“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 little distance where he introduced me to three young ladies, who, without being precisely beautiful, were certainly ravishing.  Two of them were sisters.  I had an easy and pleasant welcome, and from their intellectual appearance and gay manners I anticipated a delightful evening, and I was not disappointed.  The half hour before supper was passed in conversation, decent but without restraint, and during supper, from the hints the syndic gave me, I guessed what would happen after dessert.

It was a hot evening, and on the pretext of cooling ourselves, we undressed so as to be almost in a state of nature.  What an orgy we had!  I am sorry I am obliged to draw a veil over the most exciting details.  In the midst of our licentious gaiety, whilst we were heated by love, champagne, and a discourse of an exciting nature, I proposed to recite Grecourt’s ‘Y Gyec’.  When I had finished the voluptuous poem, worthy of an abbe’s pen, I saw that the eyes of the three beauties were all aflame, and said,—­