Note 71 — Chapter XVIII · FREDERICK TRIUMPHANT.
Reading edition
It would seem that Voltaire was sent to Frederick as the secret agent and spy of the French minister. “Voltaire,” writes Macaulay, “was received with every mark of respect and friendship. The negotiation was of an extraordinary description. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than the conferences which took place between the first literary man and the first practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness had induced to change their parts. The great poet would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the king of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put into his majesty’s hand a paper on the state of Europe, and received it back with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret they both laughed at each other. Voltaire did not spare the king’s poems, and the king has left on record his opinion of Voltaire’s diplomacy, saying, ‘He had no credentials, and the whole mission was a mere farce.’”
As a specimen of the character of the document above alluded to, we give the following. Voltaire, in what he deemed a very important state paper, had remarked,
“The partisans of Austria burn with the desire to open the campaign in Silesia again. Have you, in that case, any ally but France? And, however potent you are, is an ally useless to you?”
The king scribbled on the margin,
“Mon ami, Don’t you see We will receive them A la Barbari!”