Voltaire in his letters; being a selection from his correspondence

ZH-

111

„-'

\

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

\ ^7

DATE DUE

J AN 1 5 1963 A p

*?-

MAYJX TOCO ,

^s

: ¥«~

-gp-w^-a !t

^ f^ -f»-gfi04

PRINTED IN U.S. A

PQ 2084 C ?Z4H17 ,V 19"§ Ub '" y
..Mtajre jn his letters-

3 1924 026 378 335

Cornell University
Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026378335

By S. G. Tallentyre

The Life of Voltaire
The Life of Mirabeau
Matthew Hargraves

VOLTAIRE AS A YOUNG MAN
From the portrait by de la Tour

Voltaire in His Letters

Being
A Selection from His Correspondence

Translated
With a Preface and Forewords

By

S. G. Tallentyre

Author of "The Life of Voltaire," "The Friends of Voltaire," etc.

" Laisser le crime en pais, c'est s'en rendre complice ''

Illustrated

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

tlbe fmfcfeerbocfcer press

1 919

Copyright, 1919

BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

5 Sd/^2/6

Ube ftniCHCCbocfiec prase, Hew SJotfi

^

PREFACE

"It seems to me," said George Eliot, "much
better to read a man's own writings, than to read
what others say about him, especially when the
man is first-rate and the others third-rate."

In these words lie perhaps the best reason for
a translation of the Letters of Voltaire.

Traduttore traditore is certainly truth as well as
truism; but there are still thousands of highly
educated people who, reading for pleasure and
recreation, never read any language but their
own; while there are as many more, to whom
French is a second mother tongue, who would
never for themselves explore the eighteen large
volumes (each of five to six hundred pages of
close print) which contain the correspondence of
Voltaire, and discard from it those letters on
which time has set his defacing hand, which deal
with events which once seemed as momentous
as they now seem trivial, and which even a style,
matchless in irony, gaiety, wit, can quicken no
more; and from among those grey ashes of old
fires sift out the living embers which glow and
burn for ever.

iv PREFACE

Yet they are worth the search. There are
many respects in which Voltaire is the best, as
he is the most voluminous, of all great letter-
writers.

Good letters, in any language, will be most
often found to be written by persons living quiet
and uneventful lives, whose range was narrow,
and who lived rather in books and dreams than
in the world. Witness Cowper's "divine chit-
chat" to the accompaniment of the bubble of
Mrs. Unwin's tea-urn and the click of her knitting
needles, or to the hum of bees over his mignonette
and the song of his linnets. Witness too Mme.
de Sevigne's exquisite babble of affection for her
daughter; Edward Fitzgerald's delightful culti-
vated gossip from his country town ; Mrs. Carlyle's
trenchant wit on her maidservants and white-
washers; and the delicate thoughtfulness of the
brief correspondence of the poet Gray. Gray's
friend, Horace Walpole, was indeed himself a part
of history and his famous Letters are no small
contribution to it, yet it is chiefly the petty spites
of political cliques and the scandals of the high
life of his day on which he enlightens us. Byron
— one of the best, because one of the most natural,
of correspondents — managed to write reams of
letters through some of the most thrilling events
in the history of our race without making half a

PREFACE v

dozen allusions to them. But Voltaire was not
only contemporaneous with almost the whole of
one of the most remarkable centuries of history
— born in 1694 he did not die until 1778 — but
himself from first to last played a great role in
this century, and was palpitatingly alive to the
very finger-tips to its importance and its possibili-
ties — to everything that made it shameful and
to everything that made it glorious.

He was the personal friend of one monarch,
the servant and courtier of a second, the adviser
and correspondent of a third; and, unlike Horace
Walpole and Fanny Burney, though he flattered
kings to the top of their bent, he put them, not
the less, in their proper place in his scheme of
things. For he knew, and appreciated at their
true worth, men with a nobler title to fame: he
was intimate in life or on paper with most of the
great men of letters and of the social reformers of
his day: had met Pope, Swift, Bolingbroke: loved
Diderot, who produced the great Encyclopaedia,
and d'Alembert, who introduced it: appreciated
the faithful and delicate work of Vauvenargues,
and the noble efforts for oppressed humanity of
Turgot and of Condorcet. Then too he was
not only an observer of, but an active participa-
tor in, some of the greatest causes celebres of the
time : in the cases of the Calas and of the Sirvens :

vi PREFACE

of Admiral Byng and of General Lally, and of
the Chevalier de la Barre.

But at this moment, paramount in interest
perhaps to the rest of his correspondence is that
part of it which deals with Frederick the Great,
for the resemblance, often insisted on, between
the present Emperor of Germany and his greater
ancestor is strikingly set forth in those Letters
of Voltaire which present the tragi-comedy of
their ill-omened friendship. In them we have
reincarnate a Prince who, like his successor, was
for ever courting the limelight: who had what,
for want of a better phrase, may be called the
religious pose — only, while Frederick sat for the
portrait of the daring Freethinker, William "has
God for ever on his tongue." In the great Fred-
erick of Voltaire's correspondence may be seen
clearly that strain of madness inherited from his
madder sire and bequeathed, together with an
exceeding cleverness, to the present representative
of the house. The Frederick Voltaire portrays
had, like his descendant, "omniscience as his
foible": "fiddled and fought as well as any man
in Christendom": posed as flute-player, French
poet and litterateur as well as king and conqueror:
and, where William "dropped the pilot" in poli-
tics, Voltaire's correspondence unfolds the cynic
story of William's forbear who, in literature and

PREFACE

Vll

friendship, made use of guest and friend till he
was weary of him and having "squeezed the
orange, threw away the peel."

The Letters further draw attention to that de-
lusion of infallibility which had sunk deep into
the soul of Frederick as into the soul of William :
and show that that "place in the sun" equally
coveted by both became to one as to the other
"le commencement et l'image de l'usurpation de
toute la terre."

It was Frederick who staunchly advocated
peace — until he was perfectly ready for war, when
he tore up the scraps of paper called treaties,
broke faith with Maria Theresa, invaded Silesia
and plunged Europe into one of the bloodiest
conflicts in history.

"No man ever wore better than Frederick the
Great the fine coat called Culture. He fitted it
so well that even a shrewd Voltaire thought it
his skin, not his covering," until "he flung it on
the ground and trampled on it." The writer may
be forgiven for quoting these words from a Life
of Voltaire, written fifteen years ago, as showing
that the points of likeness between Frederick and
the present representative of his house, far from
being fanciful or far-fetched, literally sautent aux
yeux.

It is not a little satisfactory to gather from

viii PREFACE

these Letters that, during his luckless stay at
Potsdam, the great Frenchman was more than a
match for that royal host who had not disdained
to bring about the visit by embroiling Voltaire
with the authorities in Paris ("That would be
the way to have him in Berlin") : who stinted his
guest in sugar, coffee and candles: intercepted
and made copies of his correspondence; and,
finally, when Voltaire was escaping from this
remarkable hospitality, harried, detained, and
insulted him. But Voltaire could write, not the
less, with a sure and deadly meaning, "If I have
no sceptre, I have a pen": and the shining and
burning light of his genius did indeed mercilessly
penetrate the weak places in the gorgeous armour
of the king.

Altogether apart, however, from Frederick the
Great and his latter-day imitator, Voltaire's cor-
respondence, since he was himself supremely in-
terested in everything, has still some interest for
almost everybody: and the subjects he dealt
with — fate, freewill, intolerance, the liberty of
the subject, of the press and of conscience, the
treatment of sorrow and the value of hard work
■ — are not for an age but for all time.

That he was not only a thinker and doer, but
also an omnivorous reader, is less to his advantage
as a letter-writer. The best writers of letters,

PREFACE ix

or of anything else, are seldom bookworms;
learning is a great power "if a man can only keep
his mind above it." Voltaire's brilliant originality
was proof even against an overdose of other men's
opinions: he read, not in order to be told how to
think, but in order to act: and the six thousand
volumes which formed his library (which Cath-
erine the Great bought after his death) were his
servants not his masters: means, not end.

His wide reading of course does afford the reader
many interesting criticisms on well known works:
and the Voltairean estimate of Shakespeare, of
Pope, of Clarissa Harlowe, and of the French
dramatists and the poetasters of his own day,
displays the brilliancy and acuteness of his critical
faculty as surely as it displays the limitations of
his heart and soul, and the extreme generosity —
a generosity he shares with all really great minds
— of his valuation of other men's talents.

But, as in all correspondence — as in all writing —
the manner is of as high importance as the matter.
The letters which have lived, and which deserve
to live, are often marred by the self-consciousness
of the writers — the consciousness of their own
cleverness. Even the correspondence of Robert
Louis Stevenson — one of the most delightful letter-
writers of modern times — has this defect. The
machinery is perfect, but one knows there is ma-

x PREFACE

chinery: that its parts have been polished and
repolished with a skill and patience so admirable
that at last they need nothing but the highest art
of all — to conceal art.

But Voltaire had a fecundity of inspiration —
good measure, pressed down and running over —
which allowed him to be at all times perfectly
spontaneous : and one of the most cunning minds
in the most artificial age in the history of the world,
is not the less one of the most easy and natural
of its letter-writers.

No need for him to make rough copies of his cor-
respondence : to repeat and re-dress his good stories
and his bon-mots, as Horace Walpole repeated
and re-dressed his : for when he had laid aside his
Pucelle or his Candide to write — in his minute
handwriting, on the back of a playing card per-
haps — an invitation to supper, Voltaire had wit
left over and to spare; and had within him, and
knew he had, wells of observation and interest
so inexhaustible that he was no more afraid to
draw upon them for a stupid fat niece or an old
blind woman than for Frederick, the great king,
or for d'Alembert, the great geometrician.

Easy writing indeed is very often "curst hard
reading," but Voltaire's letters are light as gossa-
mer: when they deal with difficult subjects, they
have the perfect lucidity which was one of the

PREFACE xi

great characteristics of his mind, and which once
evoked the slighting criticism, "Voltaire expressed
everybody's thoughts better than anybody."
But the truth is rather that he expressed complex
things so clearly that his readers do not realise
how complex they were — before he illuminated
them.

Even metaphysics — which he himself defined
as "Fine names, that nobody can explain, for
what nobody can understand" — he made amusing:
and though, as a rule, the reader certainly does
well to decline to read, for enjoyment, eighteenth
century writers moralising on Fate, Freewill and
innate Vice and Virtue, it is not too much to say
that, even on these subjects, Voltaire is enter-
taining.

Yet here lies his weakness as well as his strength.
In letters — as in fiction — as in all writing — "there
must be a man behind the book." Through
Voltaire's letters there looks out the man who
had no reverence: his tongue was so often in his
cheek that when he is grave, ay, and even tender
in his gravity, one still suspects the sneer: and
if that be unjust (and when he deals with the
subjects which moved and horrified his soul — the
case of Calas, the case of Sirven, the case of La
Barre — it is unjust) here, not the less, is the man
born ironical, to whom satire was the weapon

arii PREFACE

with which he defended innocence and righted
wrong, as well as the weapon with which he at-
tacked, through the Christianity of Roman Ca-
tholicism as he knew it, some of the most sacred
mysteries of men's souls.

Yet, satirist, mocker, giber, as he was, not the
less his letters show him hot humanitarian, wise
philanthropist and advanced social regenerator.

"The worst of good people is that they are such
cowards," he said himself. Well, he was none!
Who can fancy a Voltaire (who never failed to fly,
in the teeth of his own interests and safety, at the
throat of robbery and wrong committed by his
own government) looking on as a passive neutral,
cautiously dumb, at atrocities such as have been
perpetrated in this twentieth century in Belgium,
Poland, Serbia, Armenia, under the express direc-
tion of a Power calling itself Christian? With
what a trembling agony of rage would the soul
and genius of that little withered sceptic have
denounced and held up such deeds to eternal
execration ; for, blasphemer as he could be, he not
only knew that "right is right, and to follow
right were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,"
but was never too timid or too cautious to act on
his knowledge.

Though the French in which his Letters are
written is perfectly supple, simple and luminous,

PREFACE xiii

it is not easy to translate well. The irony is so
very delicate that there is real danger of its being
in translation entirely obscured: the points of
the keen little arrows of malicious wit, with which
Voltaire pierced his foes, are always and neces-
sarily somewhat blunted by their rendering in a
clumsier tongue. Voltaire reveals his nationality
in every stroke of the pen; and the translator,
in Anglicising his speech, must needs beware lest
he also Anglicise the soul of one of the most typical,
as he was one of the most original, of the sons of
France. Voltaire himself said that "he who is
capable of making a good translation rarely amuses
himself by translating": there is ample evidence
of the truth of that saying in every bookshelf,
and the present translator does not pretend to
be an exception to it; but he does claim an inti-
macy and sympathy with the life, works and
character of the great Frenchman that make a
right judgment of his meaning at least a strong
probability .

His Letters are undoubtedly the most indispen-
sable of all his works for his biography, and
in themselves form an admirable autobiography.
The present ones have been chosen, in part at
least, for this autobiographical character: they are
in fact, as in title, not "The Letters of Voltaire"
but "Voltaire in his Letters": those are given

xiv PREFACE

which best portray the man "in his habit as he
lived," and which are not only characteristic of
his extraordinary mind, but show him in love and
in prison, recovering from smallpox, lamenting
a mistress, visiting a king, righting human wrongs,
attacking inhuman laws, belittling Shakespeare
and belauding Chesterfield; Voltaire, at four-
and-twenty, as Largilliere painted him, ardent,
impressionable, brilliantly beginning the world —
or, as Houdon carved him, triumphantly ending
it, the most celebrated man in Europe and the
greatest intellectual power of his generation, ana-
thema to the Church and yet, said Jowett, having
done more good than all the Fathers of it put
together.

The translator has throughout avoided foot-
notes — those "signs of weakness and obscurity" —
and has put the occasion, history and elucidation
of each letter into a Foreword, which at least
does not interrupt the text, and thus can be easily
skipped by the reader who prefers to find out his
author's meaning and allusions for himself. In
the Forewords the translator has gone throughout
on the principle of, Better too little than too
much; that is, Better no light on an occasional
dark place than explanations of the obvious.

The place the Letters were written from is given
when it is known to the translator, even when

PREFACE xv

it is not given by Voltaire himself: and the let-
ters are, of course, arranged chronologically. The
whole of each is generally given : where it is not
given, the omission is simply due to the fact that
the writer turns aside to subjects which are no
longer of interest.

For the benefit of those who are not acquainted
with the broad facts of the Voltairean history,
the following brief epitome of his life is subjoined.

Francois Marie Arouet was born in (or possibly
near) Paris on November 21, 1694, and was the
son of a notary. He was educated at the Jesuit
College of St. Louis-le-Grand, and at nineteen,
having announced to his irate parent that he pro-
posed to live by his pen, was sent to the Hague
as attache to the French ambassador to the Nether-
lands. Here he fell in love with Mdlle. Dunoyer,
and was shipped home as a mauvais sujet: wrote
(Edipe, his first play; and in 1717 found himself
in the Bastille for two satires on the Regent Or-
leans which he had not written. Here he changed
his name to Voltaire, and began his famous epic
poem, the Henriade. In 171 8 his (Edipe was
produced, and made its author the fashion. In
1723 he published the Henriade, which was in-
stantly suppressed by the censor. Not the less,
its author became persona grata and writer of
plays and divertissements at the court of Louis

xvi PREFACE

XV and his bride, Marie Leczinska, until 1726,
when he again found himself in the Bastille for a
supposed insult to the Chevalier de Rohan. From
there he was exiled, at his own request, to England :
a visit on which he made the acquaintance of all
the great Englishmen of the day, and which pro-
duced his famous English Letters and inspired in
him a lifelong and passionately reiterated admi-
ration for British tolerance, liberty and justice.
On his return to France he produced Zaire, one
of the most moving and popular of his plays.
In 1734 the appearance in Paris of the English
Letters — too free in thought for the French author-
ities — compelled him to fly the capital. He took
refuge at Cirey in Champagne, the country house
of the Marquis and the famous Marquise du
Chatelet, herself a brilliantly intellectual woman,
who was for fifteen years the mistress of Voltaire
as her chateau of Cirey was his home. There he
wrote with her the Elements of Newton's Philo-
sophy, and continued the Pucelle, his ribald epic
on Joan of Arc. From there he paid flying visits
to Prince Frederick, afterwards Frederick the
Great of Prussia; and stabbed and slew with his
pen many a critic and enemy left behind in the
capital — notably Desfontaines, abbe, journalist
and traitor.
In 1746, being then fifty-two years old, Voltaire

PREFACE

xvii

was made a member of the French Academy.
Two years later, Mme. du Chatelet betrayed him
for the Marquis de Saint Lambert, and, in 1749,
died at Luneville, the court of Stanislas, once
King of Poland. Frederick the Great's artful
patronage of a minor poet — d'Arnaud — decided
Voltaire to accept the royal offer of a place and
pension at Potsdam, which he had hitherto wisely
and firmly declined. From 1750 to 1753 he spent
there one of the most harassing periods of his
stormy life: engaged, and enraged his royal host
by engaging, in a lawsuit with a Jew money-
lender of Berlin ; fought Maupertuis, president of
the Berlin Academy, and finally fell upon him in
The Diatribe of Dr. Akakia, one of the most scath-
ing and burning satires in literature. The king
had taken the part of his president: was furiously
enraged with his guest, and yet refused to let him
leave his dominions. After a hundred annoyances
from Prussian officialdom, Voltaire succeeded in
escaping it, but could not seek his own country
on account of the ill-timed appearance of his
Essay on the Manners and Mind of Nations, that
"history of the human mind" which attacked
tyranny on the throne and in the cowl, "offended
every powerful class and every cherished preju-
dice," and caused Louis XV to turn to Mme. de
Pompadour with " I do not wish Voltaire to return

xviii PREFACE

to Paris." He went, therefore, to Switzerland:
and first at the Delices and then at Ferney, both
near Geneva, made his power felt through his
pen, and became, as he said himself, the "inn-
keeper of Europe."

During his stay in Prussia he had produced,
for his amazing fecundity, very little: but his
history, the Century of Louis XI V, had appeared,
and he had begun his Philosophical Dictionary.
The fearful earthquake at Lisbon in 1755 wrung
from him one of the most heartfelt of his poems,
that on the Disaster of Lisbon. In it he attacked
the easy optimism of Pope's "whatever is, is right,"
and through the horrors and sorrows of the world,
"felt for a God" as he had felt for Him in his
Poem on Natural Law.

In 1756 the unjust condemnation of the British
Admiral Byng for the part he had played in
the conquest of Minorca by the French, first
stirred him to the noblest work of his life — the
defence of innocence and the redressing of human
wrong.

In 1759 there appeared that one of his works
which is perhaps the most undying, the mocking
romance of Candide, which "withered by a grin"
that "all for the best in the best of worlds" theory
which he had so seriously and passionately re-
futed in his poems on the Disaster of Lisbon and

PREFACE xix

on Natural Law, which had now been publicly
burnt by the hangman.

In 1756 had begun Voltaire's connection with
the great Encyclopaedia and his closer friendship
with d'Avembert, its promoter: in 1757 appeared
its article on "Geneva," which Voltaire had cer-
tainly inspired, and which, declaring, as it did, that
Calvinism was but Socinianism after all, and mak-
ing out a strong case in favour of play-acting, set
the city by the ears, and for a while made Vol-
taire's position in it nearly untenable. It was
at this date that he formulated his battle-cry,
Ecrasez Vinfame — Vinfame meaning, if it can be
translated by any one word, intolerance, but par-
ticularly the religious intolerance which traduced,
persecuted, burnt, in the name of Christ.

In 1760 Voltaire adopted the great-niece of the
famous Corneille, and by editing her uncle's works
provided her with a dot. A year later, this most
versatile of human creatures was building a church,
which still stands (with its famous inscription,
Deo erexit Voltaire) in his garden at Ferney. In
1762 he undertook to prove the innocence of Jean
Calas, Protestant, of Toulouse, broken on the
wheel for the supposed murder of his son: worked
feverishly at the case in the teeth of every difficulty
and opposition for more than three years: wrote,
with the Calas case as his text, his famous Treat-

sx PREFACE

ise on Tolerance; and was at last rewarded by
the legal declaration of the innocence of Jean
Calas and of his whole family. The "advocate
of lost causes," as he called himself, soon found
more work to his hand; wept, clamoured, and
strove for the revision of a savage sentence against
another Protestant family, the Sirvens: and to
establish the innocence of the young Chevalier
de la Barre, who had been first tortured and then
beheaded at Abbeville for an offence which, as
Voltaire himself said, "deserved Saint Lazare."
With the body of La Barre was burnt the first
volume of the Philosophical Dictionary, one of the
most original and brilliant of Voltaire's works —
an encyclopaedia in little — gay, witty, daring,
profound — already anathematized in Rome and
Paris, and in its fifth edition in liberal London.

Voltaire was now growing an old man, but, with
his niece, Mme. Denis, as chatelaine, he continued
to receive as his guests at Ferney most of the
celebrities of Europe. In 1767, moved by the
condition of the poor on his estate, he started a
colony of watchmakers and weavers: and finding
there fifty starving persons, left a flourishing and
self-supporting colony of twelve hundred.

In 1773, being now seventy-nine years old,
he put all his undimmed energies into assisting
young Lally-Tollendal to vindicate the memory

PREFACE xxi

of his father, General Lally, the Irish Jacobite,
who in 1766 had been beheaded in Paris for no
other crime than the failure of his efforts in India
against the British on behalf of France, his adopted
country.

When Voltaire was eighty-three years old, he
yielded to the foolish and flattering persuasions
of his niece and many admirers to visit the capital
he had not seen for twenty-eight years. That
triumphal progress killed him. He attended a
gala performance of his last play, Irene, and re-
ceived ovations from the French Academy and
the Academy of Science, and on May 30, 1778,
died, smothered by the roses of popular applause
and recognition.

.Fearing the authorities of the capital would
deny this trenchant unbeliever a Christian burial,
his relatives hurriedly conveyed his body to
Scellieres, where the full rites of the Church were
accorded to it. Thirteen years later, in the Revo-
lution, his ashes were transferred to the Pantheon,
attended by a procession of a hundred thousand
persons, preceded by bands and music. On the
sarcophagus was written: "He avenged Calas,
La Barre, Sirven, and Montbailli. Poet, philo-
sopher, historian, he gave a great impetus to the
human mind: he prepared us to become free."

To those lines of noble simplicity it may be

xxii PREFACE

pertinently added that he not only prepared men
for freedom, but that he fought for them tooth and
nail against that brutal lust for domination which
has drowned the world in blood to-day: and that
his love of liberty, peace, tolerance, justice, and
mercy breathes not only in his works, but in these
his Letters, and constitutes their claim to remem-
brance.

CONTENTS

LETTER PAGE

I. — To Mdlle. Dunoyer — Arranging an

Elopement . . . . i

II. — To Mdlle. Dunoyer — -The Course of

True Love .... 3

III. — To Mdlle. Dunoyer — The End of a

Passion . ... 4

IV. — To the Lieutenant of Police — On Being

Liberated from the Bastille . 6

V. — To the Baron de Breteuil — On an Attack

of Smallpox .... 8

VI. — To the Minister for the Department of

Paris — The Prisoner Dictates . 17

VII. — To M. Theriot — On the Advantages

of Living in England . . .18

VIII. — To Dean Swift — Making a Bargain 21

IX. — To an Unknown Correspondent— On the

Treatment of Sorrow . . 22

X. — To Mdlle. Dangeville — Consoling a

Failure . . . 26

XI. — To M. Berlin de Rocheret — On Writing

Contemporary History . . 28

XII. — To a First Commissioner — On the
Liberty of the Press: and on
Theatres ..... 30

xxiv CONTENTS

LETTER

XIII. — To Mme. de Champbonin — On Getting

into a House . . 35

XIV.— To Mme. la Comtesse de la Neuville — On

the Same Subject ... 37

XV.— To the A bbS d' Olivet— On the ' ' Pucelle"

and the "Century of Louis XIV." 38

XVI. — To Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia —

On Free-Thinking in Princes . 42

XVII. — To Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia —
On God, the Soul, and Innate
Morality ..... 47

XVIII. — To M. ThSriot — On the Marriage of

Voltaire's Nieces . 51

XIX. — To Mdlle. Quinault — On a Quiet Life

and a Fit of Discouragement 54

XX. — To the AbbS le Blanc — On the French

and English . . 58

XXL— To M. Theriot— On Treachery . . 59

XX1L— To M. HeMtius— Row to Write

Verse . . 64

XXIII. — To M. Helvetius—Oa the Same Sub-
ject, and on Boileau . 67

XXIV. — To M. Cesar de Missy — On British
Tolerance .

XXV. — To M. de Vauvenargues — On Corneille
and Racine ....

XXVI. — To M. Martin Kahle — Criticising a
Critic

XXVIL— To M. Diderot— On the Blind

70

72

77
79

CONTENTS XX v

LETTER PAGE

XXVIII. — To Mme. du Boccage—Ox the Death

of Mme. du Chatelet . . 82

XXIX. — To M. d'Arnaud—ON the Same Sub-
ject . ... 84

XXX. — To Mme. Denis — Arriving in Prussia 85

XXXI. — To Mme. de Fontaine — Felicity in

Potsdam 88

XXXII. — To Mme. Denis — On the Same Sub-
ject .... 92

XXXIII. — To Mme. Denis — The Little Rift

within the Lute . 94

XXXIV. — To Mme. Denis — -The Favour of Kings 97

XXXV. — To King Frederick — On Inspiration . 99

XXXVI. — To Mme. Denis — The Rift Widens. 100

XXXVII.— To Mme. Denis— The Peel of an

Orange .... 104

XXXVIII .—To Mme. Denis— The Tension Grows 106

XXXIX.— To M. Bagieu— On Health no

XL. — To Mme. Denis — The Quarrel with

Maupertuis . . -ii3

XLI. — To Mme. Denis — On the Same Subject i 17

XLII. — From Frederick the Great— -The Storm

Bursts . . . 120

XLIII. — To Mme. Denis — The Dictionary of

Kings . ... 122

XLIV. — To Frederick the Great — Farewell . 125

XLV. — King Frederick the Great to Voltaire —

Dismissed 127

xxvi CONTENTS

LETTER PAGE

XLVI. — Petition to the King of France — The

Escape from Prussia . . 129

XLVII. — To the Comte d'Argental — On Inocula-
tion ... . 132

XLVIIL— To Mme. du Deffand— On a Friend's

Blindness . . . 134

XLIX. — To Mme. duDeffand — On the "Memoirs

of Lord Bolingbroke" . . 138

L. — To Mme. du Deffand — On Pope and

Virgil . . .143

LI. — To J. J. Rousseau — On the Advan-
tages of Civilisation and Liter-
ature ...... 146

LII. — To M. Tronchin, of Lyons — On the

Earthquake of Lisbon . 154

LIIL— To Mdlle —On Good Taste

in Literature . . .156

LIV. — From the Due de Richelieu — To Admiral
Byng — To the Due de Richelieu- — ■
On the Case of Admiral Byng . 158

LV. — To M. d'Alembert — On the Great En-
cyclopaedia .162

LVI. — To M. . . . — A Profession of Faith 167

LVII. — To Mme. du Deffand— On "Clarissa

Harlowe" . . -171

LVIII. — To M. Palissot — Impeaching a Tra-

ducer ..... 174

LIX. — To M. de Bastide — Social Conditions

in 1760 178

CONTENTS xxvii

LETTER PAGE

LX. — To M, le Comte d'Argental — On Lady

Mary Wortley Montagu . .182

LXI. — To M. Bertrand — On Ridicule . .184

LXII. — To M. Damilaville — The Case of Calas

AND OF THE SlRVENS . . . 1 85

LXIII. — To M. d'Alembert — The Chevalier de

la Barre . 199

LXIV. — To M. Mariott, Advocate-General of

England — On Rousseau in England 203

LXV. — To Mme. du Deffand — On the Jesuits

and Catherine the Great . 208

LXVL— To Mr. Horace Walpole—On Shake-
speare . . 213

LXVTI. — To the Comte de Schomberg — On the Ad-
vantages of Being a Brute 222

LXVIIL— To M. d'Alembert— The Case of Mar-
tin . 225

LXIX. — To Mme. Necker— On a Statue by

Pigalle . ... 228

LXX. — To Mme. Necker — On the Same Subject 230

LXXI. — To Frederick William, Prince of Prussia

—On the Soul and God . .231

LXXII. — To Lord Chesterfield— On Happiness in

Old Age .... 234

LXXIIL— To M. Diderot— On Natural Talent . 236

LXXIV.— To M. Turgot— On a Wise Appoint-
ment 239

LXXV. — To M. le Marquis de Condorcet—On Tur-
got and Ferney .... 240

xxviii CONTENTS

LETTER PAGE

LXXVI. — To Mme. du Deffand — On Lord Ches-
terfield's Letters . . . 244

LXXVII. — To Frederick the Great — On the Same

Subject . . . 247

LXXVIII. — To M. de Farges — A Plea for the Poor 249

LXXIX. — To the Baron de Faugeres — On the

Times of Louis XIV . . 253

LXXX. — To M. Gin— On Monarchy and Des-
potism . . 258

LXXXL— To the Abbi Gaultier—A Dying Testi-
mony .... . 261

LXXXII. — To the Marquis de Florian at Bijou-

Ferney — Paris 11778 . . . 263

LXXXIII. — To Frederick the Great — Farewell . 266

LXXXIV. — To the Comte de Lally— The Last Letter 268

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Voltaire as a Young Man . . Frontispiece

From the portrait by de la Tour.

The Regent Orleans 6

From the portrait by Crepy.

Montesquieu . .... 72

From the portrait by Benoist.

Frederick the Great . . . . . .104

From the portrait by Graf.

The Comte d'Argenson ..... 129

From the portrait by Nattier.

Voltaire at Ferney . . . . . . 174

From an old print.

Marmontel ....... 208

From the portrait by Cochin.

Voltaire as an Old Man 261

From the portrait by Schorl.

Voltaire in His Letters

ARRANGING AN ELOPEMENT

To Mdlle. Dunoyer

[At the date of this letter, Francois Marie
Arouet, afterwards Voltaire, was nineteen. Hav-
ing announced to his father his intention of living
by his pen, he was sent to the Hague as attache
to the French Ambassador to the Netherlands,
the Marquis de Chateauneuf. There he fell in
love with Mdlle. Dunoyer — familiarly "Pimpette"
— the daughter of a mother both impecunious
and declassee. Voltaire's love-letters show the
ardour, the quick vivacity, the resourcefulness,
and the audacity which belonged to his tempera-
ment from the cradle to the grave: and serve to
prove his own aphorism, "Love is the strongest
of all the passions because it attacks at once the
head, the heart, and the body." The excitement

2 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

and delightfulness of this passion were increased
fourfold by the active disapproval of the Ambas-
sador and of Pimpette's mother — the Ambassador
going so far as to imprison his attache, on parole,
which he broke, climbed out of the window, and
did fly with Pimpette "like the wind," as the letter
proposes, to five-mile distant Scheveningen, where
she wrote, under his direction, the "necessary
letters" intended to help the scheme of further
elopement to Paris.]

The Hague, 1713.

I am here as the King's prisoner. They may
rob me of my life, but not of my love for you, my
dearest. I will see you to-night, though it bring
my head to the block. For God's sake, do not
write to me in so sombre a vein: live, and be
cautious: beware of your mother as your most
dangerous enemy: beware of everyone, trust no-
body: be ready when the moon rises; I shall
leave this house incognito, shall take a coach or a
chaise, and we will fly like the wind to Schevenin-
gen. I will bring ink and paper, and we will
write the necessary letters. But if you love me,
take heart: summon all your resolution and cool-
ness : keep strict watch on yourself in your mother's
presence: try to get hold of your portrait: rely
on my devotion, at any cost. Nothing can part

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 3

us: our love is founded on esteem and will only
die with our life. You had better tell the shoe-
maker to order the chaise— no, on second thoughts
I had rather you did not trust him: I will wait
for you at the end of your road. Goodbye: all
I risk for you is nothing: you are worth infinitely
more. Goodbye, my dear heart.

Arouet.

II
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

To Mdlle. Dunoyer

[Five days after writing this letter, Arouet was
despatched back to Paris and to his father, as
incorrigible.]

The Hague, December 13, 1713.

I only heard yesterday, my dear, that you were
ill — as a result of all the worry I have given you.
Alas ! that I should be at once the cause of your
sufferings and powerless to relieve them! I have
never felt so keen a grief — and I have never so
thoroughly deserved one : I do not know what is
the matter with you: everything adds to my fears:
you love me, and do not write to me—- 1 know

4 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

from that you must be really ill. What a melan-
choly position for two lovers to be in! — one in
bed, the other a prisoner. I should implore you
to get better, if you had it in your power to do me
that favour: but at least you can take care of
yourself, and that is the greatest pleasure you
can give me. I believe I have begged you in
every letter I have ever written to you to take
care of your dear health. I could bear all my
own misfortunes joyfully if you could get the better
of yours. My departure is again postponed.

M. de M , who has forced himself into my

room, forbids me to go on writing. Goodbye,
goodbye, my dear heart! May you be as happy
for ever as I am miserable now! Goodbye, my
dear ; try to write to me.

Arouet.

Ill

THE END OF A PASSION

To Mdlle. Dunoyer

[Directly he was back in Paris, the lover brought
all his fervid energies to bear on a scheme for
getting Pimpette there, through the agency of

THE END OF A PASSION 5

the Jesuits— a lost Protestant lamb for the Roman
fold. This scheme was nipped in the bud by old
Arouet obtaining a lettre-de-cachet for his scape-
grace. In a year or two Pimpette became the
Countess of Winterfeld: and some years later
still her mother, an unscrupulous person who
lived by her wits, published some of the famous
Voltaire's letters to her daughter. This letter,
which is the last one extant of Voltaire's to
his first love, bears some evidence that his af-
fections were cooling: and ampler evidence that
Pimpette's had cooled first.]

February 10, 1715.

My dear Pimpette: Every post you miss writing
to me makes me imagine that you have not re-
ceived my letters, for I cannot believe that ab-
sence can have an effect on you which it never
can have on me, and as I shall certainly love you
for ever, I try to convince myself that you still
love me. Tell me two things: first, if you have
received my two last letters, and if your heart
is still mine: and be sure to say if you have re-
ceived my last letter which I wrote on January
20th, in which I was rash enough to mention by
name the Bishop of Evreux and other persons:
tell me this definitely in your reply: above all,
I implore you to let me know how you are and

6 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

how things go with you: address your letter to
M. le Chevalier de Saint-Fort, at M. Alain's near
the Place Maubert. Write me a longer letter
than this one. It will always give me more
pleasure to read four pages of yours than you
take in reading two lines of mine.

Arouet.

IV

ON BEING LIBERATED FROM THE
BASTILLE

To the Lieutenant of Police

[In 1717, Arouet, now one and twenty and be-
ginning to be known as a man of letters, was held
responsible for two stinging satires — which he
had not written — on the evil state of France and
on the evil life of the Regent Orleans : and was
put in the Bastille — an experience which all
literary men of his time and country went through
as certainly as children go through measles,
and, sometimes, with no more suffering. Allowed
pens and ink, as well as friends, good food, and
wine, Arouet employed his leisure in conceiving
and beginning his epic poem, the Henriade, and

BHBM

■:■«: H;

THE REGENT ORLEANS
From the portrait by Cripy

LIBERATED FROM THE BASTILLE 7

in changing his name to Voltaire. In April,
1 71 8, he was released from the Bastille and exiled
to Chatenay (the paternal home) before being
allowed to return to Paris. This letter is notable
for the extreme agility with which the writer
catches the Lieutenant of Police and the Regent
in a net of gratitude for past favours — to assure
himself of more to come: and for the fact that,
if Voltaire had not satirized the Regent, he was
perfectly aware, for all his flattering protestations,
that his character was remarkably corrupt in
an age when in high places corruption was rather
the rule than the exception.]

Chatenay, Good Friday,
April 5, 1718.

Sir: The first use I must make of my liberty is
to write and thank you for having given it to me.
I can only prove my gratitude by being worthy
of the kindness you have done me, and of your
protection. I believe that I have profited by
my misfortunes, and can assure you that I am
not less grateful to the Regent for my captivity
than for my freedom. I have committed many
faults, but I beg you, sir, to assure his Royal
Highness that I never was so wicked nor so foolish
as to have written anything against him. I have
never spoken of him but in terms of admiration

8 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

for his genius: and I should have expressed my-
self as warmly had he been a private person. I
have always respected him the more because
I know that he dislikes flattery as much as he
deserves it. I know that in this respect you are
like him, but still I cannot refrain from telling
you how fortunate I think myself to be in your
power, and how sure I am that you will use it to
my advantage.

With the profoundest respect, I am, sir, your
most humble, obedient servant,

Arouet.

ON AN ATTACK OF SMALLPOX

To the Baron de Breteuil

[In 1723, Voltaire, when a guest in the country
house of his friend, M. de Maisons, at St. Germain's,
developed smallpox. This letter has a curious
interest in its revelation of the medical science,
and ignorance, of the day — especially in reference
to the treatment and the (supposed) course of
the then most inevitable of all diseases — and in
showing Voltaire's (comparative) enlightenment
on the subject. For this was the epoch when

ON AN ATTACK OF SMALLPOX 9

men died like flies, not from disease, but from the
doctor, and when Dr. Tronchin, one of the few
wise medical men of the age, had crystallised his
professional advice into the phrase, "Dare to do
nothing; fear the physicians more than the dis-
ease." Even in smallpox, Voltaire dared to
do — almost — nothing, and so saved a frail body
and one of the most vigorous minds in history for
another five and forty years of Herculean labours.
It will be noticed that, apparently, no disinfection
of the sick room was attempted, so that the fire
which accidentally destroyed it was a blessing in
disguise.

The Baron de Breteuil, to whom this letter is
addressed, was the father of the brilliant woman
(in 1723 she was a little girl) who became Mme.
du Chatelet and the mistress of Voltaire.

The "poem" to which Voltaire regretted he had
not put the finishing touches was the Henriade.

"Mariamne" was his first tragedy, which he had
brought to Maisons to read to his host and fellow-
guests.

"Rabel's water" or Aqua rabelliana, was the
specific of the quack Rabel. The Countess of
Kent's, Vauseger's, and Aignan's remedies were
of course all quack specifics also.

"Tkieriot" (or Theriot) had been Voltaire's fellow-
clerk when Voltaire was for a brief space — to please

io VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

his father — in a solicitor's office, and became a
lifelong — though not always a faithful — friend.]

December, 1723.

In accordance with your wishes, sir, I will try
and give you a faithful account of my attack of
smallpox, of its very unusual treatment, and of
the accident at Maisons which long prevented
my regarding my recovery as a blessing.

M. de Maisons and I were both indisposed on
November 4th, but, happily, the disease confined
itself to me. We were both bled: he got better,
and I developed smallpox. A slight rash appeared
after two days of fever. I insisted on being
bled a second time, in spite of the general prejudice
against this course. M. de Maisons kindly sent
M. de Gervasi (the Cardinal de Rohan's doctor)
to me the following day. He came very unwill-
ingly, as he was reluctant to undertake a case of
smallpox in a delicate patient in whom the rash
had been out for two days, and to whom the
treatment given had been merely bleeding, without
purgatives.

