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Here it is, he continues, as I see it. "The iron mask was undoubtedly a brother and an elder brother of Louis XIV., whose mother had that taste for fine linen on which M. de Voltaire lays stress.
At times he was the idol of Paris, applauded by philosophes and petted by the court, or again he would be a refugee from the wrath of outraged authorities. For a great part of his life he resided at Cirey in Lorraine, with his mistress, his books, his half-finished plays, and his laboratory for Voltaire, like all philosophes, had to play at science.
"Gaudissart? he was once in the hands of justice. But never mind, he is going to travel for our oil and starts in a few days; put him down. As to the Sieur Andoche Finot, what is he to us?" "Monsieur Anselme says he will be a great man; he has a mind like Voltaire." "An author? all atheists." "Let's put him down, papa; we want more dancers. Besides, he wrote the beautiful prospectus for the oil."
That the bond between Emilie and Voltaire was very firm is shown by the fact that, after they had been together ten years, he declined to leave her to accept an invitation to visit Frederick the Great at Berlin. Frederick was a married man, but his was a strictly bachelor court for prudential reasons.
The utmost that can be conceded is to concur in Hayley's opinion that, either in representation or in perusal, the Adamo of Andreini had made an impression on the mind of Milton; had, as Voltaire says, revealed to him the hidden majesty of the subject.
If all books but those first submitted to approval were tabu: Quinet was thrice caught reading Voltaire. If criticism of any of the doctrines of Catholic piety was a sin to be expiated hardly even by months of penance: there was nothing sacred to his inquiries, from the authority of the Popes of Avignon to the stigma miracle of the Seraphic St. Francis.
The old-time opera libretto was so stupid that Voltaire was justified in saying, "What is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
Voltaire was aware of the injury which theatrical effect sustained from the established practice of the tragic stage in France; he frequently insisted on the necessity of richer scenical decorations; and he himself in his pieces, and others after his example, have ventured to represent many things to the eye, which before would have been considered as unsuitable, not to say, ridiculous.
Not in vain did Voltaire, that great man, point from the foot of the Alps, the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. Not in vain were the splendid utterances of the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science. The church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march of the human race. Heresy can not be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved.
Frederick did not remain without anxiety on the score of Voltaire's rancor; Voltaire dreaded nasty diplomatic proceedings on the part of the king; he had been threatened with as much by Lord Keith, Milord Marechal, as he was called on the Continent from the hereditary title he had lost in his own country through his attachment to the cause of the Stuarts:
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