im--was his
dearest friend; and as for Sir Isaac Newton, one would have thought
that he and Voltaire had exchanged nightcaps often. The valor of the
English nation Monsieur Voltaire could not extol enough. My master
listened to this with a grin, and then remarked that the English were
in truth a valiant nation, but that the only Englishman he had ever
met in hand to hand encounter was a scavenger whom he had no trouble
in pitching headforemost out of his own cart. At this, Monsieur
Voltaire sighed and said impudently: "Perhaps Count Saxe would favor
the company with his story of bending horseshoes with his hands
and twisting a farrier's nail into a practicable corkscrew," as if
Count Saxe were always telling those things! Then he took another
turn--this mischievous Voltaire--and paid Count Saxe most elaborate
compliments on his prospects of becoming Duke of Courland.

"It is a great, a splendid destiny," said he. "Fighting every day
and hour--but that's to your taste. An unruly people--but you were
born to reign. A climate, snow all the winter, rain all the other
seasons--but you are robust and can stand it. And a duchess, Anna
Iwanowna, with all the graces of a Calmuck Venus, waiting to become
your duchess! But you ever adored the ladies, and are the very man
to please a Calmuck princess!"

"Monsieur, you are most kind. Thank you for your congratulations,"
replied Count Saxe, gravely. "If the Calmuck princess fancies me it
will only be because she has not seen you. Men of letters are highly
esteemed in Courland--where they are not much known."

Monsieur Voltaire took snuff meditatively--and I trembled for my
master.

"When you are Duke of Courland," said this tigerish monkey of a
Voltaire, "Peggy Kirkpatrick says, you will be 'cousin' to the Kings
of France and Spain." Madame Riano had bawled Count Saxe's affairs and
Courland all over Paris. "You will be 'most Illustrious' to the
Emperor, and 'most Illustrious and most Mighty' to the King of
Poland."

The villain stopped and took snuff again. I felt my choler rising, and
would have given my sword to have had my hand in his collar at that
moment; he had already been caned twice, and ought to have been
bastinadoed. Actually, persons were beginning to smile at Count Saxe,
who turned red and white both, as Voltaire kept on:

"The Duke of Courland has the right of coining money, which the King
of Poland has not. The revenue is three hundred thousand crowns, and
the