To Lord-Marshal Keith, Marquis d'Argens, and Voltaire, Frederick owed the happiest years of his life.
D'Argens, who passionately loved Frederick, had been dead five years; Lord-Marshal Keith one month; and Voltaire was dying! This intelligence the king had received that very morning, from his Paris correspondent, Grimm.

It was this that filled his heart with mourning.

The face, that smiled so full of intelligence, was perhaps distorted with agony, and those beaming eyes were now closing in death! Voltaire was dying! Frederick's thoughts were with the dead and dying--with the past! He recalled, when crown prince at Rheinsberg, how much he had admired, loved, and distinguished Voltaire; how he rejoiced, and how honored he felt, when, as a young king, Voltaire yielded to his request to live with him at Berlin.

This intimacy, it is true, did not long continue; the king was forced to recognize, with bitter regret, that the MAN Voltaire was not worthy the love which he bestowed upon the POET.

He renounced the MAN, but the poet was still his admiration; and all the perfidy, slander and malice of Voltaire, had never changed Frederick.
The remembrance of it had long since faded from his noble heart--only the memory of the poet, of the author of so many hours of the purest enjoyment, remained.
Voltaire was dying! This great and powerful spirit, who so long a time, in the natural body, had instructed, inspired, and refreshed mankind, would leave that body to rise--whither?
"Immortality, what art thou ?" asked the king, aloud, and for the first time raising his eyes with an inquiring glance to the busts of his friends.