78 VOLTAIRE. 



that after a few days passed at Cirey, they returned to 

 Limeville ; and this Court, small, cheerful, divested 

 of all troublesome ceremony and cumbrous pomp, and 

 presenting the best instance ever known of letters 

 united with grandeur, and literary men patronised 

 without being degraded, became their residence until 

 the fatal event which, in the beginning of September 

 in the following year, severed for ever the connexion of 

 the parties. The Marchioness continued her studies, 

 and laboured with unwearried zeal in superintending 

 the publication of her translation of Newton. The 

 manuscript had been so far finished in the latter part 

 of 1747, that the printing had begun early in 1748; 

 but there were many additions and corrections to 

 make, and she worked on it with a degree of industry 

 which is supposed to have seriously injured her during 

 her pregnancy, extending from the month of Decem- 

 ber in the latter year. On the 4th of September, 

 1749, while engaged in an investigation connected 

 with the ' Principia,' she was so suddenly taken in 

 labour that a girl was born before she could be put to 

 bed. In the course of a few days she was no more ; 

 and the Marquis and Voltaire having retired to Cirey, 

 very soon quitted a place now gloomy with the most 

 painful associations, and went to Paris, where Madame 

 Denis, his niece, came to live with the poet. He con- 

 tinued to occupy the house in which the Marquis and 

 he had before lived together as their town residence, 

 when they occasionally quitted Cirey for the capital ; 

 and it was now, he said, endeared to him by its melan- 

 choly recollections. His niece endeavoured to distract 

 his attention from the dreadful loss which he had sus- 



