A letter, written by Voltaire to his friend Madame de Bernieres while he was still in hiding, reveals the effect which these events had produced upon his mind.  It is the first letter in the series of his collected correspondence which is not all Epicurean elegance and caressing wit.  The wit, the elegance, the finely turned phrase, the shifting smile—­these things are still visible there no doubt, but they are informed and overmastered by a new, an almost ominous spirit:  Voltaire, for the first time in his life, is serious.

J’ai ete a l’extremite; je n’attends que ma convalescence pour abandonner a jamais ce pays-ci.  Souvenez-vous de l’amitie tendre que vous avez eue pour moi; au nom de cette amitie informez-moi par un mot de votre main de ce qui se passe, ou parlez a l’homme que je vous envoi, en qui vous pouvez prendre une entiere confiance.  Presentez mes respects a Madame du Deffand; dites a Thieriot que je veux absolument qu’il m’aime, ou quand je serai mort, ou quand je serai heureux; jusque-la, je lui pardonne son indifference.  Dites a M. le chevalier des Alleurs que je n’oublierai jamais la generosite de ses procedes pour moi.  Comptez que tout detrompe que je suis de la vanite des amities humaines, la votre me sera a jamais precieuse.  Je ne souhaite de revenir a Paris que pour vous voir, vous embrasser encore une fois, et vous faire voir ma constance dans mon amitie et dans mes malheurs.

‘Presentez mes respects a Madame du Deffand!’ Strange indeed are the whirligigs of Time!  Madame de Bernieres was then living in none other than that famous house at the corner of the Rue de Beaune and the Quai des Theatins (now Quai Voltaire) where, more than half a century later, the writer of those lines was to come, bowed down under the weight of an enormous celebrity, to look for the last time upon Paris and the world; where, too, Madame du Deffand herself, decrepit, blind, and bitter with the disillusionments of a strange lifetime, was to listen once more to the mellifluous enchantments of that extraordinary intelligence, which—­so it seemed to her as she sat entranced—­could never, never grow old.[4]

Voltaire was not kept long in the Bastille.  For some time he had entertained a vague intention of visiting England, and he now begged for permission to leave the country.  The authorities, whose one object was to prevent an unpleasant fracas, were ready enough to substitute exile for imprisonment; and thus, after a fortnight’s detention, the ’fameux poete’ was released on condition that he should depart forthwith, and remain, until further permission, at a distance of at least fifty leagues from Versailles.