[ Tallentyre's commentary: In 1770 a group of Voltaire's friends, headed by Mme. Necker--once the beloved of Gibbon, and now the wife of the Genevan banker who was to become Controller-General of France--proposed to erect, by public subscription, a statue of the Patriarch of Ferney, now seventy-six years old. The famous sculptor Pigalle undertook the work, which was not successful. Voltaire's boyish delight in the compliment peeps through the self-depreciation of the following letters.]

See the Statue of Voltaire by Pigalle

May 21, 1770

My just modesty, madam, and my good sense made me at first think the scheme of a statue was only a joke: but, since the thing is serious, allow me to discuss it seriously with you.

I am seventy-six years old and scarcely recovered from a severe illness, which for six weeks has dealt very hardly with both my body and my soul. M. Pigalle is supposed to be coming to model my face: but, madam, I must first have a face: you would hardly be able to guess where it ought to be. My eyes have sunk three inches, my cheeks are nothing but old parchment badly glued on to bones which have nothing to hold to. The few teeth I had have departed. This is not mere coquetry: it is the literal fact. M. Pigalle will think he is being made game of; and, from my own point of view, really I have too much vanity ever to appear before him. I should advise him, if he really wants to see this extraordinary venture through, to take, more or less, as his model the little Sevres china bust. After all, what does it master to posterity if a block of marbre resembles one man or another? I am perfectly philosophic on the subject. But, as I am still more grateful than philosophic, I give you, over what remains to me of a body, the same power that you have over what remains to me of a soul. Both are in a bad way: but my heart is as much yours, madam, as if I were five and twenty, and my respect for you is as sincere. My duty to M. Necker.

FERNEY, July 19, 1770.

When the villagers here saw Pigalle getting out some of the tools of his craft, "Come along!" they cried, "he is going to be dissected; that will be great fun!" Any sort of show, as you know, madam, amuses people: they are equally ready to go to the marionettes, the fire at Saint-Jean, the Opéra-Comique, High Mass, or a funeral. My statue will make a few philosophers laugh, and some rogue of a hypocrite or some scamp of a scribbler raise disapproving eyebrows: vanity of vanities!

But all is not vanity: my warm gratitude to my friends, and to you above all, madam, is not vanity.

My respects to M. Necker.