. It is the first letter in the series of his collected
correspondence which is not all Epicurean elegance and caressing wit.
The wit, the elegance, the finely turned phrase, the shifting
smile--these things are still visible there no doubt, but they are
informed and overmastered by a new, an almost ominous spirit: Voltaire,
for the first time in his life, is serious.

J'ai ete a l'extremite; je n'attends que ma convalescence pour
abandonner a jamais ce pays-ci. Souvenez-vous de l'amitie tendre
que vous avez eue pour moi; au nom de cette amitie informez-moi par
un mot de votre main de ce qui se passe, ou parlez a l'homme que je
vous envoi, en qui vous pouvez prendre une entiere confiance.
Presentez mes respects a Madame du Deffand; dites a Thieriot que je
veux absolument qu'il m'aime, ou quand je serai mort, ou quand je
serai heureux; jusque-la, je lui pardonne son indifference. Dites a
M. le chevalier des Alleurs que je n'oublierai jamais la generosite
de ses procedes pour moi. Comptez que tout detrompe que je suis de
la vanite des amities humaines, la votre me sera a jamais
precieuse. Je ne souhaite de revenir a Paris que pour vous voir,
vous embrasser encore une fois, et vous faire voir ma constance
dans mon amitie et dans mes malheurs.

'Presentez mes respects a Madame du Deffand!' Strange indeed are the
whirligigs of Time! Madame de Bernieres was then living in none other
than that famous house at the corner of the Rue de Beaune and the Quai
des Theatins (now Quai Voltaire) where, more than half a century later,
the writer of those lines was to come, bowed down under the weight of an
enormous celebrity, to look for the last time upon Paris and the world;
where, too, Madame du Deffand herself, decrepit, blind, and bitter with
the disillusionments of a strange lifetime, was to listen once more to
the mellifluous enchantments of that extraordinary intelligence,
which--so it seemed to her as she sat entranced--could never, never grow
old.[4]

Voltaire was not kept long in the Bastille. For some time he had
entertained a vague intention of visiting England, and he now begged for
permission to leave the country. The authorities, whose one object was
to prevent an unpleasant _fracas_, were ready enough to substitute exile
for imprisonment; and thus, after a fortnight's detention, the 'fameux
poete' was released on condition that he should depart forth