"I lost sight of him in few instants," as he approached his Box "the place where I was not permitting farther view." [Collini,--Mon Sejour,--p.

21.] This was Collini's first sight of that great man (DE CE GRAND HOMME).
With whom, thanks to Barberina, he had, in a day or two, the honor of an Interview (judgment favorable, he could hope); and before many months, Accident also favoring, the inexpressible honor of seeing himself the great man's Secretary,--how far beyond hope or aspiration, in these Carrousel days! Voltaire had now been here some Seven Weeks,--arrived 10th July, as we often note;--after (on his own part) a great deal of haggling, hesitating and negotiating; which we spare our readers.

The poor man having now become a Quasi-Widower; painfully rallying, with his whole strength, towards new arrangements,--now was the time for Friedrich to urge him: "Come to me! Away from all that dismal imbroglio; hither, I say!" To which Voltaire is not inattentive; though he hesitates; cannot, in any case, come without delay;--lingers in Paris, readjusting many things, the poor shipwrecked being, among kind D'Argentals and friends.
Poor Ishmael, getting gray; and his tent in the desert suddenly carried off by a blast of wind! To the legal Widower, M.le Marquis, he behaves in money matters like a Prince; takes that Paris Domicile, in the Rue Traversiere, all to himself; institutes a new household there,--Niece Denis to be female president.

Niece Denis, widow without encumbrances; whom in her married state, wife to some kind of Commissariat-Officer at Lille, we have seen transiently in that City, her Uncle lodging with her as he passed.

A gadding, flaunting, unreasonable, would-be fashionable female--( a Du Chatelet without the grace or genius, and who never was in love with you!)--with whom poor Uncle had a baddish life in time coming.