From the day when he resolved upon this war against Christianity he sought for allies also opposed to it. His intimacy with the king of Prussia, Frederic II., had this sole inducement. He desired the support of thrones against the priesthood. Frederic, who partook of his philosophy, and pushed it still further, even to atheism and the contempt of mankind, was the Dionysius of this modern Plato. Louis XV., whose interest it was to keep up a good understanding with Prussia, dared not to show his anger against a man whom the king considered as his friend. Voltaire, thus protected by a sceptre, redoubled his audacity. He put thrones on one side, whilst he affected to make their interests mutual with his own, by pretending to emancipate them from the domination of Rome. He handed over to kings the civil liberty of the people, provided that they would aid him in acquiring the liberty of consciences. He even affected--perhaps he felt--respect for the absolute power of kings. He pushed that respect so far as even to worship their weaknesses. He palliated the infamous vices of the great Frederic, and brought philosophy on its knees before the mistresses of Louis XV. Like the courtezan of Thebes, who built one of the pyramids of Egypt from the fruits of her debaucheries, Voltaire did not blush at any prostitution of genius, provided that the wages of his servility enabled him to purchase enemies against Christ. He enrolled them by millions throughout Europe, and especially in France. Kings were reminded of the middle ages, and of the thrones outraged by the popes. They did not see, without umbrage and secret hate, the clergy as powerful as themselves with the people, and who under the name of cardinals, almoners, bishops or confessors, spied, or dictated its creeds even to courts themselves. The parliaments, that civil clergy, a body redoubtable to sovereigns themselves, detested the mass of the clergy, although they protected its faith and its decrees. The nobility, warlike, corrupted, and ignorant, leaned entirely to the unbelief which freed it from all morality. Finally, the _bourgeoisie_, well-informed or learned, prefaced the emancipation of the third estate by the insurrection of the new condition of ideas.