“Quick, Madame Denis,” cried Voltaire. “A pair of snuffers!”
One persistent woman tried to effect an entry by saying that she was the niece of Terrai, the last, and not the least corrupt, of Louis XV.’s finance ministers.
Voltaire sent out a message. “Tell her I have only one tooth left, and I am keeping that for her uncle.”
The Abbé Coyer, on his arrival, calmly announced that he was going to stay six weeks.
“In what respect, my dear Abbé, are you unlike ‘Don Quixote’? He took the inns for châteaux, and you take the châteaux for inns.”
Coyer left early the next day.
Still, in spite of such rebuffs, the visitors were incessant.
One said that he could not recollect there being more than sixty to eighty people at supper after theatricals. Voltaire himself said there were constantly fifty to a hundred.
Many visitors stayed for weeks; many for months; some for years.
Madame de Fontaine, with her lover en train, could come when she chose—and she often chose. Mignot came when he liked. Great-nephew d’Hornoy was a constant visitor.