Frederick the Great and His Family [308]
"Does your majesty forget my Lord Marshal, the most amiable and intellectual of your monks? It needs but a sign from his beloved prior to recall him from Neufchatel!"
"It is true," said the king, smiling; "I am not so deserted as I thought. Lord Marshal must return to us, and he must live here in Sans-Souci, as you will. I must surround myself with those who deserve my confidence; perhaps, then, I can forget how bitterly I have been deceived by others. Come, marquis, give me your arm, and we will make a tour of these rooms."
He placed his hand upon the arm of the marquis, and they passed through the silent, deserted rooms, which seemed to greet the king with a thousand remembrances. Perhaps it was that he might the more distinctly hear the whispers of memory that he had commanded that no one should receive him in Sans-Souci, that no servant should appear until called for. Without noise or ceremony, he desired to take possession of this house, in which he had not been the king, but the philosopher and poet. He wished to return here, at least, as if he had only yesterday left the house. But the seven years of care and sorrow went with him; they crept behind him into these silent, deserted halls. He recognized them in the faded furniture, in the dusty walls, and in the darkened pictures. They were not merely around, but within him, and he again felt how utterly he had changed in these years.
As they entered the room which Voltaire had occupied, Frederick's countenance was again brightened by a smile, while that of the marquis assumed a dark and indignant expression.
"Ah, marquis, I see from your countenance that you are acquainted with all the monkey-tricks of my immortal friend," said the king, gayly; "and you are indignant that so great a genius as Voltaire should have possessed so small a soul! You think it very perfidious in Voltaire to have joined my enemies when I was in trouble, and then to send me his congratulations if I happened to win a victory!"
"Does your majesty know that also?" asked the astonished marquis.
"Dear marquis, have we not always good friends and servants, who take a pleasure in telling bad news, and informing us of those things which they know it will give us pain to hear? Even kings have such friends, and mine eagerly acquainted me with the fact that Voltaire wished all manner of evil might befall his friend 'Luc,' as it pleased him to call me. Did he not write to D'Argental that he desired nothing more fervently than my utter humiliation and the punishment of my sins, on the same day on which he sent me an enthusiastic poem, written in honor of my victory at Leuthen? Did he not write on another occasion to Richelieu, that the happiest day of his life would be that on which the French entered Berlin as conquerors, and destroyed the capital of the treacherous king who dared to write to him twice every month the tenderest and most flattering things, without dreaming of reinstating him as chamberlain with the pension of six thousand thalers? He wished that I might suffer 'la damnation eternelle,' and proudly added. 'Vous voyez, que dans la tragedie je veux toujours que le crime soit puni.'"
"Yes," replied D'Argens, "and at the same time he wrote here to Formay: 'Votre roi est toujours un homme unique, etonnant, inimitable; il fait des vers charmants dans de temps ou un autre ne pourrait faire un ligne de prose, il merite d'etre heureux.'"
The king laughed aloud. "Well, and what does that prove, that Voltaire is the greatest and most unprejudiced of poets?"
"That proves, sire, that he is a false, perfidious man, a faithless ungrateful friend. All his great poetical gifts weigh as nothing in the scale against the weakness and wickedness of his character. I can no longer admire him as a poet, because I despise him so utterly as a man."
"You are too hard, marquis," said Frederick, laughing. "Voltaire has a great mind, but a small heart, and that is, after all, less his fault than his Creator's. Why should we wish to punish him, when he is innocent? Why should we demand of