e passports asked for, and sought to
interest his literary lion in new projects. Finally, court life became
intolerable to Voltaire, as life is to anybody when he realizes that he
is being detained against his will. Voltaire packed his effects,
secured a four-horse carriage, and with his secretary, departed by
night, without leaving orders where his mail should be forwarded.

When Frederick found that his singing bird had flown, he was furious.
Fear had much to do with the matter, for Voltaire had taken various
manuscripts written by the King, wherein potentates in high places were
severely scored. The first thought of Frederick evidently was that
Voltaire had really been a spy in the employ of the French government.
He sent messengers after him in hot haste--the fugitive was overtaken,
and arrested. His luggage was searched, and after being detained at
Frankfort for three weeks he was allowed to depart for pastures new.

The news of his flight, arrest and disgrace became the gossip of every
court of Christendom. Who was disgraced more by the arrest--Voltaire or
Frederick--the world has not yet decided. Carlyle deals with the subject
in detail in his "Life of Frederick," and exonerates the King. But Taine
says Carlyle wrote neither history nor poetry, and certainly we do not
consider the sage of Cheyne Row an impartial judge.

Voltaire took time to cool, and then wrote a history of the affair which
is published in his "My Private Life," that is one of the most delicious
pieces of humor ever written. That he should have looked forward to life
at the Prussian Court as the ideal, and then after bravely enduring it
for three years, make his escape by night, was only a huge joke.
Nothing else could have been expected, he says. Men of fifty should know
that environment does not make heaven, and people who expect other
people to make paradise for them are forever doomed to wander without
the walls.

Voltaire acknowledges that he got better treatment than he deserved, and
makes no apology for working the whole affair up into good copy. The
final proof that Voltaire was a true philosopher is that he was able to
laugh at himself.

* * * * *

When Voltaire left Prussia, it was voluntary exile. Paris was
forbidden--all of France was for him unsafe; England he had hopelessly
offended. By slow stages he made his way to Switzerland. But on the way
there his courage failed him and he wrote back to F