ctions of the government.

At Potsdam he found activity, but not activity of intellect. Frederick
the Great was drilling soldiers and received him into a stern barracks.
There was a commendable toleration for free speech in the country, but
there was constant bickering. At court, Voltaire found his life
troubled by the intrigues of the envious courtiers, by the unreasonable
vanity of the King, and the almost mediaeval state of manners. There
were quarrels soon between the King and his guest, which led to
exhibitions of paltriness and parsimony common to their characters.
The King stopped Voltaire's supply of chocolate and sugar, while
Voltaire pocketed candle-ends to show his contempt for this meanness!
The saying of Frederick that the Frenchman was only an orange, of
which, having squeezed the juice, he {161} should throw away the skin,
very naturally rankled in the poet to whom it was repeated.

There was jealousy and tale-bearing at Potsdam which went far to
destroy the mutual admiration of those two strong personalities who had
thought to dwell so happily together. Voltaire spoke disparagingly of
Frederick's literary achievements, and compared the task of correcting
his host's French verses with that of washing dirty linen. Politeness
had worn very thin when the writer described the monarch as an ape who
ought to be flogged for his tricks, and gave him the nickname of _Luc_,
a pet monkey which was noted for a vicious habit of biting!

In March 1753, Voltaire left the court, thoroughly weary of life in a
place where there was so little interest in letters. He had a _fracas_
at Frankfort, where he was required to give up the court decorations he
had worn with childlike enjoyment, and also a volume of royal verses
which Frederick did not wish to be made public. For five weeks he lay
in prison with his niece, Madame Denis, complaining of frightful
indignities. He boxed the ears of a bookseller to whom he owed money,
attempted to shoot a clerk, and in general committed many strange
follies which were quite opposed to his claims to philosophy. There
was an end of close friendship with Prussia, but he still drew his
pension and corresponded with the cynical Frederick, only occasionally
referring to their notorious differences. In dispraise of the niece
Madame Denis, the King abandoned the toleration he had professedly
extended. "Consider all that as done with," he wrote on the subject of
the imprisonment, "and