With Voltaire | Page 8

a huge wig, which, exhaled amber, and at his buttonhole was an
enormous bunch of flowers, which touched his chin. He affected a
gracious manner, and he spoke so softly that it was often impossible to
hear what he said. He was excessively polite and affable, and his
manners were those of the Regency. His whole appearance was
supremely ridiculous. I was told that in his youth he was a lover of the
fair sex, but now that he was no longer good for anything he had
modestly made himself into a woman, and had four pretty pets in his
employ, who took turns in the disgusting duty of warming his old
carcase at night.
Villars was governor of Provence, and had his back eaten up with
cancer. In the course of nature he should have been buried ten years
ago, but Tronchin kept him alive with his regimen and by feeding the
wounds on slices of veal. Without this the cancer would have killed
him. His life might well be called an artificial one.
I accompanied M. de Voltaire to his bedroom, where he changed his
wig and put on another cap, for he always wore one on account of the
rheumatism to which he was subject. I saw on the table the Summa of
St. Thomas, and among other Italian poets the 'Secchia Rapita' of

Tassoni.
"This," said Voltaire, "is the only tragicomic poem which Italy has.
Tassoni was a monk, a wit and a genius as well as a poet."
"I will grant his poetical ability but not his learning, for he ridiculed the
system of Copernicus, and said that if his theories were followed
astronomers would not be able to calculate lunations or eclipses."
"Where does he make that ridiculous remark?"
"In his academical discourses."
"I have not read them, but I will get them."
He took a pen and noted the name down, and said,--
"But Tassoni has criticised Petrarch very ingeniously."
"Yes, but he has dishonoured taste and literature, like Muratori."
"Here he is. You must allow that his learning is immense."
"Est ubi peccat."
Voltaire opened a door, and I saw a hundred great files full of papers.
"That's my correspondence," said he. "You see before you nearly fifty
thousand letters, to which I have replied."
"Have you a copy of your answers?"
"Of a good many of them. That's the business of a servant of mine, who
has nothing else to do."
"I know plenty of booksellers who would give a good deal to get hold
of your answers.
"Yes; but look out for the booksellers when you publish anything, if

you have not yet begun; they are greater robbers than Barabbas."
"I shall not have anything to do with these gentlemen till I am an old
man."
"Then they will be the scourge of your old age."
Thereupon I quoted a Macaronic verse by Merlin Coccaeus.
"Where's that from?"
"It's a line from a celebrated poem in twenty-four cantos."
"Celebrated?"
"Yes; and, what is more, worthy of being celebrated; but to appreciate
it one must understand the Mantuan dialect."
"I could make it out, if you could get me a copy."
"I shall have the honour of presenting you with one to-morrow."
"You will oblige me extremely."
We had to leave his room and spend two hours in the company, talking
over all sorts of things. Voltaire displayed all the resources of his
brilliant and fertile wit, and charmed everyone in spite of his sarcastic
observations which did not even spare those present, but he had an
inimitable manner of lancing a sarcasm without wounding a person's
feelings. When the great man accompanied his witticisms with a
graceful smile he could always get a laugh.
He kept up a notable establishment and an excellent table, a rare
circumstance with his poetic brothers, who are rarely favourites of
Plutus as he was. He was then sixty years old, and had a hundred and
twenty thousand francs a year. It has been said maliciously that this
great man enriched himself by cheating his publishers; whereas the fact
was that he fared no better than any other author, and instead of duping
them was often their dupe. The Cramers must be excepted, whose

fortune he made. Voltaire had other ways of making money than by his
pen; and as he was greedy of fame, he often gave his works away on
the sole condition that they were to be printed and published. During
the short time I was with him, I was a witness of such a generous action;
he made a present to his bookseller of the "Princess of Babylon," a
charming story which he had written in three days.
My epicurean syndic was exact to his appointment, and took me to a
house at a