"Some time afterwards I was dining at the table of a Prince: I was seated beside my illustrious host, and wore a uniform covered with lace. The member of the Institute was one of the guests. Surprise and embarrassment were portrayed in his countenance. I spoke to him several times; but he always drew close to his neighbours, whispering to them, and apparently making enquiries. After dinner, he came up to me, and very good-humouredly begged me to relieve him from his perplexity. He said that he perfectly recollected having had the honour of meeting me before, but that he was quite at a loss to comprehend the trick that I had played upon him. I disclaimed any intention of hoaxing him. ‘All that you have seen,’ said I, ‘and all that I have told you, is nothing but reality and truth. The mystery is easily solved. You then saw M. Le Sage who supplies the talent, and you now see M. Le Comte who provides the funds. You now understand how histories are written, and I have learned how reports are made out.’
“An equally ridiculous mistake procured for M. Le Sage in the famous Yellow Dwarf, the honour of being set down as a Weathercock, in quality of genealogist of the order under the humorous name of _Parvulus Sapiens_ (Little Le Sage). For this favour, as I afterwards learned, I was indebted to the suppression that was made during the King’s reign of the genealogy of your Majesty, whose descent I was supposed to have traced from Æneas and Ascanuis. It is difficult to conceive what could have been meant by all this, as there was nothing in the Atlas that could either directly or indirectly have suggested such an idea. However, at all the various times at which the Atlas and its author were assailed, numerous zealous and fervent partisans enquired whether I would be pleased to permit them to take up my defence. I invariably desired that the subject might be dropped; I conceived that, by thus occupying public attention, I should surely endanger my own tranquillity. I smiled at the ill-natured attacks that were made on poor M. Le Sage; but I should have been very sorry to have seen them extended to his _alias_.
“If however my Atlas enjoyed this general and extensive success, it certainly deserved it. The work is indeed adapted to every age, to every country, to every period; it is suited to all opinions, classes and plans of education. It is an assistant to him who wishes to learn, and a remembrancer to him who has learned. It is a guide to the scholar and an illustrator to the master. It embraces chronology, history, geography, politics, &c. To those who understand it, and know how to use it, it may be truly said to compose a whole library in itself. It is the _vade mecum_ of the pupil and the tutor, of the scholar and the man of business.