Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 20.djvu/36

 with great expedition, and retained so much of it, as to be able to speak it all the rest of his life. The same means were employed to engage him to learn the French; but he could never be persuaded to make use of that tongue, not even with the French ambassadors themselves, who understood no other.

As soon as he had acquired a tolerable knowledge of the Latin, his teacher made him translate "Quintus Curtius;" a book for which he conceived a great liking, rather on account of the subject than the style. The person who explained this author to him having asked him what he thought of Alexander: "I think," said the prince, "I could wish to be like him." "But," resumed the preceptor, "he only lived two and thirty years." "Ah!" replied he, "and is not that enough, when one has conquered kingdoms?" The courtiers did not fail to carry these answers to the king, his father, who would often cry out: "This child will excel me, and will even go beyond the great Gustavus." One day he happened to be diverting himself in the royal apartment, in viewing two plans; the one of a town in Hungary, which the Turks had taken from the emperor; the other of Riga the capital of Livonia, a province conquered by the Swedes about a century before. Under the plan of the town in Hungary were written these words, taken from the book of Job: "The Lord hath given it to me, and the Lord hath taken it from me; blessed be the name of the Lord." The young prince having read this inscription, immediately took a pencil, and wrote under the plan of Riga: "The Lord hath given it to me, and the devil shall