72 VOLTAIRE. 



the Abbe des Fontaines, a man of some reputation for 

 ability, but leading a life of scandalous libelling, and 

 whose ingratitude to Voltaire was sufficient to stamp 

 him with infamy, as to his kind exertions had been ow- 

 ing the Abbe's escape from a charge of the most detest- 

 able nature. It is, however, a stain scarcely less deep 

 on Voltaire's own memory, that although he firmly be- 

 lieved in the man's innocence, as indeed every one else 

 did, he was no sooner enraged by the ungrateful re- 

 turn his services received, than he recurred to the 

 false charges in all his letters nay, even by a plain 

 allusion in more than one passage of his poems, of 

 which we have already seen an instance in the ' Dis- 

 cours sur 1'Homme.' He took a more legitimate course 

 of punishing him by prosecuting the libel (a satire 

 entitled Voltairemanie'), and compelled the vile and 

 abandoned slanderer to sign a public denial of it, and 

 a complete disbelief of its contents. 



Under the vexation which such attacks gave him, 

 he was comforted not only by the friendship which he 

 found always in his home at Cirey, but by the un- 

 varying kindness of M. le Cidville, a respectable 

 magistrate of Rouen, fond of literature ; by the steady 

 friendship of M. le Comte d'Argental, a man of large 

 fortune, and owner of the Isles de Rhe and Aix, off 

 the west coast, and his wife ; by the unbroken attach- 

 ment of M. d'Argenson, Secretary of State, his 

 brother, the War Minister, and the Due de Richelieu. 

 It should seem as if Voltaire was, in his familiar 

 intercourse, the better for being kept under some re- 

 straint by the superior rank, or other preponderating 

 qualities, of his friends. Some such calming influ- 



