The young actress, nevertheless, would accept nothing from the duke, and her refusal placed the _comble_ upon her fame. Her enemies declared that she must be “not a woman at all, but a monster”; her idolators could find no words in which to express their admiration. Voltaire was the first to besmirch the spotless reputation of Mlle. Raucourt. It is said that so much fuss about the virtue of an actress irritated him, and that he was annoyed because the girl’s successes in the classic répertoire had caused the production of his _Lois de Minos_, from which he expected great things, to be indefinitely postponed. As, however, Voltaire, with all his faults, was incapable of deliberately slandering a woman, it is probable that he acted in good faith, prompted by a desire to unmask a hypocrite. Circumstance sometimes obliged the Patriarch to play the hypocrite himself; but he hated hypocrisy in others; and the news that a young _débutante_, solely on account of an undeserved reputation for virtue, was being exalted above his beloved Adrienne Lecouvreur and his favourite interpreter, Mlle. Clairon, may well have filled him with righteous indignation. However that may be, he wrote to his friend, the Maréchal de Richelieu, that he was informed, on excellent authority, that, while in Spain, the supposed immaculate Raucourt had been the mistress of a gentleman from Geneva, who had been travelling in that country. As ill-luck would have it, when the letter arrived, Mlle. Raucourt was dining at Richelieu’s house, chaperoned, it is hardly necessary to observe, by her vigilant father; young ladies who valued their reputations did not go unprotected to visit that evergreen sinner. D’Alembert, the Princesse de Beauvau, and Mlle. Clairon’s sometime adorer, the Marquis de Ximenès, were also present. As every one was anxious to know what the great man had to say, Richelieu, without opening the letter, handed it to Ximenès, with a request that he would read it to the company. The marquis complied, and proceeded until he had uttered the fatal sentence, when he stopped abruptly and began mumbling apologies. Terrible was the commotion which ensued. Mlle. Raucourt promptly swooned away; her father drew his sword, swearing that he would proceed to Ferney and run the Patriarch through the body; the Princesse de Beauvau called the maladroit marquis a fool; while wicked old Richelieu, we may presume, looked on choking with suppressed mirth.