However, he came, and found me in a high
fever. At first he thought very seriously of my
case: the servants guessed his unfavourable opin-
ion, and took very good care to let me know it.

ON AN ATTACK OF SMALLPOX n

They also told me that the cure of Maisons, who
had made enquiries after me, was not afraid of
smallpox, and wished to see me if convenient:
so I had him in, and made my confession; and
my will, which, as you will readily believe, was
exceedingly short. After that, I calmly awaited
death: only regretting that I had not put the
finishing touches to my poem and to Mariamne,
and that I must part from my friends so soon.
However, M. de Gervasi never left me a minute:
carefully watched nature's workings in me: never
gave me anything to take without telling me the
reason: allowed me to see my danger and the
means of escape — his reasoning giving that trust
and confidence which it is so essential a patient
should have in his doctor, because the hope of
cure is half the cure. He gave me emetics eight
times: and, instead of the strong cordials usually
recommended in this complaint, made me drink
a hundred pints of lemonade. This treatment,
which you will think extraordinary, was the only
one which could possibly have saved my life:
under any other I should most certainly have
died: and I am persuaded that the majority of
those whom this fearful disease has killed
would be still alive had they been treated as I

was.

Popular prejudice is violently opposed to bleed-

12 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

ing and purgatives in a case of smallpox: cordials
and wine are always given: the patient is fed up
on soups: and this ignorant treatment flourishes
because some people get better in spite of it.
They forget that cases which survive it are
those which are without complications or
danger.

Smallpox is, in a simple form, merely the blood
ridding itself of its impurities, and positively
paves the way to more vigorous health. There-
fore, simple cases, whether they are treated with
cordials or with purgatives, recover just the
same.

The worst wounds, when no vital part is affected,
heal naturally, whether they are kept open or
treated with fomentations of wine and oil —
whether Rabel's water is employed or ordinary
plasters — or nothing at all. But when vital
points are attacked, then all these little remedies
are perfectly useless, and the cleverness of the
cleverest surgeons is taxed to the uttermost:
thus it is with smallpox.

When it is accompanied by malignant fever,
when the vessels are so overfilled with blood as
to be at the point of bursting, when the blood is
about to fly to the brain, and the body is filled
with bile and foreign substances which, fermenting,
adversely affect the whole organism, then mere

ON AN ATTACK OF SMALLPOX 13

commonsense tells us that bleeding is indis-
pensable: it purifies the blood, relaxes the blood
vessels, makes the organs work more easily and
freely, opens the pores of the skin, and helps the
eruption to come out: then strong medicines re-
move the sources of the malady, and with them
some of the germs of the smallpox, leaving those
that remain the power of developing more freely,
thus preventing the disease from becoming con-
fluent; at this stage lemonade and other refresh-
ing drinks purify and cool the blood, flow with
it through the sebaceous glands of the skin, pre-
vent the corrosion of those glands and, thus, the
disease from pitting the face.

There is, however, one condition in which cor-
dials, and very powerful ones, are absolutely ne-
cessary — that is, when the blood is very sluggish
and, rendered more so by the germs of the disease,
has not the strength to throw out the poisons
with which it is charged. Then the Countess
of Kent's powders, Vauseger's balsam, and M.
Aignan's remedy, breaking up the congealed
blood, make it flow more rapidly, by dispersing
the foreign bodies and opening the pores of the
skin so that the poison may escape through per-
spiration.

But in my condition such cordials would have
been fatal to me, which proves beyond a doubt

14 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

that all those quacks who overrun Paris and
who prescribe the same remedy (I do not
say for all diseases, but always for the
same disease) are poisoners who ought to be
imprisoned.

I constantly hear used a most false and fatal
argument. "Such and such a man," it is said,
"has been cured by such and such a means: I
have his complaint, so I must try his remedy."
How many people have died for having reasoned
thus! People do not choose to see that the com-
plaints which afflict us are as different as the fea-
tures of our faces : and as the great Corneille said,
if you will permit me to quote the poets:

" Quelquefois l'un se brise ou l'autre s'est sauve',
Et par oil l'un pent tm autre est conserve 1 ."

But I am becoming very technical! just as
people who have won a lawsuit by the help of
counsel air a knowledge of legal terms.

Nothing comforted me so much in my illness
as the interest you took in it, the kindness of my
friends, and the inexpressible goodness of Mme.
and M. de Maisons. I was also fortunate to have
with me a friend, one of those rare friends who
really know what friendship is (the world knows
but its name), I mean M. Thieriot, who posted
forty miles to look after me and has never since

ON AN ATTACK OF SMALLPOX 15

left me for a moment. By the 15 th I was abso-
lutely out of danger; by the 16th I was writing
verses, despite extreme weakness, from which I
still suffer as an after effect of the complaint and
the remedies.

I was impatiently awaiting the moment when
I could escape the Maisons' kindness and cease
to be a burden to them. The greater their good-
ness, the greater my anxiety not to impose on it.
At last, on December 1st, I was fit to travel to
Paris. A fatal day! I was scarcely two hundred
yards from the chateau, when a part of the floor-
ing of the room I had occupied burst into flames.
The rooms adjoining and above, and their valu-
able furniture, were all totally destroyed, the loss
being estimated at a hundred thousand livres,
and without the help of the fire engines which were
sent for from Paris, one of the most beautiful
buildings in the kingdom would have been totally
destroyed.

This extraordinary news was hidden from me:
I was only told of it on my recovery: you can
imagine my state of mind: you know the gener-
ous kindness I had received from M. de Maisons :
I had been treated in his house like his brother,
and the reward of his goodness was the burning
down of his house! I could not conceive how the
conflagration had developed so rapidly in my bed-

16 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

room, as I had left there only a small fire on the
hearth, nearly out. I found out that the cause
was a beam which was just under the fireplace.
This defect in construction has been corrected
in modern buildings: the frequent fires which it
occasioned made it necessary to pass laws forbid-
ding so dangerous an arrangement. The beam I
speak of was gradually set on fire by the heat of
the hearth, immediately above it : and by a strange
chance, on which I can hardly congratulate myself,
the fire, which had been smouldering for two days,
only burst out after I had left.

I was not the cause of this accident ; but I was
its unhappy occasion: it grieved me as much as
if I had been actually responsible for it : the fever
came back, and I assure you that, at that moment,
I did not thank M. de Gervasi for having saved
my life.

M. and Mme. de Maisons took" the news more
calmly than I did: their generosity was as great
as their loss and as my regret. M. de Maisons
crowned his goodness to me by telling me the
news himself in letters which proved his heart to
be as noble as his mind: his only anxiety was to
reassure me : but his generosity made me feel the
more keenly the loss I had brought upon him, and
I shall regret it, as I shall admire him, to the end
of my days. I am, etc., etc.

THE PRISONER DICTATES 17

VI
THE PRISONER DICTATES

To the Minister for the Department of Paris

[Voltaire, having engaged in a quarrel with
the " Chevalier de Rohan," the representative of the
haughtiest family in France, challenged him to a
duel. The Chevalier replied by a warrant to
imprison his enemy, who thus found himself for
a second time in the Bastille. The contempt and
satire the writer permits himself in this petition
to be sent to England prove that he knew well
the power of "l'audace, l'audace, et toujours de
1'audace" — provided always the audacity has
brains and character to back it. The result of
his demand was his exile in England for nearly
three years, and his famous work, the English
Letters, which bear such striking witness to his
keen observation and admiration of the British
character and constitution.]

The Bastille, April, 1726.

M. de Voltaire ventures humbly to point out
that an attempt has been made to assassinate
him by the brave Chevalier de Rohan (assisted by
six cut-throats, behind whom the Chevalier cour-
ageously placed himself) ; and that ever since, M.

18 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

de Voltaire has tried to repair, not his own honour,
but that of the Chevalier — which has proved too
difficult. ... M. de Voltaire demands permis-
sion to dine at the table of the Governor of the
Bastille and to see his friends. He demands,
still more urgently, permission to set out for
England. If any doubt is felt as to the reality
of his departure for that country, an escort can
be sent with him to Calais.

VII

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN
ENGLAND

To M. Theriot.

[This letter was written after a brief stolen
visit to Paris, during the English exile. The con-
trast between the stolid and silent gloom of the
ordinary Briton in misfortune and the lively and
active despair — ay, with a certain enjoyment in
that despair — of an essentially Gallic temperament
is noticeable.

" The hero of my poem" — Henri IV in the
Henriade.

ADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN ENGLAND 19

"/ was seeking one man" — the Chevalier de
Rohan.

"My pensions from the King and Queen" — the
King and Queen of France, for whom Voltaire
had written plays and divertissements.]

August 12, 1726.

My dear Thieriot, I received your letter of May
nth very late. You know how unlucky I was
in Paris. The same evil fate pursues me every-
where. If the character of the hero of my poem
is as well sustained as my own ill luck, that poem
will certainly succeed better than I do. You
give me such touching assurances of your friend-
ship that it is only fair I should give you my
confidence. So I will confide in you, my dear Thie-
riot, that, a little while ago, I paid a brief visit
to Paris. As I did not see you, you will know I
saw nobody. I was seeking one man, who hid,
like the coward he is, as if he guessed I was on his
track. My fear of being discovered made me
leave more hurriedly than I came. The fact is
my dear Thieriot, there is every likelihood that I
shall never see you again. I am still uncertain
if I shall retire to London. I know that England
is a land where the arts are honoured and re-

20 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

warded, where there is a difference of conditions,
but no other difference between men, save merit.
In this country it is possible to use one's mind
freely and nobly, without fear or cringing. If
I followed my own inclination, I should stay here;
if only to learn how to think. But I am not sure
if my small fortune — eaten into by so much trav-
elling — my health, more precarious than ever, and
my love of solitude, will make it possible for me
to fling myself into the hurly-burly of Whitehall
and of London.

I have many introductions in England, and
much kindness awaits me there: but I cannot say
positively that I shall take the plunge. There
are two things I must do: first, risk my life for
honour's sake as soon as I can ; then, end it in the
obscurity of some retreat suited to my turn of
mind, my misfortunes, and my low opinion of
mankind.

I can cheerfully renounce my pensions from the
King and Queen: my only regret being that I
have not.been able to arrange that you should take
advantage of them. It would be a consolation
to me in my solitude if I could feel I had been
useful to you for once in my life: but I am fated
to be wretched in every way. . . . Farewell,
my dear Thieriot: love me, despite absence and
misfortune.

MAKING A BARGAIN 21

VIII

MAKING A BARGAIN

To Dean Swift

[While in England Voltaire met, among many
other celebrities of these islands, Jonathan Swift:
and the following letter asks the Dean of St.
Patrick's to permit a dedication to him of that
Essay on the Civil Wars of France, a presenta-
tion copy of which is now in the British Museum,
inscribed on the fly-leaf in Voltaire's neat little
handwriting, "to Sr han Slone from his most
humble servant voltaire." Sir Hans Sloane was
the President of the Royal Society. Voltaire's
definition of Swift as "Rabelais in his senses" is
well known.]

At the Sign of the White Peruke,
Covent Garden, London,

December 14, 1727.

You will be surprised, sir, to receive from a
French traveller an Essay, in English, on the
Civil Wars of France — which form the subject of
the Henriade. I beg your indulgence for one of
your admirers, who, through your writings, has
become so fond of the English language that he
has the temerity to write in it himself.

22 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

You will see, by the Preface, that I have had
certain designs on you, and have ventured there
to speak of you, for the honour of your country
and the good of mine: do not forbid me to adorn
my work with your name.

Let me have the satisfaction of speaking of you
now, as posterity most certainly will.

Might I ask you, at the same time, to use your
influence in Ireland to procure me a few subscrib-
ers to the Henriade, which, for want of such assist-
ance, has not yet appeared ?

The subscription is only a guinea, payable in
advance.

I am, sir, with the profoundest esteem, your
very humble and obedient servant,

Voltaire.

IX

ON THE TREATMENT OF SORROW

To ... .

[Written from England to an anonymous friend
in bereavement. Voltaire had lately lost his
elder sister, Catherine, Mme. Mignot, who had
mothered him in his childhood, and to whom
he was deeply attached. This letter — commonly

THE TREATMENT OF SORROW 23

called The Letter of Consolation — gives evidence
of a deeper feeling than Voltaire is usually cred-
ited with, and of the healing wisdom that comes
from the heart. His life gave proof of his fidelity
to a memory, in his unvarying kindness to Mme.
Mignot's three children — Mme. Denis, Mme. de
Fontaine, and the Abbe Mignot.]

England, 1728.

The squaring of the circle and perpetual motion
are simple discoveries in comparison to the secret
of bringing peace to a soul distraught by pas-
sionate grief. It is only magicians who pretend
to calm storms with words. If an injured
man, with a deep, gaping wound, begs his surgeon
to close that wound so that only a slight scar
shall remain, the surgeon replies: "That must be
done by a greater physician than I am: only
Time can mend what has been torn in a moment.
I can amputate, cut out, destroy; Time alone
can repair."

So is it with the wounds of the soul : the would-
be comforter inflames and excites them: or, at-
tempting to comfort, moves to fresh tears: but
Time cures at last.

If one gets well into one's head that finally
nature obliterates our deepest impressions: that
sifter a certain time we have neither the same

24 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

blood in our veins nor the same fibres in the
brain, and, consequently, not the same ideas —
that, in a word, we are really and physically no
longer the same person; if, I say, we thus reflect,
we shall find great help in the thought and shall
hasten our recovery.

We must say to ourselves, "I have proved that
the death of my relatives and my friends, after
having half broken my heart for a while, has
eventually left me perfectly calm : I have felt that,
after a few years, a new soul was born in me:
that the heart of twenty-five does not feel as the
heart of twenty did, nor that of twenty as that of
fifteen." Let us try, then, to put ourselves now
as much as possible in the situation in which we
shall certainly be one day: let us get the start of
time in thought.

This, of course, supposes freedom of action on
our part. He who asks advice must consider
himself free, for it would be absurd to ask advice
if it were impossible to take it. In business we
always act on the assumption that we are free:
let us so act in our passions, which are our most
important business. Nature never intended that
our wounds should be closed in a moment — that
we should pass in a second from sickness to
health : but wise remedies will certainly accelerate
our cure.

THE TREATMENT OF SORROW 25

I know no more powerful remedy for the sor-
rows of the heart than deep and serious applica-
tion of the mind to other objects.

This application changes the gloomy tenor of
the spirits — sometimes even makes us insensible
to bodily ills. Any one who devotes himself to
music or to reading a good book, which appeals
at once to the mind and to the imagination, finds
speedy relief from the sufferings of an illness: he
also finds that, little by little, the pangs of the
heart lose their sharpness.

He is obliged to think of something quite other
than that which he is trying to forget: and one
has to think often — nay, constantly — of what one
wishes to retain. The strongest chains are, in the
long run, those of custom. It depends, I believe,
on ourselves to break the links which bind us to
our sorrows and to strengthen those which attach
us to happier things.

Not, indeed, that we are absolute masters of
our thoughts: that implies much: but neither are
we absolute slaves : and, once again, I believe that
the Supreme Being has given us a little of His
liberty, as He has given us a little of His power
of thought.

Let us make use, then, of such weapons as we
have. We undoubtedly add, by reading and
thinking, to our power of thought: why should we,

26 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

then, not also add to what is called our liberty?
There is no one of our senses or our powers which
has not been helped by effort. Why should liberty
be the only one of man's attributes which he can-
not increase?

Suppose, for instance, we see round us trees
hung with a delicious but poisoned fruit, which a
raging hunger incites us to pick: if we feel our-
selves too weak to abstain, let us go (and going
depends on ourselves) to places where there are
no such fruits.

These are counsels which, like so many others,
are no doubt easier, to give than to follow: but
we are in the presence of a disease wherein the
patient must minister to himself.

X
CONSOLING A FAILURE

To Mdlle. Dangeville

[Written after the production of Voltaire's
Roman tragedy Brutus, in which the youthful
Mdlle. Dangeville played, very badly, the impor-
tant part of Tullie. No other playwright, surely,
■ — not even another Frenchman, — ever reassured

CONSOLING A FAILURE 27

a timid ingenue who had spoilt his piece with more
delicacy and consideration.]

December, 1731.

Prodigy, allow me to present you with a copy
of the Henriade — a very serious work for your
age — but she who can play Tullie cannot be in-
capable of serious reading, and it is only right
that I should lay my works at the feet of her who
bestows her beauty on them. I thought I was
going to die this evening, and am, truly, very ill:
otherwise I should have offered you thanks and
homage for the honour you did me to-day. The
piece is unworthy of you : but you must remem-
ber what laurels you will win in endowing my
Tullie with your graces. It will owe its success
to you. But to achieve that success you must not
hurry any of your lines; you must lighten them,
add pathos to declamation, and be sure to take
plenty of time. Above all, put all your soul and
strength into the final couplet of the first act.
Put terror and grief into that last little bit — speak
slowly. Appear to be in utter despair — and so
will your rivals be. Farewell, prodigy!

Don't be discouraged! Remember you played
to perfection at rehearsals: and yesterday you
needed nothing but confidence. Yet your very
diffidence does you honour. You must take

28 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

your revenge to-morrow. I saw Mariamne a
failure : and I have seen it a success.

Anyhow, for Heavens' sake, don't worry your-
self! Even if it does not go well, what matter?
You are only fifteen : and the worst any one could
say of you would be that you are not yet what
you undoubtedly will be. For my part, I offer
you very grateful thanks: if you do not realise
how tenderly and respectfully I regard you, you
will never act tragedy. Begin by being the friend
of one who loves you as a father, and you will
play your role charmingly.

Farewell: it depends on yourself to be divine
to-morrow.

XI
ON WRITING CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

To M. Bertin de Rocheret

[In the autumn of 1730, Voltaire had had ready
for publication his bold and vigorous "History of
Charles XII" of Sweden, which, written in England,
contained so much of the "noble liberty of think-
ing" he had admired in our country, that the
French authorities seized and prohibited it. By
October, 173 1, he had had it secretly reprinted

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY 29

and introduced into Paris, where it was widely
read.]

Paris, April 14, 1732.

I received very late, my dear sir, the letter
with which you have honoured me. I am fully
sensible of your goodness in throwing so much light
on the History of Charles XII. I shall not fail, in
future editions, to profit by your observations.

Meanwhile, I have the honour to send you by
the coach a copy of the new edition, in which you
will find some previous mistakes corrected.

You will still see many printer's errors, but I
cannot be responsible for those, and only think
of my own. The book has been produced in
France with so much haste and secrecy that the
proof-reader could not go through it. As you
yourself, sir, are a writer of history, you will know
the difficulty of choosing between absolutely
opposite stories. Three officers who were at
Pultawa have given me three entirely different
accounts of that battle. M. de Fierville and M.
de Villelongue contradict each other flatly on the
subject of the intrigues at the Porte. My great-
est difficulty has not been to find Memoirs but
to find good ones. There is another drawback
inseparable from writing contemporary history:
every infantry captain, who has seen ever so little

3 o VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

service with the armies of Charles XII, if he hap-
pens to have lost his kit on a march, thinks I
ought to have mentioned him. If the subalterns
grumble at my silence, the generals and ministers
complain of my outspokenness. Whoso writes
the history of his own time must expect to be
attacked for everything he has said, and for every-
thing he has not said: but those little drawbacks
should not discourage a man who loves truth and
liberty, expects nothing, fears nothing, asks noth-
ing, and limits his ambition to the cultivation of
letters.

I am highly flattered, sir, that this metier of
mine has given me the pleasure of your delightful
and instructive letter. I sincerely thank you for
it, and beg the continuance of your kind interest.

I am, etc.

Voltaire.

XII

ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS: AND
ON THEATRES

To a First Commissioner

[The extreme severity of the French censorship
of the press in the eighteenth century must be
borne in mind in reading this letter. Almost

THE PRESS AND THE THEATRES 31

every French author whose works expressed specu-
lative opinions expiated them in the Bastille, and
his printer and publisher at the galleys.

Bayle, one of the most daring thinkers of the
seventeenth century, was the author of the fam-
ous Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, which, pro-
scribed both in France and Holland, had immense
influence on the thought of the age, and may be
said to have been rationalism's first protest against
the dogmatism of the churches. Those "infamous
calottes," against which Voltaire had already writ-
ten a brief, condemnatory article, now in his
Melanges, were a collection of epigrams, as stupid
as they were scandalous, which had been collected
and published in 1732.

A year after this letter was written, Voltaire's
own English Letters were publicly burnt by the
hangman: and he was compelled to flee the
capital.

The system, of course, entirely defeated its
own ends. The hangman's fire blazed into noto-
riety the very works it sought to destroy: while
the secret printing "of the scurrilous and the
indecent was ubiquitous.]

June 20, 1733.

As you have it in your power, sir, to do some
service to letters, I implore you not to clip the

32 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

wings of our writers so closely, nor to turn into
barn-door fowls those who, allowed a start, might
become eagles; reasonable liberty permits the
mind to soar — slavery makes it creep.

Had there been a literary censorship in Rome,
we should have had to-day neither Horace, Juve-
nal, nor the philosophical works of Cicero. If
Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Locke had not been
free, England would have had neither poets nor
philosophers; there is something positively Turk-
ish in proscribing printing; and hampering it is
proscription. Be content with severely repress-
ing defamatory libels, for they are crimes: but
so long as those infamous calottes are boldly pub-
lished, and so many other unworthy and despicable
productions, at least allow Bayle to circulate in
France, and do not put him, who has been so great
an honour to his country, among its contraband.

You say that the magistrates who regulate the
literary custom-house complain that there are
too many books. That is just the same thing as
if the provost of merchants complained there
were too many provisions in Paris. People buy
what they choose. A great library is like the City
of Paris, in which there are about eight hundred
thousand persons : you do not live with the whole
crowd: you choose a certain society, and change
it. So with books: you choose a few friends out

THE PRESS AND THE THEATRES 33

of the many. There will be seven or eight thou-
sand controversial books, and fifteen or sixteen
thousand novels, which you will not read : a heap
of pamphlets, which you will throw into the fire
after you have read them. The man of taste
will only read what is good; but the statesman
will permit both bad and good.

Men's thoughts have become an important
article of commerce. The Dutch publishers make
a million [francs] a year, because Frenchmen
have brains. A feeble novel is, I know, among
books what a fool, always striving after wit, is in
the world. We laugh at him and tolerate him.
Such a novel brings the means of life to the author
who wrote it, the publisher who sells it, to the
moulder, the printer, the paper-maker, the binder,
the carrier — and finally to the bad wine-shop
where they all take their money. Further, the
book amuses for an hour or two a few women who
like novelty in literature as in everything. Thus,
despicable though it may be, it will have pro-
duced two important things — profit and pleasure.

The theatre also deserves attention. I do not
consider it a counter attraction to dissipation:
that is a notion only worthy of an ignorant cure.
There is quite time enough, before and after the
performance, for the few minutes given to those
passing pleasures which are so soon followed by

34 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

satiety. Besides, people do not go to the theatre
every day, and among our vast population there
are not more than four thousand who are in the
habit of going constantly.

I look on tragedy and comedy as lessons in
virtue, good sense, and good behaviour. Cor-
neille — the old Roman of the French — has founded
a school of Spartan virtue: Moliere, a school of
ordinary everyday life. These great national
geniuses attract foreigners from all parts of Europe,
who come to study among us, and thus con-
tribute to the wealth of Paris. Our poor are fed
by the production of such works, which bring
under our rule the very nations who hate us. In
fact, he who condemns the theatre is an enemy
to his country. A magistrate who, because he
has succeeded in buying some judicial post, thinks
that it is beneath his dignity to see Cinna, shows
much pomposity and very little taste.

There are still Goths and Vandals even among
our cultivated people: the only Frenchmen I
consider worthy of the name are those who love
and encourage the arts. It is true that the taste
for them is languishing: we are sybarites, weary
of our mistresses' favours. We enjoy the fruits
of the labours of the great men who have worked
for our pleasure and that of the ages to come,
just as we receive the fruits of nature as if they were

ON GETTING INTO A HOUSE 35

our due. . . nothing will rouse us from this in-
difference to great things which always goes side
by side with our vivid interest in small.

Every year we take more pains over snuff-
boxes and nicknacks than the English took to
make themselves masters of the seas. . . . The
old Romans raised those marvels of architecture
— their amphitheatres — for beasts to fight in : and
for a whole century we have not built a single pas-
sable place for the representation of the master-
pieces of the human mind. A hundredth part of
the money spent on cards would be enough to
build theatres finer than Pompey's : but what man
in Paris has the public welfare at heart? We
play, sup, talk scandal, write bad verses, and
sleep, like fools, to recommence on the morrow
the same round of careless frivolity.

You, sir, who have at least some small oppor-
tunity of giving good advice, try and rouse us from
this stupid lethargy, and, if you can, do something
for literature, which has done so much for France.

XIII
ON GETTING INTO A HOUSE

To Mme. de Champbonin

[In 1734 Voltaire, in order to avoid arrest con-
sequent on the appearance of his English Let-

36 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

ters, went to the Chateau of Cirey-sur-Blaise in
Champagne, a country house of the Marquis and
Marquise du Chatelet. The Marquise, one of
the most brilliantly accomplished women of her
generation — perhaps of any generation — was for
fifteen years Voltaire's mistress, and for that
fifteen years Cirey was his home.

Mme. de Champbonin was a stout, good-natured
country neighbour and a distant relative of Vol-
taire.

The Gomtesse de la Neuville, to whom the next
letter is addressed, was also a country neighbour.]

1734-

Mme. du Chatelet is here, having arrived from
Paris only yesterday evening, at the precise mo-
ment when I was handed a letter from her tell-
ing me she could not possibly come so soon. She
is surrounded by two hundred large packages,
which arrived here the same day as she did. We
have beds with no curtains, rooms with no win-
dows, cabinets of china and no chairs, inviting
carriages and no horses to put into them.

Mme. du Chatelet, in the midst of this con-
fusion, is quite lively and charming. She arrived
in a sort of farm cart, shaken and bruised, and
having had no sleep, but extremely well. She

ON THE SAME SUBJECT 37

bids me give you her kindest regards. We are
piecing together old tapestries, and hunting for
curtains to take the place of doors — all in an-
ticipation of your visit. I swear to you, jok-
ing apart, you will be exceedingly comfortable.
Goodbye. Yours always affectionately and re-
spectfully.

XIV
ON THE SAME SUBJECT

To Mme. la Comtesse de la Neuville

ClREY, 1734.

It seems an age since I have seen you. Mme.
du Chatelet fully intended coming to call on you
directly after she arrived at Cirey: but she has
turned gardener and architect. She puts win-
dows where I have put doors: she alters stair-
cases into fireplaces, and fireplaces into staircases:
she has limes planted where I had settled on
elms: she has changed what I had made a vege-
table plot into a flower garden. Indoors, she has
done the work of a good fairy. Rags are be-
witched into tapestry: she has found out the
secret of furnishing Cirey out of nothing. She
will be engrossed in these occupations for several

38 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

days longer. I hope to have the honour of acting
as her post-boy to Neuville, having been her garden-
boy here. She bids me assure you and Mme.
de Champbonin how anxious she is to see you.
You may be sure I am not less impatient.

XV

ON THE " PUCELLE" AND THE "CENTURY
OF LOUIS XIV"

To the Abbe d' Olivet

[The Abbe d'Olivet, to whom this letter is ad-
dressed, had been Voltaire's tutor at the School
of Louis-1 e-Grand and remained his friend for
more than fifty years.

" The Pucelle" was Voltaire's ribald, versified
history of Joan of Arc: "my Jeanne" as he often
called it, and at once the plague and pleasure of
his life: "the epic he was fitted for," said Edward
Fitzgerald, "poor in invention, I think, but won-
derful for easy wit." Begun in 1730, it soon be-
came a source of danger: cantos, read aloud to
a few delighted friends in the Cirey bathroom,
mysteriously found their way into print. In
1755 an incorrect edition was published in Paris,

ON THE "PUCELLE" 39

and was publicly burnt there and at Geneva,
its printer being rewarded with nine years at the
galleys. The author himself— though he often
had occasion to allude to it as "that cursed
'Pucelle'" — never suffered anything worse than
frights from it. The year 1762 saw its first
authorized publication.

" The Century of Louis XIV" was chiefly written
at Cirey, the amassing of material taking its author
years of joyful labour, but it did not appear till
1 75 1. It was immediately prohibited, "because
I have spoken the truth," wrote Voltaire to his
English friend Falkener. Its incomparable verve
and spirit further offended a government which
had not only made up its mind that governments
ought never to be criticised, but that histories
ought always to be dull. It remains now, as
Condorcet declared it to be, the only readable
history of the age of the Roi Soleil.

The tragedy "The Death of Ccesar" was founded
on Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar. Voltaire himself,
if no one else, considered it to be an improve-
ment on its model. Its absence of love-interest
told against it with the male as well as the female
part of the audience, and it was unsuccessful.

"The tender 'Zaire'" was one of the earliest as
well as the most moving of Voltaire's tragedies,
and still in some measure keeps its popularity.]

40 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

ClREY, AugUSt 24, 1735.

You do not know, my dear Abbe, how sorry I
am that I have spent so much of my life without
the benefit of your conversation. You are the
man of whom I would like to have seen most, and
of whom 1 have seen least. Should I ever emerge
from my present happy retirement, I can answer
for it I shall make better use of my time. I love
the classics, and everything that is good in the
moderns, above anything society can offer. Give
me the pleasure of a little of your cultivation in
your letters until we meet again. What you call
my Ariosto is a trifle, not nearly so long as his.
I should have been ashamed to have devoted
thirty cantos to such rubbish. There are only
ten cantos in my Pucelle. So, you see, I am
two-thirds wiser than Ariosto. I regard these
trifles as interludes to my work. There is time
for everything if one likes to use it.

My chief occupation at present is that grand
Century of Louis XIV. Battles and revolutions
are the smallest part of the plan : squadrons and
battalions conquering or being conquered, towns
taken and retaken, are common to all history:
the age of Louis XIV, so far as war and poli-
tics go, has no advantage over any other. They
are, as a matter of fact, less interesting than
during the time of the League and Charles V.

"CENTURY OF LOUIS XIV" 41

Take away the arts and the progress of the mind
from this age, and you will find nothing remarkable
left to attract the attention of posterity. So,
my dear Abbe, if you know of any source from
which I can get anecdotes of our arts and artists,
of any sort or kind, let me know. There will be
a place for everything.

I have already accumulated the building mate-
rials for this great structure. The Memoirs of
Fathers Niceron and Desmolets are among the
briefest of my authorities. I enjoy even sharpen-
ing my tools. It is an amusement to collect the
materials: I find something useful in every book.
You know that a painter sees things differently
from other people: he notes effects of light and
shade which escape ordinary eyes. That is
my case: I have appointed myself painter
of the century of Louis XIV, and look at
everything from that point of view — like
La Fleche, who turned everything to his own
advantage.

Did you know that I staged, a little while ago,
at the College d'Harcourt, a certain Death of
Ccesar, a tragedy quite after my heart, without
a woman in it? It contains some verses such
as people wrote sixty years ago. I should
much like you to see it. It is of a Ro-
man severity. All the young women think it

42 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

horrible: and cannot recognise in it the author
of the tender Zaire.

XVI

ON FREE-THINKING IN PRINCES

To Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia

[In August, 1736, Voltaire had begun a correspon-
dence, and one of the most famous and chequered
friendships in history, with the young prince who
became Frederick the Great of Prussia.

All Voltaire's early letters to his royal protege
evince the glamour and fascination which, despite
his astute, cool, and cynical mind, not seldom
possessed his heart: and he honestly overrated
the talents of this brilliant young heir-apparent,
as he constantly overrated (it is one of the gen-
erous weaknesses of genius) the acquirements of
more ordinary people. As for the flattery, the
convenances of the time demanded plenty of it:
Voltaire's was at least very skilfully administered :
and, in this letter as in all he wrote, if back and
knee are supple, there is no cringing of the heart
of the man who was so little of a flatterer that he
spent three parts of his life in exile for telling his
countrymen unpalatable truths.

ON FREE-THINKING IN PRINCES 43

"Keyserlingk" or Kaiserling was Prince Fred-
erick's social ambassador, a lively young Prussian
with a pretty talent for writing French verse.

"Newton's Philosophy" was the book which later
appeared under the title of Elements of Newton's
Philosophy and in which Voltaire and Mme. du
Chatelet translated and simplified the Newtonian
system for the benefit of the French people.]

Cirey, July, 1737.

I am quite overwhelmed, sir, with so many
favours — M. de Keyserlingk's visit, the portrait
of your Royal Highness, the second part of Wolff's
Metaphysics, de Beausobre's Dissertation, and,
above all, the charming letter you so graciously
wrote me from Ruppin on July 6th. With
such advantages, I can cheerfully support
the fever and languor which are sapping my
strength: and I find it possible to suffer and be
happy.

Your ambassador has recovered from his gout:
we are about to lose him, and shall greatly miss,
as we shall always remember, him when he returns
to his beloved prince, whose supremacy he has
thoroughly established in all hearts here. He
takes with him my little tribute — all I have. It
is said there are tyrants who rob their subjects.

44 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

but good subjects freely give their all to good
sovereigns.

I therefore send in a small parcel as much as
I have as yet done of the Century of Louis XIV,
a few verses which were printed at the end of the
Henriade and which are full of faults, and some
trifles in philosophy. ... I should willingly
have added the Pucelle, but, as your ambassador
will tell you, that is impossible. For a year Mme.
du Chatelet has never let it out of her sight. The
friendship with which she honours me will not
permit me to risk what might separate me from
her for ever: she has given up everything to live
with me in the bosom of solitude and study: she
knows that the smallest proof of the existence of
such a work would certainly raise a storm. She
dreads any such accident. She knows that M. de
Keyserlingk was under observation at Strasbourg
when he came, and will be when he returns; that
he is a marked man and may be searched; above
all, she is quite sure you would not wish your two
subjects of Cirey to risk ruin for a joke in verse.
Your Royal Highness would find that little poem
of rather a different kind from the "History of
Louis XIV" and "Newton's Philosophy"! Sed
duke est desipere in loco.

Woe to philosophers who cannot laugh away
their learned wrinkles! I look on solemnity as a

ON FREE-THINKING IN PRINCES 45

disease: I had rather a thousand times be as
feeble and feverish as I am now than think lu-
gubriously. It seems to me that morality, study,
and gaiety are three sisters who should never be
separated: they are your servants; I take them
as my mistresses.

Your great mind estimates metaphysics very
highly, and I do not hesitate to put before you
my doubts on the matter, and to beg from your
royal hands a thread to guide me through the
labyrinth. You can hardly understand, sir, what
a consolation it is for Mme. du Chatelet and my-
self to find you so true a philosopher, and so good
a hater of superstition. If most kings have
encouraged it in their dominions it was from
ignorance and because they did not know that
priests are their greatest enemies.

Is there indeed a single example in the history
of the world of priests having promoted a good
understanding between kings and their subjects?
Do we not see, on the contrary, that it is always
the priests who raise the standard of discord and
rebellion? Was it not the Scotch Presbyters
who began that unhappy civil war which cost
Charles I — who was a good man — his life? Was
it not a monk who assassinated Henri IV, King
of France ? Is not Europe still full of the results
of ecclesiastical ambition : of bishops who become

46 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

first princes and then your equals in the electorate :
of a bishop of Rome forcing the hand of emperors :
are these not proofs strong enough ?

As for me, when I think how weak and fool-
ish mankind is, I am only surprised that, in the
dark ages, the Popes did not set up an universal
monarchy.

I am persuaded that now only a monarch can
crush the seeds of religious hatred and ecclesiastical
discord in his kingdom. But he must be an hon-
est man, not priest-ridden; for, fools though they
are, men know very well in their hearts that good-
ness is better than religious observance. Under a
sanctimonious king his subjects are hypocrites:
a king who is an honest man makes his people as
himself.

Your noble character encourages me thus to
think aloud to your Royal Highness. I have just
had a conversation with M. Keyserlingk which
has further quickened my ardour and my admira-
tion for you. My only misfortune is that my
health is so feeble that I shall most likely never
be a personal witness of the good you do and the
great example you set. Happy they who will see
those great days, who with their own eyes will
witness the reign of glory and prosperity! But
I shall at least have enjoyed the favours of the
philosopher-prince, and the first-fruits of his soul.

GOD, THE SOUL, INNATE MORALITY 47

XVII

ON GOD, THE SOUL, AND INNATE
MORALITY

To Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia

[Three things are always conspicuous in Voltaire
when he treats of grave subjects — the extreme
neatness and clearness of his ideas, their rapid
sequence, and the tincture of levity that inevitably
creeps in somewhere. Joubert said that Voltaire
was never serious. It would be truer to say he
was never reverent.

The paper "On Liberty " was enclosed.}

Grey, October, 1737.

. . . You bid me, sir, give you an account of
my metaphysical doubts. I therefore take the
liberty of sending you an extract from a paper
On Liberty. Your Royal Highness will find it
honest, even if ignorant: would to God all the
ignorant were as truthful !

Perhaps the idea I am always pursuing, that
there is neither vice nor virtue: that neither pun-
ishment nor reward is necessary: that society
would be (especially among philosophers) an inter-
change of wickedness and hypocrisy if man had
not full and absolute liberty — perhaps, I say, this

48 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

opinion has led me too far in this work. But if
you find errors in my judgment, forgive them for
the sake of the principle which gave them birth.

I always reduce, so far as I can, my metaphysics
to morality. I have honestly sought, with all
the attention of which I am capable, to gain some
definite idea of the human soul, and I own that the
result of all my researches is ignorance. I find
a principle — thinking, free, active — almost like
God Himself: my reason tells me that God exists:
but it also tells me that I cannot know what He is.

Is it indeed likely that we should know what our
soul is, when we can form no idea of light if we
have had the misfortune to be born blind? I see
then, with regret, that all that has been written
about the soul teaches us nothing at all.

After my vain groping to discover its nature, my
chief aim has been to try at least to regulate it:
it is the mainspring of our clock. All Descartes'
fine ideas on its elasticity tell me nothing of the
nature of the spring: I am ignorant even of the
cause of that flexibility : however, I wind up my
timepiece, and it goes passably well.

I examine man. We must see if, of whatsoever
materials he is composed, there is vice and virtue
in them. That is the important point with regard
to him — I do not say merely with regard to a
certain society living under certain laws: but for

GOD, THE SOUL, INNATE MORALITY 49

the whole human race; for you, sir, who will one
day sit on a throne, for the wood-cutter in your
forest, for the Chinese doctor, and for the savage
of America. Locke, the wisest metaphysician
I know, while he very rightly attacks the theory
of innate ideas, seems to think that there is no
universal moral principle. I venture to doubt,
or rather, to elucidate the great man's theory on
this point. I agree with him that there is really
no such thing as innate thought: whence it obvi-
ously follows that there is no principle of morality
innate in our souls: but because we are not born
with beards, is it just to say that we are not born
(we, the inhabitants of this continent) to have
beards at a certain age ?

We are not born able to walk: but everyone,
born with two feet, will walk one day. Thus, no
one is born with the idea he must be just: but God
has so made us that, at a certain age, we all
agree to this truth.

