Voltaire

Voltaire
Portrait by Nicolas de Largillière, c. 1724
Born	François-Marie Arouet 21 November 1694 Paris, France
Died	30 May 1778 (aged 83) Paris, France
Pen name	Voltaire
Occupation	Writer, philosopher, playwright, historian
Nationality	French

François-Marie Arouet (French: [fʁɑ̃.swa ma.ʁi aʁ.wɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire (/voʊlˈtɛər/;^[1] French: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state.

Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate of several liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.

Biography

François-Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of the five children of François Arouet (19 August 1649 – 1 January 1722), a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard (c. 1660 – 13 July 1701), whose family was on the lowest rank of the French nobility.^[2] Some speculation surrounds Voltaire's date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Guérin de Rochebrune or Roquebrune.^[3] Two of his elder brothers—Armand-François and Robert—died in infancy and his surviving brother, Armand, and sister Marguerite-Catherine were nine and seven years older, respectively.^[4] Nicknamed 'Zozo' by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with François de Castagnère, abbé de Châteauneuf, and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mother's cousin, standing as godparents.^[5] He was educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704–1711), where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric;^[6] later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English.^[7]

By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer.^[8] Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father found out, he sent Voltaire to study law, this time in Caen, Normandy. Nevertheless, he continued to write, producing essays and historical studies. Voltaire's wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the marquis de Châteauneuf, the brother of Voltaire's godfather.^[9] At The Hague, Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer (known as 'Pimpette').^[9] Their scandalous affair was discovered by de Châteauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year.^[10]

Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille from 16 May 1717 to 15 April 1718 in a windowless cell with ten-foot thick walls.^[11]

Most of Voltaire's early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government. These activities were to result in two imprisonments and a temporary exile to England. One satirical verse, in which Voltaire accused the Régent of incest with his own daughter, led to an eleven-month imprisonment in the Bastille.^[12] The Comédie-Française had agreed in January 1717 to stage his debut play, Œdipe, and it opened in mid-November 1718, seven months after his release.^[13] Its immediate critical and financial success established his reputation.^[14] Both the Régent and King George I of Great Britain presented Voltaire with medals as a mark of their appreciation.^[15]

He mainly argued for religious tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people's rights.^[16][17]

Adopts the name "Voltaire"

The author adopted the name "Voltaire" in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille. Its origin is unclear. It is an anagram of AROVET LI, the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of le jeune ("the young").^[18] According to a family tradition among the descendants of his sister, he was known as le petit volontaire ("determined little thing") as a child, and he resurrected a variant of the name in his adult life.^[19] The name also reverses the syllables of Airvault, his family's home town in the Poitou region.^[20]

Richard Holmes^[21] supports the anagrammatic derivation of the name, but adds that a writer such as Voltaire would have intended it to also convey its connotations of speed and daring. These come from associations with words such as voltige (acrobatics on a trapeze or horse), volte-face (a spinning about to face one's enemies), and volatile (originally, any winged creature). "Arouet" was not a noble name fit for his growing reputation, especially given that name's resonance with à rouer ("to be beaten up") and roué (a débauché).

In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Rousseau in March 1719, Voltaire concludes by asking that, if Rousseau wishes to send him a return letter, he do so by addressing it to Monsieur de Voltaire. A postscript explains: "J'ai été si malheureux sous le nom d'Arouet que j'en ai pris un autre surtout pour n'être plus confondu avec le poète Roi", (I was so unhappy under the name of Arouet that I have taken another, primarily so as to cease to be confused with the poet Roi.)^[22] This probably refers to Adenes le Roi, and the 'oi' diphthong was then pronounced like modern 'ouai', so the similarity to 'Arouet' is clear, and thus, it could well have been part of his rationale. Indeed, Voltaire is known also to have used at least 178 separate pen names during his lifetime.^[23]

La Henriade and Mariamne

Voltaire's next play Artémire, set in ancient Macedonia, opened on 15 February 1720. It was a flop and only fragments of the text survive.^[24] He instead turned to an epic poem about Henri IV of France that he had begun in early 1717.^[25] Denied a licence to publish, in August 1722 Voltaire headed north to find a publisher outside France. On the journey, he was accompanied by his mistress, Marie-Marguerite de Rupelmonde, a young widow.^[26]

At Brussels, Voltaire and Rousseau met up for a few days, before Voltaire and his mistress continued northwards. A publisher was eventually secured in The Hague.^[27] In the Netherlands, Voltaire was struck and impressed by the openness and tolerance of Dutch society.^[28] On his return to France, he secured a second publisher in Rouen, who agreed to publish La Henriade clandestinely.^[29] After Voltaire's recovery from a month-long smallpox infection in November 1723, the first copies were smuggled into Paris and distributed.^[30] While the poem was an instant success, Voltaire's new play, Mariamne, was a failure when it first opened in March 1724.^[31] Heavily reworked, it opened at the Comédie-Française in April 1725 to a much-improved reception.^[31] It was among the entertainments provided at the wedding of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska in September 1725.^[31]

Great Britain

In early 1726, a young French nobleman, the chevalier de Rohan-Chabot, taunted Voltaire about his change of name, and Voltaire retorted that his name would be honoured while de Rohan would dishonour his.^[32] Infuriated, de Rohan arranged for Voltaire to be beaten up by thugs a few days later.^[33] Seeking compensation, redress, or revenge, Voltaire challenged de Rohan to a duel, but the aristocratic de Rohan family arranged for Voltaire to be arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille on 17 April 1726 without a trial or an opportunity to defend himself.^[34][35] Fearing an indefinite prison sentence, Voltaire suggested that he be exiled to England as an alternative punishment, which the French authorities accepted.^[36] On 2 May, he was escorted from the Bastille to Calais, where he was to embark for Britain.^[37]

In England, Voltaire lived largely in Wandsworth with acquaintances including Everard Fawkener.^[38] From December 1727 to June 1728 he lodged at Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, now commemorated by a plaque, to be nearer to his British publisher.^[39] Voltaire circulated throughout English high society, meeting Alexander Pope, John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and many other members of the nobility and royalty.^[40] Voltaire's exile in Great Britain greatly influenced his thinking. He was intrigued by Britain's constitutional monarchy in contrast to French absolutism, and by the country's greater support of the freedoms of speech and religion.^[41] He was influenced by the writers of the age, and developed an interest in earlier English literature, especially the works of Shakespeare, still relatively unknown in continental Europe.^[42] Despite pointing out his deviations from neoclassical standards, Voltaire saw Shakespeare as an example that French writers might emulate, since French drama, despite being more polished, lacked on-stage action. Later, however, as Shakespeare's influence began growing in France, Voltaire tried to set a contrary example with his own plays, decrying what he considered Shakespeare's barbarities. Voltaire may have been present at the funeral of Isaac Newton,^[43] and met Newton's niece, Catherine Conduitt.^[39] In 1727 he published two essays in English, Upon the Civil Wars of France, Extracted from Curious Manuscripts, and Upon Epic Poetry of the European Nations, from Homer Down to Milton.^[39]

Pastel by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1735

After two and a half years in exile, Voltaire returned to France, and after a few months living in Dieppe, the authorities permitted him to return to Paris.^[44] At a dinner, French mathematician Charles Marie de La Condamine proposed buying up the lottery that was organized by the French government to pay off its debts, and Voltaire joined the consortium, earning perhaps a million livres.^[45] He invested the money cleverly and on this basis managed to convince the Court of Finances that he was of good conduct and so was able to take control of a capital inheritance from his father that had hitherto been tied up in trust. He was now indisputably rich.^[46][47]

Further success followed, in 1732, with his play Zaïre, which when published in 1733 carried a dedication to Fawkener that praised English liberty and commerce.^[48] At this time he published his views on British attitudes toward government, literature, religion and science in a collection of essays in letter form entitled Letters Concerning the English Nation (London, 1733).^[49] In 1734, they were published in French as Lettres philosophiques in Rouen.^{[50][note 1]} Because the publisher released the book without the approval of the royal censor and Voltaire regarded the British constitutional monarchy as more developed and more respectful of human rights (particularly religious tolerance) than its French counterpart, the French publication of Letters caused a huge scandal; the book was publicly burnt and banned, and Voltaire was forced again to flee Paris.^[16]

