Voltaire

Front matter

Foreign Classics for English Readers

EDITED BY

MRS OLIPHANT

HIS BOYHOOD

VOLTAIRE.

THE YOUTH OF VOLTAIRE.

CHAPTER I.

HIS BOYHOOD.

In his own time, the idea of Voltaire which had possession of the English mind was formed chiefly from the attacks that he directed against religion. He was regarded as a malignant spirit, subversive and destructive; a mocker at things sacred, things serious, and generally all things good. Johnson, in a conversation with Boswell, probably did not much exaggerate the prejudice against him. "Rousseau, sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations." "Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?" inquired Boswell. "Why, sir," returned the Doctor, "it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them." Sir Joshua, in an allegorical portrait of Dr Beattie, introduced Voltaire as the personification of Sophistry. He was the helot of innumerable homilies, and served to point innumerable morals. When the Revolution came, Voltaire—considered as having been a main cause of the state of public feeling in France which produced that infinite convulsion—was also, though then many years in his grave, held responsible for its excesses and its crimes. Thus it is that what memory of him was left among us till within this last generation, was the reflection of the fleering, shallow scoffer, the literary Mephistopheles, whom our fathers had learned to detest.

But all this time his reputation in his own country (except with his enemies the clergy) was of a kind altogether different. The works which first made him famous were, if not orthodox, far from irreligious; and any signs of hostility to the authority either of Church or State which might be found in them, were such as Englishmen might be expected to sympathise with, for the objects of that hostility were superstition, fanaticism, and tyranny. The state of things, however, against which he contended, did not exist in England. With the degree of freedom of thought to which we had then attained, and which contented the nation, we, all through George III.'s reign, feared tyranny less than licence, and superstition less than free-thinking. Deism was in disgrace: it threw a dark shadow on the repute of writers of the highest rank, such as Hume and Gibbon; and to lesser men the imputation of it was extinction. In these days opinion, far more tolerant, would probably not be very severe on Voltaire; for while his theistic views in some measure anticipated those of Mr Mill, he went by no means so far as that philosopher in doubt and denial. But as time went on, and his hostility to the priesthood became more and more strongly pronounced, his mode of impressing and reiterating his opinions was such as to render them specially obnoxious; and in this country he was, and has continued to be, chiefly a name of evil import.

The prejudice thus created extended to all the works of Voltaire. Few of his multifarious writings have been translated into English; and none of these, as a translation, has become much known among us. But in France he was famous not only as the most extraordinary man of letters that the nation could boast, of a versatility absolutely unbounded, a miracle of productiveness, and unrivalled in expression; beyond all this, he was regarded, with a gratitude which cast a reflected lustre on his writings, as the champion of freedom of thought. That thought had come to need a liberator was owing to the peculiar conditions of the French monarchy. With the accession of Louis XIV., the disputes between Crown and Parliament, and the power of that assembly, had come to an end. The young king did not forget the humiliations and privations to which it had compelled him to submit in the days of the Fronde. On the first occasion when, after his consecration, the Parliament attempted to discuss some of his edicts, he appeared before it in hunting-dress with a whip in his hand, and ordered the debate to cease. Henceforward the business of the Parliament was to register his decrees. He was absolute—the liberty and lives of the highest dignitaries of the kingdom were at his disposal; it was no idle boast when he said, "The State!—I am the State." For a long time his autocracy went on amidst the applause of the nation. He began his reign with the advantage of succeeding, as a native prince, to a foreign queen who was governed by a foreign minister. His magnificence delighted the Parisians—his successes in war gratified the people—he carried the art of royalty to an extreme of elaboration never reached before or since; while, to give solidity to these elements of popularity, he possessed a talent for public business, for choosing able ministers and generals, for conferring favours with majestic benignity, and for giving splendid encouragement to literature and art. All these circumstances combined to hedge him with a divinity beyond that of an ordinary king. The loyalty which had been evinced for his illustrious grandfather by such men as Sully, Mornay, and Crillon, became for him the most abject servility. The French Academy submitted for his approval as the subject of its prize essay, "Which of all the king's virtues is the one that deserves the preference?" The greatest nobles of the kingdom intrigued and quarrelled for the honour of attending his going to bed and his rising, of handing the royal shirt and the royal periwig. The sultana of the period was an enormous power in the State. The most eloquent preachers suspended for him their code of morality. Thus it was not only without opposition, but with abject acquiescence, that the nation looked on while he set up and pulled down ministers of state, made war and conducted foreign relations for his personal objects, taxed the people for his magnificent expenses, and disposed at will of the public revenues.

