The conversation becomes more serious; admiration is expressed at the revolution accomplished by Voltaire, and all agree in its being the first title to his fame.  ’He gave the tone to his century, finding readers in the antechambers as well as in the drawing-room.’  One of the guests narrates, bursting with laughter, what a hairdresser said to him while powdering his hair:  ’You see, sir, although I am a miserable scrub, I have no more religion than any one else.’  They conclude that the Revolution will soon be consummated, that superstition and fanaticism must wholly give way to philosophy, and they thus calculate the probabilities of the epoch and those of the future society which will see the reign of reason.  The most aged lament not being able to flatter themselves that they will see it; the young rejoice in a reasonable prospect of seeing it, and especially do they congratulate the Academy on having paved the way for the great work, and on having been the headquarters, the center, the inspirer of freedom of thought.

One of the guests had taken no part in this gay conversation a person named Cazotte, an amiable and original man, but, unfortunately, infatuated with the delusions of the visionary.  In the most serious tone he begins:  ‘Gentlemen,’ says he, ’be content; you will witness this great revolution that you so much desire.  You know that I am something of a prophet, and I repeat it, you will witness it. . . .  Do you know the result of this revolution, for all of you, so long as you remain here?’ — ‘Ah!’ exclaims Condorcet with his shrewd, simple air and smile, ’let us see, a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a prophet.’ — ’You, Monsieur de Condorcet, will expire stretched on the floor of a dungeon; you will die of the poison you take to escape the executioner, of the poison which the felicity of that era will compel you always to carry about your person!’ — At first, great astonishment, and then came an outburst of laughter.  ’What has all this in common with philosophy and the reign of reason?’ — ’Precisely what I have just remarked to you; in the name of philosophy, of humanity, of freedom, under the reign of reason, you will thus reach your end; and, evidently, the reign of reason will arrive, for there will be temples of reason, and, in those days, in all France, the temples will be those alone of reason. . . .  You, Monsieur de Champfort, you will sever your veins with twenty-two strokes of a razor and yet you will not die for months afterwards.  You, Monsieur Vicq-d’Azir, you will not open your own veins but you will have them opened six times in one day, in the agonies of gout, so as to be more certain of success, and you will die that night.  You, Monsieur de Nicolai, on the scaffold; you, Monsieur Bailly, on the scaffold; you, Monsieur de Malesherbes, on the scaffold; . . . you, Monsieur Roucher, also on the scaffold.’ — ’But then we shall have been overcome by Turks or Tartars?’ — ’By no