VOLTA1KE. 71 



lowed by an immediate co-operation with France on 

 his part. The favour which Voltaire thus ob- 

 tained not only with the ministry, but with Madame 

 de Pompadour, then all-powerful, produced an im- 

 pression which all his fine writings had failed to make. 

 He was allowed to enter the Academy, from which 

 court influence had before excluded him ; he was 

 named gentleman of the King's chamber ; and he re- 

 ceived a pension of 2000 francs a year. 



The tranquil pleasures of letters and of friendship, 

 which form so much the burthen of his song during 

 his residence at Cirey, were in the mean time suffer- 

 ing constant interruption, as he would represent, from 

 the libels of persons every way below his notice, but, 

 in reality, from his own irritable temper. The ve- 

 hemence of the language in which he describes those 

 attacks, makes the reader believe that the charges 

 against him were of a heinous kind, and that the ac- 

 cusers were persons of importance ; when both are 

 examined, they generally turn out to be equally insig- 

 nificant. One attack only, which absurdly accuses 

 him of having failed to account for subscriptions to 

 the ' Henriade,' he did right in requiring a friend to 

 refute, who was personally acquainted with the whole 

 matter, having devoted to his own use part of the 

 money so received. He seems to have had some ground 

 for complaining that this gentleman, a M. Theiriot, 

 was slow in vindicating him ; but his principal griev- 

 ance is that Theiriot refused to attack the slander 

 in his own person, and to repeat in public what he 

 had so often written privately, that the accuser was 

 the author of other libels against them both, and was 