Up to a certain period of his reign he and his people remained in this perfect accord. They liked a strong master—they liked to see him magnificent, imperious, patronising arts and letters, and successful in war. But there came a time when, in ceasing to be magnificent and successful, he ceased also to be popular. He fell under the influence of a female devotee and of the priests. His armies were beaten, his conquests were lost, his Court became a scene of fanaticism, hypocrisy, and gloom. The king was getting old; he wished to make peace with heaven, probably for the same reason which induced him to wish to make peace on earth, because he found a difficulty in carrying on the war any longer. His repentance was to a great extent of that vicarious kind which exacts a rigid respect for religion from other people; he became very particular respecting the orthodoxy of his subjects, especially of those about his person—a requirement which by no means tended to render either gaiety or sincerity a distinguishing feature of society at Versailles. Relying much on the faith of others, he trusted to himself for good works, and commenced a system of religious persecution. His minister, Louvois, issued orders for the infliction of "the last rigours" on those who were not "of his Majesty's religion." These were faithfully executed. Fifty thousand Protestant families were driven from France, taking with them much of its prosperity. The Jesuits, under the influence of Madame de Maintenon and of the king's confessors, were all-powerful; and the suppression of heresy, and with it of all freedom of thought, became a chief business of the Government. This state of things was not, of course, pleasing to the French, who, indeed, were in the lowest stage of misery from the enormous taxes, which were the result of constant extravagance and war; but so powerful was the habit of submission, acquired in a reign already of unusual length, and so imposing the authority and the personal bearing of the old monarch, that, though the people manifested a natural if somewhat indecent joy when he died in 1715, he remained to the last every inch a king.

It was in this priest-ridden phase of his reign that Voltaire's boyhood was passed. He was born in 1694, the second son of M. François Arouet, "who," says St Simon, the famous chronicler of the time, "was notary to my father, to whom I have often seen him bring papers to sign." M. Arouet lived in Paris, with a country house at Chatenay, a few miles from the capital. When François Arouet (Voltaire) was about ten he was sent to the College (now Lycée) Louis le Grand, in the Rue St Jacques, where he was educated for the law. The boarders, of whom he was one, numbered among them youths of the best families in the country, and he formed friendships here which proved constant and serviceable. Although the Jesuits took extreme care to select the best men that the Order could produce to conduct the educational course of this the chief of their colleges, yet the training did not satisfy Voltaire, who long afterwards, when the Jesuits were suppressed in France, gave a satirical account of it in the dialogue between an ex-Jesuit and a former pupil. Much more than the needful time was, he says, taken up in learning the classics, because the method was so faulty. Mathematics, history, geography, philosophy, were altogether neglected. Nevertheless, he was taught the classics well; and he omits, in the satirical dialogue, to mention the important fact (which he has recorded elsewhere) that he received a thorough grounding in his own language from the man, of all others, the best qualified to impart it. This was the Abbé d'Olivet, to whose praise he devoted a paragraph of his 'Age of Louis XIV.' He was a member of the French Academy, and its historian. "We owe him," says Voltaire, "the most elegant and faithful translations of Cicero's works, enriched with judicious remarks. He spoke his own tongue with the same purity as Cicero spoke his, and did good service to French grammar by the most refined and accurate comments." François's own tastes in composition at this time led him to make verses, some of which, written at about the age of twelve, were notable enough to be talked of in the drawing-room of the famous Ninon de Lenclos, whose perennial charms had then been worshipped by many generations of lovers. François's godfather was the Abbé de Chateauneuf, who had long been the intimate friend of Ninon: it was he who brought the youthful poet to make his bow to the venerable fair one, then ninety, and her charms, presumably, a little on the wane. She was so pleased with the boy (who possibly made love to her), that, dying soon after, she left him two thousand francs to buy books.

