r in
Count Francois Hardig, now plenipotentiary of the emperor at the court of
Saxony.

The Abbe de Voisenon introduced me to Fontenelle, who was then
ninety-three years of age. A fine wit, an amiable and learned man,
celebrated for his quick repartees, Fontenelle could not pay a compliment
without throwing kindness and wit into it. I told him that I had come
from Italy on purpose to see him.

"Confess, sir," he said to me, "that you have kept me waiting a very long
time."

This repartee was obliging and critical at the same time, and pointed out
in a delicate and witty manner the untruth of my compliment. He made me a
present of his works, and asked me if I liked the French plays; I told
him that I had seen 'Thetis et Pelee' at the opera. That play was his own
composition, and when I had praised it, he told me that it was a 'tete
pelee'.

"I was at the Theatre Francais last night," I said, "and saw Athalie."

"It is the masterpiece of Racine; Voltaire, has been wrong in accusing me
of having criticized that tragedy, and in attributing to me an epigram,
the author of which has never been known, and which ends with two very
poor lines:

"Pour avoir fait pis qu'Esther,
Comment diable as-to pu faire"

I have been told that M. de Fontenelle had been the tender friend of
Madame du Tencin, that M. d'Alembert was the offspring of their intimacy,
and that Le Rond had only been his foster-father. I knew d'Alembert at
Madame de Graffigny's. That great philosopher had the talent of never
appearing to be a learned man when he was in the company of amiable
persons who had no pretension to learning or the sciences, and he always
seemed to endow with intelligence those who conversed with him.

When I went to Paris for the second time, after my escape from The Leads
of Venice, I was delighted at the idea of seeing again the amiable,
venerable Fontenelle, but he died a fortnight after my arrival, at the
beginning of the year 1757.

When I paid my third visit to Paris with the intention of ending my days
in that capital, I reckoned upon the friendship of M. d'Alembert, but he
died, like Fontenelle, a fortnight after my arrival, towards the end of
1783. Now I feel that I have seen Paris and France for the last time. The
popular effervescence has disgusted me, and I am too old to hope to see
the end of it.

Count de Looz, Polish ambassador at the French court, invited me in 1751
to translate into Italian a French op