Full of this idea she began to manœuvre for its realisation. Voltaire had a new tragedy about to appear; she tried to persuade him that it never would receive justice unless he should superintend its production on the stage: other arguments were used and persisted in, until the poor old man was brought reluctantly to consent. Immediately on entering Paris he received a shock in the news that his friend Le Kain, the actor, had been buried the day before. As soon as his arrival was known, vast numbers of visitors poured in to pay their respects to him; all Paris was delighted except the Court and the clergy—and the expected displeasure of these, of which signs appeared, caused him much anxiety. In the midst of all this excitement he was engaged in completing still another new tragedy ("Agathocle"), and also his part of a French dictionary which he had planned, and of which he had taken the letter A for his share. Benjamin Franklin came to see him, bringing his grandson, whom he desired to kneel for the patriarch's blessing. Pronouncing in English the words, "God, liberty, tolerance," "this," said Voltaire, "is the most suitable benediction for the grandson of Franklin." A still more notable interview was that with the Marquise de Gouvernet, the Suzanne de Livry of yore, now a widow. Again he appeared at the doors of that hotel, his repulse from which had produced, as rejoinder, the poem, "Les Vous et les Tu." It was like the meeting of two ghosts in another world when the aged pair, both past eighty-four, tottered towards each other, trying in vain to reconcile what they beheld with what they remembered; while from the wall, Voltaire's portrait, preserved by the Marquise for sixty years, looked down with that mocking smile
