Page:Voltaire (Hamley).djvu/43



was at this time he carried into effect a design which his recent misfortunes had inspired, and abandoning the name of Arouet, took that of Voltaire, thus adding a new adjective, voltairien, to the French language. Why he chose that particular name is an enigma not yet solved. One solution is, that it was the anagram of Arouet l. j. (le jeune); but, besides being so far-fetched, it is burthened with the improbability that he ever did so style himself. The theory that he adopted the name of a small estate in his mother's family would be much more plausible but for the circumstance that it could hardly have remained doubtful, yet has never been established, that there ever was such a place. Such changes of name were not uncommon, of which there are two notable examples—Molière's real name was Poquelin, and Montesquieu's was Secondat.

He tells us that he was at this time very poor, and lived, when left to his own resources, very frugally, but happily. Often he was not left to his own resources, for he tells a correspondent of those days that he passes his life from country house to country house.