MEMOIRS OF VOLTAIRE. PART I. I was tired of the lazy and turbulent life led at Paris, of the multitude of petit-maitres, of bad books printed with the approbation of censors and the privilege of the king, of the cabals and parties among the learned; and of the mean arts, plagiarism, and book-making which dishonour literature. In the year 1733, I met with a young lady who happened to think nearly as I did, and who took a resolution to go with me and spend several years in the country, there to cultivate her understanding, far from the hurry and tumult of the world. This lady was no other than the marchioness de Châtelet, who, of all the women in France, had a mind the most capable of the various branches of science. Her father, the baron de Breteuil, had taught her Latin, which she understood as perfectly as madame Dacier. She knew by rote the most beautiful passages in "Horace," "Virgil," and "Lucretius," and all the philosophical works of Cicero were familiar to her. Her inclinations were more strongly bent towards the mathematics and metaphysics than any other studies, and seldom has there been united in the same person so much justness of discernment, and elegance of taste, with so ardent a desire of information. Yet, notwithstanding her love of literature, she was not the less attached of the world, and those amusements which were adapted to her sex and age; she, however, determined to quit them all, and go and bury herself in an old ruinous chateau, upon the borders of Champagne and Lorraine, and situated in a barren and unhealthy soil. This old chateau she ornamented and embellished with tolerably pretty gardens; I built a gallery, and formed a very good collection of natural history: add to which, we had a library not badly furnished. We were visited by several of the learned, who came to philosophize in our retreat: among others we had the celebrated Koenig for two entire years, who has since died professor at the Hague, and librarian to her highness the princess of Orange. Maupertuis came also, with John Bernouilli; and there it was that Maupertuis, who was born the most jealous of all human beings, made me the object of a passion which has ever been to him exceedingly dear. She I taught English to madame de Châtelet, who, in about three months, understood it as well as I did, and read Newton, Locke, and Pope, with equal ease. learnt Italian likewise as soon. We read all the works of Tasso and Ariosto together, so that when Algarotti came to Cirey, where he finished his "Neutonianismo per le Dame," (the ladies Newton,) he found her sufficiently skilful in his own language to give him some very excellent information by which he profited. Algarotti was a Venetian, the son of a very rich tradesman, and very amiable; he had travelled all over Europe, he knew a little of every thing, and gave to every thing a grace. In this our delightful retreat we sought only instruction, and troubled not ourselves concerning what passed in the rest of the world. We long employed all our attention and powers upon Leibnitz and Newton : dame de Châtelet attached herself first to Leibnitz, and explained one part of his system, in a book exceedingly well written, entitled "Institutions de Physique." She did not seek to decorate philosophy with ornaments to which philosophy is a stranger; such affectation never was part of her character, which was masculine and just. The properties of her style were clearness, precision, and elegance. If it be ever possible to give the semblance of truth to the ideas of Leibnitz, it will be found in that book: but at present few people trouble themselves to know how or what Leibnitz thought. Born with a love of truth, she soon abandoned system, and applied herself to the discoveries of the great Newton; she translated his whole book on the principles of the mathematics into French; and when she had afterwards enlarged her knowledge, she added to this book, which so few people understood, an Algebraical Commentary," which likewise is not to be understood by common readers. M. Clairaut, one of our best geometricians, has carefully reviewed this "Commentary," an edition of it was begun, and it is not to the honour of the age, that it was never finished. At Cirey we cultivated all the arts; it was there I composed" Alzire," "Mérope," "l'Enfant Prodigue,” and "Mahomet." For her use I wrote an "Essay on Universal History," from the age of Charlemagne to the present. I chose the epocha of Charlemagne, because it was the point of time at which Bossuet stopped, and because I durst not again treat a subject already handled by so great a master. Madame de Châtelet, however, was far from satisfied with the universal history of this prelate; she thought it eloquent only, and was provoked to find that the labours of Bossuet were all wasted upon a nation so despicable as the Jewish. After having spent six years in this retreat, in the midst of the arts and sciences, we were obliged to go to Brussels, where the family of de Châtelet had long been embroiled in a lawsuit with the family of Honsbrouk. Here I had the good fortune to meet with a grandson of the illustrious and unfortunate grand pensioner De Wit, who was first president of the chamber of accounts, and had one of the finest libraries in Europe, which was of great use to me in writing my "Universal History." But I had a still superior happiness at Brussels, and which gave me infinite pleasure. I terminated the lawsuit, by an accommodation, in which the two families had been ruining each other with expenses for near sixty years, and gained two hundred and twenty thousand livres paid in ready money to the marquis de Châtelet. While I remained at Brussels, and in the year 1740, the unpolished king of Prussia, Frederick-William, the most intolerant of all kings, and beyond contradiction the most frugal, and the richest in ready money, died at Berlin. His son, who has since gained so singular 'a kind of reputation, had then held a tolerably regular correspondence with me for above four years. The world never perhaps beheld a father and son who less resembled each other than these two monarchs. The father was an absolute vandal, who thought of no other thing, during his whole reign, than amassing money, and maintaining, at the least possible expense, the finest soldiers in Europe. Never were subjects poorer, or king more rich. He bought up at a despicable price the estates of a great part of the nobility, who soon devoured the little money they got for them, above half of which returned to the royal coffers by means of the duties upon consumption. All the king's lands were farmed out to tax-gatherers, who held the double office of exciseman and judge; insomuch, that if a landed tenant did not pay this collector upon the very day appointed, he put on his judge's robe, and condemned the delinquent in double the sum. It must be observed, that if this same exciseman and judge did not pay the king by the last day of the month, the day following he was himself obliged to pay double to the king. Did a man kill a hare or lop a tree any where near the royal domains, or commit any other peccadillo? he was instantly condemned to pay a fine. Was a poor girl found guilty of being with child? the father or the mother, or some other of the girl's relations, were obliged to pay his majesty for the fashion. The baroness of Kniphaussen, who at that time was the richest widow in Berlin, that is to say, she had between three and four hundred a year, was accused of having brought one of the king's subjects clandestinely into the world in the second year of her widowhood. His majesty thereupon wrote her a letter, with his own hand, wherein he informed her it was necessary, if she meant to save her honour, and preserve her character, she must immediately send him thirty thousand livres (1250l.) This sum she was obliged to borrow, and was ruined This He had an ambassador at the Hague, whose name was Luisius; and certainly of all the ambassadors that appertained to royalty, he was paid the worst. poor man, that he might be able to keep a fire, had cut down some trees in the garden of Hous-lardick, which then appertained to the royal-house of Prussia. His next despatches brought him word that the king, his gracious sovereign, had stopped, on this account, a year's salary to defray his damages, and Luisius, in a fit of despair, cut his throat with the only razor he had. An old valet, happening to come in, called assistance, and unhappily for him saved his life. I afterwards met with his excellency at the Hague, and gave him alms at a gate of the palace, which is called the Old Court, and which belonged to the king of Prussia, where this poor ambassador had lived twelve years. Turkey, it must be confessed, is a republic, when compared to the despotism exercised by this FredericWilliam. It was by such means, only, that he could, in a reign of twenty-eight years, load the cellars of his palace at Berlin with a hundred and twenty millions of crowns (fifteen millions sterling,) all well casked up in barrels hooped with iron. He took great pleasure in furnishing the grand apart |