“The event proved that I was right in my presentiment: M. de Voltaire, soon after that, denied himself entirely to strangers, and none but his intimate friends were admitted. These, however, were sufficiently numerous to form a little court around him, and to do him all the honour which he so much loved, and amid which he died, surrounded by flatterers and sycophants until the latest hour of his life.” “Now, if it is not an indiscretion, do tell us the story that he told you, prince,” exclaimed the Princess de C——, as Prince Talleyrand concluded his recital; “do tell us the tale that Voltaire could think worthy a place in his memory: it must be a curious one. Try and recount it in the same manner that he used when telling it to you. I am sure you would imitate it admirably.” The prince smiled, (he never laughed,) as he replied, “Now have I to make a strange confession, for which I know you will never pardon me, and which I would willingly have been spared. Indeed, had it not happened to myself, I could scarcely have credited it. On leaving Voltaire, Champfort and myself had separated; he had taken the direction of the Tuileries, and I had sauntered along to the Palais Royal, thinking all the while of the great man to whose presence I had just been admitted, and retracing in memory every word, every gesture, he had used during the interview. In the garden I was accosted by the young Duc d’Aiguillon, who had just arrived from Versailles, and who began in his usual rattling manner telling me a long story about the ball which had taken place the evening before in the Orangerie, of which story, mark you, I remember every word. It was about the Duchesse de Levis, a sort of court butt just at that time, and the changing of her shoulder-knot by some wag, which _plaisanterie_ had caused the most laughable mistakes during the whole ball. “When I had got rid of this wild talker, I adjourned to the hotel of the Marquise de J——, where there was _grande reception_, followed by _grand jeu_ and _souper_. There I remained until a late hour of the night, alternately winning and losing considerable sums at the faro table, until I rose winner of a hundred and twenty louis d’or from Maurice Duvernay, of which he paid me seventy down, but having lost immensely, wrote an order for the rest on the back of one of the Queens of Diamonds.