At every step, however, he was advancing farther and farther into the lists, and at the very moment when he wrote to Father La Tour, "If ever anybody has printed in my name a single page which could scandalize even the parish beadle, I am ready to tear it up before his eyes," all Europe regarded him as the leader of the open or secret attacks which were beginning to burst not only upon the Catholic church, but upon the fundamental verities common to all Christians.
Madame du Chatelet died on the 4th of September, 1749, at Luneville, where she then happened to be with Voltaire.

Their intimacy had experienced many storms, yet the blow was a cruel one for the poet; in losing Madame de Chatelet he was losing the centre and the guidance of his life.

For a while he spoke of burying himself with Dom Calmet in the abbey of Senones; then he would be off to England; he ended by returning to Paris, summoning to his side a widowed niece, Madame Denis, a woman of coarse wit and full of devotion to him, who was fond of the drama and played her uncle's pieces on the little theatre which he had fitted up in his rooms.

At that time Oreste was being played at the _Comedie-Francaise;_ its success did not answer the author's expectations.

"All that could possibly give a handle to criticism," says Marmontel, who was present, "was groaned at or turned into ridicule.