It seems clear to me that God designed us
to live in society— just as He has given the
bees the instincts and the powers to make honey:
and as our social system could not subsist without
the sense of justice and injustice, He has given us
the power to acquire that sense. It is true that
varying customs make us attach the idea of justice
to different things. What is a crime in Europe

50 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

will be a virtue in Asia, just as German dishes do
not please French palates: but God has so made
Germans and French that they both like good
living. All societies, then, will not have the same
laws, but no society will be without laws. There-
fore, the good of the greatest number is the im-
mutable law of virtue, as established by all men
from Pekin to Ireland: what is useful to society will
be good for every country. This idea reconciles the
contradictions which appear in morality. Robbery
was permitted in Lacedannonia: why? because all
goods were held in common, and the man who
stole from the greedy who kept for himself what
the law gave to the public, was a social benefactor.
There are savages who eat men, and believe
they do well. I say those savages have the same
idea of right and wrong as ourselves. As we do,
they make war from anger and passion : the same
crimes are committed everywhere: to eat your
enemies is but an extra ceremonial. The wrong
does not consist in roasting, but in killing them:
and I dare swear there is no cannibal who believes
that he is doing right when he cuts his enemy's
throat. I saw four savages from Louisiana who
were brought to France in 1723. There was a
woman among them of a very gentle disposition.
I asked her, through an interpreter, if she had
ever eaten the flesh of her enemies and if she liked

MARRIAGE OF VOLTAIRE'S NIECES 51

it ; she answered, Yes. I asked her if she would
be willing to kill, or to have killed, any one of
her fellow-countrymen in order to eat him: she
answered, shuddering, visibly horrified by such
a crime. I defy the most determined liar among
travellers to dare to tell me that there is a com-
munity or a family where to break one's word is
laudable. I am deeply rooted in the belief that,
God having made certain animals to graze in
common, others to meet occasionally two and two,
rarely, and spiders to spin webs, each species has
the tools necessary for the work it has to do.

Put two men on the globe, and they will only call
good, right, just, what will be good for them both.
Put four, and they will only consider virtuous what
suits them all : and if one of the four eats his neigh-
bour's supper, or fights or kills him, he will cer-
tainly raise the others against him. And what is
true of these four men is true of the universe. . . .

XVIII

ON THE MARRIAGE OF VOLTAIRE'S
NIECES

To M. Theriot

[These nieces were the daughters of Voltaire's
sister Catherine, Mme. Mignot, to whom he had

52 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

been so deeply attached. The elder, Louise, who
eventually became Mme. Denis and no small
factor in her uncle's life, he is proposing in this
letter to marry to a relative of his Cirey neigh-
bour, Mme. de Champbonin. This -parti — and the
prospect of living in "our little earthly Paradise"
near Cirey — Louise declined, preferring M. Denis
and Paris. The younger sister also preferred to
choose her husbands herself, and became suc-
cessively Mme. de Fontaine and the Marquise de
Florian.]

December 21, 1737.

I hasten, my dear friend, to reply to your letter
of the 1 8th, regarding my niece. You tell Mme.
du Chatelet that you think I am considering the
interests of the gentleman for whom I design her
rather than those of my niece herself.

I think I am considering the interests of them
both, just as I am considering my own, in try-
ing to have near me a person to whom I am at-
tached by the ties of blood and friendship, and
whom I find both intelligent and accomplished. I
have discovered also a modest little property, suit-
able to a gentleman and lucrative, which my niece
would be able to buy, and which would belong to
her personally.

MARRIAGE OF VOLTAIRE'S NIECES 53

I do not know the younger sister so well, but
when it comes to settling her in her turn, I shall do
all that is in my power for her. If my elder niece
were content with the country and would like
some day to have her sister near her: if this sister
would prefer being mistress of a chateau to a
poor townswoman in Paris, I should like nothing
better than to see her also married in our little
earthly Paradise. When all is said and done,
they are the only family I have: I shall be only
too happy to become fond of them. I have to
remember that I shall grow old and infirm, and
that then it will be very comforting to have rela-
tives attached to me by gratitude.

If they marry bourgeois of Paris, I am tneir
very humble servant, but they are lost to me.
An old maid's is a wretched state. Princesses
of the blood can hardly endure a condition so
unnatural. We are born to have children. There
are only a few fools of philosophers — we being of
their number — who can decently make themselves
exceptions to the rule.

I can assure you, I purpose nothing but Mdlle.
Mignot's happiness, but she must take the same
view of it as I do: as for you, who are forced to
make other people's happiness — it is part of
your role to add to hers. . . . My warmest
regards.

54 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

XIX

ON A QUIET LIFE AND A FIT OF
DISCOURAGEMENT

To Mdlle. Quinault

[Mdlle. Quinault, a charming actress, chiefly
of light comedy, was also a witty and cultivated
woman of the world. She had suggested to Vol-
taire the subject of his play the Prodigal Son
and herself played a part in it. She retired from
the boards when she was forty, in 1741, but lived
until 1783 — gay, sociable, delightful, to the
end.

" Those Italian mountebanks." Voltaire's plays
were parodied by an Italian company at the Foire
theatre.

"Decried by bigots and looked down upon at
Court." Voltaire himself well described the status
of the actor in France in the eighteenth century
as "paid by the King and excommunicated by
the Church . . . commanded by the King to
play every evening, and by the Church forbidden
to do so at all. If they do not play, they are put
into prison : if they do, they are spurned into the
gutter. ... It must be allowed we are a most
reasonable and consistent nation." In 1730, the
fate of Adrienne Le Couvreur, the great tragic

A QUIET LIFE AND DISCOURAGEMENT 55

actress, who was refused Christian burial and
taken without the city at night, to be "thrown
into the kennel like a dead dog," had stirred him
to passionate rage and pity and to his touching
Poem on her Death, and rankled in his soul for
ever.

" The Abbe Desfontaines," with whom Voltaire
was engaged in a bitter and famous quarrel (see
Letter XXI, "On Treachery").

" Zamore " and "Alzire," characters in Voltaire's
tragedies.

Grey, August 16, 1738.

I am far from sure that I have not finally aban-
doned the dangerous longing to be judged by the
public. There comes a time, my dear Thalia,
when the love of repose and the charms of a quiet
life carry all before them. Happy he who knows
how to escape early the seductions of fame, the
storms of envy, the thoughtless judgments of
men!

I have only too much reason to repent of hav-
ing laboured for anything except peace. What
have I gained by twenty years' work? Nothing
but enemies. That is almost the only reward to
be expected from the cultivation of letters — con-
tempt if one does not succeed, and hatred if one
does. There is something degrading in success

56 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

itself when we are forced to encourage those Ital-
ian mountebanks to turn the serious into ridicule
and spoil good writing by buffoonery.

No one is better able than you to form an
opinion on the profession you adorn. But is not
your noble art just as much decried by bigots and
equally looked down upon at Court? Is less
contempt poured on a business which requires
intelligence, education, talent, than on a study and
art which teach only morality, decency, and the
virtues ?

I have always been indignant for both you and
myself that work so difficult and so useful as ours
should be repaid by so much ingratitude, but now
my indignation has turned to despair. I shall
never reform the abuses of the world : I had better
give up trying. The public is a ferocious beast:
one must chain him up or flee from him. Chains
I have none, but I know the secret of retirement.
I have found out the blessedness of quiet — which
is true happiness. Shall I leave it to be torn to
pieces by the Abbe Desfontaines and to be sacri-
ficed by the Italian buffoons to the malignity of
the public and the laughter of the rabble ? I ought
rather to persuade you to leave an ungrateful
profession, that you may no more incite me to
expose myself on the boards. I must add to all
I have just said that I find it impossible to work

A QUIET LIFE AND DISCOURAGEMENT 57

well in my present state of discouragement. I
require to be intoxicated with self-approval and
enthusiasm — a wine I have mixed, and now no
longer care to drink.

Only you have the power to inebriate me afresh :
but though you have a pious zeal to make converts,
you will find plenty of more suitable subjects in
Paris — younger, bolder, cleverer.

Seductive Thalia, leave me in peace! I shall
love you just as much as if I owed to your energies
the success of a couple of plays a year. Do not
tempt me: do not fan a flame I would fain extin-
guish: do not abuse your power! Your letter
very nearly made me think of a plot for a tragedy :
a second letter, and I shall be writing verses.
Leave me my senses, I entreat you. Alas! I
have so few! Goodbye; the little black dogs
present their compliments. We call one Zamore
and the other Alzire. What names! everything
suggests tragedy.

No one is more tenderly attached to you than

I am.

V.

Mme. du Chatelet's kindest regards. Once
again, Mademoiselle, only warmest remem-
brances.

58 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

XX

ON THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH

To the Abbe le Blanc

[The Abbe le Blanc had published a work on
England, which he knew well.]

Cirey, November n, 1738.

You have, sir, a thousand claims on my esteem
and friendship — you are an Englishman, you
are the author of Ab ens aid, you are a lover of
truth and of the arts, and you have chastised the
Abbe Desfontaines. I do not doubt that you
have improved your talents by your study of
that language in which some of the noblest of
human thoughts have found expression. You
must have felt freer and more at ease in London,
for it is there Nature produces the virile beauties
which owe nothing to art. Grace, correctness,
charm, acuteness are the characteristics of France.
... I believe that an Englishman who thoroughly
knows France, and a Frenchman who thoroughly
knows England, are both the better for that
knowledge. You, sir, are especially formed to
•unite the merits of the country you have visited
to those of your own motherland. . . .

ON TREACHERY 59

XXI
ON TREACHERY

To M. Theriot

[Since 1735 Voltaire had been engaged in a
passionate war of words with Desfontaines — ex-
abbe, journalist, and a person of scurrilous reputa-
tion, whom Voltaire had loaded with benefits
and from whom he had received nothing but inju-
ries. Finally, Desfontaines, out of malice pre-
pense, published in a weekly Parisian newspaper
which he edited, some verses, written by Alga-
rotti — Italian savant, friend of Prince Frederick,
and visitor at Cirey — in which the real relation-
ship between Voltaire and Mme. du Chatelet
stood confessed. Voltaire, stung to defend the
honour of his mistress, attacked Desfontaines in
a cutting pamphlet, the Preservatif; which
Desfontaines answered by his Voltairomanie —
"the howl of a mad dog" — falling on Voltaire's
past and present with an unclean fury. In it,
Desfontaines cited Theriot, Voltaire's oldest
friend and literary confidant, as having totally
denied a statement which Voltaire had made in
the Preservatif to the effect that Theriot had
seen a libel Desfontaines had written against
his benefactor — Voltaire being thus declared a

60 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

liar. In the following letter he appeals to The-
riot — a lazy and worthless person whom Voltaire
made his usual mistake of overestimating — to
speak up like a man and right the wrong. In
the sequel, some sort of public retractation was
wrung out of him : Voltaire brought a suit against
Desfontaines and won it: and Theriot was for-
given and restored to a friendship and favour he
was far from deserving.

"His Royal Highness" was, of course, Prince
Frederick of Prussia; Voltaire had asked of him
a pension for Theriot.

" The League" — the Henriade.

"M. d'Argental" — the Comte d'Argental, a
school, and lifelong, friend of Voltaire. He com-
monly spoke of d'Argental and his wife as his
"guardian angels."]

Cirey, January 2, 1739.

Twenty years ago, my dear friend, I became
a public man through my books; as such, it is
my duty to reply to public calumnies.

For twenty years I have been your friend,
bound to you by the closest ties. Your reputation
is much to me, as, I am quite sure, mine is to you ;
and my letters to his Royal Highness prove that
I have faithfully discharged that sacred duty of
friendship — to promote the welfare of one's friends.

ON TREACHERY 61

To-day a man, universally hated for his crimes,
a man justly reproached with ingratitude towards
me, dares to treat me as an impudent liar when
he is accused of publishing a libel on me — as a
reward for my kindness to him. He cites your
testimony, asserts in print that you deny your
friend and are ashamed of him.

It was from you alone that I learnt that the
Abbe Desfontaines, when he was in the Bicetre,
wrote a libel on me: from you alone I learnt
that this libel was of an abominably malicious
character, and entitled The Apology of Sieur
Voltaire. Not only did you speak of it to us
when you stayed at Cirey, in the presence of the
Marquis du Chatelet, who confirms my words,
but, in looking through your letters, this is what
I read in that of August 16, 1726:

"That scoundrel, the Abbe Desfontaines, is al-
ways trying to embroil me with you : he says you
have never spoken of me to him save in outrageous
terms, etc.

"His only income is four hundred livres: but
he earns more than a thousand ecus a year by his
lies and treacheries. In his Bicetre days he wrote
a satirical work against you, which I made him
put into the fire : and it was he who published an
edition of the 'League' in which he had inserted
malicious lines of his own."

62 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

I have other letters from you in which you speak
of him as strongly.

How comes it, then, that he has the impudence
to say that you disavow what you have both
said and written to me many times? That he
should deny a treachery he himself confessed to
me, for which he asked my pardon, and into which
he fell a second time, is to be expected from his
character: but that he should bring against me
the authenticated testimony of my friend and,
in order to prove me a calumniator, libel me by
your lips — can you bear it ?

This is a case in which honour is at stake.
You intervene in it as a witness; as a part, a half
of myself. The public is judge: the documents
must be laid before it. You surely will not say:
"This quarrel is nothing to do with me. I am a
private person, who wishes to live in peace and
ease. I shall not commit myself." Those who
give you such advice wish you to do a deed of
which your soul is incapable. Surely, it shall
never be said that you have betrayed me, that
you disavow your word, your signature, and the
common knowledge: that you abandon the hon-
our (so closely allied to your own) of your friend
of twenty years. And for what? For a scoundrel
who has earned public reprobation, for your very
enemy, for a man who has insulted you a hun-

ON TREACHERY 63

dred times, and whose dishonouring abuse of
you is actually in print in his Dictionary of New
Words.

What would be the surprise and indignation of
the Prince Royal, whose kindness to me is so
marked, and who has himself deigned to testify
in writing the horror with which the Abbe Des-
fontaines inspires him? What would be the feel-
ings of Mme. du Chatelet, of all my friends— I
venture to say, of the world ? Consult M. d'Argen-
tal: ask of your own age: if it be possible, look
into the next — look, I say, and see if it will then
be better for you to have abandoned your friend
and the truth for Desfontaines, and to be more
afraid of fresh insults from that wretch than the
shame of being publicly false to friendship, to truth,
to the most sacred of social obligations. No ! you
will never have to reproach yourself thus.

You will show that strength and nobility of
soul which I expect from you : even the honour of
openly taking the part of a friend will not enter
into your calculations. Friendship alone will
prompt you. T am sure of it, and my heart tells
me that yours will respond. Friendship alone,
without any other consideration, will win the
day. Friendship and truth must triumph over
hatred and perfidy.

It is with these feelings, and in these sure

64 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

hopes, that I bid you farewell with more than
common tenderness.

XXII
HOW TO WRITE VERSE

To M. Helvetius

[Helvetius was to become the author of one of
the most famous books of the eighteenth century,
On the Mind (De V Esprit), whose frank material-
ism, adorned by the most easy and entertaining
style, disgusted even that materialistic age, and
particularly disgusted Voltaire. At the date of
this letter, however, Helvetius was only twenty-
four, a young man about town, gallant, delightful,
just made Farmer-General, and seeking to woo
fame by rhymed Epistles on The Love of Study
and on Happiness. But not even the generous
encouragement and the careful and illuminating
criticism of a Voltaire could make those stilted
verses poetry, and Helvetius evidently waited till
he took to prose to profit by Voltaire's advice and
try to write simply instead of trying to write
finely.

Shortly after the date of this letter, he was a
guest at Cirey, and the friendship between him

HOW TO WRITE VERSE 65

and his monitor was confirmed: though to Vol-
taire, with his burning and active pity for the
oppressed, the Farmers-General — those extor-
tionate tax-gatherers of old France — were a class
wholly odious. But Helvetius, whose heart was
as much better than his profession as his mind was
above his book on it, used his office to plead in
high places for the poor, and in 175 1 renounced
it, proving "he was not insatiable like the rest of
them."

When, in 1759, On the Mind was burnt by the
public hangman in company with Voltaire's poem
On Natural Law, though he had soundly hated
(and roundly abused) Helvetius' masterpiece,
he fought for its right to live, tooth and nail, up
hill and down dale, on the essentially Voltairean
principle: "I wholly disapprove of what you say
— and will defend to the death your right to say
it-"]

Cirey, February 25, 1739.

My dear friend — the friend of Truth and the
Muses — your Epistle is full of bold reasoning
in advance of your age, and still more in advance
of those craven writers who rhyme for the book-
sellers and restrict themselves within the compass
of a royal censor, who is either jealous of them, or
more cowardly than they are themselves.

66 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

What are they but miserable birds, with their
wings close clipped,, who, longing to soar, are
for ever falling back to earth, breaking their legs!
You have a fearless genius, and your work sparkles
with imagination. I much prefer your generous
faults to the mediocre prettinesses with which we
are cloyed. If you will allow me to tell you where
I think you can improve yourself in your art, I
should say: Beware, lest in attempting the grand,
you overshoot the mark and fall into the grandiose:
only employ true similes: and be sure always to
use exactly the right word.

Shall I give you an infallible little rule for verse ?
Here it is. When a thought is just and noble,
something still remains to be done with it: see if
the way you have expressed it in verse would be
effective in prose : and if your verse, without the
swing of the rhyme, seems to you to have a word
too many — if there is the least defect in the con-
struction — if a conjunction is forgotten — if, in
brief, the right word is not used, or not used in
the right place, you must then conclude that the
jewel of your thought is not well set. Be quite
sure that lines which have any one of these faults
will never be learnt by heart, and never re-read:
and the only good verses are those which one re-
reads and remembers, in spite of oneself. There
are many of this kind in your "Epistle" — lines

THE SAME SUBJECT, AND BOILEAU 67

which no one else in this generation can write
at your age — such as were written fifty years
ago.

Do not be afraid, then, to bring your talents to
Parnassus; they will undoubtedly redound to
your credit because you never neglect your duties
for them: they are themselves very pleasant
duties. Surely, those your position demand of
you must be very uncongenial to such a nature
as yours. They are as much routine as looking
after a house, or the housebook of one's steward.
Why should you be deprived of liberty of thought
because you happen to be a farmer-general?
Attlcus was a farmer-general, the old Romans
were farmers-general, and they thought — as
Romans. Go ahead, Atticus.

XXIII
ON THE SAME SUBJECT, AND ON BOILEAU

To M. Helvetius

[Boileau-Despreaux, the seventeenth century poet
and critic, was remarkable, as Voltaire here says,
for doing excellently well, in a limited sphere.
His neat, regular, and vigorous lines remind one of
Pope, who imitated Boileau's masterpiece VArt

68 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Poetique in his Essay on Criticism, and Boileau's
Lutrin in the Rape of the Lock.]

Brussels, June 20, 1741.

I greatly reproach myself for my laziness, my
dear friend, but I have been for a whole month
so unworthily occupied in prose that I hardly
dare write to you of verse. My imagination is
weighed down by studies which are to poetry
what dark and dusty old furniture is to a gaily-lit
ballroom. I must shake off the dust to reply to
you.

You have written to me a letter in which I re-
cognise your genius. You find Boileau fairly
clever: I agree with you that he has neither sublim-
ity nor a very brilliant imagination; but he has
done exceedingly well what he could do, and what
he set out to do. He has put good sense into
melodious verse; he is clear, logical, easy, and
agreeable in his transitions; he never soars high,
or falls low. His subjects are not suitable for
the dignified treatment yours deserve. You have
realised what your talent is, just as he realised
his. You are a philosopher, you see everything
life-size, your brush is bold and big. So far,
nature has made you (I say it in all sincerity)
greatly Despreaux's superior: but your talents,
fine as they are, will be nothing without his. You

THE SAME SUBJECT, AND BOILEAU 69

have so much the more need of his correctness
because the breadth of your thoughts is less
tolerant of circumstriction. It is no trouble to
you to think, but much to write. I shall therefore
never cease to preach to you that art of writing
which Despreaux knew and taught so well, the
respect for our language, the sequence of ideas,
the easy manner in which he carries his reader
with him, the naturalness which is the result of
art, and the appearance of ease which involves
such hard work. A word out of place spoils the
finest thought. Boileau's ideas — I confess it once
more — are never fine, but they are never ill set out :
so, to be better than he is, it is essential to begin
by writing as clearly and correctly.

No false steps can be permitted in your stately
measure : in a little minuet they would not matter.
You sparkle with precious stones; his dress is sim-
ple but well made. Your diamonds must be in
good order lest your diadem shame you. Send
me then, dear friend, something which is as well
worked out as it is nobly conceived : do not dis-
dain to be at once the owner of the mine and the
gold digger. You know, by my writing to you
thus, how great an interest I feel in your re-
putation, and that of the arts. Your last visit
has doubled my regard for you. It really looks
as if I should stop writing verses, and content

7 o VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

myself with admiring yours. Mme. du Chatelet,
who has written to you, sends kindest regards.
Goodbye, yours for ever.

XXIV
ON BRITISH TOLERANCE

To M. Cesar de Missy

[M. de Missy was the chaplain of the French
Church of St. James's in London.

Voltaire's tragedy, Fanaticism, or Mahomet
the Prophet, had been produced on August 19th
of the year 1742 to a crowded and enthusiastic
audience in Paris. But its attack upon bigotry
and intolerance was indeed, as the author himself
said, too outspoken for the French authorities,
who, without reading a line of it, declared it
"infamous, wicked, irreligious, blasphemous," and
after four performances demanded its withdrawal.
Voltaire, wholly disgusted, left Paris for Brus-
sels with Mme. du Chatelet on August 29th, and
spent his time there in sitting up in bed — for he
was ill, as usual — making a fair and correct copy
of the play to send to Frederick (by now King
Frederick of Prussia) and in writing to M. Cesar
de Missy.]

ON BRITISH TOLERANCE 71

Brussels, September I, 1742.

I found, sir, on my return to Brussels, a very
welcome letter from you: to which I only reply
in vile prose, in order that you may have it the
sooner. I do not know if the country you have
adopted as yours has become the enemy of the
one which chance of birth made mine: but I do
know that minds which think like yours are all
my countrymen and my friends. I beg you then,
sir, to prove your friendship by sending me as
much of the Universal History as has so far
appeared in English. . . .

A little while ago a small edition of my works
was published in Paris, under the title of the Gene-
van edition; publishers, Bousquet; it is the least
incorrect and the most complete I have seen.
I have ordered some copies, and shall have the
honour of sending you one.

If any publisher in London likes to reprint them,
I will send him corrected proofs, in good order,
accompanied by some curious little papers which
have not yet appeared: above all, by my trag-
edy of Mahomet, or Fanaticism, which is a
great Tartufe, so the fanatics have stopped its
being played in Paris, just as the pious tried to
smother the other "Tartuffe" at his birth. My
tragedy is suited, I believe, rather to English
heads than French hearts. Paris found it too

72 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

daring, because it is strong: and dangerous, because
it is truthful. I tried to show in it into what
horrible excesses fanaticism, led by an impostor,
can plunge weak minds.

My piece represents, under the guise of Mahomet,
the Prior of the Jacobins giving the dagger to
Jacques Clement, who is further incited to that
crime by his mistress. The author of the Henri-
ade was recognized in the work; and he must
be persecuted: for he loves truth and humankind.
It is only in London that poets are allowed to be
philosophers.

My compliments to M. Nancy, from whom I
have received a letter. Farewell, sir: you may
depend on my gratitude and affection.

XXV

ON CORNEILLE AND RACINE

To M. de Vauvenargues

[Vauvenargues, who became the famous author
of some of the wisest and most delicately beautiful
maxims even in the French language — that lan-
guage of the maxim par excellence — was at the
date of this letter a handsome young soldier of

MONTESQUIEU, AUTHOR OF "LESLETTRES PERSANES " AND "l'eSPRIT

DESLOIS."

From the portrait by Benoisl

ON CORNEILLE AND RACINE 73

eight and twenty, who had been with Marshal
Villars on his last Italian campaign, and in Bohe-
mia with Belle-Isle, where in 1742 he had endured
with his regiment all the horrors of the great mid-
winter march from Prague to Egra. He returned
to Paris with his health utterly ruined: but
purposing not the less to rejoin his regiment in
Germany, which purpose he effected, and fought
at Dettingen. It was during this interlude in
Paris that he introduced himself to Voltaire in a
letter in which he expressed his preference for
Racine over Corneille.

After the campaign of '42, when Vauvenargues
had become a complete invalid, their friendship
was resumed: and it was on Voltaire's advice that
Vauvenargues took up literature as a profession,
and so gave the world that slender volume, con-
taining only the Maxims and a few Counsels and
Reflections, which in its strong sense, serenity,
courage, and sweetness remains for ever the
noblest inspiration to Do What One Can. To
the last a most patient sufferer, his life ended
at the early age of thirty-two: Voltaire's re-
spect and reverence for him died only with his
own death.

"The Persian Letters" — Les Lettres Persanes —
were the first great literary success of the famous
Montesquieu, the celebrated writer on law and

74 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

politics. Though extremely lively and satirical,
the Letters are not without the weightier ob-
servations which distinguish the later work by
which .Montesquieu chiefly lives, V Esprit des Lois
(see Letter LVI, "A Profession of Faith")- The
judgment of posterity has confirmed Voltaire's that
Montesquieu's "little book on the Decadence
of the Romans" was a far more solid and able
work than The Persian Letters.]

Paris, April 15, 1743.

I had the honour to tell the Due de Duras yester-
day that I had just received a letter from a wit
and a philosopher, who was at the same time
captain in the King's Regiment. He at once
guessed it must be M. de Vauvenargues. It would
indeed be very difficult to find two persons capa-
ble of writing such a letter, and, since I have
known what taste is, I have seen nothing so deli-
cate and so thoughtful as the words you have sent
me.

There were not four men in the last century
who dared to confess that Corneille was often
nothing but a declaimer: you, sir, feel and express
this fact as a man of truth and enlightenment. I
am not surprised that a mind as sagacious and

ON CORNEILLE AND RACINE 75

critical as yours should prefer the art of Racine
— his eloquent wisdom (always the master of his
feelings) which makes him say what is to be said
as it ought to be said : but, at the same time, I am
persuaded that the same good taste, which has
made you feel the superiority of the art of Racine,
must make you admire the genius of Corneille,
who created tragedy in a barbarous age. Inven-
tors take, most rightly, the highest rank in fame.

The beautiful scene of Horace and Curiace,
the two charming scenes from the Cid, much of
Cinna, the part of Severe, almost all Pauline's, and
half the last act of Rodogune, would bear com-
parison with Athalie even if they had been written
to-day. How then should we regard them when
we consider the times in which Corneille wrote?
I have always said: In domo patris mei mansiones
multce sunt. Moliere has not prevented me from
appreciating Destouches' Glorieux: Rhadamiste
has moved me even after Phedre. Such a man as
you, sir, should have preferences, but no exclu-
sions.

You are right, I think, to condemn the wise
Despreaux for comparing Voiture to Horace.
Voiture's reputation deserves to decline, because
he is hardly ever natural, and his few attractions
are of a trifling and frivolous" nature. But

76 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

there are sublime things in Corneille, in the
midst of his frigid reasoning; and sometimes
things so touching that he must needs be re-
spected with all his drawbacks. Leonardo da
Vinci is lovable even beside Titian and Paul
Veronese.

I am aware, sir, the public does not sufficiently
realise Corneille's faults: it mistakes some of them
for his few and exquisite beauties.

Time alone adjusts values: the ordinary reader
is always dazzled at first.

We began by being wildly enthusiastic over those
Persian Letters of which you were speaking, and
neglected the little Decadence of the Romans by the
same author. Now, however, all the best judges
acclaim the excellent good sense of the latter book,
at first despised, and think little of that imaginative
trifle, the Persian Letters, whose occasional daring
is its chief merit. The majority of critics fall in,
in the long run, with the opinions of the enlight-
ened few: you, sir, are made to lead that minority.
I am grieved that the soldier's career which you
have chosen keeps you from a city where I might
have benefited by your knowledge: but the
same just mind which makes you prefer the
restraint of Racine to the exuberance of
Corneille, and the wisdom of Locke to the
wordiness of Bayle, will serve you well in your

CRITICISING A CRITIC 77

own profession, as everywhere and in every-
thing. . . .

Voltaire.

XXVI
CRITICISING A CRITIC

To M. Martin Kahle

1744.
I am very pleased to hear, sir, that you have
written a little book against me. You do me too
much honour. On page 17 you reject the proof,
from final causes, of the existence of God. If you
had argued thus at Rome, the reverend father and
governor of the Holy Palace would have condemned
you to the Inquisition: if you had written thus
against a theologian of Paris, he would have had
your proposition censured by the sacred faculty:
if against a devout person, he would have abused
you : but I have the honour to be neither a Jesuit,
nor a theologian, nor a devotee. I shall leave you
to your opinion, and shall remain of mine. I shall
always be convinced that a watch proves a watch-
maker, and that the universe proves a God. I hope
that you yourself understand what you say con-
cerning space and eternity, the necessity of matter,

78 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

and preordained harmony: and I recommend you
to look once more at what / said, finally, in the new
edition, where I earnestly endeavoured to make
myself thoroughly understood — and in metaphysics
that is no easy task.

You quote, a propos of space and infinity, the
Medea of Seneca, the Philippics of Cicero, and
the Metamorphoses of Ovid; also the verses of
the Duke of Buckingham, of Gombaud, Regnier,
and Rapin. I must tell you, sir, I know at least
as much poetry as you do: that I am quite as
fond of it: that if it comes to capping verses we
shall see some very pretty sport: only I do not
think them suitable to shed light on a meta-
physical question, be they Lucretius' or the Car-
dinal de Polignac's.

Furthermore, if ever you understand anything
about preordained harmony — if you discover
how, under the law of necessity, man is free, you
will do me a service if you will pass on the
information to me. When you have shown, in
verse or otherwise, why so many men cut their
throats in the best of all possible worlds, I shall be
exceedingly obliged to you.

I await your arguments, your verses, and your
abuse : and assure you from the bottom of my heart
that neither you nor I know anything about the
matter. I have the honour to be, etc.

ON THE BLIND 79

XXVII
ON THE BLIND

To M. Diderot

[Diderot — the brilliant ne'er-do-weel of the philo-
sophic party and, to be, the hot-headed and hot-
hearted instigator of the great Encyclopaedia, the
book "that was all books" — in 1749 wrote his
famous Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who
See and sent it to Voltaire as the chief of that party
of which his own Philosophical Thoughts, published
four years earlier, had proclaimed him a member.
Voltaire's letter in reply reveals his own deism,
as it reveals Diderot's atheism, and explains the
meaning of the jesting epithet " cagot " = bigot
— which Diderot so often applied to Voltaire.
Diderot's Letter contained unfortunately a sneer
at the expense of a fine lady, the chere amie of
a minister of state, and so presently imprisoned him
in Vincennes : from whence Mme. du Chatelet (who
was a near relation of the governor of the fortress),
urged by Voltaire, speedily obtained his release.
Diderot, though he was Voltaire's correspondent
for twenty-nine years, never saw him until
1778, when Voltaire was on his last triumph-
ant visit to Paris, and Diderot was himself growing
old.

80 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

" The book I send you" was the Elements of New-
tons Philosophy.

" Saunders on, who denies a God because he was
born sightless," was the subject of a successful
operation for cataract which had inspired Diderot's
Letter, Diderot himself being of the opinion that,
to a man born blind, atheism was a natural religion.

"Before I leave Luneville," where Voltaire was
staying at the court of Stanislas, ex-King of
Poland.]

June, 1749.

I thank you, sir, for the profound and brilliant
work you have been so good as to send me: the
book I send you is neither the one nor the other,
but in it you will find the anecdote of the man born
blind set forth in greater detail than in the earlier
editions. I am entirely of your opinion as to what
you say respecting the judgment formed in such a
case by ordinary men of average good sense, and
that formed by philosophers. I am sorry that in
the examples you quote you have forgotten the
case of the blind who, receiving the gift of sight,
saw men as trees walking.

I have read your book with great pleasure. It
says much, and gives still more to be understood.
I have long honoured you as much as I despise the
stupid vandals who condemn what they do not

ON THE BLIND 81

understand, and the wicked who unite themselves
with the fools to denounce those who are trying to
enlighten them.

But I confess I am not at all of the opinion of
Saunderson, who denies a God because he was born
sightless. I am, perhaps, mistaken, but, in his
place, I should recognise a great Intelligence who
had given me so many substitutes for sight, and
perceiving, on reflection, the wonderful relations
between all things, I should have suspected a Work-
man, infinitely able. If it is very presumptuous to
pretend to divine what He is, and why He has made
everything that exists, so it seems to me very pre-
sumptuous to deny that He is.

I am exceedingly anxious to meet and talk with
you, whether you think yourself one of His works,
or a particle drawn, of necessity, from matter,
eternal and necessary. Whatever you are, you
are a worthy part of that great whole which I do
not understand.

I very much wish, before I leave Luneville, you
would do me the honour to join a philosophers'
feast at my table with a few other wise men. I am
not one myself, but I have a passion for them when
they are wise after your fashion. Rest assured, sir,
that I appreciate your merits, and that to render
them fuller justice I long to see you and assure you
etc., etc.

6

82 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

XXVIII
ON THE DEATH OF MME. DU CHATELET

To Mme. du Boccage

[Mme. du Boccage, a pretty and charming woman,
was greatly overrated as a poetess by almost all
her contemporaries, including Voltaire. "Your
translation of Milton" was her imitation of Paradise
Lost which she called Le Paradis Terrestre. Her
Letters, written on her travels, are much her best
performance. In 1758, she was Voltaire's guest at
Ferney.

In September, 1749, Mme. du Chatelet, with whom
Voltaire's connection had lasted for fifteen years,
died suddenly, in childbirth, at the Court of King
Stanislas at Luneville, while she, Voltaire, and the
Marquis de Saint Lambert, who was now her
lover, were on a visit there. Faithless to Voltaire
as she had been, that he sincerely and passionately
regretted her death and the loss of her clever and
stimulating companionship, the two following let-
ters bear evidence.

"A wretch named Roi. " Roi, or Roy, was a scur-
rilous old poet who, in 1745-6, jealous of Voltaire's
election to the French Academy, had burlesqued
and lampooned him; and whom Voltaire had not
been wise enough to treat with the silence of con-

MME. DU CHATELET 83

tempt. Roi saw in Mme. du Chatelet's death the
chance to sting afresh.]

Paris, October 12, 1749.

I have just arrived in Paris, madam: the great-
ness of my sorrow and my wretched health shall
not prevent my at once assuring you how deeply I
feel your kindness. A mind as noble as yours must
needs regret such a woman as Mme. du Chatelet.
She was an honour to her sex and to France. She
was to philosophy what you are to literature : and
although she had just translated and simplified
Newton — that is to say, done what, at most, three
or four men in France would have dared to attempt
— she also regularly cultivated, by reading lighter
books, the splendid intelligence which nature had
given her. Alas, madam! it was but four days
before her death that I re-read your tragedy with
her. We had also read together your translation
of Milton, with the original. You would regret
her yet more had you been present at this reading.
She rendered you justice : you had no more sincere
admirer. Just after her death there appeared a
feeble quatrain belauding her. People with neither
taste nor feeling ascribed it to me. Any one who
could suppose that in the depth of my grief I should
feel inclined to write verses on her must be himself
unworthy of friendship, or exceedingly light minded:

84 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

but what is much more horrible and culpable is that
a wretch, named Roi, has actually dared to lam-
poon her.

I know, madam, only one thing against your
character — to have been the object of that miser-
able creature's flattery. Society should unite to
exterminate him. Was not my misery great
enough, without that horror to crown it? Fare-
well, madam ....

XXIX

ON THE SAME SUBJECT

To M. d'Arnaud

[Baculard d'Arnaud was a conceited and very
mediocre young poet whom Voltaire had helped
with gifts of money and for whom he had procured
the post of Paris correspondent to King Frederick
the Great. For several years before the death of
Mme. du Chatelet Frederick had been trying to
tempt Voltaire from France to Potsdam: she suc-
cessfully opposed that desertion: but the phrase
in this letter, " I am very far from going to Prussia,"
certainly means, "I am not so far from it as I used
to be, " and Frederick was already endeavouring by
compliments and pensions to his protege, d'Arnaud,
to pique Voltaire to accept them for himself.]

ARRIVING IN PRUSSIA 85

Paris, October 14, 1749.

My dear boy, a woman who translated Virgil,
who translated and simplified Newton, and yet was
perfectly unassuming in conversation and manner:
a woman who never spoke ill of anyone and never
uttered a lie: a constant and fearless friend — in a
word, a great man, whom other women only
thought of in connection with diamonds and danc-
ing: for such a woman as this you cannot prevent
my grieving all my life. I am very far from going
to Prussia: I can hardly leave the house. I am
much touched by your kindness: I have need of
it. . . . Goodbye, my dear Arnaud.

XXX
ARRIVING IN PRUSSIA

To Mme. Denis

[Mme. Denis, Voltaire's niece, — now widowed, —
had come to keep his house for him in Paris after
the death of Mme. du Chatelet. Vulgar, lively,
good-natured — the very apotheosis of the common-
place — her uncle's toleration of her can only be ac-
counted for by the fact that genius, or even very
great talent, is nearly always generous to mediocrity :
and seems to use some of its own wits to discover

86 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

those of people usually credited with none. It
will be noticed in this letter that Voltaire tried his
best to entice his niece to follow him to Prussia:
whither he had gone at last, finally spurred to that
rash act by the fact that Baculard d'Arnaud was
in such high favour there that King Frederick —
astutely calculating the effect of such compliments
— had written the young gentleman a poem in
which Voltaire was alluded to as the setting, and
d'Arnaud as the rising, sun. "When a wise man
commits a folly, it is not a small one." In all
Voltaire's early letters from Prussia, he is, as it
were, trying to justify his folly in going there, and
to prove it wisdom. This letter was written about
a fortnight after his arrival.

"He treats Popes much better than pretty women."
Frederick's contempt of the sex was notorious.

"It is essential that the King, my master, should
consent." The King of France. Voltaire was
still his Gentleman-in-Ordinary. The story ran
that when Voltaire had asked permission of him
to visit King Frederick, Louis turned his back
and said indifferently, "You can go when you
please!"]

Charlottenburg, August 14, 1750.

This is the fact of the matter, my dear child.
The King of Prussia is making me his chamberlain,

ARRIVING IN PRUSSIA 87

and giving me one of his orders and a pension of
twenty thousand francs, and will settle one of four
thousand on you for life if you will come and keep
house for me in Berlin, as you do in Paris. You
had a very pleasant life at Landau with your hus-
band: I promise you that Berlin is worth many
Landaus, and has much better operas. Consider
the matter: consult your feelings. You may reply
that the King of Prussia must be singularly fond of
verses. It is true that he is a purely French writer
who happened to be born in Berlin. On considera-
tion, he has come to the conclusion that I shall be
of more use to him than d'Arnaud. I have forgiven
the gay little rhymes which his Prussian Majesty
wrote for my young pupil, in which he spoke of him
as the rising sun, extremely brilliant : and of me as
the setting sun, exceedingly feeble. He still some-
times scratches with one hand, while he caresses
with the other: but, so near him, I am not afraid.
If you consent, he will have both rising and setting
at his side, and in his high noon will be writing prose
and verse to his heart's content, now he has no
more battles on hand. I have but a short time to
live. Perhaps it will be pleasanter to die here at
Potsdam, in his fashion, than as an ordinary citizen
in Paris. You can go back there afterwards with
your four thousand francs pension. If these pro-
positions meet your views, you must pack your

88 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

boxes in the spring: and, at the end of the autumn,
I shall make a pilgrimage to Italy to see St.
Peter's at Rome, the Pope, the Venus of Medici,
and the buried city. It always lay heavy on my
conscience to die without having seen Italy. We
will rejoin each other in May. I have four verses
by the King of Prussia for His Holiness. It will
be very entertaining to take to the Pope four
French verses written by a German heretic, and to
bring back indulgences to Potsdam. You will see
he treats Popes much better than pretty women.
He wiU never write sonnets to you : but you would
have excellent company here and a good house.
First of all, it is essential that the King, my master,
should consent. I believe he will be perfectly in-
different. It matters little to a King of France
where the most useless of his twenty-two or twenty-
three million of subjects spends his life: but it would
be dreadful to live without you.

