II.

CHAP. lence of selfishness and timidity, which, in all social conflicts, renders the great body of men the prey of the wicked and audacious. It was the error, however, which brought about the French Revolution; which in all its phases, from the dreams of Necker to the blood of Robespierre and the carnage of Napoleon, was but a commentary on the opposite doctrines of human perfectibility, the foundation of philosophic innovation— and of general corruption, the corner-stone of Revelation.*

40.

Birth and

parentage

FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE was born at Chatenay, near Sceaux, on the 20th February 1694. of Voltaire. His father, though a respectable man, was a simple notary to the Châtelet, so that he had none of the advantages of birth, though by the mother's side he was descended from an ancient and noble family in Poitou. His constitution was at first so feeble that it was with great difficulty he was kept alive in the years of infancy; and though he lived to the advanced age of eighty-four, he was always of a weak frame of body, and his infirmities in this respect contributed not a little to augment the natural irritability of his temper. He was early initiated in the mysteries of infidelity by his godfather, the Abbé de Châteauneuf, who taught him at three years of age to repeat, by heart, the Moïsade, an impious parody on the life of the Jewish lawgiver. At fourteen he was sent to the college of

* Almost alone of the illustrious men of his day, Montesquieu never, in the writings at least which bear his name, attacked the truths of religion; and in the Lettres Persannes, and those which were anonymous, it was the abuses of the Roman Church only which attracted his animadversion. He was too great a man not to be a sincere Christian. "I have always," said he, on his death-bed, "respected religion; the morality of the Gospel is the noblest present God ever made to man." Being pressed by his confessor to erase some expressions at which umbrage had been taken from his Lettres Persannes, he replied "I am willing to sacrifice every thing to religion, but nothing to the Jesuits; consult with my friends, and they will decide on the subject." He then received extreme unction, and the priest said, "You feel, sir, how great God is."-"Yes," replied he, "and how little man."-These were his last words. See Biographie Universelle, xxix. 519, 520.

II.

Louis le Grand, where he soon became distinguished CHAP. by the acuteness and versatility of his talents; but such was the decided turn to scepticism which he even then evinced, that his preceptors, the Jesuits, were glad to get quit of him by sending him to Paris. It was predicted by one of the acutest of their number that he would one day become "the standard of Deism in France." Some lively and satirical verses on the priests, which he had made at college, procured for him an introduction to the gay and witty circles of the metropolis, in which the polished and profligate nobility consoled themselves for the increasing austerities of the declining and calamitous years of Louis XIV. by indulging in orgies of mingled scepticism and licentiousness. It was in this fascinating and poisonous circle, composed of those who should have been the pillars of order and morality, that the young Arouet learned the art of sapping the foundations of both. The Prince of Conti, the Duke of Vendôme, the Duke of Sully, the Marquis de la Fare, the Abbé de Chaulieu, the Abbé Courtins, the Abbé Servier, the Abbé de Châteauneuf, were the principal wits at that period* of a society inferior to none that ever existed in the polish and charms of its manners, and superior to any in the depravity and licentiousness of its principles. By the last of these libertine ecclesiastics, Arouet, while yet a youth, was introduced to the celebrated Ninon de l'Enclos, who, though somewhat in the wane, xlix. 464, 1 Biog. Univ. had still the chief nobles and wits of Paris in her train, 465. Vie and who was so much struck with the lively turn of his par Condorrepartees, that she left him by her will a legacy of two vres de Volthousand francs to buy books :1-a curious and ominous 17. circumstance, that the foundation of the library of the

* The highest rank or literary distinction constituted there, as now in the exclusive society of London, the only passport to that magic circle." We are all here princes or poets," said Voltaire on one occasion, looking round a brilliant supper party at the Prince of Conti's.-Biographie Universelle, xlix. 464,

465.

de Voltaire,

cet. Eu

taire, i, 1,

II.

CHAP. great apostle of Deism was laid by the bequest of an old courtesan, to whom he had been introduced by an apostate priest.

41.

His subsequent

career.

