Frederick took the side of the president of his academy, and had Doctor Akakia publicly burnt within earshot of its author’s quarters.[154] Voltaire had long been preparing for the end by depositing his funds in the hands of the Duke of Würtemberg, and by other steps, which had come to the king’s ears, and had by no means smoothed matters. He sees now that the orange has been squeezed, and that it is his business to think of saving the skin. He drew up for his own instruction, he said, a pocket-dictionary of terms in use with kings: _My friend_ means _my slave_; _my dear friend_ means that _you are more than indifferent to me;_ understand by _I will make you happy_, _I will endure you, as long as I have need of you_; _sup with me to-night_ means _I will make fun of you to-night._[155] Voltaire, though he had been, and always was, the most graceful of courtiers, kept to his point, and loudly gave Frederick to understand that in literary disputes he recognised no kings. An act of tyranny had been committed towards König, who was his friend, and nothing would induce him to admit either that it was anything else, or that it was other than just to have held up the tyrant to the laughter of Europe.
Frederick was profoundly irritated, and the terms in which he writes of his French Virgil as an ape who ought to be flogged for his tricks, a man worse than many who have been broken on the wheel, a creature who may deserve a statue for his poetry but who certainly deserves chains for his conduct, seem to imply a quite special mortification and resentment. He had no doubt a deep and haughty contempt for all these angers of celestial minds. The cabals of men of letters, he wrote to Voltaire, seemed to him the lowest depth of degradation.[156] And he would fain have flung a handful of dust on the furious creatures. After three months of vain effort to achieve the impossible, Voltaire being only moderately compliant, the king in March 1753 gave him leave to depart, though with a sort of nominal understanding for politeness’ sake that there was to be a speedy return.