He remained altogether seven years at the college, and in the later period of his residence came under another instructor, Father Porée, whom he considered worthy of a niche in history. "He was," says the notice of him in the 'Age of Louis XIV.,' "one of the few professors who have had repute amongst men of the world—eloquent in the style of Seneca, a poet, and of a very fine intellect. His greatest merit was that he made his disciples love both literature and virtue." "The hours of his lessons," he says elsewhere, "were for us delicious hours; and I could have wished that it had been the custom in Paris, as in Athens, for those of all ages to share such lessons. I should have returned often to hear him." Whatever it may have afterwards pleased Voltaire to say about the college, it is clear that he was exceptionally fortunate in the instructors whom it gave to him. Contact with such minds must have been invaluable to an intellect so eager and so assimilative as his. He left the college at seventeen with a high reputation, especially for his poetic gifts.

HE STARTS IN LIFE

CHAPTER II.

HE STARTS IN LIFE.

His father destined him for the bar, and with that prospect he was set for three years to study law. He found the subject, or the mode of teaching it, entirely distasteful. "What most strengthened his inclination for poetry was his disgust at the mode in which jurisprudence was taught in the law schools, to which, on leaving college, he was sent by his father, then treasurer of the Chamber of Accounts. This alone sufficed to turn him aside to the study of the belles lettres. Young as he was, he was admitted into the society of the Marquis de la Fare, the Duc de Sully, the Abbé Courtin,… and his father thought him lost because he mixed with good society and wrote verses." So he says in the 'Commentaire Historique,' an autobiographical production of his old age. He certainly possessed the most remarkable qualifications for social success. His readiness in the use of his singular mental endowments, his wit, aptitude of expression, confidence, animation, and good-humoured malice, were all prefaced for success by the charm of his manner. Madame de Genlis (no friendly critic) allows that he alone of the men of his century possessed the lost art of talking to women as women love to be talked to. A portrait painted by Largillière when Voltaire was about twenty-four, shows him, says his eulogist Houssaye, "full of grace and spirit, with a mocking mouth, refined profile, the air of a gentleman, a luminous forehead, a fine hand in a fine ruffle." The print in the quarto edition of his works, from a later portrait, confirms this description: there is extraordinary spirit and animation in the eyes and semi-cynical yet bright and good-humoured smile. His rather tall figure was uncommonly thin. The Duchess of Berry called him "that wicked mummy;" but then the Duchess had reasons for taking an unfriendly view of him. But despite his meagreness, no young man of that day was so qualified to give what was specially demanded by the society of the salons. The social success of the notary's son was remarkable. "We are all princes and poets here," he observed one day at table; yet amid such enjoyments and distractions he found time for the acquisition of uncommonly varied knowledge, and for planning works which made him famous.

The pieces of verse which he wrote at this time are all distinguished by his peculiar grace, and are still read with pleasure. He addresses one of these epistles to the Comtesse de Fontaine; another to Madame de Montbrun-Villefranche; another to the Duc de la Feuillade, so dreadfully caustic that he can hardly be supposed to have confided it to that nobleman, especially as we afterwards find the satirist a visitor at his chateau. Prince Eugene, George I., and Cardinal Dubois are all, at this time, the objects of his poetical addresses. What is very notable is the number and the character of the clergymen with whom he associated while almost a boy. The Abbé Servien, uncle of the Duke of Sully, is described by St Simon as one of the most agreeable of men, but so dissolute that nobody of repute would have anything to do with him, which did not prevent Voltaire from being a great friend of his. The Abbé was imprisoned in Vincennes in 1714 for some disrespectful pleasantry about the king; and Voltaire, one of whose conspicuous virtues was constancy to friends in distress, addressed to him a long poem, complimenting him as an eminent man of pleasure, and exhorting him to keep up his spirits. Unfortunately the Abbé had not much time in which to profit by his young friend's counsels, for he died the following year. A still more singular epistle to be addressed to a divine is that "To M. l'Abbé de—, who bewailed the Death of his Mistress." It begins thus:—

"You who in Pleasure’s courts did once preside,

Dear Abbé, languish now in sore distress;

That jolly threefold chin, your chapter's pride,

Will soon be two folds less.

