"All this is very fine," said La Mettrie, "but does not explain how your majesty's Porporina saw the dead alive. If she is gifted with as much firmness and reason as your majesty says, the fact goes to disprove your majesty's argument. The sorcerer, it is true, was mistaken, in producing a dead rather than a living man. It, however, makes it the more certain that he controls both life and death. In that respect, he is greater than your majesty, which, if it does not displease your majesty, has killed many men, but never resuscitated a single one."
"Then, Mr. Wiseacre, we are to believe in the devil," said the king, laughing at the comic glances of La Mettrie at Quintus Icilius, as often as the former pronounced the phrase, "your majesty."
"Why should we not believe in Papa Satan? He has been so slandered, and has so much sense," said La Mettrie.
"Burn the Manichean," said Voltaire, placing a candle close to the doctor's wig.
"To conclude, most noble Fritz, I have gotten you into a tight place; your Porporina is either foolish or credulous, and saw her dead man, or she was philosophical, and saw nothing. She was frightened, however."
"Not so; she was distressed," said the king, "as all naturally would be, at the sight of a portrait which would exactly recall a person loved, but know we shall see no more. But if I must tell you all, I will say, that she subsequently was afraid, and that her moral power after this test, was not in so sound a state as it was previously. Thenceforth she has been liable to a dark melancholy, which is always the proof of weakness or disorder of our faculties. Her mind was touched, I am confident, though she denies it. No one can safely contend with falsehood. The attack she had this evening is a consequence of that, and I pledge myself there is in her mind some dread of the magic power attributed to M. de Saint Germain. I have heard, that since she returned home, she has done nothing but weep."
"Of all that part of the story I am utterly incredulous," said La Mettrie. "You have been to see her, and since that time her tears are dried."
"You are very curious, Panurge, to know the object of my visit. You, D'Argens, though you say little, seem to think a great deal. You, too, Voltaire, seem to think no less, though you do not open your lips."