A Madame de Stael, the _persifleur_ in office of Madame Du Deffand, has copiously narrated the whole affair.
They arrived at midnight like two famished spectres, and there was some trouble to put them to supper and bed.

They are called apparitions, because they were never visible by day, only at ten at night; for the one is busied in describing great deeds, and the other in commenting on Newton.

Like other apparitions, they are uneasy companions: they will neither play nor walk; they will not dissipate their mornings with the charming circle about them, nor allow the charming circle to break into their studies.

Voltaire and Madame de Chatelet would have suffered the same pain in being forced to an abstinence of their regular studies, as this circle of "agreables" would have at the loss of their meals and their airings.

However, the _persifleur_ declares they were ciphers "en societe," adding no value to the number, and to which their learned writings bear no reference.
But if this literary couple would not play, what was worse, Voltaire poured out a vehement declamation against a fashionable species of gambling, which appears to have made them all stare.