When I had finished I received with a sad air the congratulations of the audience. Voltaire cried,
"I always said so; the secret of drawing tears is to weep one's self, but they must be real tears, and to shed them the heart must be stirred to its depths. I am obliged to you, sir," he added, embracing me, "and I promise to recite the same stanzas myself to-morrow, and to weep like you."
He kept his word.
"It is astonishing," said Madame Denis, "that intolerant Rome should not have condemned the song of Roland."
"Far from it," said Voltaire, "Leo X. excommunicated whoever should dare to condemn it. The two great families of Este and Medici interested themselves in the poet's favour. Without that protection it is probable that the one line on the donation of Rome by Constantine to Silvester, where the poet speaks 'puzza forte' would have sufficed to put the whole poem under an interdict."
"I believe," said I, "that the line which has excited the most talk is that in which Ariosto throws doubt on the general resurrection. Ariosto," I added, "in speaking of the hermit who would have hindered Rhodomonte from getting possession of Isabella, widow of Zerbin, paints the African, who wearied of the hermit's sermons, seizes him and throws him so far that he dashes him against a rock, against which he remains in a dead swoon, so that 'che al novissimo di forse fia desto'."
This 'forse' which may possibly have only been placed there as a flower of rhetoric or as a word to complete the verse, raised a great uproar, which would doubtless have greatly amused the poet if he had had time!
"It is a pity," said Madame Denis, "that Ariosto was not more careful in these hyperbolical expressions."
"Be quiet, niece, they are full of wit. They are all golden grains, which are dispersed throughout the work in the best taste."
The conversation was then directed towards various topics, and at last we got to the 'Ecossaise' we had played at Soleure.