by Will Durant
Frederick agreed with Christian theology that man is by nature wicked. When Sulzer, a school inspector, expressed the opinion that “the inborn inclination of men is rather to good than to evil,” the King answered, “Ach, mein lieber Sulzer, er kennt nicht diese verdammte Rasse [you don’t know this damned race].”85 Frederick did not merely accept La Rochefoucauld’s analysis of human nature as completely egoistic; he believed that man would recognize no restraints on the pursuit of his own interest if he were not checked by fear of the police. Since the state is the individual multiplied, and is deterred in its collective egoism by no international police, it can be checked only by fear of the power of other states. Hence the first duty of “the first servant of the state” (as Frederick called himself) is to organize the power of the nation for defense, which includes pre-emptive offense—to do unto others what they are planning to do unto you. So to Frederick, as to his father, the army was the foundation of the state. He established a carefully supervised and planned economy; he fostered manufactures and commerce; he sent agents throughout Europe to import skilled workers, inventors, industries; but he felt that all this would in the end be of no avail unless he kept his troops the best-drilled, best-disciplined, and most reliable army in Europe.
Having such an army, and a well-organized police, he saw no need for religion as an aid to social order. When Prince William of Brunswick asked did he not think religion to be one of the best props of a ruler’s authority, he answered: “I find order and the laws sufficient… . Countries have been admirably governed when your religion had no existence.”86 But he accepted whatever help religion could give him in inculcating moral sentiments that contributed to “order.” He protected all the religions in his realm, but he insisted on naming the Catholic bishops, especially in Silesia. (Catholic kings also insisted on naming the Catholic bishops, and the English kings named the Anglican bishops.) Everybody—including Greek Catholics, Mohammedans, Unitarians, atheists—was to be free to worship as he liked, or not at all. There was, however, one limitation: when religious controversy became too abusive or violent Frederick put a damper upon it, as upon any threat to internal peace. In his later years he was less tolerant of attacks upon his government than of attacks upon God.
What was he like, this terror of Europe and idol of philosophers? Five feet six inches tall, he had no commanding height. Rather stout in his youth, he was now, after ten years of rule and war, slender, nervous, taut, a wire of electric sensitivity and energy; eyes sharp with a penetrating and skeptical intelligence. He was capable of humor, and his wit was as keen as Voltaire’s. As a man uncrossed he could be quite amiable; as a king he was severe, and seldom tempered justice with mercy; he could talk philosophy with his associates while calmly watching soldiers suffering the knout. His cynicism had a biting tongue that sometimes cut his friends. He was usually parsimonious, occasionally generous. Accustomed to being obeyed, he became dictatorial, seldom brooking remonstrance, rarely seeking advice, never taking it. He was loyal to his intimates, but contemptuous of mankind. He spoke seldom to his wife, kept her in financial straits, tore up before her face the note in which she had humbly stated her wants.87 He was normally kind and affectionate to his sister Wilhelmine, but she too sometimes found him coldly reserved.88 Other women, except for visiting princesses, he kept at a distance; he had no taste for feminine graces and charms of body or character, and he abominated the light chatter of salons. He preferred philosophers and handsome youths; often he took one of the latter to his rooms after dinner.89 Perhaps he liked dogs still better. In his later years his best-loved companions were his greyhounds; they slept in his bed; he had monuments raised over their graves, and gave orders that he should be buried near them.90 He found it difficult to be at once a successful commander and a lovable man.
