S.S.T.
* * * * *
THE ANECDOTE GALLERY.
VOLTAIRE.
(_Continued from page 64_.)
A certain Hungarian traveller, a man of consequence in his country, but
not particularly wise, had fruitlessly tried to be introduced, without
finding any one at Geneva, willing to undertake the task, as they were
all afraid Voltaire would be rude to him. A young man, who heard of
this, engaged to procure the stranger an interview with Voltaire; and on
the day appointed, contrived to have him conveyed out of town to a
good-looking residence, where well-dressed servants received him at the
door, and ushered him up stairs in due form. Here then at last he found
himself, as he thought, _tete-a-tete_ with Voltaire. The _malade de
Ferney_, personated by our young friend, was lying down on a sofa,
wrapped up in a damask robe-de-chambre, a night-cap of black velvet,
with gold lace, on his head, or rather on the top of an immense periwig,
_a la Louis XIV_., in the midst of which his little, sallow and
deeply-wrinkled visage seemed buried; a table was near him, covered with
papers, and the curtains being drawn, made the room rather dark.
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