The play was interrupted by it every instant.

Voltaire came in, and, just as the pit were turning into ridicule a stroke of pathos, he jumped up, and shouted, 'O, you barbarians; that is Sophocles!' _Rome Sauvee_ was played on the stage of Sceaux, at the Duchess of Maine's; Voltaire himself took the part of Cicero.

Lekain, as yet quite a youth, and making his first appearance under the auspices of Voltaire, said of this representation, 'I do not think it possible to hear anything more pathetic and real than M.de Voltaire; it was, in fact, Cicero himself thundering at the bar.'" Despite the lustre of that fame which was attested by the frequent attacks of his enemies as much as by the admiration of his friends, Voltaire was displeased with his sojourn at Paris, and weary of the court and the men of letters.

The king had always exhibited towards him a coldness which the poet's adulation had not been able to overcome; he had offended Madame de Pompadour, who had but lately been well disposed towards him; the religious circle, ranged around the queen and the dauphin, was of course hostile to him.

"The place of historiographer to the king was but an empty title," he says himself; "I wanted to make it a reality by working at the history of the war of 1741; but, in spite of my work, Moncrif had admittance to his Majesty, and I had not." In tracing the tragic episodes of the war, Voltaire, set as his mind was on the royal favor, had wanted in the first place to pay homage to the friends he had lost.