In 1747 he suffered an apoplectic stroke and remained unconscious for half an hour.91 Thereafter he countered his unsteady health with steady habits and a frugal regimen. He slept on a thin mattress on a simple folding bed, and wooed sleep by reading. In these middle years he was content with five or six hours of sleep per day. He rose at three, four, or five in the summer, later in winter. He had but one servant to attend him—chiefly to light his fire and shave him; he scorned kings who had to be helped to put on their clothes. He was not noted for cleanliness of person or elegance of dress; he spent half the day in his dressing gown, half in the uniform of a guardsman. His breakfast began with several glasses of water; then followed several cups of coffee, then some cakes, then much fruit. After breakfast he played the flute, pondering politics and philosophy while puffing. Every day, about eleven, he attended the drill and parade of his troops. His main meal, at noon, was usually mixed with conferences. In the afternoon he became an author, spending an hour or two in writing poetry or history; we shall find him an excellent historian of his family and his times. After several hours given to administration, he relaxed with scientists, artists, poets, and musicians. At seven in the evening he might take part as flutist in a concert. At eight-thirty came his famous suppers, usually (after May, 1747) at Sanssouci. To these he invited his closest associates, distinguished visitors, and the leading lights of the Berlin Academy. He bade them be at their ease, forget that he was king, and discourse without fear, which they did on every subject but politics. Frederick himself talked abundantly, learnedly, brilliantly. “His conversation,” said the Prince de Ligne, “was encyclopedic; the fine arts, war, medicine, literature, religion, philosophy, morals, history, and legislation passed, turn by turn, in review.”92 Only one added ornament was needed to make this a feast of the mind. He came on July 10, 1750.
VI. VOLTAIRE IN GERMANY: 1750–54
Even he was satisfied with his reception. Frederick put on Gallic manners to greet him. “He took my hand to kiss it,” Voltaire reported to Richelieu. “I kissed his, and made myself his slave.”93 He was given an elegant apartment in the Palace of Sanssouci, just over the royal suite. The King’s horses, coaches, coachmen, and cuisine were placed at his command. A dozen servants fussed around him; a hundred princes, princesses, nobles, the Queen herself, paid court to him. He was officially a chamberlain to the King at twenty thousand francs a year, but his chief chore was to correct the French of Frederick’s poetry and speech. He was second only to the King at the suppers. A German visitor thought their exchanges “a thousand times more interesting than any book.”94 “Never in any place in the world,” Voltaire later recalled, “was there greater freedom of conversation concerning the superstitions of mankind.”95
He was ecstatic. To d’Argental he wrote (September, 1750):
I find a port after thirty years of storms. I find the protection of a king, the conversation of a philosopher, the agreeable qualities of an amiable man, all united in one who for sixteen years has wished to console me for my misfortunes, make me secure against my enemies… . Here I am sure of a destiny forever tranquil. If one can be sure of anything it is of the character of the King of Prussia.96
He wrote to Mme. Denis asking her to come and live with him in his paradise. She wisely preferred Paris and younger gallants. She warned him against staying long in Berlin. Friendship with a king (she wrote) is always precarious; he changes his mind and his favorites; one must be always on one’s guard not to cross the royal mood or will. Sooner or later Voltaire would find himself a servant and a prisoner rather than a friend.97
The foolish philosopher sent the letter to Frederick, who, reluctant to lose his prize, wrote to him in reply (August 23):
I have seen the letter which your niece writes you from Paris. The affection which she has for you wins my esteem. If I were Mme. Denis I should think as she does; but being what I am, I think otherwise. I should be in despair to be the cause of my enemy’s unhappiness; how, then, could I wish the misfortune of a man whom I esteem, whom I love, and who sacrifices to me his country and all that is dearest to humanity? No, my dear Voltaire, if I could foresee that your removal hither would turn the least in the world
