“It is hard to pain you, Monseigneur, and before I speak I would implore you to consider that I have not come to this resolution without struggles—so intense, so bitter that I thought I could not live and endure them.”
“You frighten me,” said the Marquis. “You always had a wild heart—what has it prompted you to now?”
Luc bent his head.
“I know a man in Paris who is shaping the thought of France. I told him once what I meant to do, what goal I set myself, and he gave me advice that I rejected. Now other ways are closed to me I shall take this. I think, after all, that he was right. I am going to Paris to join this man and his friends—the people who are making the future of France, of the world. They will help me to so live my last years, to so express the thoughts that come to me that I may die not utterly useless—perhaps even achieving that inward glory that is the paradise of the soul.” His voice rose full and clear with emotion and enthusiasm, and his marred eyes flashed with something of the old fire the Luc of yester year had so often darted on the world.
The old Marquis sat very still. He looked grey, and hard, and massive; his fine right hand clutched and unclutched on the table.
“Who is this man?” he asked.
Luc paused for a moment, then said, without fear or bravado—
“Voltaire.”
It was the first time that name had been mentioned in this house without loathing or contempt; it was the first time M. de Vauvenargues had heard it on the lips of his son. His face worked with passion: a heavy flush stained his cheeks, and his eyes were almost hidden by his over-hanging, frowning brows.
“You mean to leave Aix to become a follower of M. de Voltaire?” he said in a low, trembling voice.