Château de Cirey

In the frontispiece to Voltaire's book on Newton's philosophy, Émilie du Châtelet appears as Voltaire's muse, reflecting Newton's heavenly insights down to Voltaire.^[51]

In 1733, Voltaire met Émilie du Châtelet, a married mother of three who was 12 years his junior and with whom he was to have an affair for 16 years.^[52] To avoid arrest after the publication of Letters, Voltaire took refuge at her husband's château at Cirey-sur-Blaise, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine.^[53] Voltaire paid for the building's renovation,^[54] and Émilie 's husband, the Marquis du Châtelet, sometimes stayed at the château with his wife and her lover.^[55] The relationship had a significant intellectual element. Voltaire and the Marquise collected over 21,000 books, an enormous number for the time. Together, they studied these books and performed experiments in the natural sciences at Cirey, which included an attempt to determine the nature of fire.^[56]

Having learned from his previous brushes with the authorities, Voltaire began his habit of keeping out of personal harm's way, and denying any awkward responsibility. He continued to write plays, such as Mérope (or La Mérope française) and began his long research into science and history. Again, a main source of inspiration for Voltaire were the years of his British exile, during which he had been strongly influenced by the works of Sir Isaac Newton. Voltaire strongly believed in Newton's theories; he performed experiments in optics at Cirey,^[57] and was one of the sources for the famous story of Newton and the apple falling from the tree, which he had learned from Newton's niece in London and first mentioned in his Letters.^[39]

In the fall of 1735, Voltaire was visited by Francesco Algarotti, who was preparing a book about Newton in Italian.^[58] Partly inspired by the visit, the Marquise translated Newton's Latin Principia into French in full, and it remained the definitive French translation into the 21st century.^[16] Both she and Voltaire were also curious about the philosophies of Gottfried Leibniz, a contemporary and rival of Newton. While Voltaire remained a firm Newtonian, the Marquise adopted certain aspects of Leibniz's arguments against Newton.^[16][59] Voltaire's own book Eléments de la philosophie de Newton (Elements of Newton's Philosophy) made Newton accessible and understandable to a far greater public, and the Marquise wrote a celebratory review in the Journal des savants.^[16][60] Voltaire's work was instrumental in bringing about general acceptance of Newton's optical and gravitational theories in France.^[16][61]

Voltaire and the Marquise also studied history, particularly those persons who had contributed to civilization. Voltaire's second essay in English had been "Essay upon the Civil Wars in France". It was followed by La Henriade, an epic poem on the French King Henri IV, glorifying his attempt to end the Catholic-Protestant massacres with the Edict of Nantes, and by a historical novel on King Charles XII of Sweden. These, along with his Letters on the English mark the beginning of Voltaire's open criticism of intolerance and established religions. Voltaire and the Marquise also explored philosophy, particularly metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that deals with being and with what lies beyond the material realm such as whether or not there is a God and whether people have souls. Voltaire and the Marquise analysed the Bible, and concluded that much of its content was dubious.^[62] Voltaire's critical views on religion are reflected in his belief in separation of church and state and religious freedom, ideas that he had formed after his stay in England.

In August 1736, Frederick the Great initiated a correspondence with Voltaire.^[63] That December, Voltaire moved to Holland for two months and became acquainted with the scientists Herman Boerhaave and 's Gravesande.^[64] In the first half of 1740 Voltaire lived in Brussels and met with Lord Chesterfield. He went to see a dubious publisher Jan van Duuren in the Hague, because of the Anti-Machiavel, written by the crown prince, and ordered it back. Voltaire lived in Huis Honselaarsdijk belonging to his admirer, Frederick. In September they met for the first time in Moyland Castle near Cleve; in November Voltaire went to Rheinsberg Castle for two weeks; in August 1742 Voltaire and Frederick met in Aix-la-Chapelle. Voltaire was sent to Sanssouci by the French government, as an ambassador/spy and find out more about Frederick plan's after the First Silesian War.^[65]

Though deeply committed to the Marquise, Voltaire by 1744 found life at the château confining. On a visit to Paris that year, he found a new love—his niece. At first, his attraction to Marie Louise Mignot was clearly sexual, as evidenced by his letters to her (only discovered in 1957).^[66][67] Much later, they lived together, perhaps platonically, and remained together until Voltaire's death. Meanwhile, the Marquise also took a lover, the Marquis de Saint-Lambert.^[68]

Die Tafelrunde by Adolph von Menzel. Guests of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci, including members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and Voltaire (third from left)

Sanssouci

After the death of the Marquise in childbirth in September 1749, Voltaire briefly returned to Paris and in 1750 moved to Potsdam to meet Frederick the Great for the fifth time.^[69] The king now gave him a salary of 20,000 francs a year. Though life went well at first—in 1752 he wrote Micromégas, perhaps the first piece of science fiction involving ambassadors from another planet witnessing the follies of humankind—his relationship with Frederick the Great began to deteriorate and he encountered other difficulties. An argument with Maupertuis, the president of the Berlin Academy of Science, provoked Voltaire's "Diatribe du docteur Akakia" ("Diatribe of Doctor Akakia"), which satirized some of Maupertuis' theories and his abuse of power in his persecutions of a mutual acquaintance, Johann Samuel König. This greatly angered Frederick, who had all copies of the document burned and Voltaire arrested at an inn where he was staying along his journey home.

Geneva and Ferney

Voltaire's château at Ferney, France

Voltaire headed toward Paris, but Louis XV banned him from the city, so instead he turned to Geneva, near which he bought a large estate (Les Délices) in 1755.^[70] Though he was received openly at first, the law in Geneva, which banned theatrical performances, and the publication of The Maid of Orleans against his will made him move at the end of 1758 across the French border to Ferney, where he had bought an even larger estate, and led to Voltaire's writing of Candide, ou l'Optimisme (Candide, or Optimism) in 1759. This satire on Leibniz's philosophy of optimistic determinism remains the work for which Voltaire is perhaps best known. He would stay in Ferney for most of the remaining 20 years of his life, frequently entertaining distinguished guests, such as James Boswell, Adam Smith, Giacomo Casanova, and Edward Gibbon.^[71] In 1764, he published one of his best-known philosophical works, the Dictionnaire Philosophique, a series of articles mainly on Christian history and dogmas, a few of which were originally written in Berlin.^[35]

From 1762, he began to champion unjustly persecuted people, the case of Jean Calas being the most celebrated. This Huguenot merchant had been tortured to death in 1763, supposedly because he had murdered his son for wanting to convert to Catholicism. His possessions were confiscated and his remaining children were taken from his widow and were forced to become members of a monastery. Voltaire, seeing this as a clear case of religious persecution, managed to overturn the conviction in 1765.^[35]

Voltaire was initiated into Freemasonry the month before his death. On 4 April 1778 Voltaire accompanied his close friend Benjamin Franklin into Loge des Neuf Soeurs in Paris, France and became an Entered Apprentice Freemason. "Benjamin Franklin … urged Voltaire to become a freemason; and Voltaire agreed, perhaps only to please Franklin."^[72][73][74]

Death and burial

In February 1778, Voltaire returned for the first time in 20 years to Paris, among other reasons to see the opening of his latest tragedy, Irene. The five-day journey was too much for the 83-year-old, and he believed he was about to die on 28 February, writing "I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition." However, he recovered, and in March saw a performance of Irene, where he was treated by the audience as a returning hero.^[35]

Voltaire's tomb in Paris's Panthéon

House in Paris where Voltaire died

He soon became ill again and died on 30 May 1778. The accounts of his deathbed have been numerous and varying, and it has not been possible to establish the details of what precisely occurred. His enemies related that he repented and accepted the last rites given by a Catholic priest, or that he died under great torment, while his adherents told how he was defiant to his last breath.^[75] According to one story, his last words were, "Now is not the time for making new enemies." It was his response to a priest at the side of his deathbed, asking Voltaire to renounce Satan.^[76] However, this is also disputed as originating from a joke first published in a Massachusetts newspaper in 1856, as only later being attributed to Voltaire by Robert E. Lucas in 1955 upon giving his banquet speech for receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics. ^[77]

Because of his well-known criticism of the Church, which he had refused to retract before his death, Voltaire was denied a Christian burial, but friends managed to bury his body secretly at the Abbey of Scellières in Champagne before this prohibition had been announced. His heart and brain were embalmed separately.

