16 



VOLTAIRE. 



bassador at the Hague, a near kinsman of the Abbe 

 Chateauneuf. He there fell in love with the 

 daughter of a profligate woman, Madame Dunoyer, 

 who considering the match a bad one, had him sent 

 home by the ambassador, and published his love let- 

 ters, which are admitted to have no merit. His father 

 would only receive him on condition of his consenting 

 to serve in a notary's office. A friend of the family, M. 

 de Caumartin, had compassion on the sufferings 

 which this arrangement occasioned, and obtained per- 

 mission to have him pass some months in his country 

 residence at St. Ange. The Bishop Caumartin, then 

 an elderly man, and who had lived with all the 

 more learned persons of the past age, excited him, by 

 his conversation upon the Sullys and the Henrys, to 

 meditate two of the greatest of his works, his epic 

 poem and his history, jj 



The death of Louis, which happened on Voltaire's 

 return to Paris, gave rise to a very indecent expression 

 of public joy, and to many libels upon his memory. 

 One of these being without any foundation ascribed to 

 him, his confinement in the Bastille was the conse- 

 quence. Here, however, his spirit continued unbroken. 

 He sketched the poem of the * League,' afterwards called 

 the 'Henriade ;' and he corrected a tragedy, ' CEdipe,' 

 which he had written several years before, when only 

 eighteen years old. The imprisonment being in the 

 course of a few weeks found to be entirely illegal and 

 vexatious, the Regent ordered his immediate liberation, 

 with a sum of money by way of compensation. The 

 tragedy was not acted till two years after, in 1718 ; 

 and it is a singular fact, that when, in 1713, it had 



