| Citation |
MS-B.772.072
1 Oct 1772:1281 (2/85)
Anecdote. At the rehearsal of one of M. de Voltaire's
Tragedies, Mr. Cramer, bookseller at Geneva, (and Voltaire's
own immediate publisher) was finishing his part which was to
end with some dying sentences; when Voltaire, all despotic
over those he thinks dependents, cries out aloud, "Cramer,
you lived like a Prince for the four preceding acts, but at
the fifth you die like a bookseller." Dr. Tronchin the
Boerhaave of this age, being present, could not help in
kindness interfering, adding withal, "Why Mons. de Voltaire,
can you ever expect to have gentlemen be at the expence of
dresses and the fatigue of getting such long parts, if you
thus continue to upbraid them? On the contrary, I think
they all deserve the greatest encouragement at your hands;
and as to my friend Cramer, I declare, that as far as I am a
judge he dies with the same dignity that he lived."
Voltaire, who detests advice or being informed by an
inferior, (for an author is, in his eye, beyond even
Aesculapius, where he living) made this cool reply;
Pr'ythee, Doctor, when you have got Kings to kill, kill them
your own way, let me kill mine as I please."
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