Chapter IV: Berlin

Death of Madame du Châtelet 158

Voltaire and the court 158

He goes to Berlin 161

Character of literary activity in Prussia 161

The two movements of which Voltaire and the king were
chiefs 162

Character of Frederick the Great 166

Breaking up of the European state-system in 1740 171

The first shock in 1733 172

Frederick raises international relations into the region of
real matter 174

The situation defined 175

Two conceptions of progress 177

From which of them the result of the Seven Years’ War
is seen to be truly progressive 180

The Jesuits 181

Their repulse after the humiliation of Austria 182

Frederick’s probable unconsciousness of the ultimate bearings
of his policy 184

His type of monarchy 186

He sprang doubly from the critical school 188

Other statesmen affected by this school 188

Injustice of stamping Voltaire’s influence as merely
destructive 191

Frederick the Great and France 193

Voltaire’s life at Berlin 194

Maupertuis 196

Collision between him and Voltaire 198

The Diatribe of Doctor Akakia 199

Voltaire’s departure from Berlin 201

The Frankfort episode 202

Unfortunate revelations in the Hirschel affair 206

Relations between Frederick and Voltaire henceforth 207

Voltaire fears to return to Paris 210

Geneva 211

The critical school not specially insensible to the picturesque 212

Voltaire buys Ferney (1758) 215