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Nor was he the only wit who frequented the Hôtel Kirkpatrick. Not only wits, but scholars like Maupertius, the two Bernouillis, many poets and literary men, Cardinal de Polignac and Marquis de Beauvau, soldiers like Marshal Count de Belle-Isle, his brother the Chevalier, the Prince de Soubise, the Prince de Clermont, and others, made Francezka's saloon shine.
A man may know how many children he has, and how much money he has; but no man knows how much faith he has. Everybody who has read Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great remembers the petty squabbles of Voltaire, Maupertius, and the other thinkers who moved about the person of that famous prince.
"I judged rightly," said he, with a grimace; "the king wished to sacrifice me to Maupertius. I think this was a master-stroke. I have truly burned the original manuscript, but a copy of it was sent to Leyden eight days since. While the king thinks I am such a good-humored fool as to yield the contest to the proud beggar Maupertius, my 'Akakia' will be published in Leyden.
Yes, even to Siberia will I drive this long-legged peacock, Maupertius him, first of all; then D'Argens, then Algarotti, then this over-wise and good Lord Marshal, and all others like him! When Voltaire's sun is in the ascendant, not even stars shall glitter; It shall not be! He laughed aloud, and seated himself to write a poem.
And now, amidst the breathless silence of the crowd, a functionary of the king read the sentence that sentence which condemned the "Akakia," that malicious and slanderous publication holding up the noble, virtuous, and renowned scholar Maupertius to the general mockery of Paris. Voltaire stood calm and smiling at the open window.
We kept a sharp look-out for the mountain of Avasaxa, one of the stations of Celsius, Maupertius, and the French Academicians, who came here in 1736, to make observations determining the exact form of the earth. Through this mountain, it is said, the Arctic Circle passes, though our maps were neither sufficiently minute nor correct to determine the point.
Voltaire was very gracious this morning. As he was to play the part of improvisator that night, he thought it politic to make favor with all those who would be present. He hoped that all the world would thunder out their enraptured applause, and that Maupertius, D'Argens, Algarotti, La Mettrie, and all other friends of the king, would be filled with envy and rage.
I know these poor, beggarly cousins, these D'Argens, these Algarottis, these La Mettries, this vainglorious peacock Maupertius. "Voltaire," said the king, interrupting him, "you forget that you speak of my friends, and I do not allow any one to speak evil of them. I will never be partial, never unjust!
It has been the same in other countries. Vattel, the author of the 'Rights of Nations, was a practical diplomatist, and a first-rate man of business. Rabelais was a physician, and a successful practitioner; Schiller was a surgeon; Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Camoens, Descartes, Maupertius, La Rochefoucauld, Lacepede, Lamark, were soldiers in the early part of their respective lives.
The hour of audience was over, and the two gentlemen lounged arm in arm down the street. "Let us go toward the palace," said Pollnitz. "I think we will behold a rare spectacle, a crowd of old wigs who have disguised themselves as savans. To-day, the first sitting of the Academy of Arts and Sciences takes place, and the celebrated President Maupertius will open the meeting in the name of the king.
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