Frederick the Great

by Nancy Mitford

  The situation between Frederick and Voltaire could not have lasted indefinitely; when Voltaire and Maupertuis fell out over the scientist Koenig things came to a head. Koenig, some years before, was supposed to have behaved treacherously to Mme du Châtelet and at that time Maupertuis took his part against Voltaire and his mistress. Now Koenig was in trouble with the Berlin Academy and its President Maupertuis for publishing what they thought was a forged letter from Leibniz; so of course Voltaire took his part, to annoy Maupertuis. It was quite unnecessary for him to enter into this quarrel: he really was a maddening guest. The King never fully understood what it was all about, but naturally felt inclined to stand by his own Academy and wrote an anonymous Letter from a Berlin Academician to a Paris Academician in which he referred to ‘an impostor in our Academy, retailer of lies and slanders’. There was no open breach, things went on as before, but the atmosphere was wretched.

  Voltaire boiled and boiled and then boiled over; he gave vent to years of poisonous feelings for Maupertuis in Le Diatribe du Docteur Akakia, a pamphlet making fun of the President’s scientific notions. Some of these were very absurd—he wanted to bring up a group of children in silence, thinking that they would then speak the original human language and so one would know if it had been Greek or Hebrew. But others are commonplace in the twentieth century. Maupertuis thought one could learn more about the nature of the soul by the study of dreams. He wanted to have different doctors for different diseases. He thought it would be possible, eventually, to go to the moon. If such ideas are really those of a President, said Voltaire, he must be President of Bedlam.

  Le Diatribe du Docteur Akakia was more amusing to Voltaire’s contemporaries than it is to us. He read it out to Frederick; they had the happiest evening together for months and Frederick laughed till he cried. He said it must never be published, so together they sadly pushed the manuscript into the fire. But of course Akakia was already in the presses and soon 30,000 copies were circulating in Paris, Berlin and Dresden. Maupertuis was stricken; he fell gravely ill and Frederick visited him with much publicity. Voltaire fled from the King’s wrath, not, this time, to a royal palace but to furnished lodgings in Berlin where he in his turn fell, or so he said, gravely ill. On Christmas Eve, 1752, the public executioner burnt Akakia in the street under Voltaire’s window. A week later Voltaire returned his Chamberlain’s Key and the Cross of the order Pour le Mérite to the King with a pathetic letter—‘You have been my idol’—in which he made it plain that he intended to leave Berlin as soon as the weather permitted. But the same day Frederick sent Fredersdorf to call on Voltaire and to give him back his insignia. They talked for a long time and Fredersdorf advised him to do nothing in a hurry but to write again to the King. Voltaire is so hard to understand. He seemed really wounded in a sincere love for Frederick; he seemed touched to the heart by what Fredersdorf said; and all the time he was writing bitter sarcasms about le Salomon du Nord to Mme Denis. Frederick sent him quinine for his illness, with a charming letter, full of intimate jokes, saying that he was forgiven. He invited him to Potsdam, but Voltaire said he was too ill to move. The truth is that he would already have left Berlin and shaken its dust from his feet, but money had reared its ugly head again. He had invested a fairly large sum in Prussia and could not bear to go until he had found some way of removing it. For several weeks most of his letters, very brisk and practical, were to business people; his wounded soul and broken heart were reserved for a few friends, and the wild recriminations against Frederick for his niece. He gave out that he could not leave Prussia because the King would not give permission; however, as soon as he asked for it Frederick replied: ‘You can leave my service when you wish; only before you go please send me the contract of your engagement, the Key, the Cross and the volume of poetry I lent you.’

  Again the whole of Europe was fascinated by Voltaire’s goings-on, and the French minister in Berlin was told on no account to become involved, as Louis XV had no desire to be dragged into the affair.

  Voltaire left Berlin on 26 March 1753. Frederick, for the first and last time in his life, allowed rage to take the upper hand. He wrote such terrible letters about his departed guest that two of his correspondents, Wilhelmine and Milord Maréchal, were obliged to tell him that he went too far. Wilhelmine knew from experience her brother’s dreadful talent for teasing; Lord Keith was one of those on whom he never exercised it; but they both loved Frederick tenderly and both felt that in getting rid of Voltaire he was cutting off his nose to spite his face: he had lost so many friends through death and Voltaire would not be easy to replace. Lord Keith wrote to Mme Denis, as a true friend both of hers and her uncle’s, suggesting that it was bad policy to quarrel with kings. In which countries could Voltaire now take refuge? He would be in danger anywhere under the rule of the Inquisition; the Turks and other Moslems were furious about his play, Mahomet; he was a bit old to go and settle in China. There remained France, but one word from Frederick, and the French King would send him packing. Milord Maréchal was a close friend of Louis XV and knew what he was talking about. Countess Bentinck wrote Voltaire a long, loving, scolding letter, saying, among many sensible things, that as his printed works were fulsome in praise of Frederick, the whole business made him look foolish.

