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 king, after the Fontenoy campaign, by a piece called the "Temple of Glory," in which flattery as usual was not spared, and in which the king figured as "Trajan." After the performance, Voltaire was near Louis as he passed out attended by the poet's old friend, the Duke of Richelieu; and emboldened by the reception of his piece, he approached the Duke and said, loud enough for the king to hear, "Is Trajan satisfied?" The dull monarch replied only by a frigid, contemptuous glance. It has been asserted that Voltaire repelled Louis Quinze by the vivacity and familiarity of his eulogies—that the king would not admit the idea of counting men of letters and men of intellect for anything, or of tolerating them on any footing at Court: "It is not the fashion in France," said he.

Nevertheless, Voltaire's interest with the ruler's ruler procured for him, in 1746, the long-coveted distinction of a place in the French Academy. He imagined that henceforth he would find, in his associates, thirty-nine champions against his enemies, persecutors, and slanderers; but in this he was mistaken. Even his friend Madame de Pompadour began to fail him. Under some hostile influence she bestowed on the tragic poet Crebillon favours hitherto denied to Voltaire: his play of "Catiline" was brought out with extraordinary advantages, and his works were printed at the Louvre, though that distinction was even now refused to the "Henriade." It was natural that Voltaire should feel sore at this: he withdrew from Court to his retreat at Cirey; and there, among a multitude of works, he employed himself in making such reprisals upon Crebillon as would never have originated in any but a mind of astonishing activity