72 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

being out of favour at court. Voltaire was piqued;but the inhabitants of Lyons compensated for theinsult. They entertained him with public honours ; gotup his tragedies, that he might be present at the re-presentation, and receive the enthusiastic applause ofan audience who gloried in the opportunity of thusrewarding the author of works which excited so muchadmiration. Proceeding from Lyons to Savoy, hepassed through Geneva , and here he consulted Tron-chin, a physician, whom every one looked on as holdinglife and death in his hands. Tronchin dissuaded himfrom trying the waters, but promised to restore hishealth if he would make some stay near him. Voltaire gave readier faith than could have been expectedfrom a ridiculer of the medical art. He consented toremain in the neighbourhood of Geneva ; and, findingthat it was an established law that no Catholic mightpurchase land in Protestant Switzerland , it pleased his1755. whimsical mind instantly to buy an estate in the ter-ihtat. ritory of Geneva . Add to which motive, he fully61, appreciated the advantages he must derive from livingout of France, yet in a country where French wasspoken, and where liberty of speech and of the presshad hitherto reigned undisturbed. His house, namedLes Delices, was beautifully situated. He describes itas commanding a delightful view. The lake on oneside, the town of Geneva on the other; the swiftswelling Rhone formed a stream at the end of hisgarden, fed by the Arve and other mountain rivers.A hundred country houses with their gardens adornedthe shores of the lake and of the rivers; and the Alpswere seen afar off, — Mont Blanc and its range, whosepicturesque snow-clad peaks for ever presented newaspects, as the clouds or the varying sunlight paintedthem. A philosopher, blest with affluence, might w'ellbe happy in such a seclusion. Soon after his arrival,Voltaire wrote the fragment of his autobiography, toexplain his quarrel with the king of Prussia. Thesememoirs are one of his most entertaining works, The