Voltaire, whose family name was Arouet, was born, in 1694, at Chatenay, and received a thorough education at the Jesuits’ College, in the French capital. One of his tutors predicted that he would be the Coryphæus of deism in France; and the society which the youthful poet frequented, elegant, but immeasurably licentious and irreligious, was not likely to falsify the prediction. His father destined him for a place in the magistracy, but the literary propensity of the son was unconquerable. In his twenty-second year he was sent to the Bastile, by the regent Duke of Orleans, on an unfounded suspicion of his being the author of a libel. It was while he was in prison that he formed the plan of the Henriade, and completed the tragedy of Œdipus. He was in the Bastile above a year before the regent recognised his innocence, and set him free. The regent desired to see him, and the Marquis de Nocé was ordered to introduce him. While they were waiting in the ante-chamber, a circumstance occurred which strongly marks the profaneness and indiscretion of Voltaire. A violent storm burst over Paris, upon which the poet looked up at the clouds, and exclaimed, “If it were a regent that governed above, things could not be managed worse.” When de Nocé presented him to the duke, he said, “Here, your highness, is young Arouet, whom you have just taken out of the Bastile, and whom you will send back again,” and he then repeated what had been said. The duke, however, did not send him back again; he laughed heartily, and made the offender a liberal present. “I thank your royal highness for taking care of my board,” said Voltaire, “but I must request that you will not again provide me with lodging.”