94 VOLTAIRE. 



going for a few weeks to the waters of Plombires, 

 where his niece and the Argentals came to meet him. 

 He also went to Lyons, where Cardinal Tencin, the 

 archbishop, saw him, and considered himself under the 

 necessity of avoiding his society, notwithstanding his 

 being uncle of Voltaire's dearest friend, M. Argental's 

 wife. The people, however, took another view of the 

 matter, and held festivals in honour of the great poet 

 and wit, by inviting him to their theatre and playing 

 his tragedies before him with the most enthusiastic 

 acclamations. He was now ordered to try the waters 

 of Aix in Savoy, and for this purpose he must pass 

 through Geneva. There he consulted the famous 

 Dr. Tronchin, who at once forbade that mineral, and 

 he purchased sixty acres of land near the town, where 

 he was made to pay twice as much as it would have 

 cost him near Paris. He afterwards bought the villa of 

 Tournay, since called Ferney, in the French territory, 

 and about a league from Geneva. In summer he went 

 to a house which he purchased near Lausanne, called 

 Monnier; and in these retreats, agreeable for their 

 scenery in summer, but subject to the curse of a 

 rigorous climate in winter, he spent the remaining 

 portion of his life. 



Frederick was reconciled to him in 1757. He wrote 

 him a kind letter in August of that year, when he had, 

 in consequence of his disaster at Kolin on the 18th of 

 June, been reduced to great straits. This renewed 

 their correspondence. In September he was so much 

 more desperate that he wrote to Voltaire, declaring his 

 resolution to kill himself should he lose another 

 battle ; and he said the same thing in the poem which 



