II. the world, was crowned with laurel at the theatre, and CHAP. carried home by an enthusiastic crowd of admiring votaries.* This last triumph, however, proved fatal to his now exhausted constitution: his former complaint returned with increased violence, and he was soon stretched on the bed of death. Being pressed in his last moments, by the curé of St Sulpice, to acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ, he turned on his side, and said feebly, "For the May 30, love of God, don't mention that man: allow me to die in 1778. peace;" and soon expired. His remains were interred in 1Biog. Univ. one of the chapels of the Abbey of Scellières, for which xlix. 486, humane act the prior was, to the disgrace of the French dorcet, Vie church, dismissed from his office; but it was too late to 124, 136. prevent the burial, and the remains of Voltaire rested Voltaire, there in peace, till they were transferred to the Pantheon, 1829. twelve years after, during the fervour of the Revolution.1 de Voltaire, Euv. de vol. i. edit. 45. of his phi The character of Voltaire's philosophy is clearly depicted in his private life. The companion of nobles, the Character flatterer of mistresses, the courtier of kings, the panegyrist losophy. of his patrons, the lampooner of his enemies, he was at the same time an indefatigable annalist, a voluminous pamphleteer, a great poet, an ardent supporter of humanity, and the persevering and acrimonious enemy of the Christian faith. With popular fervour he had little sympathy, for popular rights no anxiety; it was the fetters, as he deemed them, of religion, which he sought to strike off the human soul. No man was more keenly alive to the dangers of democratic ascendency; none had read with more diligence in the great book of history the frequent lessons which it teaches, or its ruinous effects upon the best interests of society: the inimitable declamation against popular institutions which Corneille puts into * "Je ne veux pas qu'on jette mon corps à la voirie," said he, when he found himself in danger, and he immediately sent for the Abbé Gauthier, who obtained from him a declaration that he died in the Catholic religion, in which he had been born, and that he besought pardon of God and the church for the offences which he might have committed.-See Biographie Universelle, vol. xlix. 487. VOL. I. L II. CHAP. the mouth of Cinna, was the object of his unbounded admiration.* It was in the destruction of religion that he perceived the antidote to all the evils of society. For the relaxation of the frightful barbarities of ancient punishment, he often and eloquently contended; but it was chiefly when instigated by priests that they were the object of his detestation; if emanating from civil authority, he felt for them little aversion. Philanthropy was the ostensible object of his philosophy, but it admitted of large exceptions when ecclesiastics or women were concerned; and of him, even more truly than of the great English historian, it may be said, that "his humanity never slumbered except when Christians were tortured or women ravished."+ 46. And his Though far from being a profound, he was a lively and entertaining historian, and the first in modern times who ticism, and directed the attention of his readers to the progress of arts and civilisation, and other subjects than the annals history, cri poetry. 'Quand le peuple est maître, on n'agit qu'en tumulte; Les honneurs sont vendus aux plux ambitieux; L'autorité livrée aux plus séditieux : Ces petits souverains qu'il fait pour une année, Des plus heureux desseins font avorter le fruit, De peur de le laisser à celui qui les suit; Comme ils ont peu de part au bien dont ils ordonnent, Espérant à son tour un pareil traitement : Le pire des états, c'est l'état populaire.”—Cinna, Act ii. scene 1. "Quelle prodigieuse supériorité," says Voltaire, in his commentary on this passage, "de la belle poésie sur la prose! Tous les écrivains politiques ont délayé ces pensées; aucun n'a approché de la force, de la profondeur, de la netteté, de la précision, de ce discours de Cinna. Tous les corps d'état auraient dû assister à cette pièce, pour apprendre à penser et à parler."Euvres de CORNEILLE, avec les Commentaires de VOLTAIRE, iii. 308. Ce même homme, qui s'attendrissait avec raison sur le sort cruel de Calas, Protestant, permettait à sa plume une ironie cruelle lorsqu'il s'agissait des Jésuites. On m'écrit qu'on a enfin brûlé trois Jésuites à Lisbonne. Ce sont là des nouvelles bien consolantes; mais c'est enfin un Janséniste qui les mande.' -(Voltaire à M. Vernet, 1796.) On a dit qu'on a roué le Père MalagridaDieu soit loué! Je mourrais content si je voyais les Jansénistes et les Molinistes écrasés les uns par les autres.'-(Lettre à la Comtesse de Lutzelbourg.)" -DE TOCQUEVILLE, Règne de Louis XV., ii. 363. II. of war or courts. The prodigious stores of varied infor- CHAP. mation which he possessed were applied, with surprising effect, in his other voluminous prose writings, to elucidate almost every country of the world, and every subject of human thought. Often superficial in matters of science, always prejudiced in those of religion, he yet never failed to throw an air of plausibility over even his most dangerous paradoxes, by the admirable clearness, the pithy good sense, with which his opinions were stated. Many writers have exceeded him in the accuracy and depth of their views on particular subjects; none have equalled him in the vast and various subjects of knowledge which he embraced in his labours. As a critic, though sometimes envious, he was clear, judicious, and discriminating, and often gave way to impassioned and generous bursts of admiration. Though never aspiring to the highest flights of the muse, he has yet produced, in the Henriade, the best epic poem in the French language. But the great theatre of his glory was the drama; and it is