These scenes of dissipation, however, and the fugitive pieces necessary to maintain his place in them, did not entirely absorb the young poet and already, in 1712, at the age of eighteen, he was engaged with his noble tragedy of Merope. Sent shortly after to Holland, in the capacity of page to the Marquis of Châteauneuf, ambassador there, he was soon engaged in an intrigue with a young Protestant lady at the Hague, which occasioned his recall to France, where, by means of his usual versatility of power, he succeeded in persuading some of the Jesuits and bishops that it was necessary to bring her to Paris, to save her from Huguenot heresy and Protestant corruption. As this edifying project was not carried into execution, he plunged again into the profligate noble society of the capital, in which his inextinguishable love of satire, and irritable temper, once procured for him personal chastisement which led to a challenge, and twice a place in the Bastile, where he was on the first occasion confined twelve, the second, six months. His active mind, however, was not crushed by these imprisonments: within the walls of that fortress he finished his Merope, and made great progress in the Henriade. Upon being liberated by the Regent Orleans, he changed his name, hitherto chiefly known only by scandal, from Arouet to Voltaire, and ere long the successful representation of Merope laid the foundation of his prodigious reputation. For nearly forty years afterwards he led an active but desultory life, continually engaged in literary efforts, which augmented alike his fame and his fortune; rarely possessing a home, and almost constantly involved in difficulties, from open satire or secret libel.

Being ordered to leave the kingdom on account of a satire on the Duke of Sully, accompanied by a decla

II.

42.

Rises to

great lite

ration of love to his mistress, he retired to England, CHAP. where he remained several years, and formed an intimate acquaintance with the principal political and philosophical characters in that country. It was in their school, in the society of Bolingbroke, Tindal, Toland, ary emiand other distinguished deists, among whom at that period was to be found so considerable a proportion of British talent, that Voltaire obtained all the information and real argument which appear in his numerous declamations against Christianity. He was, at the end of two years, permitted to return to France, where he commenced his historical labours with the celebrated Life of Charles XII., soon followed by those of Peter the Great and Louis XIV. He afterwards continued for twenty years a course of desultory but incessant activity, alternately engaged in tragedy, comedy, philosophy, history, satires, lampoons, and epic poems; during the course of which he withdrew to a country chateau at Airy, on the borders of Lorraine and Alsace, with the Marchioness of Chastelet, a married lady of wit and learning, with whom he lived in no very Platonic alliance to the time of her death in 1749. After that bereavement he repaired, on the invitation of Frederick the Great, with whom he had long been in correspondence, to Berlin, and for some years inhabited the palace, and was the daily guest, of that celebrated monarch.

43.

Ferney, on

But though he admired his talents, and agreed with his freethinking principles, he was soon disconcerted by the Retires to imperious disposition of the Prussian hero. Their tempers, the Lake both irritable, could not long agree: frequent quarrels of Geneva. ensued, and after three years of splendid captivity, he was glad to make his escape by stealth from his royal jailer, and regain the comparative freedom of French despotism. In 1759, he finally retired to Ferney, on the banks of the Lake of Geneva, since immortalised by his memory, where, in possession of an ample fortune, the fruit of his fortunate

II.

CHAP. speculations as a contractor for the army, of his literary success, and uniform economy, he spent the last twenty, and by much the most respectable, years of his life. He continued while there his literary labours; but his great works were completed, and the never-failing activity of his mind appeared in the prodigious correspondence which now forms so large, and not the least interesting part of his works. His life in that retirement was that of a grand seigneur of the old school. An ample revenue was expended upon the improvement of his estate; frequent acts of beneficence spread happiness around his dwelling; he chiefly appeared in the literary world as the defender of humanity in punishments; and the celebrated inscription which he put on the village church which he restored -"Deo erexit Voltaire," showed that he had not, with his hostility to Christianity, abjured the truths of natural religion. The entreaties of his niece, Madame Denis, who was worn out with the ennui of Ferney, induced him at length to issue from his retreat, and at the age of eightyfour to cross the Jura, and proceed to Paris, whither he was preceded by his vast reputation, and where his principles had now obtained nearly universal assent.

44.

Last visit to Paris,

He arrived there, accordingly, in February 1778, and was every where received at the theatres, the academies, and death. the public places, even in the streets-with an enthusiasm which approached to adoration. Profoundly moved by this intense gratification of his ruling passion, Voltaire asked whether they meant to stifle him under garlands of roses, to make him die of joy: but the excitement occasioned by these transports proved too strong for his now feeble frame; he was seized with a mortal complaint, and soon brought to the verge of death. Apprehensive of being refused burial in a consecrated place of sepulture, he sent for a priest, and, abjuring his former errors, asked pardon of God and the church for the offences he had committed against them; but having, contrary to all expectation, recovered for a time, he again plunged into the vanities of