XXXI

FELICITY IN POTSDAM

To Mme. de Fontaine

[Mme. de Fontaine, Voltaire's younger niece, had
been married to M. de Fontaine in 1738.

" I can be much more useful to your brother. "

FELICITY IN POTSDAM 89

This was the Abbe Mignot— fat, good-natured,
ordinary.

Mahomet' has put me on such good terms with
the Pope." Voltaire, in a very astute letter, had
asked and obtained permission of His Holiness to
lay "a work against the founder of a false religion
at the feet of the chief of the true": and beheld
himself, with much cynical enjoyment, the protege
of Rome.

"/ shall be acting in 'Rome Sauvee' at Berlin."
Rome Sauvee, written in a fortnight at Luneville
to outvie the Catilina of Crebillon, — dismal old
rival playwright, — had been first performed before
a distinguished audience at Voltaire's house in
Paris, just before he left for Prussia. At the second
performance he had taken, most successfully, the
part of Cicero.]

Berlin, September 23, 1750.

When you set about it, my dear niece, you write
charming letters, and prove yourself one of the
most amiable women in the world. You add to
my regrets, and make me feel the extent of my
losses. I never lacked delightful society when I
was in yours. However, I hope even misfortunes
may be turned to account. I can be much more
useful to your brother here than in Paris. Perhaps
a heretic King will protect a Catholic preacher.

90 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

All roads lead to Rome, and since Mahomet has
put me on such good terms with the Pope, I do not
despair of a Huguenot doing something for the
benefit of a Carmelite.

When I say, my dear niece, that all roads lead
to Rome, I do not mean that they will lead me
there. I was wild to see Rome and our present
good Pope: but you and your sister attract me
back to France : I sacrifice the Holy Father to you.
I wish I could also sacrifice the King of Prussia,
but that is impossible, He is as amiable as are
you yourselves ; he is a king, but his passion for me
is of sixteen years' standing: he has turned my
head. I had the audacity to think that nature
made me for him ; I found that there is so remark-
able a conformity in our tastes that I forgot he was
the lord of half Germany, and that the other half
trembled at his name, that he had won five battles,
that he was the finest general in Europe, and had
about him great monsters of heroes six feet high.
All that would, indeed, have made me fly a thou-
sand miles from him : but the philosopher humanised
the monarch, and I know him only as a great man,
good and kindly. Everybody taunts me with his
having written verses for d'Arnaud — which are
certainly not among his best: but you must re-
member that four hundred miles from Paris it is
very difficult to judge if a person who has been

FELICITY IN POTSDAM 91

recommended to you is, or is not, worthy; that,
anyhow, verses, ill or well applied, prove that the
conqueror of Austria loves literature; and I love
him with all my heart. Besides, d'Arnaud is a
good sort of person who, now and again, does light
on some pretty lines. He has taste : he is improv-
ing; and if he does not improve — well, it is no great
matter. In a word, that little slight the King of
Prussia put on me does not prevent him being the
must agreeable and remarkable of men.

The climate here is not so rigorous as people
think. You Parisians talk as if I were in Lapland :
let me inform you that we have had a summer quite
as hot as yours, that we have enjoyed good peaches
and grapes, and that you really have no business
to give yourself such airs of superiority on the
strength of two or three extra degrees of sunshine.

You will see Mahomet acted at my house in
Paris: but I shall be acting in Rome Sauvee at
Berlin — the hoarsest old Cicero you ever heard.
Further, my dear child, we must look to our diges-
tions: that is the main point. My health is very
much as it was in Paris : when I have the colic, I
would see further all the kings of the earth. I have
given up the grand suppers, and am a little the
better. I am under a great obligation to the King
of Prussia: he sets me an example of temperance.
What ! said I to myself, here is a king born a gour-

92 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

mand, who sits at table and eats nothing, and yet
is excellent company; while I give myself indiges-
tion like a fool! How I pity you, changing your
diet of asses' milk for the waters of Forges and peck-
ing like a sparrow, and, with it all, never well!
Compensate yourself: there are other pleasures.

Goodbye : my compliments to everyone. I hope
to embrace you in November. I am writing to
your sister: but please tell her I shall love her all
my life, even better than I do my new master.

XXXII

ON THE SAME SUBJECT

To Mme. Denis

Potsdam, October 13, 1750.

Behold us in retreat at Potsdam! The excite-
ment of the fetes is over, and my soul is relieved.
I am not sorry to be here with a king who has
neither court nor cabinet. It is true Potsdam is
full of the moustaches and helmets of grenadiers :
thank God, I do not see them. I work peacefully
in my rooms, to the accompaniment of the drum.
I have given up the royal dinners : there were too
many generals and princes. I could not get used
to being always opposite a king in state, and to

ON THE SAME SUBJECT 93

talking in public. I sup with him, and a very
small party. The supper is shorter, gayer, and
healthier. I should die at the end of three months
of boredom and indigestion if I had to dine every
day with a king in state.

I have been handed over, my dear, with all due
formalities, to the King of Prussia. The marriage
is accomplished: will it be happy? I do not know
in the least: yet I cannot prevent myself saying,
Yes. After coquetting for so many years, marriage
was the necessary end. My heart beat hard even
at the altar. I fully intend to come this winter
and give you an account of myself, and perhaps
bring you back with me. There is no further ques-
tion of my trip to Italy; I gladly give up for you the
Holy Father and the buried city: perhaps I ought
also to have sacrificed Potsdam. Who would have
guessed, seven or eight months ago, when I was
making every arrangement to live with you in Paris,
that I should settle three hundred miles away in
someone else's house? and that someone else a
master. He has solemnly sworn that I shall not
repent it: he has included you, my dear child, in
a sort of contract he signed which I will bring
with me: but do you intend to earn your dowry
of four thousand francs?

I am much afraid you will be like Mme. de Rot-
temberg, who always preferred the operas of Paris

94 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

to those of Berlin. Oh, destiny! destiny! how you
rule all things and dispose of poor humanity.

It is rather amusing that the same literary men
in Paris, who longed to exterminate me, are now
calling out against my absence — as desertion. They
are sorry to have lost their victim. I was indeed
wrong to leave you: my heart tells me so daily,
more often than you think: but I have done very
well to escape those gentry.

Goodbye — with regrets and affection.

XXXIII
THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE

To Mme. Denis

[" Prince Henry is a most amiable man. " Prince
Henry of Prussia, brother of King Frederick.

"Mme. Tyrconnel" was the wife of the French
ambassador to Berlin, Lord Tyrconnel, who was
an Irishman, famous for his good suppers.

"Isaac d'Argens," a witty and profligate French
marquis, formerly a guest at King Frederick's
supper-parties.

" Maupertuis, " President of the Berlin Academy,
well known as a very self-satisfied and pompous
geometrician, soon to be better known by his
famous quarrel with Voltaire and to be made

THE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE 9 5

eternally ridiculous as the Akakia of Voltaire's
cutting Diatribe. He had taught Mme. du
Chatelet mathematics and been a visitor at Cirey:
and already, in October, 1750, had had a tiff with
Voltaire over a vacant chair in the Berlin Academy
— Voltaire winning the chair for his protege, Mau-
pertuis was left more than "a little" jealous.

"A man who is only too lively: La Mettrie" — a
wild free-thinker and a French doctor of medicine.
His book was entitled The Man-Machine, and
proved, entirely to his own satisfaction, the material
nature of the soul.]

Potsdam, November 6, 1750.

Paris has learnt, then, my dear, that we have
played the Death of Ccssar at Potsdam, that Prince
Henry is a most amiable man, a good actor, with
no accent, and very pleasant : and that everything
here is exceedingly agreeable. Quite true . . .
but . . . the King's suppers are delicious, the
conversation clever, witty, informing: perfect lib-
erty prevails: he is the soul of everything: no bad
temper, not a cloud, or, at least, not a storm. My
life is free and busy; but . . . but . . . operas,
comedies, fetes, suppers at Sans Souci, military
manoeuvres, concerts, study, reading; but . . .
but . . . the city of Berlin, huge, better opened
up than Paris, palaces, theatres, affable queens,
charming princesses, beautiful maids-of-honour,

96 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

the house of Mme. Tyrconnel always full, some-
times too full ; but . . . but, my dear child, the
weather begins to be cold and frosty.

I am in the mood for Buts, so I will add: But it
is impossible for me to get away before December
15th. You may be sure that I am dying to see
you, embrace you, and talk to you. My longing to
go to Italy is not nearly so strong as my desire to
return to you: but, my dear, give me one more
month, ask M. d'Argental to grant me this favour:
for I always tell the King of Prussia that, though
I am his chamberlain, I belong not the less to you
and to M. d'Argental. But is it true our Isaac
d'Argens has gone to bury himself at Monaco, with
his wife who is an artist? That seems to be a
little foolish — or extremely philosophical. He
would do better to come here and add to our colony.

Maupertuis' energies are not very pleasing: he
takes my measure most rigidly with his mathe-
matical implements. They say a little jealousy
creeps into his problems. But to make up there is
a man here who is only too lively: La Mettrie.

His ideas are perfect fireworks — in fact, sky-
rockets. His noise is very amusing for the first
quarter of an hour, and mortally wearisome after-
wards. He has just written (without knowing it)
a vile book printed at Potsdam, in which he pro-
scribes virtue and repentance, praises vice, and

THE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE 97

invites the reader to all sorts of wickedness — with-
out any evil intention. The book contains not
half a page of sense, and a thousand flashes of light
— lightnings in the dark. Sensible people have
pointed out to him the enormity of his immorality.
He was wholly astonished: he had not the least
idea of the nature of what he had written : he is
always ready to contradict himself the next day,
if they like. The Lord preserve me from having
him as my doctor! he would give me corrosive sub-
limate instead of rhubarb, most innocently, and
then roar with laughter. This remarkable physi-
cian is reader to the King : and what is still richer,
is now reading him a History of the Church. He
skips hundreds of pages, and there are places
when monarch and reader nearly kill themselves
with laughing.

Goodbye, my dear child: they want to play
Rome Sauvee in Paris, do they? but . . . but
. . . Goodbye. My warmest love to you.

XXXIV

THE FAVOUR OF KINGS

To Mme. Denis

[Baculard d'Arnaud, who had had his head
turned by the favours of King Frederick, in 1750

98 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

allied himself with Freron — journalist of Paris and
bitter enemy of Voltaire — to write against him.
Voltaire retaliated by obtaining from Frederick
d'Arnaud's dismissal from Potsdam. But the vic-
tory was a cause for reflection rather than for
triumph.

" There has not been so terrible a fall since ' Beli-
saire.'" The once popular, and now forgotten,
political novel by Marmontel contained a too dar-
ing chapter on toleration, which earned the fury
and condemnation of the Sorbonne (see Letter
LXV, "On the Jesuits and Catherine the Great").
Marmontel owed his first start in life and the
profession of letters to Voltaire: who always re-
mained his friend and too generous admirer.]

November 24, 1750.

The rising sun has set. Poor d'Arnaud was
mortally bored here seeing neither King nor ac-
tress — nor anything except bayonets in front of his
house. He presumed on his credit by having his
comedy, the Mauvais Riche, played at Charlotten-
burg : but pieces taken from the New Testament do
not succeed here: it was badly received. . . .
All this, added to a little annoyance in seeing me,
the setting sun, passably well treated, decided him
to ask, regretfully, for leave of absence. The King

ON INSPIRATION 99

sharply ordered him to go in twenty-four hours,
and, kings always being so busy, forgot to pay his
travelling expenses. My dear, my triumph sad-
dens me — it makes me reflect deeply on the perils
of greatness. This d'Arnaud had one of the most
delightful sinecures in the kingdom. He was boy-
poet to the King, and his Prussian Majesty had
written most complimentary little verses to him.
There has not been so terrible a fall since Belisaire.
What a treatment for the monarch to mete to one
of his two suns. ... He palavers me more
than ever: but . . . goodbye: goodbye: I long
to see you.

XXXV
ON INSPIRATION

To King Frederick

[At the end of 1750, a quarrel with Hirsch, a Jew
money lender of Berlin, had robbed Voltaire of the
royal favour. A reconciliation followed: and Vol-
taire was once more restored to his post of literary
adviser to the King. The following is a specimen
of hundreds of notes which passed between them
when they were both at Potsdam, separated only
by a few rooms.]

ioo VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Potsdam, August, 1751.

Sire, I return your Majesty the first volume: I
am not the person who has spilled the ink all over
it. Just a word on the feebleness of the human
intelligence I I re-wrote to-day, in five different
forms, a little passage of the Henriade, without
being able to turn it as I did a month ago. What
does that prove ? That one's powers are never the
same; that one never has exactly the same idea
twice in one's life; that one must always be ready
to seize the right moment. What a devil of a pro-
fession! but it has its charms: and a busy solitude
is, I think, the happiest life of all. My poor ex-
hausted muse humbly kisses the feet and wings of
yours.

XXXVI
THE RIFT WIDENS

To Mme. Denis

["He is imploring me to get M. Richelieu to ob-
tain a permit for him. " La Mettrie had been ban-
ished from France for his writings: and a permit
was necessary to enable him to return.

" You will take me for M. Jourdain, " who is of
course the immortal hero of Moliere's Bourgeois
Gentilhomme.]

THE RIFT WIDENS 101

Berlin, September i, 1751.

I have just time, my dear, to send you a fresh
packet of letters. You will find in it one from La
Mettrie to the Marechal de Richelieu, asking his
good offices. Reader though he be to the King of
Prussia, he is dying to return to France. This
cheerful soul, supposed to do nothing but laugh,
cries like a child at having to be here. He is im-
ploring me to get M. Richelieu to obtain a permit
for him. It is certainly a fact that one must never
judge by appearances.

La Mettrie, in his writings, boasts of his delight
at being near a great king, who sometimes reads his
verses: in private, he weeps with me. He is ready
to go back on foot : but as for me ! . . . what am
/ here for? I am going to astonish you.

This La Mettrie is a person of no importance,
and chats familiarly with the King after their read-
ings. He tells me much in confidence ; and swears
that, talking to the King a few days ago of the so-
called favour extended to me and the little jealousy
it excites, the King replied, "I shall want him a
year longer, at the outside: one squeezes the
orange and throws away the peel. "

I repeated these charming words to myself: I
redoubled my questions : La Mettrie redoubled his
assertions. Would you believe it ? ought I to be-
lieve it ? is it possible ? What ! after sixteen years

102 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

of kindnesses, promises, protestations: after the
letter which he desired that you should keep as an
inviolable pledge of his word ! And at a time, if you
please, at a time when I am sacrificing everything
to serve him, when I not only correct his works,
but write in the margin, a. propos of any little
faults I detect, reflections on our language which
are a lesson in the arts of poesy and rhetoric : hav-
ing, as my sole aim, to assist his talent, enlighten
him and put him in a position to do without my
help!

I certainly took both pride and pleasure in cul-
tivating his genius: everything contributed to my
illusion. A King who has gained battles and pro-
vinces, a King of the North who wrote verses in
our language — a King whose favour I did not seek,
and who said he was devoted to me: why should
he have made so many advances? It is beyond
me: I cannot understand it. I have done my best
not to believe La Mettrie.

All the same — I am not sure. In re-reading his
verses I came across an Epistle to a painter named
Pesne: in which he alludes to the "dear Pesne, "
whose "brush places him among the gods " : and
this Pesne is a man he never looks at. However,
this dear Pesne is a god. He could well say as
much of me : it is not to say very much. Perhaps
everything he writes is inspired by his mind,

THE RIFT WIDENS 103

and his heart is far from it. Perhaps all those
letters wherein he overwhelms me with warm
and most touching assurances of kindness really
mean nothing at all.

I am giving you terrible weapons to use against
me. You will justly blame me for having yielded
to his blandishments. You will take me for M.
Jourdain, who said, "Can I refuse anything to a
court gentleman who calls me his dear friend?"
Still, I shall always reply, "He is a most amiable
monarch. "

You can easily fancy what reflections, what
regrets, what difficulties, and, since I must own it,
what grief the words of La Mettrie have brought
upon me. You will say, Come away! But I am
in no position to come away. What I have begun,
I must finish — and I have two editions on hand
and engagements for several months ahead. I am
encompassed on all sides. What is to be done?
Ignore that La Mettrie ever told me, confide in you
alone, forget all about it, wait? You will most
certainly be my consolation. I shall never have
to say of you, "She deceived me, vowing she
loved me." Were you a queen, you would be
true.

Tell me your opinion, I beg you, in detail
by the first courier despatched to Lord Tyr-
connel.

104 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS
XXXVII
THE PEEL OF AN ORANGE
To Mme. Denis

["His secretary, Darget" — reserved, discreet, and
trustworthy. In November, 1750, Voltaire had
written and told Mme. Denis that when Darget
lost his wife King Frederick had written him a
touching letter of sympathy: and, the same day,
made a shameful epigram upon her. In the affair
with Hirsch, the money lender, Darget had pleaded
Voltaire's case with angry Frederick: and he was
often the medium of letters and messages between
the King and his guest..

" I have reconciled him (d'Argens) with Algarotti. "
The Marquis d'Argens (see Letter XXXIII, "The
Little Rift within the Lute").

Algarotti was an agreeable Italian who had been
a visitor at Cirey. He had written a book called
Newtonianism for Ladies, which had been com-
pletely eclipsed by Voltaire and Mme. du Chatelet's
Elements of Newton's Philosophy.]

Potsdam, October 29, 1 751.

My dear plenipotentiary, I am much afraid that
my letters will not go via Lord Tyrconnel much
longer. He has taken it into his head to burst

FREDERICK THE GREAT
From the portrait by Graf

THE PEEL OF AN ORANGE 105

a large blood-vessel in his chest. It is the
broadest and strongest chest imaginable, but
the enemy has a footing, and the worst is to be
feared.

I am always dreaming of that peel of an orange:
I try not to believe it, but I am afraid of being
like deceived husbands, who are always forc-
ing themselves to think their wives are faith-
ful. The poor wretches feel at the bottom of
their hearts something that warns them of their
betrayal.

What I am very sure of is that my gracious mas-
ter has honoured me with a very sharp bite of his
teeth in the Memoirs he has written of his reign
since 1740. There are several epigrams in his
verses against the Emperor and the King of Poland.
Well and good : a king who writes epigrams against
kings will naturally write them on his ministers :
but he should spare the nobodies.

You must know that his Majesty, in his after-
dinner stories, has insinuated a number of little
things about his secretary, Darget, at which the
secretary is horrified. He makes him play a very
odd role in his poem, the Palladium: and the poem
is in print. It is true, there are very few copies to
be had.

What shall I say? That there is no need to be
inconsolable if the great love the nobodies though

106 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

they laugh at them? But suppose they laugh at
them and do not love them — what then? We
must laugh in our turn, in our sleeves, and leave
them not the less. I must have a little time to
remove the money I have invested in the funds here.
I shall devote this time to work and patience : and
the rest of my life to you.

I am much pleased at the return of brother Isaac
d'Argens. He was a little uproarious at first, but
now he has put himself in tune with the rest of the
orchestra. I have reconciled him with Algarotti.
We live like brothers : they come to my room, which
I hardly ever leave: from there we go to sup with
the King, and sometimes are gay enough. The
man who fell from a steeple, and, finding his passage
through the air soft, said, Good! provided it lasts,
is much as I am.

Goodbye, my dear plenipotentiary: how I wish
I could fall on to the top of my house in Paris !

XXXVIII

THE TENSION GROWS

To Mme. Denis

[_" I never write to you now, my dear, except by a
special courier," because matters had become so

THE TENSION GROWS 107

strained between the King and Voltaire that the
King intercepted and read his guest's letters.

"La Mettrie, when he was at the point of death."
On November 11, 175 1, La Mettrie, having de-
voured a whole pate (of eagle, pork, pheasant,
and ginger!) at one of Lord Tyrconnel's too
excellent suppers, died of a violent indigestion
— "the patient," as Voltaire said, "killing the
doctor. "

He never promised any province to Chazot, " who
was a Major, a Frenchman, and a flute player.
The fact that he had saved Frederick's life at the
battle of Mollwitz did not prevent his experiencing
the fickleness of royal favour.

" This chamberlain s key was simply a gift . . .
my cross is a toy. " Part of Frederick's bribe to
Voltaire to come and live in Prussia had been the
post of chamberlain and the cross and ribbon of the
Prussian Order of Merit.]

Potsdam, December 24, 1751.

I never write to you now, my dear, except by a
special courier; and for a good reason. He will
give you six complete proofs of the Century of
Louis XI V corrected in my handwriting. No
permit to print, if you please ! Everybody would
make game of me. A permit is nothing but a
command to flatter, sealed with the yellow seal.

108 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Nothing but a permit and official approval are
needed to disparage my work.

I have made my court only to truth, and dedi-
cate the book to her alone. The approbation I
want is that of honest men and disinterested
readers.

I should like to have asked La Mettrie, when he
was at the point of death, more about that peel
of an orange. That good soul, just about to appear
before God, would never have lied. There is a
great appearance that he spoke the truth. He was
the maddest of men, but the most frank. The
King informed himself exactly of the manner of
his death — if he dispensed with all religious forms
and counsels : and at last was fully convinced that
this gourmand died as a good philosopher. "I
am glad of it," said the King to us, "for the
repose of his soul": we all laughed, the King
included.

He told me yesterday, in front of d'Argens, that
he would give a province to have me with him:
that does not look like the peel of an orange. Appar-
ently, he never promised any province to Chazot.
I am perfectly sure he will come back no more.
He is very ill-content : and, besides, has pleasanter
business on hand. Leave me to arrange mine. Is
it possible Paris cries out on me, and takes me for a
deserter, gone to serve in Prussia? I repeat once

THE TENSION GROWS 109

more, this chamberlain's key, which I never wear,
was simply a gift : I have taken no vow: my cross is
a toy, and I prefer my writing desk: in a word, I am
no naturalised Vandal, and I venture to believe
that those who read the Century of Louis XIV will
see that I am a Frenchman. It is really odd that
one cannot be the recipient of a worthless honour
from a King of Prussia, who loves literature, with-
out bringing one's compatriots about one's ears!
I want to come back much more than those who
forced me to go want my return : you know I shall
not return for them.

From a distance, one cannot see clearly. I re-
ceive letters from monks who would like to leave
their monastery and live near the King of Prussia,
because they have written four French verses.
A man I have never seen writes to me, "As you are
the friend of the King of Prussia, kindly make my
fortune. " Another sends me a bundle of Reflec-
tions, and informs me he has found the philo-
sopher's stone and will only confide the secret to
His Majesty. I returned him his packet, and told
him that the King himself is the possessor of the
philosopher's stone. Others, who were absolutely
indifferent to me when I was with them, tenderly
reproach me with having abandoned my friends.
My dear child, I have nothing in the world but
your letters to cheer and comfort me.

no VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS
XXXIX
ON HEALTH

To M. Bagieu

[M. Bagieu was Surgeon-in-Chief to the body-
guard of the King of France and the author of
several works on surgery.

When Voltaire turns aside, even from one of the
most dramatic phases in his life, to speak of his
health, it is always worth while to follow him.
Constitutionally feeble and continually ailing as
he was, the mind so triumphed over the sickly
body that it was never with him on any occasion
"the impediment to great enterprises" most men
would have allowed it to be.

" The Suitors" — Les Plaideurs, Racine's satirical
comedy against lawyers.]

'■ Potsdam, April 10, 1752.

Nothing, my dear sir, has ever so deeply touched
me as the letter which you have so kindly and
spontaneously written to me, the interest you mani-
fest in a condition of which particulars have not
been furnished to you, and the help you tender me
with so much good will. The hope of finding in
Paris hearts as compassionate as yours and men at
once thus worthy of their profession and superior

ON HEALTH in

to it quickens my desire to take the journey thither
and makes my life of more value to me.

I owe a great deal to Mme. Denis for having
claimed your attention on my behalf. Certainly,
such thoughtful people are only to be found in
France : just as your art attains perfection in France
alone. Mine is a small affair. I never set out to
do more than amuse people: and some are very
far from thanking me. You are busy giving them
help in their need. I have always looked on your
profession as one of those which did most honour
to the age of Louis XIV: and I have spoken of it
to that effect in my history of that century: but
I have never thought more highly of it than I do
now. Mme. de Pimbesche in the Suitors learnt to
plead as a barrister — by pleading — and, in this
sense, I have exhaustively studied medicine. I
have read Sydenham, Freind, Boerhaave. I know
the art must be largely a matter of conjecture, that
few temperaments are alike, and that the first
aphorism of Hippocrates, Experientia fallax, judi-
cium difficile, is the finest and truest of all.

I have come to the conclusion that each man
must be his own doctor: that he must live by rule,
now and again assist nature without forcing her:
above all, that he must know how to suffer, grow
old, and die.

The King of Prussia, who has made peace after

ii2 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

his five victories and is now reforming laws and
embellishing his country (having finished writing
its history), condescends sometimes to very pretty
verse, and has addressed an Ode to me on this grim
necessity to which we must all submit. This work
and your letter have done more for me than all the
physicians on earth. I ought not to complain of
my fate. I have lived to be fifty-eight years old,
with a very feeble body, and have seen the
most robust die in the flower of their age. If you
had ever met Lord Tyrconnel and La Mettrie you
would be astounded that I should survive them:
care has saved me. It is true that I have lost all
my teeth in consequence of a malady with which I
was born: everyone has within him, from the first
moment of his life, the cause of his death. We
must live with the foe till he kills us. Demouret's
remedy does not suit me: it is only of service in
cases of pronounced occasional scurvy, and none at
all where the blood is affected and the organs have
lost their vigour and suppleness. The waters of
Breges, Padua, or Ischia might do me good for a
time : but I am far from sure if it is not better to
suffer in peace, by one's own fireside, and diet one-
self, than to go so far in search of a cure which is
both uncertain and short-lived. My manner of life
with the King of Prussia is precisely suited to an
invalid — perfect liberty, without the slightest

THE QUARREL WITH MAUPERTUIS 113

constraint, a light and cheerful supper. . . .
Deus nobis hcec otia fecit. He makes me as
happy as an invalid can be : and your interest in
my well-being adds to the alleviations of my lot.
Pray look upon me, sir, as a friend whom you made
across four hundred miles of space. I trust this
summer to be able to come and assure you person-
ally with what sincere regard I am yours always,
etc.

XL
THE QUARREL WITH MAUPERTUIS

To Mme. Denis

[The occasion of the quarrel with Maupertuis
(see Letter XXXIII, "The Little Rift within the
Lute") is sufficiently explained by Voltaire in this
letter. It need only be added that Koenig — a dull
man and a brilliant mathematician — had been
Mme. du Chatelet's mathematical tutor and a
visitor at Cirey.

("La Beaumelle . . . has prepared some
scandalous 'Notes' to my 'Century of Louis XIV
(see Letter LI, "On the Advantages of Civilisation
and Literature").]

July 24, 1752.

You and your friends are perfectly right to urge
my return, but you have not always done so by

ii4 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

special messengers: and what goes through the
post is soon known. If this were the only draw-
back to absence, it would be sufficient to prevent
one from ever leaving one's family and friends:
but there are so many others ! The postal system
is all very well for letters of exchange — but not for
a communion of hearts : those, when we are parted,
we dare open no more.

The greatest of consolations is thus debarred us:
I shall only write to you in future, my dear child,
through reliable channels: which are few. These
are my circumstances: Maupertuis has carefully
spread the report that I think the King's writings
very bad: he accuses me of conspiring against a
very dangerous power — self-love: he gently insin-
uates that, when the King sent me his verses to
correct, I said, "Will he never stop giving me his
dirty linen to wash?" He has whispered this
extraordinary story in the ears of ten or a dozen
people, vowing each of them to secrecy. At last
I am beginning to think the King was one of his
confidants. I suspect, but cannot prove it. This
is not a very pleasant situation: and this is not all.

At the end of last year a young man, named La
Beaumelle, arrived here. He is, I think, a Gene-
van, and was sent back here from Copenhagen,
where he was something between a wit and a
preacher. He is the author of a book called

THE QUARREL WITH MAUPERTUIS 115

My Thoughts, in which he has given his opinion
freely on all the powers in Europe. Maupertuis,
with his usual good nature and, of course, not the
least maliciously, persuades this young man that
I have spoken ill of himself and his book to his
Majesty, and have thereby prevented his entering
the royal service. So La Beaumelle, to repair the
harm I am supposed to have done to his career,
has prepared some scandalous Notes to my
Century of Louis XIV which he is about to print —
I know not where. Those who have seen these fine
notes say they contain as many blunders as words.

As to the quarrel between Maupertuis and
"Koenig, here are the facts :

Koenig has fallen in love with a geometrical
problem, as a paladin with a lady. Last year he
travelled from the Hague to Berlin expressly to
confer with Maupertuis on an algebraic formula
and on a law of nature, which would not interest
you in the least. He showed him a couple of
letters from an old philosopher of the last century,
named Leibnitz, who would interest you no better:
and made it clear that Leibnitz, in dealing with
this same law, had totally disagreed with Mau-
pertuis. Maupertuis, who is much more engaged
in court intrigues — or what he takes to be such —
than geometrical truths, did not even read Leib-
nitz's letters.

n6 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

The Hague professor demanded permission to
ventilate his theories in the Leipsic papers : having
it, he refuted therein, with the most exquisite
politeness, the opinion of Maupertuis, quoting
Leibnitz as his authority and printing passages
from his works which bore on the dispute.

Now comes the odd part.

Maupertuis, having looked through and misread
the Leipsic papers and the quotations from Leib-
nitz, gets it into his head that Leibnitz was of his
opinion, and that Koenig had forged the letters to
deprive him (Maupertuis) of the honour and glory
of having originated — a blunder.

On these extraordinary grounds, he called to-
gether the resident academicians, whose salaries
he pays: formally denounced Koenig as a forger,
and had sentence passed on him, without taking a
vote, and in spite of the opposition of the only
geometrician who was present.

He did better still: he did not associate himself
with the sentence, but wrote a letter to the Acad-
emy to ask pardon for the culprit, who, being at
the Hague and so not able to be hanged in Berlin,
was merely denounced, with all possible moderation,
as a geometrical rogue and forger.

This fine judgment is in print. To crown all, our
judicious president writes two letters to the Prin-
cess of Orange — Koenig is her librarian — to beg her

ON THE SAME SUBJECT 117

to insist on the enemy's silence, and so rob him —
condemned and branded as he is — of the right to
defend his honour.

These details only reached my solitude yesterday.

Every day there is something new under the sun.
Never before, surely, was there such a thing as a
criminal suit in an academy of sciences! Flight
from such a country as this is now proved a neces-
sity.

I am quietly putting my affairs in order. My
warmest love to you.

XLI

ON THE SAME SUBJECT

To Mme. Denis

[In the three months which had passed since
Voltaire's letter to his niece of July 24th, his quar-
rel with Maupertuis had made rapid progress.
On September 18th Voltaire had published an
anonymous pamphlet defending Koenig: and a few
days later Koenig wrote a convincing Appeal
on his own behalf. King Frederick, meaning to
stand by Maupertuis, right or wrong, did not
even read it, but himself produced that "brochure
against Koenig, against me" and against everyone
who had tried to prove Koenig's innocence to which

n8 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

this letter alludes, and which was entitled A

Letter to the Public.

" 1 have no sceptre, but I have a pen: and I have
used it to turn Plato into ridicule" in the famous
Diatribe of Dr. Akakia at the moment still in the
author's desk.]

Potsdam, October 15, 1752.

Here is something unprecedented — inimitable —
unique. The King of Prussia, without having read
a word of Koenig's reply, without listening to or
consulting anybody, has just produced a brochure
against Koenig, against me, and against everyone
who has tried to prove the innocence of the un-
j ustly condemned professor. He treats all Koenig's
friends as fools, envious, dishonest. A singular
pamphlet indeed : and a king wrote it !

The German journalists, not suspecting that a
monarch who had won battles could be the author
of such a work, have spoken of it freely as the effort
of a schoolboy, perfectly ignorant of his subject.
However, the brochure has been reprinted at Ber-
lin with the Prussian eagle, a crown, and a sceptre
on the title-page. The eagle, the sceptre, and the
crown are exceedingly surprised to find themselves
there. Everybody shrugs their shoulders, casts
down their eyes, and is afraid to say anything.
Truth is never to be found near a throne: and is

ON THE SAME SUBJECT 119

never farther from it than when the king turns
author. Coquettes, kings, and poets are accus-
tomed to be flattered. Frederick is a combination
of all three. How can truth pierce that triple wall
of vanity? Maupertuis has not succeeded in being
Plato, but he wants his royal master to be Diony-
sius of Syracuse.

What is most extraordinary in this cruel and
ridiculous affair is that the King has no liking for
this Maupertuis, for whose benefit he is employ-
ing his sceptre and his pen. Plato nearly died of
mortification at not being invited to certain little
suppers, which I attended, and where the King
told us a hundred times that this Plato's mad
vanity rendered him intolerable.

He has written prose for him now, as he once
wrote verses for d'Arnaud — for the pleasure of
doing it : and for another motive less worthy of a
philosopher — to annoy me. A true author, you
see!

But all this is but the most insignificant part of
what has happened. I too am unfortunately an
author, and in the opposite camp. I have no
sceptre, but I have a pen: and I have used it — I
really do not know how — to turn Plato — with his
stipendiaries, his predictions, his dissections, and
his insolent quarrel with Koenig — into ridicule.
My raillery is quite innocent, but I did not know

120 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

when I wrote it I was laughing at the pastimes of
the King. The affair is unlucky. I have to deal
with conceit and with despotic power — two very
dangerous things. I also have reason to believe
that my affair with the Duke of Wurtemberg has
given offence. It was discovered : and I have been
made to feel it was discovered. . . .

I am at the moment very wretched and very ill :
and, to crown all, I have to sup with the King.
Truly, a feast of Damocles ! I need to be as phi-
losophical as was the real Plato in the house of
Dionysius.

XLII
THE STORM BURSTS

From Frederick the Great

[The originals of this letter and of the next one,
frcm Voltaire, are preserved in the Bibliotheque
Nationale. Voltaire's is written at the foot of
his royal host's. Frederick's is evidently dashed
on to paper in a rage, and the French is very ill
spelt.

"After what you have done," that is, in the affair
of the Diatribe of Dr. Akakia against Maupertuis.
For this Diatribe, in which Voltaire had attacked
Maupertuis in one of the most famous satires in

THE STORM BURSTS 121

the world, which, in its mocking wit and the seem-
ing-innocent gaiety of its remorseless logic, is one
of the most Voltairean of all Voltaire's works, he
had obtained the royal permit to publish by a
trick. He read to Frederick a Defence of Lord
Bolingbroke — that is, a defence of Bolingbroke's
Letters on History — which he, Voltaire, had just
written, gained the King's sanction for its publi-
cation, and then slipped in front of it, Akakia.
Thus, printed by his own printers, in his own pri-
vate printing office at Potsdam, there appeared,
to the immeasurable but very natural rage of
King Frederick, this merciless onslaught on his
friend and president. All things considered, the
royal letter is not immoderate. Though the
printer owned everything, Voltaire continued to
deny everything. His royal host threatened the
guest with a heavy fine, and for a week stationed a
sentinel, in true Prussian fashion, outside his door.]

1752.
Your effrontery amazes me after what you have
done, which is as clear as daylight. You persist
in it instead of owning yourself guilty: do not
imagine that you can make people believe that
black is white; when one takes no notice, it is
because one prefers to see nothing; but if you carry
this business any further, I shall have everything

122 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

printed, and the world will see that if your
works deserve statues, your conduct deserves
chains.

The publisher has been questioned, and has con-
fessed all.

Voltaire to Frederick the Great

Good God', sire, what a position I am in! I
swear to you on my life — which I will most willingly
relinquish — that the whole thing is a frightful
calumny. I implore you to cross-examine all my
entourage. Surely, you would not condemn me
without hearing me. I demand justice and death.

XLIII
THE DICTIONARY OF KINGS
To Mme. Denis

[In November of this year, 1752, Frederick had
been able to assure Maupertuis that Akakia had
been burnt in the royal presence. But there were
other editions, and in December, Berlin, which
hated Maupertuis, was reading them and enjoying
itself as it had never enjoyed itself before. Vol-
taire was living in Berlin at a friend's house — som-
brely considering how "to save the peel."

"It is not possible to say 'I am going to Plombieres'

THE DICTIONARY OF KINGS 123

in December" — Plombieres being a summer resort
and no one taking its water-cure in winter.]

Berlin, December 18, 1752.

I enclose, my dear, the two contracts from the
Duke of Wurtemberg: they secure you a little for-
tune for life. I also enclose my will. Not that
your prophecy that the King of Prussia would
worry me to death is going to be fulfilled. I have no
mind to come to such a foolish end : nature afflicts
me much more than he can, and it is only prudent
that I should always have my valise packed and
my foot in the stirrup, ready to start for that world
where, happen what may, kings will be of small
account.

As I do not possess here below a hundred and
fifty thousand soldiers, I cannot pretend to make
war. My only plan is to desert honourably, to
take care of my health, to see you again, and for-
get this three years' nightmare. I am very well
aware that the orange has been squeezed: now we
must consider how to save the peel. I am com-
piling, for my instruction, a little Dictionary for
the Use of Kings.

My friend means my slave.

My dear friend means you are absolutely nothing
to me.

124 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

By / will make you happy understand I will bear
you as long as I have need of you.

Sup with me to-night means / shall make game oj
you this evening.

The dictionary might be long: quite an article
for the Encyclopaedia.

Seriously, all this weighs on my heart. Can
what I have seen be true? To take pleasure in
making bad blood between those who live together
with him! To say to a man's face the kindest
things — and then to write brochures upon him —
and what brochures ! To drag a man away from
his own country by the most sacred promises, and
then to ill-treat him with the blackest malice!
What contradictions ! And this is he who wrote so
philosophically: whom I believed to be a philoso-
pher ! And whom I called the Solomon of the North !

You remember that fine letter which never suc-
ceeded in reassuring you ? You are a philosopher,
said he, and so am I. On my soul, sir, neither
the one nor the other of us !

My dear child, I shall certainly never believe
myself to be a philosopher until I am with you and
my household gods. The difficulty is to get away
from here. You will remember what I told you in
my letter of November ist. I can only ask leave
on the plea of my health. It is not possible to say
"I am going to Plombieres" in December.