O slave! to earth by sorrow bent,

You spurn the feast before you placed,

You fast like any penitent;—

Was ever canon so disgraced?"

and after much remonstrance on the inutility and folly of his grief, and a glance at the "constancy of a churchman's love," ends by advising him to take refuge from sadness in the arms of pleasure. The Abbé Chaulieu, another friend, nearly eighty, was a poet, a voluptuary, and a sceptic. The Abbé Desfontaines, a later acquaintance, befriended by Voltaire, was much worse than any of them. The society and example of these ecclesiastics must have had more influence than the companionship of a thousand fashionable young scoffers. Another of his youthful epistles is "To a Lady, a little Worldly and too Devout." It begins by telling her that when she had left the arms of sleep and the eye of day had looked on her charms, soft-hearted Love appeared, who, kissing her hands and bathing them with tears, remonstrated with her, in the prettiest terms, on the ingratitude with which, after all his gifts to her, she was in the habit of turning from him with disdain to read the sermons of Massillon and Bourdaloue. He (Love) exhorts her to give youth to pleasure, to keep wisdom for age, and the piece ends thus:—

So spake the god; and even while he wooed, Perchance thy softening heart had owned his sway, But at thy bedside on a sudden stood

The reverend Père Quinquet.

That holy rival’s threatening air

Told Love he must not hope to gain

Thee, cold, incorrigible fair;

And, weary of remonstrance vain,

He dried the pleading tears, so useless now, And flew to Paris, where his power's assured,

To seek for beauties easier lured,

Though far less loveable than thou."

UNDER THE REGENCY

CHAPTER III.

UNDER THE REGENCY.

When he was twenty-one a great change occurred with the death of the old king. It would be curious to speculate what Voltaire might have become had Louis died at eighty-seven instead of at seventy-seven. The gloom of the Court extended over the literature as well as over the mind and manners of France. It deepened as the king grew older and more devout: his confessor, Letellier, a morose and cruel bigot, urged him to fresh persecutions; it was the Jansenists (a sect into whose peculiar Calvinistic tenets, founded on distinctions which would hardly now appear rational or intelligible, it is not needful here to inquire) who were then the objects of the fury of the Jesuits, and the prisons were full of them. All literary works which appeared at this time had a tinge of devotion, and free-thinking would have been the most perilous of modes of thought. In these circumstances, Madame de Maintenon might have set Voltaire, as she had formerly set Racine, to compose Scriptural dramas for the religious improvement of the courtly audience; and had he complied, he would have been guilty of no more hypocrisy than many around him were practising daily. The spectacle of a gloomy and intolerant bigotry, enforced by a sanctimonious old king, by the widow of Scarron, and by the fanatics who had charge of what the pair believed to be their consciences, had brought religion itself into discredit, and infidelity was not only common but matter of boast in the highest Parisian society.

Unapproachable in profligacy and irreligion—facile princeps—was the Duke of Orleans, the king's nephew, and the destined Regent. Accordingly, when Louis vanished from the scene, such a change took place at Court as is only to be seen in a pantomime, when the gloomy cavern of some fell enchanter, with its dismal incantations and supernatural tenants, suddenly becomes a palace of glory, inhabited by gauze-clad nymphs, with harlequin and columbine figuring in the foreground. Vice, says Burke, loses half its evil by losing all its grossness. At the Court of the Regent it underwent no such diminution, and in this respect the change of rulers was much for the worse. The early part of Louis's reign had been by no means remarkable for morality, but it had always been distinguished by decorum. Perhaps the best and most enduring result of that reign was the amelioration in manners which it diffused far beyond the boundaries of France. The flowing courtesy, the refined address, the consideration for others, which Sterne, in the next century, found alike in peasant, shopkeeper, and noble, had their source in the splendid Court where the stately and gracious king was for so long the glass of fashion. The gilded youth of the time ceased to haunt taverns, ceased to brawl in the streets and fight duels, and vied with each other in deference to women. It was out of these conditions that sprang also the felicity and fineness of wit so characteristic of Voltaire, and which could hardly have been the product of a different age. The weapons were pointed in the old period with which he became the champion of the opinions of the new. But it is obviously an error to impute to Voltaire that he was the originator of unchristian opinion in France. What he did was to give expression to the thoughts which prevailed all round him—to say effectively what so many were wishing should be said. The systematic suppression of opinion, the senseless dogmatism, the persecutions, the evil example of the clergy, the sanctimoniousness of the Court, had combined to create those elements which broke out in a revolt against Christianity.

