That was his passport for the journey. The same evening Voltaire travelled to Leipzig, where he read extracts from Frederick’s collection of satires which he also thought of having printed. But in Frankfurt he was arrested and deprived of the precious manuscripts, which might have made more enemies for Frederick than he actually did make later on. Rebuked, and again liberated, Voltaire fled at first to France, where he published in the _Dictionnaire Historique_ the most abominable assertions regarding Frederick’s private life. Two years later he was settled at Ferney, on the Lake of Geneva, as a multi-millionaire, patriarch, and king. * * * * * Many years passed, and still the old Voltaire reigned at his Sans-Souci called Ferney--just as energetic as ever, just as restless and vain. His little château was a modest two-storied building in a circular enclosure, surrounded by a courtyard planted with trees. On the left of the entrance stood a small stone chapel. A tablet over the door bore the inscription, “Deo erexit Voltaire,” which roused the mirth of his literary friends and the hatred of the ecclesiastical party. Below in the garden he had an arbour-walk of hornbeam covered in, and resembling a long hall with windows cut in the side, looking towards the lake. From thence he could see Mont Blanc, which especially at sunset showed all its splendour, and the blue levels of the lake stretching towards Clarens and the Rhone Valley, where the unfortunate Rousseau had wandered, loved, and suffered. Just now in the twilight, the old man sat in his arbour walk and played bezique with the local pastor, when the post arrived. There were many letters with shining seals. “Excuse me, Abbé, I must read my letters!” “Pray do so,” answered the priest, and stood up in order to promenade up and down the arbour walk. After a while the old man called his friend back: “Come, Abbé, come! You must hear something!” The Abbé, who, for the sake of his flock, kept on good terms with Voltaire, and humoured his whims, without, however, yielding to him in theological discussions, came at the summons. “You must hear a letter from Frederick the Great, the Unique, the Incomparable. He has pardoned me, and I am ashamed. My last evening in Sans-Souci I was irritated, and in my cruelty I was mean enough to remind him of his father’s stick. The moment that the word escaped, I felt his retort in the air, but he restrained it. He had only needed to return the thrust with a reference to the stick which had played a certain part in my youth, but he kept silent, whether out of regard for my years or for some other reason. (It is remarkable that the stick has also had an influence on the development of the great Shakespeare and others.) Excuse, Abbé, this _garrulitas senilis_--he has pardoned me, and writes, ‘My old friend!’