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 laughed at the idea of his becoming an author; but although he was made to study law, the boy stood up to the rough old man and refused to give in. He soon got into a very gay but very frivolous society, which he amused by his audacity and wit. Sometimes he would return home very late from his orgies, and father Arouet would lock him out so that he had to walk the streets all night. In fact, the peppery old father and the mad young scapegrace were perpetually quarreling. The boy was irrepressible, and it was useless his father trying to subject him to discipline. He was given a post as attaché to the Ambassador to the Netherlands, but this did not last. He occupied himself in a purely frivolous way, had a love affair with a young lady at The Hague, and was sent home again. On his return he was invited to a castle at Fontainebleau where there was a magnificent library. Here this surprising young gentleman began working very seriously at some of the greatest of the books he produced in after-life.

In an age when any free expression of ideas was liable to be severely punished it was fairly probable that such a young man as this would get into trouble. Curiously enough, young Arouet's first experience of prison came about in consequence of the publication of a poem which he had not written. The poem was a satire on the Regent Orleans who ruled over France while Louis XV was still a child. Suspicion fell on him, and he was locked up in the Bastille, the fortress