Luther. Undoubtedly the club blows dealt by the
great monk of the sixteenth century were far more formidable than the
stabs which were distributed by the great Prince in the age of
enlightenment. That it was neither dignified nor suitable was a point
for which the great King cared as little as the Reformer: both were in
a state of excitement as if in the chase, and both, in the pleasure of
the struggle, forgot the consequences; both, also, seriously injured
themselves and their great objects, and were honestly surprised when
they discovered it. But when the King bantered and sneered, or
maliciously teased, it was more difficult for him to draw back from his
unamiable mood; for his was generally no equal struggle with his
victim. Thus did the great Prince deal with all his political
opponents, and excited deadly enmity against himself; he jeered at the
Pompadour, the Empress Elizabeth, and the Empress Maria Theresa at the
dinner table, and circulated biting verses and pamphlets. That bad man,
Voltaire, he sometimes caressed, sometimes scolded and snarled at. But
he also treated in the same way, men whom he really esteemed, and who
were in his greatest confidence, whom he had received into the circle
of his friends. He had drawn the Marquis d'Argens to his court, made
him his chamberlain, and member of the Academy; he was one of his most
intimate and dearest companions. The letters which he wrote to him from
the camp during the Seven Years' War are among the most charming and
touching reminiscences that remain to us of the King. When he returned
from that war, his fondest hope was that the marquis would dwell with
him at Sans Souci. A few years afterwards this delightful connection
was dissolved. But how was this possible? The marquis was the best
Frenchman to whom the King had attached himself; a man of honour and of
refined feeling and cultivation, truly devoted to the King. But he was
neither a remarkable nor a very superior man. For years the King had
admired him as a man of learning, which he was not; he had formed to
himself a pleasant poetical idea of him, as a wise, clear-sighted, safe
philosopher, with agreeable wit and lively humour. Now, in the
intercourse of daily life, the King found himself mistaken; a certain
sentimental tendency in the Frenchman, which dwelt upon its own morbid
hypochondria, irritated him; he began to discover that the aged marquis
was neither a great scholar nor a man of strong mind; the id