who, till their attention was thus directly called to it, had cared little to inquire further into the details concerning it.
Then came forward some few of the literati, and of the worshippers of the demi-god above alluded to, and from their notes and their souvenirs, and from the anecdotes handed down to them by previous chroniclers, or by the lips of those men and women of a former generation in whose footsteps they trod, they gave such details of the life and death of Voltaire, and of his Heart, living and dead, as for awhile to make the dry bones live again in men’s minds, and place before the eyes of the children of the nineteenth century the image and presentment of the Philosopher of Ferney, as he appeared to their grandfathers in the eighteenth. From these and other sources, the present writer has gathered together some details that may not be without interest.
It is hardly likely that we English should regard Voltaire from the same point of view that the French do, even setting aside the grand point of his religious and moral theories. The quality that he possessed, perhaps beyond all other men, that of esprit, is a quality before which every Frenchman bows the knee, and he who possesses it in the largest measure, is, by an inevitable consequence, considered the first of men. In England, the thing that is especially meant by esprit (though the term is also used generally), is rare, and we have for it no synonym that I know of; neither of the words wit nor humour precisely embodying the idea. In Ireland it is much more frequently found, but certainly the country where the quality exists in the greatest perfection, though even there it is not largely disseminated, is France; and whosoever is richly gifted therewith may cover with it more sins than any amount of charity that could be bestowed on him.
With us it is otherwise. We are not deficient in our appreciation of esprit, when we find it; but we regard it as a secondary, not a primary quality; as a means rather than as an end; a man must have something besides esprit, and something higher than it, to command our reverence, admiration, and esteem.
A persifleur amuses us, but we have no notion of making him
Our pattern to live and to die,
whereas in France a first-rate persifleur is the perfection of a man of esprit.
Now Voltaire, being the Prince of Persifleurs, was in France considered a great man, a title which no Englishman would accord him.
He laughed at everything, except, indeed, at what was truly risible, in the career, pretensions, and tragi-comic ending of “la sublime Emilie,” Marquise du Châtelet, and the tremendous parody between himself and St. Lambert that followed her death.
At seventeen, being already the friend of Ninon de Lenclos, and “très recherché,” as we are told, “in this enchanted world of gaieties, songs, petits vers, and comédies de société,” he composed, amid this atmosphere, so favourable to serious study and conscientious labour, his Œdipe. It was represented on the stage, and the young poet entered yet higher in the ranks of the great world in the following manner.
The Maréchale de Villars inquiring who was the young man who bore the train of the high priest, was informed that it was the poet himself, the author of the piece; she desired to see him, and he was brought to her box, from which period he became the constant guest of the Maréchal and Maréchale de Villars.
Mighty was the success of Œdipe. Sully, the Marquis de la Fare, the beaux-esprits, the bas-bleus, and the grand monde flocked thereto, and showered on the poet praises and attentions; the Prince de Conti wrote thereon a highly complimentary and extremely mediocre copy of verses. One of those who, in a spirit of intense admiration, relates to us the career of “le jeune Arouet,” informs us that he desired to be at once Homer and Corneille, and in the same passage relates that as he composed la Henriade, “Il riait avec son poëme, aussi bien qu’avec sa tragedie,” which promised well for the fulfilment of such an ambition.
We in England,—and, I am inclined to think, the poets of ancient Greece resembled us in this respect,—find it a little difficult to comprehend the notion of sitting down to write an epic poem and a Greek tragedy “en riant.”
Be that as it may, it appears that there were times when Voltaire (he was eighteen when he commenced the Henriade), seemed to have had moments over it when he was not in a laughing humour, for it one day cost the president Hénault a fine pair of ruffles to rescue the MS. from the fire, where the author had flung it in a pet.
From thence triumph succeeded triumph. He wrote Brutus, Zaïre, l’Enfant prodigue, Mahomet, &c. This last work he dedicated to the Pope, Benedict XIV, who replied in a Latin letter to his “son” Voltaire.
Then came Mérope, in which the tears of Dumesnil aided powerfully to produce the success which Voltaire himself thus records:—“The seduction of the piece went so far, that the pit clamoured to see me. I was sought in the hiding-place into which I had crept (not, friend Voltaire, without having taken care, we must believe, that the niche in question should be known beforehand to the seekers!), and taken by force (!) to the box of the Maréchale de Villars, with whom was her daughter-in-law. The pit were wild: they shouted to the Duchesse de Villars to embrace me, and so violent was the outcry, that she was forced to yield, by order of her mother-in-law. Thus I was kissed publicly, like Alain Chartier by the Princess Margaret of Scotland; only he slept, and I was wide awake.” I should think so, M. de Voltaire!
The fame of his genius having extended beyond the shores of France, Frederick II., later surnamed the Great, invited him to his court. Thither he went, with what result most of my readers are acquainted.
He amused himself, taking the bitter with the sweet, enjoying the latter, lightly glossing over the former, forgetting, and in that way pardoning, even the gravest indignities to which he was subjected; and after his arrest at Frankfort, by order
