1 January 1753
[ Tallentyre's Commentary: On the Christmas Eve of 1752 Voltaire, looking out of the window of his Berlin lodgings, beheld a crowd watching a bonfire. "I'll bet that's my Doctor," said he; and, in fact, Akakia it was. That conflagration (which advertised the Diatribe to the four corners of Europe) decided its author to "desert honourably" as soon as might be. On New Year's Day, 1753, at three o'clock in the afternoon he returned to King Frederick the cross and ribbon of the Prussian order bestowed on him and the chamberlain's key, and accompanied them by the following letter. ]
January 1, 1753.Sire, urged by the prayers and tears of my family, I am compelled to lay my fate at your feet, together with the favours and marks of distinction with which you have honoured me. Only my grief can be as great as the value of all I am renouncing. Your Majesty may rest assured that I shall remember nothing but the benefits conferred on me. Attached to you for sixteen years by many kindnesses: summoned to your side in my old age: my fears of that transplantation, which has cost me much, quieted by the most solemn promises: and having had the honour of living for two and a half years at your side; it is impossible you should deny to me the possession of feelings which have out-weighed in my heart the claims of my country, my king (who is at once my sovereign and benefactor), my family, my friends, and my occupations.
I have lost them all. Nothing remains to me but the remembrance of the pleasant days I have spent in your retreat at Potsdam. After that, all other solitudes will indeed seem melancholy to me. It is, moreover, hard to leave at this season of the year, especially when one is, as I am, the victim of many diseases: and it is harder still to leave you. Believe me, that is the only pain I am capable of feeling at this moment. The French envoy, who has come in as I write this, will bear witness to my sorrow, and will answer for me to your Majesty of the sentiments I shall always retain. I made you my idol: an honest man does not change his religion, and sixteen years of a limitless devo-tion cannot be destroyed by a single unfortunate moment.
I flatter myself that out of so much kindness you will keep at least some feeling of humanity towards me: that is my sole consolation, if consolation I may have.