Chapter XXVI: The “essay on the Manners and Mind of Nations”

The arrival of Voltaire at Mayence rang down the curtain upon the greatest act of one of the most famous dramas of friendship in the world. It left Frederick enraged: first of all with himself; secondly, with blundering Freytag, whose blunders the King ostensibly approved, according to his principle, in a formal document written for that purpose; and only thirdly with Voltaire. With his muse taught by that Voltaire, Frederick abused the teacher in spiteful epigrams, and then dealt him a blow which shook Voltaire’s whole life, as a lover will kill the mistress who has been false to him not because he has loved her too little, but too much.

As for Voltaire, he was both angry and sorry. In that mean, world-famous story of their quarrel he must have known well enough that he had been too often most aggravating, _méchant_, and irrepressible. Yet that letter he wrote on July 9th from Mayence to Madame Denis, seen and meant to be seen by Frederick, gave a view of the situation not wholly false. The King “might have remembered that for fifteen years he wooed me with tender favours; that in my old age he drew me from my country; that for two years I worked with him to perfect his talents; that I have served him well and failed him in nothing; that it is infinitely below his rank and glory to take part in an academical quarrel and to end as my reward by demanding his poems from me at the hands of his soldiers.”

Adoring and quarrelling, passionately admiring and yearning for each other when they were apart, admiring and fighting each other when they were together--that is the history of the friendship of Frederick and Voltaire. If it be true that the great are no mates for common people, still less are they mates for each other. Even in fabled Olympus, gods could not live in peace with gods.

It is not unworthy of remark that their connection conferred far greater benefits on the King than on the commoner. Voltaire _had_ consistently trained and taught the royal intellect from that first letter written in August, 1736, to the Prussian heir-apparent. He had been such a master as kings do not often find--and his royal pupil had gained from him such advantages as kings are seldom wise enough to use.

But for Voltaire himself--for the most fruitful literary producer of any age--those three years in Prussia were comparatively barren and unprofitable. True, in 1751, “The Century of Louis XIV.” had appeared; but all the materials for it had been collected, and by far the greater part of the book written, before Voltaire came to Prussia at all. The “Poem on Natural Law” (not published till 1756), a few improvements to “Rome Sauvée,” the beginnings of that “magnificent dream,” “The Philosophical Dictionary,” were, as has been seen (except “Akakia”), his only other works written in Prussia. For a while the author of the “Henriade” and the “English Letters” was chiefly famous as the enemy of d’Arnaud, Hirsch, and Maupertuis; as the hero of the low comedy of Frankfort; and as the guest “who put his host’s candle-ends into his pockets.”

If without Voltaire the glory of Frederick would have been something less glorious, without Frederick the great Voltaire would have been greater still.

Flourishing Mayence, with its Rhine river flowing through it, its fine castles, its fine company, its indifference to the opinion of Frederick, and its warm enthusiasm for Frederick’s guest, friend, enemy, might well have seemed Paradise to Voltaire. He was free. His social French soul was delighted with many visitors. He worked hard too. He spent three weeks in “drying his clothes after the shipwreck,” as he phrased it himself. But for one fear, he would have been happy. It was not only in Prussia that Frederick was Frederick the Great. His name was everywhere a power and terror. Why should prudent France embroil herself with the greatest of European sovereigns for the sake of clasping to her breast an upstart genius who was always making mischief whether he was at home or abroad, and who had been punished for his abominable, free, daring, unpalatable opinions a hundred times without changing them?

Voltaire had arrived in Mayence on July 7, 1753. On July 9th he was writing to Madame Denis that letter for the public eye in which he gave _his_ account of the affair with Frederick; and went on to prove that he had never been a Prussian subject, or anything but a Frenchman to the bottom of his soul, which was true enough; and to assert, the truth of which he felt to be very doubtful, that Frederick would be the first to ask of the King my master (I am still Gentleman-in-Ordinary, you will be pleased to remember) that I may be allowed to end my days in my native land. Madame Denis was working hard to attain that same end in Paris: and thought herself likely to succeed. Her sufferings in Frankfort had been such that the emotional lady had to be bled four times in a week, she said. She still hoped, in italics, that her old prophecy that the King of Prussia would be the death of Uncle Voltaire would not be fulfilled after all; and recalled Frankfort in terms so agitating that there was no wonder her uncle--who greatly overestimated his niece’s goodness in coming to him there--harped on the treatment she had received, on Freytag, Fredersdorff, and the “Goat,” in every letter he wrote. In one at least, written at this period, he ominously signed himself Gentleman of the Chamber of the King of France. Voltaire was coming home.

