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Updated: June 7, 2025
Voltaire found three such emigrants there, Maupertuis, La Mettrie, and D'Arnaud. He was received by them with enthusiasm, as the sovereign of their little court of free thought. Frederick had given him a pension and the post of chamberlain, an office with very light duties, and the expatriated poet set himself out to enjoy his new life with zest and animation.
He had the misfortune to please Frederick, who had addressed to him a flattering poem. For this reason Voltaire hated him, and sought continually to deprive him of Frederick's favor and get him banished from court. This morning, for the first time, there was open strife between them, and the part which D'Arnaud had to play in "Rome Sauvee" gave occasion for the difficulty.
En un mot, la petite meprise du Roi de Prusse n'empeche pas qu'il ne soit le plus singulier de tous les homines." And now, with fiery eloquence, he began to show that upon these words hung the merit of the drama; that this speech was the most important of all! With jeers and sarcasm he drove poor D'Arnaud to the wall, who, breathless, raging, choking, could find no words nor strength to reply.
He was placed in the Chair of the Academy of Berlin, a humble imitation of the renowned Academy of Paris. Baculard d'Arnaud, a young poet who was thought to have given promise of great things, had been induced to quit his country, and to reside at the Prussian Court.
D'Arnaud and D'Argens, Guichard and La Metrie, might, for the sake of a morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence of a master; but Voltaire was of another order.
He was placed in the chair of the Academy of Berlin, a humble imitation of the renowned academy of Paris. Baculard D'Arnaud, a young poet, who was thought to have given promise of great things, had been induced to quit his country, and to reside at the Prussian Court.
Alas, D'Arnaud is not well gone, when there has begun brewing in threefold secrecy a mass of galvanic matter, which, in few weeks more, filled the Heavens with miraculous foul gases and the blackness of darkness; which, in short, exploded about New-year's time, as the world-famous VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH LAWSUIT, still remembered, though only as a portent and mystery, by observant on-lookers.
D'Arnaud, it is true, had but two words to say, but his enunciation did not please Voltaire. He declared that D'Arnaud uttered them intentionally and maliciously with coldness and indifference. D'Arnaud shrugged his shoulders and said a speech of two words did not admit of power or action. He asked what declamation could possibly do for two insignificant words, but make them ridiculous.
On this, Voltaire went off into a paroxysm of childish rage. "Was there ever such avarice? He has hundreds of tubs full of dollars in his vaults, and haggles with me about a poor thousand louis." It seemed that the negotiation would be broken off; but Frederic, with great dexterity, affected indifference, and seemed inclined to transfer his idolatry to Baculard D'Arnaud.
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