FAREWELL 125

There is a man named Perrard here: a sort of
minister of the Gospel and born, like myself, in
France: he asked permission to go to Paris on busi-
ness: the King answered that he knew his affairs
better than he did himself, and that there was no
need at all for him to go to Paris.

My dear child, when I think over the details of
all that is going on here, I come to the conclusion
that it cannot be true, that it is impossible, that I
must be mistaken — that such a thing must have
happened at Syracuse three thousand years ago.
What is true is that I sincerely love you and that
you are my only consolation.

XLIV

FAREWELL

To Frederick the Great

[On the Christmas Eve of 1752 Voltaire, looking
out of the window of his Berlin lodgings, beheld a
crowd watching a bonfire. "I'll bet that's my
Doctor," said he; and, in fact, Akakia it was.
That conflagration (which advertised the Diatribe
to the four corners of Europe) decided its author
to "desert honourably" as soon as might be. On
New Year's Day,>753, at three o'clock in the after-
noon he returned to King Frederick the cross and

126 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

ribbon of the Prussian order bestowed on him and
the chamberlain's key, and accompanied them by
the following letter.]

January i, 1753.

Sire, urged by the prayers and tears of my family,
I am compelled to lay my fate at your feet, together
with the favours and marks of distinction with
which you have honoured me. Only my grief can
be as great as the value of all I am renouncing.
Your Majesty may rest assured that I shall re-
member nothing but the benefits conferred on me.
Attached to you for sixteen years by many kind-
nesses : summoned to your side in my old age : my
fears of that transplantation, which has cost me
much, quieted by the most solemn promises: and
having had the honour of living for two and a half
years at your side ; it is impossible you should deny
to me the possession of feelings which have out-
weighed in my heart the claims of my country,
my king (who is at once my sovereign and
benefactor), my family, my friends, and my
occupations.

I have lost them all. Nothing remains to me
but the remembrance of the pleasant days I have
spent in your retreat at Potsdam. After that, all
other solitudes will indeed seem melancholy to me.
It is, moreover, hard to leave at this season of the

DISMISSED 127

year, especially when one is, as I am, the victim of
many diseases: and it is harder still to leave you.
Believe me, that is the only pain I am capable of
feeling at this moment. The French envoy, who
has come in as I write this, will bear witness to my
sorrow, and will answer for me to your Majesty of
the sentiments I shall always retain. I made you
my idol: an honest man does not change his
religion, and sixteen years of a limitless devo-
tion cannot be destroyed by a single unfortunate
moment.

I flatter myself that out of so much kindness you
will keep at least some feeling of humanity towards
me: that is my sole consolation, if consolation I
may have.

XLV
DISMISSED

King Frederick the Great to Voltaire

[To a moral obtuseness, characteristically Ger-
man, must be attributed the fact that, after Vol-
taire's "Farewell" letter of January 1, 1753, the
royal host did not disdain to use all his royal powers
to chain his unwilling guest to his side. On March
1 st Voltaire begged formally for leave of absence to

128 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

go to French Plombieres and drink the waters.
After a fortnight's silence, Frederick replied that
the waters of Moravia were quite as good : and then,
on March 16th, flung on to paper the following
famous dismissal, which, with some slight differ-
ences of expression, was printed by his orders in the
gazettes of Holland and Utrecht, and is still pre-
served in the archives of Berlin.

" The volume of poetry which I have confided to
him" — the free-thinking, and often indecorous,
poetical effusions of King Frederick, which Voltaire
had been correcting for him, and which were shortly
to become all too notorious for both writer and
corrector.]

March 16, 1753. ]

He can leave my service when he feels inclined:
he need not trouble to invent the excuse of the
waters of Plombieres, but he must have the good-
ness, before he goes, to return to me the contract
of his engagement, the key, the cross, and the
volume of poetry which I have confided to him:
I could wish that he and Koenig had only attacked
my works, which I sacrifice willingly to those who
desire to belittle other people's reputations: I have
none of the vanity and folly of authors, and the
cabals of men of letters seem to me the depth of
baseness.

THE COMTE D'ARGENSON, MINISTER OF WAR TO LOUIS XV.

From the portrait by Nattier

THE ESCAPE FROM PRUSSIA 129

XLVI
THE ESCAPE FROM PRUSSIA

Petition to the King of France, through the Comte
d' Argenson, Minister of War

[The Comte d' Argenson and his brother, the Mar-
quis, had been at school with Voltaire, and re-
mained thereafter his very influential friends.
It was the Comte d'Argenson who had obtained for
him the honour of writing the authorised account
of the royal campaigns, which eventually became
the History of Louis XV. This petition "to be
allowed to die in his own country " was not, however,
accorded to Voltaire. Only a month later d'Ar-
genson, who is famous for having reorganised the
French army, was writing in his diary, " Permission
to re-enter France is refused to M. de Voltaire — to
please the King of Prussia." By March 26, 1753,
Voltaire had, however, effected his escape from
Frederick and Potsdam. On April nth, Frederick
had practically commanded Freytag, his resident
at Frankfort, to harry the parting guest when he
passed through that city: and Freytag — the typical
German official, literally choked with red tape —
exceeded his orders in the manner described in
the following letter. Despite it, it was not
until the early days of July that Voltaire and

130 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

his niece succeeded in getting away from
Frankfort.]

June 28, 1753.

Sire, M. de Voltaire takes the liberty of inform-
ing your Majesty that, having worked for two and a
half years to perfect the King of Prussia's know-
ledge of French literature, M. de Voltaire respect-
fully returned to him his key, his ribbon, and his
pensions: that he has annulled, in writing, the
agreement his Prussian Majesty made with him,
promising to return it to him as soon as he can get
at his papers, to make no further use of it, and
desiring no other reward than to be allowed to die
in his own country. He went to Plombieres with
your Majesty's permission. Mme. Denis preceded
him to Frankfort, with a passport.

A person called Dorn, the clerk of M. Freytag,
who calls himself the King of Prussia's envoy at
Frankfort, on June 20th arrested Mme. Denis, the
widow of an officer in his Majesty's service, fur-
nished with a passport: he then dragged her
through the streets under an escort of soldiers, and
without instructions or formalities or the slightest
pretext of any kind, put her in prison, and had the
insolence to stay all night in her room. For thirty-
six hours she was at the point of death, and now —
June 28th — has not entirely recovered.

During this time, a merchant named Schmith,

THE ESCAPE FROM PRUSSIA 131

professing to be a representative of the King of
Prussia, meted like treatment to M. de Voltaire
and his secretary, and without any sort of proces-
verbal took possession of all their effects. The
next day, Freytag and Schmith informed their
prisoners that they would have to pay a hundred
and twenty-eight ecus each day they were detained.

The pretext for this violence and robbery is an
orderwhich MM. Freytag and Schmith had received
from Berlin in May, bidding them demand from
M. de Voltaire the printed book of French poetry
written by his Prussian Majesty, which his Prus-
sian Majesty had given to M. de Voltaire.

This book being at Hamburg, M. de Voltaire
had given his word of honour on June 1st not to
leave Frankfort until the book was returned: and
M. Freytag, in the name of his master the King,
affixed his signature to two letters, identical with
each other, and running as follows :

"Sir, if the packet which you declare to be at
Hamburg or Leipsic, and which contains the poet-
ical work [ceuvre de poeshie) of the King, arrives here
and the book is given up to me, you can go when
you like. "

M. de Voltaire then gave him, as pledges, two
packets of papers — one literary, and the other deal-
ing with family affairs : and M. Freytag signed the
following note:

132 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

"I promise to return to M. de Voltaire these two
packets, sealed with his seal, as soon as the packet
containing the poetical work which the King de-
mands is to hand. "

The poetical work having arrived on June 18th,
addressed to M. Freytag, with the box from Ham-
burg, M. de Voltaire obviously had the right to
leave on June 20th. It was on June 20th that he,
his niece, his secretary, and his servants were
treated as prisoners in the manner herein set forth.

XLVII
ON INOCULATION

To the Comte d' Argental

{The Comte d' Argental (see Letter XXI, "On
Treachery")- This letter was written when Vol-
taire was nearing Colmar, where he spent nearly a
year in hard literary work before settling in Switzer-
land.

" Mme. de Montaigu," Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, the famous letter-writer, who introduced
inoculation into England from the East in 1717
(see Letter LX, "On Lady Mary Wortley Mon-
tagu").

" The late Queen. " This was Queen Caroline of
England, wife of George II. '

ON INOCULATION 133

" That Fontenelle would have outlived Mme.
d'Aumont. " Fontenelle — in Voltaire's own words
"poet, philosopher, scholar" — the nephew of the
great Corneille, was known as the author of the
Plurality of Worlds and for his extraordinary length
of days. " Fontenelle, " said Voltaire, "was a Nor-
man, he cheated even nature." He died in 1757,
being a hundred years old.]

Near Colmar, October 3, 1753.

My dear angel, if the Marechale de Duras, who
looks so very strong-minded, had done as did Mme.
de Montaigu and the late Queen — if she had been
courageous enough to give the smallpox to her
children, you would not be mourning the Duchesse
d'Aumont to-day. Thirty years ago I declared
that a tenth part of the nation might thus be saved.
A few people, grieved by the loss of valuable lives
from smallpox in the flower of their youth, say,
"Really, inoculation ought to be tried": and by
the end of a fortnight they have forgotten alike
those who have fallen victims to the scourge and
those who yet will fall.

Last year, the Bishop of Worcester preached in
London before the Houses of Parliament in favour
of inoculation, and proved that it saved, in London
alone, two thousand lives a year. That was a

134 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

sermon which did much more good than the stuff
our preachers talk. . .

I dare not ask you to give my respects ana sym-
pathy to the Due d'Aumont. Who would have
thought that Fontenelle would have outlived Mme.
d'Aumont! But a hundred years and thirty are
the same before Death's scythe. Our life is a point
in space — a dream. My life's dream has been a
perpetual nightmare : it would be very soothing if,
at the end of it, I could see you : that would be a
very pleasant light on which to open my eyes . . . .

XLVIII

ON A FRIEND'S BLINDNESS

To Mme. du Deffand

[The Marquise du Deffand, wit, letter-writer,
and saloniere, was one of "those women of brilliant
talents who" under the old regime "violated all the
common duties of life and gave very pleasant little
suppers. " She had visited Voltaire in the Bastille
in 1726, when he was twenty-seven: he visited her
when he came to Paris in 1778, when he was eighty-
three. After she became blind in 1753 he was her
constant and sympathetic correspondent. Only
Horace Walpole excelled his devotion as her friend.

ON A FRIEND'S BLINDNESSj 135

"Mme. de Staal," who had been Mdlle. de Launay,
and was still companion to the Duchesse du Maine,
with whom Voltaire had first stayed at Sceaux
as a brilliant youth of one and twenty (see
Letter XLIX, "On the Memoirs of Lord Boling-
broke"). Mme. de Staal recounted, with a satiric
pen, the gossip of the Maine court to Mme. du
Deff and in Paris : and has left behind her brilliant
and bitter Memoirs.

/ am in receipt of annuities from two poten-
tates. " These were the Duke of Wurtemberg and
the Elector Palatine.

" The conduct of Dionysius of Syracuse" — Freder-
ick the Great.

" The Plato of Saint-Malo " — Maupertuis, who
was a native of that place . . . "his good doctor
Akakia" — of course Voltaire himself as the author
of the Diatribe (see Letters XXXIII, "The
Little Rift within the Lute"; XL and XLI, "The
Quarrel with Maupertuis"; XLII, "The Storm
Bursts," and XLIV, "Farewell").]

Colmar, March 3, 1754.

Your letter, madam, touched me more deeply
than you can imagine, and I assure you my eyes
were wet when I read what had happened to yours.
I had gathered, from M. de Formont's letter, that
you were, so to speak, in the dusk but not in com-

136 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

plete darkness. I thought of you as somewhat in
Mme. de Staal's condition, with the inestimable
advantage, which she lacks, of freedom, of having
friends about you who can think and speak as they
please, and of living in your own house instead
of being subjected, in a princess's, to restrictions
which savour of hypocrisy.

Therefore, dear madam, I only regretted that
your eyes had lost their beauty: and I was sure you
were enough of a philosopher to console yourself
for that: but, if you have lost your sight, I pity
you very deeply. I do not suggest to you as an
example M. de S. who, blind at twenty, is always
lively — if not too lively. I agree with you that
life is not worth much: we only endure it from
an almost invincible instinct which nature has
planted in us: to this instinct she has added the
bottom of Pandora's box — hope.

Only when hope is absolutely lacking, or when
an unbearable depression settles down upon us, do
we triumph over the natural impulse to hug the
chains that bind us to life: and gather courage to
leave an ill-built house which we can never hope to
repair. Two people in the country where I now
am have elected to do this.

One of these two philosophers is a girl of eighteen,
whose brain had been turned by the Jesuits, and
who, to rid herself of them, set out for the next

ON A FRIEND'S BLINDNESS 137

world. That is a thing / shall not do, or at any rate
not yet, for I am in receipt of annuities from two
potentates, and I should be inconsolable if by my
death I enriched two crowned heads.

If you, madam, have a pension from the King,
be exceedingly careful of yourself, eat little, go to
bed early, and live to be a hundred.

The conduct of Dionysius of Syracuse is as in-
comprehensible as himself: he is a strange speci-
men. I am glad I have been at Syracuse, for I
assure you there is no place like it on the face of
the earth.

The Plato of Saint-Malo, with his flat nose and
his ridiculous visions, is no less extraordinary: he
must have been born with real wit and talent, but
excessive vanity has made him both vicious and
absurd. Is it not a fearful thing that he should
have persecuted his good doctor Akakia, who tried
to cure him of his madness — with emollients ?

Who in the world, madam, can have told you
that I am going to be married ? I am a nice person
to be married ! For six months I have hardly been
outside my room, and I am in pain ten hours out
of every twelve. If any doctor knows a nice-
looking girl, who is quick and clever at medical
appliances, at fattening chickens and reading aloud,
I confess I might be tempted : but my warmest and
sincerest desire is to spend the evening of the

138 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

stormy day called life with you. I have seen you
in your brilliant morning, and it would be a great
comfort to me if I could help to comfort you, and
to converse with you freely in the brief moments
that remain to us . . . .

XLIX

ON THE "MEMOIRS OF LORD
BOLINGBROKE"

To Mme. du Dejffand

[Lord Bolingbroke — Henry St. John, Viscount
Bolingbroke, the famous English statesman, with
whom Voltaire, as a young man, had stayed both
in London and at Bolingbroke's French home, La
Source, near Orleans. It was to Bolingbroke Vol-
taire had read aloud the Henriade before its pub-
lication: and to Bolingbroke he had dedicated his
play Brutus: and his Defence of Lord Boling-
broke's Letters on History had been the means of
his obtaining King Frederick's permit to print
The Diatribe of Dr. Akakia (see Letter XLII,
"The Storm Bursts").

" The Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke . . . the
abbreviated and confused little book he has left us."
Les Memoires Secretes de Lord Bolingbroke is the

"MEMOIRS OF LORD BOLINGBROKE" 139

title of the French translation, published in 1753,
of his Letters to Windham.

"A frightful portrait of Lord Oxford" — Robert
Harley, Earl of Oxford, Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer to Queen Anne, was first the friend and
then the bitter enemy of Bolingbroke, who suc-
ceeded him as Prime Minister.

" These cursed ' Annals of the Empire. ' " A popu-
lar history of Germany from the time of Charle-
magne, and, as Voltaire himself thought, one of the
least successful of his works. " The Princess of
Saxony, " at whose command he wrote them, was
the charming Duchess of Saxe-Gotha, with whom
he had corresponded from Cirey, and whom he had
now recently visited at "her court" at Gotha.

"The Duchesse du Maine . . . Sceaux" (see
Letter XLVIII, "On a Friend's Blindness").
The Duchesse du Maine, "that living fragment of
the Grand Epoch, " a brilliant and imperious old
woman (her only counterpart in English eighteenth-
century society is Lady Holland), not only enter-
tained Voltaire at her semi-royal court of Sceaux,
but had sheltered him in 1747 from the disfavour
of Louis XV. At Sceaux, he had written (and
read secretly to his Duchess as she sat up in bed at
two o'clock in the morning) those little models of
the short story, Zadig, Scarmentado, Micromegas,
and Babouc.

140 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

"President Renault" was President of the Cham-
bre des Enquetes ; had been a friend of Voltaire for
five and thirty years, and an habitue of the salon
of Mme. du Deffand, to whom he appeared deeply
attached until he deserted her society for that of
Mdlle. de Lespinasse — first her dame de compagnie,
and then her rival.]

COLMAR, April 23, 1754.

I feel very guilty, dear madam, at not having
answered your last letter. I do not make my bad
health an excuse : for, although I cannot write with
my own hand, I could at least have dictated the
most melancholy things, which, to those who,
like you, know all the misfortunes of life and are no
longer deceived by its illusions, are not unaccept-
able.

I remember that I advised you to go on living
solely to enrage those who are paying your an-
nuities. As far as I am concerned, it is the only
pleasure I have left. When I feel an attack of
indigestion coming on, I picture two or three princes
as gainers by my death, take courage out of spite,
and conspire against them with rhubarb and tem-
perance.

Still, notwithstanding my desire to do them a bad
turn by living on, I have been very ill. Add to
that, these cursed Annals of the Empire, which put

"MEMOIRS OF LORD BOLINGBROKE" 141

an extinguisher on all imagination and take up all
my time, and you have the reasons for my idleness.
I have been working at these stupid things for a
Princess of Saxony — who deserves something live-
lier from me. She is a most agreeable royalty, and
has things much better done than the Duchesse du
Maine, while her court allows one much more
liberty than did Sceaux, but, unfortunately, the
climate is horrible: and just now I care for nothing
but the sun. You cannot see it, madam, in the
present state of your eyes : but it is good at least
to feel warm. The horrible winter we have had
makes one wretched : and the news that reaches us
does not improve matters.

I wish I could send you some trifles to amuse you,
but the works I am now engaged on are far from
amusing.

In London I was an Englishman: and in Ger-
many a German: with you my chameleon coat
would soon take on brighter colours — your lively
imagination would fire my drooping wits.

I have been reading the Memoirs of Lord Boling-
broke. It seems to me that he talks better than
he writes. I declare I find his style as difficult
of comprehension as his conduct. He draws a
frightful portrait of Lord Oxford — without adduc-
ing any proofs. This is the Oxford whom Pope
calls :

142 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

"A Soul supreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all Pain, all Passion, and all Pride,
The rage of Pow'r, the blast of public breath,
The Lust of Lucre, and the dread of Death. "

Bolingbroke would have employed his leisure
better if he had written good memoirs on the War
of the Succession, the Peace of Utrecht, the char-
acter of Queen Anne, the Duke and Duchess of
Marlborough, Louis XIV, the Duke of Orleans, and
the French and English ministers. If he had been
skilful enough to blend his Apologia with these
great subjects, he would have made it immortal:
instead of which it is completely lost in the ab-
breviated and confused little book he has left us.

I cannot understand how a man, who appeared
to take such wide views, should condescend to such
trivialities. His translator is quite mistaken in
saying I try to proscribe the study of facts. The
reproach I bring against Lord Bolingbroke is that
he has given us too few, and that the few he
records he smothers in trivialities. However, I
think his Memoirs will have given you a certain
amount of pleasure, and as you read them you
must very often have found yourself on familiar
ground.

Good-bye, madam ; let us try to bear our earthly
afflictions patiently. Courage is of some use: it
flatters self-love, it lessens misfortune: but it

ON POPE AND VIRGIL 143

does not give one back one's sight. I always
most sincerely pity you: your fate touches me
deeply.

A thousand compliments to M. de Formont: and
if you see President Henault, the same to him.
My warmest respects.

ON POPE AND VIRGIL

To Mme. du Deffand

[" The Annals, short though they are. " Voltaire's
Annals of the Empire (see Letter XL IX, "On
the 'Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke' ").

"/ would much rather you had the' Pucelle'" (see
Letter XV, "On the ' Pucelle ' and the ' Century of
Louis XIV"). The Pucelle continued to give
Voltaire many anxieties. He had rashly lent some
cantos to Prince Henry of Prussia — which the
Prince's secretary had copied: and Collini, Vol-
taire's secretary, had been obliged to hide the dan-
gerous MS. in his breeches to avoid its discovery
by Freytag at Frankfort. Now — 1754 — Voltaire
was fearing the whole would slip into print.

" Guignon — who is the king of the violin. " There
was at the French Court a post bearing the title of

144 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

" King of the Violins, " occupied by Guignon till
1773: when office and title were suppressed.

"M. d'Alembert . . . can be sure that if I re-
gard him as the first of our philosophers with wit
{d' esprit) it is not out of gratitude" (see Letter LV,
"On the Great Encyclopaedia"). D'Alembert had
asked Voltaire to contribute the article on "Esprit"
to the great Encyclopaedia.]

Colmar, May 19, 1754.

Do you know Latin, madam? No; that is why
you ask me if I prefer Pope to Virgil. All modern
languages are dry, poor, and unmusical in compari-
son with those of our first masters, the Greeks and
Romans. We are but the fiddles of a village band.
Besides, how can I compare Epistles to an Epic
poem, to the loves of Dido, the burning of Troy,
to iEneas ' descent into Hades ?

I think Pope's Essay on Man the finest of didac-
tic and philosophic poems: but nothing is com-
parable to Virgil. You know him through
translations: but it is impossible to translate the
poets. Can you translate music? I regret, ma-
dam, that you, with your enlightened taste and
feeling, cannot read Virgil. I pity you even more
if you are reading the Annals, short though they
are. Germany, even reduced to a miniature, is not
likely to please a French imagination such as yours.

ON POPE AND VIRGIL 145

As you like epic poems, I would much rather you
had the Pucelle. It is a little longer than the
Henriade and the subject is livelier. Imagination
has more play — in serious books in France it is
generally much too circumscribed. My regard for
historical truth and religious prejudice clipped my
wings in the Henriade: they have grown again in
the Pucelle. Her annals are much more amusing
than those of the Empire.

If M. de Formont is still with you, pray remem-
ber me to him : if he has left, remember me to him
when you write. I am going to Plombieres, not in
hopes of recovering my health — those I have quite
given up — but because my friends are going there
too. I have been six months at Colmar without
moving out of my room rand I believe I shall do just
the same at Paris unless you are there.

I perceive that, in the long run, there is really
nothing worth the trouble of leaving the house for.
Illness has great advantages : it spares one society.
It is different for you, madam: society is as neces-
sary to you as a violin to Guignon — who is the
King of the violin.

M. d'Alembert is worthy of you : and much too
good for his generation. He has repeatedly hon-
oured me far above my deserts, and he can be
sure, if I regard him as the first of our philosophers
with wit, it is not out of gratitude.

146 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

I do not often write to you, madam, although
the next best thing to having a letter from you is
answering one : but I am overwhelmed with hard
work, and divide my time between it and the colic.
I have no leisure — I am always either ill or working.
That makes life a full one, though not a perfectly
happy one: but where is happiness to be found?
/ have not the slightest idea : it is a very nice prob-
lem to solve.

LI

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF CIVILISATION
AND LITERATURE

To J. J. Rousseau

[In 1745, when Voltaire was basking in the brief
sunshine of the favour of Louis XV, he had first
had dealings with Jean Jacques Rousseau, native
of Geneva, then music-copier and writer of Court
divertissements, and, to be, the impassioned senti-
mentalist of golden eloquence — the author of the
Social Contract, The New Eloisa, and of the famous,
infamous Confessions.

In 1755 he had written a Prize Essay for the
Academy of Dijon called, by himself, The Dis-
course on the Origin of Inequality among Men and

CIVILISATION AND LITERATURE 147

by his friends, The Essay against Civilisation, which
elaborated his pet theory of the advantages of
savage over civilised life, and which he sent to Vol-
taire. Voltaire replied in the following letter;
which Rousseau presently acknowledged in terms
of warm friendship. When, two months later,
Voltaire's soul was appalled by the fearful earth-
quake of Lisbon, Jean Jacques considered his
theories proved, arguing that houses could not
have fallen if there had been no houses to fall, and
that if men lived like beasts in the open, earth-
quakes would be robbed of nearly all their terrors :
to which absurdity — as to Pope's wiser optimism
in The Essay on Man — Voltaire replied by the
brilliant and withering mockery of Candide.

" Les Delices." Les Delices, which still stands, is
a house near Geneva, with a fine view of the Jura
and the Alps. Voltaire chose it as being under
the laws of the Genevan Republic and yet only
half an hour's ride into France: and called it
Les Delices "because," he said, "nothing is so
delightful as to be free and independent. " He had
been settled there for five months when this letter
was written : and lived there for about three years,
until he acquired Ferney.

"The greatest doctor in Europe" — Dr. Theodore
Tronchin, who was Voltaire's doctor from 1754
until Voltaire's death, was a member of a celebrated

148 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Genevan family and one of the earliest discoverers
of the value of fresh air, soberness, temperance, and
chastity. He had the generosity to accept the dis-
covery of inoculation against smallpox at the hands
of a woman, and the courage to practise it in the
teeth of popular prejudice at his fashionable " cure "
at Geneva, where he preached many other unfash-
ionable doctrines — especially to women. He was a
convinced and devout Christian, and no more afraid
to tell unpalatable truths to Voltaire than to ob-
scurer patients. Voltaire never wrote or spoke of him
but in terms of affection, respect, and admiration.

"Close to your country where you yourself should
be" — that is, to Geneva: Rousseau was in Paris at
the time.

"An ex- Jesuit priest whom I saved from utter
disgrace" — the Abbe Desfontaines (see Letter
XXI, "On Treachery").

"Of a man yet more contemptible printing my
' Century of Louis XIV' with notes. " This was La
Beaumelle, — the protege of Voltaire's Prussian
enemy, Maupertuis — who had brought out a pi-
rated edition of Voltaire's Century of Louis XIV
which actually ran parallel with the author's own
authorised edition. La Beaumelle's Notes con-
tained personal insults to Voltaire and to the Royal
Family of France (see Letter XL, "The Quarrel
with Maupertuis").

CIVILISATION AND LITERATURE 149

"Of a 'Universal History,' supposed to be by
me. " This was a pirated edition of one of Vol-
taire's greatest and most free-spoken works, The
Essay on the Mind and Manners of Nations. It
was printed by a publisher at the Hague— just at
the wrong moment; that is, just as Voltaire was
leaving Prussia: its daring made his return to
France most dangerous, and so helped to decide
his residence in Switzerland.

'A gay trifle I wrote thirty years ago {on the same
subject which Chapelain was stupid enough to treat
seriously)" — The Pucelle — the history of Joan of
Arc. Chapelain was a dull, industrious seven-
teenth-century writer, who had written Joan's
story at immense length. His work was a general
subject of ridicule and had been satirised by
Boileau.]

Les Delices, August 30, 1755.

I have received, sir, your new book against the
human species, and I thank you for it. You will
please people by your manner of telling them the
truth about themselves, but you will not alter
them. The horrors of that human society — from
which in our feebleness and ignorance we expect
so many consolations — have never been painted
in more striking colours: no one has ever been so
witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes : to

150 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

read your book makes one long to go on all fours.
Since, however, it is now some sixty years since I
gave up the practice, I feel that it is unfortunately
impossible for me to resume it : I leave this natural
habit to those more fit for it than are you and I.
Nor can I set sail to discover the aborigines of
Canada, in the first place because my ill-health ties
me to the side of the greatest doctor in Europe, and
I should not find the same professional assistance
among the Missouris : and secondly because 1 war is
going on in that country, and the example of the
civilised nations has made the barbarians almost as
wicked as we are ourselves. I must confine myself
to being a peaceful savage in the retreat I have
chosen — close to your country, where you yourself
should be.

I agree with you that science and literature have
sometimes done a great deal of harm. Tasso's
enemies made his life a long series of misfortunes :
Galileo's enemies kept him languishing in prison,
at seventy years of age, for the crime of understand-
ing the revolution of the earth: and, what is still
more shameful, obliged him to forswear his dis-
covery. Since your friends began the Encyclo-
paedia, their rivals attack them as deists, atheists
— even Jansenists.

If I might venture to include myself among those
whose works have brought them persecution as

CIVILISATION AND LITERATURE 151

their sole recompense, I could tell you of men set
on ruining me from the day I produced my tragedy
(Edipe: of a perfect library of absurd calumnies
which have been written against me : of an ex- Jesuit
priest whom I saved from utter disgrace rewarding
me by defamatory libels : of a man yet more con-
temptible printing my Century of Louis XIV with
Notes in which crass ignorance gave birth to
the most abominable falsehoods: of yet another,
who sold to a publisher some chapters of a Uni-
versal History supposed to be by me: of the pub-
lisher avaricious enough to print this shapeless
mass of blunders, wrong dates, mutilated facts and
names: and, finally, of men sufficiently base and
craven to assign the production of this farago to
me. I could show you all society poisoned by this
class of person — a class unknown to the ancients —
who, not being able to find any honest occupation
— be it manual labour or service — and unluckily
knowing how to read and write, become the brok-
ers of literature, live on our works, steal our
manuscripts, falsify them, and sell them. I could
tell of some loose sheets of a gay trifle which I wrote
thirty years ago (on the same subject that Chape-
lain was stupid enough to treat seriously) which
are in circulation now through the breach of faith
and the cupidity of those who added their own
grossness to my badinage and filled in the gaps

152 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

with a dullness only equalled by their malice ; and
who, finally, after twenty years, are selling every-
where a manuscript which, in very truth, is theirs
and worthy of them only.

I may add, last of all, that someone has stolen
part of the material I amassed in the public ar-
chives to use in my History of the War of 1741 when
I was historiographer of France ; that he sold that
result of my labours to a bookseller in Paris ; and
is as set on getting hold of my property as if I were
dead and he could turn it into money by putting it
up to auction. I could show you ingratitude, im-
posture, and rapine pursuing me for forty years to
the foot of the Alps and the brink of the grave.
But what conclusion ought I to draw from all these
misfortunes? This only: that I have no right to
complain: Pope, Descartes, Bayle, Camoens — a
hundred others — have been subjected to the same,
or greater, injustice: and my destiny is that of
nearly everyone who has loved letters too well.

Confess, sir, that all these things are, after all,
but little personal pin-pricks, which society scarcely
notices. What matter to humankind that a few
drones steal the honey of a few bees? Literary
men make a great fuss of their petty quarrels : the
rest of the world ignores them, or laughs at them.

They are, perhaps, the least serious of all the
ills attendant on human life. The thorns insepar-

CIVILISATION AND LITERATURE 153

able from literature and a modest degree of fame
are flowers in comparison with the other evils
which from all time have flooded the world. Nei-
ther Cicero, Varron, Lucretius, Virgil, or Horace
had any part in the proscriptions of Marius, Scylla,
that profligate Antony, or that fool Lepidus;
while as for that cowardly tyrant, Octavius Caesar
— servilely entitled Augustus — he only became an
assassin when he was deprived of the society of men
of letters.

Confess that Italy owed none of her troubles to
Petrarch or to Boccaccio: that Marot's jests were
not responsible for the massacre of St. Bartholomew:
or the tragedy of the Cid for the wars of the Fronde.
Great crimes are always committed by great igno-
ramuses. What makes, and will always make, this
world a vale of tears is the insatiable greediness and
the indomitable pride of men, from Thomas Kouli-
kan, who did not know how to read, to a custom-
house officer who can just count. Letters support,
refine, and comfort the soul : they are serving you,
sir, at the very moment you decry them: you are
like Achilles declaiming against fame, and Father
Malebranche using his brilliant imagination to be-
little imagination.

If anyone has a right to complain of letters, I am
that person, for in all times and in all places they
have led to my being persecuted: still, we must

154 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

needs love them in spite of the way they are abused
— as we cling to society, though the wicked spoil
its pleasantness: as we must love our country,
though it treats us unjustly: and as we must love
and serve the Supreme Being, despite the super-
stition and fanaticism which too often dishonour
His service.

M. Chappus tells me your health is very un-
satisfactory: you must come and recover here in
your native place, enjoy its freedom, drink (with
me) the milk of its cows, and browse on its grass.

I am yours most philosophically and with sin-
cere esteem.

LII
ON THE EARTHQUAKE OF LISBON

To M. Tronchin, of Lyons

["M. Tronchin of Lyons" was one of the honour-
able family of which Dr. Theodore Tronchin was
the most famous member.

"The Earthquake of Lisbon," on All Saints' Day,
1755, which destroyed thirty thousand persons in
six minutes, drew from Voltaire not only the mock-
ery of Candide, but one of the most beautiful and
serious of his writings, The Poem on the Disaster of

THE EARTHQUAKE OF LISBON 155

Lisbon. The disaster is the subject of many of his
letters of this period, and profoundly touched his
soul.

"In the best of all possible worlds" — a scornful /
version of the "Whatever is, is right" of PopeY
Essay on Man.]

Les Delices, November 24, 1755.

This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philoso-
phy! We shall find it difficult to discover how
the laws of movement operate in such fearful dis-
asters in the best of all possible worlds — where a
hundred thousand ants, our neighbours, are crushed
in a second on our ant-heaps, half, dying un-
doubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath de-
bris from which it was impossible to extricate them,
families all over Europe reduced to beggary, and
the fortunes of a hundred merchants — Swiss, like
yourself — swallowed up in the ruins of Lisbon.
What a game of chance human life is ! What will
the preachers say — especially if the Palace of the
Inquisition is left standing? I flatter myself that
those reverend fathers, the Inquisitors, will have
been crushed just like other people. That ought
to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a
few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few
fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike.

156 ; VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

I believe it is our mountains which save us from
earthquakes.

LIII
ON GOOD TASTE IN LITERATURE
To Mdlle

[" Mme. Deshoulieres " was a graceful verse-
writer of the seventeenth century. Many of her
lines have become maxims.]

Les Delices, June 20, 1756.

I am only an old invalid, mademoiselle, and my
not having answered your letter before, and now
replying only in prose to your charming verses,
prove that my condition is a serious one.

You ask me for advice : your own good taste will
afford you all you need. Your study of Italian
should further improve that taste which was born
in you, and which nobody can give you. Tasso
and Ariosto will do much more for you than I can,
and reading our best poets is better than all lessons ;
but, since you are so good as to consult me from so
far away, my advice to you is — read only such
books as have long been sealed with the universal
approval of the public and whose reputation is es-
tablished. They are few: but you will gain much

GOOD TASTE IN LITERATURE 157

more from reading those few than from all the
feeble little works with which we are inundated.
Good writers are only witty in the right place, they
never strive after smartness: they think sensibly,
and express themselves clearly. Now, people ap-
pear to write exclusively in enigmas. Every-
thing is affected — nothing simple : nature is ignored,
and everyone tries to improve on the masterpieces
of our language.

Hold fast, mademoiselle, by everything which
delights you in them. The smallest affectation is a
vice. The Italians, after Tasso and Ariosto, de-
generated because they were always trying to be
witty: and it is the same with the French. Observe
how naturally Mme. de Sevigne and other ladies
write: and compare their style with the confused
phrases of our minor romances — I cite writers of
your own sex because I am sure you can, and will,
resemble them. There are passages of Mme. Des-
houlieres which are equalled by no writer of the
present day. If you wish examples of male
authors — look how simply and clearly Racine in-
variably expresses himself. Every reader of his
works feels sure that he could himself say in prose
what Racine has said in verse. Believe me, every-
thing that is not equally clear, chaste, and simple
is worth absolutely nothing.

Your own reflections, mademoiselle, will tell you

158 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

all this a hundred times better than I can say it.
You will notice that our good writers— Fenelon,
Bossuet, Racine, Despreaux — always use the right
word. One gets oneself accustomed to talk well by
constantly reading those who have written well:
it becomes a habit to express our thoughts simply
and nobly, without effort. It is not in the nature
of a study: it is no trouble to read what is good, and
to read that only: our own pleasure and taste are
our only masters.

Forgive this long disquisition; you must please
attribute it to my obedience to your commands.

I have the honour to be very respectfully yours.

LIV
ON THE CASE OF ADMIRAL BYNG

[In 1756, the French, under the Due de Riche-
lieu, took Minorca from the English — the English
fleet, under Admiral Byng, retiring before the
French. Paris went mad with joy. Britain for-
got her traditional love of fair play, and wreaked
her bitterness at being beaten on her native ele-
ment, not on the blundering ministry who had
commanded him impossibilities, but on Admiral
Byng himself. In December, 1756, George Keith,
Earl Marischal of Scotland (whom Voltaire had

ADMIRAL BYNG 159

met in Prussia), arrived at Les Delices to plead
with the man who was fast becoming Humanita-
rian-in-Chief of Europe to defend Admiral Byng —
now arraigned on a charge of treason and cowardice.
Voltaire wrote to his friend Richelieu, who replied
in the first of the following letters, vindicating the
character and conduct of his foe. Voltaire sent
a copy of this letter to Byng with his own. He had
met the Admiral many years before in England,
but judged it better not to mention the acquain-
tance. The third letter — Voltaire to Richelieu —
shows the fruitlessness of their efforts. Notwith-
standing the recommendation to mercy, Byng
was shot on March 14, 1757, and his defender,
the author of Candide, added to it an immortal
phrase, "In this country (England) it is as well to
put an admiral to death now and then, to encourage
the others. "]

The Due de Richelieu to Voltaire

December, 1756 (probably).

I am much concerned, sir, about the case of
Admiral Byng. I can assure you that all I have
seen and heard of him is entirely honourable to
him. Since he had done all that could reasonably
be expected of him, he was not to be blamed for
having suffered defeat.

When two generals engage in battle, though both

160 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

are equally men of honour, one must be beaten : it
is not in the least to M. Byng's discredit that he
was. His conduct was throughout that of a clever
sailor, and worthy of all admiration. The strength
of the two fleets was about the same : the English
had thirteen vessels : we had twelve, but ours were
much better equipped and smarter. Fortune —
which is the goddess of all battles — particularly of
sea-battles — was more favourable to us than to
our enemies, in causing our fire to have a much
greater effect on their vessels than their fire on ours.
I am convinced — and it is the general opinion — that,
had the English persisted in the fight, their whole
fleet would have been destroyed. Nothing could
be more unjust than the present campaign against
Admiral Byng. All men of honour, all officers in
the services, should take a special interest in it.

Voltaire to Admiral Byng

[Voltaire enclosed with this letter a copy of the
above letter from Richelieu.]

1757.
Sir, although I am almost unknown to you, I
think it is my duty to send you a copy of the letter
I have just received from the Marechal de Riche-
lieu: honour, humanity, and justice demand that
it should reach your hands.

ADMIRAL BYNG 161

This noble and unsolicited testimony of one of
the most honest and generous of my fellow-country-
men makes me conclude that your judges will
render you the same justice.

I am, with respect,

Voltaire.

Voltaire to the Due de Richelieu

February 13, 1757.

Your letter on Admiral Byng, sir, was given
to that unfortunate man by the Secretary of State,
to be used by him as a means of justification. The
court martial found him a brave man and a true.
But, notwithstanding, by one of those contradic-
tions which are common in all such cases, he was
condemned to death on the strength of an ancient
law — I know not what — while at the same time he
was recommended to mercy — a power which can
be exercised by the King alone. The faction which
attacked him now accuses him of treachery in try-
ing to turn your letter to account — as if it were that
of a man he had bribed to speak for him. So rea-
sons malice : but the clamour of the dogs will not
prevent honest people from regarding your letter
as that of a just and generous conqueror, prompted
only by the magnanimity of his heart.

