overnment, the seat
of which was his own chateau of Voisenon.

As soon as he was actually a dignitary of the Church, he turned his
thoughts entirely to the stage! In compliance with the request of
Mademoiselle Quinaut, the new Abbe of Jard wrote a series of dramatic
pieces, among which may be cited, _La Coquette fixee_, _Le Reveil de
Thalie_, _Les Mariages assortis_, and _Le Jeune Grecque_, little
drawing-room comedies, which have not kept possession of the stage, and
to which French literature knows not where to give a place at the
present day, so far are they from offering a single recommendable
quality. The only style of composition in which the Abbe de Voisenon
might have, perhaps, distinguished himself, had he been seconded by an
intelligent musician, was the operatic. In this _baladin_ talent of his
there was something of the freedom and sparkle of the Italian abbes; and
yet the Abbe de Voisenon enjoyed during his life-time a high degree of
celebrity. Seeing the utter impossibility of justifying this celebrity
by his works, we must presume that it proceeded chiefly from his amiable
character, his pointed epigrammatical conversation, and in a great
measure, also, from his brilliant position in the world. And, after all,
did celebrity require other causes at a time when a man's success was
established, not by the publicity of the press, but from the words
dropped from his lips in the "world," and from the occasional
enunciation of a sparkling _bon mot_ quickly caught up and for a length
of time repeated? Were we to protest against this species of
_illustration_, as the French call it, we should be in the wrong: each
epoch has its own; since then times are altered: now-a-days, in France,
a man obtains celebrity through the medium of the press, formerly it was
by the _salons_. In general, the French _litterateurs_, especially the
journalists, may be said to write better now than they did then; but
where, we should like to know, is there now to be found a young writer
of thirty capable of creating and sustaining a conversation in a society
consisting of upwards of a hundred distinguished persons? The lackeys of
M. de Boufflers were, in all probability, more in their place in a
_salon_ than would be the most learned or witty writers of the present
day.

If the Abbe de Voisenon was not exactly an eagle as regards common sense
and intellectual attainments, what are we to think of M. de Choiseul,
who wished to appoint hi