Frederick was vexed with Voltaire; he nevertheless found it difficult to give up the dazzling charm of his conversation.  Voltaire was hurt and disquieted; he wanted to get away—­the king, however, exercised a strong attraction over him.  But in spite of mutual coquetting, making up, and protesting, the hour of separation was at hand; the poet was under pressure from his friends in France; in Berlin he had never completely neglected Paris.  He had just published his Siecle de Louis XIV.; he flattered himself with the hope that he might again appear at court, though the king had disposed of his place as historiographer in favor of Duclos.  Frederick at last yielded; he was on the parade, Voltaire appeared there.  “Ah!  Monsieur Voltaire,” said the king, “so you really intend to go away?” “Sir, urgent private affairs, and especially my health, leave me no alternative.”  “Monsieur, I wish you a pleasant journey.”  Voltaire jumped into his carriage, and hurried to Leipsic; he thought himself free forever from the exactions and tyrannies of the King of Prussia.

The poet, according to his custom, had tarried on the way.  He had passed more than a month at Gotha, being overwhelmed with attentions by the duke, and by the duchess, for whom he wrote the dry chronicle entitled Les Annales de L’Empire.  He arrived at Frankfort on the 31st of May only:  the king’s orders had arrived before him.

“Here is how this fine adventure came to pass,” says Voltaire.  “There was at Frankfort one Freytag, who had been banished from Dresden, and had become an agent for the King of Prussia. . . .  He notified me on behalf of his Majesty that I was not to leave Frankfort till I had restored the valuable effects I was carrying away from his Majesty.  ’Alack! sir, I am carrying away nothing from that country, if you please, not even the smallest regret.  What, pray, are those jewels of the Brandenburg crown that you require?’ ‘It be, sir,’ replied Freytag, ‘the work of poesy of the king, my gracious master.’  ’O!  I will give him back his prose and verse with all my heart,’ replied I, ’though, after all, I have more than one right to the work.  He made me a present of a beautiful copy printed at his expense.  Unfortunately this copy is at Leipsic with my other luggage.’  Then Freytag proposed to me to remain at Frankfort until the treasure which was at Leipsic should have arrived; and he signed an order for it.”

The volume which Frederick claimed, and which he considered it of so much importance to preserve from Voltaire’s indiscretions, contained amongst other things a burlesque and licentious poem, entitled the Palladium, wherein the king scoffed at everything and everybody in terms which he did not care to make public.  He knew the reckless malignity of the poet who was leaving him, and he had a right to be suspicious of it; but nothing can excuse the severity of his express orders, and still less the brutality of his agents.