Several incidents combined to direct Voltaire’s attention to clericalism as the enemy of progress and humanity. Soon after his return to France, the famous actress, Adrienne Lecouvreur, for whom he had a high esteem¹, and who had represented the heroines of his plays, died. The clergy² of Paris refused her Christian³ burial because of her profession, and her corpse⁴ was put in a ditch in a cattle-field on the banks of the Seine. Voltaire, who regarded the theatre as one of the most potent⁵ instruments of culture and civilisation⁶, at once avenged⁷ and consecrated⁸ her memory in a fine ode, burning with the fire of a deep pathos⁹, in which he takes occasion to contrast the treatment in England of Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, who was buried in Westminster Abbey. Mr. Lecky says: “The man who did more than any other to remove the stigma¹⁰ that rested upon actors was unquestionably Voltaire. There is, indeed, something singularly noble in the untiring zeal¹¹ with which he directs poetry and eloquence¹², the keenest wit, and the closest reasoning to the defence of those who had so long been friendless and despised.”