The king dictated, and Voltaire wrote with a rapid but firm hand:  “I promise your majesty that so long as you allow me to lodge in your castle, I will write against no one, neither against the French government nor any of the foreign ambassadors, nor the celebrated authors.  I will constantly manifest a proper respect and regard to them.  I will make no improper use of the letters of the king.  I will in all things bear myself as becomes an historian and a scholar, who has the honor to be gentleman in waiting to the King of Prussia, and to associate with distinguished persons.” [Footnote:  Preus, “Friedrich der Grosse.”]

“Will you sign this?” said the king.

“I will not only sign it,” said Voltaire, “but I will add something to its force.  Listen, your majesty.—­I will strictly obey all your majesty’s commands, and to do so gives me no trouble.  I entreat your majesty to believe that I never have written any thing against any government—­least of all against that under which I was born, and which I only left because I wished to close my life at the feet of your majesty.  I am historian of France.  In the discharge of this duty, I have written the history of Louis the Fourteenth, and the campaigns of Louis the Fifteenth.  My voice and my pen were ever consecrated to my fatherland, as they are now subject to your command.  I entreat you to look into my literary contest with Maupertius, and to believe that I give it up cheerfully to please you, sire; and because I will in all things submit to your will.  I will also be obedient to your majesty in this.  I will enter into no literary contest, and I beg you, sire, to believe that, in the hour of death, I will feel the same reverence and attachment for you which filled my heart the day I first appeared at your court.  Voltaire.”

The king took the paper, and read it over, then fixed his eyes steadily upon Voltaire’s lowering face.  “It is well!  I thank you,” said Frederick, nodding a friendly dismissal to Voltaire.  He left the room, and the king looked after him long and thoughtfully.

“I do not trust him; he was too ready to burn the manuscript.  And yet, he gave me his word of honor.”

Voltaire returned to his room, and, now alone and unobserved, a malicious, demoniac exultation was written on his face.  “I judged rightly,” said he, with a grimace; “the king wished to sacrifice me to Maupertius.  I think this was a master-stroke.  I have truly burned the original manuscript, but a copy of it was sent to Leyden eight days since.  While the king thinks I am such a good-humored fool as to yield the contest to the proud beggar Maupertius, my ‘Akakia’ will be published in Leyden.  Soon it will resound through the world, and show how genius binds puffed-up folly, which calls itself geniality, to the pillory.”

CHAPTER XIII.

The last struggle.