Edward Bruce Hamley

“ The neighbouring hamlet, in which a few miserable labourers inhabited dilapidated cottages, gave place to a small town, built at his cost, and tenanted by skilful workmen, whose branch of industry he encouraged and rendered prosperous. "Fifteen years ago," says a guest, writing when Voltaire was eighty-four, "there were barely at Ferney three or four cottages, and forty inhabitants; now it is astonishing to see a numerous and civilised colony, a theatre, and more than a hundred pretty houses." ”

“ The highest gratification which I derived from Voltaire's residence at Lausanne was the uncommon circumstance of hearing a great poet declaim his own productions on the stage. He had formed a company of gentlemen and ladies, some of whom were not destitute of talents. A decent theatre was framed at Monrepos, [1] a country house at the end of a suburb; dresses and scenes were provided at the expense of the actors ”

“ LIFE AT LAUSANNE AND FERNEY.
A glimpse of Voltaire, while he lived at Lausanne in 1757-58, is afforded by the historian Gibbon, then a youth of twenty, who had been sent thither to complete his education, and who thus records their acquaintance in his Autobiography:—
"Before I was recalled from Switzerland, I had the satisfaction of seeing the most extraordinary man of the age,—a poet, a historian, a philosopher, who has filled thirty quartos of prose and verse with his various productions, often excellent, and always entertaining. ”

“ On one occasion, while seated watching the performance of "Zaire" from the side-scenes, he became so excited as the catastrophe approached, that he wheeled his arm-chair on to the stage, and continued unconsciously to press forward till he got between the actors, so that Orosman was unable to stab the heroine. ”