ehearsing the tragedy of _OEdipe,_ which
was played on the 18th of November, 1718, with great success. The daring
flights of philosophy introduced by the poet into this profoundly and
terribly religious subject excited the enthusiasm of the roues; Voltaire
was well received by the Regent, who granted him an honorarium.
"Monseigneur," said Voltaire, "I should consider it very kind if his
Majesty would be pleased to provide henceforth for my board, but I
beseech your Highness to provide no more for my lodging." Voltaire's
acts of imprudence were destined more than once to force him into leaving
Paris; he all his life preserved such a horror of prison, that it made
him commit more than one platitude. "I have a mortal aversion for
prison," he wrote in 1734; once more, however, he was to be an inmate of
the Bastille.

Launched upon the most brilliant society, everywhere courted and
flattered, Voltaire was constantly at work, displaying the marvellous
suppleness of his mind by shifting from the tragedies of _Artemise_ and
_Marianne,_ which failed, to the comedy of _L'Indiscret,_ to numerous
charming epistles, and lastly to the poem of _La Henriade,_ which he went
on carefully revising, reading fragments of it as he changed his quarters
from castle to castle. One day, however, some criticisms to which he was
not accustomed angered him so much, that he threw into the fire the
manuscript he held in his hand. "It is only worth burning, then," he
exclaimed in a rage. President Henault dashed at the papers. "I ran up
and drew it out of the flames, saying that I had done more than they who
did not burn the AEneid as Virgil had recommended; I had drawn out of the
fire _La Henriade,_ which Voltaire was going to burn with his own hands.

[Illustration: The Rescue of "La Henriade."----283]

If I liked, I might ennoble this action by calling to mind that picture
of Raphael's at the Vatican which represents Augustus preventing Virgil
from burning the AEneid; but I am not Augustus, and Raphael is no more."
Wholly indulgent and indifferent as might be the government of the Regent
and of Dubois, it was a little scared at the liberties taken by Voltaire
with the Catholic church. He was required to make excisions in order to
get permission to print the poem; the author was here, there, and
everywhere, in a great flutter and preoccupied with his literary,
financial, and fashionable affairs. In receipt of a pension from the
queen, and