406 VOLTAIRE up tragedy, and he replied with Zaire (1730), which, though written in 22 days, was his best and most pathetic drama, and was received with unbounded applause. Even in these po- etic attempts he could not suppress an oc- casional inkling of his deistical and liberal principles. His Lettres were consequently or- dered to be publicly burned, and he himself escaped lettres de cachet only by a speedy re- treat to Cirey, near Vassy in Champagne. This was the chateau of the marchioness du Chatelet, who was celebrated for her love of mathematics and abstruse sciences, and read Leibnitz and Newton in the original Latin. During his long residence under the same roof with Mme. du Chatelet, a connection which Lord Brougham defends as entirely Platonic, he wrote his JZlemens de la philosophic de New- ton, and a treatise on fire. Other fruits of his activity at this time were his Ahire (1786), Mahomet (1741), dedicated to the pope, Merope (1743), and a multitude of lighter pieces, in- cluding La pncelle, a disgustingly ribald per- formance. He also labored upon his most im- portant work, the Essai sur les mceurs et sur Ve*i>rit des nations; collected materials for his Siecle de Louis .Quatorze ; and amused his leisure in the production of plays for a pri- vate theatre, which he built and managed. Voltaire's residence at Cirey was marked by the opening of his correspondence with the prince royal of Prussia, afterward Frederick the Great. It was begun by the prince, who admired both his genius and the audacity with which he had assailed the government and cler- gy of France. Voltaire expressed the high- est admiration of the prince, whom he pro- nounced a Trajan and Pliny combined. When Frederick succeeded to the throne he asked Voltaire to reside at his court (1740). The poet declined at first, preferring the socie- ty of Mme. du Chatelet; but after her death (1749) he was more inclined to accept the in- vitation. He had lived altogether 13 years at Cirey ; yet he did not spend the whole of his time there. Many visits were made by him, generally in company with the marchioness, to different towns. In 1738 the scandal oc- casioned by his Mondain compelled him to retire to Brussels. Twice he went to Ber- lin, once in 1740 to see Frederick, and again in 1744, on a political mission for preserving the peace of Europe, with which he had been charged by the French cabinet. For a while also, in 1746, he removed to Paris, where he wrote and brought out other tragedies, trained Le Kain in the dramatic art, was chosen a member of the French academy, and received the appointment of historiographer of France from Louis XV. But his cynicism displeased Mrae. de Pompadour, and the Jesuits always worked against him. Crebillon was set up as a rival author; the court adopted the new fa- vorite, and Voltaire quitted Paris for Berlin. Frederick received him with transports of joy (1750). He was lodged in the apartments of Marshal Saxe ; the king's cooks, servants, and horses were placed at his disposal; he was granted a pension of 20,000 francs, and he and the king studied together for two hours a day, while he was welcomed to the king's table in the evening. Voltaire completed his Siecle de Louis Quatorze, and Frederick wrote verses and essays which he submitted to the criticism of the poet. But both were imperious, both irritable, both witty, while the one was a king and the other only a poet. Distrusts soon arose, bickerings followed, and in the end there was a violent rupture. Other favorites, Mauper- tuis, a philosopher, whom Voltaire lampooned under the name of Dr. Akakia, and Lamettre, a physician, widened the breach. At length Voltaire resolved to escape, and, carrying some of the king's poems with him, he was arrested at Frankfort under circumstances of consider- able annoyance and disgrace (1758). The in- dignant poet abused the monarch afterward as freely as he had once flattered him. Yet their correspondence was subsequently renewed, and though they criticised each other severely for the past, they resumed many of their old recip- rocal flatteries. In 1755 Voltaire purchased an estate near Geneva, in Switzerland, which he called Les D61ices, and there prosecuted once more his literary projects. But he became in- volved in disputes with his more rigid Swiss neighbors; the publication of La pucelle cre- ated many enemies; and forged verses in ridi- cule of Louis XV. and Mme. de Pompadour ascribed to him started new rumors of lettres de cachet. Throughout his life he was more or less involved in petulant controversies with con- temptible writers. With Jean Jacques Rous- seau he tried in vain to maintain a friendship. Voltaire had never restrained in private the mockeries and jests for which the personal oddities and speculative absurdities of Rous- seau gave occasion ; and these, coming to the ear of their object, provoked recrimination and a final rupture. In 1762 he removed to an estate which he had purchased at Ferney, on French territory, but near the Swiss confines, so that he might easily escape from one coun- try to the other in the event of hostilities on the part of either. His books and his specula- tions in the funds had made him enormously rich, and he delighted in spending his fortune in the improvement of his property, in con- structing better habitations for the poor labor- ers, in befriending indigent literary men, and in entertaining the hosts of visitors attracted by his fame. Nothing gave him greater celebrity than his efforts in behalf of oppressed Protes- tants. Fugitives from the civil troubles of Ge- neva and other towns always found an asylum beneath his roof. He even built a church at Ferney, which he dedicated to God, but which the ecclesiastical authority refused to recog- nize and consecrate. He omitted no exertion to maintain his place and continue the inspira- tion which he had given to the literature of his age. He had become, in a sense, the founder
