"I will bet it was that Von Kleist," said the king.
"_You named her yourself_," said La Mettrie.
"Listen how he speaks to the king," said Quintus Icilius, who had just come.
"Bah! the Von Kleist is mad," said Frederick. "She is a visionary, and has implicit faith in horoscopes and sorcery. She needs a good lesson, and had best take care. She makes the women mad, and even reduced her husband to such a state of mind that he used to sacrifice black rams to the devil, to discover the treasures buried in the Brandebourg sands."
"All that is fashionable now in your house, my dear Pantagruel," said La Mettrie. "I do not see how women can submit to your exacting goddess, Reason. Women were made to amuse themselves and us. When they become wise, we must be fools. Madam Von Kleist is charming, with all those wild ghost-stories. With them she amuses _Soror Amalia._"
"What does that _Soror Amalia_ mean?" asked Frederick, with amazement.
"Eh! your charming sister, the Abbess of Quedlimburg, who, we all know, devotes herself to magic."
"Be silent, Panurge!" said the king, in a voice of thunder, throwing his snuff-box on the table.
[Footnote 1: It is well known Frederick used to give abbeys, canonicates, and episcopates to his officers, favorites, and relations, even when they were Protestants. The Princess Amelia, having refused to marry, had been made Abbess of Quedlimburgh, a prebend, with an income of a hundred thousand livres. She was addressed as the Catholic canonesses were.]
[Footnote 2: It is scarcely necessary to say that Pantagruel and Gargantua are two of the creations of the very great and very French Rabelais.--TRANSLATOR.]
There was a moment of silence, during which the clock struck twelve.[3] Ordinarily, Voltaire was able to restore the tone of conversation, when a cloud passed over Trajan's brow, and to efface the bad impression of the other guests. On this evening, however, Voltaire was sad and suffering, and felt all the effects of the king's Prussian spleen. On that very morning La Mettrie had told him of the fatal remark of Frederick, which replaced a feigned friendship by a real animosity, which each of these great men felt for each other. Though he said nothing, he thought--