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Man is only a machine, nothing more." "La Mettrie, I will give you to-morrow nothing but grouse and truffles to eat: woe to you, then, if the day after you do not write me just such a comedy as Moliere's!
I declared that Ninon de l'Enclos had made me swear never to marry, lest my grandchildren should fall in love with me, as hers had done with her." "Precaution is praiseworthy," said La Mettrie. "The devil's grandmother had also a husband, and her grandsons might have fallen in love with her." "Phillis did not take me for the devil's grandfather, but for the devil himself.
Milord is at Berlin; a Jacobite Irishman, of blusterous Irish qualities, though with plenty of sagacity and rough sense; likes La Mettrie; and is not much a favorite with Friedrich.
Neither did he see any sign of the King, but about noonday he received a letter bearing the royal arms which ran as follows: "MONSIEUR, Doctor La Mettrie has told me of your determination to travel to a watering-place.
"Listen well, friends, he will no doubt tell us of some duchess who placed him upon an altar and bowed down and worshipped him." "No, sire, I will tell you of an injury, the bitterest I ever experienced, and which I can never forget." "As if he had ever forgotten an injury, unless he had revenged it threefold!" cried D'Argens. "And chopped up his enemy for pastry and eaten him," said La Mettrie.
Then the divine Marianna, Cochois, and Denys will perform some mystical dance, and so the marriage will be solemnized according to Persian rites and ceremonies." "And then, I dare hope your majesty will give a splendid wedding- feast, where costly wines and rich and rare viands will not fail us," said La Mettrie. "Look, now, how his eyes sparkle with anticipated delights!" cried the king.
No one remembers that the tears which have bathed my face have fallen upon my lips, and become crystallized into biting sarcasms. Only the wretched and sorely tried are sharp of wit and bitter of speech." "Not so," said La Mettrie; "these things are the consequence of bad digestion. This machine is not acted upon by what you poets call spirit, and I call brain; it reacts upon itself.
Friedrich not only tolerates the poor madcap, but takes some pleasure in him: madcap we say, though poor La Mettrie had remarkable gifts, exuberant laughter one of them, and was far from intending to be mad. Not Zanyism, but Wisdom of the highest nature, was what he drove at, unluckily, with open mouth, and mind all in tumult.
Thus had La Mettrie found a Goshen; and stood in considerable favor, at Court and in Berlin Society in the years now current. According to Nicolai, Friedrich never esteemed La Mettrie, which is easy to believe, but found him a jester and ingenious madcap, out of whom a great deal of merriment could be had, over wine or the like.
These were the boon companions among whom Frederick chose to spend his leisure hours. Whenever he had nothing better to do, he would exchange rhymed epigrams with Algarotti, or discuss the Jewish religion with d'Argens, or write long improper poems about Darget, in the style of La Pucelle. Or else he would summon La Mettrie, who would forthwith prove the irrefutability of materialism in a series of wild paradoxes, shout with laughter, suddenly shudder and cross himself on upsetting the salt, and eventually pursue his majesty with his buffooneries into a place where even royal persons are wont to be left alone. At other times Frederick would amuse himself by first cutting down the pension of Pöllnitz, who was at the moment a Lutheran, and then writing long and serious letters to him suggesting that if he would only become a Catholic again he might be made a Silesian Abbot. Strangely enough, Frederick was not popular, and one or other of the inmates of his little menagerie was constantly escaping and running away. Darget and Chasot both succeeded in getting through the wires; they obtained leave to visit Paris, and stayed there. Poor d'Argens often tried to follow their example; more than once he set off for France, secretly vowing never to return; but he had no money, Frederick was blandishing, and the wretch was always lured back to captivity. As for La Mettrie, he made his escape in a different manner by dying after supper one evening of a surfeit of pheasant pie. 'Jésus! Marie! he gasped, as he felt the pains of death upon him. 'Ah! said a priest who had been sent for, 'vous voil
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