I suppose you have been busy this last month
with all these public events — horrible, trouble-

162 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

some, or disagreeable — which succeed each other so
rapidly. Those of us who live philosophically in
retirement are not the most to be pitied. I will
not impose on your time and your kindness by
writing at great length: a first gentleman of the
chamber, who has the King and the Dauphin to
attend to, and who, besides, is at the head of armies
and in the secrets of councils, deserves that his cor-
respondents should be brief.

Mme. Denis is always your faithful admirer, and
there is no Swiss more tenderly and respectfully
attached to you than

The Swiss Voltaire.

LV
ON THE GREAT ENCYCLOPAEDIA

To M. d'Alembert

[D'Alembert, one of the greatest geometricians
of his age, was better known to it as the author of
the Preface of that famous Encyclopedia of
which Diderot was the chief promoter, and to which
Voltaire was already a contributor. D'Alembert
— whose literary style in general has not been
unfairly described as "dry as a stick, hard as a
stone, and cold as a cucumber" — rose in that

GREAT ENCYCLOPEDIA 163

Preface to warmth and eloquence: and by it to
fame and the French Academy. In 1756 he stayed
for five weeks with Voltaire at Geneva : and met at
his table many Calvinistic pastors of that town, to
whom his gentle and unassuming character, his
detestation of Rome, and his noble mental gifts
made him a -persona grata: while he, on his side,
rejoiced to find ministers of religion almost as
free-thinking — or so it seemed — as the philosophers
themselves. On his return to Paris he wrote for
the Encyclopedia the famous article, Geneva,
wherein he set it by the ears by complimenting it
on the rationalism of its faith, and as having very
often no other but "a perfect Socinianism, reject-
ing all mystery. "

" The few lines on comedy" he added to the article
heaped fresh fuel on the fire, for they pointed out
to Calvinism, which considered it the pet amuse-
ment of the devil, the innocence of play-acting.
The Calvinistic pastors took counsel together,
and drew up what Voltaire calls in this letter
their "fine profession of faith": while presently
Jean Jacques gave, with "the rushing mighty
wind of his inspiration, " in his Letter on Plays, the
case against the theatre. The opposition, which
always goaded Voltaire to action, caused the
gentler d'Alembert to draw back into his shell.
Even the spur and incitement of a Voltaire could

164 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

not rouse him to firmness and retaliation. A year
after this letter was written, the Encyclopedia — :
largely as a consequence of the article Geneva
— was publicly burnt; the permit to continue pub-
lishing it rescinded; and printers and publishers
sent to the galleys. To the passionate urging of
his "dear and illustrious master" at Les Delices to
fight on — to fight to the death — d'Alembert,
wounded to the soul, made answer, "I do not
know if the Encyclopaedia will be continued, but I
am sure it will not be continued by me": and he
devoted the rest of his life to his geometrical studies
and to his long passion for Mdlle. de Lespinasse.

"Lausanne. Bed; whence I can see ten miles of
Lake." Besides Les Delices at Geneva, Voltaire had
also a house, Monrion, at Ouchy-Lausanne, where,
as it was sheltered from the cold winds prevalent
at Geneva, he often passed the winter.]

Lausanne, Bed; whence I can see ten miles of Lake.

January 29, 1758.

Do not speak of your letters as "babble," my
brave and worthy philosopher: it is essential, if
you please, to discuss and understand the business
with which they deal.

Geneva is making a fine profession of faith : you
will have the satisfaction of having compelled the
heretics to publish a catechism. They complain

GREAT ENCYCLOPEDIA 165

of the article on Actors, included in that on Geneva:
but you added these few lines on comedy at the
request of the citizens themselves. Thus, you have
merely, on the one hand, yielded to the persuasions
of the middle class, and, on the other, have repeated
the opinion of the ministers — an opinion which has
been published in the text-book of one of their
theologians, and was publicly discussed everywhere
before you spoke.

When I begged you to resume your work on the
Encyclopaedia, I did not know to what a vile ex-
cess libel had been carried, and I was far from sus-
pecting that it was actually prompted by the
authorities. I wrote you a long letter by Mme.
de Fontaine: she is your neighbour: cannot you
manage to go and see her?

It would be sad to think you were leaving the
Encyclopaedia on account of the article on Geneva,
as rumour pretends: but it would be sadder still
that you should continue to be the victim of
annoyances which, in proportion as they are
dishonouring to our nation, should rouse you to
rebellion.

Are you in close co-operation with M. Diderot
and your other colleagues? "A three-fold cord is
not quickly broken. "

When you all state simultaneously that you will
not work without a guarantee of the honourable

166 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

freedom which is essential to you, and of the pro-
tection to which you are entitled, surely it is not
doubtful that you will be implored not to deprive
France of a monument necessary to her glory?
The clamour will pass: the work will remain.

If you all abandoned the work together, making
your own stipulations, that might be well : it would
be very unpleasant for you to leave it by yourself:
the head must not cut itself off from the body.

When you produce the first volume, add a pre-
face to it which will shame those cowards who have
permitted the only writers now working for the
glory of the nation to be insulted : and, for God's
sake, stop those feeble declamations which are being
inserted in your Encyclopaedia. Do not give our
enemies the right to complain that those who have
been unsuccessful, or a dead failure, in the arts can
take upon themselves to make the rules for those
arts and set those rules by their own absurd fancies.
Banish the feeble moralising which pads several
articles. The reader wants to know the different
acceptations of a word, and detests trivial and com-
monplace authorities quoted in support of it.
What obliges you to disgrace the Encyclopaedia
with this mass of twaddle and rubbish which gives
so good a handle to the critics ? and why join beg-
gar's fustian to your cloth-of-gold ? Be absolute
masters of it, or abandon the whole thing. Unfor-

A PROFESSION OF FAITH 167

tunate sons of Paris, you should have undertaken
this work in a free country! You have laboured
for the booksellers : they take the profits, and leave
you the persecution. All this — which I regret
with my whole heart for your sakes — makes me
find my retirement delightful. Would to God you
had never seen a minister when you were here!
Keep me posted in everything, I implore you.

LVI
A PROFESSION OF FAITH

To M. . . .

[The anonymous friend to whom this letter was
addressed was evidently a Swiss.

"Montesquieu often lacks arrangement, etc." (see
Letter XXV, "On Corneille and Racine," and
Letter LXXX, "On Monarchy and Despotism,"
for further details on Montesquieu and his books).

"His book should be the breviary of those called to
rule others. " Voltaire is here referring to Montes-
quieu's most famous work, UEsprit des Lois,
which Mme. du Deffand wittily summarised as
"l'esprit sur les lois. " All the same, it can claim
to be the most lucid and original, as it is un-
doubtedly the most amusing, work on the science

168 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

of law ever published. Sixteen years earlier, Mon-
tesquieu had actively opposed Voltaire's election
to the French Academy on the grounds, "Voltaire
n'est pas beau, il n'est que joli. " In a broader and
more generous spirit Voltaire criticised his critic —
"Humanity had lost its title deeds. Montesquieu
found and restored them. "]

Les Delices, January 5, 1759.

It is as necessary, my dear friend, to preach
tolerance among you as it is among us. With all
due deference to you, if you could justify the Eng-
lish, Danish, and Swedish penal laws you would be
justifying at the same time our laws against you.
They are all, I concede, equally absurd, inhuman,
and contrary to good government: but we have
simply imitated you. By your laws I am not al-
lowed to buy a tomb in Sichem. If one of your
people prefers the mass to the sermon, for the
salvation of his soul, he at once ceases to be a
citizen, and loses everything — even his national
rights. You do not allow any priest to celebrate
mass in a low voice, in private, in any of your towns.
Have you not driven out all ministers who cannot
bring themselves to sign I know not what doctrinal
formula? have you not exiled, for a mere yea and
nay, those poor, peaceful Memnonists, in spite of
the wise representations of the States General,

A PROFESSION OF FAITH 169

who received them kindly? are there not still a
large number of these exiles in the mountains in the
diocese of Basle whom you do not permit to return ?
and has not a pastor been deposed because he ob-
jected to his flock being damned eternally? Con-
fess, my dear philosopher, that you are no wiser
than we are: and avow, too, that opinions have
caused more trouble on this little globe than plagues
and earthquakes. And yet you do not wish us to
attack such opinions with our united strength!
Would it not be a good thing for the world to over-
throw the superstition which in all ages infuriates
men one against the other? To worship God: to
leave to every man freedom to serve Him accord-
ing to his own ideas: to love one's neighbours; en-
lighten them, if one can ; pity them, if they are in
error: to regard as immaterial, questions which
would never have given trouble if no importance
had been attached to them: this is my religion,
which is worth all your systems and all your
symbols.

I have not read any of the books of which you
tell me, my dear philosopher: I keep to old works,
which teach me something: from the new I learn
very little. I confess that Montesquieu often lacks
arrangement, in spite of his division into books and
chapters : that he sometimes takes an epigram for a
definition, and an antithesis for a new idea: that he

170 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

is not always correct in his quotations : but he will
remain for ever a profound and heaven-sent genius,
who thinks and makes his readers think. His
book should be the breviary of those called to rule
others. He will endure, and the scribblers will be
forgotten.

As to your writers on agriculture, I believe that
a sensible peasant knows more about it than au-
thors who, from the retirement of their libraries,
issue instructions as to how the earth is to be
ploughed. I plough, but I do not write on plough-
ing. Every age has had its hobby. On the re-
vival of learning, people began by quarrelling with
each other over dogmas and rules of syntax: a
taste for rusty old coins has been succeeded by
researches on metaphysics, which nobody under-
stands. These unintelligible questions have been
abandoned in favour of pneumatic and electrical
machines, which do teach something: then every-
body began collecting shells and fossils. After
that, some modestly essayed to manage the uni-
verse: while others, equally modest, sought to
reform empires by new laws. Finally, descending
from the sceptre to the plough, new Triptolemies
tried to teach men what everybody knows and
does much better than they know how to talk
about it. Such is the march of changing fashions :
but my friendship for you will never change.

ON "CLARISSA HARLOWE" 171

LVII
ON "CLARISSA HARLOWE"

To Mme. du Deffand

[Clarissa Harlowe, published in nine volumes in
1748, and one of the most famous novels of the
century, was, and is, as variously estimated in
France as in England. If Voltaire found it dull
and copious, Diderot ranked Richardson with
Moses and Homer: while that unsentimental old
worldling, Mme. du Deffand, was almost as warm
in its praises as Haydon, the painter, who read it
for seventeen hours at a stretch, and declared that,
save by Othello, he had never been so moved by
any work of genius. The modern reader, if he
reads it at all (which, to his loss, he generally does
not), is inclined to agree with Voltaire as to its
"linked sweetness long drawn out": or to echo the
criticism of d'Alembert, "La nature est bonne a
imiter, mais non pas jusqua l'ennui. "

" / am sorry I once decried him. " Voltaire had
"decried" Rabelais in The Temple of Taste — a sort
of French Dunciad, published nearly thirty years
before this letter was written.]

Les Delices, April 12, 1760.

I have not sent you, madam, any of those trifles
with which you condescend to while away an idle

172 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

moment. For more than six weeks I have broken
with all humankind: I have buried myself in my
own thoughts: then came the usual country em-
ployments, and then a fever. Taking all these
things into consideration, you have had nothing,
and most likely will have nothing, for some time.

You need, however, only write and say to me,
"I want to be amused, I am well, in full feather,
and a good humour, and I should like some trifles
sent along to me," and you shall have a whole
postbag — comic, scientific, historical, or poetic,
just as pleases you best— pon condition you throw it
in the fire when read.

You were so enthusiastic over Clarissa that I
read it as a relaxation from my work when I was
ill: the reading made me feverish. It is cruel for
a man as impatient as I am to read nine whole
volumes containing nothing at all, and serving no
purpose whatever but to give a glimpse of Miss
Clarissa's love for a profligate like Lovelace. I
said to myself: "Were all these people my friends
and relatives, I could not take the least interest in
them. " I see nothing in the author but a cleverish
man who knows the invincible curiosity of the
human species, and who holds out hopes of grati-
fying it volume after volume — in order to sell
them. When at last I found Clarissa in a house of
ill fame, I was greatly touched.

ON "CLARISSA HARLOWE" 173

Pierre Corneille's Theodore (who wants to get
into La Fillons from a Christian motive) does not
approach Clarissa, either in its situations or in its
pathos ; but, save that part where the pretty English
girl finds herself in that disreputable place, I con-
fess that nothing in the novel gave me the least sat-
isfaction, and I should be sorry to have to read it
through again. The only good books, it seems to me,
are those which can be re-read without weariness.

The only good books of that particular kind are
those which set a picture constantly before the
imagination, and soothe the ear by their harmony.
People want music and painting, with a few little
philosophical precepts thrown in now and again
with a reasonable discretion. For this reason
Horace, Virgil, and Ovid always please — save in the
translations, which spoil them.

After Clarissa I re-read some chapters of Rabelais,
such as the fight of brother Jean des Entommeures,
and the meeting of the council of Pierochole: I
know them almost by heart: but I re-read them
with the greatest pleasure, for they give a most
vivid picture of life.

Not that I compare Rabelais with Horace: but if
Horace is the first writer of good epistles, Rabelais,
at his best, is the first of buffoons. Two men of
this kind in a nation are not needed : but one there
must be. I am sorry I once decried him.

174 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

But there are pleasures superior to all this sort
of thing: those of seeing the grass grow in the
fields, and the abundant harvest ripen. That is
man's true life: all the rest is vanity.

Forgive me, madam, for speaking to you of a
pleasure enjoyed through the eyes : you only know
the pleasures of the soul. The way you bear your
affliction is wholly admirable : you enjoy, anyhow,
all the advantages of society. It is true that that
often comes to mean merely giving one's opinion
on the news of the day; which, in the long run,
seems to me exceedingly insipid. Only our tastes
and passions make this world supportable. You
replace the passions by philosophy, a poor sub-
stitute: while I replace them with the tender and
respectful attachment I have always felt for you.

Wish President Henault good health from me:
and I hope he will not quite forget me.

LVIII
IMPEACHING A TRADUCER

To M. Palissot

[At the end of 1758 Voltaire had bought the
charming little estate of Ferney, about three miles
from Geneva.

VOLTAIRE AT FERNEY
From an old print

IMPEACHING A TRADUCER 175

His lively and quite youthful enjoyment in
rebuilding the house and the ugly little church
which stood in its grounds was marred in the spring
of 1760 by the production in Paris of a play, by
Charles Palissot, a journalist, called The Philoso-
phers, ridiculing the philosophic party — par-
ticularly Diderot, Helvetius, Duclos, and other of
Voltaire's friends. What made the thing particu-
larly base was that in 1755 Palissot had been Vol-
taire's guest at Les Delices, with the poet Patu, who
was a friend of David Garrick. It is true, Voltaire
was not personally attacked in the play: but he
replied for his brethren in a scathing burlesque on
The Philosophers called The Scotch Girl, in which he
revenged himself not only on Palissot but on Freron,
an older and deadlier foe, and also a critic and
journalist. The Scotch Girl he immediately fol-
lowed by his romantic tragedy, Tancred which
Palissot had admired, or of which he had expressed
admiration. Palissot's next stab was the publica-
tion of Voltaire's private correspondence with him :
which drew upon himself the following letter.

" The whole Academy was exasperated with Le-
franc's Discourse." The Marquis Lefranc de
Pompignan, who had succeeded Voltaire as His-
toriographer of France, and who had fallen upon
the philosophic party in his address, delivered on
taking his chair in the French Academy on March

176 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

10, 1760. Voltaire had retaliated in a succession of
deadly little brochures — the Whens, the Whats, the
Whys, and the JVhos.]

Ferney, near Geneva, September 24, 1760.

I am forced to complain, sir, of your having pub-
lished my letters without my consent. Such a
proceeding is neither philosophical nor worldly-
wise. I am, however, answering your letter of
September 13 th, at the same time begging you, by
every social obligation, not to make public what I
write for you alone.

I begin by thanking you for the part you have the
kindness to play in Tancred's little success. You are
right in not liking scenic display and action on the
stage, except when both are connected with the in-
terest of the piece : you write too well not to wish the
poet to take precedence of the scene-painter.

I am also of your opinion as to literary battles:
but you must confess that, in any war, the aggressor
is alone to blame before God and man. After
forty years I have lost my patience. I have given
sundry little pats with my paw to my enemies, just
to let them know that, in spite of my sixty-seven
years, I am not paralysed. You set about that
business earlier than I did: you attacked people
who did not attack you; and, unfortunately, I am
the friend of several persons into whom you have

IMPEACHING A TRADUCER 177

dug your claws. I thus find myself between you
and my friends whom you are tearing to pieces:
you will confess you are putting me into a very
awkward position. I was much touched by your
visit to Les Delices : I felt a great liking for you and
M. Patu, who came with you: and my affection,
divided between yourself and him, was centred on
you alone after his death. Your letters have been
a great pleasure to me : I have been much inter-
ested in your fortunes and your success: our inter-
course, which gave me so much pleasure, has ended
by calling down on me the stinging reproaches of
my friends. They complain of my corresponding
with a man who insults them. To put the finishing
touch to this disagreeable situation, someone has
sent me the notes printed in the margin of your
letters : these notes are of the severest character.

You ought not to be astonished that the offended
should not spare the offender. This dispute de-
grades letters: they were already sufficiently de-
spised and persecuted by the majority of those men
who think only of money.

It is a horrible thing when those who should be
united by their tastes and feelings abuse each other
like Jansenists and Molinists. Those little scoun-
drels in the black cassocks opposed men of letters
because they were jealous of them. Every think-
ing being ought to rise up against these fanatical

178 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

hypocrites. They deserve to be held up to the
execration of their own age and of posterity.
Judge how grieved I must be that you have fought
under their banners !

My consolation is that justice is done at last.
The whole Academy was exasperated with Le-
franc's Discourse: you might have had a chair in
that Academy if you had not publicly insulted two
of its members in your play. You know that our
friends easily abandon us, and that our enemies are
implacable.

This affair has robbed me of my cheerfulness,
and left me, so far as you are concerned, wholly
regretful. Pompignan and Freron amused me:
you have saddened me.

Feeble as I am, I write to tell you that I shall
never console myself for an episode which brings so
much discredit on literature: that it has become a
degrading and abominable profession, and that I
regret having loved it, and you.

LIX

SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN 1760

To M. de Bastide

[M. de Bastide was the author of a book called

The New Spectator.

SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN 1760 179

This letter gives a good example of Voltaire's
delicately ironical method, though unfortunately
much of the delicacy is inevitably lost in a trans-
lation.]

1760.

I do not suppose, Spectator of the World, that
you propose to fill your pages with facts concerning
the physical world. Socrates, Epictetus, Marcus
Aurelius, allowed all the spheres to gravitate one
on the top of the other, that they might devote
themselves to the regulation of manners. Are
your speculations also thus concentrated on moral-
ity? But what do you expect from a morality
which the teachers of the nations have already
preached about with so much success ?

I agree with you that it is somewhat of a reflec-
tion on human nature that money accomplishes
everything and merit almost nothing: that the real
workers, behind the scenes, have hardly a modest
subsistence, while certain selected personages flaunt
on the stage : that fools are exalted to the skies, and
genius is in the gutter: that a father disinherits
six virtuous children to make his first-born — often a
scapegrace — heir to all his possessions : that a luck-
less wretch who comes to grief, or to any unhappy
end in a foreign country, leaves the fortune of his
natural inheritors to the treasury of that state.

180 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

It is sad to see — I confess it again — those who
toil in poverty, and those who produce nothing, in
luxury: great proprietors who claim the very birds
that fly and the fish that swim: trembling vassals
who do not dare to free their houses from the wild
boar that devours them : fanatics who want to burn
everyone who does not pray to God after their own
fashion: violence in high places which engenders
violence in the people: might making right not
only amongst nations but amongst individuals.

And it is this state of things, common to all lives
and to all places, which you expect to change!
Behold the folly of you moralists! Mount the
pulpit with Bourdaloue, or wield the pen like La
Bruyere, and you waste your time — the world will
go its way!

A government which could provide for all would
do more in a year than the order of preaching friars
has done since their institution.

In a very short space of time Lycurgus raised the
Spartans above ordinary humanity. The force
of Confucius' wisdom, two thousand years ago, is
still felt in China.

But, as neither you nor I are made to govern, if
you have such an itching for reform, reform our
virtues, which in excess may well become preju-
dicial to the prosperity of the state. It is easier
to reform virtues than vices. The list of exagger-

SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN 1760 181

ated virtues would be a long one : I will mention a
few, and you will easily guess the rest.

I observe, walking about the country, that the
children of the soil eat much less than they require:
it is difficult to conceive this immoderate passion
for abstinence. It even looks as if they had got
into their heads that it will be accounted to them
for virtue if their beasts also are half-starved.

What is the result ? Men and beasts waste away,
their stock becomes feeble, work is suspended, and
the cultivation of the land suffers.

Patience is another virtue carried to excess,
perhaps, in the country. If the tax collectors lim-
ited themselves to executing the will of their lord,
to be patient would be a duty: but if you question
these good folk who supply us with bread, they will
tell you that the manner in which the taxes are
levied is a hundred times more onerous than the
tax itself. Their patience ruins them and their
landowners with them.

The evangelical pulpit has reproached kings and
the great a hundred times for their harshness to
the poor. The fault has been corrected — in excess.
The royal antechambers overflow with servants
better fed and better clothed than the lords of the
parishes whence they come. This excess of char-
ity robs the country of soldiers, and the land of
labourers.

182 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Spectator of the World, do not let the scheme of
reforming our virtues shock you: the founders of
religious orders have reformed each other. An-
other reason for encouragement is that it is perhaps
easier to discern an excess of good than to pro-
nounce on the nature of evil. Believe me, dear
Spectator, I cannot urge you too strongly to reform
our virtues : men cling too tightly to their vices.

LX
ON LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

To M. le Comte d'Argental

[" The letters of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, now
appearing in England" (see Letter XL VII, "On
Inoculation").

It is almost unique to find a Frenchman estimat-
ing the correspondence of Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu above that of Mme. de Sevigne: but the
fact indeed is, as Voltaire shows, that Lady Mary
had wider and larger interests, and that, compared
with her broad and shrewdly humorous description
of her travels in the East, the letters of Mme. de
Sevigne are bloodless and elegant — the letters
which made Napoleon feel as if he had been "eat-
ing snowballs," and which Lady Mary herself

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 183

dismissed (most unfairly) as the tittle-tattle of a
fine lady or an old nurse.

Lady Mary died in 1762, a year before this letter
was written.]

1763-

My dear angels, it is a great pity that the
Literary Gazette allowed itself to be prejudiced in
the account it gave of the Letters of Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, which are appearing in England.
The Letters of Mme. de Sevigne are suited to the
French, those of Lady Montagu to all nations. If
they are ever well translated (and that would be a
difficult task) you will be delighted to find in them
so much that is new and curious, embellished by
knowledge, taste, and good writing. Just fancy
that for more than a thousand years no traveller
able to gain and give information had reached Con-
stantinople through the countries which Lady
Montagu traversed: she has seen the native land
of Orpheus and Alexander: she has dined tete-a-
tete with the widow of the Emperor Mustapha;
she has translated Turkish songs and declarations
of love, which are quite in the style of the Song of
Songs ; she has observed manners resembling those
described by Homer, and has travelled with her
Homer in her hand. We learn from her to rid our-
selves of many of our prejudices. The Turks are
neither such brutes nor so brutal as has been said.

i8 4 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

She found as many Deists at Constantinople as
there are in Paris or London. I confess I am
grieved that she treats both our music and our
holy religion with the most profound disdain:
but we must try to get used to this trifling mor-
tification.

Pray tell me what happens to this Literary Ga-
zette. Will the Due de Praslin's support of it go
for nothing? Are they working at it, and putting
a little salt into it ? No good dishes without salt !
It is the sauce that makes the cook.

LXI
ON RIDICULE

To M. Bertrand

['My friend Jean- Jacques will not allow comedy,"
against which Rousseau had protested in his
Letter on Plays (see Letter LV, "On the Great
Encyclopaedia").]

January 8, 1764.

I shall never cease, my dear sir, to preach toler-
ance from the housetops — despite the groans of
your priests and the outcries of ours — until perse-
cution is no more. The progress of reason is slow,
the roots of prejudice lie deep. Doubtless, I shall

CALAS, AND THE SIRVENS 185

never see the fruits of my efforts, but they are
seeds which may one day germinate.

You are of the opinion, my dear friend, that
jesting is not suitable to serious subjects. We
Frenchmen are naturally lively: the Swiss are
grave.

Is it possible that, in the delightful canton of
Vaud, which in itself inspires cheerfulness, solem-
nity is an effect of the government ? Depend upon
it, nothing is so efficacious in crushing superstition
as ridicule. I do not confound superstition with
religion, my dear philosopher.

Religion is the target of pride and folly: super-
stition the objective of wisdom and reason.
Superstition has always produced trouble and dis-
cord : religion maintains brotherhood, learning, and
peace. My friend Jean-Jacques will not allow
comedy, and you set your face against innocent
jests. In spite of your solemnity, I am yours most
affectionately.

LXII
THE CASE OF CALAS AND OF THE SIRVENS

To M. Damilaville

[Damilaville was Voltaire's Paris correspondent
and factotum in general, and was constantly em-

1 86 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

ployed in transmitting books and news to
Ferney.

This letter — meant for the public eye as much as
for M. Damilaville's — gives an excellent account,
in brief, of the two great causes celebres which
long engrossed Voltaire's superb talents and ener-
gies, and which he made famous all over Europe.
What the letter lays little stress on, is his own sacri-
fices, in money as well as in the time he valued far
above money, on his burning zeal and his invincible
perseverance, which at last brought both cases to
triumphant conclusions. On behalf of the Calas
he had written not only Memoirs and Declarations
and The History of Elizabeth Canning and of the
Calas (taking care that they should be translated
into foreign tongues and published in foreign coun-
tries) but also the famous Treatise on Tolerance,
which still lives, and dealt the death-blow to the
cruel injustice hitherto meted to the Protestant in
Catholic countries. On March 9, 1765, just a week
after this letter was written, the innocence of Calas
and his family was publicly declared by forty
judges of the Council of Paris, unanimous in their
verdict; and it only remained to him, who, it is
said, loved none of his titles to fame so well as
that of the "saviour of the Calas," to promote the
further welfare of the Calas boys and of their
mother.

CALAS, AND THE SIRVENS 187

The Sirvens' case was less dramatic. As Voltaire
said, "it lacked a scaffold. " But when they clung
about his feet and implored him to save them also,
he was not the man to pass by on the other side as
his priestly friend advised him.

For seven years he laboured to get their case
re-tried, giving to it unstintingly, as he had given
to the Calas, his time, fame, brains, money, and
influence: but it was not until 1771, when he was
seventy-seven years old, that the Parliament of
Toulouse completely exculpated the accused; hav-
ing taken, as Voltaire said, two hours to condemn
innocence and nine years to give it justice.

" The new Memoir of M. de Beaumont. " Elie
de Beaumont — hereafter a famous and brilliant
avocat — was quite unknown when Voltaire chose
him to be, with d'Alembert and Mariette (already
celebrated), counsel for Mme. Calas — Voltaire
paying all expenses himself. De Beaumont's
Memoir showed "three impossibilities" in the way
of Calas' having murdered his son. "The fourth,"
said Voltaire, " is that of resisting your arguments. "

"A lady whose generosity is as noble as her birth"
—the Duchesse d'Enville, a patient of Voltaire's
friend, Dr. Tronchin. She helped the Calas not
only with money but by representing their case to
Saint-Florentin, Chancellor of France.

" It has not found Mariettes, Beaumonts and Loi-

188 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

seau. " In point of fact, in a letter written a few
days after this one, Voltaire announced that Elie
de Beaumont would defend the Sirvens, as he
had defended the Calas.

"/ was myself giving shelter to a Jesuit" — Father
Adam ("but not," as Voltaire said, "the first of
men"), whose acquaintance Voltaire had made at
Colmar, and to whom he gave hospitality for thir-
teen years.

"Who else . . . has defended the memory of a
great prince against the abominable inventions of a
writer, whoever he may be." The "great prince"
was the Regent Orleans. The traducer, as Vol-
taire knew very well, was that La Beaumelle who
had published Voltaire's Century of Louis XIV
with notes of his own (see Letter LI, "On the
Advantages of Civilisation and Literature," and
Letter XL, "The Quarrel with Maupertuis").

" The vile mercenary who twice a month outrages
sense, etc. " This was Freron, Voltaire's old enemy,
in his scandalous periodical the Annee Litteraire
(see Letter LVIII, "Impeaching a Traducer").

" The sage of Montbar" was Buff on, the famous
naturalist.

" The sage of Fore" was Voltaire's friend and pro-
tege, Helvetius (see Letter XXII, "How to
Write Verse"). After Helvetius settled on his
estate at Vore, in Burgundy, in 175 1, he had shown

CALAS, AND THE SIRVENS 189

himself — that rare phenomenon in the eighteenth
century — a model landowner and an enlightened
philanthropist.]

Ferney, March r, 1765.

My dear friend, I have devoured the new
Memoir of M. de Beaumont on the innocence of the
Calas ; I have admired and wept over it, but it told
me nothing I did not know; I have long been con-
vinced, and it was I who was lucky enough to
furnish the first proofs.

You would like to know how this European pro-
test against the judicial murder of the unhappy
Calas, broken on the wheel at Toulouse, managed
to reach a little unknown corner of the world, be-
tween the Alps and the Jura, a hundred miles
from the scene of the fearful event.

Nothing more clearly reveals the existence of
that imperceptible chain which links all the events
of this miserable world.

At the end of March, 1762, a traveller, who had
come through Languedoc and arrived in my little
retreat two miles from Geneva, told me of the sacri-
fice of Calas, and assured me that he was innocent.
I answered him that the crime was not a probable
one, but that it was still more improbable that
Calas' judges should, without any motive, break an
innocent man on the wheel.

190 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

I heard the next day that one of the children of
this unfortunate man had taken refuge in Switzer-
land, fairly near my cottage. His flight made me
presume the guilt of the family. However, I
reflected that the father had been condemned to
death for having, by himself, assassinated his son
on account of his religion, and that, at the time of
his death, this father was sixty-nine years old.
I never remember to have read of any old man be-
ing possessed by so horrible a fanaticism. I have
always observed that this mania is usually confined
to young people, with weak, heated, and unstable
imaginations, inflamed by superstition. The fan-
atics of the Cevennes were madmen from twenty
to thirty years of age, trained to prophesy since
childhood. Almost all the convulsionists I had
seen in any large numbers in Paris were young girls
and boys. Among the monks the old are less
carried away and less liable to the fury of the zealot
than those just out of their novitiate. The notori-
ous assassins, goaded by religious frenzy, have all
been young people, as have all those who have
pretended to be possessed — no one ever saw an old
man exorcised. This reasoning made me doubt a
crime, which was, moreover, unnatural. I was
ignorant of its circumstances.

I had young Calas to my house. I expected to
find him a religious enthusiast, such as his country

CALAS, AND THE SIRVENS 191

has sometimes produced. I found a simple and
ingenuous youth, with a gentle and very interesting
countenance, who, as he talked to me, made vain
efforts to restrain his tears. He told me that he
was at Nimes, apprenticed to a manufacturer,
when he heard that his whole family was about to
be condemned to death at Toulouse, and that al-
most all Languedoc believed them guilty. He
added that, to escape so fearful a disgrace, he had
come to Switzerland to hide himself.

I asked him if his father and mother were of a
violent character. He told me that they had never
beaten any one of their children, and that never
were parents more tender and indulgent.

I confess that no more was needed to give me a
strong presumption in favour of the innocence of
the family. I gathered fresh information from two
merchants of Geneva, of proven honesty, who had
lodged at the Calas' house in Toulouse. They con-
firmed me in my opinion. Far from believing the
Calas family to be fanatics and parricides, I
thought I saw that it was the fanatics who had
accused and ruined them. I had long known of
what party spirit and calumny are capable.

But what was my astonishment when, having
written to Languedoc on the subject of this extra-
ordinary story, Catholics and Protestants answered
that there was no doubt as to the crime of the Calas I

192 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

I was not disheartened. I took the liberty of
writing to those in authority in the province, to
the governors of neighbouring provinces, and to
ministers of state : all unanimously advised me not
to mix myself up in such a horrible affair: every-
body blamed me : and I persisted : this is what I did.

Calas' widow (from whom, to fill to the brim her
cup of misery and insult, her daughters had been
forcibly removed) had retired into solitude, where
she lived on the bread of tears, and awaited death.
I did not enquire if she was, or was not, attached to
the Protestant religion, but only if she believed in
a God who rewarded virtue and punished crime.
I asked her if she would sign a solemn declaration,
as before God, that her husband died innocent:
she did not hesitate. She had to be persuaded to
leave her retirement and to undertake the journey
to Paris.

It is then apparent that, if there are great crimes
on the earth, there are as many virtues ; and that,
if superstition produces horrible sufferings, phi-
losophy redresses them.

A lady, whose generosity is as noble as her birth,
and who was staying at Geneva to have her
daughters inoculated, was the first to succour this
unhappy family. French people living in this
country seconded her: the travelling English dis-
tinguished themselves: there was a beneficent ri-

CALAS, AND THE SIRVENS 193

valry between the two nations as to which should
give the more to virtue so cruelly oppressed.

As to the sequel, who knows it better than you ?
Who has served innocence with a zeal as faithful
and courageous? Who has more generously en-
couraged the voice of those orators whom all France
and Europe paused to hear? The days when Ci-
cero justified, before an assembly of legislators,
Amerinus accused of parricide, are with us again.
A few people, calling themselves pious, have raised
their voices against the Calas : but, for the first time
since fanaticism was established, the wise have
silenced them.

What great victories reason is winning among us !
But would you believe, my dear friend, that the
family of the Calas, so efficiently succoured and
avenged, was not the only one that religion accused
of parricide — was not the only one sacrificed to the
furies of religious persecution? There is a case
yet more pitiable, because, while experiencing the
same horrors, it has not had the same consolations :
it has not found Mariettes,Beaumonts, and Loiseau.

There appears to be a horrible mania, indigenous
to Languedoc, originally sown there by the in-
quisitors in the train of Simon de Montfort, which,
ever since then, from time to time hoists its flag.

A native of Castres, named Sirven, had three
daughters. As the religion of the family is the so-
13

194 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

called reformed religion, the youngest of the daugh-
ters was torn from the arms of her mother. She
was put into a convent, where they beat her to help
her to learn her catechism: she went mad: and
threw herself into a well at a place not far from her
parents' house. The bigots thereupon made up
their minds that her father, mother, and sisters had
drowned the child. The Catholics of the province
are absolutely convinced that one of the chief
points of the Protestant religion is that the fathers
and mothers are bound to hang, strangle, or drown
any of their children whom they suspect of any
leaning towards the Catholic faith. Precisely at
the moment when the Calas were in irons, this
fresh scaffold was uplifted.

The story of the drowned girl reached Toulouse
at once. Everyone declared it to be a fresh in-
stance of murderous parents. The public fury
grew daily: Calas was broken on the wheel: Sir-
ven, his wife, and his daughter were accused. Sirven,
terrified, had just time to flee with his delicate
family. They went on foot, with no creature to
help them, across precipitous mountains, deep in
snow. One of the daughters gave birth to an in-
fant among the glaciers: and, herself dying, bore
her dying child in her arms: they finally took the
road to Switzerland.

The same fate which brought the children of the

CALAS, AND THE SIRVENS 195

Calas to me, decided that the Sirvens should also
appeal to me. Picture to yourself, my friend, four
sheep accused by the butchers of having devoured a
lamb : for that is what I saw. I despair of describ-
ing to you so much innocence and so much sorrow.
What ought I to have done ? and what would you
have done in my place? Could I rest satisfied
with cursing human nature? I took the liberty
of writing to the first president of Languedoc, a
wise and good man: but he was not at Toulouse.
I got one of my friends to present a petition to the
vice-chancellor. During this time, near Castres,
the father, mother, and two daughters were exe-
cuted in effigy: their property confiscated and dis-
sipated — to the last sou.

Here was an entire family — honest, innocent,
virtuous — left to disgrace and beggary among
strangers: some, doubtless, pitied them: but it is
hard to be an object of pity to one's grave! I was
finally informed that remission of their sentence
was a possibility. At first, I believed that it was
the judges from whom that pardon must be ob-
tained. You will easily understand that the fam-
ily would sooner have begged their bread from door
to door, or have died of want, than ask a pardon
which admitted a crime too horrible to be pardon-
able. But how could justice be obtained? how
could they go back to prison in a country where

iq6 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

half the inhabitants still said that Calas' murder
was just? Would there be a second appeal to
Council? would anyone try to rouse again the
public sympathy which, it might well be, the mis-
fortunes of the Calas had exhausted, and which
would weary of refuting such accusations, of re-
instating the condemned, and of confounding their
judges?

Are not these two tragic events, my friend, so
rapidly following each other, proofs of the inevit-
able decrees of fate, to which our miserable species
is subject? A terrible truth, so much insisted on
in Homer and Sophocles: but a useful truth, since
it teaches us to be resigned and to learn how to
suffer.

Shall I add that, while the incredible calamities
of the Calas and the Sirvens wrung my heart,
a man, whose profession you will guess from what
he said, reproached me for taking so much interest
in two families who were strangers to me ? " Why
do you mix yourself up in such things?" he asked;
"let the dead bury their dead." I answered him,
"I found an Israelite in the desert — an Israelite
covered in blood ; suffer me to pour a little wine and
oil into his wounds: you are the Levite, leave me to
play the Samaritan. "

It is true that, as a reward for my trouble, I have
been treated quite as a Samaritan: a defamatory

CALAS, AND THE SIRVENS 197

libel appeared under the titles of A Pastoral
Instruction and A Charge: but it may well be
forgotten — a Jesuit wrote it. The wretch did
not know then that I was myself giving shelter
to a Jesuit! Could I prove more conclusively
that we should regard our enemies as our
brethren ?

Your passions are humanity, a love of truth, and
a hatred of calumny. Our friendship is founded
on the similarity of our characters. I have spent
my life in seeking and publishing the truth which
I love. Who else among modern historians has
defended the memory of a great prince against the
abominable inventions of a writer, whoever he
may be, who might well be called the traducer of
kings, ministers, and military commanders, and
who now has not a single reader?

I have only done in the fearful cases of the
Calas and the Sirvens what all men do: I
have followed my bent. A philosopher's is not
to pity the unhappy — it is to be of use to
them.

I know how furiously fanaticism attacks phi-
losophy, whose two daughters,Truth and Tolerance,
fanaticism would fain destroy as it destroyed the
Calas: while philosophy only wishes to render
innocuous the offspring of fanaticism, Falsehood
and Persecution.

