(-- OEuvres,--xii.

328).] "Return, divine Trajan, conqueror sweet and terrible; The world is my rival, all hearts are thine; But is there a heart more loving, Or that adores thee more than I ?" An allegoric Dramatic Piece; naturally very admirable at Versailles.
Issuing radiant from Fall of the Curtain, Voltaire had the farther honor to see his Majesty pass out; Majesty escorted by Richelieu, one's old friend in a sense: "Is Trajan pleased ?" whispered Voltaire to his Richelieu; overheard by Trajan,--who answered in words nothing, but in a visible glance of the eyes did answer, "Impertinent Lackey!"-- Trajan being a man unready with speech; and disliking trouble with the people whom he paid for keeping his boots in polish.

O my winged Voltaire, to what dunghill Bubbly-Jocks (COQS D'INDE) you do stoop with homage, constrained by their appearance of mere size!-- Evidently no perfect footing at Court, after all.

And then the Pompadour, could she, Head-Butterfly of the Universe, be an anchor that would hold, if gales rose?
Rather she is herself somewhat of a gale, of a continual liability to gales; unstable as the wind! Voltaire did his best to be useful, as Court Poet, as director of Private Theatricals;--above all, to soothe, to flatter Pompadour; and never neglected this evident duty.

But, by degrees, the envious Lackey-people made cabals; turned the Divine Butterfly into comparative indifference for Voltaire; into preference of a Crebillon's poor faded Pieces: "Suitabler these, Madame, for the Private Theatricals of a Most Christian Majesty." Think what a stab; crueler than daggers through one's heart: "Crebillon ?" M.de Voltaire said nothing; looked nothing, in those sacred circles; and never ceased outwardly his worship, and assiduous tuning, of the Pompadour: but he felt--as only Phoebus Apollo in the like case can!"Away!" growled he to himself, when this atrocity had culminated.