With Voltaire | Page 7

the honour of seeing
you, and now that I have obtained that favour I have nothing more to
do."
"Have you come to speak to me, or for me to speak to you?"
"In a measure, of course, to speak to you, but much more for you to
speak to me."
"Then stay here three days at least; come to dinner every day, and we
will have some conversation."
The invitation was so flattering and pressing that I could not refuse it
with a good grace. I therefore accepted, and I then left to go and write.
I had not been back for a quarter of an hour when a syndic of the town,
an amiable man, whom I had seen at M. de Voltaire's, and whose name
I shall not mention, came and asked me to give him supper. "I was
present," said he, "at your argument with the great man, and though I
did not open my mouth I should much like to have an hour's talk with
you." By way of reply, I embraced him, begging him to excuse my
dressing-gown, and telling him that I should be glad if he would spend
the whole night with me.
The worthy man spent two hours with me, without saying a word on
the subject of literature, but to please me he had no need to talk of
books, for he was a disciple of Epicurus and Socrates, and the evening
was spent in telling little stories, in bursts of laughter, and in accounts
of the various kinds of pleasure obtainable at Geneva. Before leaving
me he asked me to come and sup with him on the following evening,
promising that boredom should not be of the party.
"I shall wait for you," said I.
"Very good, but don't tell anyone of the party."

I promised to follow his instructions.
Next morning, young Fox came to see me with the two Englishmen I
had seen at M. de Voltaire's. They proposed a game of quinze, which I
accepted, and after losing fifty louis I left off, and we walked about the
town till dinner-time.
We found the Duc de Villars at Delices; he had come there to consult
Dr. Tronchin, who had kept him alive for the last ten years.
I was silent during the repast, but at dessert, M. de Voltaire, knowing
that I had reasons for not liking the Venetian Government, introduced
the subject; but I disappointed him, as I maintained that in no country
could a man enjoy more perfect liberty than in Venice.
"Yes," said he, "provided he resigns himself to play the part of a dumb
man."
And seeing that I did not care for the subject, he took me by the arm to
his garden, of which, he said, he was the creator. The principal walk led
to a pretty running stream.
"'Tis the Rhone," said he, "which I send into France."
"It does not cost you much in carriage, at all events," said I.
He smiled pleasantly and shewed me the principal street of Geneva,
and Mont Blanc which is the highest point of the Alps.
Bringing back the conversation to Italian literature, he began to talk
nonsense with much wit and learning, but always concluding with a
false judgment. I let him talk on. He spoke of Homer, Dante, and
Petrarch, and everybody knows what he thought of these great geniuses,
but he did himself wrong in writing what he thought. I contented
myself with saying that if these great men did not merit the esteem of
those who studied them; it would at all events be a long time before
they had to come down from the high place in which the praise of
centuries, had placed them.

The Duc de Villars and the famous Tronchin came and joined us. The
doctor, a tall fine man, polite, eloquent without being a
conversationalist, a learned physician, a man of wit, a favourite pupil of
Boerhaeve, without scientific jargon, or charlatanism, or
self-sufficiency, enchanted me. His system of medicine was based on
regimen, and to make rules he had to be a man of profound science. I
have been assured, but can scarcely believe it, that he cured a
consumptive patient of a secret disease by means of the milk of an ass,
which he had submitted to thirty strong frictions of mercury by four
sturdy porters.
As to Villars he also attracted my attention, but in quite a different way
to Tronchin. On examining his face and manner I thought I saw before
me a woman of seventy dressed as a man, thin and emaciated, but still
proud of her looks, and with claims to past beauty. His cheeks and lips
were painted, his eyebrows blackened, and his teeth were false; he wore