undecipherable, not worth deciphering. Let us give what few glimpses of the thing are clearly discernible at their successive dates, and leave the rest to picture itself in the reader's fancy.
It appears, that Meeting of DECEMBER 24th, above alluded to, was followed by another on Christmas-day, which proved the final one. Final total explosion took place at this new meeting;—which, we find farther, was at Chasot's Lodging (the CHAPEAU of Hanbury), who is now in Town, like all the world, for Carnival. Hirsch does not directly venture on naming Chasot: but by implication, by glimmers of evidence elsewhere, one sufficiently discovers that it is he: Lieutenant-Colonel, King's Friend, a man glorious, especially ever since Hohenfriedberg, and that haul of the "sixty-seven standards" all at once. In the way of Arbitration, Voltaire thinks Chasot might do something. In regard to those 450 pounds worth of bought Jewels, there is not such a judge in the world! Hirsch says: "Next morning [December 25th, morrow after that jumbly Account, with probable slamming of the door, and still worse!], Voltaire went to a Lieutenant-Colonel in the King's service; and ask him to send for me." [Duvernet (Second), p. 172; Hirsch's Narrative (in—Tantale,—p. 344).] This is Chasot; who knows these jewels well. Duvernet,—who had talked a good deal with D'Arget, in latter years, and alone of Frenchmen sometimes yields a true particle of feature in things Prussian,—Duvernet tells us, these Jewels were once Chasot's own: given him by a fond Duchess of Mecklenburg,—musical old Duchess, verging towards sixty; HONI SOIT, my friend! What Hirsch gave Chasot for these Jewels is not a doubtful quantity; and may throw conviction into Hirsch, hopes Voltaire.
DECEMBER 25th, 1750. The interview at Chasot's was not lengthy, but it was decisive. Hirsch never brings that Paris Bill; privately fixed, on that point. Hirsch's claims, as we gradually unravel the intricate mule-mind of him, rise very high indeed. "And as to the value of those Jewels, and what I allowed YOU for them, Monsieur Chasot; that is no rule: trade-profits, you know"—Nay, the mule intimates, as a last shift, That perhaps they are not the same Jewels; that perhaps M. de Voltaire has changed some of them! Whereupon the matter catches fire, irretrievably explodes. M. de Voltaire's patience flies quite done; and, fire-eyed fury now guiding, he springs upon the throat of Hirsch like a cat-o'-mountain; clutches Hirsch by the windpipe; tumbles him about the room: "Infamous canaille, do you know whom you have got to do with? That it is in my power to stick you into a hole underground for the rest of your life? Sirrah, I will ruin and annihilate you!"—and "tossed me about the room with his fist on my throat," says Hirsch; "offering to have pity nevertheless, if I would take back the Jewels, and return all writings." [Narrative (in—Tantale—).] Eyes glancing like a rattlesnake's, as we perceive; and such a phenomenon as Hirsch had not expected, this Christmas! In short, the matter has here fairly exploded, and is blazing aloft, as a mass of intricate fuliginous ruin, not to be deciphered henceforth. Such a scene for Chasot on the Christmas-day at Berlin! And we have got to