76 VOLTAIRE. 



on cold fits occasionally, and then the snow, or rather 

 the hail, fell as easily and abundantly as the tepid 

 showers had before descended. Nothing can exceed 

 his affection for his nieces, especially for Madame 

 Denis ; but he must have outraged her feelings se- 

 verely, to draw from her such a letter as she wrote in 

 1754 : " Ne me forcez pas a vous hair" " Vous etes le 

 dernier des homines par le cceur " " Je cacherai autant 

 que je pourrais les vices de votre coeur" are ex- 

 pressions used principally on account, not of his heart, 

 which was sound, but his temper, which was uncon- 

 trolled, and they were used to him while lying on a 

 sick bed at Colmar, which he had not quitted for six 

 months. I shall have occasion afterwards to speak 

 more particularly of his quarrels with Maupertuis, 

 Frederick II., and Rousseau ; in the first of which, 

 the chief fault lay with the mathematician ; in the 

 second, the great king claims the whole blame ; and in 

 the third, Voltaire was most censurable. At present, 

 I have only entered upon the topics which arise dur- 

 ing his residence at Cirey. 



The same exaggeration that pervades his expressions 

 towards others, is observable in all that he writes re- 

 specting himself, whether upon the sufferings of his 

 mind or those, somewhat more real, of his body. He 

 had, unhappily, a feeble constitution, and having 

 taken little care of it in early life, he was a confirmed 

 invalid for the rest of his days ; but especially between 

 forty and sixty. He suffered from both bladder com- 

 plaints and those of the alimentary canal ; and his sur- 

 gical maladies, beside the pain and irritation which 

 they directly occasioned, gave him all the sufferings 



