The successes of Russia against Turkey in 1770 roused the anxiety of Austria and Prussia, and the solution of what we know as the Eastern question was indefinitely postponed by the device of partitioning Poland (Aug. 5, 1772), the alternative to the acquisition of the whole of that country by Russia, the least civilised of the three powers. Of this memorable transaction Voltaire heartily approved, and he gave thanks that he had lived to see ‘such glorious events.’[307] He insisted, decidedly against the king’s will, that Frederick had devised the scheme, for he found it full of genius, and to all seeming he discerned none of the execration which the event he had just witnessed was destined to raise in his own country in years to come. His friendship with two of the chief actors may have biassed his judgment; but Voltaire seldom allowed, indeed by the conditions of his temperament he was unable to allow, personal considerations of this kind to obscure his penetrating sight. He may well have thought the partition of Poland desirable, for the reasons which a statesman of to-day may find adequate: the country’s hopeless political anarchy, its crushing material misery, the oppressive power of the church, the inevitable and standing peril to Europe of the existence of such a centre of conflagration. It is worth remarking that Rousseau was much more keenly alive to the gravity of the event, that he protested against what had been done, and that his influence has been one of the main causes of the illogical sympathy of democratic Europe for one of the most pestilent of aristocratic governments. The accession of Turgot to power in 1774 stirred an ardent sympathy in Voltaire. Like the rest of the school, he looked upon this as the advent of the political messiah,[308] and he shared the extreme hopes of that great and virtuous man’s most sanguine lieutenants. He declared that a new heaven and a new earth had opened to him.[309] His sallies against the economists were forgotten, and he now entered into the famous controversy of the free trade in grain with all his usual fire. His fervour went too far for the sage minister, who prayed him to be somewhat less eager in alarming uninformed prejudice. Still he insisted on hoping all things. Contemple la brillante aurore Qui t’annonce enfin les beaux jours. Un nouveau monde est près d’éclore; Até disparaît pour toujours. Vois l’auguste philosophie, Chez toi si long temps poursuivie, Dicter ses triomphantes lois. * * * * * Je lui dis: ‘Ange tutélaire, Quels dieux répandent ces bienfaits?’ ‘C’est un seul homme.’[310]