On 11 July 1791, the National Assembly of France, which regarded him as a forerunner of the French Revolution, had his remains brought back to Paris to enshrine him in the Panthéon.^[78] It is estimated that a million people attended the procession, which stretched throughout Paris. There was an elaborate ceremony, complete with an orchestra, and the music included a piece that André Grétry had composed specially for the event, which included a part for the "tuba curva" (an instrument that originated in Roman times as the cornu but had recently been revived under a new name^[79]).

Writings

History

Voltaire had an enormous influence on the development of historiography through his demonstration of fresh new ways to look at the past. His best-known histories are The Age of Louis XIV (1751), and his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). He broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history and achievements in the arts and sciences. The Essay on Customs traced the progress of world civilization in a universal context, thereby rejecting both nationalism and the traditional Christian frame of reference. Influenced by Bossuet's Discourse on the Universal History (1682), he was the first scholar to make a serious attempt to write the history of the world, eliminating theological frameworks, and emphasizing economics, culture and political history. He treated Europe as a whole, rather than a collection of nations. He was the first to emphasize the debt of medieval culture to Middle Eastern civilization, but otherwise was weak on the Middle Ages. Although he repeatedly warned against political bias on the part of the historian, he did not miss many opportunities to expose the intolerance and frauds of the church over the ages. Voltaire advised scholars that anything contradicting the normal course of nature was not to be believed. Although he found evil in the historical record, he fervently believed reason and educating the illiterate masses would lead to progress.

Voltaire explains his view of historiography in his article on "History" in Diderot's Encyclopédie: "One demands of modern historians more details, better ascertained facts, precise dates, more attention to customs, laws, mores, commerce, finance, agriculture, population." Voltaire's histories imposed the values of the Enlightenment on the past, but at the same time he helped free historiography from antiquarianism, Eurocentrism, religious intolerance and a concentration on great men, diplomacy, and warfare.^[80][81] Yale professor Peter Gay says Voltaire wrote "very good history", citing his ""scrupulous concern for truths", "careful sifting of evidence", "intelligent selection of what is important", "keen sense of drama", and "grasp of the fact that a whole civilization is a unit of study".^[82]

Poetry

From an early age, Voltaire displayed a talent for writing verse and his first published work was poetry. He wrote two book-long epic poems, including the first ever written in French, the Henriade, and later, The Maid of Orleans, besides many other smaller pieces.

The Henriade was written in imitation of Virgil, using the Alexandrine couplet reformed and rendered monotonous for modern readers but it was a huge success in the 18th and early 19th century, with sixty-five editions and translations into several languages. The epic poem transformed French King Henry IV into a national hero for his attempts at instituting tolerance with his Edict of Nantes. La Pucelle, on the other hand, is a burlesque on the legend of Joan of Arc. Voltaire's minor poems are generally considered superior to either of these two works.

Prose

Frontispiece and first page of an early English translation by T. Smollett et al. of Voltaire's Candide, 1762

Many of Voltaire's prose works and romances, usually composed as pamphlets, were written as polemics. Candide attacks the passivity inspired by Leibniz's philosophy of optimism; L'Homme aux quarante ecus (The Man of Forty Pieces of Silver), certain social and political ways of the time; Zadig and others, the received forms of moral and metaphysical orthodoxy; and some were written to deride the Bible. In these works, Voltaire's ironic style, free of exaggeration, is apparent, particularly the restraint and simplicity of the verbal treatment. Candide in particular is the best example of his style. Voltaire also has, in common with Jonathan Swift, the distinction of paving the way for science fiction's philosophical irony, particularly in his Micromégas and the vignette Plato's Dream (1756).

Voltaire at Frederick the Great's Sanssouci, by Pierre Charles Baquoy

In general, his criticism and miscellaneous writing show a similar style to Voltaire's other works. Almost all of his more substantive works, whether in verse or prose, are preceded by prefaces of one sort or another, which are models of his caustic yet conversational tone. In a vast variety of nondescript pamphlets and writings, he displays his skills at journalism. In pure literary criticism his principal work is the Commentaire sur Corneille, although he wrote many more similar works – sometimes (as in his Life and Notices of Molière) independently and sometimes as part of his Siècles.

Voltaire's works, especially his private letters, frequently contain the word "l'infâme" and the expression "écrasez l'infâme", or "crush the infamous". The phrase refers to abuses of the people by royalty and the clergy that Voltaire saw around him, and the superstition and intolerance that the clergy bred within the people.^[83] He had felt these effects in his own exiles, the burnings of his books and those of many others, and in the hideous sufferings of Jean Calas and François-Jean de la Barre. He stated in one of his most famous quotes that "Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them."^[84]

The most oft-cited Voltaire quotation is apocryphal. He is incorrectly credited with writing, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." These were not his words, but rather those of Evelyn Beatrice Hall, written under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre in her 1906 biographical book The Friends of Voltaire. Hall intended to summarize in her own words Voltaire's attitude towards Claude Adrien Helvétius and his controversial book De l'esprit, but her first-person expression was mistaken for an actual quotation from Voltaire. Her interpretation does capture the spirit of Voltaire's attitude towards Helvetius; it had been said Hall's summary was inspired by a quotation found in a 1770 Voltaire letter to an Abbot le Riche, in which he was reported to have said, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."^[85] Nevertheless, scholars believe there must have again been misinterpretation, as the letter does not seem to contain any such quote.^[86]

Voltaire's first major philosophical work in his battle against "l'infâme" was the Traité sur la tolérance (Treatise on Tolerance), exposing the Calas affair, along with the tolerance exercised by other faiths and in other eras (for example, by the Jews, the Romans, the Greeks and the Chinese). Then, in his Dictionnaire philosophique, containing such articles as "Abraham", "Genesis", "Church Council", he wrote about what he perceived as the human origins of dogmas and beliefs, as well as inhuman behavior of religious and political institutions in shedding blood over the quarrels of competing sects. Amongst other targets, Voltaire criticized France's colonial policy in North America, dismissing the vast territory of New France as "a few acres of snow" ("quelques arpents de neige").

Letters

Voltaire also engaged in an enormous amount of private correspondence during his life, totalling over 20,000 letters. Theodore Besterman's collected edition of these letters, completed only in 1964, fills 102 volumes.^[87] One historian called the letters "a feast not only of wit and eloquence but of warm friendship, humane feeling, and incisive thought."^[88]

In Voltaire's correspondence with Catherine the Great he derided democracy. He wrote "Almost nothing great has ever been done in the world except by the genius and firmness of a single man combating the prejudices of the multitude."^[89]

Religious views

Voltaire at 70; engraving from 1843 edition of his Philosophical Dictionary

Like other key Enlightenment thinkers, Voltaire was a deist, expressing the idea: "What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason."^[90][91] Voltaire held mixed views of the Abrahamic religions but had a favourable view of Hinduism.

