40 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

the States General. We conversed on the immortalityof the soul, free will, and Plato’s “Androgynes .” Coun-sellor Rambonet meanwhile mounted a hack, and, afterriding all night, arrived at the gates of Liege , where hemade a requisition in the name of the king, his master,which two thousand of his troops helped him to en-force. Frederic even charged me with writing a mani-festo, which I did as well as I could, not doubting thata king with whom I supped, and who called me hisfriend, must be in the right. The affair was soonarranged, through the payment of a million, which heexacted in ducats, which served to indemnify him forthe expense of his journey to Strasbourg , of which hehad complained in his poetic letter. I grew attachedto him, for he had talent and grace; and besides, hewas a king, which, considering human weakness, isalways a great fascination. Generally we literary menflatter kings; but he flattered me, while abbe Des-fontaines and other rascals defamed me once a week atParis .

“ The king of Prussia, before his father’s death, hadwritten a w r ork against the principles of Machiavelli .If Machiavelli had had a prince for disciple, he wouldhave recommended him, in the first place, to writeagainst him; but the prince royal did not understandthis sort of finesse. He had written in good faith at atime when he was not sovereign; and his father in-spired him with no partiality for despotic power. Hesincerely praised moderation and justice, and in hisenthusiasm regarded every usurpation as a crime. Hehad sent me the manuscript to correct and publish. Inow began to feel remorse at printing the “ Anti-Machiavel,” while the king of Prussia, with an hundredmillions in his treasury, took one, by means of coun-sellor Rambonet, from the poor inhabitants of Liege .I suspected that my Solomon would not stop there.Plis father had left sixty-six thousand four hundredexcellent soldiers. He augmented the number, andseemed eager to make use of them. I represented to