ppeared at Berlin, arriving modestly from Dresden by post; people fought
for the pamphlet, and everybody laughed; the satire was spread over all
Europe. In vain did Frederick have it burned on the Place d'Armes by the
hands of the common hangman; he could not assuage the despair of
Maupertuis. "To speak to you frankly," the king at last wrote to the
disconsolate president, "it seems to me that you take too much to heart,
both for an invalid and a philosopher, an affair which you ought to
despise. How prevent a man from writing, and how prevent him from
denying all the impertinences he has uttered? I made investigations to
find out whether any fresh satires had been sold at Berlin, but I heard
of none; as for what is sold in Paris, you are quite aware that I have
not charge of the police of that city, and that I am not master of it.
Voltaire treats you more gently than I am treated by the gazetteers of
Cologne and Lubeck, and yet I don't trouble myself about it."

Voltaire could no longer live at Potsdam or at Sans-Souci; even Berlin
seemed dangerous: in a fit of that incurable perturbation which formed
the basis of his character and made him commit so many errors, he had no
longer any wish but to leave Prussia, only he wanted to go without
embroiling himself with the king. "I sent the Solomon of the North," he
writes to Madame Denis on the 13th of January, 1753, "for his present,
the cap and bells he gave me, with which you reproached me so much. I
wrote him a very respectful letter, for I asked him for leave to go.
What do you think he did? He sent me his great factotum Federshoff, who
brought me back my toys; he wrote me a letter saying that he would rather
have me to live with than Maupertuis. What is quite certain is, that I
would rather not live with either one or the other."

Frederick was vexed with Voltaire; he nevertheless found it difficult to
give up the dazzling charm of his conversation. Voltaire was hurt and
disquieted; he wanted to get away--the king, however, exercised a strong
attraction over him. But in spite of mutual coquetting, making up, and
protesting, the hour of separation was at hand; the poet was under
pressure from his friends in France; in Berlin he had never completely
neglected Paris. He had just published his _Siecle de Louis XIV.;_ he
flattered himself with the hope that he might again appear at court,
though the king had disposed of his place as historiographer in favor of
Du