Either now, or before the Bastille adventure, he must needs fall in love with that pretty Mademoiselle de Livri, the Duchess of Sully’s companion and relative, who would fain be an actress, with a Voltaire to teach her elocution and tenderness. The pair rode about Paris together in a bad hackney coach, and had bad suppers together--in Elysium. A friend of Voltaire’s, de Génonville, fell in love with Mademoiselle presently, and she with him--to Voltaire’s passing displeasure. He vented his feeling in a few graceful verses--and it vanished into air. The whole thing was but an episode after all, a _penchant_ more than a passion, the light fancy of the senses that touched the deeper soul not at all. But posterity should be grateful to Mademoiselle. Voltaire had his portrait painted for her by Largillière, and may be seen to-day as he looked then--flowing wig, wide mouth, the ruffled hand thrust lightly in the waistcoat; a lover, young, satisfied with his mistress, himself, and all the world; and in the eyes and forehead, latent but present, power and will extraordinary. The mockery, the humour, and the cynicism which make later portraits of Voltaire like no other man’s, are not in this one. His relations with women--niece or mistress--always show him in some respects in his best light; patient, forbearing, and faithful; generous to the memory of a false woman, giving honour where honour was due, respecting intelligence, and never weary of trying to turn a fool into a sensible companion. But he had now other things to think of besides the sentiments. He had made his _début_, as has been well said, in epigrams. If he had not written “J’ai Vu,” he _could_ have written it a thousand times more damning and deadly. The most beautiful sting that ever wasp concealed beneath a gay coat, he was keeping for his enemies yet. He was still the despair of M. Arouet and the spoilt child of salons. He had a reputation but the more widespread for being evil. He was rather vain and inimitably amusing. He was so clever--he might surely do anything! He was, in fact, that most unsatisfactory creature in the world--a youth of promise. The performance was to come. CHAPTER III “ŒDIPE,” AND THE JOURNEY TO HOLLAND On November 18, 1718, there was produced in Paris the tragedy of “Œdipe,” by M. Arouet de Voltaire. The subject of the play is classical and the plot entirely impossible. Love interest there is none. The style is not a little bombastical and long-winded. The characters are always talking about what they are going to do, instead of doing it. The good people are very, very good, and the bad ones very, very bad. At the best they are brilliant automatons--masks, not faces.