prisoned as the alleged author of lampoons on Louis XI V, which appeared alter the king's death. In the Bastile he wrote part of his epic the /Jeiniiidc, and completed hi.s tragedy (Kdipe ; on reading whicli the regent re- leased hin). On account of an altercation with a ciiev- alier Hohan-Chabot, he was banished, and resided in England from 1726 to 1729, where he became ac(puiint- ed with lord Boliiigbrokc and the freethinkers. On re- turning to France in 1729, he found himself idolized by the French, and entered at once ujion a brilliant career. lie wrote his Lettrts sur Ics A m/ldl'', in praise of English institutions. In this and other works which appeared about this time hisdeistical views began to crop out; so flagrant were some parts of the Lettreg that the work was publicly burned. He only escaped arrest by retiring to (Jirey, where he made his home with the marchioness Chatelet until her death, in 1749. In 1736 he had to escape for a time to Brussels, on account of the scandal occasioned by his Momhiin. He visited Frederick the Great in 1740, and again in 1744 on a jiolitical mission. In 1750 he again went to Berlin, where Frederick grant- ed him a pension of twenty thousand francs, and stud- ied with him two hours a day. A violent rupture at length occurring between him and Frederick, Voltaire resolved to escape. He carried some of the king's lit- erary work with him, and was arrested at Frankfort un- der circumstances of great annoy?ince and disgrace; init he afterwards renewed his correspondence with Freder- ick. In 1755 he purchased an estate near Geneva, but could not live agreeably with his Swiss neighbors. In 1762 he removed to an estate at Ferney, in France, near the Swiss border, for the purpose of easy escape from one country to the other. By this time he had become enormously rich through his stock operations and his books. He lived in excellent style, and was very lib- eral with his wealth. He had become, in a certain de- gree, the founder of a new sect of thinkers and writers of a decidedly atheistical tendency, although Voltaire himself was a theist, and rebuked the philosophy which tried to banish God from the universe. In his eighty- fourth year he visited Paris, where he was received with all the honor of a hero, and brought out the trag- edy of Irene with great enthusiasm. He was, during this visit, taken with a violent hemorrhage which threatened his life, and sought a reconciliation with the Church, that he might not be denied Christian burial. He signed a statement that he would die in the Roman Catholic faith, and that he asked pardon of God and the Church for his sins. He recovered from this attack, but died soon after, before leaving Paris, May 30, 1778. Voltaire was the foremost literary man of his age. The secret of his success lay in the remarkable spirit, vivacity, and grace with which he portrayed the spirit of his age, in his satires, tales, and other short arti- cles. " English writers very rarely understandVoltaire. Those Avho dislike him almost invariably denounce him as a wild and reckless scoffer, or insist upon trying him by a loft}' standard of political philosophj', and passing heavj' sentence on him accordingly. The truth is that Voltaire was no philosopher at all, and was naturally as little qualified for such a part as any man of his day. He was not a thinker. He was a man of certain quick, impatient instincts, which sometimes led him right and often sent him wrong; and endowed with the most won- derful and unrivalled weapon of wit wherewith to fight for any cause which, on the spur of a sudden feeling, he might happen to embrace." "Voltaire was the most formidable enemy the Roman priesthood has ever had since the Reformation. No man, since Luther, has shaken more profoundly the ecclesiaslicism of Europe. In this respect, rather than by liberal political dogmas, he helped effectiveh' to bring on the great Revolution of the last century. Rousseau was the real author of its dogmas, but Voltaire is the arch-anticlericalist of history. In the literary celebration at the Gaiete,Yo\- taire's undeniable services to the cause of toleration were the emphatic theme. Victor Hugo showed his
good taste as well as good sense in this respect. All Christian men m.iy well acknowledge this, almost the only good work of the great writer. The Protestants of France uiiiversall}' acknowledge it. Victor Hugo gave el'xpHiitiy the meini)ral)le examples of the Calas family, and of Labarre. He might have added that of the Servien family. Voltaire made Europe ring with reports of tiiese cases, till the courts of France had to re- habilitate the victims, as far as possible ; and popery reeled under his persistent blows. Toleration in France, by which Protestantism has become a part of the na- tional religion, dates really from his labors. The .Jes- uits were subsequently expelled, and Napoleon gave the Huguenots a legal status. Aside from this good work, Voltaire was almost totally a bad man. He was a lib- ertine; he could lie without scruple, as Carlyle shows in the life of the great Frederick; and nothing was too sacred for his jest and sarcasm."
Among Voltaire's numerous writings are several trag- edies and comedies: Steele de Louis XIV: — Si'ecle de Louis XV: — Hisioire de Cfunies XII: — Histoire de Russie : — A vnales de VEmjnre : — Histoire dv Parlemeni : — Philosophie: — La Bible L'xjjliguee — in which his at- tacks upon Christianity are expressed without decency ; and in his references to the philosophy of others he is unjust in a high degree : — IJictionnaire Pfiilosophique : — Lcs Questiones sur les Miracles — an objection to mira- cles founded upon the constancy of natural law. His works have been published in seventy volumes by Le- quien (Paris, 1820) ; also by Louis Barre in twenty vol- umes (ibid. 1856-59). See Vie de Voltaire^ by the mar- (piis of Condorcet; Strauss, Fo/^rn're (1872); Morley, Voltaire (1871); and Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et la So- ciete dti X VJIIieme Siecle (1855-76, 8 vols.).