Voltaire was faithful to his purpose:  he made use of his residence in Prussia and the favor of the king to increase his fortune, and to injure and degrade, as far as possible, all those for whom the king manifested the slightest partiality.  He not only added to his riches by the most abject niggardliness in his mode of life, thereby adding his pension to his capital, but by speculation in Saxon bonds, for which, in the beginning, he employed the aid of the Jew Hirsch.  We have seen that he sent him to Dresden to purchase eighteen thousand thalers’ worth of bonds, and gave him three drafts for that purpose.

One of these was drawn upon the banker Ephraim.  He thus learned of Voltaire’s speculation, and, as a cunning trafficker, he resolved to turn this knowledge to his own advantage.  He went to Voltaire, and proposed to give him twenty thousand thalers’ worth of Saxon bonds, and demand no payment for them till Voltaire should receive their full value from Dresden.  The only profit he desired was Voltaire’s good word and influence for him with the king.

This was a most profitable investment, and the great French writer could not resist it.  He took the bonds; promised his protection and favor, and immediately sent to Paris to protest the draft he had given the Jew Hirsch.

Poor Hirsch had already bought the bonds in Dresden, and he was now placed in the most extreme embarrassment, not only by the protested draft, but by Voltaire’s refusing to receive the bonds and to pay for them.

Voltaire tried to appease him; promised to repair his loss, and yet further to indemnify him.  He declared he would purchase some of the diamonds left in his care by Hirsch, and he really did this; he bought three thousand thalers’ worth of diamonds and returned the rest to Hirsch.  A few days after he sent to him for a diamond cross and a few rings which he proposed to buy.  Hirsch sent them, and not hearing from either the diamonds or the money, he went to Voltaire to get either the one or the other.

Voltaire received him furiously; declared that the diamonds which he had purchased were false, and in order to reimburse himself he had retained the others and would never return them!  In wild rage he continued to raise his doubled fist to heaven in condemnation, or held it under the nose of the poor terrified Jew; and to crown all, he tore from his finger another diamond ring, and pushed him from the door.

And now the Jew indeed was to be pitied.  He demanded of the courts the restoration of his diamonds, and payment for the Saxon bonds.

A wearisome and vexatious process was the result.  Voltaire’s plots and intrigues involved the case more and more, and he brought the judges themselves almost to despair.  Voltaire declared that the Jew had sold him false diamonds.  The Jew asserted that the false diamonds exhibited by Voltaire were not those Voltaire had purchased of him, and which the jeweller Reclam had valued.  No one was present at this trade, so there were no witnesses.  The judges were, therefore, obliged to confine themselves to administering the oath to Voltaire, as he would not consent to any compromise.  But he resisted the taking of the oath also.