VOLTAIEE
VOLTAIRE
but he went to America in 1795, and spent
three years travelling there (Tableau du
climat et du sol des Etats-Unis d Ameriqiie,
2 vols., 1803). He was elected to the
Senate on his return to France. Napoleon
made him Count, and Commander of the
Legion of Honour ; and he was admitted
to the Academy. Volney had joined the
Encyclopaedists in his youth, and conver
sation with Benjamin Franklin had sug
gested the writing of his famous work,
Les mines, ou meditations sur les revolu
tions des empires, which was published in
1791. It was translated into many lan
guages, and had a large share in the
Eationalist education of Europe. It is
essentially a Deistic attack upon Chris
tianity. Volney openly remonstrated with
Napoleon, who had a great regard for his
ability, when he re-established the Church
in France. His second work, La loi
naturelle (1794), had little influence. His
collected works were issued in eight
volumes in 1821. D. Apr. 25, 1820.
VOLTAIRE, Francois Marie Arouet
de, French historian, dramatist, and critic. B. Nov. 21, 1694. Ed. (by Jesuits) College Louis le Grand. Francois Marie Arouet, as he was originally called, was the son of a Paris notary. After he had spent six years at college his father compelled him to take up the study of law, but his earlier teacher, the Abbe de Chateauneuf, one of the many Rationalistic abbes of the time, had inspired him with a love of letters. He neglected law, mixed in a gay literary world, and in 1716 was exiled to the provinces for writing lampoons on the Prince of Orleans. He was allowed to return in 1717, but was presently com mitted to the Bastille for further libel- writing. It was in the Bastille that he decided to write under the name of " Voltaire." The origin of the name is uncertain, for there were ancestors on his mother s side of that name, yet it is only a slightly modified anagram of " Arouet le jeune." Possibly he had both facts in mind. In 1718 he produced his first 851
tragedy, (Edipe. He was now known as
a brilliant young writer, of particularly
caustic pen, and he was exiled again in
1719 under suspicion of having written
further lampoons. In 1721 his father left
him a small income ; but he was in the
Bastille again in 1726 for being so insolent
as to challenge De Rohan, and after a few
weeks detention was sent to England.
Voltaire had hitherto lived the selfish and
frivolous life which most Parisians, lay
and clerical, did in those days ; and it is
disingenuous to dwell with outraged feel
ings on his conduct and ignore the liberties-
of Archbishop Dillon and Archbishop de
Brienne. During his stay in England a
more serious vein was developed in him.
The light scepticism which Parisian abbes
had taught him was now solidly based on
English Deism and philosophy ; and the
comparative liberty of English political
life kindled in him a humanitarian ideaL
He was three years in England (1726-29),
and on his return he wrote his Lettres
philosophiques siir les Anglais. He reserved
the manuscript, which would certainly not
pass the censor, but it somehow got into-
print in 1733. It was burned by the
hangman ; and his Temple du Gout, of the
same year, was also suppressed. Voltaire
had to fly to Lorraine, and at the house of
the Marquise du Chatelet he continued
his literary and dramatic production for
two years. He was back in Paris in 1735 ;
but he again incurred trouble, and had to
spend a year in the Low Countries. It
may be stated in a word that this " arch-
mocker," as so many describe him, spent
nearly the whole of his long life, after the
age of twenty-two, in exile from his
beloved Paris because he would not refrain
from telling the truth. The sceptical
archbishops and bishops remained at Paris.
In 1745 he had an hour of favour, and
was named Historiographer Royal. In
1746 the Academy was compelled at length
to open its doors to him. His tragedies
had long since put him in the position of
the finest writer in France. In 1751 he
went to live at the court of Frederick the
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