6'0 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

placeman and pensioner. Frederic himself wrote tosolicit the consent of the king of France, To Vol-taire’s surprise, Louis showed displeasure. Mcnarchsare usually averse to any display of independence onthe part of their subjects and servants. He acceptedthe poet’s resignation of the place of historiographer,which Voltaire had hoped to keep, but permitted himto retain his title of gentleman in ordinary and hispension. Yet this was done in a manner that showedVoltaire that if he were forced to leave Prussia, hisposition in his native country would be more perilousand stormy than ever.

He felt, also, deeply disappointed in finding himselfobliged to give up the idea of having his niece, MadameDenis , with him in Prussia. “ The life we lead atPotzdam, ” he writes, “ which pleases me, would drivea woman to despair; so I leave her my house in Paris ,my plate, and my horses, and I add to her income.”Still his niece and his friends were not content at histhrowing himself so entirely into the power of Frederic,and their suggestions inspired a thousand doubts as tothe prudence of his choice, especially when the severityof the winter made him feel that the climate was illsuited to his feeble constitution.

However, he manfully opposed himself to the objec-tions raised against his choice, and the sufferings whichthe long icy winter caused him to endure. He devotedhimself to authorship. His chief occupation was his“Age of Louis XIV. ,” of which he was justly proud.He felt that he could write with greater freedom whileabsent from France . “ I shall here finish,” he -writes,“ the ‘ Age of Louis XIV. ,’ which, perhaps, I had neverwritten in Paris . The stones with which I erect thismonument in honour of my country had, there, servedbut to crush me; a bold word had seemed a lawlesslicence, and the most innocent expressions had beeninterpreted with that charity that spreads poison throughall.” Again he writes : “ I shall be historiographer ofFrance in spite of my enemies, and I was never so