ity occurred
for one of those furious onslaughts so dear to his heart, with that
weapon which he knew so well how to wield. 'Je n'ai point de sceptre,'
he ominously shot out to Madame Denis, 'mais j'ai une plume.'

Meanwhile the life of the Court--which passed for the most part at
Potsdam, in the little palace of Sans Souci which Frederick had built
for himself--proceeded on its accustomed course. It was a singular life,
half military, half monastic, rigid, retired, from which all the
ordinary pleasures of society were strictly excluded. 'What do you do
here?' one of the royal princes was once asked. 'We conjugate the verb
_s'ennuyer_,' was the reply. But, wherever he might be, that was a verb
unknown to Voltaire. Shut up all day in the strange little room, still
preserved for the eyes of the curious, with its windows opening on the
formal garden, and its yellow walls thickly embossed with the brightly
coloured shapes of fruits, flowers, birds, and apes, the indefatigable
old man worked away at his histories, his tragedies, his _Pucelle_, and
his enormous correspondence. He was, of course, ill--very ill; he was
probably, in fact, upon the brink of death; but he had grown accustomed
to that situation; and the worse he grew the more furiously he worked.
He was a victim, he declared, of erysipelas, dysentery, and scurvy; he
was constantly attacked by fever, and all his teeth had fallen out. But
he continued to work. On one occasion a friend visited him, and found
him in bed. 'J'ai quatre maladies mortelles,' he wailed. 'Pourtant,'
remarked the friend, 'vous avez l'oeil fort bon.' Voltaire leapt up from
the pillows: 'Ne savez-vous pas,' he shouted, 'que les scorbutiques
meurent l'oeil enflamme?' When the evening came it was time to dress,
and, in all the pomp of flowing wig and diamond order, to proceed to the
little music-room, where his Majesty, after the business of the day, was
preparing to relax himself upon the flute. The orchestra was gathered
together; the audience was seated; the concerto began. And then the
sounds of beauty flowed and trembled, and seemed, for a little space,
to triumph over the pains of living and the hard hearts of men; and the
royal master poured out his skill in some long and elaborate cadenza,
and the adagio came, the marvellous adagio, and the conqueror of
Rossbach drew tears from the author of _Candide_. But a moment later it
was supper-time; and the night ended in the oval dining-room, amid