  One might imagine that the episode was now closed. Not at all, the worst was yet to come. Voltaire went to Leipzig on business and then stayed for a month with the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Gotha. The Duchess was an adorable person, later to be a great friend and correspondent of Frederick’s—the Saxe-Gothas were ancestors of the Prince Consort. When Voltaire left Gotha he made for Frankfurt on his way to Strasbourg where he was to meet Mme Denis.

  It will be remembered that Frederick said to Voltaire, ‘Go when you like, but when you do, send back your Chamberlain’s Key, the Cross of Pour le Mérite [an order for Prussians only], your contract and the book of poetry I lent you.’ Now Mme Denis had the contract and Milord Maréchal had been trying for weeks to get it from her, but she had made many specious excuses and had now left Paris for Strasbourg. Voltaire had taken the other things with him. Frederick wanted the Key and the Cross because he could not bear to think of Voltaire parading about in them, but above all he wanted his Œuvre de Poésie. It was not a manuscript but a book, secretly printed in a tiny edition, full of satires against Frederick’s fellow rulers, and Voltaire in his present mood might easily have used it to do him mischief. Frederick himself now left Berlin for manœuvres in Silesia; he gave strict orders to Fredersdorf and to his Resident at Frankfurt, Baron von Freytag, to get back the Œuvre by all means in their power.

  When Voltaire arrived at Frankfurt Freytag immediately called on him. He had got the Cross and the Key and handed them over, but the Œuvre was among his other books in a packing case at Hamburg—Freytag put him on parole not to leave his hotel, Der Goldene Loewe, until he could produce it. Mme Denis hurried to join her uncle; the people at Der Goldene Loewe were in no doubt as to their relationship and Freytag refers to her as ‘the so-called niece’. She later told Voltaire that she had become pregnant by him at this time and had, or said she had, a miscarriage some months later. She now busied herself with the burgomaster, pointing out that Frankfurt was a free city where Frederick had no right to detain or arrest people. But these free cities were defenceless, and a prince with a large army at his disposal could really do as he liked within their walls.

  In due course the Œuvre arrived and was given to Freytag; Voltaire naturally thought he would be allowed to continue his journey. But Freytag, a tremendous ass, was not quite clear about his orders; he said he must have confirmation from Berlin first. Frederick, back from his manœuvres, immediately sent word to let Voltaire go but meanwhile Voltaire had decided to escape. He and his Italian secretary Collini made off in a hackney-cab, leaving Mme Denis to follow with the luggage. Freytag, however, had a look-out who warned him at once. He commandeered the nearest carriage, caught up with Voltaire at the city gate, got into the cab with h
im and ordered it to go back to the hotel. Voltaire had his head out of the window, screaming all the way and telling people in the street that he had paid 1,000 thalers for his freedom to the King, who was now double-crossing him. When the cab stopped at the hotel he dashed out of it, pursued by Freytag. ‘Kindly allow me to vomit!’ He fell heaving into the gutter and tried to make himself sick by putting his hand down his throat. Collini, alarmed, lent over him: ‘Mon Dieu, are you ill?’ ‘Fingo’ (I pretend). A huge crowd gathered to see the fun. Der Goldene Loewe refused to take back Voltaire and his party on account of their incredible meanness, so they were all hurried off to the more modest Bockhorn. Voltaire was guarded by soldiers; Mme Denis, pretending to be frightened, gave Freytag’s secretary Dorn a golden louis to sit in her room all night. Their great complaint, which they wrote to everybody they could think of, including Louis XV, was the expense of two hotel bills—their boxes had been left at Der Goldene Loewe and so they were still paying there. Had they but known it Freytag was keeping a strict account of everything, the cab, the soldiers and so on, and eventually took the sum from Voltaire’s luggage. By every post Freytag was getting letters from Frederick saying he had never had orders to arrest Mme Denis—let them go, let them go—but the fool still hesitated because Frederick did not know that Voltaire had broken his parole. He did remove the guard. Voltaire and Mme Denis were beside themselves. They beat up a little boy Freytag had sent with a letter and Voltaire pointed a loaded pistol at Dorn. Freytag wanted to bring proceedings for these acts of violence but Frederick’s orders had become too insistent to be ignored any longer and on 7 July 1753 uncle and niece took themselves off.

