CHAPTER VI.
Précepteurs ignorans de ce faible univers.[O 1] — Voltaire.
Nous étions a table chez un de nos confrères a l'Académie, Grand Seigneur et homme d'esprit.[O 2] — La Harpe.
One evening, at Paris, several months after the date of our last chapter, there was a reunion of some of the most eminent wits of the time, at the house of a personage distinguished alike by noble birth and liberal accomplishments. Nearly all present were of the views that were then the mode. For, as came afterwards a time when nothing was so unpopular as the people, so that was the time when nothing was so vulgar as aristocracy. The airiest fine gentleman and the haughtiest noble prated of equality, and lisped enlightenment.
Among the more remarkable guests were Condorcet, then in the prime of his reputation, the correspondent of the king of Prussia, the intimate of Voltaire, the member of half the academies of Europe — noble by birth, polished in manners, republican in opinions. There, too, was the venerable Malesherbes, "l'amour
