She was then eighty-five.

She was pleased to put me down in her will; she left me two thousand francs to buy books; her death followed close upon my visit and her will." Young Arouet was finishing brilliantly his last year of rhetoric, when John Baptist Rousseau, already famous, saw him at the distribution of prizes at the college.

"Later on," wrote Rousseau, in the thick of his quarrels with Voltaire, "some ladies of my acquaintance had taken me to see a tragedy at the Jesuits in August, 1710; at the distribution of prizes which usually took place after those representations, I observed that the same scholar was called up twice.

I asked Father Tarteron, who did the honors of the room in which we were, who the young man was that was so distinguished amongst his comrades.

He told me that it was a little lad who had a surprising turn for poetry, and proposed to introduce him to me; to which I consented.