  Frederick has been much scolded for this episode, though he was really more to blame for keeping Voltaire after the business with Hirschel had shown the impossibility of living with him, for teasing him cruelly, making him unhappy and driving him into an open quarrel with Maupertuis. What happened at Frankfurt was a muddle due to the ineptitude of Freytag. Besides, why did Voltaire take away the Key, the Cross, and the book when he had expressly been asked not to? Certainly not by mistake.

  Voltaire always said ‘qui plume a, guerre a’ (he who has a pen has war); he now declared war on Frederick with his pen. His account of the Frankfurt episode lost nothing in the telling: he and his niece were dragged to prison on foot through muddy streets. Mme Denis had to sleep behind a curtain of bayonets instead of a bed curtain, being raped from time to time by Dorn who sat carousing by her bed. They were told that their prison would cost 128 écus a day. They were robbed of everything they possessed. Then Dorn came pretending to bring back their money—he saw a pistol which was put out to be mended and said that Voltaire had tried to kill him. And a great deal more.

  Milord Maréchal heard these awful tales in Paris and shuddered, though he admitted that they caused a good deal of merriment. He did what he could to put about the true version and was believed by many people: this sort of thing had happened too often to Voltaire. A typical well-to-do bourgeois of Paris, Barbier, wrote in his journal: ‘This man is one of the geniuses of the age, very rich on his own account by his savings and the way he has cheated Paris booksellers; he was greatly honoured at the French court where far too much indulgence is shown to brilliant people; he now hardly knows where to go and finish his days and is despised all over the world.’

  Voltaire’s tales of horror having aroused more laughter than indignation, he manufactured a weapon with which to destroy the King in the eyes of posterity: Mémoires pour Servir à la Vie de M. de Voltaire. They are almost entirely concerned with Frederick and are a brilliant mixture of truth and falsehood, written in Voltaire’s best manner—light, mocking, readable. He put them by, to be published after his own death. Those historians who are inimical to Frederick or who cannot be bothered to verify Voltaire’s pronouncements have ever accepted them without question. All facets of the King’s nature are invoked and belittled. Here are a few of the accusations; the present writer feels obliged to answer them.

  ‘Frederick considered himself a literary genius.’ But he was for ever saying the contrary and saying it to Voltaire: ‘I love good, but I write bad verse’; ‘the rough accents of my Teutonic muse disguised in French’; ‘Only those who are nurtured in Paris can write elegant French.’

  ‘Frederick was a homosexual who, owing to an injury in youth, was incapable of the manly role.’ Frederick’s sex life remains rather mysterious. If he was anything at all he was homosexual, but after Keyserling and Rothenburg, there was no favourite and there was never anything in the nature of a minion. The general impression one gets after reading his works and letters is of somebody less interested in sex than in friendship. Most of his entourage were happily married. The fact that he disliked the company of women means nothing—homosexuals generally delight in it. Probably Voltaire was right when he says all happened with handsome young officers—allez-oop!—as a matter of routine. But nobody who studies the life of Voltaire can doubt that he had homosexual tendencies and one wonders whether his feelings for the King were not exacerbated by unrequited passion?

  Voltaire lays great stress on the King’s miserliness. It certainly does not appear in his dealings with real friends, though when he thought that people were abusing his confidence over money he could become very tough indeed. In an often-quoted aside Voltaire says that Frederick used to watch the flogging of deserters—nobody else ever said so, and it is unlikely from all we know of him. He finally accuses the King of being a bad friend and this has stuck more than the other calumnies. An examination of the facts shows that nothing could be more untrue. He was unlucky in that the solid buttresses of his affections, as well as the volatile beaux esprits, all died long before he did, leaving him to a lonely old age. (Voltaire had better luck: his friends seem to have been immortal and at least two schoolmates survived him.) But few people have had more loved, loving and constant friends than Frederick the Great.

