TWO:In accordance with this request, Voltaire repaired to Cleves to visit the king. Many years afterward, having quarreled with Frederick, and being disposed to represent him in the most unfavorable light, he gave the following account of this interview in his Vie Prive:In reference to this event, the prince wrote to his mother from Potsdam, I am in the utmost despair. What I had always apprehended has at last come on me. The king has entirely forgotten that I am his son. This morning I came into his room as usual. At the first sight of me he sprang forward, seized me by the collar, and struck me a shower of blows with his rattan. I tried in vain to screen myself, he was in so terrible a rage, almost out of himself. It was only weariness that made him give up. I am driven to extremity. I have too much honor to endure such treatment, and I am resolved to put an end to it in one way or another.
TWO:My brother overwhelmed me with caresses, but found me in so pitiable a state that he could not restrain his tears. I was not able to stand on my limbs, and felt like to faint every moment, so weak was I. He told me that the king was very angry at the margraf for not letting his son make the campaign. I told him all the margrafs reasons, and added surely they were good, in respect of my dear husband.The other trait I have to give you is this. On the 15th of February last, the day of concluding this peace, which is so glorious to him, some one said to him, It is the finest day of your majestys life. The king replied,
TWO:As the king cast his eye over the blood-stained field, covered with the wounded and the dead, for a moment he seemed overcome with the aspect of misery, and exclaimed, When, oh when will my woes cease?The death of the emperor, says Frederick, was the only event wanting to complete the confusion and embroilment which already existed in the political relations of the European powers.
TWO:Now, as I hope that his present situation, and the execution which has just taken place before his eyes, will touch and soften his heart, and will lead him to better sentiments, I charge you, as you value your conscience, to do all that is humanly possible to represent forcibly to the prince these things; and particularly, in what relates to predestination, to convince him by means of passages from the Scriptures which satisfactorily prove what I wish you to advance.