as revealed by the letters of contemporary observers and the official
documents of the police, is an instructive and curious one. In the early
days of January 1726 Voltaire, who was thirty-one years of age, occupied
a position which, so far as could be seen upon the surface, could hardly
have been more fortunate. He was recognised everywhere as the rising
poet of the day; he was a successful dramatist; he was a friend of
Madame de Prie, who was all-powerful at Court, and his talents had been
rewarded by a pension from the royal purse. His brilliance, his gaiety,
his extraordinary capacity for being agreeable had made him the pet of
the narrow and aristocratic circle which dominated France. Dropping his
middle-class antecedents as completely as he had dropped his
middle-class name, young Arouet, the notary's offspring, floated at his
ease through the palaces of dukes and princes, with whose sons he drank
and jested, and for whose wives--it was _de rigueur_ in those days--he
expressed all the ardours of a passionate and polite devotion. Such was
his roseate situation when, all at once, the catastrophe came. One night
at the Opéra the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot, of the famous and powerful
family of the Rohans, a man of forty-three, quarrelsome, blustering,
whose reputation for courage left something to be desired, began to
taunt the poet upon his birth--'Monsieur Arouet, Monsieur Voltaire--what
_is_ your name?' To which the retort came quickly--'Whatever my name may
be, I know how to preserve the honour of it.' The Chevalier muttered
something and went off, but the incident was not ended. Voltaire had let
his high spirits and his sharp tongue carry him too far, and he was to
pay the penalty. It was not an age in which it was safe to be too witty
with lords. 'Now mind, Dancourt,' said one of those _grands seigneurs_
to the leading actor of the day, 'if you're more amusing than I am at
dinner to-night, _je te donnerai cent coups de bâtons._' It was
dangerous enough to show one's wits at all in the company of such
privileged persons, but to do so at their expense----! A few days later