But it succeeded ill with him: he took a violent fever, which passed into putrid; and carried him off. He is regretted by all that knew him. He was gay; BON DIABLE, good Doctor, and very bad Author: by avoiding to read his Books, one could manage to be well content with himself." [Ib. xxvii. i. 203.]
2. Voltaire's: to Niece Denis (NOT his first to her): Potsdam, 24th December, 1751. ... "No end to my astonishment. Milord Tyrconnel,"always ailing (died here himself), "sends to ask La Mettrie to come and see him, to cure him or amuse him. The King grudges to part with his Reader, who makes him laugh. La Mettrie sets out;arrives at his Patient's just when Madame Tyrconnel is sitting down to table: he eats and drinks, talks and laughs more than all the guests; when he has got crammed (EN A JUSQU'AU MENTON), they bring him a pie, of eagle disguised as pheasant, which had arrived from the North, plenty of bad lard, pork-hash and ginger in it;my gentleman eats the whole pie, and dies next day at Lord Tyrconnel's, assisted by two Doctors," Cothenius and Lieberkuhn, "whom he used to mock at. ... How I should have liked to ask him, at the article of death, about that Orange-skin!" [<italic> OEuvres de Voltaire, <end italic> lxxiv. 439, 450.]
Add this trait too, from authentic Nicolai, to complete the matter:
"An Irish Priest, Father Macmahon, Tyrconnel's Chaplain [more power to him], wanted to convert La Mettrie: he pushed into the sick-room;--encouraged by some who wished to make La Mettrie contemptible to Friedrich [the charitable souls]. La Mettrie would have nothing to do with this Priest and his talk; who, however, still sat and waited. La Mettrie, in a twinge of agony, cried out, 'JESUS MARIE!' 'AH, VOUS VOILA ENFIN RETOURNE A CES NOMSCONSOLATEURS!' exclaimed the Irishman. To which La Mettrie answered (in polite language, to the effect), 'Bother you!' and expired a few minutes after." [Nicolai, <italic> Anekdoten, <end italic>
i. 20 n.]
Enough of this poor madcap. Friedrich's ELOGE of him, read to the Academy some time after, it was generally thought (and with great justice), might as well have been spared. The Piece has nothing noisy, nothing untrue; but what has it of importance? And surely the subject was questionable, or more. La Mettrie might have done without Eulogy from a King of men.
... "He had been used to put himself at once on the most familiar footing with the King [says Thiebault, UNbelievable]. Entered the King's apartment as he would that of a friend; plunged down whenever he liked, which was often, and lay upon the sofas; if it was warm, took off his stock, unbuttoned his waistcoat, flung his periwig on the floor;" [Thiebault, v. 405 (calls him "La Metherie;"knows, as usual, nothing).]--highly probable, thinks stupid Thiebault!
"The truth is," says Nicolai, "the King put no real value on La Mettrie. He considered him as a merry-andrew fellow, who might amuse you, when half seas-over (ENTRE DEUX VINS). De la Mettrie showed himself unworthy of any favor he had. Not only did he babble, and repeat about Town what he heard at the King's table;but he told everything in a false way, and with malicious twists and additions. This he especially did at Lord Tyrconnel, the then French Ambassador's table, where at last he died." [Nicolai, <italic> Anekdoten, <end italic> i. 20.] But could not take the ORANGE-SKIN along with him; alas, no!--On the whole, be not too severe on poor Voltaire! He is very fidgety, noisy; something of a pickthank, of a wheedler; but, above all, he is scorbutic, dyspeptic; hag-ridden, as soul seldom was;and (in his oblique way) APPEALS to Friedrich and us,--not in vain.
And, in short, we perceive, after the First Act of the Piece, beginning in preternatural radiances, ending in whirlwinds of flaming soot, he has been getting on with his Second Act better than could be expected. Gyrating again among the bright planets, circum-jovial moons, in the Court Firmament; is again in favor, and might-- Alas, he had his FELLOW-moons, his Maupertuis above all!
Incurable that Maupertuis misery; gets worse and worse, steadily from the first day. No smallest entity that intervenes, not even a wandering La Beaumelle with his Book of PENSEES, but is capable of worsening it. Take this of Smelfungus; this Pair of Cabinet Sketches,--"hasty outlines; extant chiefly," he declares, "by Voltaire's blame:"--LA BEAUMELLE.--"Voltaire has a fatal talent of getting into Iquarrels with insignificant accidental people; and instead of silently, with cautious finger, disengaging any bramble that catches to him, and thankfully passing on, attacks it indignantly with potent steel implements, wood-axes, war-axes; brandishing and hewing;--till he has stirred up a whole wilderness of bramble-bush, and is himself bramble-chips all over. M. Angliviel de la Beaumelle, for example, was nothing but a bramble: some conceited Licentiate of Theology, who, finding the Presbytery of Geneva too narrow a field, had gone to Copenhagen, as Professor of Rhetoric or some such thing; and, finding that field also too narrow, and not to be widened by attempts at Literature, MES PENSEES and the like, in such barbarous Country",--had now [end of 1751] come to Berlin;and has Presentation copies of MES PENSEES, OU LE QU'EN DIRA-T-ON, flying right and left, in hopes of doing better there. Of these PENSEES (Thoughts so called) I will give but one specimen"(another, that of "King Friedrich a common man," being carefully suppressed in the Berlin Copies, of La Beaumelle's distributing):--"There have been greater Poets than Voltaire; there was never any so well recompensed: and why? Because Taste (GOUT, inclination)sets no limits to its recompenses. The King of Prussia overloads men of talent with his benefits for precisely the reasons which induce a little German Prince to overload with benefits a buffoon or a dwarf." [<italic> OEuvres de Voltaire, <end italic> xxvii.