King answered him: "I shall want him
still about a year:--you squeeze the orange, you throw away the skin (ON
EN JETTE LECORCE)!'" Here is a pretty bit of babble (lie, most likely,
and bit of mischievous fun) from Dr. Joyous. "It cannot be true, No!
And yet--and yet--?" Words cannot express the agonizing doubts, the
questionings, occasionally the horror of Voltaire: poor sick soul,
keeping a Dionysius'-Ear to boot! This blurt of La Mettrie's goes
through him like a shot of electricity through an elderly sick
Household-Cat; and he speaks of it again and ever again,--though we will
not farther.

DIRTY LINEN (Potsdam, 24th July, 1752, To Niece Denis).--... "Maupertuis
has discreetly set the rumor going, that I found the King's Works very
bad; that I said to some one, on Verses from the King coming in,
'Will he never tire, then, of sending me his dirty linen to wash?' You
obliging Maupertuis!"

Rumor says, it was General Mannstein, once Aide-de-Camp in Russia,
who had come to have his WORK ON RUSSIA revised (excellent Work, often
quoted by us [Did get out at last,--in England, through Lord Marischal
and David Hume: see PREFACE to it (London, 1760).]), when the
unfortunate Royal Verses came. Perhaps M. de Voltaire did say it:--why
not, had it only been prudent? He really likes those Verses much more
than I; but knows well enough, SUB ROSA, what kind of Verses they
are. This also is a horrible suspicion; that the King should hear of
this,--as doubtless the King did, though without going delirious upon
it at all. ["To Niece Denis," dates as above (--OEuvres de
Voltaire,--lxxiv. 408, lxxv. 17).] Thank YOU, my Perpetual President,
not the less!--

OF MAUPERTUIS, IN SUCCESSIVE PHASES.--... "Maupertuis is not of very
engaging ways; he takes my dimensions harshly with his quadrant: it is
said there enters something of envy into his DATA. ... A somewhat surly
gentleman; not too sociable; and, truth to say, considerably sunk here
[ASSEZ BAISSE, my D'Argental].

... "I endure Maupertuis, not having been able to soften him. In all
countries there are insociable fellows, with whom you are obliged to
live, though it is difficult. He has never forgiven me for"--omitting to
cite him, &c.--At Paris he had got the Academy of Sciences into trouble,
and himself into general dislike (DETESTER); then came this Berlin
offer. "Old Fleuri, when Maupertuis called to take leave, repeated that
verse of Virgil, NEC TIBI REGNANDI VENIAT TAM DIRA C