But although the new Court was licentious beyond example, the old machinery of despotism and fanaticism still remained in full force. The Bastille, the orders for consignment to it, the power and intolerance of the clergy, the Order of Jesuits—all were as they had been; and the press continued to be under the strictest and most oppressive supervision.

We know that in England at that time patrons might make or mar an author, and men even of established character thought it well to propitiate them. But in France the avenues to literary fame were still more difficult of access. "There are," says Voltaire in a letter of advice to a young aspirant, to whom he is evidently imparting his own experience, "a great number of small social circles in Paris where some woman always presides, who in the decline of her beauty reveals the dawn of her intellect. One or two men of letters are the prime ministers of this little kingdom. If you neglect to be in the ranks of the courtiers you are in those of the enemy, and you will be crushed." Something of the kind happened to Voltaire. Among the country houses at which he often visited was that of the Duke of Maine, at Sceaux, near M. Arouet's country house of Chatenay. The Duke was the eldest legitimised son of Louis XIV. by Madame de Montespan, and important enough therefore, as a possible successor to the throne, to be a rival of the Duke of Orleans; his wife was active and ambitious, and hence Sceaux became a focus of intrigue, and the Duchess's friends objects of suspicion to the Government. From her party issued many satirical attacks upon the Regent, and it was natural that some of these should be attributed to Voltaire; among others, one that has survived on account of the vogue it had, known as "Things that I have seen," in which the writer enumerates some of the chief evils of the late reign: "I have seen a thousand prisons full of brave citizens and faithful subjects; I have seen the people groaning in slavery, the soldiers famishing," &c., &c.—"and yet I am not twenty." Voltaire always strenuously denied all knowledge of the composition, the most unfortunate passage in which was that where D'Argenson, the Minister of Police, was called "an enemy of the human race." He was placed under observation by the official thus unpleasantly designated; and when, a few months later, some squibs against not only the Regent, but his daughter, the Duchess of Berry, came out, he was exiled from Paris, being allowed the indulgence of choosing his place of abode. The Duke of Sully's chateau, on the Loire, had been the home of Henry IV.'s famous minister, and was full of recollections of both him and his master, and this was the seat to which he was welcomed. Voltaire's interest in Henry, which had such important results, was greatly heightened by another visit he paid in this year (1717) to M. de Caumartin, a high public functionary, at his chateau. This old gentleman possessed a most remarkable memory, stored with traditions of the French Court which went back to the times of the League, his forefathers for several generations having held important public offices, and his great-grandfather having been in the personal service of Henry. "Voltaire was carried away" (says his Autobiography) "by all that M. de Caumartin, very deeply versed in history, told him of Henri Quatre, of whom that venerable gentleman was an idolator; and he began the 'Henriade' through pure enthusiasm, and almost without thinking what he was about."

During his stay in the country he endeavoured to soften the Regent by addressing a poetical epistle to him, in which flattery was not spared. It began thus:—

O Prince, beloved of gods! who art to-day A father to thy king, thy people's stay; Thou who the weight of State upbear'st alone, For our fair land’s repose give up thine own"—

and ends by an appeal for pity on his "oppressed youth."

