100 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC KEN.

civil troubles of Geneva caused a number of exiles.The fugitives, destitute and suffering, were receivedat Ferney , and treated with hospitality and generosity.Voltaire ’s first idea was to found the little town ofVersoi, on the banks of the lake of Geneva . He ap-plied to the duke de Choiseul for protection and funds.These were at first granted; but the disgrace of theminister ruined the infant town, and its founder wasobliged to restrict his exertions to his own colony atFerney . He caused commodious houses to be built,and the place, which was before a miserable hamlet,inhabited by peasants in the last degree of penury, be-came a pleasant village, filled by industrious artisans,who carried on a considerable trade in watchmaking. Itis to this village that Voltaire led madame du Genlis,and the sight of it filled her with respect for his en-larged views and benevolent heart.

Nor was this the only place that owed the blessings ofprosperity to him. By most persevering and courage-ous representations he induced the chancellor Maupeou to enfranchise the peasants of a territory among themountains of Jura, who were serfs to the monastery ofSt. Claude, and suffered the most unendurable grievancesfrom the feudal laws still in force. Afterwards, whenLouis XVI . came to the throne, he asked for variousexemptions from taxes from the minister Turgot for thetown of Gex, which flourished in consequence, tillTurgot was exiled, his ordinances cancelled, and thetown was ruined. His colony fell under the sameban, and he shared the general loss. He was grieved,but not disheartened. “ It is true,” he wrote to hisvalued and steady friend the comte d’Argental, “ that Ihave had the folly, in my eighty-third year, to commencean undertaking above my strength. I must abandon it,and wait till I grow younger. My strange fate, whichled me from Paris to the frontiers of Switzerland , andforced me to change a filthy hamlet into a pretty town,a quarter of a league long, follows me; she does notrestore my youth, but crushes me with the stones