Page:Voltaire (Hamley).djvu/171

 delicious, but reason always rules there: one thinks boldly there—one is free."

"I had set out," he says elsewhere, "to pay my court to the King of Prussia, thinking to see Italy afterwards, and then to return to have my 'Age of Louis XIV.' printed in Holland. I arrive at Potsdam; the great blue eyes of the king, and his sweet smile and his siren voice, his five victories, his extreme taste for retirement and for letters—in fine, kindness enough to turn one's head, delightful conversation, perfect liberty, forgetfulness of royalty in our intercourse—all this carried me away."

It is even recorded that, in the carnival-time, Voltaire held a levée, as an established royal favourite, when all the great officials paid their respects to him. But it unluckily happened that at this time Voltaire's propensities for financial speculation got the better of his judgment. The exchequer bills of Saxony, at a considerable discount at home, were, by special proviso, payable to Prussian subjects in gold. The opportunity which a Prussian subject would therefore enjoy of buying the bills at a discount, and then obtaining full value, had occurred to others, but had been rendered of small avail by stringent regulations and penalties. Nevertheless it was upon such a doubtful enterprise that Voltaire now entered, with the respectable assistance of a Jew money-lender and general dealer, with whom he had had some transactions, such as hiring jewels in which to play his part of Cicero. This associate was despatched to Dresden, really to buy the paper, but ostensibly to speculate in furs and jewellery, and was furnished by Voltaire with drafts on Paris, to a considerable amount, leaving as security, with his employer, jewels valued at his own estimate. It occurred to