VOLTAIRE. "'So do I too:—but it is of your Government that we are envious.'
SHERLOCK. "'I have found the French freer than I expected.'
VOLTAIRE. "'Yes, as to walking, or eating whatever he pleases, or lolling in his elbow-chair, a Frenchman is free enough; but as to taxes—Ah, Monsieur, you are a lucky Nation; you can do what you like; poor we are born in slavery: we cannot even die as we will; we must have a Priest [can't get buried otherwise; am often thinking of that!]... Well, if the English do sell themselves, it is a proof that they are worth something: we French don't sell ourselves, probably because we are worth nothing.'
SHERLOCK. "'What is your opinion of the ELOISE' [Rousseau's immortal Work]?
VOLTAIRE. "'That it will not be read twenty years hence.'
SHERLOCK. "'Mademoiselle de l'Enclos wrote some good LETTERS?'
VOLTAIRE. "'She never wrote one; they were by the wretched Crebillon' [my beggarly old "Rival" in the Pompadour epoch]!...
VOLTAIRE. "'The Italians are a Nation of brokers. Italy is an Old-Clothes shop; in which there are many Old Dresses of exquisite taste.... But we are still to know, Whether the subjects of the Pope or of the Grand Turk are the more abject.' [We have now gone to the Drawing-room, I think, though it is not jotted.]
"He talked of England and of Shakspeare; and explained to Madame Denis part of a Scene in Henry Fifth, where the King makes love to Queen Catherine in bad French; and of another in which that Queen takes a lesson in English from her Waiting-woman, and where there are several very gross double-entendres"—but, I hope, did not long dwell on these....
VOLTAIRE. "'When I see an Englishman subtle and fond of lawsuits, I say, "There is a Norman, who came in with William the Conqueror." When I see a man good-natured and polite, "That is one who came with the Plantagenets;" a brutal character, "That is a Dane:"—for your Nation, Monsieur, as well as your Language, is a medley of many others.'