In a 1763 essay, Voltaire supported the toleration of other religions and ethnicities: "It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?"^[92]

In one of his many denunciations of priests of every religious sect, Voltaire describes them as those who "rise from an incestuous bed, manufacture a hundred versions of God, then eat and drink God, then piss and shit God."^[93]

Christianity

In a letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, dated 5 January 1767, he wrote about Christianity:

La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire qui ait jamais infecté le monde.^[94]
"Our [religion] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. … My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out.."^[95][96]

In La bible enfin expliquée, he expressed the following attitude to lay reading of the Bible:

It is characteristic of fanatics who read the holy scriptures to tell themselves: God killed, so I must kill; Abraham lied, Jacob deceived, Rachel stole: so I must steal, deceive, lie. But, wretch, you are neither Rachel, nor Jacob, nor Abraham, nor God; you are just a mad fool, and the popes who forbade the reading of the Bible were extremely wise.^[97]

Voltaire's opinion of the Christian Bible was mixed. Although influenced by Socinian works such as the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, Voltaire's skeptical attitude to the Bible separated him from Unitarian theologians like Fausto Sozzini or even Biblical-political writers like John Locke.^[98] His statements on religion also brought down on him the fury of the Jesuits and in particular Claude-Adrien Nonnotte.^{[99][100][101][102]} This did not hinder his religious practice, though it did win for him a bad reputation in certain religious circles. The deeply Christian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote to his father the year of Voltaire's death, saying, "The arch-scoundrel Voltaire has finally kicked the bucket ...".^[103] Voltaire was later deemed to influence Edward Gibbon in claiming that Christianity was a contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire, in his book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

As Christianity advances, disasters befall the [Roman] empire—arts, science, literature, decay—barbarism and all its revolting concomitants are made to seem the consequences of its decisive triumph—and the unwary reader is conducted, with matchless dexterity, to the desired conclusion—the abominable Manicheism of Candide, and, in fact, of all the productions of Voltaire's historic school—viz., "that instead of being a merciful, ameliorating, and benignant visitation, the religion of Christians would rather seem to be a scourge sent on man by the author of all evil."^[104]

However, Voltaire also acknowledged the self-sacrifice of Christians. He wrote: "Perhaps there is nothing greater on earth than the sacrifice of youth and beauty, often of high birth, made by the gentle sex in order to work in hospitals for the relief of human misery, the sight of which is so revolting to our delicacy. Peoples separated from the Roman religion have imitated but imperfectly so generous a charity."^[105] Yet "His hatred of religion increased with the passage of years. The attack, launched at first against clericalism and theocracy, ended in a furious assault upon Holy Scripture, the dogmas of the Church, and even upon the person of Jesus Christ Himself, who was depicted now as a degenerate".^[106] The reasoning of which may be summed up in his well known quote, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".

Judaism

According to the rabbi Joseph Telushkin, the most significant of Enlightenment hostility against Judaism was found in Voltaire;^[107] thirty of the 118 articles in his Dictionnaire philosophique dealt with Jews and described them in consistently negative ways.^[108][109]

On the other hand, Peter Gay, a contemporary authority on the Enlightenment,^[107] also points to Voltaire's remarks (for instance, that the Jews were more tolerant than the Christians) in the Traité sur la tolérance and surmises that "Voltaire struck at the Jews to strike at Christianity". Whatever anti-semitism Voltaire may have felt, Gay suggests, derived from negative personal experience.^[110] Bertram Schwarzbach's far more detailed studies of Voltaire's dealings with Jewish people throughout his life concluded that he was anti-biblical, not anti-semitic. His remarks on the Jews and their "superstitions" were essentially no different from his remarks on Christians.^[111]

Telushkin states that Voltaire did not limit his attack to aspects of Judaism that Christianity used as a foundation, repeatedly making it clear that he despised Jews.^[107] Arthur Hertzberg claims that Gay's second suggestion is also untenable, as Voltaire himself denied its validity when he remarked that he had "forgotten about much larger bankruptcies through Christians".^[112]

Some authors link Voltaire's anti-Judaism to his polygenism. According to Joxe Azurmendi this anti-Judaism has a relative importance in Voltaire's philosophy of history. However, Voltaire's anti-Judaism influences later authors like Ernest Renan.^[113]

Will Durant's clarification

According to the historian Will Durant, Voltaire had initially condemned the persecution of Jews on several occasions including in his work Henriade.^[114] As stated by Durant, Voltaire had praised the simplicity, sobriety, regularity, and industry of Jews. However, subsequently, Voltaire had become strongly anti-Semitic after some regrettable personal financial transactions and quarrels with Jewish financiers. In his Essai sur les moeurs Voltaire had denounced the ancient Hebrews using strong language; a Catholic priest had protested against this censure. The anti-Semitic passages in Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique were criticized by Issac Pinto in 1762. Subsequently, Voltaire agreed with the criticism of his anti-Semitic views and stated that he had been "wrong to attribute to a whole nation the vices of some individuals";^[115] he also promised to revise the objectionable passages for forthcoming editions of the Dictionnaire philosophique, but later forgot to do so.^[115]

Islam

According to Ahmad Gunny, Voltaire's views about Islam remained negative, and he considered the Quran to ignore the laws of physics.^[116] Thus, there are a number of representations of Mohammed by Voltaire, separated, generally, into two categories: a religious one, according to which Mohammed is a prophet like the others, who exploits people's naivety and spreads superstition and fanaticism; and a political one, according to which Mohammed was a legislator who brought his contemporaries out of idolatry.^[117][118] According to Diego Venturino, the figure of Mohammed is uncertain or negative in Voltaire's view, as Voltaire applauds the legislator but hates the conqueror and the pontiff, who established his religion through violence.^{[119][120][121]}

According to Malise Ruthven, Voltaire developed a more favorable opinion of Islam with greater knowledge of the religion. Ruthven notes that after his harrowing adventures in Europe and Latin America, Candide finds tranquility in Muslim Turkey to "cultivate his garden"^[93]

Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations

Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations (French: Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations) is a work of Voltaire, published for the first time in its entirety in 1756. In this work, Voltaire deals with the history of Europe before Charlemagne to the dawn of the age of Louis XIV, also evoking that of the colonies and the East. As a historian he devoted several chapters to Islam,^{[122][123][124]} Voltaire highlighted the Arabian, Turkish courts, and conducts.^{[125][126][126][127]} Here he called Mohammed a "poet", and furthermore he was not an illiterate.^[128] as a "legislator" who "changed the face of part of Europe, one half of Asia",^{[129][130][131]} In the chapter VI, Voltaire finds similarities Arabs and ancient Hebrews, that they both kept running to battle in the name of god, and sharing the passion for booty and spoils.^[132] He thus compares "the genius of the Arab people" with "the genius of the ancient Romans".^[133]

The drama Mahomet

The tragedy Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet (French: Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophete) was written in 1736 by Voltaire. The play is a study of religious fanaticism and self-serving manipulation. In the play, the character Mahomet orders the murder of his critics.^[134]

When Voltaire wrote in 1742 to César de Missy, he described Mohammed as a "deceitful character."^[135][136] On January 20, 1742, Voltaire wrote to Frederick the Great stating that he had decided to write a play on Mohammed so as to combat religious fraud. He wrote that Mohammed was "whatever trickery can invent that is most atrocious and whatever fanaticism can accomplish that is most horrifying. Mahomet here is nothing other than Tartuffe with armies at his command."^[137][138]

In 1751, Voltaire performed his play Mohamet once again, with great success.^[139]

Satire

According to Will Durant, when Mahomet was performed for the first time in August, 1742, a section of the Christian clergy had complained that it was "a bloody satire against the Christian religion."^[140] Others who agreed with this assessment were Desfontaines and Freron. After the fourth performance of the play, it was withdrawn by Voltaire after Cardinal Fleury advised him to do so. According to some commentators, when Mahomet's fanatical disciple Seide hesitates to carry out Mahomet's instruction to kill sheik Zopir, the wording in Mahomet's rebuke was reminiscent of language used by the Christian priesthood. In Durant's assessment, the play was an attack on any religion's endorsement of violence, and to illustrate the point Durant refers to a letter written by Voltaire to Frederick the Great in which Voltaire mentions the assassinations of William of Orange, and Henry III and Henry IV of France as examples of crimes originating from piety.^[141] Commenting on Voltaire's Mahomet, Malise Ruthven has observed:

