osophers, her husband
will suffer for it with posterity.' At the same time, she respected him
more than Frederick, and her letters were never disgraced by any
impurity. She offered D'Alembert to intrust him with the education of
her only son, and to settle on him a pension of 50,000 francs (L2000).
She flattered Diderot, and sent him a present of 66,000 francs (L2400).
If the Encyclopedia is proscribed at Paris, it was reprinted at St
Petersburg; the Empress went so far as herself to translate the
Belisarius of Marmontel into the Russian tongue. Eighteen other princes,
among whom were the King of Poland, the King of Sweden, and the King of
Denmark, corresponded with Voltaire, and hastened to deposit in his
hands their adhesion to his protest against the prejudices of the age.
The princes and great men who were travelling in Europe, endeavoured to
stop at Ferney, happy if they could enjoy for a few minutes the
conversation of the great writer. 'I have been,' said he to Madame de
Deffand, 'for fourteen years the hotel-keeper of Europe.' In his old
age, intoxicated with joy, he wrote to Helvetius, on the 26th June 1765:
'Do you not see that the whole North is for us, and that it is
inevitable that sooner or later those miserable fanatics of the South
must be confounded? The Empress of Russia, the King of Prussia, the
conqueror of the superstitious Austrian, besides many other princes,
have already erected the standard of philosophy.' Again he wrote to
D'Alembert, on the 4th June 1767: 'Men begin to open their eyes from one
end of Europe to the other. Fanaticism, which feels its weakness and
implores the arm of authority, despite itself, acknowledges its defeat.
The works of Bolingbroke, of Trent, and of Boulanger, universally
diffused, are so many triumphs of Reason. Let us bless that revolution
which for the last fifteen or twenty years has taken place in general
opinion. It has exceeded my most sanguine hopes. _With respect to the
common people, I take no charge of them--they will always remain the
rabble._ I cultivate my own garden; it is unavoidable that there should
be frogs in it, but they do not prevent my nightingales from
singing.'"--Vol. ii. pp. 357-8.

Such were the opinions of the wise men of Europe in the age which
preceded the French Revolution! It is not surprising they brought on
that convulsion.

One of the most powerful means by which Voltaire and his party succeeded
in rousing so strong a feeling among