"There is but one letter about Mr.
Locke," he wrote to M.de Cideville; "the only philosophical matter I have treated of in it is the little trifle of the immortality of the soul, but the thing is of too much consequence to be treated seriously.
It had to be mangled so as not to come into direct conflict with our lords the theologians, gentry who so clearly see the spirituality of the soul that, if they could, they would consign to the flames the bodies of those who have a doubt about it." The theologians confined themselves to burning the book; the decree of Parliament delivered on the 10th of June, 1734, ordered at the same time the arrest of the author; the bookseller was already in the Bastille.

Voltaire was in the country, attending the Duke of Richelieu's second marriage; hearing of the danger that threatened him, he took fright and ran for refuge to Bale.

He soon left it to return to the castle of Cirey, to the Marchioness du Chatelet's, a woman as learned as she was impassioned, devoted to literature, physics, and mathematics, and tenderly attached to Voltaire, whom she enticed along with her into the paths of science.

For fifteen years Madame du Chatelet and Cirey ruled supreme over the poet's life.

There began a course of metaphysics, tales, tragedies; _Alzire, Merope, Mahomet,_ were composed at Cirey and played with ever increasing success.