Chamfort’s instincts naturally drew him to literature both as a means of support and as a path to society. But, like other aspirants, he found editors and publishers unappreciative, and he was growing weary of his efforts when one day he happened on an old schoolfellow who had entered the Church, but, so he confessed, was always at a loss for words in the pulpit. “Listen to me,” said Chamfort, and he delivered a glowing apostrophe to his ill fortune. Lost in admiration the priest promptly offered a louis apiece for any sermons Chamfort would write for him. The bargain was concluded, a sermon was composed weekly and the preacher declaimed his second-hand thunder to the satisfaction of himself and his flock. But Chamfort aimed higher than devilling for the clergy and won a reputation in competing successfully for the Academic prizes then in vogue. The _Éloge de Molière_ is perhaps his most accomplished essay in this direction, though it is of no particular significance as criticism. With these honours and the successful production, in 1764, of his comedy _La Jeune Indienne_, we find Chamfort fairly launched in Parisian society, faring sumptuously every day--in other people’s houses, petted by great ladies, for he was goodlooking and had a gift for flirtation, and under the affectionate care of the “nursing mother of the philosophers,” Madame Helvetius. Henceforth his career seemed shaped out for him. Though never rich, he had too many wealthy friends for penury to be again a menace to him or his mother, whom, to his credit be it said, he supported loyally; if his health was uncertain it was his own hard living that made it so.