* The name of Voltaire’s residence—TRANS
“Yes, sire,” replied the duke, laughing, “since he has not presented officially to your majesty the letters of his creation as comte de Tournay.”
The king began to laugh. This was the name of an estate which Voltaire had, and which he sometimes assumed.
CHAPTER XVI
Unpublished letter of Voltaire to madame du Barry—Reply of
the countess—The maréchale de Mirepoix—Her first interview
with madame du Barry—Anecdote of the diamonds of madame de
Mirepoix—The king pays for them—Singular gratitude of the
maréchale—The portfolio, and an unpublished letter of the
marquise de Pompadour
By the way in which the king continued to speak to me of M. de Voltaire, I clearly saw how right the duke was in advising me to read the letter myself before I showed it to my august protector. I could not read it until the next day, and found it conceived in the following terms:—
“MADAME LA COMTESSE:—I feel myself urged by an extreme desire to have an explanation with you, after the receipt of a letter which M. the duc d’Aiguillon wrote to me last year. This nobleman, nephew of a gentleman, as celebrated for the name he bears as by his own reputation, and who has been my friend for more than sixty years, has communicated to me the pain which had been caused you by a certain piece of poetry, of my writing as was stated, and in which my style was recognised. Alas! madame, ever since the most foolish desire in the world has excited me to commit a great deal of idle trash to paper, not a month, a week, nay, even a day passes in which I am not accused and convicted of some great enormity; that is to say, the malicious author of all sorts of turpitudes and extravagancies. Eh! mon Dieu, the entire life-time of ten men would not be sufficient to write all with which I am charged, to my unutterable despair in this world, and to my eternal damnation in that which is to come.
“It is no doubt, much to die in final impenitence; altho’ hell may contain all the honest men of antiquity and a great portion of those of our times; and paradise would not be much to hope for if we must find ourselves face to face with messieurs Fréron, Nonatte, Patouillet, Abraham Chauneix, and other saints cut out of the same cloth. But how much more severe would it be to sustain your anger! The hatred of the Graces brings down misfortune on men of letters; and when he embroils himself with Venus and the Muses he is a lost being; as, for instance, M. Dorat, who incessantly slanders his mistresses, and writes nothing but puerilities.
“I have been very cautious, in my long career, how I committed such a fault. If perchance I have lightly assailed the common cry of scribblers or pendants who were worthless, I have never ceased to burn incense on the altars of the ladies; them I have always sung when I—could not do otherwise. Independently, madame, of the profound respect I bear all your sex I profess a particular regard towards all those who approach our sovereign, and whom he invests with his confidence: in this I prove myself no less a faithful subject than a gallant Frenchman; and I venerate the God I serve in his constant friendships as I would do in his caprices. Thus I was far from outraging and insulting you still more grievously by composing a hateful work which I detest with my whole heart, and which makes me shed tears of blood when I think that people did not blush to attribute it to me.