Discerning critics saw it as a coded attack on the Catholic Church, cleverly disguised as a polemic against its principle religious enemy.^[93]

In a letter to Frederick the Great, Voltaire clarified that the historical Mohammad was not guilty of the treachery that formed the basis of his play Mahomet.^[93]

Hinduism

Despite the criticism of Abrahamic religions, Voltaire had a positive view of Hinduism;^[142] the sacred text Vedas was remarked on by him as follows:

The Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to the East.^[143]

He regarded Hindus as "[a] peaceful and innocent people, equally incapable of hurting others or of defending themselves".^[144] Voltaire was himself a supporter of animal rights and was a vegetarian.^[145] He used the ancient times of Hinduism to land a devastating blow to the Bible's claims and acknowledged that the Hindus' treatment of animals shown a shaming alternative to the immorality of European imperialists.^[146]

Voltaire was highly critical of religious superstitions, and deployed the Hindu practice of Sati in his novel Zadig to condemn self-immolation when it is done "to gratify vanity and in deference to religious prejudice".^[147] Voltaire, however, held that suicide can be just and reasonable when an individual suffered from incurable disease or expects to experience great pain.^[148]

Views on race and slavery

Voltaire rejected the biblical Adam and Eve story and was a polygenist who speculated that each race had entirely separate origins.^[149][150] According to William Cohen, like most other polygenists, Voltaire believed that because of their different origins blacks did not entirely share the natural humanity of whites.^[151] According to David Allen Harvey, Voltaire was often invoking racial differences as a means to attack religious orthodoxy, and the Biblical account of creation.^[152]

His most famous remark on slavery is found in Candide, where the hero is horrified to learn "at what price we eat sugar in Europe" after coming across a slave in French Guinea who has been mutilated for escaping, who opines that, if all human beings have common origins as the Bible taught, it makes them cousins, concluding that "no one could treat their relatives more horribly". Elsewhere, he wrote caustically about "whites and Christians [who] proceed to purchase negroes cheaply, in order to sell them dear in America". Voltaire has been accused of supporting the slave trade as per a letter attributed to him.^{[153][154][155]} In his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire endorses Montesquieu's criticism of the slave trade:

Montesquieu was almost always in error with the learned, because he was not learned, but he was almost always right against the fanatics and the promoters of slavery.^[156]

Appreciation and influence

According to Victor Hugo: "To name Voltaire is to characterize the entire eighteenth century."^[157] Goethe regarded Voltaire to be the greatest literary figure in modern times, and possibly of all times.^[158] According to Diderot, Voltaire's influence on posterity would continue far into the future.^{[159][note 2]}

Napoleon commented that till he was sixteen he "would have fought for Rousseau against the friends of Voltaire, today it is the opposite...The more I read Voltaire the more I love him. He is a man always reasonable, never a charlatan, never a fanatic."^[160] Frederick the Great commented on his good fortune for having lived in the age of Voltaire.^[161] Catherine the Great had been reading Voltaire for sixteen years prior to becoming Empress of Russia in 1762.^[161][162] In October 1763, she began a correspondence with him which continued till his death.The content of these letters has been described as being akin to a student writing to a teacher.^[163] Upon Voltaire's death, the Empress purchased his library which was then transported and placed in The Hermitage.^[164]

In England, Voltaire's influence affected Godwin, Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Bentham, Byron, and Shelley.^[158] Macaulay made note of the fear that Voltaire's very name incited in tyrants and fanatics.^{[165][note 3]}

In his native Paris, Voltaire was viewed as the defender of Jean Calas and Pierre Sirven.^[158] Although he failed in securing the annulment of the execution of La Barre for "blasphemies" against Christianity despite a protracted campaign, the criminal code that sanctioned the execution was revised during Voltaire's lifetime.^[166] In 1764, Voltaire successfully intervened and secured the release of Claude Chamont for the crime of attending Protestant services. When Comte de Lally was executed for treason in 1766, Voltaire wrote a 300-page document absolving de Lally. Subsequently, in 1778, the judgement against de Lally was expunged just before Voltaire's death. The Genevan Protestant minister Pomaret once said to Voltaire: "You seem to attack Christianity, and yet you do the work of a Christian."^[167] And Frederick the Great would note the significance of a philosopher capable of getting judges to change their unjust decisions through his influence commenting that this alone is sufficient to ensure the prominence of Voltaire as a humanitarian.^[167]

Most of the architects of modern America were adherents of Voltaire's views.^[158] According to Will Durant:

Italy had a Renaissance, and Germany had a Reformation, but France had Voltaire; he was for his country both Renaissance and Reformation, and half the Revolution.^[157] He was first and best in his time in his conception and writing of history, in the grace of his poetry, in the charm and wit of his prose, in the range of his thought and his influence. His spirit moved like a flame over the continent and the century, and stirs a million souls in every generation.^[168]

Voltaire and Rousseau

Voltaire's junior contemporary Jean Jacques Rousseau commented on how Voltaire's book Letters on the English played a great role in his intellectual development.^[169] Having written some literary works and also some music, in December 1745 Rousseau wrote a letter introducing himself to Voltaire, who was by then the most prominent literary figure in France, to which Voltaire replied with a polite response. Subsequently, when Rousseau sent Voltaire a copy of his book Discourse on Inequality, Voltaire replied, noting his disagreement with the views expressed in the book:

No one has ever employed so much intellect to persuade men to be beasts. In reading your work one is seized with a desire to walk on four paws [marcher a quatre pattes]. However, as it is more than sixty years since I lost that habit, I feel, unfortunately, that it is impossible for me to resume it.^[170]

Subsequently, commenting on Rousseau's romantic novel Julie, or the New Heloise, Voltaire stated:

No more about Jean-Jacques' romance if you please. I have read it, to my sorrow,and it would be to his if I had time to say what i think of this silly book.^[171]

Voltaire speculated that the first half of Julie had been written in a whorehouse and the second half in a lunatic asylum.^[172] In his Lettres sur La Nouvelle Heloise, written under a pseudonym, Voltaire offered criticism highlighting grammatical mistakes in the book.

Paris recognized Voltaire's hand and judged the patriarch to be bitten by jealousy.^[171]

In reviewing Rousseau's book Emile after its publication, Voltaire dismissed it as "a hodgepodge of a silly wet nurse in four volumes, with forty pages against Christianity, among the boldest ever known."However, he expressed admiration for the section in this book titled Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar calling it "fifty good pages...it is regrettable that they should have been written by...such a knave." ^[173] He went on to predict that Emile would be forgotten after a month.^[172]

In 1764, Rousseau published Lettres de la montagne, containing nine letters on religion and politics. In the fifth letter he wondered why Voltaire had not been able to imbue the Genevan councilors, who frequently met him, "with that spirit of tolerance which he preaches without cease, and of which he sometimes has need". The letter continued with an imaginary speech delivered by Voltaire, imitating his literary style, in which he accepts authorship for the book Sermon of the Fifty—a book whose authorship Voltaire had repeatedly denied because it contained many heresies.^[174]

In 1772, when a priest sent Rousseau a pamphlet denouncing Voltaire, Rousseau responded with a defense of Voltaire:

He has said and done so many good things that we should draw the curtain over his irregularities.^[174]

In 1778, when Voltaire was given unprecedented honors at the Théâtre-Français,^[175] an acquaintance of Rousseau ridiculed the event.This was met by a sharp retort from Rousseau:

How dare you mock the honors rendered to Voltaire in the temple of which he is the god, and by the priests who for fifty years have been living off his masterpieces?^[176]

On July 2, 1778, Rousseau died one month after Voltaire's death.^[177] In October 1794, Rousseau's remains were moved to the Panthéon, where they were placed near the remains of Voltaire.^{[178][note 4]} In May 1814, during the Bourbon Restoration, the remains of Rousseau and Voltaire were secretly retrieved from the Panthéon by some religious fanatics, and buried in a dumping ground near Paris; the remains are now untraceable.^[180]

