Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/24

6 which gave Colin some uneasiness. From that moment Jeannot abandoned his studies; he contemplated himself in a glass, and despised all mankind.

Soon after a valet de chambre arrived post-haste, and brought a second letter to the Marquis de la Jeannotière. It was an order from his father, who desired the young marquis to repair immediately to Paris. Jeannot got into his chaise, giving his hand to Colin with a smile, which denoted the superiority of a patron. Colin felt his littleness, and wept. Jeannot departed in all the pomp of his glory.

Such readers as take a pleasure in being instructed should be informed that Monsieur Jeannot, the father, had, with great rapidity, acquired an immense fortune by business. You will ask how such great fortunes are made. My answer is, by luck. Monsieur Jeannot had a good person, so had his wife; and she had still some freshness remaining. They went to Paris on account of a lawsuit, which ruined them; when fortune, which raises and depresses men at her pleasure, presented them to the wife of an undertaker belonging to one of the hospitals for the army. This undertaker, a man of great talents, might make it his boast that he had buried more soldiers in a year than cannons destroy in ten. Jeannot pleased the wife; the wife of Jeannot interested the undertaker. Jeannot was employed in the undertaker's business; this