 However, at the play's February 1725 premiere at the Comédie-Française, the audience booed its opening scenes and demanded that Voltaire's play be put on instead.Nadal was convinced his own "Mariamne" had failed because of Voltaire's ""brigue horrible et scandaleuse"" that set Paris against it, and said so in the preface to the printed play, accusing him of bringing a cabal into the audience at the premiere to disrupt it.This gave Voltaire the opportunity to reply under a pseudonym with withering compliments ("Lettre de M. Thieriot à M. l'Abbé Nadal", 1725), commiserating with Nadal, that it was solely the machinations of Voltaire's intrigues "that one hears it said so scandalously that you are the worst versifier of the century and the most tiresome writer."