put in the Bastille for certain naughty epigrams, which he had not written; and he was exiled for another epigram, on a distinguished sinner, which he had written. In the pensive solitude of the Bastille he changed his name to Voltaire.[1] He emerged bolder than ever, wrote tragedies and poems and epigrams, was welcomed in the smartest salons of Paris, and behaved as a young gentleman of the time was expected to behave, until his thirty-first year.
In 1726 he was, through the despotic and most unjust action of a powerful noble, again put in the Bastille, and was then allowed to exchange that fortress for the fogs of London. Up to this time he had no idea of attacking Church or State. He had, in 1722, written a letter on religion — in the vein, apparently, of some of Swinburne's unpublished juvenilia — which a distinguished writer of the time, to whom he read it, described as "making his hair stand on end"; it was, however, not intended for circulation. But experience of England, for which he contracted a passionate admiration, and which (as Mr. Churton Collins has shown) he studied profoundly, sobered him with a high and serious purpose. He met all the brilliant writers of that age in England, and took a great interest in the religious controversy which raged over Anthony Collins's Discourse, He returned to France in 1729, vowing to win for it the liberty and en-
- ↑ Probably adopting a name which is known to have existed among his mother's ancestors. But it is curious that "Voltaire" is an anagram of his name — Arouet l (e) 5 (eune) — if u be read as v and j as i.
