"Peuple, jadis si fier, aujourd'hui si servile,
Des princes malheureux, tu n'es donc plus l'asyle?"
He happened to be present at the Opera House in Paris when the young Pretender was arrested, and being indignant at this breach of hospitality, and believing that the honour of the nation had been compromised, he wrote these bitter verses. His punishment was severe. He was arrested and conducted to the gloomy fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel, where he remained for three long years shut up in the cage. The floor of this terrible prison, which was enveloped in perpetual darkness, was only eight square feet. The poor poet bore his sufferings patiently, and was befriended by M. de Broglie, Abbé of Saint-Michel, who obtained permission for him to leave his cage and be imprisoned in the Abbey; nor did he fail to take precautions lest the poor poet should lose his eyesight on passing from the darkness of the dungeon to the light of day. The good Abbé finally procured liberty for his captive, who became secretary to M. de Broglie's brother, and subsequently, on the death of Madame de Pompadour, commissioner of war. Terrible were the sufferings which the unhappy Deforges endured on account of his luckless poem.
Théophile was condemned to be burned at Paris on account of his book Le Parnasse des Poètes Satyriques, ou Recueil de vers piquans et gaillards de notre temps (1625, in-8), but he contrived to effect his escape. He was ultimately captured in Picardy, and put in a dungeon. He was banished from the kingdom by order of the Parliament. In his old age he found an asylum in the house of the Duke of Montmorency. The poet's real surname was Viaud. The following impromptu is attributed to Théophile, who was asked by a foolish person whether all poets were fools:—
"Oui, je l'avoue avec vous,
Que tous les poètes sont fous;
Mais sachant ce que vous êtes,
Tous les fous ne sont pas poètes."
His poems are a mere collection of impieties and obscenities, published with the greatest impudence, and well deserved their destruction. On one occasion he travelled to Holland with Balzac, and used this opportunity for bringing out an infamous charge against him, which he had most probably invented. His book, the cause of all his woes, was burnt with the poet's effigy in 1623.
Many authors have ruined themselves by writing scandalous works, offensive to the moral feelings of not very scrupulous ages. Several chapters might be written on this not very savoury subject. We may mention Hélot's L'Escole des Filles, par dialogues (Paris, 1672, in-12). Hélot was the son of a lieutenant in the King's Swiss Guard. As he succeeded in making his escape from prison, he was hung in effigy, and his books were burnt. Chauveau, the celebrated engraver, who designed a beautiful engraving for Hélot, not knowing for what purpose it was intended, also incurred great risks, but fortunately he escaped with no greater penalty than the breaking of the plate on which he had engraved the design. The printer suffered with the author. Some think that Hélot was burnt at Paris with his books.
The Muses have often lured men from other and safer delights, and tempted them to wander in dangerous paths. Matteo Palmieri was a celebrated Italian historian, born at Florence in 1405; he was a man of much learning, endowed with great powers of energy and perseverance; he was entrusted with several important embassies, and achieved fame as an historian by his vast work Chronicon Générale, in which he set himself the appalling task of writing the history of the world from the creation to his own time. The first part of this work, consisting of extracts from the writings of Eusebius and Prosper, remains unpublished. The rest first saw the light in 1475, and subsequent editions appeared at Venice in 1483, and at Basle in 1529 and 1536. He wrote also four books on the Pisan War. Would that he had confined himself to his histories! Unfortunately he wrote a poem, which was never published, entitled Citta Divina, representing the soul released from the chains of the body, and freed from earthly stain, wandering through various places, and at last resting amid the company of the blessed in heaven. Our souls are angels who in the revolt of Lucifer were unwilling to attach themselves either to God or to the rebel hosts of heaven. So, as a punishment, God made them dwell in mortal bodies in a state of probation. This work was considered tainted with the Manichaean heresy, and was condemned to the flames, and some assert that Palmieri shared the fate of his book. This, however, is doubtful.
Very fatal to himself were the odes and philippics of M. La Grange, written in 1720, and published in Paris in 1795, in-12, with the title Les Philippiques, Odes, par M. de la Grange-Chancel, Seigneur d'Antoniat en Périgord, avec notes historiques, critiques, et littéraires. In these poems he attacked with malignant fury the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, and was obliged to fly for safety to Avignon. There he was betrayed by a false friend, who persuaded him to walk into French territory, and delivered him into the hands of a band of soldiers prepared for his capture. The poet was conducted to the Isle of Ste. Marguerite, and confined in a dungeon. The governor of the castle was enchanted by his talents and gaiety, and gave him great liberty. But Le Grange's pen was still restless. He must needs make a bitter epigram upon his kind benefactor, which so aroused the governor's ire that the poet was sent back to his dungeon cell. A piteous ode addressed to the Regent imploring pardon secured for him a less rigorous confinement. He succeeded in effecting his escape; then wandered through many lands; and at last, on the death of the Regent in 1723, ventured to return to France, where he lived many years and wrote much poetry and several plays, dying in 1758. It has never been ascertained what was the cause of his animosity to the Regent; certainly his verses glow with fiery invective and abuse. He speaks of him as un monstre farouche. The following example will perhaps be sufficient to be quoted:—
"Il ouvrit à peine les paupières,
Que, tel qu'il se montre aujourd'hui,
Il fut indigné des barrières
Qu'il vit entre le trône et lui.
Dans ses détestables idées
De l'art des Circés, des Médées,
Il fit ses uniques plaisirs;
Il crut cette voie infernale
Digne de remplir l'intervalle
Qui s'opposait à ses désirs."
Voltaire suffered one year's imprisonment in the Bastille on account of a satirical poem on Louis XIV., and in confinement wrote an epic poem, La Henriade. Some other storms raised by his works, such as his Lettres Philosophiques and his Epître à Uranie, he weathered by flight, or by unscrupulously denying their authorship. The rest of his works, contained in seventy volumes, do not concern our present purpose.