The first meeting between Voltaire and Frederick the Great gives Brandes an opportunity for bringing into play his exceptional faculty for entering into the very minutest description of these contrasting personalities, and while German culture of that day affected the French satirist quite differently from what he experienced on English soil, still there is no doubt that Voltaire’s international outlook was broadened through contact with the King who in his own way stood head and shoulders over his people. Badly as Voltaire was being treated at home, the fact that the King of Prussia made so much of him and gave his admiration public expression did not fail to improve his status in the eyes of the leading men of France. The time had gone by when Louis XIV dominated Europe so that fear prevailed because of the French generals and armies. A number of defeats like that at Dettingen resulted in the fact that Europe as a whole made merry on account of French politics and French militarism. Outside of France Louis the Beloved did not count. All eyes were directed toward the King of Prussia. Every power tried to draw him within its particular circle. The English strove to keep alive his dislike of France. It would mean much to the French nation, who so far had been unable to retain her former allies and had been unsuccessful in gaining new ones, if it by any possibility could enter into an alliance with just that King whose name spelled ingenious energy. Frederick was a hero to Voltaire. On the other hand, Voltaire was the idol of the King. At any rate, therefore, it was worth the trial to utilize the poet as secret diplomat. What followed has been dealt with exhaustively by many able pens, but Brandes manages to give the historical facts a setting so picturesque and informing that the entire relationships between Frederick the Great and Voltaire appears in a new light and illustrates pointedly what the French nation owed to the man whose doctrines were the cause of a persecution that reflects little glory on the period so far as France was concerned. Nevertheless, Francois de Voltaire has found in the twentieth century no writer who to better purpose brings out the particular qualities that places him among the great internationalists than Georg Brandes has done in his monumental work. III. “Voltaire’s ‘Charles XII,’” says Brandes, “stands as a portrait of a remarkable man, executed by a master. It caused Europe to take an interest in the Sweden of that time comparable with what Denmark must thank Shakespeare for in the case of Hamlet.