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 shocked and infuriated as well as delighted those who read it. He also assisted with many contributions to the great encyclopædia which Diderot and d'Alembert helped to compile, and which created a great stir and exercised a considerable influence on the contemporary thought of France.

Madame du Deffand, one of the many brilliant women of eighteenth-century France, who knew Voltaire well and corresponded with him for many years, said of him that "he was good to read and bad to know." His faults were certainly very marked, and to some extent spoilt his virtues. His vanity was almost ridiculous; he was quite unscrupulous in making money, in attacking his enemies, and in defending himself; he scoffed with cruel and bitter words, but he never mocked at any men who lived good lives. Mischief prompted him more than malice. He could not help laughing at people who pulled long faces and were incapable of laughing at themselves.

He certainly disbelieved in the creeds of the Church; but by partaking, on one occasion, of the Communion, building a church, and joining a religious order, it looked as if he were insincere, though he is not the only person who has conformed to religious observances in which he did not really believe. But Voltaire scandalized people by doing it all with his tongue in his cheek; in fact, he was altogether irreverent by nature, and reverence is a quality which the strongest opponent of any creed ought always to display. Grant