Arouet, who had now assumed the name and style of de Voltaire, was on December 10 of this year dining with one of his chief patrons, the Duke de Sully. Among the guests was a dissolute middle aged man, the Chevalier de Rohan (younger son of the Duke de Rohan). The Chevalier inquired in a loud voice--“Who was the young man who talked so much and gave his unasked-for opinion so freely?” Voltaire answered, “He is a man who cannot boast of an exalted name, but who understands how to keep up the honour of the humble name he does bear.” This sally almost convulsed de Rohan with fury, being a direct allusion to his notoriously evil reputation. Three days later Voltaire was seized on the very steps of the Hôtel du Sully and soundly flogged there and then in the open street by three of the chevalier’s lackeys, De Rohan enjoying the spectacle seated in a coach drawn up hard by. The chevalier’s victim could obtain no redress, his adversary refused to fight him, and when Arouet made further efforts to obtain satisfaction, he was again confined in the Bastille. Upon his release he immediately started for England, his pride forbade his reappearance among his old companions. His host in London was Bolingbroke, who had only just returned to Great Britain after a long exile. Arouet remained three years in England, making an earnest and thorough study of English literature, and becoming intimate with Pope, Addison, and Swift. In 1729 he went back to Paris and recommenced his literary career. The bold unconventionality of his writings and the freedom of his opinions in religion and politics made the author an object of suspicion to the French Government. His “Letters from England” were suppressed, his _Lettres Philosophiques_ publicly burnt by the common hangman, and their publisher incarcerated in the Bastille; to avoid sharing his fate, Voltaire again fled from France. His _liaison_ with the beautiful and cultivated Madame du Châtelet commenced about this time. She was about twenty-eight years of age. The Marquis and Marchioness du Châtelet inhabited a château in Lorraine, and there Voltaire principally lived until the death of the Marquis in 1749. He was occasionally absent for considerable periods--at Brussels in 1739, in Paris, 1740. He had several interviews with Frederick the Great when the latter was Prince of Prussia.