relied on the fagot. Science was an outcast, and philosophy,
so-called, was the pander of superstition. Nobles and priests were
sacred. Peasants were vermin. Idleness sat at the banquet and industry
gathered the crumbs and crusts.

At 17 Voltaire determined to devote his life to literature. The father
said, speaking of his two sons, Armand and Francois: "I have a pair of
fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose." In 1713
Voltaire, in a small way, became a diplomat. He went to The Hague
attached to the French minister, and there he fell in love. The girl's
mother objected. Voltaire sent his clothes to the young lady that she
might visit him. Everything was discovered and he was dismissed. To
this girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the keynote of
Voltaire: "Do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. You
know what she is capable of. You have experienced it too well.
Dissemble; it is your only chance. Tell her that you have forgotten me,
that you hate me; then after telling her, love me all the more." On
account of this episode Voltaire was formally disinherited by his
father. The father procured an order of arrest and gave his son the
choice of going to prison or beyond the seas. He finally consented to
become a lawyer, and says: "I have already been a week at work in the
office of a solicitor learning the trade of a pettifogger." About this
time he competed for a prize, writing a poem on the king's generosity
in building the new choir in the cathedral Notre Dame. He did not win
it. After being with the solicitor a little while, he hated the law,
he began to write poetry and the outlines of tragedy. Great questions
were then agitating the public mind, questions that throw a flood of
light upon that epoch.

Louis XIV having died, the regent took possession; and then the prisons
were opened. The regent called for a list of all persons then in the
prisons sent there at the will of the king. He found that, as to many
prisoners, nobody knew any cause why they had been in prison. They had
been forgotten. Many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and
could not guess why they had been arrested. One Italian had been in
the Bastille thirty-three years without ever knowing why. On his
arrival to Paris thirty-three years before he was arrested and sent to
prison. He had grown old. He had survived his family and friends.
When the rest were liberated he asked to remain whe