His _Eryphile_ was the product of many perusals of
_Hamlet_. His _Zaire_ is a pale reflection of _Othello_. But when
Voltaire's countrymen showed a tendency to better Voltaire's
instruction, and one Frenchman conferred on Shakespeare the title of
"the god of the theatre," Voltaire resented the situation that he had
himself created. He was at the height of his own fame, and he felt
that his reputation as the first of French writers for the stage was
in jeopardy.
The last years of Voltaire's life were therefore consecrated to an
endeavour to dethrone the idol which his own hands had set up.
Voltaire traded on the patriotic prejudices of his hearers, but his
efforts to depreciate Shakespeare were very partially successful. Few
writers of power were ready to second the soured critic, and after
Voltaire's death the Shakespeare cult in France, of which he was the
unwilling inaugurator, spread far and wide.
In the nineteenth century Shakespeare was admitted without demur into
the French "pantheon of literary gods." Classicists and romanticists
vied in doing him honour. The classical painter Ingres introduced his
portrait into his famous picture of "Homer's Cortege" (now in the
Louvre).
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