“And of the French genius, which considers that a thought when extended loses all its force.”

“And you do not think so?”

“Pardon me, it depends on the kind of thought.  A witty saying, for example, will not make a sonnet; in French or Italian it belongs to the domain of epigram.”

“What Italian poet do you like best?”

“Ariosto; but I cannot say I love him better than the others, for he is my only love.”

“You know the others, though?”

“I think I have read them all, but all their lights pale before Ariosto’s.  Fifteen years ago I read all you have written against him, and I said that you, would retract when you had read his works.”

“I am obliged to you for thinking that I had not read them.  As a matter of fact I had done so, but I was young.  I knew Italian very imperfectly, and being prejudiced by the learned Italians who adore Tasso I was unfortunate enough to publish a criticism of Ariosto which I thought my own, while it was only the echo of those who had prejudiced me.  I adore your Ariosto!”

“Ah!  M. de Voltaire, I breathe again.  But be good enough to have the work in which you turned this great man into ridicule excommunicated.”

“What use would that be?  All my books are excommunicated; but I will give you a good proof of my retractation.”

I was astonished!  The great man began to recite the two fine passages from the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth cantos, in which the divine poet speaks of the conversation of Astolpho with St. John and he did it without missing a single life or committing the slightest fault against the laws of prosody.  He then pointed out the beauties of the passages with his natural insight and with a great man’s genius.  I could not have had anything better from the lips of the most skilled commentators in Italy.  I listened to him with the greatest attention, hardly daring to breath, and waiting for him to make a mistake, but I had my trouble for nothing.  I turned to the company crying that I was more than astonished, and that all Italy should know what I had seen.  “And I, sir,” said the great man, “will let all Europe know of the amends I owe to the greatest genius our continent has produced.”

Greedy of the praise which he deserved so well, Voltaire gave me the next day his translation which Ariosto begins thus: 

“Quindi avvien the tra principi a signori.”

At the end of the recitation which gained the applause of all who heard it, although not one of them knew Italian, Madame Denis, his niece, asked me if I thought the passage her uncle had just recited one of the finest the poet had written.

“Yes, but not the finest.”

“It ought to be; for without it Signor Lodovico would not have gained his apotheosis.”

“He has been canonised, then?  I was not aware of that.”

At these words the laugh, headed by Voltaire, went for Madame Denis.  Everybody laughed except myself, and I continued to look perfectly serious.