to your disadvantage, I should be the first to dissuade you from it. I should prefer your happiness to my extreme pleasure in possessing you. But you are a philosopher; I am one also; what is then more natural, more simple, more according to the order of things, than that philosophers made to live together, united by the same studies, by the same tastes, and by a similar way of thinking, should give one another that satisfaction? … I am firmly persuaded that you will be very happy here; that you will be regarded as the father of letters and of people of taste; and that you will find in me all the consolations which a man of your merit can expect from one who esteems him. Good night.98
It took the older philosopher only four months to ruin his paradise. Voltaire was a millionaire, but he could not with equanimity miss an opportunity to swell his hoard. The state bank of Saxony had issued notes called Steuerscheine (revenue certificates), which had fallen to half their original worth. In the Treaty of Dresden Frederick had required that all such notes that had been bought by Prussians should be redeemed, at maturity, at their face value in gold. Some wily Prussians bought Steuerscheine at a low price in Holland and then had them redeemed in full in Prussia. In May, 1748, in justice to Saxony, Frederick forbade such importation. On November 23, 1750, Voltaire summoned to him at Potsdam a Jewish banker, Abraham Hirsch. According to Hirsch, Voltaire asked him to go to Dresden and buy for him 18,430 écus’ worth of Steuerscheine at thirty-five per cent of their face value. Hirsch claimed to have warned Voltaire that these bank notes could not be legally brought into Prussia; Voltaire (said Hirsch) promised him protection, and gave him letters of exchange on Paris and Leipzig. As security for these sums Hirsch left with Voltaire some diamonds that had been appraised at 18,430 écus. After his agent’s departure (December 2) Voltaire regretted the arrangement, and Hirsch, arrived in Dresden, decided not to go through with the transaction; Voltaire stopped payment on the letters of exchange, and the banker returned to Berlin. According to Hirsch, Voltaire sought to bribe him to silence by buying three thousand écus’ worth of the diamonds. A dispute arose over the appraisal; Voltaire flew at Hirsch’s throat and knocked him down;99 not receiving further satisfaction, he had Hirsch arrested, and brought the dispute to public trial (December 30). Hirsch exposed Voltaire’s plan for buying Saxon bonds; Voltaire denied it, saying he had sent Hirsch to Dresden to buy furs. Nobody believed him.
Frederick, learning of the mess, dispatched an angry letter from Potsdam to Voltaire at Berlin (February 24, 1751):
I was glad to receive you in my house; I esteemed your genius, your talents and acquirements; and I had reason to think that a man of your age, wearied with fencing against authors and exposing himself to the storm, came hither to take refuge as in a safe harbor.
But, on arriving, you exacted of me, in a rather singular manner, not to take Fréron to write news from Paris, and I had the weakness … to grant you this, though it is not for you to decide what persons I should take into my service. Baculard d’Arnault [Baculard d’Arnaud, a French poet at Frederick’s court] had given you offense, a generous man would have pardoned him; a vindictive man hunts down those whom he takes to hating… . Though to me d’Arnault had done nothing, it was on your account that he had to go… . You have had the most villainous affair in the world with a Jew. It has made a frightful scandal all over town. And that Steuerschein business is so well known in Saxony that they have made grievous complaints of it to me.
For my own Part I have preserved peace in my house till your arrival; and I warn you that if you have the passion of intriguing and caballing, you have applied to the wrong hand. I like peaceable, composed people, who do not put into their conduct the passions of tragic drama. In case you can resolve to live like a philosopher, I shall be glad to see you; but if you abandon yourself to all the violences of your passions, and get into quarrels with all the world, you will do me no good by coming hither, and you may as well stay in Berlin.
The trial court declared in favor of Voltaire. He sent humble apologies to the King; Frederick granted him pardon, but advised him to “have no more quarrels, neither with the Old Testament nor with the New.”100 Henceforth Voltaire was lodged not in Sanssouci but in a pleasant rural lodge nearby called “the Marquisat.” The King sent him assurances of renewed esteem, but Voltaire’s foolishness did not extend to trusting them. The royal poet sent him poems with requests to polish the French; Voltaire labored over them to weariness, and offended the author by making incisive alterations.
