A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

allowed to resume publication after its first suppression in 1752, was again stopped; and the battle between philosophes and fanatics, dramatized for the time being in Palissot's comedy Les Philosophes and in Voltaire's rejoinder to Fréron, L'Écossaise, came to be fought out in the Academy itself. The poet Lefranc de Pompignan, [1059] elected in 1759 without any opposition from the freethinkers, had in his youth translated Pope's "Deist's Prayer," and had suffered for it to the extent of being deprived by D'Aguesseau of his official charge [1060] for six months. With such a past, with a keen concern for status, and with a character that did not stick at tergiversation, Pompignan saw fit to signalize his election by making his discours de réception (March, 1760) a violent attack on the whole philosophic school, which, in his conclusion, he declared to be undermining "equally the throne and the altar." The academicians heard him out in perfect silence, leaving it to the few pietists among the audience to applaud; but as soon as the reports reached Ferney there began the vengeance of Voltaire. First came a leaflet of stinging sentences, each beginning with Quand: "When one has translated and even exaggerated the 'Deist's Prayer' composed by Pope ...," and so on. The maddened Pompignan addressed a fatuous memorial to the King (who notoriously hated the philosophes, and had assented only under petticoat influence to Voltaire's election [1061]); and, presuming to print it without the usual official sanction, suffered at the hands of Malesherbes the blow of having the printer's plant smashed. Other combatants entered the fray. Voltaire's leaflet "les quand" was followed by "les si, les pour, les qui, les quoi, les car, les ah!"--by him or others--and the master-mocker produced in swift succession three satires in verse, [1062] all accompanied by murderous prose annotations. The speedy result was Pompignan's retirement into provincial life. He could not face the merciless hail of rejoinders; and when at his death, twenty-five years later, the Abbé Maury had to pronounce his éloge, the mention of his famous humiliation was hardly tempered by compassion. [1063]