Such tempest in a teapot is not unexampled, nay rather is very
frequent, in that Anarchic Republic called of Letters.
Confess, reader, that you too would have needed some patience in
M. de Voltaire's place; with such a Heaven's own Inspiration of a
MAHOMET in your hands, and such a terrestrial Doggery at your
heels. Suppose the bitterest of your barking curs were a Reverend
Desfontaines of Sodom, whom you yourself had saved from the gibbet
once, and again and again from starving? It is positively a great
Anarchy, and Fountain of Anarchies, all that, if you will consider;
and it will have results under the sun. You cannot help it, say
you; there is no shutting up of a Reverend Desfontaines, which
would be so salutary to himself and to us all? No:--and when human
reverence (daily going, in such ways) is quite gone from the world;
and your lowest blockhead and scoundrel (usually one entity) shall
have perfect freedom to spit in the face of your highest sage and
hero,--what a remarkably Free World shall we be!

Voltaire, keeping good silence as to all this, and minded for
Brussels again, receives the King of Prussia's invitation; lays it
at his Eminency Fleury's feet; will not accept, unless his Eminency
and my own King of France (possibly to their advantage, if one
might hint such a thing!) will permit it. [Ib. lxxii. 555 (Letter
to Fleury, "Paris, Aug. 22d").] "By all means; go, and"--The rest
is in dumb-show; meaning, "Try to pump him for us!" Under such
omens, Voltaire and his divine Emilie return to their Honsbruck
Lawsuit: "Silent Brussels, how preferable to Paris and its mad
cries!" Voltaire, leaving the divine Emilie at Brussels, September
2d, sets out for Aix,--Aix attainable within the day. He is back at
Brussels late in the evening, September 9th:--how he had fared, and