*Voltaire.*65 – Wherever there was a court, there were laws of good speech and thus also laws of style for all who wrote. The language of the court, however, is the language of the courtier, who has no area of expertise and who forbids himself convenient technical expressions even in conversation about scientific matters because they smack of areas of expertise; that is why, in countries with a courtly culture, technical expressions and everything that betrays a specialist is considered a stylistic blemish. Now that all courts have become caricatures of past and present, one is amazed to find even Voltaire unspeakably inflexible and punctilious on this point (for example in his judgement of such stylists as Fontenelle66and Montesquieu67) – for we are all emancipated from courtly taste, while Voltaire perfected it!