ountry, and
gradually a coolness arose between him and Maupertuis, whom Frederick
had made president of the Berlin Academy. There were other quarrels and
complications, and Voltaire grew disgusted with the occupation of what
he slyly called "buck-washing" the king's French verses,--poor affairs
they were. Step by step he was making Berlin as hot as he had made
Paris. The new Adam was growing restless in his new Paradise. He wrote
to his niece,--

"So it is known by this time in Paris, my dear child, that we have
played the 'Mort de Caesar' at Potsdam, that Prince Henry is a good
actor, has no accent, and is very amiable, and that this is the place
for pleasure? All this is true, but--The king's supper parties are
delightful; at them people talk reason, wit, science; freedom prevails
thereat; he is the soul of it all; no ill-temper, no clouds, at any rate
no storms; my life is free and well occupied,--but--Opera, plays,
carousals, suppers at Sans Souci, military manoeuvres, concerts, studies,
readings,--but--The city of Berlin, grand, better laid out than Paris;
palaces, play-houses, affable queens, charming princesses, maids of
honor beautiful and well-made, the mansion of Madame de Tyrconnel always
full and sometimes too much so,--but--but--My dear child, the weather
is beginning to settle down into a fine frost."

Voltaire brought the frost. He got into a disreputable quarrel with a
Jew, and meddled in other affairs, until something very like a quarrel
arose between him and Frederick. The king wrote him a severe letter of
reprimand. The poet apologized. But immediately afterwards his
irrepressible spirit of mischief broke out in a new place. It was his
ill-humor with Maupertuis which now led him astray. He wrote a pamphlet,
full of wit and as full of bitterness, called "La diatribe du docteur
Akakia," so evidently satirizing Maupertuis that the king grew furious.
It was printed anonymously, and circulated surreptitiously in Berlin,
but a copy soon fell into Frederick's hand, who knew at once that but
one man in the kingdom was capable of such a production. He wrote so
severely to Voltaire that the malicious satirist was frightened and gave
up the whole edition of the pamphlet, which was burnt before his eyes in
the king's own closet, though Frederick could not help laughing at its
wit.

But Voltaire's daring was equal to a greater defiance than Frederick
imagined. Despite the work of the flames, a copy of the diatr