He put his hands on the sill; the stinging heat of it was grateful to his chill blood. He closed his eyes, and felt the sunshine like a red sword across his lids. He leant his sick head against the mullions. The clock of a church near by struck four; it reminded him that this was the hour and the day when he was generally visited by Voltaire or one of his friends--Diderot, d’Alembert, Saint Vincent. Luc loved these men, as he could not fail to love those whose warm regard was sweetening his closing years, but he would not live their lives. The Pompadour was their patroness, and they lived on that corruption that they secretly laughed at. Luc could not ever have brought himself to kneel at the footstool of the Marquise; his pure integrity, his absolute independence, and his complete obscurity divided him as sharply as his birth from the group of brilliant men to whom by right of genius he belonged. All of these men had achieved success; combined, they made a power equal to that of the ancient royalty itself. They were preparing--in the _Encyclopædia_ to which they were devoting their enthusiasm, their gifts of logic, of reason, of sarcasm, of eloquence--thunderbolts that would shake God Himself. Yet they one and all agreed to honour the unknown young aristocrat whose austere philosophy condemned half their actions, but whose sweetness and heroism won their admiration and respect. M. de Voltaire came to Luc’s chamber this blazing afternoon, and not alone. He brought with him a young man, very splendidly attired, with a fine ardent face and bold eyes, full of an eager, joyous life. M. de Voltaire presented him briefly-- “M. le Marquis--M. Marmontel.” Luc caught the young man’s hand, and drew him gently into the sunlight, straining his half-blind eyes to make out the person of his visitor. For Jean François Marmontel was the favourite of Paris, petted, caressed, extolled; the incarnation of success; one young, vigorous, and in the seat of glory; one physically what Luc had been before the Bohemia war, and from the worldly point of view in that position Luc had so yearned and longed for, so confidently hoped to attain. Luc had failed in arms, in politics, in letters. He had lost love, and health, and all hope of material triumph. He had even won hate from those nearest to him in blood. He was dying, slowly, and in a fashion humiliating. He was disfigured, feeble, half blind, bowed with weakness and great pain. M. de Voltaire thought of this as he watched him looking so earnestly at the young man who was so crowned with gifts, with success, strength, and vigour.