92 VOLTAIRE. 



requisition was countermanded. The exactions to 

 which he was exposed during this detention, and the 

 sums taken from his trunks, are stated by him as 

 amounting to the whole money which he had received 

 during all his service at Berlin. This treatment made, 

 and naturally made, an impression upon his mind 

 which no time seems ever to have removed.* Had he 

 remained near the King, the same resentment would 

 not have kept possession of him ; but he was now 

 beyond the reach both of the royal seductions and the 

 royal power ; and he vented his indignation in that 

 scandalous chronicle of Frederick's life and manners, 

 which was plainly his main object in the autobio- 

 graphy, composed as soon as he quitted Francfort, and 

 not destroyed after the second reconcilement, which 

 took place in 1757. 



The style of the correspondence afterwards, when 

 Frederick had him not in his power, and when distance 

 enabled him to see with more impartial eyes the 

 character of his royal friend, affords a contrast to all 

 that preceded, quite refreshing to the admirers of 

 genius. We at last have Voltaire writing like a man, 

 and no longer either fawning like a courtier parasite, 

 or whining like a child in his addresses to the king. 

 Frederick, on his part, never forgets his alleged 

 grievances ; he constantly refers to them, but he does 

 full justice to the merits of his illustrious corre- 

 spondent, in whom he at length finds the more dignified 

 qualities of an independent mind. As to Maupertuis, 

 stung to madness by the merited contempt into which 



* See Cor. Gen., v. 67 (1757), but it breaks out often afterwards. 