He and Collini left Mayence on July 28th for Mannheim, where Charles Theodore, the Elector Palatine, had invited Voltaire to stay with him. They passed a night at Worms _en route_. Voltaire’s spirits were light enough for him to pretend to be an Italian for the benefit of the Worms innkeeper, and make the supper what his secretary called “very diverting.” At Mannheim, the Elector Palatine’s Court being in the country, Voltaire spent a short time putting money matters in order, and changing his German money into French. He was nearly in his “patrie”; no wonder he was lighthearted. In a few days the Elector fetched him to Schwetzingen, his country house, where was held the gayest and most charming of little Courts. Voltaire always dined with the Elector, and after dinner read aloud to him one of his works. There were _fêtes_ and concerts. The court theatrical company came to visit the author of “Zaire” and “Alzire,” of “Mahomet” and “Mérope.” Four of his own plays were acted. He was only too delighted to show the actors how to render this passage, and give to that character its true weight and significance. He began here (“like an old fool,” he said) a new love drama called “The Orphan of China.” If liberty was the passion of his life, the drama was the pet child of his leisure. An agreeable fortnight passed away. The distinguished guest was taken to see the Elector’s library at Mannheim and presented to it the companion volume to that ill-omened “Poëshie” of the King my master--Frederick’s “Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg.”

While unconscious Voltaire was still at Schwetzingen, training actors, or reading the “Annals” to the Elector, d’Argenson, Voltaire’s old school friend and member of the French Cabinet, recorded in his diary “Permission to re-enter France is refused to M. de Voltaire ... to please the King of Prussia.”

On August 16th, Voltaire and Collini reached Strasburg and put up there at a poor little inn called the “White Bear,” because it was kept by the father of a waiter at the inn at Mayence; and good-natured Voltaire had promised to patronise it to oblige him. He moved shortly to a little house outside the city gate, and received there everyone of note in Strasburg.

He was still hard at work on the “Annals.” He spent the evening sometimes with the agreeable Countess de Lutzelburg, who lived near. He took counsel about his “Annals” with Schoepflin, the German historian. Altogether he would have passed a couple of months quite after his heart--if--if--Madame Denis had been able to tell him that it was safe for him to proceed further into France. Alsace was the borderline. On it was written, it seemed, “Thus far shalt thou come, but no further.” But still--patience, patience! Voltaire did not yet despair. He knew nothing of that entry in d’Argenson’s diary. But much bitter experience had taught him that discretion is the better part of valour. On October 2d he left Strasburg, and arrived the same evening at Colmar.

Colmar was a well-chosen spot for several reasons. One was that Schoepflin’s brother, who was a printer, was going to print Voltaire’s “Annals” for him there. Another was that Colmar had plenty of agreeable literary society. And a third--and most important--it was very conveniently situated for the receipt of Madame Denis’s communications. Within a drive of it was Lunéville. Two days’ journey from it was Cirey. Its upper classes all spoke French. And though the Jesuits were no small power in it, Voltaire seems to have forgotten that unpleasant little fact, when he came. He went into modest rooms; and was his own housekeeper, with a young peasant girl called Babet, whose gaiety, simplicity, and volubility much entertained him, as cook. He played chess after dinner with Collini. His way of life delighted tastes always modest; and his health improved rapidly. He drew plans for his “Orphan.” With a brilliant play he had successfully defied his enemies before. Why not again? But the dramatic muse required much wooing this time; and the most versatile writer in the world began compiling articles for the “Encyclopædia” instead.

In this October Voltaire buried himself in the village of Luttenbach, near Colmar, for a fortnight, where he was happy enough proof-correcting his “Annals” and still hoping for good news from France. On October 28th, he came back to Colmar, had a fit of the gout, and, as usual, gaily bemoaned his ill-health in all his letters.

He still liked Colmar. He still thought he was creeping home. Prussia was behind him; and, though he was nearly sixty years old and always talked of himself as dying, he knew there was still a world before.