198 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Those who do not reason try to bring into
discredit those who do: they have confused the
philosopher with the sophist: and have greatly
deceived themselves. The true philosopher can be
aroused against the calumny which so often attacks
himself: he can overwhelm with everlasting con-
tempt the vile mercenary who twice a month out-
rages sense, good taste, and morality: he can even
expose to ridicule, in passing, those who insult
literature in the sanctuary where they should have
honoured it : but he knows nothing of cabals, under-
hand dealings, or petty revenge. Like the sage
of Montbar, like the sage of Vore, he knows how
to make the land fruitful and those who dwell on
it happier. The real philosopher clears unculti-
vated ground, adds to the number of ploughs and,
so, to the number of inhabitants : employs and en-
riches the poor: encourages marriages and finds
a home for the orphan: does not grumble at neces-
sary taxes, and puts the agriculturist in a condition
to pay them promptly. He expects nothing from
others, and does them all the good he can. He has
a horror of hypocrisy, but he pities the super-
stitious: and, finally, he knows how to be a
friend.

I perceive that I am painting your portrait : the
resemblance would be perfect, were you so for-
tunate as to live in the country.

THE CHEVALIER DE LA BARRE 199

LXIII

THE CHEVALIER DE LA BARRE

To M. d'Alembert

[On October 1, 1765, the young Chevalier de la
Barre had been arrested on a charge of mutilating
crucifixes, insulting a religious procession, and
"uttering blasphemies" in Abbeville. On Febru-
ary 28, 1766, he, d'Etallonde (a friend, who had
escaped to Prussia), and Moisnel, a boy of eigh-
teen, were condemned to death, after having their
tongues cut out and their hands cut off. Ten of
the best avocats in Paris (the "ten humane and
upright judges" of this letter) declared the brutal
sentence illegal. A public appeal against it was
made to the King. The case was re-tried at Paris,
and the sentence confirmed. On July 1, 1766, la
Barre (he was scarcely twenty) died "with the
firmness of Socrates, " after having been put to the
torture. With his body was burnt, with other
contraband works, the first volume of The Philo-
sophical Dictionary of Voltaire — who, with many
others, had believed up to the last in a reprieve.
As it was considered that the works of the philo-
sophers — and of the Philosopher-in-Chief, chiefly
— had been largely responsible for la Barre's
folly, Voltaire went for safety to Rolle, in Vaud.

200 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

There he wrote his noble tract in the cause of
humanity, The Death of the Chevalier de la Barre,
which, as he hoped, "frightened the carnivorous
beasts off others," not only saved Moisnel from a
punishment so barbarously disproportionate to
the crime, but forced the judges to drop the case
altogether. He also obtained King Frederick's
protection for d'Etallonde: and in 1775, when
d'Etallonde was at Ferney, pleaded for the restitu-
tion of his civil rights in a pamphlet entitled The
Cry of Innocent Blood (see also Letter LXVIII,
"The Case of Martin"):

"A lieutenant-general gagged" — General Lally
(see Letter LXXXIV, "The Last Letter").

"Five young men condemned to be burnt for follies
which deserved Saint-Lazare." There were really
only three, d'Etallonde, Moisnel, and the Chevalier
de la Barre: Voltaire was as yet imperfectly ac-
quainted with the details of the case. Saint La-
zare was the house of correction for juvenile
offenders.

" The Preface of the King of Prussia. " This was
a Preface to a volume entitled Extracts from Bayle's
Dictionary which had appeared in Berlin in 1766.
The King turned the Preface into a panegyric of
the proscribed and free-thinking Bayle (see Let-
ter XII, "On the Liberty of the Press: and on
Theatres").

THE CHEVALIER DE LA BARRE 201

" The theologian Fernet" was a Calvinistic pastor
of Geneva, with whom Voltaire had quarrelled on
the vexed subject of play-acting. Vernet made the
mistake of attacking Voltaire in print. Voltaire
replied in a Dialogue between a Priest and a Pro-
testant Minister, which caused Vernet "to complain
to the Council of Geneva that he was being held
up to ridicule." To this complaint Voltaire — just
two months before this letter was written — had
made answer in one of the most stinging personal
satires that ever fell from even his pen and was
entitled The Praise of Hypocrisy.]

July 18, 1766.

Brother Damilaville has doubtless sent you, my
dear philosopher, the "Narrative" of Abbeville. I
cannot conceive how thinking beings can live in a
land of apes who so often turn into tigers. For my
part, I am ashamed to be even on the frontier.
Truly, this is the moment to break all one's ties,
and hide the shame and horror of one's soul in
some far off land. I have not been able to get the
report of the barristers' consultation: you doubtless
have seen it — and shuddered. The moment for
jesting has gone by: witticisms do not accord with
massacres. What ! these Busirises in wig and gown
condemn to death in the most horrible tortures
children of sixteen ! and that against the judgment

202 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

of ten humane and upright judges! And the
nation allows it ! People discuss it for five minutes,
and then go on to the Opera-Comique : and in-
humanity, growing more and more insolent on the
strength of our silence, to-morrow will cut the
throats for which her fingers are itching — yours,
first of all, for you have raised your voice against
her.

Here, on one hand, is Calas broken on the wheel ;
on the other, Sirven hanged; a little further from
home, a lieutenant-general gagged; and, a fort-
night later, five young men condemned to be burnt
for follies which deserved Saint-Lazare. What is
the use of the Preface of the King of Prussia?
Can he remedy such horrible crimes as these? Is
this the land of gaiety and philosophy? It is
rather that of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
The Inquisition would not have dared to decide
as these Jansenist judges have decided. Tell me,
I beg you, what is being said, since nothing is
being done. It is a feeble consolation to know
that such monsters are held in abhorrence, but it is
the only one that remains to our impotence, and I
pray you to let me have it. The Prince of Bruns-
wick is beside himself with indignation, rage, and
pity. Redouble these passions in my heart by two
words in your handwriting sent, by petite poste,
to brother Damilaville. Your friendship, and that

ON ROUSSEAU IN ENGLAND 203

of a few other reasonable beings, is the only
pleasure I have left.

The mistake of the Preface consists in suppos-
ing that the words In principio erat, etc., have
been tampered with. They are two passages on
the Trinity which have been interpolated into
the Epistle of St. John. What a pity it all is!
The time lost in unearthing errors might have
been employed in discovering truths.

N. B. The theologian Vernet complained to
the Council of Geneva that he was being held up
to ridicule: the Council offered him a written
testimony to his morality — as if to say that he
had not been a highway robber, nor even a
pickpocket. This last part of the guarantee seems
somewhat rash.

LXIV
ON ROUSSEAU IN ENGLAND

To M. Mariott, Advocate-General of England

["M. Mariott" — Sir James Marriott, appointed
advocate-general of England in 1764 "through
interest rather than superior merit, " was a clever
and versatile person, lacking depth and solidity.
His poems are entirely and justly forgotten.

2o 4 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

"Jean-Jacques, to whom you refer" — Jean-
Jacques Rousseau (see Letter LI, "On the Ad-
vantages of Civilisation and Literature"). Since
the publication of Candide in 1759, when Vol-
taire had withered by a grin Rousseau's and Pope's
comfortable optimism, Rousseau and Voltaire
had fallen out much more seriously on the vexed
question of play-acting: Rousseau having made
answer to d'Alembert's remarks in favour of it (see
Letter LV, "On the Great Encyclopaedia") in his
famous Letter on Plays, wherein he turned his back
on his friends, the philosophers, and with the match-
less glow and warmthof his irresistiblestyle, gave the
Case against the Theatre. In 1760 he published
The New Eloisa, that tissue of brilliant absurdities,
whose sophism Voltaire exposed in four letters,
signed the Marquis de Ximenes: while in 1762
Voltaire was laughing at the long-winded Emile
which had been publicly burnt in Geneva, as in
Paris, so that it was only natural (though it was
not the fact) that Rousseau should think that the
Patriarch of Ferney had helped to light the fire.
It was at this time that Rousseau was meeting —
at the house of Baron d'Holbach and elsewhere —
David Hume, the historian, who was then in Paris
as secretary to the British embassy. The hostility
of the French government towards Emile compel-
ling Rousseau to fly from France, Hume offered

ON ROUSSEAU IN ENGLAND 205

him a house in England. Rousseau arrived in that
country in January, 1766, and had soon persuaded
himself that Hume's generosity was prompted by
sinister motives, that he (Rousseau) was beset by
spies and "suspect" of the British government.
He proved indeed, as he spent his life in proving,
that, as Voltaire said, he was "completely mad":
or at least, as Dryden put it,

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

" By way of the great St. Bernard, the most horrible
place in the world." A strong distaste for the
wilder aspects of nature, far from being peculiar
to Voltaire, was nearly as common in the eighteenth
century as it had been in the sixteenth, when the
Bishop of Ely, crossing the Alps by Mont-Cenis,
declared it to be "rather a hell than a highway."
" The rocks of Derbyshire" made that county "the
vilest in England" for Voltaire: sauvage being for
him literally "savage" as regarded scenery.

"If you see Mr. Franklin" — Benjamin Franklin
(see Letter LXXXI, "A Dying Testimony," and
Letter LXXXII, "Paris in 1778")-]

February 26, 1767.

Sir, I have made up my mind to write to you via
Calais rather than Holland because, in men's

206 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

dealings with each other, as in physics, the shorter
way is always the better way.

It is true, I have let nearly three months go by
without answering you : the fact is, I am older than
Milton and nearly as blind. As one always en-
vies one's neighbour, I feel jealous of Lord Chester-
field who is deaf. Reading seems to me to be much
more essential in a quiet life than conversation.
Certainly, a good book is much more valuable than
all the chance things one hears said. I believe
that people who wish to improve themselves should
set a higher value on their eyes than on their ears :
but those who merely wish to be amused are, I
agree with all my heart, better blind and able to
listen to the gossip of the day.

I expect your lively imagination is often much
bored by the exacting little duties incidental to
your position. No one would want to be solicitor-
general if he were not supported by hope and the
esteem of the public.

A man who writes such charming verses as you
do must have a great deal of courage to occupy
himself with people's quarrels, and in guessing the
intentions of a testator and the meaning of the
laws.

My bad health has always prevented me from
devoting myself to the business of the world:
my illnesses have thus done me great service. I

ON ROUSSEAU IN ENGLAND 207

have lived for fifteen years in retirement with my
family, in the midst of the loveliest country under
heaven. When nature brings the spring, it restores
my eyesight, of which it robs me in the winter:
so I experience the pleasure of being born again,
of which other men know nothing.

Jean-Jacques, to whom you refer, has left his
own country for yours, as I left mine long ago for
his, or anyhow for its neighbourhood. Behold how
men are the sport of fate! His Sacred Majesty,
Chance, decides everything.

Cardinal Bentivoglio, whom you quote to me,
certainly is not too fond of the Swiss and speaks
very ill of their country: but that is because he
travelled by way of the St. Bernard, the most hor-
rible place in the world. The Vaudois country,
on the contrary, and that of Geneva, particularly
Gex, where I live, are like a delightful garden.
Half Switzerland is hell, the other half paradise.

As you say, Rousseau has chosen the vilest
county in England: everybody seeks what is best
fitted for him: but the beautiful banks of the
Thames must not be judged by the rocks of Derby-
shire. I believe the quarrel between Mr. Hume
and J. J. Rousseau terminated by Rousseau's
earning for himself public contempt, and Mr.
Hume's gaining the respect he deserves.

Jean-Jacques' logic seemed to me most amusing

208 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

— he tried to prove that Mr. Hume had been his
benefactor out of spite: he brought against him
three arguments, which he calls three slaps on his
protector's cheeks. If the King of England had
given him a pension, the fourth slap would doubt-
less have been for his Majesty. The man seems to
me completely mad. There are several like him at
Geneva. They are more dismal there than they
are in England: and I believe, in proportion to
the population, there are more suicides in Geneva
than in London. Not that suicide always comes
from madness. There are said to be occasions
when a wise man takes that course : but, generally
speaking, it is not in an access of reasonableness
that people kill themselves.

If you see Mr. Franklin, I pray you, sir, be so
good as to give him my remembrances and my
respects. With the same, I have the honour to be,
sir, yours, etc., etc.

LXV

ON THE JESUITS AND CATHERINE THE
GREAT

To Mme. du Deffand

[" I find myself exposed to all the plagues of war
. . . for some time I was exposed to famine."

MAKMONTEL, AUTHOR OF "bELISAIRE" AND THE "CONTES MORAUX.''
From the portrait by Cochin

THE JESUITS, AND CATHERINE 209

The disputes in the Genevan republic between the
governing class and the bourgeoisie had risen to
such a height by the beginning of 1767 that France,
(asked by Voltaire himself, acting as mediator,)
had quartered troops along the Lake of Geneva,
to bring the republic to its senses by famine and
blockade. For a while Ferney itself could with
difficulty procure the necessaries of life.

"The fifteenth chapter of ' Belisaire,'" by Mar-
montel (see Letter XXXIV, "The Favour of
Kings").

"/ must humbly present you with my folly, ' The
Scythians'" — a play of Voltaire's which Paris had
received in the March of this year 1767 with loud
disapproval.

" The Jesuits . . . have succeeded in getting
themselves turned out of three kingdoms" — Portugal,
France, and Spain.

"The Semiramis of the North" — Catherine the
Great of Russia, who had begun a correspondence
with Voltaire in 1765. The "trifle about a husband"
— the "family affairs" with which Voltaire pro-
posed not to concern himself — were the strong sus-
picions under which Catherine laboured of having
poisoned the Emperor Peter in 1763. If she was a
great criminal, it was not the less true that she was
a woman of the highest mental capacity, and a

great and enlightened ruler. She and Voltaire

14

210 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

never met in the flesh: but in 1770 she helped him
by ordering watches from his colony of watch-
makers at Ferney, with a munificence perfectly
royal: after his death, she bought his library and
pensioned Wagniere, his secretary, for life.

"A little book about Catherine" — this was The
Letter on Panegyrics which Voltaire had written
a month earlier, under a pseudonym, as he often
did. It contains much agile flattery of Catherine,
based on a substratum of truth.]

May 18, 1767.

For more than six weeks, madam, I have been
waiting to write to you, to get news of your health,
to ask you how both you and President Henault
are supporting existence, and to exchange views
with you on the deceits of the world ; but I find
myself exposed to all the plagues of war and of snow
thirty feet deep. Snow and ice deprive me of my
eyesight for four months every year; I am then, as
you know, your contemporary of eighty: only the
eighties do not suffer, and I suffer acutely. In the
spring I am born anew, and pass from Siberia to
Naples without change of place: such is my
destiny.

Forgive my having been so long a time without
writing to you : you know the strength of my at-
tachment to you. You may indeed say, "Show

THE JESUITS, AND CATHERINE 211

your faith by your works : you would write if you
were really so fond of me. " That is very true :
but to write agreeably, mind and body must be at
ease, and mine are far from it. You tell me you
are bored ; I reply that I am driven wild. Such is
life — either insipid or painful.

When I say I am driven wild, that is a slight
exaggeration: I mean, I have enough to drive me
wild. The troubles of Geneva have upset all my
plans : for some time I was exposed to famine : only
pestilence was lacking: but an inflammation in my
eyes did duty for that. I am now rousing myself
by acting a comedy. I play an old man's part
very fairly and most naturally, and as I dictate this
letter I am trying on my stage dress.

You have doubtless had read to you the fifteenth
chapter olB'elisaire: it is the best of the whole book,
or I am much mistaken. But were you not as-
tonished at the decision of the Sorbonne which con-
demned this proposition: "Truth radiates light
from itself — men are never enlightened by the
flames of the stake" ? If the Sorbonne is right, the
only apostles are the executioners.

I cannot conceive how anybody can put forward
an idea so silly and abominable. I do not know
how it is that communities say and do things so
much more outrageously stupid than individuals:
unless it is that an individual is responsible to

212 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

everybody and communities to nobody. Each
member lays the blame on his colleague.

A propos of follies, I must humbly present you
with my folly, The Scythians, of which a new edi-
tion is now appearing, and I beg you to criticise it,
always provided you have it read to you by some-
one who understands how to read verse: an ac-
complishment as rare as to write it — well.

Of all the gigantic follies I have seen in my life,
I know none to equal that of the Jesuits. They
pass for being astute politicians, and have suc-
ceeded in getting themselves turned out of three
kingdoms — just to make a beginning. You see,
they are far from deserving their reputation.

I know a woman who is making herself a great
one: that is the Semiramis of the North, who is
sending fifty thousand men to Poland to establish
there tolerance and liberty of conscience. This is
unique in the history of the world, and, I answer for
it, will go far. I may boast, to you, that I am
rather in her good graces: I am her defender
through all and in spite of all. I know very well
she is blamed for some trifle about a husband: but
those are family affairs with which I do not concern
myself: and, besides, it is no bad thing to have a
failing to counteract, for that implies great efforts
to gain the public respect and admiration, and,
assuredly, her scoundrel of a spouse would not have

ON SHAKESPEARE 213

accomplished any one of the great things which my
Catherine does every day.

I long, madam, to relieve your boredom by the
present of a little book about Catherine— pray
God, it may not bore you further! I suppose
women are not displeased at their sex being praised
and considered capable of great things. You will
have heard that she is about to make the tour of her
vast empire. She has promised to write to me
from the remotest confines of Asia ....

Goodbye, madam. Were I in Paris I should
prefer your society to any to be found in either
Asia or Europe.

LXVI
ON SHAKESPEARE
To Mr. Horace Walpole

[Horace Walpole, virtuoso and letter-writer, was
the third son of the great Sir Robert. Voltaire,
who declared Horace to be the best Frenchman ever
born on English soil, knew him through their
mutual friendship for Mme. du Deffand.

"Your History of Richard III" was Walpole's
Historic Doubts on Richard III wherein the author
had done his best to whitewash the king's character.

"Your novel" was the famous ghost-story,

2i 4 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

The Castle of Otranto, which successfully froze the
blood of our grandparents and leaves ours perfectly
unchilled.

" / was the first writer who made Shakespeare
known to the French." In the English Letters,
written during his visit to England in 1727-8,
Voltaire had introduced Shakespeare to the French
people, and shown him to be " an amazing genius "
full of "force and fecundity, nature and sublimity, "
though sadly lacking indeed polish, finish, culture,
that vague quality called taste, and having a de-
plorable readiness to drop into buffoonery and to
set the unities at naught. Twenty years later,
in 1748, he had penned a famous and malicious
critique on Hamlet, admitting indeed in the play
"sublime touches worthy of the loftiest genius,"
but dubbing its author a " drunken savage " all the
same. Twenty years later still, in this letter of
1768, he reiterates the opinion he had expressed in
the English Letters — a criticism perfectly charac-
teristic of the critic, himself too great a genius not
to recognise a Shakespeare's, and yet so typically
an eighteenth-century Frenchman that he must
needs bow at the shrine of that neatness, exact-
ness, regularity, which hampered so much of the
talent of his age. In a letter to Mme. du Deffand,
Horace Walpole took exception — not to say the
strongest objection — to these remarks of Voltaire's.

ON SHAKESPEARE 215

In 1776, when Voltaire was eighty-two, he replied
in a rage, and a letter to the French Academy, to a
French translation by Letourneur of the great
William, wherein Letourneur had dared to call
Shakespeare the "god of the theatre," and to
ignore altogether Corneille and Racine (to say
nothing of the author of Zaire). But, not the less,
the Voltaire who in his old age attacked Shake-
speare as an "indecent buffoon "who had "ruined
the taste of England for two hundred years, " was
he who had introduced him to the people of France,
and whose real unbiassed opinion is that set forth
in this letter to Horace Walpole.

The clowning and buffoonery to which Voltaire
objects are now, of course, recognised to be very
often not Shakespeare at all: or if Shakespeare,
Shakespeare stooping to the bad public taste of his
age.

"Fontenelle" (see Letter XL VII, "On Inocula-
tion").

"Our 'Mere Sotte,'" by Pierre Gringore, a six-
teenth-century writer, is said to be in its sub-title,
a collection of the "oddities of men and women"
collected by the Mere Sotte.

"The Misanthrope" . . ."Georges Dandin" —
comedies by Moliere.

" Don Japhet d'Armenie" and " Jodelet" — come-
dies by Scarron.

216 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

The " Siege de Calais " — a bad tragedy by Belloy .
"Cinna," " Athalie," "Iphigenie" — Cinna by
Corneille; Athalie and Iphigenie by Racine.]

Ferney, July 15, 1768.

Sir, I have not ventured to speak English for
forty years, and you are perfectly at home in our
language. I have seen letters from you, written
as naturally as you think. Moreover, my age
and my state of health do not allow me to write
with my own hand. So you must accept my
thanks in my own tongue.

I have just read the preface of your History of
Richard III and found it all too short. When
an author is so visibly in the right, and has in
addition a philosophy so bold and a style so virile,
1 want more of him. Your father was a great
statesman and a good orator, but I doubt if he
could have written as you write. You cannot
say, "My father is greater than I."

I have always agreed with you, sir, that ancient
histories are untrustworthy. Fontenelle, the only
man of the time of Louis XIV who was at once
poet, philosopher, and scholar, declared that they
were undoubtedly fabrications; and it must be
admitted that Rollin has amassed many absurdi-
ties and contradictions.

After I had read the preface to your history,

ON SHAKESPEARE 217

I read that to your novel. You laugh a little at
me therein: the French quite understand raillery:
but I am going to answer you in all seriousness.

You have nearly succeeded in making your
countrymen believe that I despise Shakespeare.
I was the first writer who made Shakespeare
known to the French : forty years ago I translated
passages from his works, as from Milton's, Waller's,
Rochester's, Dryden's, and Pope's. I can assure
you that before my time no one in France knew
anything about English poetry: and had hardly
ever heard of Locke. I have been persecuted for
thirty years by shoals of fanatics for having said
that Locke is the Hercules of metaphysics and that
he defined the limits of the human understanding.

Fate willed that I should be the first to explain
to my fellow-countrymen the discoveries of the
great Newton, which many people among us still
speak of as the systems. I have been your apostle
and your martyr: truly, it is not fair that the Eng-
lish should complain of me.

I said, long ago, that if Shakespeare had lived
in the time of Addison he would have added to his
genius the elegance and purity which make Addi-
son admirable. I stated that his genius was his
own, and his faults the faults of his age. He is pre-
cisely, to my mind, like Lope de Vega, the Span-
iard, and like Calderon. His is a fine but untutored

218 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

nature: he has neither regularity, nor propriety,
nor art : in the midst of his sublimity he sometimes
descends to grossness, and in the most impressive
scenes to buffoonery: his tragedy is chaos, il-
luminated by a hundred shafts of light.

The Italians, who revived tragedy a century
before the English and the Spanish, have not
fallen into this fault: they have imitated the
Greeks much better. There are no buffoons in
(Edipus and the Electra of Sophocles. I strongly
suspect that this grossness had its origin in our
court fools. We were all a little uncivilised on
this side of the Alps. Each prince had his regu-
larly appointed jester. Ignorant kings, brought
up by the ignorant, cannot know the noble pleas-
ures of the mind: they degrade human nature to
the point of paying people to talk nonsense to
them. Thence comes it we have our Mere Sotte:
and, before Moliere, there was a court fool in nearly
all comedies: an abominable custom.

I have, sir, it is true, said, just as you state,
that there are serious comedies such as the Mis-
anthrope which are masterpieces: that there are
others which are very amusing, such as Georges
Dandin: that drollery, gravity, pathos, may very
well find place in the same comedy. I said that
all styles were good, save the style which bores.
Yes, sir, but grossness is not a style at all. In

ON SHAKESPEARE 219

my father's house are many mansions: but I never
pretended that it was reasonable to lodge in the
same room Charles V and Don Japhet of Armenia,
Augustus and a drunken sailor, Marcus Aure-
lius and a street mountebank. It seems to me
that Horace so thought, in the noblest of all ages:
consult his Ars Poetica. All enlightened Europe
thinks the same to-day: and the Spanish are be-
ginning to get rid of bad taste as well as the Inquisi-
tion — good sense proscribing the one as much as
the other. . . .

You free Britons, you do not observe the unities
of time, place, and action. Truly, you do not im-

f

prove matters: probability ought to count for
something. It makes art more difficult: and
every description of difficulty, vanquished, is a
legitimate source of pride and satisfaction.

You must allow me, Englishman as you are,
to plead the cause of my own nation. I so often
tell it unpalatable truths, that it is only just I
should stroke it when I think it is in the right.
Yes, sir, I have always believed, I now believe, and
I always shall believe, that Paris is very superior
to Athens in the matter of tragedies and comedies.
Moliere, and even Regnard, seem to me to excel
Aristophanes as much as Demosthenes excels
our orators. I say boldly that I think all the
Greek tragedies seem to me the work of school-

220 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

boys as compared with the sublime scenes of
Corneille and the perfect tragedies of Racine.
Admirer of the ancients as he was, Boileau him-
self thought this. He had no compunction in
inscribing beneath the portrait of Racine that
that great man had surpassed Euripides and
equalled Corneille.

Yes, I believe I can prove that there are more
men of taste in Paris than in Athens. We have
more than thirty thousand souls in Paris who
delight in the fine arts, and Athens had not ten
thousand; the lower orders of the Athenians
frequented theatres only when a performance was
given gratis on some great, or trivial, occasion.
Our constant dealings with women have given us
much greater delicacy of feeling, much more pro-
priety of manners, and much more nicety of taste.
Leave us our theatre, leave the Italians their favole
boscareccie; you are rich enough in other respects.

It is true that very bad pieces, absurdly intricate
and barbarously written, have had, for a time,
prodigious success in Paris, helped by a clique,
party spirit, fashion, and the careless patronage
of well-known persons. That is a passing madness ;
in a very few years the illusion fades. Don Japhet
d'Armenie and Jodelet are relegated to the populace,
and the Siege de Calais has no longer any repute
outside Calais.

ON SHAKESPEARE 221

I must add one word on the rhyme with which
you reproach me. Nearly all Dryden's pieces are
in rhyme: which added to the difficulty of his
task. The best remembered lines he ever wrote
and the most widely quoted are rhymed: and I
maintain again that, Cinna, Athalie, Iphigenie
being in verse, any one who tried to shake off this
yoke would, in France, be considered a weakling
who had not the strength to support it.

In my role of garrulous old man I will tell you
an anecdote. I asked Pope one day why Milton
had not versified his poem when all other poets
versified theirs, in imitation of the Italians; he
answered: "Because he could not."

I have confessed, sir, all that was in my heart.
I own that I was much in the wrong in not paying
attention to the fact that the Count of Leicester
was first called Dudley: but if the fancy takes you
to enter the House of Lords and change your
name, I shall always remember the name of Wal-
pole with the profoundest esteem.

Before despatching this letter, I have found time,
sir, to read your Richard III. You would be an
excellent attorney-general. You weigh all the
pros and cons : still, I think I detect that you have
a secret liking for the hunchback. You cannot
help wishing he had been a pretty fellow, if not a
fine fellow.

222 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Calmet, the Benedictine, wrote a long disserta-
tion to prove that Christ had a beautiful counte-
nance. I wish I could agree with you that Richard
III was neither so ugly nor so wicked as he is
said to have been: but I should not have cared to
have had anything to do with him. Your white
rose and your red rose were full of fearful thorns
for the nation.

Those gracious kings are all a pack of rogues.

Truly, the history of the Yorkists and Lancas-
trians, and many others, is much like reading the
history of highway robbers.

Yours, with respects, etc.

LXVII

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING A
BRUTE

To the Comte de Schomberg

["I have never had the honour of seeing Mme.
Gargantua" — this was the charming and fairy-
like little Duchesse de Choiseul, the wife of the
head of the French ministry. By 1769 Voltaire
had established the silk-weaving industry at Fer-

ADVANTAGES OF BEING A BRUTE 223

ney, and asked the Duchesse de Choiseul to ad-
vertise it by accepting the first pair of stockings
made on his looms. In mistake, she sent him a
pattern shoe much too large for her. Hence the
reference to "Mme. Gargantua" and the very
misleading shoe which "proclaimed" her to be
"one of the largest women in the world."

" The [East] Indian Company . . . are now pay-
ing dearly for the blood of Lally (see Letter
LXXXIV, "The Last Letter").

" / always have a feverish attack about the 24th
of that month [August] and about May 14th."
The dates, respectively, of the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew and the murder of Henri IV by
Ravaillac]

August 31, 1769.

Yes, sir, it is true that I have been very ill.
But that is the common lot of old age, especially
when one has always had a feeble constitution:
and these little warnings are the stroke of the
clock to tell us that soon we shall have passed
beyond time. Animals have a great advantage
over human beings: they never hear the clock
strike, however intelligent they may be: they die
without having any notion of death: they have
no theologians to instruct them on the Four Ends
of animals : their last moments are not disturbed

224 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

by unwelcome and often objectionable ceremonies:
it costs them nothing to be buried : no one goes to
law over their wills: but in one respect we are
greatly their superior — they only know the ties
of habit, and we know friendship. Even spaniels,
which have the reputation of being the most
faithful friends in the world, do not approach
us.

You, sir, make me enjoy this consolation to its
fullest extent.

I have never had the honour of seeing Mme.
Gargantua: the only thing I know about her is a
shoe which proclaims her to be one of the largest
women in the world: but I have seen letters of
hers which make me believe that she ha? a wit
even more delicate than her feet are enormous. . . .

The [East] Indian Company, of whom you tell
me, are now paying dearly for the blood of
Lally: but who will pay for the blood of the
Chevalier de la Barre?

Do not be astonished, sir, that I have been ill
in the month of August. I always have a feverish
attack about the 24th of that month, as about
May 14th. You will easily guess why, for your
ancestors were so deeply attached to Henri IV.
The thought of you and your visit are balm to my
wounds. Keep a kindly recollection of me: I
shall deeply value it.

THE CASE OF MARTIN 225

LXVIII

THE CASE OF MARTIN

To M. d'Alembert

[To Voltaire's account of the Case of Martin
nothing need be added, save that such miscarriages
of justice — and they were many — he never passed
by on the other side.

"/ have enough to do with the Sirven family"
(see Letter LXII, "The Case of Calas and of the
Sirvens" ).

" The sentence of the Chevalier de la Barre has
been condemned as an atrocity" (see Letter
LXIII, "The Chevalier de la Barre" ).

September 4, 1769.

Martin was an agriculturist, with a large family,
settled at Bleurville, in Barrois, on a farm of the
Marche. Two years eight months ago a man
was assassinated on the highroad near the village
of Bleurville. Some sharp person, having noticed
on that same road, between Martin's house and
the place where the murder was committed, the
impress of a shoe, Martin was arrested, and his
shoes fitting more or less into the prints, he was
interrogated.

After this preliminary, a witness came forward

IS

226 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

who had seen the murderer fleeing: Martin was
confronted with the witness, who said he did not
recognise him as the murderer: whereon Martin
cried : "Thank God ! Here is one person who says
he does not recognise me!"

The judge, being very weak in his logic, thus
interpreted the words: "Thank God! I have
committed the murder, and have not been iden-
tified by the witness."

This judge, assisted by several local barristers,
condemned Martin to the wheel, on an equivocal
meaning. The case is sent up to La Tournelle of
Paris: and the sentence being confirmed, Martin
is executed in his own village. When he was
stretched out on St. Andrew's cross, he asked
permission of the sheriff's officer and the execu-
tioner to raise his arms to call heaven to witness
to his innocence, as he could not make himself
heard by the crowd. He was allowed that favour:
after which, his arms, thighs, and legs were broken,
and he was left to die on the wheel.

On the 26th July of this year, a scoundrel, who
was executed in the neighbourhood, solemnly de-
clared before he died that it was he who had
committed the murder for which Martin had been
broken on the wheel. However, notwithstanding,
the little property of this innocent father of a
family is confiscated and dissipated: the family

THE CASE OF MARTIN 227

was dispersed three years ago, and very likely does
not even know that the father's innocence has at
last been acknowledged.

This comes from Neufchateau in Lorraine : two
consecutive letters have confirmed the news.

What should I do, my dear philosopher ? Villars
ne pent pas etre partout. I can only lift my hands
to heaven, like Martin, and take God to witness
all the horrors which happen in His Work of Crea-
tion. I have enough to do with the Sirven family
— the daughters are still in my neighbourhood.
I have sent the father to Toulouse : his innocence
is as clearly demonstrated as a proposition of
Euclid. The crass ignorance of a village doctor,
and the still grosser ignorance of a subordinate
judge, added to the grossness of fanaticism, has
ruined a whole family, made them wanderers for
six years, destitute, and begging their bread.

Finally, I trust that the Parliament of Toulouse
will make it its honour and duty to show Europe
that it is not always led away by appearances,
and is worthy of the work it has to do. This
affair gives me more trouble and anxiety than an
old invalid can well bear: but I shall never slacken
my grip till I am dead — I am so pigheaded.

Happily, for about ten years now, the Parliament
has appointed young men with much sense, well
read, and thinking — as you do. . . .

228 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

I have just found among my papers a letter in
Locke's handwriting, written just before his death
to Lady Peterborough: it is pleasingly philo-
sophical.

The Turks' affairs go ill. How I should like
to see those scoundrels hunted out of the country
of Pericles and Plato: it is true, they are not per-
secutors, but they are brutes. God defend us
from both the one and the other ! . . .

A propos, have you heard that the sentence of
the Chevalier de la Barre has been condemned
as an atrocity by four hundred Russian deputies
appointed to frame a legal code? I believe that
it will be spoken of in that code as an instance of
the most horrible barbarity, and that it will be
long cited throughout Europe to the eternal shame
of our nation.

LXIX
ON A STATUE BY PIGALLE

To Mme. Necker

[In 1770 a group of Voltaire's friends, headed
by Mme. Necker — once the beloved of Gibbon,
and now the wife of the Genevan banker who was
to become Controller-General of France — pro-
posed to erect, by public subscription, a statue

ON A STATUE BY PIGALLE 229

of the Patriarch of Ferney, now seventy-six years
old. The famous sculptor Pigalle undertook the
work, which was not successful. Voltaire's boy-
ish delight in the compliment peeps through the
self-depreciation of the following letters.]

May 21, 1770.

My just modesty, madam, and my good sense
made me at first think the scheme of a statue was
only a joke: but, since the thing is serious, allow
me to discuss it seriously with you.

I am seventy-six years old and scarcely recov-
ered from a severe illness, which for six weeks
has dealt very hardly with both my body and my
soul. M. Pigalle is supposed to be coming to
model my face: but, madam, I must first have a
face: you would hardly be able to guess where it
ought to be. My eyes have sunk three inches,
my cheeks are nothing but old parchment badly
glued on to bones which have nothing to hold to.
The few teeth I had have departed. This is not
mere coquetry: it is the literal fact. M. Pigalle
will think he is being made game of; and, from my
own point of view, really I have too much vanity
ever to appear before him. I should advise him,
if he really wants to see this extraordinary venture
through, to take, more or less, as his model the
little Sevres china bust. After all, what does it

2 3 o VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

matter to posterity if a block of marble resembles
one man or another? I am perfectly philosophic
on the subject. But, as I am still more grateful
than philosophic, I give you, over what remains
to me of a body, the same power that you have
over what remains to me of a soul. Both are in a
bad way: but my heart is as much yours, madam,
as if I were five and twenty, and my respect for
you is as sincere. My duty to M. Necker.

LXX

ON THE SAME SUBJECT,
To Mme. Necker

Ferney, July 19, 1770.

When the villagers here saw Pigalle getting out
some of the tools of his craft, "Come along!"
they cried, "he is going to be dissected; that will
be great fun!" Any sort of show, as you know,
madam, amuses people: they are equally ready
to go to the marionettes, the fire at Saint-Jean,
the Opera-Comique, High Mass, or a funeral.
My statue will make a few philosophers laugh,
and some rogue of a hypocrite or some scamp of a
scribbler raise disapproving eyebrows: vanity of
vanities !

But all is not vanity: my warm gratitude to

ON THE SOUL AND GOD 231

my friends, and to you above all, madam, is not
vanity.

My respects to M. Necker.

LXXI
ON THE SOUL AND GOD

To Frederick William, Prince of Prussia

[Prince Frederick William was the nephew of
Frederick the Great and succeeded him on the
throne of Prussia in 1786.

" The System of Nature" — the famous work by
Baron d'Holbach (who long disavowed it) on the
necessity of atheism. Voltaire pronounced it "a
sin against nature": passionately refuted it in the
article on "God" in his Philosophical Dictionary:
and declared that it did untold harm to the philo-
sophic party.

"Si Dieu n'existait -pas, il faudrait I'inventer" —
"If God did not exist, He would have had to be
invented" — this famous line — one of the most
famous in literature — is, of course, Voltaire's own.
It occurs in his Epistle to the Author of the Book of
the Three Imposters, and he often quotes it him-
self.]

232 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Ferney, November 28, 1770,

Monseigneur, the royal family of Prussia has
excellent reasons for not wishing the annihilation
of the soul. It has more right than anyone to
immortality.

It is very true that we do not know any too well
what the soul is: no one has ever seen it. All
that we do know is that the eternal Lord of nature
has given us the power of thinking, and of distin-
guishing virtue. It is not proved that this faculty
survives our death: but the contrary is not proved
either. It is possible, doubtless, that God has
given thought to a particle to which, after we are
no more, He will still give the power of thought:
there is no inconsistency in this idea.

In the midst of all the doubts which we have
discussed for four thousand years in four thousand
ways, the safest course is to do nothing against
one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy
life and have nothing to fear from death.

There are some charlatans who admit no doubts.
We know nothing of first principles. It is surely
very presumptuous to define God, the angels,
spirits, and to pretend to know precisely why
God made the world, when we do not know why
we can move our arms at our pleasure.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty
is an absurd one.

ON THE SOUL AND GOD 233

What is most repellent in the System of Nature
— after the recipe to make eels from flour — is the
audacity with which it decides that there is no
God, without even having tried to prove the im-
possibility. There is some eloquence in the book:
but much more rant, and no sort of proof. It is
a pernicious work, alike for princes and people:

"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer. "

But all nature cries aloud that He does exist:
that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense
power, an admirable order, and everything teaches
us our own dependence on it.

From the depth of our profound ignorance, let
us do our best: this is what I think, and what I
have always thought, amid all the misery and
follies inseparable from seventy-seven years of
life.

Your Royal Highness has a noble career before
you. I wish you, and dare prophesy for you, a
happiness worthy of yourself and of your heart.
I knew you when you were a child, monseigneur:
1 visited you in your sick room when you had
smallpox: I feared for your life. Your father
honoured me with much goodness : you condescend
to shower on me the same favours which are the
honour of my old age, and the consolation of those
sufferings which must shortly end it. I am, with
deep respect, etc.

234 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

LXXII

ON HAPPINESS IN OLD AGE

To Lord Chesterfield

[This was the great Lord Chesterfield, the friend
of Pope, Swift, and Bolingbroke, and the author of
the famous Letters to his natural son (see Letter
LXXVI, "On Lord Chesterfield's Letters," and
Letter LXXVII, "On the same Subject" ).

During Voltaire's visit to England in 1726-7
he had dined with Lord Chesterfield in London
(and had been obliged to refuse a second invita-
tion, as the vails expected by the servants were so
high). In 1741, Lord Chesterfield had stayed with
Voltaire in Brussels, and Voltaire had read aloud
to him selections from his drama Mahomet, which
Lord Chesterfield afterwards said he regarded as
"a covert attack on Christianity." Lord Ches-
terfield had retired from public life on account
of ill-health and deafness many years before this
letter was written.

His "desirable lot" in the "great lottery" to which
Voltaire refers, had included the posts of a privy
counsellor, ambassador to the Hague, and lord-
lieutenant of Ireland.

