François became an adept at argument.
Someone who is adept at something can do it skilfully.
Not that he was a quiet and merely studious lad; he burnt the midnight oil—of others. He took to staying out late, frolicking with the wits and roisterers of the town, and experimenting with the commandments; until his exasperated father sent him off to a relative at Caen, with instructions to keep the youth practically in confinement.
Someone who is studious spends a lot of time reading and studying books.
If you take to doing something, you begin to do it as a regular habit.
When people or animals frolic, they play or move in a lively, happy way.
roister. to engage in noisy merrymaking; revel.
If you revel in a situation or experience, you enjoy it very much.
If you describe a person as exasperated, you mean that they are frustrated or angry because of something that is happening or something that another person is doing.
“Pimpette,” held breathless clandestine interviews with her, and wrote to her passionate letters ending always with the refrain, “I shall certainly love you forever.”
Something that is clandestine is hidden or kept secret, often because it is illegal.
杂曲歌辞·少年行三首
李白
击筑饮美酒，剑歌易水湄。
经过燕太子，结托并州儿。
少年负壮气，奋烈自有时。
因声鲁句践，争情勿相欺。
五陵年少金市东，银鞍白马度春风。
落花踏尽游何处，笑入胡姬酒肆中。
君不见淮南少年游侠客，白日球猎夜拥掷。
呼卢百万终不惜，报仇千里如咫尺。
少年游侠好经过，浑身装束皆绮罗。
兰蕙相随喧妓女，风光去处满笙歌。
骄矜自言不可有，侠士堂中养来久。
好鞍好马乞与人，十千五千旋沽酒。
赤心用尽为知己，黄金不惜栽桃李。
桃李栽来几度春，一回花落一回新。
府县尽为门下客，王侯皆是平交人。
男儿百年且乐命，何须徇书受贫病。
男儿百年且荣身，何须徇节甘风尘。
衣冠半是征战士，穷儒浪作林泉民。
遮莫枝根长百丈，不如当代多还往。
遮莫姻亲连帝城，不如当身自簪缨。
看取富贵眼前者，何用悠悠身后名。
At last all the bright and naughty things whispered about Paris were fathered upon him; and it was his ill luck that these included two poems accusing the Regent of desiring to usurp the throne.
If you say that someone usurps a job, role, title, or position, they take it from someone when they have no right to do this.
While in the Bastille he adopted, for some unknown reason, the pen-name of Voltaire, 17 and became a poet in earnest and at length. Before he had served eleven months he had written a long and not unworthy epic, the Henriade, telling the story of Henry of Navarre.
If something is done or happens in earnest, it happens to a much greater extent and more seriously than before.
If someone does something at length, they do it after a long period of time.
If you serve something such as a prison sentence or an apprenticeship, you spend a period of time doing it.
He passed now almost with a bound from the prison to the stage.
bound. a leaping movement upward.
His old father, come to upbraid him …
If you upbraid someone, you tell them that they have done something wrong and criticize them for doing it.
The play netted Voltaire 4000 francs …
If you net a particular amount of money, you gain it as profit after all expenses have been paid.
… he respected the classic adage that one must live before one can philosophize.
An adage is something which people often say and which expresses a general truth about some aspect of life.
It was well that he added an almost Hebraic subtlety of finance to his Gallic cleverness of pen; … every triumph sharpens the sting of later defeats.
He was received and feted everywhere; the aristocracy caught him up and turned him into a polished man of the world, an unequalled master of conversation, and the inheritor of the finest cultural tradition in Europe.
feted. celebrated or honoured.
For eight years he basked in the sunshine of the salons; and then fortune turned away.
Voltaire had held forth for some minutes with unabashed eloquence and wit.
hold forth. to speak for a long time or in public.
Warned that he had been discovered, and was about to be arrested a third time, he took ship again, and reconciled himself to three years in England.
If you reconcile yourself to an unpleasant situation, you accept it, although it does not make you happy to do so.