which constituted its chief merit,
everybody present began to laugh and applaud.

No more was said of literature, and I became a silent actor till M. de
Voltaire retired, when I approached Madame Denis, and asked her if she
had any commands for me at Rome. I went home well pleased at having
compelled the giant of intellect to listen to reason, as I then thought
foolishly enough; but there was a rankling feeling left in my heart
against him which made me, ten years later, criticise all he had written.

I am sorry now for having done so, though on reading my censures over
again I find that in many places I was right. I should have done better,
however, to have kept silence, to have respected his genius, and to have
suspected my own opinions. I should have considered that if it had not
been for those quips and cranks which made me hate him on the third day,
I should have thought him wholly sublime. This thought alone should have
silenced me, but an angry man always thinks himself right. Posterity on
reading my attack will rank me among the Zoyluses, and the humble apology
I now make to the great man's shades may not be read.

If we meet in the halls of Pluto, the more peccant parts of our mortal
nature purged away, all will be made up; he will receive my heartfelt
apologies, and he will be my friend, I his sincere admirer.

I spent part of the night and the whole of the following day in writing
down my conversations with Voltaire, and they amounted nearly to a
volume, of which I have only given a mere abridgment. Towards the evening
my Epicurean syndic called on me, and we went to sup with the three
nymphs, and for five hours we indulged in every species of wantonness, in
which I had a somewhat fertile imagination. On leaving I promised to call
on them again on my return from Rome, and I kept my word. I set out the
next day, after dining with the syndic, who accompanied me as far as
Anneci, where I spent the night. Next day I dined at Aix, with the
intention of lying at Chamberi, but my destiny ordered otherwise.

Aix is a villainous hole where the mineral waters attract people of
fashion towards the end of the summer--a circumstance of which I was then
ignorant. I dined hastily, wishing to set out immediately for Chamberi,
when in the middle of my repast a crowd of fashionable people burst into
the room. I looked at them without stirring, replying with an inclination
of the head to the bows which some of them made me.