e vast mass of historical gossip which served him so well
in later years. His father was disgusted with his son's pursuits, and,
alarmed at his association with princes and philosophers, he sent him
away to the ancient Norman city of Caen. This did not effect a cure.
The notary sent word to his son that if he would settle down and
finish his studies he would purchase for him a commission as
counsellor to the Parliament of Paris. "Tell my father," he answered,
"that I do not desire any place which can be bought. I shall know how
to make one for myself that will cost nothing."

Voltaire had a brother, named Armand, who was a Jansenist and bigot.
Their father commented on his two sons by saying, "I have a pair of
fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose."

In the year 1713 the Marquis de Chateauneuf, a brother of the Abbe,
appointed Voltaire to the office of page in his diplomatic corps. The
marquis was Ambassador to The Hague. Here the young man fell
desperately in love with Olympe Dunoyer, a young woman about
twenty-one years of age, and the daughter of a woman who had separated
from her husband, and supported herself by writing disreputable
scandal and gossip. This love affair was violently opposed by the
mother and resulted in the young man's being sent back to Paris. For a
brief time he gladdened the heart of his father by resuming the study
of law, but soon manifested his peculiar facility for getting into
trouble.

Defeated in securing an award from the French Academy for a poem, he
turned his wit against the successful candidate, and also the poet La
Motte, who had decided the competition. A large part of his attack was
harmless fun, but a short and very savage satire aimed at La Motte was
dangerous to its author, so his father was glad of the opportunity to
send his scapegrace to the Chateau de St. Ange, in company with De
Camartin, nephew of the Marquis de Saint Ange. The old marquis was a
just and brilliant magistrate, a man familiar with the history of
France, and who knew the genealogies of the French court, and all the
rare anecdotes of the period included by the reigns of Henry IV. and
Louis XIV. That Voltaire improved these days at St. Ange is undoubted.

He returned to Paris at the time of the death of the king. This time
he was admitted to the famous "court of Sceaux," over which reigned
the brilliant Duchesse du Maine. It is charged that he assisted the
duchess in composing lampoons on the