Voltaire now composed his poem Sur la Loi naturelle; it sought to find God in nature, chiefly along the lines of Alexander Pope. Of far greater import was Le Siècle de Louis XIV, which in these worrisome months he brought to finished form, and published in Berlin (1751). He was anxious to have it printed before some necessity should drive him from Germany, for only under Frederick could it be safe from censorship. “You know very well,” he wrote to Richelieu on August 31, “that there is not one little censor of books [in Paris] who would not have made a merit and duty out of mutilating or suppressing my work.”101 The sale of the book was forbidden in France; booksellers in Holland and England issued pirated editions, for which they paid Voltaire nothing; noting this, we may better understand his love of money. He had to fight “rogue booksellers”102 as well as ecclesiastics and governments.
The Age of Louis XIV was the most thoroughly and conscientiously prepared of Voltaire’s works. He had planned it in 1732, begun it in 1734 put it aside in 1738, resumed it in 1750. For it he read two hundred volumes and reams of unpublished memoirs, consulted scores of survivors from le grand Siècle, studied the original papers of protagonists like Louvois and Colbert, secured from the Due de Noailles the manuscripts left by Louis XIV, and found important documents, hitherto unused, in the archives of the Louvre.103 He weighed conflicting evidence with discretion and care, and achieved a high degree of accuracy. With Mme. du Châtelet he had tried to be a scientist, and had failed; now he turned to writing history, and there his success was a revolution.
Long ago, in a letter of January 18, 1739, he had expressed his aim: “My chief object is not political and military history, it is the history of the arts, of commerce, of civilization—in a word, of the human mind.” And, still better, in a letter written to Thieriot in 1736:
When I asked for anecdotes on the age of Louis XIV it was less on the King himself than on the arts that flourished in his reign. I should prefer details about Racine and Boileau, Quinault, Lully, Moliere, Le Brun, Bossuet, Poussin, Descartes, and others, rather than about the battle of Steenkerke. Nothing but a name remains of those who commanded battalions and fleets; nothing results to the human race from a hundred battles gained; but the great men of whom I have spoken prepared pure and durable delights for generations unborn. A canal that connects two seas, a picture by Poussin, a beautiful tragedy, a discovered truth, are things a thousand times more precious than all the annals of the court, all the narratives of war. You know that with me great men rank first, “heroes” last. I call great men all those who have excelled in the useful and the agreeable. The ravagers of provinces are mere heroes.104
Possibly Voltaire would have promoted martial heroes from last place if their victories had saved civilization from barbarism; but it was natural that the philosopher who knew no weapon but words would enjoy raising aloft the men of his own kind; and his name illustrates his thesis by remaining, after two centuries, the most prominent in our memory of his age. Originally he had proposed to give all the book to cultural history; then Mme. du Châtelet suggested to him a “general history” of the nations; consequently he added chapters on politics, war, and the court to make the volume a homogeneous continuation of the larger Essai sur l’histoire générale that was taking form under his pen. This may be the reason why the cultural history is not integrated into the rest of the volume: the first half of the book is devoted to political and military history; then follow sections on manners (“characteristics and anecdotes”), government, commerce, science, literature,
art, and religion.
The hunted scribe looked back with admiration to the reign under which poets (if they behaved) were honored by the King; perhaps his emphasis on the support of literature and art by Louis XIV was a flank attack upon Louis XV’s comparative indifference to such patronage. Now that the grandeur of the former age stood out in gilded retrospect, and its despotism and dragonnades were shunted from memory, Voltaire idealized the Sun King somewhat, and thrilled to the victories of French generals—though he stigmatized the devastation of the Palatinate. But criticism hides its head before this first modern attempt at integral history. Perceptive contemporaries realized that here was a new start—history as the biography of civilization, history as transformed by art and perspective into literature and philosophy. Within a year of its publication the Earl of Chesterfield wrote to his son:
Voltaire has sent me from Berlin his Histoire du siècle de Louis XIV. It came at a very proper time; Lord Bolingbroke had just taught me how history should be read; Voltaire shows me how it should be written… . It is the history of the human understanding, written by a man of genius for the use of intelligent men… . Free from religious, philosophical, political, and national prejudices beyond any historian I have ever met with, he relates all those matters as truly and as impartially as certain regards, which must always be observed, will allow him.105