After a time Voltaire, with or without permission, returned to Paris, where D'Argenson's spies found fresh matter for report against him, and this time he was committed to the Bastille. He has left a versified account of his entrapment and lodgment in the fortress. The official who arrests him thus addresses him:—

My son, the court your merit knows, Your every phrase with genius glows, Your scraps of verse, your love-songs gay; And, as all work deserves its pay, The king, my son, with grateful heart, Will make your recompense his part; And so you'll be, without expense, Lodged in a royal residence."

In reply to his remonstrances, the escort take him by the hand and conduct him to his prison, dark and with walls ten feet thick, where he is put under triple bolts.

The clock strikes noon: a tray is brought, With humble, frugal cheer 'tis fraught: Said they who bore it, when my air Showed no great relish for the fare, 'Your diet is for health, not pleasure; Pray eat in peace—you've ample leisure.' See thus my fate distressful sealed— Behold me cooped up, embastilled, Sleep, food, and drink distasteful made; By all, e'en by my love, betrayed."

Nor was this light way of viewing his misfortune assumed in retrospect only. Never did captive bear a better heart. All the joys of existence cut off, he employed himself, though denied pen and paper, in planning and partly composing the "Henriade," and in finishing his first tragedy, trusting the lines partly to his memory, partly to markings made somehow in a copy of Homer which he was allowed to have. After nearly eleven months imprisonment, he was permitted to return to Chatenay. It is said that a nobleman of the Court conducted him to an interview with the Regent. While Voltaire awaited the audience in the ante-chamber, a great storm broke over Paris. "Things could not go on worse," he said aloud, looking at the sky, "if there was a Regency up there." His conductor, introducing him to the Regent, said, repeating the remark which the irrepressible youth had then made, "I bring you a young man whom your Highness has just released from the Bastille, and whom you should send back again." The Regent laughed good-humouredly, and promised, if he behaved well, to provide for him. "I thank your Highness for taking charge of my board," returned Voltaire; "but I beseech you not to trouble yourself any more about my lodging." The prejudice against him softened before long: not only was he allowed to return to Paris, but his tragedy was acted before the Court, and the Duchess of Berry had so far forgiven "the wicked mummy" as to be present with her father at the first representation; while the Regent gave him a thousand crowns, and also a small pension.

HIS FIRST TRAGEDY

CHAPTER IV.

HIS FIRST TRAGEDY.

That he chose a classical subject for his essay in tragedy was owing partly to the fashion set by Racine and Corneille, partly to his recent studies at the Jesuit College; and he chose this particular story because, as he tells us, he did not approve of the Œdipus either of Sophocles or of Corneille, and endeavoured in his own play to avoid the faults which they had committed. But it was a subject that no genius could make attractive in our day. To represent a good man as the sport of a malignant destiny is of itself an idea belonging to a pagan rather than a Christian age; and when his fate takes the shape of causing him unwittingly to slay his father and to marry his mother—bringing down, by these involuntary offences, the wrath of the gods upon a whole nation—the fable would seem to be altogether outside the pale of modern sympathies. Nevertheless the play, obstructed at first by critics who did not like Voltaire, on the score that it contained reflections against religion, and by the players because the characters did not suit them, especially as there was no "lady in love," ran for forty-five nights in succession.

Believing that the language of the drama (which, he held, should be the standard of linguistic excellence) had terribly degenerated, he set himself to render his play a model of correctness in all respects. It is framed in extreme accordance with the assumed exigencies of the unities. The story is very simple and direct, the time occupied in the action is the same as that of the representation, and the scene is throughout in the same palace or its precincts. In thus focussing the whole drama into a crisis in the lives of the characters, and making no demands on the imagination of the spectators to furnish anything except the epoch, the dramatist proceeds on the assumption that all the illusion which the stage can afford is not attained except under these conditions. This assumption has been proved false by a thousand examples. The writer who has succeeded in observing the unities, probably confounds his own satisfaction at overcoming a great difficulty with the pleasure of the audience, forgetting that the spectator is interested in the effect only, not in the process. However this may be, Voltaire continued to value himself on the observance of the rules with which he hampered his genius, and to allow his prejudices on this point to affect his estimate of others, notably of Shakespeare.