to his question, "You have no priests, then?" "No, friend, and we get on very well without them."
Moreover, as an inveterate hater of war, he revered a sect so far removed from the brutality of military government as to hold peace for a first principle of the Christian faith. His affection for England and the English spirit can be summed up in the words he used with regard to Swift's writings, "How I love people who say what they think! We only half live if we dare only half think." Through him a more intimate knowledge of England was spread, not only in France but in other parts of the Continent.
In 1729, when he was thirty-five, he obtained a license to return to France, which he had only been able to visit secretly, now and then, during his stay in England. He devoted the next four years to great literary activity. Whatever he wrote always produced a certain sensation, and often brought him into trouble. Among the best of his productions were Zaïre, the most successful of all his plays, and The Temple of Taste, a brilliant burlesque, in which he satirized the overrated celebrities of the day. Owing to the death of one of his patrons with whom he had been staying, he was obliged to go into uncomfortable lodgings in a poor quarter of Paris. But whether he was in a castle or a garret, his genius for hard work never left him. The censor kept his eye on this man, who seemed bent on startling and shocking the authorities, so that Voltaire was often obliged to get his
