Days [ ) Illusion | Voltaire, 1756
“O gift from heaven! tender love! sweet desire!
We are still happy with your image:
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”
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Voltaire
La Pucelle d’Orléans
(The Maid of Orleans).
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The poem was first published in 1755 but the line does not appear in that version, nor in the one authorized by M. de Voltaire in 1762. It turns up in a 1756 edition in an epilogue to a version that contains changes to many cantos that were probably made by the publisher from incomplete Voltaire manuscripts, perhaps to make the edition more profitable. (…)
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