“These diamonds are beautiful,” said Voltaire—­“very beautiful, and perhaps if my speculation succeeds, I may buy some from you.  Until then, I will take care of them.”

Voltaire was about to lock them up, but he paused suddenly, and fixed his eyes upon the calm countenance of the Jew.

“How do I know that these are real diamonds?” he cried; and as Hirsch, exasperated by this base suspicion, frowned and turned pale, he exclaimed fiercely:  “The diamonds are false!  I know it by your terror.  Oh, oh, you thought that a poet was a good, credulous creature who could be easily deceived.  Ah! you thought I had heard nothing of those famous lapidaries in St. Germain, who cut diamonds from glass, and cook up in their laboratories the rarest jewels!  Yes, yes, I know all these arts, and all the brewing of St. Germain will not suffice to deceive me.”

“These diamonds are pure!” cried Hirsch.

“We will have them tested by a Christian jeweller,” said Voltaire.—­ “Tripot!  Tripot! run quickly to the jeweller Reclam—­beg him to come to me for a few moments.”

Tripot soon returned with Reclam.  The diamonds were pronounced pure and of the first water; and the jeweller declared they were fully worth twenty-two thousand thalers.  Voltaire was now fully satisfied, and, when once more alone, he looked long and rapturously upon these glittering stones.

“What woman can boast of such dazzling fire in her eyes?” said he, laughing; “what woman can say that their color is worth twenty-two thousand thalers?  It is true they glisten and shimmer in all lights and shades—­that is their weakness and their folly.  With you, beautiful gems! these changing hues are a virtue.  Oh, to think that with this handful of flashing stones I could buy a bag of ducats!  How dull and stupid are mankind—­how wise is God!  Sinking those diamonds in the bowels of the earth was a good speculation.  They are truffles to tempt the snouts of men; and they root after them as zealously as the swine in Perigord root after the true truffles.  Gold! gold! that is the magic word with which the world is ruled.  I will have gold—­I will rule the world.  I will not give place to dukes or princes.  I will have my seigneuries and my castles; my servants in rich livery, and my obedient subjects.  I will be a grand seigneur.  Kings and princes shall visit me in my castle, and wait in my antechamber, as I have been compelled to wait in theirs.  I will be rich that I may be every man’s master, even master of the fools.  I will enslave the wise by my intellect—­I will reduce the foolish to bondage with gold.  I must be rich! rich! rich! therefore am I here; therefore do I correct the poor rhymes of the king; therefore do I live now as a modest poet, and add copper to copper, and save my pension of five thousand thalers, and sell my wax-lights and my coffee to the Jew.  Let the world call me a miser.  When I become rich, I will be a spendthrift: