My dear Pampam,--Atys being far off [read: Voltaire being banished], the police cause to be published against him a swarm of small writings and pamphlets, which are sold at a sou in the cafés and theatres. That would displease the marquise,[1] if it did not please the king. Desfontaines, that other insulter of Voltaire, by whom he had been taken out of Bicêtre, said to the Abbé Prévost, who advised him to make his peace with the philosopher: "If Algiers did not make war, Algiers would die of famine." This Desfontaines, also an abbé, died of dropsy; and his well-known tastes gained for him this epitaph: "Periit aqua qui meruit igne." Among the publications suppressed in the last century by decree of Parliament, can be observed a document printed by Quinet and Besogne, and destroyed doubtless because of the revelations it contained, and of which the title gave promise: "L'Arétinade, ou Tarif des Libellistes et Gens de Lettres Injurieux." Madame de Staël, sent in exile forty-five leagues from Paris, stops exactly at the forty-five leagues,--at Beaumont-sur-Loire,--and thence writes to her friends. Here is a fragment of a letter addressed to Madame Gay, mother of the illustrious Madame de Girardin:-- "Ah, dear madame, what a persecution are these exiles!... [We suppress some lines.] You write a book; it is forbidden to speak of it. Your name in the journals displeases. Permission is, however, fully given to speak ill of it." [Footnote 1: Madame de Pompadour.] CHAPTER III. Sometimes the diatribe is sprinkled with quicklime. All those black pen-nibs finish by digging ill-omened ditches. Among the writers abhorred for having been useful, Voltaire and Rousseau hold a conspicuous rank. They were reviled when alive, mangled when dead. To have a bite at these renowned ones was a splendid deed, and reckoned as such in favour of literary constables. A man who insulted Voltaire was at once promoted to the dignity of pedant. Men in power encouraged the men of libellous propensity. A swarm of mosquitoes have rushed upon those two illustrious minds, and ate yet buzzing.