VOLTAIRE. 216 VOLTAIRE. poet of France, Jean Baptistc Kousseaii. A quanel with a member of a veiy high family, the Chevalier de Rohan, led in 1720 to a second im- prisonment in the Bastille, which was ended in a f-=w days by his promise to leave the kingdom forthwith ami to move to England. He remained there twenty-six months, during which he ac- quainted himself with the social and intellec- tual life of the coimtry. His visit had been preceded by his acquaintance with Bolingbroke, through whom he was introduced to the greatest literarv men of the time, Pope, Congreve, Young, and Chesterfield. He soon mastered the language, and, in order to prepare the British public for the appearance of an enlarged edition of his epic poem, wrote in English two remarkable essays, one on epic poetry, the other on the history of civil wars in France. The poem itself, under its permanent title of La HenrUide, soon followed. Although the French Government took the great- est precautions to prevent the introduction of the book into France, its success all over the Continent of Europe was unprecedented. Vol- taire, already considered the most brilliant dra- matic poet of the age, was proclaimed a not un- worthy rival of Homer and Vergil. This judg- ment "is far from having been indorsed by pos- terity. The success of La Benriade was due to temporary circumstances and conditions, and es- pecially to its eloquent presentation of the idea of religious toleration. Permission to return to France was granted to Voltaire in 1728. Until 1732 he resided in Paris, and it is not too much to say that all that he did during this period bears witness to the deep in- fluence exerted upon him by his stay in England. His chief works during these active years were dramatic. The tragedies of Brutus (1730), Zaire ( 1732) . and tiemiraniis ( 1748) show the influence of Shakespeare, Zaire being, to a certain ex- tent, an adaptation of the theme of Othello to the French stage. A'oltaire wrote also a series of letters, very likely based upon actual letters sent by him to his friend Tiariot dur- ing his stay in England, and tending to make the intellectual life of England known to the French public, and he composed a Histoire de Charles XII, rot de fiui'de, the elements of which were received bj' Voltaire from the Swedish Ambassador to England. The publication of the letters just mentioned forms one of the most curi- ous incidents in Voltaire's career. After having had them printed, he feared the effect of their pub- lication, lie therefore decided to defer the pub- lication of the work, at least in French, and it apjieared first in England, in an English transla- tion entitled Letters Coneerninr} the Enr;Iish Xa- tion (1734). A spurious edition of the French version, however, due to the purloining of some of the volumes printed by order of Voltaire, soon found its way to the public, and brought about a wrangle between the author and his intended publisher, .Tore. There was even some danger of Voltaire's being sent for the third time to the Bastille. This was averted only by his clearly demonstrating that he had had nothing to do with the publication of the work. It is now known as Letlrea philosophii/ues, and is considered not far from the first of what may be called Voltaire's revolutionary works. They touch upon various subjects as to which he thought the French sorely needed enlightenment: the system of religious toleration followed in England : the guarantees for individual freedom enjojed by British subjects; liberty of speech and of the press ; the political life manifested in the exist- ence of a free Parliament ; the esteem in which literary men were held; a literature unknown to France and one which gloried in the names of Shakespeare and ililton; the scientific and philo- sophic labors of Xewton and Locke, destined soon to supplant in the minds of Frenchmen the the- ories of the illustrious Descartes; the practice of inoculation against smallpox, etc. Few works ever published contain so much matter as these letters, which led every Frenchman who read them to think about the conditions under which be was compelled to live and to question whether the French political and social s_ystem was as perfect as it had been held to be by the mem of the preceding century. A new period now began in Voltaire's life, owing to his peculiar association with a woman of high aristocratic rank, iladame du Chatelet, with whom, by the strange moral code then ac- cepted in high French society, he was permitted to live in the closest intimacy until her death in 1749, without even bringing about a break be- tween her and her husband. These years were spent mostly at iladame du Chatelet's chateau at Circy on the boundaries between Champagne and Lorraine. Voltaire was theii wealthy, having been enriched bj* several speculations, some of them of a rather dubious character, during the j'ears just preceding, and this improvement in his fortune was manifested by the st3-le of the life thenceforth led by him. His years in Cirey in companionship with a woman of high intel- lectual gifts and scientific attainments, to whom the French were indebted for the first translation in their langimge of Newton's Principia, were years of prodigious intellectual activity. Play upon play was sent by him from the Chateau de Cirey to be performed in Paris. He worked on his history of Louis XIV. and on a still more ambitious historical work, the composition of which was undertaken at Madame du Chatelet's request, a universal history from the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Louis XIV. He published the Elements de la philosophie de New- tot), intended to acquaint the French public more thoroughly with the system, only a glimpse of which had been given them in the Lettres philo- sophiques. His lighter productions, tales, novels, satires, light poetry, are almost numberless: one, belonging to the latter class, the poem Le mon- daiii (1730), a defense of refined and luxurious life, brouglit liiui into serious trouble, as he was accused of having cast ridicule upon religion by the way in which he had spoken of Adam and Eve. To the same period belongs in part the com- position of another and longer jioem which Vol- taire's admirers wish ho had never written, the celebrated An pucelle (173fl: first pub. 175.')) the mock heroine of which is no other than the purest incarnation of French patriotism. .loan of Are. In trutli Voltaire never intended in this poem to cast ridicule upon (he historical figure of the Maid of Orleans, as is shown by the pages devoted to her in his hist(uical writings. His satire is directed only against the absurdly mvstical idea of her career presented in Chajie- la'in's Pucelle (1730 or 1731). Voltaire's stay in Cirey was not continuous. He often went
