Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/315

Rh an imitative animal, that instinct rules us, and that the great emotions of the soul are catching. Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent, Humani vultus.

When he had his laugh out, he told me that he had just come from meeting with a man who called himself the prothonotary of the Holy See, and that this personage was sending away a great sum of money to an Italian, three hundred leagues off, in the name and behalf of a Frenchman, on whom the king had bestowed a small fief or fee; because the said Frenchman could never enjoy this benefit of the king's conferring, if he did not give to this Italian the first year's income.

"The thing," said I, "is very true; but it is not quite such a laughing matter either. It costs France about four hundred thousand livres a year, in petty duties of this kind, and in the course of two centuries and a half, that this custom has lasted, we have already sent to Italy fourscore millions."

"Heavenly father!" he exclaimed, "how many forty crowns would that make? Some Italian, then, subdued us, I suppose, two centuries and a half ago, and laid that tribute upon us!"

"In good faith," answered I, "he used to impose on us, in former times, in a much more burdensome way. That is but a trifle in comparison to what, for a long time, he levied on our poor nations of Europe."

Then I related to him how those holy usurpations had taken place and came to be established. He