ussar-party gets sight of
him, on his tree or other standpoint (Voltaire says elsewhere he was
mounted on an ass, the malicious spirit!)--too certain, the Austrian
Hussars got sight of him: his purse, gold watch, all he has of movable
is given frankly; all will not do. There are frills about the man,
fine laces, cloth; a goodish yellow wig on him, for one thing:--their
Slavonic dialect, too fatally intelligible by the pantomime accompanying
it, forces sage Maupertuis from his tree or standpoint; the big red face
flurried into scarlet, I can fancy; or scarlet and ashy-white mixed;
and--Let us draw a veil over it! He is next seen shirtless, the once
very haughty, blustery, and now much-humiliated man; still conscious
of supreme acumen, insight and pure science; and, though an Austrian
prisoner and a monster of rags, struggling to believe that he is
a genius and the Trismegistus of mankind. What a pickle! The sage
Maupertuis, as was natural, keeps passionately asking, of gods and men,
for an Officer with some tincture of philosophy, or even who could speak
French. Such Officer is at last found; humanely advances him money, a
shirt and suit of clothes; but can in nowise dispense with his going
to Vienna as prisoner. Thither he went accordingly; still in a mythical
condition. Of Voltaire's laughing, there is no end; and he changes the
myth from time to time, on new rumors coming; and there is no truth to
be had from him. [Voltaire, _OEuvres (Vie Prive),_ ii. 33-34; and see
his LETTERS for some were after the event.]

This much is certain: at Vienna, Maupertuis, prisoner on parole, glided
about for some time in deep eclipse, till the Newspapers began babbling
of him. He confessed then that he was Maupertuis, Flattener of the
Earth; but for the rest, "told rather a blind story about himself," says
Robinson; spoke as if he had been of the King's suite, "riding with the
King," when that Hussar accident befell;--rather a blind story, true
story being too sad. The Vienna Sovereignties, in the turn things had
taken, were extremely kind; Grand-Duke Franz handsomely pulled out his
own watch, hearing what road the Maupertuis one had gone; dismissed
the Maupertuis, with that and other gifts, home:--to Brittany (not
to Prussia), till times calmed for engrafting the Sciences.
[_Helden-Geschichte,_ i. 902; Robinson's Despatch (Vienna, 22d April,
1741, n.s.); Voltaire, ubi supra.]

On Wednesday, Friedrich writes this Note to his Sister; t