n equal flow of
protestations, which sometimes rise to singular heights. 'Ne croyez
pas,' he says, 'que je pousse mon scepticisime a outrance ... Je crois,
par exemple, qu'il n'y a qu'un Dieu et qu'un Voltaire dans le monde; je
crois encore que ce Dieu avait besoin dans ce siecle d'un Voltaire pour
le rendre aimable.' Decidedly the Prince's compliments were too
emphatic, and the poet's too ingenious; as Voltaire himself said
afterwards, 'les epithetes ne nous coutaient rien'; yet neither was
without a little residue of sincerity. Frederick's admiration bordered
upon the sentimental; and Voltaire had begun to allow himself to hope
that some day, in a provincial German court, there might be found a
crowned head devoting his life to philosophy, good sense, and the love
of letters. Both were to receive a curious awakening.

In 1740 Frederick became King of Prussia, and a new epoch in the
relations between the two men began. The next ten years were, on both
sides, years of growing disillusionment. Voltaire very soon discovered
that his phrase about 'un prince philosophe qui rendra les hommes
heureux' was indeed a phrase and nothing more. His _prince philosophe_
started out on a career of conquest, plunged all Europe into war, and
turned Prussia into a great military power. Frederick, it appeared, was
at once a far more important and a far more dangerous phenomenon than
Voltaire had suspected. And, on the other hand, the matured mind of the
King was not slow to perceive that the enthusiasm of the Prince needed a
good deal of qualification. This change of view, was, indeed, remarkably
rapid. Nothing is more striking than the alteration of the tone in
Frederick's correspondence during the few months which followed his
accession: the voice of the raw and inexperienced youth is heard no
more, and its place is taken--at once and for ever--by the
self-contained caustic utterance of an embittered man of the world. In
this transformation it was only natural that the wondrous figure of
Voltaire should lose some of its glitter--especially since Frederick now
began to have the opportunity of inspecting that figure in the flesh
with his own sharp eyes. The friends met three or four times, and it is
noticeable that after each meeting there is a distinct coolness on the
part of Frederick. He writes with a sudden brusqueness to accuse
Voltaire of showing about his manuscripts, which, he says, had only been
sent him on the condition of _un s