innocent and agreeable railleries; while there are certain personages who every day indulge in such as are most cruel and lamentable." Voltaire long continued to retain the smart of these. Years after he had left Germany, he used to allude, in his letters, to Frederick as "Luc"—a name that for a long time puzzled commentators. One of his secretaries cleared up the mystery. It seems that when Voltaire was living near Geneva, he had a large monkey who used to attack and bite friends and enemies. This pet one day gave his master three wounds in the leg, which obliged him for some time to use crutches. He had named the creature Luc; and in conversation with intimate friends, or in letters to them, among others to M. d'Alembert, he also designated the King of Prussia by the name of Luc,—"because," said he, "Frederick is like my monkey, who bites those who caress him."
Into the atmosphere of Court-favour and agreeable supper-parties, already charged with this dangerous matter, an element which proved explosive was introduced in the course of 1752. The President of the Berlin Academy was a Frenchman, the well-known Maupertuis, who had not only felt, but made apparent, much jealousy of the superior Court-favour of the later-arrived Voltaire, and whose character—rather that of a wiseacre than of a sage—offered to his satirical foe but too-tempting opportunities for reprisal. Maupertuis had put forth some scientific theories claiming to be valuable and original, which one of his academicians proclaimed to be neither. The President and the Academy, indignant at such a revolt against authority, expelled the member. Voltaire, believing, as all the world came to believe, that the rebellious
