The battle raged furiously. To this period of Voltaire’s sojourn belong most of his bitter sarcastic sayings about Geneva; his reference to ‘the little church of Calvin, which makes virtue consist in usury and asceticism,’ and his famous epigram containing the lines: ‘On haït le bal, on haït la comédie; Pour tout plaisir Genève psalmodie Du bon David des antiques concerts, Croyant que Dieu se plaît aux mauvais vers.’ Abuse of Jean Jacques also abounds in his letters at this period. Jean Jacques is a ‘blackguard’; Jean Jacques is in league with two rascally Calvinist priests, and ‘has the insolence’ to say this, that, and the other thing; Jean Jacques is ‘valet to Diogenes,’ who ‘has played in vain the part of an addle-pated idiot’; if Jean Jacques comes to Ferney, he shall be stuffed into a barrel, and presumably rolled downhill--which proves, even if it proves nothing else, that, when philosophers fall out, they are apt to wrangle in much the same language as less intellectual people. Yet, on the whole, Voltaire was steadily winning the victory. The Council, it is true, forbade the citizens to attend his theatre; but little attention was paid to the prohibition, and among those who disregarded it were included many of the Councillors themselves. ‘Being unable,’ as Petit-Senn wittily put it, ‘to remove the danger, they bravely set out to share it’; and the philosopher chuckled: ‘I am civilizing the Allobroges as well as I can. Before I came here the Genevans had nothing to amuse them but bad sermons. I am corrupting all the youth of the pedantic city. I make play-actors of the sons of Syndics. The clergy are furious; but I crush them.’ After a while, moreover, his evangelistic efforts received support from an unexpected quarter. In 1766 there were certain political disturbances in the city, and ambassadors were sent from Berne, Zurich, and Paris, to assist in composing them. Voltaire suggested to the French ambassador, M. de Beauteville, that he should request admission to the city for a company of comedians to amuse himself and his suite. Life at Geneva being duller than he liked, M. de Beauteville adopted the suggestion. The comedians were introduced; a theatre was arranged for them; and Voltaire could chuckle again. The divines thundered. ‘Children,’ they declared, ‘will be badly brought up; domestic discords will trouble families more and more; young men and young women will occupy themselves with nothing but comedy and vainglorious display; the love of pleasure, vanity, and pride will be their favourite emotions; indecent familiarities and libertine behaviour will take the place of modesty and chastity.’ But this warning was uttered in vain. Voltaire had triumphed; and though he was now an old man, nearing his eightieth birthday, he enjoyed his triumph to the full. A picture of the patriarch at the play is graphically drawn by a letter-writer of the period: