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favour, and of the petty jealousy that it excites, hereplied, ‘ I shall not want him for more than a yearlonger : one squeezes the orange, and throws away thepeel.’ ”
These words sank deep in Voltaire ’s mind ; and notless deeply did the king feel an expression of theirritable poet, who called himself Frederic’s laundress,and said, when he corrected the royal poems, that hewas washing the king’s dirty linen. Such heedlessspeeches, carried from one to the other by the thought-less or the malicious, destroyed every feeling of attach-ment, and circumstances soon concurred to inspire bothwith mistrust, to inspire the weaker with a desire ofthrowing off his chains, and the stronger with a moreunworthy determination of adding to their weight.
The first circumstance of any importance that oc-curred was a pecuniary transaction between Voltaire and a Jew. Voltaire says, that after the speech ofFrederic, reported to him by la Metrie, he wished toput his orange peel in safety. Whether his transactionwith the Jew concerned the placing of his money can-not be told; it is enveloped in great obscurity ; however,what is certain is, that it was submitted to a legaltrial, the Jew condemned, and Voltaire entirely exone-rated from blame. The mere fact, however, of anaccusation being made against him, and fault found,was matter of triumph to his enemies. A thousandlibels were circulated in Paris and Berlin, and a thou-sand falsehoods told. Frederic, when he heard of thedispute, referred it to the decision of the law. In thishe did well. But he affected to distrust Voltaire ; heforbade him to appear at court till the decision of thejudges was known. Voltaire was far above peculationand pecuniary meanness. The king committed anirremissible crime in friendship, whether he really dis-trusted Voltaire , or merely pretended so to do. But aking of Prussia is an absolute monarch ; all belongingto him are his creatures ; and that one of these shouldventure out of bounds, either to secure his property or