The alternative now presented itself of a wretched solitude in the castle of his Provencal ancestors, or a garret, perhaps even more wretched, but certainly far less solitary, in Paris. In either case it would be necessary to relinquish all the luxuries, all the comforts of life. He chose to finish his suffering years in Paris, and in humble furnished rooms in the street of the Peacock, where he was consoled by the visits of Voltaire and Marmontel. We find him settled there in May 1745, and seven months later there crept into circulation an anonymous volume of moral essays, which was absolutely ignored by the literary world of France. We do not appreciate to the full the Calvary which Vauvenargues so meekly mounted, unless we realize that to all his other failures was added a complete disregard of his ideas by the literary public of his own day. He died unknown, save by two or three friends, having never experienced anything but languor, disappointment and obscurity. Under the pseudonym of Clazomene, just before his death, he drew a picture of his own fortune and character which proves that he had no illusion about himself, and which yet contains not a murmur against the injustice of fate nor a breath of petulance or resentment. "Let no one imagine," this portrait closes, "that Clazomene would exchange his wretchedness for the prosperity of weak men; fortune may sport with the wisdom of brave souls, but it has no power to subdue their courage." It is time, however, to examine the actual compositions of our author.[18] Until his friendship with Voltaire began, Vauvenargues had not given much attention to verse, but he now began a series of critical essays on the poets. He says, in the course of these "Reflexions," that what little he knew of poetry he owed to M. de Voltaire. His remarks on this subject, however, are more independent than he would give us to suppose, and they are always worthy of attention because they illustrate the moral attitude of Vauvenargues himself. He was not embarrassed by tradition in advancing along his road through the masterpieces of literature. He was always an amateur, never a man in bondage to the "authorities;" he seems, indeed, to have avowed a dislike for general reading: "Pascal avait peu lu, ainsi que Malebranche," was his excuse. In the case of Pascal, we may question the fact, but it is recorded that when at last Malebranche was persuaded to read Descartes' "Traite de l'homme," it excited him so violently as to bring on palpitation of the heart. Such are the dangers of a retarded study of the classics. Vauvenargues was no less inflammable. He met with the tragedies of Racine at a moment when the reputation of that poet had sunk to its lowest point, and, totally indifferent to the censure of the academical sanhedrim, he extolled him as a master-anatomist of the human heart.