ONE:The country people hardly knew such a thing as bread. Many had never tasted such a delicacy. Few villages possessed an oven. A weaving-loom was rare; a spinning-wheel unknown. The main article of furniture in this bare scene of squalor was a crucifix, and a vessel of holy water under it. It was a desolate land, without discipline, without law, without a master. On nine thousand English square miles lived five hundred thousand soulsnot fifty-five to the square mile.188The merciless satires of Voltaire, exposing Maupertuis to the ridicule of all Europe, proved death-blows to the sensitive philosopher. He was thrown into a state of great dejection, which induced disease, of which he died in 1759. Maupertuis needed this discipline. In the proud days of prosperity he had rejected Christianity. In these hours of adversity, oppressed by humiliation396 and pain, and with the grave opening before him, he felt the need of the consolations of religion. Christian faith cheered the sadness of his dying hours.98
THREE:All the courts of Europe were involved in these intrigues, which led to minor complications which it would be in vain to attempt to unravel. In the secret treaty into which Frederick entered with France on the 5th of June, 1741, the Count of Belleisle engaged, in behalf of his master, Louis XV., to incite Sweden to declare war against Russia, that the semi-barbaric power of the North, just beginning to emerge into greatness, might be so occupied as not to be able to render any assistance to Austria. France also agreed to guarantee Lower Silesia, with Breslau, to Frederick, and to send two armies, of forty thousand men each, one across the Upper and the other across the Lower Rhine, to co-operate with his Prussian majesty. The forty thousand men on the Upper Rhine were to take position in the vicinity of the Electorate of Hanover, which belonged to George II. of England, prepared to act immediately in concert with the Prussian army at G?tten under the Old Dessauer, in seizing Hanover resistlessly, should England make the slightest move toward sending troops to the aid of Maria Theresa.
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THREE:
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THREE:DESTROYING THE LETTERS.I have at length seen Voltaire, whom I was so anxious to205 know. But, alas! I saw him when under the influence of my fever, and when my mind and my body were equally languid. With persons like him one ought not to be sick. On the contrary, one ought to be specially well. He has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, and the wisdom of Agrippa. He unites, in a word, all the collected virtues and talents of the three greatest men of antiquity. His intellect is always at work. Every drop of ink that falls from his pen is transformed at once into wit. He declaimed his Mahomet to us, an admirable tragedy which he has composed. I could only admire in silence.
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