Louis XVI, while incarcerated in the Temple, had remarked that Rousseau and Voltaire had "destroyed France", by which he meant his dynasty.^{[181][note 5]}

Legacy

Voltaire, by Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1778. National Gallery of Art

Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the Church as a static and oppressive force useful only on occasion as a counterbalance to the rapacity of kings, although all too often, even more rapacious itself. Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses.^[183] Voltaire long thought only an enlightened monarch could bring about change, given the social structures of the time and the extremely high rates of illiteracy, and that it was in the king's rational interest to improve the education and welfare of his subjects. But his disappointments and disillusions with Frederick the Great changed his philosophy somewhat, and soon gave birth to one of his most enduring works, his novella Candide, ou l'Optimisme (Candide, or Optimism, 1759), which ends with a new conclusion: "It is up to us to cultivate our garden." His most polemical and ferocious attacks on intolerance and religious persecutions indeed began to appear a few years later. Candide was also burned and Voltaire jokingly claimed the actual author was a certain 'Demad' in a letter, where he reaffirmed the main polemical stances of the text.^[184]

He is remembered and honoured in France as a courageous polemicist who indefatigably fought for civil rights (as the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion) and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the Ancien Régime. The Ancien Régime involved an unfair balance of power and taxes between the three Estates: clergy and nobles on one side, the commoners and middle class, who were burdened with most of the taxes, on the other. He particularly had admiration for the ethics and government as exemplified by Confucius.^[185]

Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, such as "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"), contained in a verse epistle from 1768, addressed to the anonymous author of a controversial work on The Three Impostors. But far from being the cynical remark it is often taken for, it was meant as a retort to atheistic opponents such as d'Holbach, Grimm, and others.^[186] He has had his detractors among his later colleagues. The Scottish Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle argued that "Voltaire read history, not with the eye of devout seer or even critic, but through a pair of mere anti-catholic spectacles."^[187]

The town of Ferney, where Voltaire lived out the last 20 years of his life, is now named Ferney-Voltaire in honour of its most famous resident. His château is a museum. Voltaire's library is preserved intact in the National Library of Russia at Saint Petersburg, Russia. In the Zurich of 1916, the theatre and performance group who would become the early avant-garde movement Dada named their theater The Cabaret Voltaire. A late-20th-century industrial music group then named themselves after the theater. Astronomers have bestowed his name to the Voltaire crater on Deimos and the asteroid 5676 Voltaire.^[188]

Voltaire was also known to have been an advocate for coffee, as he was reported to have drunk it 50–72 times per day. It has been suggested that high amounts of caffeine acted as a mental stimulant to his creativity.^[189] His great-grand-niece was the mother of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a catholic philosopher and Jesuit priest.^[190][191] His book Candide was listed as one of The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written, by Martin Seymour-Smith.

In the 1950s, the bibliographer and translator Theodore Besterman started to collect, transcribe and publish all of Voltaire's writings.^[192] He founded the Voltaire Institute and Museum in Geneva where he began publishing collected volumes of Voltaire's correspondence.^[192] On his death in 1976, he left his collection to the University of Oxford, where the Voltaire Foundation became established as a department.^[193][194] The Foundation has continued to publish the Complete Works of Voltaire, a complete chronological series which is expected to reach completion in 2018, reaching around 200 volumes, fifty years after the series began.^[194][195] It also publishes the series Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, begun by Bestermann as Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, which has reached more than 500 volumes.^[194]

In January 2015, it was reported that a 250-year-old book by Voltaire on religious tolerance, Treatise on Tolerance, had become a bestseller in France after the attack on Charlie Hebdo.^{[196][197][198]}

Chronology

Timeline of François Marie Arouet ("Voltaire") (1694–1778)

Works

Philosophical works

• Letters concerning the English nation (London, 1733) (French version entitled Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais, Rouen, 1734), revised as Letters on the English (circa 1778)
• Le Mondain (1736)
•  French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Eléments de la philosophie de Newton (1745)
• Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)
• Zadig (1747)
• Micromégas (1752)
• Candide (1759)
• Traité sur la tolérance (1763)
• Ce qui plaît aux dames (1764)
• Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)
• L'Ingénu (1767)
• La Princesse de Babylone (1768)

Plays

Voltaire wrote between fifty and sixty plays, including a few unfinished ones.^[199] Among them are these:

• Œdipe (1718)
• Mariamne (1724)
• Éryphile (1732)
• Zaïre (1732)
• Mahomet (1741)
• Mérope (1743)
• La princesse de Navarre (1745)
• Nanine (1749)
• L'Orphelin de la Chine (1755)^[185][200]
• Socrate (published 1759)
• La Femme Qui a Raison (1759)
• Irène (1778)

Historical

• History of Charles XII, King of Sweden (1731)
• The Age of Louis XIV (1751)
• The Age of Louis XV (1746–1752)
• Annals of the Empire – Charlemagne, A.D. 742 – Henry VII 1313, Vol. I (1754)
• Annals of the Empire – Louis of Bavaria, 1315 to Ferdinand II 1631 Vol. II (1754)
• Essay on the Manners of Nations (or 'Universal History') (1756)
• History of the Russian Empire Under Peter the Great (Vol. I 1759; Vol. II 1763)

See also

• Classical liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• List of Freemasons
• Mononymous persons
• Boulevard Voltaire
• Voltaire Foundation

Notes

1. Contrary to the idea that Voltaire wrote the Letters in English, they were written in French and then translated into English by John Lockman.^[49]
2. Diderot, in a letter to E.M. Falconet, dated February 15, 1766: Pile assumptions on assumptions; accumulate wars on wars; make interminable disturbances succeed to interminable disturbances; let the universe be inundated by a general spirit of confusion; and it would take a hundred thousand years for the works and the name of Voltaire to be lost.^[159]
3. Macaulay, in his essay on Frederick the Great: In truth, of all the intellectual weapons that have been wielded by man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailings and cursing of millions, turned pale at his name.^[165]
4. "From that haven of neighborly peace their spirits rose to renew their war for the soul of the Revolution, of France, and of Western man," writes Will Durant.^[179]
5. In a celebrated letter, dated April 2, 1764, Voltaire had predicted the future occurrence of the French Revolution which he characterized as "a splendid outburst."^[182] Commenting on this, Will Durant wrote:

   Yet...he never for a moment supposed that in this "splendid outburst" all France would accept enthusiastically the philosophy of this queer Jean-Jacques Rousseau who, from Geneva and Paris, was thrilling the world with sentimental romances and revolutionary pamphlets. The complex soul of France seemed to have divided itself into these two men, so different and yet so French. Nietzsche speaks of "la gaya scienza, the light feet, wit, fire, grace, strong logic, arrogant intellectuality, the dance of the stars"--surely he was thinking of Voltaire. Now beside Voltaire put Rousseau:all heat and fantasy, a man with noble and jejune visions, the idol of la bourgeois gentile-femme, announcing like Pascal that the heart has its reason which the head can never understand.^[182]