impossible to read his immortal tragedies, abounding as they do with pictured character, noble feelings, skilful combinations, pathetic incidents, eloquent declamation, and vehement action, without feeling that to him, for good or for evil, was indeed given the richest fruit of the tree of knowledge. They have not the dignified language, the profound thought of Corneille, nor the felicitous expression and exquisite pathos of Racine; but they are more impetuous, more varied, more graphic, and embrace a wider sphere of human action, and a far more extensive portraiture of human character. His lasting disgrace was the Pucelle d'Orléans; and when we reflect on the wicked prejudice which made him conceal what he knew to be the truth in regard to that extraordinary woman,* and cover the * It appears from what Voltaire himself has written on the Maid of Orleans, in his "Essai sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations," that no one was better aware of the great and noble qualities of the French heroine who perished in the flames, by English barbarity, within the walls of Rouen-a crime which "the execrations of ages have inadequately censured," but which the more II. CHAP. heroine and saviour of France with obscene ribaldry, merely because she had thrown lustre by her exploits over the cause of religion, we feel that the offence, too great for an individual, was a national one, and that it was rightly requited when the English standards, from the ultimate consequences of the very doctrines of the infamous libeller, passed in triumph through the gates of Paris. 47. His principles on religion. Voltaire, however, was not an atheist; had he been so, the mischief he produced would have been much less considerable. No man who openly denies the existence of a Supreme Being will ever acquire a general influence over mankind, how great soever his ascendency may be in particular depraved circles. The avowed atheists were the object of more cutting sarcasm on his part than the Roman Catholic clergy themselves; and to him we owe the striking sentiment which Robespierre, taught by experience, was driven to reiterate amidst the blood of the Revolution-" If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent his being.". It was under the specious but delusive guise of deism that his attacks against Christianity were veiled; it was the philanthropic tendency of his principles, as to the administration of the Supreme Being and the government of men, which gave them their fatal ascendency, by enlisting so many of the generous feelings on his side. But in the sense of moral responsibility he was utterly deficient; of the feeling of duty he had no steady conception. It is doubtful if he believed in the immortality of the soul; and of the great principle generous spirit of English genius has striven, in our times at least, to expiate. "Elle fit," says he," à ses juges une réponse digne d'une mémoire éternelle. Interrogée pourquoi elle avait osé assister au Sacre de Charles avec son étendard, elle répondit.-'Il est juste que qui a eu part au travail en ait à l'honneur.' Enfin accusée d'avoir repris une fois les habits d'homme qu'on lui avait laissés exprès pour la tenter, ses juges—qui n'étaient pas assurément en droit de la juger, puis qu'elle était prisonnière de guerre-la déclarèrent hérétique relapse, et firent mourir par le feu celle qui, ayant sauvé son roi, aurait eu des autels dans les temps héroïques où les hommes en élevaient à leurs libérateurs."-See Essai sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations, c. 50. * "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."-See VOLTAIRE, Dialogues, ii. 41. of moral probation and inherent corruption, he was throughout life the determined antagonist. Man, in his estimation, was made for happiness, not duty; he was sent here to enjoy, no to win enjoyment. Innocent, pure, and elevated in his original nature and native tendencies, his vices were all owing to the oppression of priests or the bigotry of creeds-his misery to the pernicious restraints thrown by the dogmas of the church over the enjoyments provided by nature. The great object of his philosophy was to cast down these selfish systems of artificial restraint. By following the dictates and impulses of nature, he thought man would arrive at once at the greatest happiness and highest destiny of his being. Hence it was that the author of Zaïre was at the same time the author of the Pucelle, that the historian of Louis XIV. composed Candide. In these different and seemingly opposite works he was tracing out, with an equally skilful hand, the various and unrestrained inclinations and passions of the human heart, and at the same time indulging his own thirst for universal and indiscriminate admiration. He was all things to all men. With equal readiness he dealt out generosity for the generous, bravery for the brave, wisdom for the wise, selfishness for the selfish, voluptuousness for the voluptuous, and profligacy for the profligate. CHAP. II. 48. Voltaire stopped short with the church: he never ventured to assail the palace. It was under the shadow of Rousseau. monarchy, emancipated from the fetters of superstition, life and that he contemplated the perfection of society. But habits. * He contemplated 66 "La liberté publique, Sous l'ombrage sacré du pouvoir monarchique." Brutus, Act ii. scene. 1. Why do you not stop," said the Duc de Choiseul, minister of Louis XV. in 1764, to the new philosophers, "where Voltaire did? Him we can comprehend. Amidst all his sallies he respected authority; but you are mysterious and obscure, and lay down your doctrines in a harsh and pedantic manner. We abandon to you religion and the clergy--will not this suffice? We surrender many of our prejudices but cannot you at least show some regard for those which are useful?'-SMYTH's Lectures on the French Revolution, i. 86, 87. His early |