Voltaire

FRANÇOIS MARIE AROUET DE, (vol-tair',) a French poet, historian, and philosopher, and the most celebrated writer of the last century, B. at Châtenay, near Paris, 1694. After finishing his education at the Jesuit College of Louis-le-Grand, V. embarked upon, and speedily renounced, the study of the law; whereupon, to wean him from the brilliant but licentious circle of society he had already entered, his father procured him the post of secretary to the Marquis de Chateauneuf, French amba ador to the United Provinces. In this situation, an intrigue which engaged him led to his dismi al and return to France, where he was soon afterward arrested and confined in the Bastile on suspicion of his being the author of a pungent pamphlet which had just then appeared against the govt. Released after a year's durance, during which he wrote a good part of the Henriade, and completed his popular tragedy of Edipe, he at once became a literary " lion," and the object of universal homage. In 1726 he visited England as the guest of Lord Bolingbroke (q. v.). In 1732, his Letters on the English gave such offence to the clergy, that they were ordered to be publicly burned, and the author himself forced to retire into seclusion on the estate of Madame du Châtelet, in Lorraine, a lady with whom he then commenced a life-long liaison. A correspondence which had long subsisted between V. and the Prince Royal of Pru ia, afterwards Frederick the Great, led, on the latter's acce ion to the throne, to an invitation for the French author to visit him at Berlin, an invitation which he declined for the time being, having just become chosen, through the favor of Madame de Pompadour, a member of the Academy, as well as appointed historiographer of France. After the death of his mistre in 1749, V. repaired to Berlin, where he was royally received, and where he remained for three years, the cherished guest and literary mentor of Frederick. Becoming wearied of his position he returned to France, despite efforts being made upon the king's part to detain him, even by compulsion. In 1755 he took up his residence at Ferney, Switzerland, and there pa ed the closing years of his life, dying there in 1778. It is common to stigmatize V. as an Atheist, but this is simply to exhibit ignorance. Discarding revelation, he steadily upheld the truths of natural religion, and was, in fact, a Deist pretty much of the English type. As such, he was not a little despised by the more " advanced" minds of the period, Diderot and the like, who considered belief in a God clear evidence of intellectual infirmity. His favorite weapon was ridicule, and there was never, perhaps, a greater master of it. In a particular form of polished mockery, V. remains almost without a rival. His prose is the perfection of French style; it is admirable in grace, clearne , vivacity, and alive like a sparkling wine with the particular quality of esprit peculiar to the people and the language. As a dramatist, V. takes rank as a worthy third with his two great predece ors Corneille and Racine. His most famous poems are the Henriade, before mentioned, the one epic of the language, and La Pucelle, which is, perhaps, more properly to be styled infamous, such is the profanity and indecency with which the writer has wilfully defiled the heroic story of the Maid of Orleans. In the historical works of V.,with the utmost lucidity of method, there are traces of a more philosophical treatment than had previously been applied to such subjects. For its narrative charm, his little historiette, Charles Douze, is in its kind a perfect model. A detailed account of the multifarious writings of V.- extending to some 90 vols., would extend this article beyond due limits, conse- [s. 943]