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Yet it is only fair to point out that this statement contains nothing that would not be recognized by those intrepid atheists of the past, and little more than they urged in their time. I refer to those brilliant French atheists La Mettrie, Helvetius, d'Holbach, d'Alembert, and Diderot.
But a moment later it was supper-time; and the night ended in the oval dining-room, amid laughter and champagne, the ejaculations of La Mettrie, the epigrams of Maupertuis, the sarcasms of Frederick, and the devastating coruscations of Voltaire. Yet, in spite of all the jests and roses, everyone could hear the rumbling of the volcano under the ground.
About a month before Rothenburg's death, which was so tragical to Friedrich, there had fallen out, with a hideous dash of farce in it, the death of La Mettrie. Here are Two Accounts, by different hands, which represent to us an immensity of babble in the then Voltaire circle. LA METTRIE DIES. Two Accounts: 1. King Friedrich's: to Wilhelmina. "21st November, 1751.... We have lost poor La Mettrie.
We generally see, I say, theologians anxious to learn how to wring their inventions and sayings out of the sacred text, and to fortify them with divine authority." In France, Pierre Bayle cleverly satirized the absurdity of dogma, and La Mettrie, an army physician, was exiled for the publication of his "Man a Machine." He insisted that if atheism were generally accepted society would be happier.
I brought to Berlin about a score of teeth, there remain to me something like six; I brought two eyes, I have nearly lost one of them; I brought no erysipelas, and I have got one, which I take a great deal of care of.... Meanwhile I have buried almost all my Doctors; even La Mettrie. "I wish my Works, and only they, had been what you and Konig attacked.
Maupertuis, La Mettrie, and the Marquis of Argens had preceded Voltaire to Berlin. He was received there with enthusiasm and as sovereign of the little court of philosophers.
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.
I have already said we were garrisoned at Berlin during winter, where the officers' table was at court: and, as my reputation had preceded me, no person whatever could be better received there, or live more pleasantly. Frederic commanded me to visit the literati, whom he had invited to his court: Maupertuis, Jordan, La Mettrie, and Pollnitz, were all my acquaintance.
"La Mettrie would consent to wed every woman in the world if he could thereby spend his whole life in one continuous wedding- feast; but listen, sir, before you eat again, you have a story to relate. Discharge this duty at once, and give us a piquant anecdote from your gay life." "Your majesty desires a piquant anecdote out of my own life," said La Mettrie.
"If the Kings of Denmark, Portugal, Spain, &c. did it, I should not care a pin; they are only Kings. Nobody whatever complains of me. "Lieberkuhn was going to kill poor Rothenburg; to send him off to Pluto, for liking his dish a little; monster Lieberkuhn! But Doctor Joyous," your reader, La Mettrie, led by, need I say whom? "has brought him back to us: think of Lieberkuhn's solemn stare!
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