You ask for Dupont de Fougères--alas! he has been dead some years. I went to see Camille Jordan, who is ill, and unable to leave his sofa; but he is fatter and better-looking than when we knew him--no alteration but for the better. He has got rid of all that might be thought a little affected--his vivacity being elevated into energy, and his politeness into benevolence; his pretty little good wife was sitting beside him.
Everybody, of every degree of rank or talent, who has read the _Memoirs_, speaks of them in the most gratifying and delightful manner. Those who have fixed on individual circumstances have always fixed on those which we should have considered as most curious. Mr. Malthus this morning spoke most highly of it, and of its useful tendency both in a public and private light. Much as I dreaded hearing it spoken of, all I have yet heard has been what best compensates for all the anxiety I have felt.
It is a greater refreshment to me, my dearest Aunt Mary and Charlotte, to have a quiet half hour in which to write to you, while Fanny and Harriet are practising with M. Deschamp, their dancing-master, in the next room.
We had a delightful breakfast at Degerando's, in a room hung round with some very valuable pictures: one in particular, which was sent to Degerando by the town of Pescia, as a proof of gratitude for his conduct at the time when he was in Italy under Buonaparte--sent to him after he was no longer in power. There was an Italian gentleman, Marchese Ridolfi, of large fortune and benevolent mind, intent on improving his people. We also met Madame de Villette, Voltaire's "_belle et bonne_:" she has still some remains of beauty, and great appearance of good-humour. It was delightful to hear her speak of Voltaire with the enthusiasm of affection, and with tears in her eyes beseeching us not to believe the hundred misrepresentations we may have heard, but to trust her, the person who had lived with him long, and who knew him best and last. After breakfast she took us to her house, where Voltaire had lived, and where we saw his chair and his writing desk turning on a pivot on the arm of the chair: his statue smiling, keen-eyed, and emaciated, said to be a perfect resemblance. In one of the hands hung the brown and withered crown of bays, placed on his head when he appeared the last time at the Théâtre Français. Madame de Villette showed us some of his letters--one to his steward, about sheep, etc., ending with, "Let there be no drinking, no rioting, no beating of your wife." The most precious relic in this room of Voltaire's is a little piece carved in wood by an untaught genius, and sent to Voltaire by some peasants, as a proof of gratitude. It represents him sitting, listening to a family of poor peasants, who are pleading their cause: it is excellent.