Voltaire lived for a time at the Court of Frederick the Great of Prussia, and for many years carried on a correspondence with that monarch. He quarrelled with the king, and left the court in a passion. An emissary was despatched to him to request an apology, who said he was to carry back to the king his answer _verbatim_. Voltaire told him that "the king might go to the devil!" On being asked if that was the message he meant to be delivered! "Yes," he answered, "and add to it that I told you that you might go there with him." In his "Memoirs," he has drawn a most amusing picture of his Prussian Majesty. He, also says, "Priests never entered the palace; and, in a word, Frederick lived without religion, without a council, and without a court." Wearied with his rambling and unsettled mode of living, Voltaire bought an estate at Ferney, in the Pays des Gex, where he spent the last twenty years of his life. He rebuilt the house, laid out gardens, kept a good table, and had crowds of visitors from all parts, of Europe. Removed from whatever could excite momentary or personal passion, he yielded to his zeal for the destruction of prejudice, which was the most powerful and active of all the sensations he felt. This peaceful life, seldom disturbed except by the threats of persecution rather than persecution itself, was adorned by those acts of enlightened and bold benevolence, which, while they relieve the sufferings of certain individuals, are of any service to the whole human race. He was known to Europe as the "Sage of Ferney." After an absence of more than twenty-seven years, he re-visited Paris in the beginning of 1778. He had just finished his play of "Irene," and was anxious to see it performed. His visit was an ovation. He had outlived all his enemies. After having been the object of unrelenting persecution by the priests and corrupt courtiers of France for a period of more than fifty years, he yet lived to see the day when "all that was most eminent in station or most distinguished in talents--all that most shone in society, or most ruled in court, seemed to bend before him." At this period he, for the first time, saw Benjamin Franklin. They embraced each other in the midst of public acclamations, and it was said to be Solon who embraced Sophocles. Voltaire did not survive his triumph long. His unwearied activity induced him, at his great age, to commence a "Dictionary" upon a novel plan, which he prevailed upon the French Academy to take up. These labors brought on spitting of blood, followed by sleeplessness, to obviate which he took opium in considerable quantities. Condorcet says that the servant mistook one of the doses, which threw him into a state of lethargy, from which he never rallied. He lingered for some time, but at length expired on the 30th of May, 1778, in his eighty-fifth year.