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84. Geoffrey Parrinder. The Routledge Dictionary of Religious and Spiritual Quotations. Routledge. p. 24.
85. Boller, Jr., Paul F.; George, John (1989). They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505541-1.
86. Charles Wirz, archivist at the Voltaire Institute and Museum in Geneva, recalled in 1994, that Hall 'wrongly' placed this quotation between speech marks in two of her works about Voltaire, recognising expressly the quotation in question was not one, in a letter of 9 May 1939, which was published in 1943 in volume LVIII under the title "Voltaire never said it" (pp. 534–5) of the review Modern language notes, Johns Hopkins Press, 1943, Baltimore. An extract from the letter: 'The phrase "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" which you have found in my book Voltaire in His Letters is my own expression and should not have been put in inverted commas. Please accept my apologies for having, quite unintentionally, misled you into thinking I was quoting a sentence used by Voltaire (or anyone else but myself).' The words "my own" were underlined personally by Hall in her letter. To believe certain commentators – Norbert Guterman, A Book of French Quotations, 1963 – Hall was referencing back to a Voltaire letter of 6 February 1770 to an abbot le Riche where Voltaire supposedly said, "Reverend, I hate what you write, but I will give my life so that you can continue to write." The problem is that, if you consult the letter itself, the sentence there does not appear, nor even the idea: "A M LE RICHE A AMIENS. 6 February. You left, Sir, des Welches for des Welches. You will find everywhere barbarians obstinate. The number of wise will always be small. It is true … it has increased; but it is nothing in comparison with the stupid ones; and, by misfortune, one says that God is always for the big battalions. It is necessary that the decent people stick together and stay under cover. There are no means that their small troop could tackle the party of the fanatics in open country. I was very sick, I was near death every winter; this is the reason, Sir, why I have answered you so late. I am not less touched by it than your memory. Continue to me your friendship; it comforts me my evils and stupidities of the human genre. Receive my assurances, etc." Voltaire, however, did not hesitate to wish censure against slander and personal libels. Here is what he writes in his "Atheism" article in the Dictionnaire philosophique: "Aristophanes (this man that the commentators admire because he was Greek, not thinking that Socrates was Greek also), Aristophanes was the first who accustomed the Athenians to consider Socrates an atheist. … The tanners, the shoemakers and the dressmakers of Athens applauded a joke in which one represented Socrates raised in the air in a basket, announcing there was God, and praising himself to have stolen a coat by teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose bad government authorized such infamous licences, deserved well what it got, to become the slave of the Romans, and today of the Turks."
87. Brumfitt, J. H. (1965). "The Present State of Voltaire Studies". Forum for Modern Language Studies (Court of the University of St Andrews) I (3): 230. doi:10.1093/fmls/I.3.230. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
88. Will and Ariel Durant, Rousseau and Revolution (1967), p. 138
89. Massie, Robert K. (2011). Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. New York: Random House. p. 335
90. "Voltaire". Deism.com. 25 June 2009. Retrieved 3 August 2009.
91. Voltaire. W. Dugdale, A Philosophical Dictionary ver 2, 1843, p. 473 sec 1. Retrieved 31 October 2007.
92. Voltaire (1763) A Treatise on Toleration
93. Ruthven, Malise. "Voltaire's Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet:A New Translation; Preface: Voltaire and Islam". Retrieved 12 August 2015.
94. Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Volume 7. p. 184.
95. Mathews, Chris (2009). Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a Radical Subculture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 16.
96. Coakley, Sarah (2012). Faith, Rationality and the Passions. p. 37.
97. Cronk, Nicholas (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire. Cambridge University Press. p. 199.
98. R. E. Florida Voltaire and the Socinians 1974 "Voltaire from his very first writings on the subject of religion showed a libertine scorn of scripture, which he never lost. This set him apart from Socinianism even though he admired the simplicity of Socinian theology as well as their ...".
99. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series: Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814: Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814. Princeton University Press. p. 27.edited by J. Jefferson Looney
100. Les chrétiens n'avaient regardé jusqu'à présent le fameux Mahomet que comme un heureux brigand, un imposteur habile, un législateur presque toujours extravagant. Quelques Savants de ce siècle, sur la foi des rapsodies arabesques, ont entrepris de le venger de l'injustice que lui font nos écrivains. Ils nous le donnent comme un génie sublime, et comme un homme des plus admirables, par la grandeur de ses entreprises, de ses vue, de ses succès, Claude-Adrien Nonnotte
101. Les erreurs de Voltaire, Jacquenod père et Rusand, 1770, Vol I, p.70.
102. M. de Voltaire nous assure qu'il [Mahomet] avait une éloquence vive et forte, des yeux perçants, une physionomie heureuse, l'intrépidité d'Alexandre, la libéralité et la sobriété dont Alexandre aurait eu besoin pour être un grand homme en tout … Il nous représente Mahomet comme un homme qui a eu la gloire de tirer presque toute l'Asie des ténèbres de l'idolâtrie. Il extrait quelques paroles de divers endroits de l'Alcoran, dont il admire le Sublime. Il trouve que sa loi est extrêmement sage, que ses lois civiles sont bonnes et que son dogme est admirable en ce qu'il se conforme avec le nôtre. Enfin pour prémunir les lecteurs contre tout ce que les Chrétiens ont dit méchamment de Mahomet, il avertit que ce ne sont guère que des sottises débitées par des moines ignorants et insensés., Nonnotte, p. 71.
103. Keffe, Simon P. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Mozart. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00192-7.
104. Dublin review: a quarterly and critical journal. Burns, Oates and Washbourne. 1840. pp. 208–. JItKAAAAcAAJ. p. 208 image at Google Books
105. Thomas E. Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Regnery Publishing 2005) pp. 169–170
106. Daniel-Rops, Henri (1964). History of the Church of Christ. Dutton. p. 47. His [Voltaire's] hatred of religion increased with the passage of years. The attack, launched at first against clericalism and theocracy, ended in a furious assault upon Holy Scripture, the dogmas of the Church, and even upon the person of Jesus Christ Himself, who was depicted now as a degenerate
107. Prager, D; Telushkin, J. Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. pp. 128–9.
108. Poliakov, L. The History of Anti-Semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner. Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1975 (translated). pp. 88–89.
109. Voltaire, François-Marie. Essai sur les Moeurs. See also: Voltaire, François-Marie. Dictionnaire Philosophique.
110. Gay, P. The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment. Alfred Knopf, 1964. pp. 103–105.
111. (Schwarzbach, Bertram), "Voltaire et les juifs: bilan et plaidoyer", Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (SVEC) 358, Oxford
112. Hertzberg, A. The French Enlightenment and the Jews. Columbia University, 1968. p. 284.
113. Azurmendi, Joxe (2014). Historia, arraza, nazioa. Donostia: Elkar. pp.177–86. ISBN 978-84-9027-297-8
114. Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 629.
115. Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 630.
116. Gunny, Ahmad (1996). Images of Islam in 18th Century Writings. However, Islam still remains a false religion in Voltaire's eyes – he claims that the Quran betrays ignorance of the most elementary laws of physics.
117. De l'Alcoran et de Mahomet, page 340.
118. Sadek Neaimi, L'Islam au siècle des Lumières, Harmattan, 2003, p.248.
119. "The Prophet Muhammad in French and English literature, 1650 to the present", ahmad gunny, 157
120. " Imposteur ou législateur ? Le Mahomet des Lumières ", in Religions en transition dans la seconde moitié du dix-huitième siècle, Voltaire Foundation, 2000, p.251 ISBN 978-0-7294-0711-3.
121. Dirk van der Cruysse, " De Bayle à Raynal, le prophète Muhammad à travers le prisme des Lumières ", in De branche en branche : études sur le XVIIe et XVIIIes français, Peeters Publishers, 2005, p.125.
122. Pomeau, René (1995) La religion de Voltaire. A.G Nizet. ISBN 2707803316. pp. 156–157.
123. Voltaire, Essais sur les Mœurs, 1756, Chap.VI. — De l'Arabie et de Mahomet.
124. Voltaire, Essais sur les Mœurs, 1756, Chap.VII. — De l'Alcoran, et de la loi musulmane. Examen si la religion musulmane était nouvelle, et si elle a été persécutante.
125. Pomeau, René (1995) La religion de Voltaire. A.G Nizet. ISBN 2707803316. p. 157.
126. The history of Charles xii. king of Sweden [tr. and abridged by A. Henderson from the work by F.M.A. de Voltaire]. 1734. p. 112.
127. Shah Kazemi, Reza. The Spirit of Tolerance in Islam. pp. 5–6. Voltaire also 'pointed out that no Christian state allowed the presence of a mosque; but that the Ottoman state was filled with Churches.'
128. Avez-vous oublié que ce poète était astronome, et qu'il réforma le calendrier des Arabes ?,Lettre civile et honnête à l'auteur malhonnête de la "Critique de l'histoire universelle de M. de Voltaire" (1760), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, p.164.
129. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 1. p. 76.
130. Ce fut certainement un très grand homme, et qui forma de grands hommes. Il fallait qu'il fût martyr ou conquérant, il n'y avait pas de milieu. Il vainquit toujours, et toutes ses victoires furent remportées par le petit nombre sur le grand. Conquérant, législateur, monarque et pontife, il joua le plus grand rôle qu'on puisse jouer sur la terre aux yeux du commun des hommes ; mais les sages lui préféreront toujours Confutzée, précisément parce qu'il ne fut rien de tout cela, et qu'il se contenta d'enseigner la morale la plus pure à une nation plus ancienne, plus nombreuse, et plus policée que la nation arabe., Remarques pour servir de supplément à l'Essai sur les Mœurs (1763), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, chap.9 -De Mahomet, p.590.
131. J'ai dit qu'on reconnut Mahomet pour un grand homme ; rien n'est plus impie, dites-vous. Je vous répondrai que ce n'est pas ma faute si ce petit homme a changé la face d'une partie du monde, s'il a gagné des batailles contre des armées dix fois plus nombreuses que les siennes, s'il a fait trembler l'Empire romain, s'il a donné les premiers coups à ce colosse que ses successeurs ont écrasé, et s'il a été législateur de l'Asie, de l'Afrique, et d'une partie de l'Europe., " Lettre civile et honnête à l'auteur malhonnête de la Critique de l'histoire universelle . Voltaire (1760), in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, p.164.
132. Gunny, Ahmad (1996). Images of Islam in 18th Century Writings. p. 142.
133. Il est évident que le génie du peuple arabe, mis en mouvement par Mahomet, fit tout de lui-même pendant près de trois siècles, et ressembla en cela au génie des anciens Romains., " Essais sur les Mœurs " (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, t. 11, chap. VI-De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 237. et écrit que " dans nos siècles de barbarie et d'ignorance, qui suivirent la décadence et le déchirement de l'Empire romain, nous reçûmes presque tout des Arabes : astronomie, chimie, médecine Préface de l'Essai sur l'Histoire universelle " (1754), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, t. 24, p. 49. Si ces Ismaélites ressemblaient aux Juifs par l'enthousiasme et la soif du pillage, ils étaient prodigieusement supérieurs par le courage, par la grandeur d'âme, par la magnanimité., " Essai sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations " (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, t. 11, chap. VI-De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 231. et que " dès le second siècle de Mahomet, il fallut que les chrétiens d'Occident s'instruisissent chez les musulmans " Essais sur les Mœurs " (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, t. 11, chap. VI-De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 237.
134. Voltaire, Mahomet the Prophet or Fanaticism: A Tragedy in Five Acts, trans. Robert L. Myers, ( New York: Frederick Ungar, 1964).
135. Gunny, Ahmad (1996). Images of Islam in 18th Century Writings. He expanded on this idea in his letter to César de Missy (Ist September 1742) where he described Mahomet as a deceitful character.
136. Voltaire, Lettres inédites de Voltaire, Didier, 1856, Vol 1, Letter to César De Missy, 1 September 1743, p.450.
137. "The Atheist's Bible", page 198, by Georges Minois, 2012
138. Je sais que Mahomet n'a pas tramé précisément l'espèce de trahison qui fait le sujet de cette tragédie … Je n'ai pas prétendu mettre seulement une action vraie sur la scène, mais des mœurs vraies, faire penser les hommes comme ils pensent dans les circonstances où ils se trouvent, et représenter enfin ce que la fourberie peut inventer de plus atroce, et ce que le Fanatisme peut exécuter de plus horrible. Mahomet n'est ici autre chose que Tartuffe les armes à la main. Je me croirai bien récompensé de mon travail, si quelqu'une de ces âmes faibles, toujours prêtes à recevoir les impressions d'une fureur étrangère qui n'est pas au fond de leur cœur, peut s'affermir contre ces funestes séductions par la lecture de cet ouvrage., Voltaire, Letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, 20 January 1742.
139. Mathilde Hilger, Stephanie (2009). Strategies of Response and the Dynamics of European Literary Culture, 1790–1805. Rodopi. p. 100.
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Further reading

