The good Lassone, first physician to the King and Queen, frequently spoke to me of the uneasiness that the King's indifference, the cause of which he had been so long in overcoming, had given him, and appeared to me at that time to entertain no anxiety except of a very different description.
In the winter of 1778 the King's permission for the return of Voltaire; after an absence of twenty-seven years, was obtained.

A few strict persons considered this concession on the part of the Court very injudicious.

The Emperor, on leaving France, passed by the Chateau of Ferney without stopping there.

He had advised the Queen not to suffer Voltaire to be presented to her.

A lady belonging to the Court learned the Emperor's opinion on that point, and reproached him with his want of enthusiasm towards the greatest genius of the age.