adversary, was looking on from another carriage.

When the tormentors let him go, Voltaire rushed back into the house and
appealed to the Duke of Sulli for vengeance, but in vain. It was no
small matter to quarrel with the family of Rohan. Then the poet applied
to the court for redress, but got none. It is said that Voltaire's
enemies had persuaded the prime minister that his petitioner was the
author of a certain epigram, addressed to His Excellency's mistress, in
which she was reminded that it is easy to deceive a one-eyed Argus. (The
minister had but one eye.) Finally Voltaire, seeing that no one else
would take up his quarrel, began to take fencing lessons and to keep
boisterous company. It is probable that he would have made little use of
any skill he might have acquired as a swordsman. Voltaire was not
physically rash. The Chevalier de Chabot, although he held the
commission of a staff-officer, was certainly no braver than his
adversary, and was in a position to take no risks. Voltaire was at first
watched by the police; then, perhaps after sending a challenge, locked
up in the Bastille. He remained in that state prison for about a
fortnight, receiving his friends and dining at the governor's table. On
the 5th of May, 1726, he was at Calais on his way to exile in England.
[Footnote: Desnoiresterres, _Jeunesse_, 345.]

Voltaire spent three years in England, years which exercised a deep
influence on his life. He learned the English language exceptionally
well, and practiced writing it in prose and verse. He associated on
terms of intimacy with Lord Bolingbroke, whom he had already known in
France, with Swift, Pope, and Gay. He drew an epigram from Young. He
brought out a new and amended edition of the "Henriade," with a
dedication in English to Queen Caroline. He studied the writings of
Bacon, Newton, and Locke. Thus to the Chevalier de Chabot, and his