The decree roused the indignation of Lauraguais, who was one of the warmest supporters of the innovation, and his indignation vented itself in a _Mémoire sur l’inoculation_, wherein M. Joly de Fleury was very roughly handled. This memoir he read before the Académie des Sciences, of which he was a member, and demanded permission to print it. The Academy at first demurred, but ultimately gave its consent, on the understanding that the references to the Advocate-General should be expunged. Apparently this condition was not observed, for the publication of the memoir was followed by an acrimonious correspondence, ending with a _lettre de cachet_, which directed that M. le Comte de Lauraguais should be conveyed to Metz and imprisoned in the citadel during his Majesty’s pleasure.[27] On learning of the arrest of her lover, Sophie was in despair. She closed her salon and put on mourning. The few friends who were permitted to intrude upon her sorrow found her dissolved in tears, and went about declaring that nothing so pathetic had ever been seen before. The Abbé de Voisenon wrote to the imprisoned count, describing in touching language the actress’s grief, and felicitating him on having found a faithful mistress at the Opera; a piece of good fortune, said the abbé, so remarkable that it ought to go far to console him for his captivity: “Ne te plains pas de ton malheur, Du cœur de La Vallière il te fournit la preuve, On assure qu’Arnould se souvient d’être veuve Et que de sa constance elle fait son bonheur.” Lauraguais’s family and friends did everything in their power to procure his release; but both Louis XV. and Choiseul had come to regard that nobleman as a public nuisance, and turned a deaf ear to their appeals. And so the count remained for some four months at Metz, and might have remained a good deal longer, had not a fortunate chance enabled Sophie to intervene on his behalf. On November 2, the opera of _Dardanus_ was played before the Court, at Fontainebleau, Sophie taking the part of the heroine Iphise, one of her most successful impersonations. On this occasion she appears to have surpassed herself, and even the bored King was moved to something like admiration. Profiting by the impression she had created, without waiting to doff the robes of Iphise, she begged for a few minutes’ conversation with the Duc de Choiseul, and, throwing herself at his feet, besought him to release her lover. “The heart of the gallant and all-powerful Minister was touched, and he had not the courage to refuse to this beautiful and tearful Iphise the return of her Dardanus.”[28]