For some time he subsisted by teaching and hack writing. His good looks and ready wit brought him attention; but, though endowed with immense physical strength — Madame de Craon called him "Hercules under the guise of Adonis" (Hercule]] sous la figure d'Adonis) — he lived so hard that he was glad to have the opportunity for a rest cure in the town of Spa when the Belgian minister in Paris, M. van Eyck, invited him to accompany him to Germany in 1761. On his return to Paris, Chamfort produced a successful comedy, "The Young Indian Girl" (La Jeune Indienne, 1764), following it with a series of epistles in verse, essays and odes. However, his literary reputation was not established until 1769, when the Académie française awarded him a prize for his "Eloge" on Molière.