received as a visitor at La Source, near Orleans, by Lord
Bolingbroke in his exile, every day becoming more brilliant and more
courted, he was augmenting his fortune by profitable speculations, and
appeared on the point of finding himself well off, when an incident,
which betrayed the remnant still remaining of barbarous manners, occurred
to envenom for a long while the poet's existence. He had a quarrel at
the Opera with Chevalier Rohan-Chabot, a court libertine, of little
repute; the scene took place in the presence of Mdlle. Adrienne
Lecouvreur; the great actress fainted they were separated. Two days
afterwards, when Voltaire was dining at the Duke of Sully's, a servant
came to tell him that he was wanted at the door of the hotel; the poet
went out without any suspicion, though he had already been the victim of
several ambuscades. A coach was standing in the street, and he was
requested to get in; at that instant two men, throwing themselves upon
him and holding him back by his clothes, showered upon him a hailstorm of
blows with their sticks. The Chevalier de Rohan, prudently ensconced
in a second vehicle, and superintending the--execution of his cowardly
vengeance, shouted to his servants, "Don't hit him on the head; something
good may come out of it." When Voltaire at last succeeded in escaping
from these miscreants to take refuge in Sully's house, he was half dead.

Blows with a stick were not at that time an unheard-of procedure in
social relations. "Whatever would become of us if poets had no
shoulders!" was the brutal remark of the Bishop of Blois, M. de
Caumartin. But the customs of society did not admit a poet to the honor
of obtaining satisfaction from whoever insulted him. The great lords,
friends of Voltaire, who had accustomed him to attention and flattery,
abandoned him pitilessly in his quarrel with Chevalier de Rohan. "Those
blows were well gotten and ill given," said the Prince of Conti. That
was all the satisfaction Voltaire obtained. "The poor victim shows
himself as much as possible at court, in the city," says the Marais news,
"but nobody pities him, and those whom he considered his friends have
turned their backs upon him."

Voltaire was not of an heroic nature, but excess of rage and indignation
had given him courage; he had scarcely ever had a sword in his hand; he
rushed to the fencers' and practised from morning till night, in order to
be in a position to demand satisfaction. So