adroitly accused
the parent of writing the doggerel for his son.

M. Arouet denied it with an oath--while the son refused to explain, or
to say anything beyond that he loved his father, thus carrying out the
idea that the stupid old notary was really a wit in disguise, masking
his intellect by a seeming dulness. No more biting irony was ever put
out by Voltaire than this, and the pathos of it lies in the fact that
the father was quite unable to appreciate the quip.

It was a sample of filial humor much more subtle than that indulged in
by Charles Dickens, who pilloried his parents in print, one as Mr.
Micawber and the other as Mrs. Nickleby. Dickens told the truth and
painted it large, but Francois Arouet dealt in indiscreet fallacy when
he endeavored to give his father a reputation for raillery.

A peculiarly offensive poem, appearing about this time, with the Regent
and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, for a central theme, a rescript
was issued which indirectly testified to the poetic skill of young
Arouet. He was exiled to a point three hundred miles from Paris and
forbidden to come nearer on penalty, like unto the injunction issued by
Prince Henry against the blameless Falstaff. Rumor said that the father
had something to do with the matter.

But the exile was not for long. The young poet wrote a most adulatory
composition to the Regent, setting forth his innocence. The Regent was a
mild and amiable man and much desired peace with all his
subjects--especially those who dipped their quills in gall. He was
melted by the rhyme that made him out such a paragon of virtue, and made
haste to issue a pardon.

The elder Arouet now proved that he was not wholly without humor, for he
wrote to a friend, "The exile of my dear son distressed me much less
than does this precipitate recall."

In order to protect himself the father now refused a home to the son,
and Francois became a lodger at a boarding-house. He wrote plays and
acted in them, penned much bad poetry, went in good society and had a
very rouge time. Up to this period he knew little Latin and less Greek,
but now he had an opportunity to furbish up on both. He found himself an
inmate of the Bastile, on the charge of expressing his congratulations
to the people of France on the passing of Louis the Fourteenth. In
America libel only applies to live men, but the world had not then
gotten this far along.

In the prison it was provided that Sieur Arouet fils sho