“I served in the army ten years, Monsieur, and unfortunately lost my health during the retreat from Prague. It is now my ambition to enter politics.”
The powerful eyes of M. de Voltaire narrowed and glittered.
“You know what the politics of France are? You know what kind of a world this Paris is?”
Luc drew a deep breath; he thought of Carola, of M. de Richelieu, of the young suicide of Versailles.
“Monsieur,” he replied earnestly, “my life has been passed in a kind of seclusion, I being always with the army and often abroad, and I have had little time even for meditation, and in truth I might well be engulfed in this great world of which I know so little, and where I have already experienced some falls, were it not that I have certain thoughts, ideals so fixed that I cannot conceive them altering, and so I must go on.”
“Ah!” cried M. de Voltaire softly, “you will succeed; but not in the way you think perhaps. Politics are poor scope after all.”
“Yet you are in them, Monsieur.”
“As I was in the Bastille!” flashed M. de Voltaire, “as I have been everything and said everything and deceived them all—all the little dolls who dance to whatever tune is played the loudest. I have been many characters, I have laughed at all France, and now I am—Voltaire! And all France steps to the pace I set—therefore I know something of kings and queens and courtiers and beggars.” He paused and smiled, laying his hand on his heart with a quick, passionate gesture. “I have tried most weapons,” he continued, “and the pen is the most powerful of all. Monseigneur, you have thought, you can express yourself—use your pen to lift yourself above the age—write—write from your soul, never heed what you know—write what you feel!”
Luc caught his breath.
“Monsieur—do you mean that I should write and—publish?”