“No,” said Dr. Pangloss, “Miss Cunegonde was ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers, after having been violated by many; they broke her father’s head for attempting to defend her; my lady, her mother, was cut in pieces; my poor pupil was served just the same as his sister; and, as for the castle, they have left not one stone upon another, not a barn, nor a sheep, nor a duck, nor a tree.” For “Bulgarian” read “Prussian,” and you will see the great improvements that Frederick made in war. Voltaire, like Anatole France, had an unrivalled power for saying the utmost possible in the fewest words; and yet some blockheads try to deceive themselves by saying that Anatole France is not of the school of Voltaire! I suppose they do so because they have made up their minds that Voltaire was a wicked man and an atheist, whereas Anatole France is at least now an accepted wit and therefore can say what he likes. But two years after Voltaire died, Frederick used to pray to his God—if he had any—“Divin Voltaire, ora pro nobis!” that is to say, he acknowledged that Voltaire had triumphed. This to me seems characteristic of the man who bullied Maria Theresa. Of course the Seven Years’ War was a very wonderful feat of endurance for the Prussian people, just as was the Great War; and in it Frederick won a reputation which was marvellous till a yet greater arose in the art of slaughter. The history of it is repulsive, in that it shows the triumph of unscrupulous burglary against people who only wanted to be left in peace. The results of our own war were better at least on paper, though fortunately it did not produce any man so great as Frederick. But now I come to the purpose of this essay: to show the real cause of this extraordinary man’s death. On August 4th, 1784, he attended a review in Silesia in the midst of six hours of driving rain, during the progress of which he refused to put on a coat and became drenched to the skin. Arriving home he felt ill and shivery with a constant cough. During the autumn of that year his fever left him, but was succeeded by a harsh dry cough which never left him. His strength diminished, and his legs began to swell; he had constant oppression in his chest—that is to say, his heart began to fail him—and he could not breathe if he lay in bed, but had to spend his days and nights in an arm-chair; that is to say, he probably had what we now call “cardiac asthma.”...