And then, in this December of 1753, Fate struck him one of those stunning blows she had too often dealt him.

Just as he was hoping for the best, as his friends in Paris were straining every nerve to smooth the way for his return, as he was laboriously wooing the histrionic muse that he might captivate the capital with a comedy; just as he had renounced Frederick and Prussia and remembered that he was Gentleman-in-Ordinary to his French Majesty and a Frenchman body and soul, and no Prussian after all, there appeared at The Hague, in a shamefully incorrect pirated edition, the most ambitious, the most voluminous, the most characteristic, and the most daring of all Voltaire’s works, the “Essay on the Manners and Mind of Nations.”

If Madame du Châtelet “despised history a little,” it had not the less been her and her lover’s chief employment at Cirey. “The Century of Louis XIV.” was not enough to occupy such an energy as Voltaire’s. That cramped him to one time and to one country. And behold! there was the world to look back upon; the history of all nations to study--the progress of mankind to regard as a whole.

The “Essay on the Manners and Mind of Nations” is of all Voltaire’s works the one which has exerted the most powerful influence on the mind of men. On July 10, 1791, when his body was taken to Paris and placed on the ruins of the Bastille on the very spot where he himself had been a prisoner, on the funeral car were written the memorable words, “He gave the human mind a great impetus: he prepared us for freedom.” That line might have served as the motto of his great essay. It prepared men for freedom. It records the history of human progress from Charlemagne to Louis XIII. It was the first history which dealt not with kings, the units, but with the great, panting, seething masses they ruled; which took history to mean the advance of the whole human race--a general view of the great march of all nations towards light and liberty. It was the first history which struck out boldly, and hit prejudice and oppression a staggering blow from which they have not yet recovered. Yet its style is infinitely frank, gay, and daring. It is such easy reading, so light, clear, and sarcastic. It is the one book of its kind the frivolous will finish for pleasure. It has such a jesting manner to hide its weighty matter. It is infinitely significant; and yet sounds as if it were simply meant to be amusing. It is said that Voltaire put it into such a form to overcome Madame du Châtelet’s dislike of history. But it was his lifelong principle as a writer that to be dull is the greatest of all errors. He was always wishing that Newton had written vaudevilles; and praying that his own taste might never be “stifled with study.” What Frederick the Great called the “effervescence of his genius” bubbles over in the “Essay on the Manners and Mind of Nations,” as in all his works. But it must be remembered that easy reading means hard writing; and that this “picture of the centuries,” this “history of the human mind,” needed, as its author declared, “the patience of a Benedictine and the pen of a Bossuet.” When he wrote “Finis” on the last page of the last edition in 1775, the book numbered six volumes, and was in every sense the greatest of its author’s works. Parton has justly said that to it “Grote, Niebuhr, Gibbon, Colenso, and especially Buckle, are all indebted.” That it is full of mistakes which any fairly well-educated person of to-day could easily correct does not make it a less extraordinary production for the age in which it was produced. That it is now obsolete, only proves how thoroughly it accomplished its aim. The great new truths for which Voltaire fought with his life in his hand are the commonplaces and the truisms of to-day.

But then he made them so.

Jean Néaulme, the pirate publisher at The Hague, said he had bought the manuscript from a servant of Prince Charles of Lorraine--Charles having obtained it either by persuasion or treachery from Frederick the Great. Voltaire had given a manuscript copy of the book to his royal friend. In his present state of mind, it was only natural he should suspect Frederick of foul play.

However this might be, the thing was printed. It was called, and miscalled, “An Abridgment of Universal History.” It was filled from end to end with astounding, and, very often, wilful blunders. It confused the eighth century with the fourth, and the twelfth with the thirteenth, and Boniface VIII. with Boniface VII. The unhappy author, with tears in his eyes, called it “the disgrace of literature.” He had, of course, never corrected the proofs. Since writing that first

_From an Engraving after a Painting by S. B. Le Noir_]

manuscript, intrusted to Frederick, he had written other manuscripts wherein he had not only modified but actually changed his first ideas. This time at least, when he followed his old plan of loudly disavowing the work, he had much justification. The “pretended Universal History,” as he called it, _was_ his “Essay,” but so mauled and disfigured he may be forgiven for refusing to acknowledge it.

