102 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

presence, after so long an absence, would not fail to create.The inhabitants of Ferney saw their benefactor departwith tears. He promised to return in six weeks ; andso firmly intended to keep this resolution, that he putno order into his affairs or papers before his departure,thinking it not worth while, as his absence would beso short.

1788 . On the 10th of February he arrived in the capital,

- iEtat- accompanied by monsieur and madame de Villette andmadame Denis. Madame de Villette was a protegeeof Voltaire . She had been destined for a convent byher parents ; and, in despair, wrote to the patriarch ofFerney to extricate her from such a fate. He offeredher a home in his house. She was gentle, beautiful,and clever. M. de Villette, a gentleman of fortune, fellin love with and married her. She went by the nameof Belle et Bonne among her friends. Voltaire had thepeculiarity, which usually attends men of genius, ofgathering about him a society composed principally ofwomen, and she was a chief favourite.

Voltaire brought with him his newly written tragedyof “ Irene.” He had the notion indelibly impressed,that, to secure his.position in Paris , he must acquirepopularity; and that a successful tragedy was the suremeans of acquiring it. In the present instance he didHot need such support. No conqueror, returned fromenslaving a province, was ever received with such enthu-siastic marks of triumph. La Harpe well observes, thatthe generation who had witnessed Voltaire 's earlierstruggles and clouded fame, had nearly died away ; allthose born during the space of the last forty yearsfound the world full of his fame. His persecutions,his mode of life, his attacks on religion and on persons,the mischief he had caused, and the good he had done,were the chief topics of interest: more than all, thebrilliancy of his genius dazzled, its versatility delightedmankind. Even his pettishnesses, his whims, his fol-lies, ever varying and upheld by him with earnestnessand vigour, kept alive public attention. That this man,