But, after a few days, he suspected that the whole was an artifice of Voltaire.  In accordance with his open, noble character, he wrote immediately to Rousseau, made his complaint, and asked if he had written the epigram.

Rousseau swore that he was not the author, but he was persuaded that Voltaire had written it; he had sent some copies to Paris, and his friends were seeking to spread it abroad. [Footnote:  Thiebault.]

The marquis was on his guard, and did not communicate this news to Voltaire.  He resolved to escape from these assaults and intrigues quietly; with his young wife he made a journey to Paris, and did not return till Voltaire had left Berlin forever.

The most powerful and therefore the most abhorred of the enemies against whom Voltaire now turned in his rage, was the president of the Berlin Academy, Maupertius.  Voltaire could never forgive him for daring to shine in his presence; for being the president of an academy of which he, Voltaire, was only a simple member.  Above all this, the king loved him, and praised his extraordinary talent and scholarship.  Voltaire only watched for an opportunity to clutch this dangerous enemy, and the occasion soon presented itself.

Maupertius had just published his “Lettres Philosophiques,” in which it must be confessed there were passages which justified Voltaire’s assertion that Maupertius was at one time insane, and was confined for some years in a madhouse at Montpellier.  Maupertius proposed in these letters that a Latin city should be built, and this majestic and beautiful tongue brought to life again.  He proposed, also, that a hole should be dug to the centre of the earth, in order to discover its condition and quality; also that the brain of Pythagoras should be searched for and opened, in order to ascertain the nature of the soul.

These ridiculous and fabulous propositions Voltaire replied to under the name of Dr. Akakia; he asserted that he was only anxious to heal the unhappy Maupertius.  This publication was written in Voltaire’s sharpest wit and his most biting, glittering irony, and was calculated to make Maupertius absurd in the eyes of the whole world.

The king, to whom Voltaire had shown his manuscript, felt this; and although he had listened to the “Akakia” with the most lively pleasure, and often interrupted the reading by loud laughter and applause, he asked Voltaire to destroy the manuscript.  He was not willing that the man who stood at the head of his academy, and whom he had once called “the light of science,” should be held up to the laughter and mockery of the world.

“I ask this sacrifice from you as a proof of your friendship for me, and your self-control,” said the king, earnestly.  “I am tired of this everlasting disputing and wrangling; I will have peace in my house; I do not know how long we will have peace in the world.  It seems to me that on the horizon of politics heavy clouds are beginning to tower up; let us therefore take care that our literary horizon is clear and peaceable.”