The affair is in the hands of justice; and, in a few days, we shall know from the sentence which is the greater rogue of the two.

Voltaire lost his temper, flew in the Jew's face, and, in fact, behaved like a madman.

I am waiting for this affair to be over to put his head under the pump or reprimand him severely (_lui laver la tete_), and see whether, at the age of fifty-six, one cannot make him, if not reasonable, at any rate less of a rogue." Voltaire settled matters with the Jew, at the same time asking the king's pardon for what he called his giddiness.

"This great poet is always astride of Parnassus and Rue Quincampoix," said the Marquis of Argenson.
Frederick had written him on the 24th of February, 1751, a severe letter, the prelude and precursor of the storms which were to break off before long the intimacy between the king and the philosopher.

"I was very glad to receive you," said the king; "I esteemed your wit, your talents, your acquirements, and I was bound to suppose that a man of your age, tired of wrangling with authors and exposing himself to tempests, was coming hither to take refuge as in a quiet harbor; but you at the very first, in a rather singular fashion, required of me that I should not engage Frerron to write me news.