e bile of the clergy; there were to be
seen in circulation copies of _La Pucelle,_ a disgusting poem which the
author had been keeping back and bringing out alternately for several
years past. Voltaire fled from Colmar, where the Jesuits held sway, to
Lyons, where he found Marshal Richelieu, but lately his protector and
always his friend, who was repairing to his government of Languedoc.
Cardinal Tencin refused to receive the poet, who regarded this sudden
severity as a sign of the feelings of the court towards him. "The king
told Madame de Pompadour that he did not want me to go to Paris; I am of
his Majesty's opinion, I don't want to go to Paris," wrote Voltaire to
the Marquis of Paulmy. He took fright and sought refuge in Switzerland,
where he soon settled on the Lake of Geneva, pending his purchase of the
estate of Ferney in the district of Gex and that of Tourney in Burgundy.
He was henceforth fixed, free to pass from France to Switzerland and from
Switzerland to France. "I lean my left on Mount Jura," he used to say,
"my right on the Alps, and I have the beautiful Lake of Geneva in front
of my camp, a beautiful castle on the borders of France, the hermitage of
Delices in the territory of Geneva, a good house at Lausanne; crawling
thus from one burrow to another, I escape from kings. Philosophers
should always have two or three holes under ground against the hounds
that run them down."

The perturbation of Voltaire's soul and mind was never stilled; the
anxious and undignified perturbation of his outer life at last subsided;
he left off trembling, and, in the comparative security which he thought
he possessed, he gave scope to all his free-thinking, which had but
lately been often cloaked according to circumstances. He had taken the
communion at Colmar, to soften down the Jesuits; he had conformed to the
rules of the convent of Senones, when he took refuge with Dom Calmet; at
Delices he worked at the _Encyclopcedia,_ which was then being commenced
by D'Alembert and Diderot, taking upon himself in preference the
religious articles, and not sparing the creed of his neighbors, the
pastors of Geneva, any more than that of the Catholic church. "I assure
you that my friends and I will lead them a fine dance; they shall drink
the cup to the very lees," wrote Voltaire to D'Alembert. In the great
campaign against Christianity undertaken by the philosophers, Voltaire,
so long, a wavering ally, will henceforth fight in