VOLTAIRE. 89 



of condemnation. His authority, how venerable soever, 

 proved of no avail ; the universal voice of the scientific 

 world was against the whole proceedings of the con- 

 federates ; and the king was reduced to the humili- 

 ation of appealing from the reason of his readers to 

 the authority of his prerogative. He had the incredi- 

 ble folly of causing Voltaire's pamphlet to be burnt by 

 the hands of the hangman. 



It was now clear that the tempest had both set in 

 and was unappeasable. The royal disputant had re- 

 ceived additional offence from a law-suit in which 

 Voltaire had been obliged to arrest the Court broker, 

 a Jew, for debt. All explanations were unavailing ; 

 he sent back his chamberlain's key and his order of 

 knighthood, and resigned his pension. He wrote a kind 

 of love verses with them : they were returned to him. He 

 humbled himself in the very dust with protestations of 

 his innocence, when charged with having libelled the 

 King ; and, among other jests at his cost, had likened his 

 office of correcting the royal French to the functions 

 of the laundress with the royal linen. His protes- 

 tations, and his extravagant demonstrations of sorrow, 

 were quite enough to disgrace the one party, but they 

 failed to appease the other. A haughty and imperious 

 answer alone was given, that " he was astonished 

 at Voltaire's having the effrontery to deny facts as 

 clear as the sun, instead of confessing his guilt ; 

 and that, if his works merited statues, his con- 

 duct deserved a gaol." No spark of pride, or even 

 of ordinary dignity, was raised by this intolerable 

 treatment, but only endless wailings as of one 

 literally dying of a broken heart, mingled with protes- 



