After Voltaire’s death, the empress told Grimm that she intended to build a replica of the Château de Ferney in the park at Tsarskoe Selo. This “New Ferney” would become the repository of Voltaire’s library, purchased by Catherine from Mme Denis for 135,000 pounds. The books went to Russia, but the architectural project was abandoned, and the library of over six thousand volumes, annotated by Voltaire page by page in the margins, was placed in a hall of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. In the center of this space, the place of honor, was an exact copy of Houdon’s remarkable statue of Voltaire
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