lieutenant of police on the matter: "The Sieur de la Beaumelle seems to have gone clean out of his mind; he seems to be a maniac; he amuses himself by declaiming verses in his room for a part of the day: for the rest of the time he is quiet." This second detention lasted from August, 1756, till August, 1757. THE ABBÉ MORELLET. We come to the Abbé Morellet, a man of fine and fascinating mind, one of the best of the Encyclopædists, who died in 1819 a member of the Institute and the object of general esteem. He was arrested on June 11, 1760, for having had printed and distributed, without privilege or permission, a pamphlet entitled: _Preface to the Philosophers' Comedy; or, the Vision of Charles Palissot_.[44] These are the terms in which, later on, Morellet himself judged his pamphlet: "I must here make my confession. In this work, I went far beyond the limits of a literary pleasantry regarding the Sieur Palissot, and to-day I am not without remorse for my fault." And further, as J. J. Rousseau, in whose favour the pamphlet had been in part composed, had to acknowledge, the Abbé "very impudently" insulted a young and pretty woman, Madame de Robecq, who was dying of decline, spitting blood, and did actually die a few days later. The arrest of Morellet was demanded by Malesherbes, then censor of the press, one of the most generous and liberal spirits of the time, the inspirer of the famous remonstrances of the Court of Taxation against _lettres de cachet_--the man who, as M. H. Monin testifies, "being elected censor of the press, protected philosophers and men of letters, and by his personal efforts facilitated the publication of the _Encyclopædia_." Speaking of the _Preface to the Comedy_, Malesherbes writes to Gabriel de Sartine, lieutenant-general of police: "It is an outrageous pamphlet, not only against Palissot, but against respectable persons whose very condition should shelter them against such insults. I beg you, sir, to be good enough to put a stop to this scandal. I believe it to be a matter of public importance that the punishment should be very severe, and that this punishment should not stop at the Bastille or the For-l'Evêque,[45] because a very wide distinction must be drawn between the delinquencies of men of letters tearing each other to pieces and the insolence of those who attack persons of the highest consideration in the State. I do not think that Bicêtre would be too severe for these last. If you have to ask M. de Saint-Florentin for the royal authority for your proceedings, I hope you will be good enough to inform him of the request I am making."