“The room wherein the great man received his visitors was entirely darkened (such was his whim), save where one single shutter, folded back, allowed the light to stream in through a long, narrow aperture, immediately opposite to which he himself was placed, so that he became thus the sole object clearly visible in the apartment. And here he sat to receive visitors, although, the sun shining at the moment, the light was so strong that it must almost have blinded him. His niece, Madame Denis, ‘_belle et bonne_,’ was seated at the foot of the bed near the chimney, attired in a dimity camisole, rather soiled, and her hair, escaping in disorder from the little cap placed on the top of her head, was tied in a fantastical _fontange_ with a faded blue ribbon. She was no longer young, poor _belle et bonne_, and her sedentary life had induced a degree of corpulence which made her look older still. She had certainly forfeited all pretensions to her first title, and there was much in her face that to a physiognomist would have given a flat contradiction to the second. She had evidently been engaged in writing from M. de Voltaire’s dictation, for she had risen from the bureau, and turned to the fire, where there was placed some cooking utensil to which she soon directed her attention. “But it was not long before I had forgotten the very existence of Madame Denis, in the interest of the conversation with M. de Voltaire himself. He spoke quickly and nervously, with a play of feature I have never seen in any man except him. His eye kindled with a vivid fire almost dazzling, as it danced in the ray of sunlight from the window, and moved about from one to the other of his listeners, rapid and quivering like the summer lightning. He had just been receiving, that very morning, a deputation from the Théâtre Français, begging permission to commence the performance of ‘Zaïre’ that evening with a complimentary address to himself, which permission of course the poet had granted with an enviable self-satisfaction, merely requesting that the verses should be submitted to his own inspection, and subjected to his own corrections and improvements, if any such were needed. He was in high good humour at this mark of honour and distinction, for, as I have said before, flattery had become of more importance to his existence than the very food and nourishment of each day. “When the great man had conversed for some little time with my friend, with whom he had been intimate for many years, he turned to me, and, after courteously expressing the pleasure which my visit gave him, he added, ‘I had desired to see you, M. de Perigord, to communicate to you a fact concerning your family, which happened some years ago, and may be of importance to you hereafter. As you are the youngest of your family, you may one day like to be its chronicler.’