96 VOLTAIRE. 



happening at so peculiar a moment, the very fortnight 

 before he endeavoured to draw M. de Richelieu into a 

 negotiation, leaves no doubt that he intended to avail 



O ' 



himself of the poet's known intimacy with the General 

 in furtherance of this scheme. Voltaire had, some 

 days before this revival of friendly relations, been 

 writing of him as he usually did. On the 6th of 

 August, 1757, he had, in one of his letters, said, 

 " L'ennemi publique est pris de tous cotes. Vive 

 Marie Ther^se !" (Cor. Gen., v. 21.)* 



During the two years of his residence in Alsace 

 Voltaire had done little more than correct his works, 

 and publish the ' Annales de 1'Empire,' a history 

 undertaken at the request of the Grand Duchess of 

 Saxe Gotha, and upon the plan of the President 

 Renault's dull work. But at Berlin he finished his 

 ' Siecle de Louis XIV.,' the materials of which he had 

 brought with him from Paris. He also began at that 

 time his correspondence with Diderot and D'Alembert, 

 then engaged in editing the famous ' Encyclopedic,' 

 the effects of which he very early foresaw, and to 

 encourage it gave his best efforts, both while at Berlin 

 and after his establishment near Geneva. Whatever we 

 may deem respecting the tendency of the work (on its 

 merits there cannot be two opinions), it is impossible 

 not to have our admiration excited as well as to take 

 a lively interest in the zeal and untiring activity 

 which the aged philosopher displayed in encouraging 



* It is the humour of Voltaire and his Parisian correspondents 

 to call Frederick always " Luc" This was probably the name of 

 some noted knave at the time. The term is plainly used dyslogis- 

 ticallt/. 



