The air became surcharged with gossip. There was danger of an explosion any moment. Madame Dunoyer gave it out that the brilliant subaltern was to marry the girl. The Madame was going to capture the youth, either with her own charms or those of her daughter--or combined. Rumblings were heard on the horizon. The Ambassador, fearing entanglement, bundled young Arouet back to Paris, with a testimonial as to his character, quite unnecessary. A denial without an accusation is equal to a plea of guilty; and that the young man had made the mistake of making violent love to the mother and daughter at the same time there is no doubt. The mother had accused him and he said things back; he even had shown the atrocious bad taste of references in rhyme to the mutual interchange of confidences that the mother and daughter might enjoy. The Ambassador had acted none too soon. The father was frantic with alarm--the boy had disgraced him, and even his own position seemed to be threatened when some wit adroitly accused the parent of writing the doggerel for his son. M. Arouet denied it with an oath--while the son refused to explain, or to say anything beyond that he loved his father, thus carrying out the idea that the stupid old notary was really a wit in disguise, masking his intellect by a seeming dulness. No more biting irony was ever put out by Voltaire than this, and the pathos of it lies in the fact that the father was quite unable to appreciate the quip. It was a sample of filial humor much more subtle than that indulged in by Charles Dickens, who pilloried his parents in print, one as Mr. Micawber and the other as Mrs. Nickleby. Dickens told the truth and painted it large, but Francois Arouet dealt in indiscreet fallacy when he endeavored to give his father a reputation for raillery. A peculiarly offensive poem, appearing about this time, with the Regent and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, for a central theme, a rescript was issued which indirectly testified to the poetic skill of young Arouet. He was exiled to a point three hundred miles from Paris and forbidden to come nearer on penalty, like unto the injunction issued by Prince Henry against the blameless Falstaff. Rumor said that the father had something to do with the matter. But the exile was not for long. The young poet wrote a most adulatory composition to the Regent, setting forth his innocence. The Regent was a mild and amiable man and much desired peace with all his subjects--especially those who dipped their quills in gall. He was melted by the rhyme that made him out such a paragon of virtue, and made haste to issue a pardon. The elder Arouet now proved that he was not wholly without humor, for he wrote to a friend, "The exile of my dear son distressed me much less than does this precipitate recall."