Voltaire (1694-1778) - Writer, Wit, Philosopher

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Voltaire was famous among the literati for his plays, poetry, and letters. He was a veteran of many love affairs and lived all over Europe. Friendly with many of the philosophes of the Enlightenment and reviled by the establishment (for his radical ideas and sometimes scandalous subject matter) he was, by the 1750s, living a reasonably glamorous life.

His beginnings, however, were rather bourgeois. Born in Paris in 1694 as François-Marie Arouet, the son of a notary, Voltaire was a child of quite poor health. As a boy, he was sent to a Jesuit-run boarding school, where he both learned the classics and met the sons of noblemen. After school, he wanted to become a poet; his father, seeking a more lucrative career for his son, got him a job as the secretary of the French ambassador to the Netherlands. However, he was soon recalled to Paris in ignominy, after his father discovered his affair and attempted elopement with a Dutch Protestant girl. Forced by his father to study law, Voltaire spent much more time associating with the literary men of Paris.

In 1715, Louis XIV died, and with the end of this era came a new age of French culture in which hedonism was the fashion. Voltaire took an active part, beginning to make his name satirizing just about everyone—particularly the Catholic Church and the aristocracy. However, this was dangerous territory, and his connections to those in power did not prevent him from being imprisoned in the Bastille for eleven months.

Throughout the 1720s, Voltaire built up a reputation as a talented playwright. Although his mock-epic plays, which drew on classical Greek drama, ridiculed gods and priests, his acclaim was only heightened. Even the royal family invited him to state events, and he had a succession of beautiful mistresses. However, his luck turned when, in 1725, he had a falling-out with a young nobleman, the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot, whose family used their influence to have Voltaire arrested. Rather than spend more time in the Bastille, he opted for self-imposed exile in England.

The three years Voltaire spent in England were a strong counterbalance to his hedonistic lifestyle in France. Making some English friends and learning the language, he became interested in the writing of English philosophers such as Locke and Berkeley, and incorporated the techniques of English dramatists such as Shakespeare into his own work. Noting the diversity of religious beliefs, widespread economic enterprise, and democratic government, Voltaire compared England very favourably to France's increasingly antiquated monarchy.

Eventually, Voltaire grew homesick for Paris, though he returned to controversy. He was on the verge of being arrested for the subversive nature of his recently-published Philosophical Letters; seeking refuge, he fled to the Chateau de Cirey, home of his mistress, Madame du Châtelet. Here the two were very much in love, and he spent fifteen years at Cirey, where he was out of the way of censors and policemen. Both Madame du Châtelet and Voltaire himself were great admirers of the English intellectual tradition, which he continued to promote through his plays and essays. As the years passed, however, Madame du Châtelet and Voltaire grew apart. Each took a new lover; at the age of 43, Madame du Châtelet became pregnant by hers. In 1749, she died in childbirth. Voltaire, left somewhat without direction, took a court appointment offered by Frederick the Great of Prussia, who was a great fan of his.

Frederick considered himself an 'enlightened' monarch, patterning his court after Versailles and seeking French philosophes to populate it. However, while Voltaire had originally moved to Prussia with the intent of staying there permanently, he and Frederick did not get along, and he was dissatisfied with having to obey the whims of a monarch. After a prolonged period of frosty relations, he sought permission to leave the court in 1753, settling instead in Geneva. Here, he led a very active social and philosophical life. However, his more liberal religious views and his support of theatre did not settle well with the elders of Geneva. Homesick for France, Voltaire settled at the Chateau de Ferney.

At the age of 62, Voltaire was seeking a more relaxed pace of life, and at Ferney he had the leisure to devote to his writing. In addition to continuing to turn out a great volume of philosophical work, he improved the area surrounding Ferney, employing hundreds of people under unusually fair working conditions and frequently hosting friends and intellectual allies. He also became something of a political activist, taking an interest in the victims of France's religious intolerance—but despite the controversy, he remained popular. In 1778, a statue to Voltaire was erected in Paris, and so he decided to pay a visit to the capital. He was greeted with adulation—not only by Parisians, but even by foreigners such as Benjamin Franklin.

At the age of 83, though, Voltaire was not well-suited for such stimulation. He became exhausted and ill. Much is made of the fact that he received Catholic rites before his death, but this had practical reasons: he wanted to ensure a decent burial for himself and a future for his heirs. His real voice can be heard more clearly in the confession he left with his secretary: 'I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.'

Voltaire died on 30 May, 1778, and true to form, there was controversy over whether he would be allowed a proper burial. His nephew was forced to smuggle his body to a much less public graveyard. It was not until the French Revolution that he was interred ceremonially at the Pantheon mausoleum in Paris. By this age which celebrated freedom, Voltaire could be unquestioningly considered a hero of France.


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