Alas, D'Arnaud is not well gone, when there has begun brewing in threefold secrecy a mass of galvanic matter, which, in few weeks more, filled the Heavens with miraculous foul gases and the blackness of darkness;--which, in short, exploded about New-year's time, as the world-famous VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH LAWSUIT, still remembered, though only as a portent and mystery, by observant on-lookers. Of which it is now our sad duty to say something;though nowhere, in the Annals of Jurisprudence, is there a more despicable thing, or a deeper involved in lies and deliriums by current reporters of it, about which the sane mind can be called upon accidentally to speak a word. Beaten, riddled, shovelled, washed in many waters, by a patient though disgusted Predecessor in this field, there lies by me a copious but wearisome Narrative of this matter;--the more vivid portions of which, if rightly disengaged, and shown in sequence, may satisfy the curious.
Duvernet (who, I can guess, had talked with D'Arget on the subject)has, alone of the French Biographers, some glimmer of knowledge about it; Duvernet admits that it was a thing of Illegal Stock-jobbing; that--1. "That M. de Voltaire had agreed with a Jew named Hirsch to go to Dresden and, illegally, PURCHASE a good lot of STEUER-SCHEINE[Saxon Exchequer Bills, which are payable in gold to a BONA FIDEPRUSSIAN holding them, but are much in discount otherwise, as readers may remember]; and given Hirsch a Draft on Paris, due after some weeks, for payment of the same; Hirsch leaving him a stock of jewels in pledge till the STEUER-SCHEINE themselves come to hand.
2. "That Hirsch, having things of his own in view with the money, sent no STEUER-SCHEINE from Dresden, nothing but vague lying talk instead of STEUER: so that Voltaire's suspicions naturally kindling, he stopped payment of the Paris Draft, and ordered Hirsch to come home at once.
3. "That Hirsch coming, a settlement was tried: 'Give me back my Draft on Paris, you objectionable blockhead of a Hirsch; there are your Diamonds, there is something even for your expenses (some fair moiety, I think); and let me never see your unpleasant face again!'
To which Hirsch, examining the diamonds, answered [says Duvernet, not substantially incorrect hitherto, though stepping along in total darkness, and very partial on Voltaire's behalf],--Hirsch, examining the diamonds, answered, 'But you have changed some of them! I cannot take these!'--and drove Voltaire quite to despair, and into the Law-Courts; which imprisoned Hirsch, and made him do justice." [Duvernet (T.J.D.V.), 170, 173, 175:--vague utterly;dateless (tries one date, and is mistaken even in the Year);wrong in nearly every detail; "the 'STAIRE or STEUER was a BANK?"&c. &c.]
In which last clause, still more in the conclusion, that it was "to the triumph of Voltaire," Duvernet does substantially mistake!
And indeed, except as the best Parisian reflex of this matter, his Account is worth nothing:--though it may serve as Introduction to the following irrefragable Documents and more explicit featurings.
We learn from him, and it is the one thing we learn of credible, That "Voltaire, when it came to Law Procedures, begged Maupertuis to speak for him to M. Jarriges," a Prussian Frenchman, "one of the Judges; and that Maupertuis answered, 'I cannot interfere in a bad business (ME MELER D'UNE MAUVAISE AFFAIRE).'" The other French Biographies, definable as "IGNOR-AMUS speaking in a loud voice to IGNOR-ATIS," require to be altogether swept aside in this matter.
Even "Clog." jumbling Voltaire's undated LETTERS into confusion thrice confounded, and droning out vituperatively in the dark, becomes a MINUS quantity in these Friedrich affairs. In regard to the Hirsch Process, our one irrefragable set of evidences is:
The Prussian LAW-REPORT by KLEIN,--especially the Documents produced in Court, and the Sentence given. [Ernst Ferdinand Klein, Annalen der Gesetzgebung und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit in den Preussischen Staaten (Berlin und Stettin), 1790,"v. 215-260.] Other lights are to be gathered, with severe scrutiny and caution, from the circumambient contemporary rumor,--especially from the PREFACE to a "Comedy" so called of "TANTALE EN PROCES(Tantalus," Voltaire, "at Law");--which PREFACE is evidently Hirsch's own Story, put into language for him by some humane friend, and addressed to a "clear-seeing Public." [TANTALE ENPROCES (ascribed to Friedrich himself, by some wonderful persons!)is in Supplement aux OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic II.
(Cologne, 1789), i. 319 et seq. Among the weakest of Comedies (might be by D'Arnaud, or some such hand); nothing in it worth reading except the Preface.] "And in fine," says my Manuscript, "by sweeping out the distinctly false, and well discriminating the indubitable from what is still in part dubitable, sufficient twilight [abridgable in a high degree, Ihope!] rises over the Affair, to render it visible in all its main features."THE VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH TRANSACTION: PART I. ORIGIN OF LAWSUIT(10th November-25th December, 1750).
