A Teutschland (the English, doubly and trebly inspiring it, as surely they will now need!) to rush as aforesaid, in the DISunited and indeed nearly internecine state. Which third method--unless Carteret can conquer Naples for the Kaiser, stuff the Kaiser into some satisfactory 'Netherlands' or the like, and miraculously do the unfeasible (Fortune perhaps favoring the brave)--may be called the unlikely one! As poor Carteret probably guesses, or dreads;--had he now any choice left. But it was love's last shift! And, by aid of Diana and otherwise, that is the posture in which, at Mainz, 11th October, 1743, we leave the German Question.""Compensation," from France in particular, is not to be had gratis, it appears. Somewhere or other it must be had! Complaining once, as she very often does, to her Supreme Jove, Hungarian Majesty had written: "Why, oh, why did you force me to give up Silesia!"--Supreme Jove answers (at what date I never knew, though Friedrich knows it, and "has copy of the Letter"): "Madam, what was good to give is good to take back (CC QUI EST BON A PRENDRE EST BON ARENDRE)!" [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 27.]
Chapter VI.
VOLTAIRE VISITS FRIEDRICH FOR THE FOURTH TIME.
In the last days of August, there appears at Berlin M. de Voltaire, on his Fourth Visit:--thrice and four times welcome; though this time, privately, in a somewhat unexpected capacity. Come to try his hand in the diplomatic line; to sound Friedrich a little, on behalf of the distressed French Ministry. That, very privately indeed, is Voltaire's errand at present; and great hopes hang by it for Voltaire, if he prove adroit enough.
Poor man, it had turned out he could not get his Academy Diploma, after all,--owing again to intricacies and heterodoxies. King Louis was at first willing, indifferent; nay the Chateauroux was willing:
but orthodox parties persuaded his Majesty; wicked Maurepas (the same who lasted till the Revolution time) set his face against it;Maurepas, and ANC. de Mirepoix (whom they wittily call "ANE" or Ass of Mirepoix, that sour opaque creature, lately monk), were industrious exceedingly; and put veto on Voltaire. A stupid Bishop was preferred to him for filling up the Forty. Two Bishops magnanimously refused; but one was found with ambitious stupidity enough: Voltaire, for the third time, failed in this small matter, to him great. Nay, in spite of that kiss in MEROPE, he could not get his MORT DE CESAR acted; cabals rising; ANCIEN de Mirepoix rising; Orthodoxy, sour Opacity prevailing again. To Madame and him (though finely caressed in the Parisian circles) these were provoking months;--enough to make a man forswear Literature, and try some other Jacob's-Ladder in this world. Which Voltaire had actual thoughts of, now and then. We may ask, Are these things of a nature to create love of the Hierarchy in M. de Voltaire?
"Your Academy is going to be a Seminary of Priests," says Friedrich. The lynx-eyed animal,--anxiously asking itself, "Whitherward, then, out of such a mess?"--walks warily about, with its paws of velvet; but has, IN POSSE, claws under them, for certain individuals and fraternities.
Nor, alas, is the Du Chatelet relation itself so celestial as it once was. Madame has discovered, think only with what feelings, that this great man does not love her as formerly! The great man denies, ready to deny on the Gospels, to her and to himself;and yet, at bottom, if we read with the microscope, there are symptoms, and it is not deniable. How should it? Leafy May, hot June, by degrees comes October, sere, yellow; and at last, a quite leafless condition,--not Favonius, but gray Northeast, with its hail-storms (jealousies, barren cankered gusts), your main wind blowing. "EMILIE FAIT DE L'ALGEBRE," sneers he once, in an inadvertent moment, to some Lady-friend: "Emilie doing? Emilie is doing Algebra; that is Emilie's employment,--which will be of great use to her in the affairs of Life, and of great charm in Society."[Letter of Voltaire "To Madame Chambonin," end of 1742( OEuvres, Edition in 40 vols., Paris, 1818, xxxii. 148);--is MISSED in the later Edition (97 vols., Paris, 1837), to which our habitual reference is.] Voltaire (if you read with the microscope) has, on this side also, thoughts of being off.
"Off on this side?" Madame flies mad, becomes Megaera, at the mention or suspicion of it! A jealous, high-tempered Algebraic Lady. They have had to tell her of this secret Mission to Berlin;and she insists on being the conduit, all the papers to pass through her hands here at Paris, during the great man's absence.
Fixed northeast; that is, to appearance, the domestic wind blowing!
And I rather judge, the great man is glad to get away for a time.
This Quasi-Diplomatic Speculation, one perceives, is much more serious, on the part both of Voltaire and of the Ministry, than any of the former had been. And, on Voltaire's part, there glitter prospects now and then of something positively Diplomatic, of a real career in that kind, lying ahead for him. Fond hopes these!
