| Citation |
PGCJ.772.045
10 Oct 1772:21 (457)
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, on being informed by an inferior (for an
author is, in his eye, beyond even an Aesculapius, were he
living) made this cool reply: "Pry'thee, Doctor, when you
have Kings to kill, kill them in your own way, let me kill
mine as I please."
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