view; grown very corrosive after Twenty Years. He
admits, with all the satire: "I naturally felt myself attached to him;
for he had wit, graces; and moreover he was a King, which always forms
a potent seduction, so weak is human nature. Usually it is we of the
writing sort that flatter Kings: but this King praised me from head to
foot, while the Abbe Desfontaines and other scoundrels (GREDINS) were
busy defaming me in Paris at least once a week."

WHAT VOLTAIRE THOUGHT OF THE INTERVIEW AT THE TIME.

But let us take the contemporary account, which also we have at first
hand; which is almost pathetic to read; such a contrast between ruddy
morning and the storms of the afternoon! Here are two Letters from
Voltaire; fine transparent human Letters, as his generally are: the
first of them written directly on getting back to the Hague, and to the
feeling of his eclipsed condition.

VOLTAIRE TO M. DE MAUPERTUIS (with the King). "THE HAGUE, 18th
September, 1740.

"I serve you, Monsieur, sooner than I promised; and that is the way you
ought to be served. I send you the answer of M. Smith,"--probably some
German or Dutch SCHMIDT, spelt here in English, connected with the
Sciences, say with water-carriage, the typographies, or one need not
know what; "you will see where the question stands.

"When we both left Cleve,"--14th of the month, Wednesday last; 18th
is Sunday, in this old cobwebby Palace, where I am correcting
ANTI-MACHIAVEL,--"and you took to the right,"--King, homewards, got to
HAM that evening,--"I could have thought I was at the Last Judgment,
where the Bon Dieu separates the elect from the damned. DIVUS FREDERICUS
said to you, 'Sit down at my right hand in the Paradise of Berlin;' and
to me, 'Depart, thou accursed, into Holland.'

"Here I am accordingly in this phlegmatic place of punishment, far
from the divine fire which animates the Friedrichs, the Maupertuis, the
Algarottis. For God's love, do me the charity of some sparks in these
stagnant waters where I am,"--stiffening, cooling,--"stupefying
to death. Instruct me of your pleasures, of your designs. You will
doubtless see M. de Valori,"--readers know de Valori; his Book has been
published; edited, as too usual, by a Human Nightmare, ignorant of his
subject and indeed of almost all other things, and liable to mistakes
in every page; yet partly readable, if you carry lanterns, and love "MON
GROS VALORI:"--"offer him, I pray you, my respects. If I do n