• App, Urs. The Birth of Orientalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010 (hardcover, ISBN 978-0-8122-4261-4); contains a 60-page chapter (pp. 15–76) on Voltaire as a pioneer of Indomania and his use of fake Indian texts in anti-Christian propaganda.
• Besterman, Theodore, Voltaire, (1969).
• Brumfitt, J. H. Voltaire: Historian (1958) online edition
• Davidson, Ian, Voltaire. A Life, London, Profile Books, 2010. ISBN 978-1-60598-287-8
• Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization. Vol. IX: The Age of Voltaire. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965.
• Gay, Peter, Voltaire's Politics, The Poet as Realist, Yale University, 1988.
• Hadidi, Djavâd, Voltaire et l'Islam, Publications Orientalistes de France, 1974. ISBN 978-2-84161-510-0
• Knapp, Bettina L. Voltaire Revisited (2000)
• Mason, Haydn, Voltaire, A Biography (1981) ISBN 978-0-8018-2611-5
• McElroy, Wendy (2008). "Voltaire (1694–1778)". In Hamowy, Ronald. The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 521–2. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
• Muller, Jerry Z., 2002. The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought. Anchor Books. 978-0385721660
• Pearson, Roger, 2005. Voltaire Almighty: a life in pursuit of freedom. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-58234-630-4. pp. 447
• Quinones, Ricardo J. Erasmus and Voltaire: Why They Still Matter (University of Toronto Press; 2010) 240 pages; Draws parallels between the two thinkers as voices of moderation with relevance today.
• Schwarzbach, Bertram Eugene, Voltaire's Old Testament Criticism, Librairie Droz, Geneva, 1971.
• Torrey, Norman L., The Spirit of Voltaire, Columbia University Press, 1938.
• Vernon, Thomas S. (1989). "Chapter V: Voltaire". Great Infidels. M & M Pr. ISBN 0-943099-05-6.
• Wade, Ira O. (1967). Studies on Voltaire. New York: Russell & Russell.
• Wright, Charles Henry Conrad, A History of French Literature, Oxford University Press, 1912.
• "The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire", ed by Nicholas Cronk, 2009.

In French

• René Pomeau, La Religion de Voltaire, Librairie Nizet, Paris, 1974.
• Valérie Crugten-André, La vie de Voltaire

Primary sources

• Morley, J., The Works of Voltaire, A Contemporary Version, (21 vol 1901), online edition

External links

• Château de Cirey – Residence of Voltaire, visitvoltaire.com
• Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil Marquise du Châtelet, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland
• Hewett, Caspar J. M. (August 2006). "The Great Debate: Life of Voltaire.". Retrieved 2 November 2008.
• The Société Voltaire
• An analysis of Voltaire's texts (in the "textes" topic) (French)
• Complete French ebooks of Voltaire (French)
• Biography and quotes of Voltaire
• Institut et Musée Voltaire, Geneva, Switzerland
• (French) Works by Voltaire edited at athena.unige.ch
• Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Voltaire
• Monsieur de Voltaire Correspondence in French
• VisitVoltaire.com site with images
• Complete listing of current published editions of Voltaire's works
• Voltaire's Candide and Leibniz
• Voltaire's works: works: text, concordances and frequency list
• Voltaire's writings from Philosophical Dictionary. Selected and Translated by H.I. Woolf, 1924
• Worldly and Personal Influences on Voltaire's Writing
• Works by Voltaire at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Voltaire at Internet Archive
• Works by Voltaire at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by Voltaire at ManyBooks
• Voltaire's works and chronology
• About Voltaire in "Lucidcafé"
• Online Library of Liberty – The Works of Voltaire (1901). Some volumes, including mostly the unabridged Dictionnaire philosophique, translated by William F. Fleming
• (French) Voltaire, his work in audio version