But far stronger than any merely literary reasons for denying such a paternity was the bold, free-spoken character of this son of his genius. Voltaire knew that no work he had ever written would so bar his way back to his country as this one. Every line glowed with some truth hateful to Boyers and to tyranny. There was never any mistaking a Voltaire’s meaning. Now, more than ever, he had written in luminous words which, like sunbeams, being much condensed, greatly burnt. His principles were as lucid as daylight. There was hardly a phrase which would not draw upon him “the implacable wrath of the clergy.” How could he forget in it such remarks as the following--“Rome has always decided for the opinion which most degraded the human mind and most completely annihilated human reason”?

“Whoso thinks makes others think.”

How could he help remembering that he had taken the Protestant Reformation as a new tyranny--not an emancipation; that he had degraded war “from the highest to the lowest place in the historian’s regard”; and had declared that “Tyrants sacrifice the human race to an individual”--a dangerous sentence in itself, and which that abominable pirate publisher had rendered a thousand times more dangerous by misquoting as “Kings sacrifice the human race to a caprice”? He had offended every powerful class, and every cherished prejudice. But action was now, not less than ever, his _forte_. If it could not save him from his enemies, it could save him from himself--from that worst combination, idleness with misery.

On December 28, 1753, he wrote to Néaulme, and told M. Jean his candid opinion about that edition. He also wrote not a little piteously, a very few days after, to his old friend Madame de Pompadour--the publication of that “Essay” forcing him to prove, he said, his innocence to his master the King--of France.

But it was in vain he reminded Louis XV., through her, that he had spent years of his life in writing the history of Louis’s predecessor; “and alone of the Academicians had had his panegyric translated into five languages.” That surly Bourbon, with that intuition which saved his degraded race a hundred times from earlier and completer ruin, saw in the genius of Voltaire the fuse which was to set ablaze the gunpowder of sedition and misery with which his France was undermined. He turned to Madame de Pompadour and said that he “did not wish” Voltaire to return to Paris. It is not difficult to imagine the exile’s state of mind. “I have no comfort but in work and solitude,” he wrote; and to Cideville, on January 28th of this new year 1754: “My dear Cideville, at our age one must mock at everything and live for self. This world is a great shipwreck. _Sauve qui peut!_ but I am far from the shore.”

On what shore would he be allowed to land if he could gain one?

Colmar, he soon discovered, was “a town of Hottentots governed by German Jesuits.” On February 17th, he wrote a very meek, artful letter to one of those Jesuits, Father Menou (whom he had known at the Court of Stanislas and of whom he speaks in his “Memoirs” as “the boldest and most intriguing priest I ever knew”), pleading his cause with him. He pleaded it, too, with the Archbishop of Paris through M. de Malesherbes. But it was all in vain. The Church was as offended as the King.

On February 2Oth, pushed to extremity, and neither able to leave nor to stay in this wretched Colmar without the sanction of his French Majesty, the unhappy man asked d’Argenson to “sound the King’s indulgence”--to know if he might travel.

On February 22d, he called in two notaries, who compared the correct manuscript of his “Essay” with the two incorrect volumes published at The Hague; and drew up a formal declaration in which they affirmed that the Dutch edition was “surreptitious, full of errors, and worthy of all contempt,” and that the real “Essay” was at least eight times longer than the false one. But that also was useless. Neither Court nor Catholic meant to be convinced.

Then, as if her uncle’s cup of misfortune were not brimming over already, niece Denis’s bad management and extravagance with his money in Paris forced him to appoint an agent to look after her affairs; and she, living on his bounty, turned and accused him of avarice. No public wrongs are so cruel as private ones. Beside Madame Denis’s ingratitude, excommunication, said Voltaire, would have been a light penalty. He had given her an ample fortune--a larger one than old Maître Arouet had left his Voltaire. Her reproaches were the unkindest cut of all.

That they were singularly ill-timed may be gathered from the fact that sixty thousand francs of Voltaire’s income were derived from annuities or bonds of the City of Paris, of which at any moment angry Louis might deprive him, by a line of writing and the royal signature, for ever. Two kings were now his enemies. Jesuitical Colmar hated him. Prussia and France were barred to him. Denis had turned upon him. The Pompadour was helpless. The “Essay,” filled with blunders and pregnant with daring and danger, was all over Europe. Such was Voltaire’s position in the month of March, 1754.