But what an explosion of the Doggeries, before, during and after that event! Voltaire had tried to be prudent, too.

He had been corresponding with Popes, with Cardinals; and, in a fine frank-looking way, capturing their suffrages:--not by lying, which in general he wishes to avoid, but by speaking half the truth; in short, by advancing, in a dexterous, diplomatic way, the uncloven foot, in those Vatican precincts.

And had got the Holy Father's own suffrage for MAHOMET (think of that, you Ass of Mirepoix!), among other cases that might rise.

When this seat among the Forty fell vacant, his very first measure--mark it, Orthodox reader--was a Letter to the Chief Jesuit, Father Latour, Head of one's old College of Louis le Grand.

A Letter of fine filial tenor: 'My excellent old Schoolmasters, to whom I owe everything; the representatives of learning, of decorum, of frugality and modest human virtue:--in what contrast to the obscure Doggeries poaching about in the street-gutters, and flying at the peaceable passenger!' [In--Voltairiana, ou Eloges Amphigouriques,--&c.