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habitual love for theatrical amusements, he hoped toimpart a taste for them to the Genevese, and so toweaken that ascetic spirit of repulsion of intellectualpleasure to which, whether enjoined by monks or re-commended by Calvin, he was hostile.
All, however, was not labour, peace, and amusement.The publication of the poem of the “Pucelle” threateneda renewal of the persecutions of which he had been thevictim in his earlier days. Several forged verses inridicule of Louis XV. and madame de Pompadour hadbeen foisted into the surreptitious edition that appeared,and it was with difficulty that his friends proved thathe was not the writer. Voltaire , indeed, was alwaysin a state of inky war. A man who had provoked thepriesthood of Europe , and whose talent for perceivingand pourtraying the ridiculous was unequalled andunsparing, could not fail in creating a host of enemies.Satires, epigrams, and libels rained on him. In hisretirement of Les Delices, he might, if he had chosen,have been insensible to these attacks ; but not one butfound their way ; he answered all, dealing about his shaftsdipped in sarcasm and irony, and spreading abroad asort of terror that served as a wholesome check to hisenemies. A word or line from his pen marked a manfor ever. Several among those thus attacked were forcedto hide themselves till a new victim was immolated,and their own disgrace forgotten. In his “ Life ofMoliere,’' speaking of the epigrams with which Boileauand Moliere attacked, and, it is said, caused the deathof, Cotin, Voltaire called this the sad effect of a licencerather perilous than useful, which is more apt to flatterthe malignity of men than to inspire good taste; andin his “ Essay on Satire,” he severely blames Boileaufor naming the poets whom he censures. Yet, with blindinconsistency, Voltaire never spared an enemy. He con-ceived that, if attacked by, he had a fair right to annihi-late, as he well could, the stinging gadflies of literature.The society of Paris was kept alive by his multitudinousepigrams. This engendered a baneful spirit of sarcasm,