  It is a pity that these two extraordinary men ever met. Their correspondence, brilliantly amusing, is full of affection for each other as well as of high-minded philosophy. Buried in the 107 volumes of Voltaire’s letters, it might well be published by itself one day. But there was something about their physical contact which made the sparks fly and, as a result, the reputation of both of them has suffered.

  15. The Reversal of Alliances

  Life at Potsdam now became calmer if less brilliant. Frederick was worried about Wilhelmine. Her health was not good—she had the family illness. In 1753 the palace at Bayreuth burnt down, so quickly that Wilhelmine saved only her dog and her jewels. She begged Frederick to send a flute to her husband, which he did, with some music and six silk shirts. While the palace was being rebuilt, Wilhelmine and the Margrave went, via Montpellier, to Italy. Frederick, who so longed all his life to see those places, was fascinated by her accounts of them. He told her there was a tiresome rumour that she and her husband had turned Catholic; he advised her to put in a little abracadabra in the Protestant chapel of a certain Marseilles merchant and send a report to the papers. She picked laurel leaves for her brother at the tomb of Virgil. With her great love of history she enjoyed every minute of the journey, although the effort was evidently great. She was often miserably unwell, but was intent on seeing everything: her Roman diary is like that of a conscientious modern tourist. The journey did not, as had been hoped, improve her health, and she returned to her new palace as delicate as ever.

  In May 1754 the Comte de Gisors, Belle-Isle’s son of twenty-two, went to Berlin. Belle-Isle, racked with sciatica and unable to sit on a horse, never had another active command after the retreat from Prague but became Minister of War; his ambitions were centred on his only child who was a prodigy of charm, intelligence and virtue. Frederick received Gisors with open arms. He had always liked Belle-Isle and probably had guilty feelings about the way he had treated him; he could make amends by being kind to his boy and soon became fond of him for his own sake. He had him to dinner every day of his v
isit and talked only to him, mainly disserting on the art of warfare. He scolded him for going to bed too late and getting up too early, and told another Frenchman, who told Belle-Isle, that Gisors had a great future. Presently he left Berlin for Vienna and Frederick made him promise to go back for the manœuvres in Silesia. The Emperor and Empress also liked Gisors, and took him to their manœuvres at Kolin near Prague. He stayed a fortnight and then joined Frederick at Breslau. Frederick could not wait to hear all about Kolin. ‘What were the troops like? How many men to a battalion? Above all, what about the artillery?’ Gisors replied that there was talk of increasing the light artillery although General von Neipperg was against it. ‘He only said that to you, mon cher’, said Frederick, and told Gisors to inform his father at once: otherwise the French would find themselves at a disadvantage when facing the Austrians. It never occurred to him that a day might come when the French would no longer face the Austrians. Then he began to ask about the Empress. ‘Does she caress the troops? Does she talk to the officers?’ Gisors said she was affable, but he never saw her address a soldier. ‘And the Emperor?’ ‘Most courteous—seems to see the mistakes but leaves everything to Marshal Browne.’ ‘Would you say it is the Empress who wears the breeches? Isn’t the Emperor rather like a jolly innkeeper who lets his wife run the establishment?’ Gisors lowered his eyes and said that the Empress was most attentive to her husband. At dinner the interrogation continued, Gisors rather embarrassed by the presence of Count Schaffgotsch, who had property in Bohemia and Silesia and felt more Austrian than Prussian. Frederick, by threatening to confiscate his land, was forcing him to put two of his four sons into the Prussian army; after dinner all four were lined up for the King to make his choice. The eldest looked stupid and the youngest ill, so he took the two middle ones. When Schaffgotsch was alone with Gisors he embraced him for having spoken so well of the Empress. Members of this family, one of whom was a bishop, were always a nuisance to Frederick. Later that day the King had a look at Browne’s orders, which Gisors had brought. He said they were too complicated. ‘Simplicity is all, in warfare.’ He then came back to the Empress, saying she was more like a man than a woman. Gisors said that if she were backed up by good politicians one felt there was nothing she could not do, but her financial situation was bad. Frederick said he thought the English would not be able to support her and her bankrupt allies the Saxons much longer and that therefore if war should come ‘we’ (he and the French) would have nothing to fear. Frederick said good-bye to Gisors and sent him off with Field Marshal von Schwerin to look at Mollwitz before leaving for Poland and the northern capitals. He only had another four years to live and Frederick never saw him again—he always said he could forgive the French anything for having produced Gisors.