printing of the copy of the Mariamne, which you have, and you advise me to print a new corrected édition of it, I intend to make use of your advice, and to give the public, as soon as possible, the best édition I can of the Henriade, together with my True Essay on Poetry. The printing of them both is a duty I must discharge before I think of other duties less suitable with the life of a man of letters, but becoming a man of honour, and from which you may be sure I shall never départ as long as I breathe.
Now I want to know when and where I could print secretly the Henriade ? It must be in France, in some country town. I question whether Rouen is a proper place ; for methinks the bookish inquisition is so rigorous that it has frightened all the booksellers in those parts. If you know any place where I may print my book with security, I beseech you to let me know of it : but let nobody be acquainted with the secret of my being in France. I should be exceedingly glad, my dear Tiriot, of seeing you again, but I would see nobody else in the world ; I would not be so much as suspected of having set my foot in your country, nor of having thought of it[1] ; my brother, especially, is the least proper person to be trusted with such a secret, not only on account of his indiscreet temper, but also of the ill usage I have received from him since I am in England : I have tried all sorts of means to soften, if I could, the pedantic rudeness and the selfish insolence with which he has crushed me these two years. I own to you, in the bitterness of my heart, that his insufferable usage has been one of my greatest grievances. Your kind friendship is a real comfort to me against so many troubles. I hope the perverseness of the world will never harden a heart so good as I have thought always your’s to be ; therefore I hope you will promote, to the utmost of your abilities, the undertaking you have advised me to. If you can propose the thing to a bookseller, I had rather strike up a bargain in ready money and give the copy, than to be myself at the trouble of printing it : but I am afraid no bookseller will attempt now to print any unlicenced book ; or, if he does it, he will not give much money for so ticklish an attempt ; therefore the more I think on it, the more I conceive the necessity of being my own printer : I expect an answer from you about this affair.
- ↑ Voltaire obtint, le 29 juin 1727, une permission datée de Versailles et signée Phélypeaux, qui l’autorisait à venir à Paris, vaquer à ses affaires pendant trois mois à compter du jour qu’il y arriverait, mais contenant injonction, les trois mois écoulés, de retourner en exil sous peine de désobéissance.
