And it is pleasantly notable,--during these first ten years,--with what desperate intensity, vigilance and fierceness, Madame watches over all his interests and liabilities and casualties great and small; leaping with her whole force into M.de Voltaire's scale of the balance, careless of antecedences and consequences alike; flying, with the spirit of an angry brood-hen, at the face of mastiffs, in defence of any feather that is M.de Voltaire's.

To which Voltaire replies, as he well may, with eloquent gratitude; with Verses to the divine Emilie, with Gifts to her, verses and gifts the prettiest in the world;--and industriously celebrates the divine Emilie to herself and all third parties.
"An ardent, aerial, gracefully predominant, and in the end somewhat termagant female figure, this divine Emilie.

Her temper, radiant rather than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion; nor was M.de Voltaire the least of a Job, if you came athwart him the wrong way.

I have heard, their domestic symphony was liable to furious flaws,--let us hope at great distances apart:--that 'plates' in presence of the lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to end of the dinner-table; nay they mention 'knives' (though only in the way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the sombre and majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: _'Ne me regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches,_ Don't fix those haggard sidelong eyes on me in that way!'-- mere shrillness of pale rage presiding over the scene.

But we hope it was only once in the quarter, or seldomer: after which the element would be clearer for some time.