28
CHAPTER VI.
IN EXILE.
Hitherto Voltaire's literary reputation was altogether that of a poet, and his unorthodox opinions could only be surmised from the gossip of the society which he frequented; nor was scepticism at that time so uncommon as to render him who avowed it at all remarkable. But to avow it in society was one thing—to proclaim it in print another; the clergy were prompt and powerful to meet assailants, as he afterwards found, and as he then knew—for he did not venture to publish the "Epistle to Uranie" till some years afterwards, when, from the storm it helped to raise, he found it expedient to cause a rumour to be spread that its author was the Abbé Chaulieu, then dead, to whose memory the imputation of unorthodoxy could do no possible harm. And as a poet only, Voltaire might have continuéd to be known but for an incident which changed the current of his life and influence.
At the Duke of Sully's table one day a Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot—one of the great house of Rohan—making an insolent remark about Voltaire, received a sarcastic retort. It is to be hoped that his mode of avenging it
