La Mettrie, a physician rarely consulted and a reader scarcely listened to by the king, was the only person present who feared, and was feared, by no one. He was esteemed altogether inoffensive, and had discovered the means of keeping any one from hurting him. This consisted in committing so many mad, foolish, and impertinent acts in the king's presence, that no informer could charge him with aught he had not done face to face with Frederick. He seemed to take the philosophic equality the king professed, as a fixed fact (for seven or eight persons were honored by this familiarity.) At this period, though he had reigned eighteen years, Frederick had not entirely abandoned the popular familiarity of the Prince Royal and hardy philosopher of Remunsberg. Those who knew him, had not forborne to confide in him. Voltaire, the most spoiled and the newest, began to be alarmed, and to see the tyrant appear beneath the good prince--a Dionysius in Marcus Aurelius. La Mettrie, however, whether from innate candor or deep calculation, treated the king carelessly, or affected to do so. He took off his cravat and wig in the royal rooms, sometimes he took off even his shoes, lolled on the sofas, and had his little chat with him, pottered about the small esteem he had for earthly greatness, of royalty as of religion, and other prejudices in which a breach had been made by the _Reason_ of the day. In a word, he was a true cynic, and did so much to justify disgrace and dismissal, that it was impossible to see how he maintained himself, when so many others had been dismissed for trifling peccadillos.