" The fine house you have built yourself" was
Chesterfield House in South Audley Street, May-

ON HAPPINESS IN OLD AGE 235

fair. Lord Chesterfield said himself that "the
only real comforts in the latter end of life" were
"quiet, liberty, and health," so his views were in
agreement with Voltaire's.]

Ferney, September 24, 1771.

Lord Huntington tells me that, of the five senses
common to us all, you have only lost one, and
that you have a good digestion : that is well worth
a pair of ears.

I, rather than you, should be the person to de-
cide whether it is worse to be deaf or blind or to
have a weak digestion. I can judge these three
conditions from personal experience: only for a
long time I have not dared to come to decisions
on trifles, much less on subjects so important. I
confine myself to the belief that, if you get the
sun in the fine house you have built yourself, you
will have very bearable moments. That is all
that we can hope for at our ages, and, in fact, at
any age. Cicero wrote a beautiful treatise on old
age, but facts did not confirm his theories, and his
last years were very miserable. You have lived
longer and more happily than he did. You have
not had to deal with perpetual dictators or trium-
virs. Your lot has been, and is still, one of the
most desirable in this great lottery, where the
prizes are so rare, and the biggest one — lasting

236 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

happiness — has never yet been gained by any-
body.

Your philosophy has never been misled by the
wild dreams which have confused heads otherwise
strong enough. You have never been, in any sort,
either an impostor or the dupe of impostors, and
I count that as one of the most uncommon ad-
vantages of this brief life.

LXXIII
ON NATURAL TALENT

To M. Diderot

[For Diderot, see Letter XXVII, "On the Blind."

"/ shall always regret having lived without seeing
you." Voltaire saw Diderot in Paris, for the first
and last time, five years later.

" You send me the ' Fables ' of one of your friends.
. . . to whom nature has given, in place of inspira-
tion, much good sense," etc., etc. The friend was
M. , Boisard, of the Literary Academy of Caen.
Voltaire here forecasts Goethe's sentiment — "The
older one grows, the more one prizes natural gifts,
because by no possibility can they be procured
and stuck on."

" So much has been said of La Motte" — La Motte
Fouquet, the German romancer who wrote Undine

ON NATURAL TALENT 237

and who certainly cannot be compared with La
Fontaine, whose Fables Mme. de Sevigne character-
ised as "divine": and which are indeed marked,
as Voltaire declares, by a delicate and exquisite
inspiration — 'laissant tomber les fleurs et ne les
semant pas."

" The 'Armide ' of Quinault." One of the famous
roles of Mdlle. Quinault, the actress. (See Letter
XIX, "On a Quiet Life and a Fit of Discourage-
ment." ) ]

Perney, April 20, 1773.

I was very pleasantly surprised, sir, to find a
letter signed Diderot awaiting me when I had
recrossed from one bank of Styx to the other.

Imagine the joy of an old soldier scarred with
wounds on receiving a letter from M. de Turenne.
Nature has granted me leave to stay on a little
longer in this world — that is to say, to poise for
just a moment between two eternities (as if there
could possibly be two of them).

I shall therefore go on vegetating for a while
at the foot of the Alps by the river of time, which
sweeps away everything at last. My intellectual
powers fade like a dream, but I shall always regret
having lived without seeing you.

You send me the Fables, written by one of
your friends. If he is young, I answer for it he
will go far: if he is not, it may be said of him that

238 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

he writes with wit what he has originated with
talent: so much has been said of La Motte. Who
would think there could be any higher praise?
but there is that accorded to La Fontaine: he
wrote perfectly spontaneously. In all the arts there
is a something exceedingly difficult to come by.
All the philosophers of the world, melted down
together, would not have succeeded in portraying
the Armide of Quinault, nor the Les Animaux
Malades de la Peste which La Fontaine wrote,
without knowing what he did, almost uncon-
sciously. Let us confess that in works of genius
everything is the result of instinct. Corneille
wrote the scene of Horace and Curiace as a bird
makes its nest, which a bird always does well —
that not being at all the case with our wretched
talents. M. Boisard seems to me a very pretty
bird of Parnassus, to whom nature has given, in
place of the instincts of genius, much good sense,
truth, and acuteness. I enclose a letter of thanks
to him. The after-effects of my illness, from which
I still suffer, do not permit me to write at length.
Be sure that I shall look on you, till I die, as a
man who has had the courage to be useful to the
thankless, and who deserves the commendation
of all wise men — I regard and esteem you as if I
were myself a wise man.

The Old Invalid of Ferney.

ON A WISE APPOINTMENT 239
LXXIV

ON A WISE APPOINTMENT

To M. Turgot

[Just a week before this letter was written,
Turgot, one of the wisest and greatest of the states-
men of France, was appointed Minister of Marine
by the young King Louis XVI. A month later
he was made Controller General of Finance. Hon-
est, enlightened, and disinterested, he was also
the friend of the philosophers, and had pleaded in
the Calas case on the side of tolerance. In this,
and the following letter, Voltaire expresses opin-
ions of him which time and history have ratified.
Two years later, in 1776, he was dismissed from
his high office by the frivolous Queen : the abuses
he had abolished were re-established : France went
her lighthearted way to ruin: and old Voltaire
at Ferney wrote that this was death before death,
and that a thunderbolt had fallen on his head and
his heart. When he was on his last visit to Paris
in 1778 he went to see Turgot. "Let me kiss the
hand," says old Voltaire, "which signed the
salvation of the people."

"M. de Condorcet." See Letter LXXV, "On
Turgot and Ferney."]

2 4 o VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Perney, July 28, 1774.

M. de Condorcet tells me that he was never
really happy until the day M. Turgot was made
Secretary of State.

And I, too, sir, am grieved to be so near death
now that I see virtue and reason in their rightful
place. You will be overwhelmed with heartfelt
congratulations — and you will be one of the very
few who has ever received them. Far be it from
me to ask you to reply to me : but while I chant a
De Profundis with my failing breath for myself,
I sing aloud Te Deum laudamus for you.

The happy old dying invalid of Ferney,

LXXV
ON TURGOT AND FERNEY

To M. le Marquis de Condorcet

[The Marquis de Condorcet, the Aristocrat of the
philosophic party, who poisoned himself to escape
the guillotine, had been made in 1773, Perpetual
Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. In 1770
he had stayed at Ferney with d'Alembert — to
whom Voltaire alludes in this letter as "M. Ber-
trand" — one of d'Alembert's pen-names. Vol-
taire had the greatest admiration for the modest

ON TURGOT AND FERNEY 241

and disinterested character of the young marquis
— Condorcet was twenty-seven at the date of the
visit to Ferney — as well as for his splendid intel-
lectual gifts and his noble ideals. "You will see
great days," the old patriarch wrote to him: "you
will make them."

"Ferney has become . . . a pretty considerable
place . . . not unworthy the attention of the Min-
istry." By 1770 Voltaire had added watch-
making to the silk-weaving industry he had
established at Ferney (see Letter LXVII, "On
the Advantages of being a Brute"). The quarrels
of Geneva (which France had only made worse
by "mediation" in the form of an armed force —
see Letter LXV, "On the Jesuits and Catherine
the Great ") threatening the existence of the watch-
makers there, Voltaire had bidden them welcome
at Ferney: and presently built "the large and lofty
stone houses" he here alludes to for their benefit.
He had not only, as he says, "never asked the gov-
ernment for money" for the scheme, but had most
liberally expended his own. He succeeded in
obtaining for his colonists their exemption from
a pitiless tax which extorted from the poverty-
stricken province of Gex alone forty thousand
livres annually. All the same, after his death,
Ferney did in a measure relapse into the "nothing-
ness whence " he "drew it" and its industries de-
i«

242 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

clined: and "Ferney- Voltaire" is now only a
straggling suburb of Geneva, with Voltaire's
charmingly situated house and grounds and the
church he built perpetual objects of interest, for
the memories which cling to them.]

Ferney, August 12, 1774.

I shall not write to you to-day, Mr. Secretary,
on either arts or sciences, which are beginning to
be much indebted to you, nor on liberty of con-
science, of which people have tried to rob the arts
which cannot exist without it.

You filled my heart with a holy joy when you
told me that the King replied to the malcontent
who told him that M. Turgot was an Encyclo-
paedist. "He is an honest and an enlightened
man: that suffices me." Did you ever know
before kings and sensible men to be of the same
mind ?

Do you know, and does M. Bertrand know, that
the poet Kien-long, Emperor of China, said as
much a few years ago ? Did you read in the thirty-
second miscellany of (so-called) Curious and
Edifying Letters the letter of a fool of a Jesuit
called Benoit to a rogue of a Jesuit called Dugad ?
It is there stated in so many words that a Minister
of State accusing a mandarin of being a Christian,
the Emperor Kien-long asked: "Does his pro-

ON TURGOT AND FERNEY 243

vince complain of him?"— "No."— "Does he
render justice impartially?"— "Yes."— "Has he
failed in his duty towards the state?"— "No."—
"Is he a good father to his family?"— "Yes."—
"Why then dismiss him for a mere nothing?"

If you see M. Turgot, tell him this anecdote.

I send you a copy of a petition I have jotted
down for all the ministers. The only one I have
not sent it to is the King. I am exceedingly anx-
ious that this petition should be presented to the
Chamber of Commerce, where M. Turgot may have
the casting vote. I have at least the consolation
that, in spite of such shining lights as Freron,
Clement, and Sabotier, Ferney has become, since
you saw it, a pretty considerable place, which is
not unworthy the attention of the ministry. It
contains not only fairly large and lofty stone
houses for the manufacturers, but pretty little
country seats which would be an ornament to
Saint-Cloud or Meudon. It will all relapse into
the nothingness whence I drew it, if the ministry
abandons us. I am perhaps the only founder of
a manufactory who has never asked the govern-
ment for money. Now, I only ask it to attend to
its own interests. I appoint you and M. Bertrand
the judges of the case.

I should much like to consult you both on an
affair which would interest you much more, and

244 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

on which I am about to embark — I appeal to God
and to yourselves to help its success. It concerns
our good cause : so I can count on your aid. My
respects to you both.

V.

LXXVI
ON LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS

To Mme. du Deffand

[These famous Letters of Lord Chesterfield (see
Letter LXXII, "On Happiness in Old Age")
to his son Philip Stanhope are the embodiment
of worldliness expressed with an exquisite elegance.
If they were, as Voltaire here calls them, "the
best educational manual that has ever appeared,"
they failed signally in their chief aim — to make
Philip an agreeable person: though they left
him an honest man. It was his widow who,
shortly after Lord Chesterfield's death in 1773,
sold the Letters to a publisher — the relatives
vainly trying to stop the publication. Either
with or without a permit, a French translation
of them did appear in Paris a year after Voltaire
wrote this letter.

" The great Moncrief, who found out how to please
an august Queen of France" Moncrief wrote
Essays on the Art and Necessity of Being Pleasant,

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS 245

and the "august Queen" was Marie Leczinska,
Queen of France — from whose privy purse (when
she was a young bride at the French Court)
Voltaire had received a pension.

"Verses . . . with which Louis XFI is deluged"
— on his accession, which had taken place three
months earlier, in May, 1774.

" The Due de Choiseul" — the French minister,
and an old friend of Voltaire's. The Due had
helped him in the affair of Calas and had protected
his colony of watchmakers and weavers at Ferney.
His wife was the airy, fairy little Duchess — the
dear "grandmere" of Mme. du Deffand, who had
coquetted with Voltaire over the first pair of silk
stockings woven in the Ferney looms (see Letter
LXVII, "On the Advantages of Being a Brute").
Since then, in 1770, Choiseul had been disgraced
and exiled through the machinations of Mme.
Dubarry, the royal mistress; and Voltaire had
considerably offended him by embracing the policy
of his supplanter, Maupeou.]

August 12, 1774.

... I much wish someone would translate at
once and well, for your amusement, the two
large volumes of The Letters of Lord Chesterfield
to his Son, Philip Stanhope. They mention a num-
ber of people you used to know. There is much

246 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

to be learnt from them: I am not sure they do
not form the best educational manual that has
ever appeared. They describe all the courts of
Europe. Lord Chesterfield tries to make his son
an agreeable person, and shows him the means
to become so — and his are better means than
those of the great Moncrief, who found out how
to please an august Queen of France.

Save for the admission that he knew how to
make himself pleasant, Lord Chesterfield has
nothing good to say about Marshal Richelieu.
He advises his son to become the lover of Mme.
du P. . ., and sends him a model of a declaration
of love.

I am much afraid that the book will be trans-
lated by some clerk in the shop of your friend
Freron, or some other bookseller's hack.

A man of the world ought to take the trouble to
translate it: but its publication in France would
never be permitted. If I were in Paris I would
read you some of the letters in French — with the
English original before me : but my state of health
does not permit me to come to Paris: and besides,
I have had the audacity to found a sort of little
town in my wilds, and to establish manufactories
here which demand my presence and my constant
attention. My works in the country are chains
I cannot break. I follow my ploughs in my

ON THE SAME SUBJECT 247

carriage: my labourers only ask that I should
keep well, with my wits about me, and write them
verses to put in the Mercure.

It seems to me that when Louis XIV took the
reins of government he had better verses ad-
dressed to him than those'with which Louis XVI
is deluged. I sincerely pity him if he is obliged to
read them.

You are sure to know, madam, if the Due de
Choiseul has really bought the post of High Cham-
berlain from the Due de Bouillon. It would be a
good thing indeed that a man of such loftiness of
character should be perpetually bound to the
Court by some high office. I must end, having
no more paper. My tenderest respects.

LXXVII

ON THE SAME SUBJECT

To Frederick the Great

[Since their rupture in 1753, Frederick and
Voltaire had corresponded; sometimes with the
old warmth and fervour; sometimes coldly and
politely; and once, for four years, not at all.
Both knew if they met they would quarrel again:
they feared and distrusted each other; and yet

248 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

sometimes, as this letter shows, yearned for each
other like estranged lovers.]

August 16, 1774.

... A collection of the late Lord Chesterfield's
Letters has appeared, addressed to a natural son
to whom he was as much attached as Mme. de
Sevigne to her daughter.

These letters very often speak of you: and do
you the full justice which posterity will also render
you.

The approval of Lord Chesterfield has very
great weight, not only because he belongs to a
nation who hardly ever flatters even kings, but
because he is perhaps the most graceful of English
writers. His admiration for you is above sus-
picion: he had no idea that his Letters would be
published after his death and after that of his son.
They are being translated into French in Holland :
so your Majesty will soon see them. You will
read the only Englishman who ever advocated the
art of pleasing as the first duty in life.

I never forget that my dearest wish was once
to please you: it is now not to displease you.
Everything grows feeble with age : the more one
realises one's shortcomings, the more modest one
grows.

Your old admirer.

A PLEA FOR THE POOR 249

LXXVIII

A PLEA FOR THE POOR

To M. de Farges

[M. de Farges was a Councillor of State.

Voltaire gives here an admirable description of
the condition of the country poor before the Re-
volution, and as in the sarcastic letter to M. de
Bastide (Letter LIX, "Social Conditions in
1760"), emphasises the fact that it was not the
iniquitous extortion of the taxes which so much op-
pressed them but the cruel and rapacious charac-
ter of the tax-gatherers. Gabelle, or the tax on
salt, to which Voltaire alludes here, compelled each
person to buy seven pounds of salt per year at a
price which varied in the different provinces and
was everywhere iniquitously high. The nobles,
clergy, and government officials were exempt from
the tax altogether. No wonder in a very few
years' time the Gabelle was as a fuse to the fire
of the Great Revolution.]

Ferney, February 25, 1776.

Sir, since thou wouldest enter into judgment
with thy servant, permit me to tell you that, if
I could leave my bed (being now in my eighty-third
year and the victim of many maladies), I should

250 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

hasten to throw myself at the feet of the Controller
General: and this is how I should prose on the
subject of our states:

Our little country is worse than Sologne and the
miserable land of Champagne, and worse than
the worst parts of Bordeaux.

Notwithstanding our wretchedness, eight and
twenty parishes sang eight and twenty Te Deums
and shouted eight and twenty "Long live the
Kings and Long live M. Turgots!" We shall
cheerfully pay thirty thousand francs to the sixty
sub-kings — being delighted to die of hunger, on
condition of being delivered from seventy-eight
rogues who made us die of rage.

We agree with you that near Paris, Milan, and
Naples the land can support all the taxes, because
the land is productive: but it is not the same with
us : in good years the yield is three to one, often
two, sometimes nothing, and needs six oxen to
plough it. Seeds are fruitful once only in ten
years.

You will ask what we live on: I answer, On
black bread and potatoes, and principally on the
sale of the wood which our peasants cut in the
forests and take to Geneva. Even this means
of subsistence constantly fails, for the forests are
devastated here much more than in the rest of the
kingdom.

A PLEA FOR THE POOR 251

I may remark, in passing, that timber will soon
be scarce in France, and that lately wood for firing
is being bought in Prussia.

As I want to be perfectly frank, I own that we
make certain cheeses on some of the Jura moun-
tains in June, July, and August.

Our chief means of livelihood is at the end of
our fingers. Our peasants, having nothing to live
on, have been diligently working at watchmaking
for the Genevese — the Genevese making thereat
ten millions of francs per annum, and paying the
workmen of the province of Gex exceedingly badly.

An old man, who took it into his head to settle
between Switzerland and Geneva, has established
a watch manufactory in the province of Gex which
pays the workmen of the country exceedingly
well, which increases the population, and which,
if protected by the Government, will supersede the
business of wealthy Geneva: but this old man
is not much longer for this world.

We exist, then, solely through our industry.
But I ask if this watchmaking, which will bring
in ten thousand francs a year, which profits by
salt much more than do the agriculturists, cannot
help these agriculturists with the thirty thousand
francs indemnity they must pay for their salt ?

I ask if these fat inn-keepers, who make even
more than the watchmakers, and consume more

252 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

salt, ought not also to assist the unfortunate
proprietors of a wretched soil ?

The big manufacturers, the hotel-keepers, the
butchers, the bakers, the tradesmen, know so
well the miserable condition of the country and
the favours of the ministry that they have all
offered to help us with a small contribution.

Either permit this contribution, or slightly
reduce the exorbitant sum of thirty thousand
livres which the sixty deputy-kings demand from
us.

One of these sub-kings named Basemont has
just died, worth, it is said, eighteen millions [of
francs]. Was there any need for that scamp to
flay us alive in order that our skin might bring
him five hundred livres ?

Here, sir, are a few of the grievances which I
should lay at the feet of the Controller General:
but I say nothing, I leave all to you. If you are
moved by my reasonings you will deign to be so
good as to present them: if they strike you as bad,
you will whistle them down the wind.

If I do wrong to plead thus feebly for my coun-
try, I am undoubtedly right in saying that I have
the greatest esteem for your enlightenment, the
greatest gratitude for your kindnesses, and that
I am, with the sincerest respects, yours, sir, etc.,
etc.

ON THE TIMES OF LOUIS XIV 253
LXXIX

ON THE TIMES OF LOUIS XIV

To the Baron de Fauglres

[The Baron de Faugbres was a naval officer.

" Castel suggests an ocular harpsichord." Castel
was a French mathematician who experimented
in natural philosophy. In his book called Optique
des Couleurs or Treatise on the Melody of Colours,
which he produced in 1740, he had tried to illus-
strate his subject by the clavecin oculaire or ocular
harpsichord.

"Needham fancies he can produce eels out of a
little soup." Needham was an English eighteenth
century scientist and a friend of Buffon. Like
Castel, he was a Jesuit — which may account for
some of Voltaire's contempt for their theories.
Needham' s — "that animals are brought to life
from putridity" — is certainly not so ridiculous
as Voltaire supposed it. Needham wrote in a
most involved and confusing style, which would
be particularly objectionable to Voltaire's lucid
mind.

" The great epoch in which the brutes, our ancestors,
developed into men." It is certainly something of
an anomaly to find a Voltaire laughing, in advance,
at the Darwinian theory.]

254 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

May 3, 1776.

You suggest, sir, that round the statue raised
at Montpellier— - To Louis XIV, after his death —
monuments should be erected to those great men
who were the glory of his age.

This project is the more commendable because
for many years there seems to have been a sort
of cabal among us to depreciate everything which
made that splendid epoch renowned. People are
weary of the masterpieces of the last century.
They try to belittle Louis XIV and reproach him
for his desire for fame. The nation in general
prefers Henri IV to the exclusion of all other kings :
I do not ask if this is from justice or from incon-
stancy — if, being better informed, we know more
of the truth to-day than we did formerly. I
merely remark that we do not in the slightest
degree realise or feel the grandeur of the times
which succeeded the age of Henri IV.

"They have not understood me," said that good
Prince to the Due de Sully. "But they will re-
gret me." And, indeed, sir, to speak plainly,
he was much hated and little respected. Fanati-
cism, which persecuted him from his cradle, con-
spired a hundred times against his life, and finally
snatched it from him by the hand of an ex-monk
— a madman, maddened by the madness of the
League. We now make him honourable amends:

ON THE TIMES OF LOUIS XIV 255

we prefer him above all our kings, although we
kept, and kept for a long time, many of the bigot-
ries which inspired the assassination of our hero.

But if Henri IV was great, not so his age in
any way. I am not speaking of the innumerable
crimes and infamies with which superstition and
rebellion defiled France. I allude only to the
arts whose glory you seek to perpetuate. They
were either ignored or very ill carried on — begin-
ning with the art of war. It was waged for forty
years without a single man gaining the reputation
of a clever general — without one whom posterity
can compare with a Prince of Parma or a Prince
of Orange. As for the navy, you, sir, who are
yourself one of its ornaments, must know that it
had practically no existence. The arts of peace,
which make the charm of society, which beautify
our towns, which enlighten our minds and soften
our manners, were perfectly unknown to us, and
only came into existence in the age which saw the
birth and death of Louis XIV.

I find it difficult to understand the dead set
which is made upon Colbert's memory to-day —
Colbert, who contributed so much to the welfare
of the navy which is so close to your heart. You
are well aware, sir, that he was the creator of that
navy which became so formidable. Two years
previous to his death, France had one hundred

256 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

and eighty ships of war and thirty galleys. Manu-
factures, commerce, trade — in both east and west
— were all due to him. It is possible to surpass
him, but never to eclipse him.

It is just the same in the arts of the mind —
oratory, poetry, philosophy — and in the arts where
the mind directs the hand — architecture, painting,
sculpture, mechanics. The men who adorned the
age of Louis XIV by such talents as these will
never be forgotten, whatever be the merit of their
successors. The forerunners in a career will al-
ways remain at the head of their fellows in the
eyes of posterity. As Newton said in his dispute
with Leibnitz, all the honour is the inventor's:
and he was right. A Pascal must be regarded as
an originator, for he started a new species of elo-
quence: a Pelisson, for he defended Fouquet in
the same way as Cicero defended King Deiotarus
before Caesar: a Corneille, for he created French
tragedy even though he copied the Spanish Cid:
a Moliere, for he originated and perfected comedy:
a Descartes, for he would have perfected geometry
had he not wandered in his inventions from his
model: while had Malebranche only known how
to curb his imagination, what a man among men
he would have been !

Everyone agrees that this great century was the
age of genius, but so often, after the originators,

ON THE TIMES OF LOUIS XIV 257

come — I do not say disciples taught in the school
of their masters, for they are laudable — but apes
who try to spoil the work of their inimitable lead-
ers. Thus, after Newton discovered the nature
of light, Castel, to outdo him, suggests an ocular
harpsichord.

No sooner has a new world in miniature been
discovered by the microscope, than a Needham
fancies he can produce eels out of a little soup or
out of a drop of water boiled with wheat ears in
it. Animals and vegetables being thus brought
into being without seed, this crowning absurdity is
called the sublime achievement of natural history.

No sooner has the real philosopher calculated
the effect of sun and moon on the tides, than ro-
mancers, inferior to Cyrano de Bergerac, write the
history of the time when the seas covered the Alps
and the Caucasus, and when the universe was
only peopled by fish. They end by discovering
that very remarkable epoch in which the brutes,
our ancestors, developed into men, and their
forked tails turned into thighs and legs. This is
the great service which Telliamed has recently
rendered to humankind. Thus, sir, in all the arts
and in all the professions, impostors succeed the
genuine discoverers: heaven grant that all the
charlatans we have to do with may be as harm-
less!
17

258 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

Success to your project! May all the men of
genius who adorned the time of Louis XIV reap-
pear in the square at Montpellier, round that
king's statue, and inspire the ages to come to an
eternal emulation!

LXXX

ON MONARCHY AND DESPOTISM

To M. Gin

[M. Gin had sent Voltaire his book, The True
Principles of French Government as shown by Rea-
son and Facts.

The "Esprit des Lois" (see Letter LVI, "A
Profession of Faith," in which Voltaire also alludes
to Montesquieu's inaccuracy, which was noto-
rious) .

" The President Montesquieu" (see Letter
XXV, "On Corneille and Racine"). He was
President of the Parliament of Bordeaux.]

Ferney, June 20, 1777

Omitting, sir, the compliments and thanks I
owe you, I begin by assuring you that despotic and
monarchical are the same thing in the hearts of
all sensible people. Despot (herus) means mas-
ter, and monarch means sole master, which is very

ON MONARCHY AND DESPOTISM 259

much stronger. A fly is monarch of the imper-
ceptible animalculae which it devours: the spider
is the monarch of flies, for it ensnares and eats
them: the swallow rules the spiders : shrikes devour
the swallows: and so on indefinitely. You will
not deny that the farmers-general devour us:
you know the world has been so made since the
beginning. But that does not prevent your be-
ing most clearly in the right as opposed to the
Abbe Mably, and I return you, sir, therefore a
thousand thanksgivings. You arrive at the happy
conclusion that monarchical government is the
best of all ; always provided that Marcus Aurelius
is the monarch: for, otherwise, what can it matte r
to a man if he is devoured by a lion or by a trib e
of rats? You appear, sir, to be of the opinion
of the Esprit des Lois in granting that the prin-
ciple of monarchies is honour, and the principle
of republics virtue. If you were not of this opin-
ion, I should be of the Due d'Orleans' (the Re-
gent's), who said of one of our great lords : " He
is the most perfect courtier — he has neither hu-
mour nor honour": and I should tell President
Montesquieu, if he hopes to prove his thesis by
saying that under a monarchy men seek honours,
that they seek them much more in republics. In
them, they strive for the honour of ovation, tri-
umph, and all the dignities. The office of doge

26o VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

at Venice is sought after, though this indeed is
vanitas vanitatum. For the rest, sir, you are much
more methodical than that Esprit des Lois
and you never misquote as he does — a most im-
portant point: for if you verify Montesquieu's
quotations you will hardly find four that are
correct; I once had the pleasure of testing them.
I am much edified, sir, by your discretion in stop-
ping at the reign of Henri IV : all you say affords
me information: and I take the liberty of divin-
ing much that you do not say. Above all, I am
grateful to you for your way of thinking and of
expressing ' yourself on the barbarous method of
government called feudal: it is brought to perfec-
tion, it is said, at the diet of Ratisbon: it is ab-
horred half a mile from me here, to my right and
to my left ; but, by one of our French anomalies,
it exists in all its horrors just behind my kitchen
garden, in the valleys of Mount Jura ; and twelve
thousand slaves of the canons of Saint Claud, who
have had the insolence to desire to be subjects of
the king instead of serfs and beasts of burden to
the monks, have just lost their suit to the Parlia-
ment of Besancon, while many councillors of the
Grand Chambre have lands where the mortmain
is in full vigour, in spite of the edicts of our kings :
so uniform is jurisprudence amongst us! Finally,
your book instructs and cheers me: I love its

VOLTAIRE AS AN OLD MAN
From the portrait by Schoff

A DYING TESTIMONY 261

method and style. You do not write to parade
your wit, as does the author of the Esprit des
Lois and the Lettres Persanes: you use your wits
to discover the truth. Judge then, sir, of my
indebtedness to you for the honour you have
done me in sending me your work: judge if I have
read it with pleasure and if I am merely employ-
ing an empty formula when I assure you that I
have the honour to be, with the deepest esteem
and the most heartfelt gratitude, etc., etc.

LXXXI

A DYING TESTIMONY

To the Abbe Gaultier

[In 1778, Voltaire, being now in his eighty-fourth
year, decided, against the advice of his best friends,
to leave Ferney on a visit to Paris. He was over-
whelmed with homage and attentions — in one
day alone he received three hundred visitors.
By Sunday, February 15th, he was too ill to leave
the house. On that day, as recorded in this letter,
Benjamin Franklin — the American statesman,
philosopher, diplomatist, now seventy-two years
old, and in Paris on a diplomatic mission to secure
foreign assistance for America in the war she was
then waging with Great Britain — brought his

262 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

grandson to receive the patriarch's blessing.
(Franklin's efforts had been so far successful that
on February 6, 1778, — a week or two before this
letter was written, — Louis XVI had signed a treaty
of alliance with the United States — see Letter
LXXXII, "Paris: 1778.") It is said that Vol-
taire and Franklin talked of the government and
constitution of that free country. "If I were
forty," said Voltaire, "I should go and settle in
your happy fatherland."

On February 20th Voltaire received a letter from
the Jesuit Abbe Gaultier, who was anxious for the
salvation of the sceptic's soul and that he himself
should have the prestige of saving it. To this
letter Voltaire made the following reply, and on
February 21st accorded Gaultier a long interview,
in which he accepted the abbe as his confessor —
since to ensure decent and Christian burial a con-
fessor was a necessary evil — and promised to see
him again. Gaultier played no insignificant part
in the extraordinary scenes which took place
round Voltaire's deathbed: and in the struggle
for his conversion showed more mercy and modera-
tion than some of his brethren.]

Paris, February 21, 1778.

Your letter, sir, seems to me to be that of an
honest man: that is sufficient to determine me to

PARIS: 1778 263

receive the honour of a visit from you on the day
and at the hour most convenient to you. I shall
say to you exactly what I said when I gave my
blessing to the grandson of the wise and famous
Franklin, the most honoured of American citizens:
I spoke only these words, "God and liberty." All
present were greatly moved. I flatter myself
that you share these aspirations.

I am eighty-four years of age: I am about to
appear before God, the Creator of all the universe.
If you have anything to say to me, it will be my
duty and privilege to receive you, despite the suf-
ferings which overwhelm me.

I have the honour to be, etc.,

Voltaire.

LXXXII

PARIS: 1778

To the Marquis de Florian at Bijou-Ferney

[The Marquis de Florian was the second husband
of Voltaire's niece, Mme. de Fontaine. After her
death in 1772 he had married a pretty little Pro-
testant whom he had met at Voltaire's home:
and the couple had taken up their abode at a
little house near Ferney.

264 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

"Half dead this last fortnight since his accident."
On February 25th Voltaire had broken a blood-
vessel and had been alarmingly ill.

"You know there has been much talk of war"
— against England, France having pledged herself
to intervene as the ally of America (see Letter
LXXXI, "A Dying Testimony").

" Neckers lottery tickets." Necker was Director
General of the disastrous finances of France.]

Paris, March 15, 1778.

The old invalid has been unable to write sooner
to M. and Mme. de Florian. He has been half
dead this last fortnight since his accident; and
he has had to endure all the miseries inevitable to
such a condition. He seizes a moment when he
is somewhat easier to tell M. and Mme. de Florian
that if he had quite died it would have been with
the warmest affection for them and trusting them
not to forget him.

You know there has been much talk of war in
Paris: that the King has declared, through his
Ambassador in London, that he desires peace,
but that he must insist on his flag and commerce
being respected. The treaty with the Americans
is made public. I saw M. Franklin at my own
house, as I was too ill to visit him: he asked me
to give my blessing to his grandson. I gave it,

PARIS: 1778 265

saying only "God and liberty" — in the presence of
twenty people who were in my room.

The English Ambassador came about an hour
later. The kindness I have received both from
the Court and from the city has been far above
my hopes, and even my wishes: but I have not
found the time a favourable one to ask for pecu-
niary help for my colony. The King is too deeply
in debt. The fleet has cost an immense sum.
Eighty out of a thousand of Necker's lottery
tickets are worthless. There is no longer any
question of economy — only a desire for vengeance.
M. d'Estaing is in command of a formidable squad-
ron, and M. de la Motte-Piquet of another.

You know that M. Dupuits is at Paris, and hopes
to find a post. It is quite possible that without
any declaration of war some shots will be ex-
changed. For my part — who am perfectly pacific
— I only expect to be done to death by the pol-
troons who are always prating to me of Shake-
speare, Vauxhall, Roast Beef, English mountebanks,
and English lords.

I beg M. de Florian's pardon for entering into
these details. I would much rather have had a
road made outside his house: but I see it is easier
to cure oneself of spitting blood than to get
money out of an involved government which has
not even the wherewithal to pay poor Racle. Here,

266 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

there is everywhere revolting luxury and frightful
misery. Paris is the headquarters of all the follies,
blunders, and horrors conceivable.

When shall I see Ferney again and embrace the
master and mistress of Bijou !

LXXXIII
FAREWELL

To Frederick the Great

[This is the last letter of the long and famous
correspondence between Frederick and Voltaire.
Old Frederick, like young Frederick, could still
take flattery in immense doses: and old Voltaire,
like young Voltaire, does not scruple to administer
them. But his last letter to "Frederick the Im-
mortal" is, like his first, the letter of the man
who more than any other of his generation loved
that men should be enlightened, and had worked
all his life that those "paid to blind them" should
not always be able to "put out their eyes."]

Paris, April i, 1778.

Sire, the French gentleman who will present
this letter to your Majesty, and who seems to be
worthy of entering your presence, will tell you

FAREWELL 267

that I have not had the honour of writing to you
for so long a time because I have been engaged in
avoiding two things which pursue me in Paris —
excitement and death.

It is really amusing that at eighty-four years of
age I should have been saved from two mortal
maladies. My good fortune comes from being
under your protection: I owe my reputation to
you.

I have been the witness — with surprise and a
deep satisfaction — at the performance of a new
tragedy, of the public (who for thirty years re-
garded Constantine and Theodosius as models of
princes and even of saints) rapturously applaud-
ing verses which proclaimed the two of them to
be no better than superstitious tyrants. I have
seen twenty similar proofs of the progress which
philosophy has made at last in all ranks. I do
not despair, in a month or two, of having a pane-
gyric pronounced on the Emperor Julian; and
assuredly, if the Parisians remember that he
rendered justice among them like Cato, and that
he fought for them like Caesar, they should be
eternally grateful to him.

It is then true, sire, that, finally, men will be
enlightened, and that those paid to blind them will
not always put out their eyes! Thanks for that
to your Majesty. You have conquered bigotry

268 VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

as you have conquered your foes: you can con-
gratulate yourself on institutions of every kind.
You are the vanquisher of superstition as you are
the bulwark of Germanic liberty.

Outlive me to establish all the empires you have
founded! May Frederick the Great be Frederick
the Immortal !

Accept my unalterable devotion.

Voltaire.

LXXXIV

)

THE LAST LETTER

To the Comte de Lally

[General Lally, the father of Lally-Tollendal,
the man to whom this letter is addressed, was an
Irish Jacobite who had plotted in France for the
restoration of the Stuarts : and in India, unsuccess-
fully, against the British East India Company.

On his return to France, partly to punish him
for his failure and partly to please England, the
French Government threw him into the Bastille: ab-
surdly charging him with having sold Pondicherry
to his enemies, the English, and on many other
counts, not less ridiculous. On May 6, 1766, be-
ing then sixty-four years old, he was gagged,

THE LAST LETTER 269

handcuffed, and beheaded. A month later, Vol-
taire was writing to d'Alembert, "I will stake my
neck on it he was not a traitor." Seven years
later Lally's son implored Voltaire's help to excul-
pate his father's memory, and for many weeks
Voltaire was engaged "night and day" in writing
The Historical Fragments of the History of India
and of General Lally which ably and conclusively
proved the wronged man's innocence.

On May 26, 1778, when old Voltaire was dying
at the Hotel Villette in Paris, Louis XVI in council
publicly vindicated General Lally.

By a last mighty effort, the dying man recalled
the splendid intellect, now waning fast, which had
so nobly served him, and dictated the following let-
ter to the Comte de Lally-Tollendal. Then he
made someone write in a large hand on a sheet
of paper, which he caused to be pinned to his bed
hangings, the following words :

"On May 26th, the judicial murder committed
by Pasquier (Councillor to the Parliament) upon
the person of Lally was avenged by the Council
of the King."

It was his last conscious act. He died four days
later, on May 30, 1778. There have been few
men with whom the ruling passion of hatred of
tyranny, oppression, injustice, has been so strong
in death: and better men, who, in their last hours

27o VOLTAIRE IN HIS LETTERS

have found it impossible to think of any soul but
their own.]

May 26, 1778.

The dying man returns to life on hearing this
great news: he tenderly embraces M. de Lally:
he sees that the King is the defender of justice:
and he dies content.

Jh Selection from the
Catalogue of

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Complete Catalogues sent
on application

Matthew Hargraves

By

S. G. Tallentyre

Author of " Bassett," " Life of Voltaire," etc.

12°. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.60

To those discriminating readers of fiction
who put human interest above the eccentric
and exceptional, this new book by S. G.
Tallentyre, recounting with rare fidelity the
progress through life of Matthew Hargraves,
son of the portly landlord of the Hope and
Anchor, with all the qualities one respects
and the limitations one recognizes in the
average man, will afford delightful hours.
The delicate way in which the author con-
veys to the reader the sense of growing
sympathy between Matthew and the girl
whom he and his wife have taken into their
coldly correct household is a refreshing escape
from the clumsy, or even gross, manner in
which many writers of fiction, with an
artistry less perfect, would have done vio-
lence to the situation. But the supreme
achievement of the author's artistry is to
have made a commonplace man thoroughly
interesting.

BY S. G. TALLENTYRE

The Life of Voltaire

8vo. New Edition. Entirely Reset. With 16
Illustrations. Net, $3.50 2 Vol. Ed. $5.00

The narrative of the life and work of a
man who, perhaps more than any other of
his century, influenced the opinion of
Europe. His keen analysis of the insti-
tutions and opinions of the day, his absolute
fearlessness in regard to certain existing
things which seemed to him to be wrongs,
his enormous fund of wit, and his great
force of expression have persisted as an
influence in the literature of the years suc-
ceeding his own.

"The Tallentyre's ' Life ' is thorough and reliable,
as to data, is intelligently sympathetic, and gives a most
engrossing narrative of Voltaire's wonderful -career and
still rarer character. It is a biography of a very high
order." — Chicago Evening Post.

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London

The Life of Mirabeau

By S. G. TALLENTYRE

Author of "The Life of Voltaire," "The Friends of Voltaire"

First American Edition Reprinted from the
Second English Edition

8°. With Portraits. $3.50. net By mail, $3.75

The two great representative Frenchmen of the
eighteenth century are Voltaire and Mirabeau.
Voltaire was the last great influence of the old
order, and Mirabeau the first of the new. Vol-
taire, more than any other one man, undammed
the torrent of Revolution. Mirabeau used all
the strength of his mighty genius to turn those
rushing waters into the channel of use, of
wisdom, and of safety.

These two notable men have inspired the
present biographer, who has the distinction of
having written *hat may be regarded as the
definitive life of each. The Life of Mirabeau is,
like The Life of Voltaire, a penetrating study
of character combined with a dramatic con-
ception of Mirabeau's r61e in history. It has
been entirely reset, and is offered to the public
in a format uniform with The Life of Voltaire.

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London