Voltaire: writer living pre-Enlightenment

François Marie Arouet (1694-1778) was the son of a treas­ury of­ficial. In 1704, soon after his mother’s death, Arouet was sent to the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris for 7 years. He wrote poetry and performed in plays in Latin and French and when Arouet left Coll­ège at 17, the lad wanted to become a writer. Having already planned a law career for his son, dad forced Francois to be a lawyer’s assistant for two years, but the lad devoted his en­ergy to writing satirical poetry instead. So his father sent him to the country with marquis de Saint-Ange Louis de Caumartin, writing history.

When King Louis XIV died in 1715, Arouet went home. The king’s reign had been miserable, so things HAD to change for the bett­er, and he was welcomed into Paris’ literary society. In the Duchess of Maine's circle, Arouet again contributed to a libellous satirical poem ridic­ul­ing the Prince Regent Orleans. And as a result he was again exiled from Paris in May 1716! Was the young man truly reckless? Or just naïve?

Some "unacceptable" quotes by other writers were falsely ascribed to him, making him look worse. So soon he was back in Par­is’ infamous Bast­il­le prison. Inside he worked on a new play and this tragedy Oedipe was his 1st theatrical success. It was also in this prison that he began The Henr­iade, an ep­ic poem about Henry IV, and he adopted penname Voltaire. Voltaire was gaoled for a year for satirising politics & religion in La Henriade. Released in 1718, Oedipe was successfully perf­orm­ed in Paris, running for 45 nights estab­lish­ing Vol­taire’s fame as a great playwright at 23 and making money! And securing him a regent’s pension. In 1725 he conflicted with a powerful young nobleman, Chev­al­ier de Roh­an, who insulted Voltaire. Soon after, the writer was called outside while dining with a Duke and was beaten by Rohan’s thugs. Voltaire soon chall­enged Rohan to a duel, but was arrested that day and was thrown into the Bastil­le, again! 

copy of the pastel portrait of Voltaire, 1735

originally painted by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour

meisterdrucke

Af­ter prison Voltaire chose exile in Brit­ain for 3 years. New King George II was not a lit­erature fan, but Queen Caroline loved poetry and welcomed Voltaire into society. Quickly mastering English, he published The Henriade in English, dedicated to the Queen. And befriended a stimul­at­ing group eg Prime Min Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Boling­­broke, poet Alexander Pope & playwr­ight William Congreve. And he read the work of two of the great think­ers of the C17th: natural scient­ist Isaac New­ton and phil­os­oph­er John Locke.

In Britain Voltaire produced 2 works: Essay Upon Epic Poetry and Essay Upon the Civil Wars in France in 1727. He wrote that humans con­troll­ed their own des­t­iny, rejecting the idea that Divine Inter­vention guided history. After he'd been im­p­ressed by Britain’s free­dom of speech & religious tol­erance, Voltaire returned home in 1729 and saw the UK’s constitut­ional mon­archy as the more progressive. It was easy pub­lish­ing Lett­ers Concerning the Eng­lish Nation in Eng­lish (1733), but pub­lishing the Letters in French was not. The publ­isher was sent to prison and the book was burned publicly.

Voltaire met brilliant mathem­at­ician-scientist Emilie de Breteuil marquise du Châtelet in 1733 and at her invitation the wr­iter moved to Cirey in E France. There they began their 16-year affair. They were a perfect Enlighten­ment couple working together, stud­ying natural sciences, performing their own lab ex­periments, studying history and philosophy. They collected and studied 21,000+ books. Mme du Châtelet’s translation of Newton’s Principia and Volt­aire’s Elements of Newton’s Philosophy were key to in­tro­ducing the new natural philosophy ideas to the Continent
                                                       

Mahomet the Prophet, a five-act tragedy

by Voltaire, 1736.

Wiki

In 1740-9 Voltaire moved between Brussels, Cirey and Paris. His most successful play in the 1740s was Mahomet the Prophet, playing in Lille and then Paris. This study of religious fanaticism por­trayed Mohammed as a power-hungry intrig­ue but Cath­olic clergy saw it as a veiled attack on Christian fanat­ic­ism and burn­ed the book. So Vol­taire asked the Pope for his consent to dedicate Mohammed to him. By then many Frenchmen hailed Voltaire as the greatest writer; he was placed in Germany’s Hall of Fame and was elected a mem­ber of Britain’s Royal Society. But the Ac­ad­émie Fran­çaise rejec­t­ed him again. Only in 1746, with the King and the Pope behind him, was Voltaire fin­al­ly admitted.

Château de Voltaire à Ferney

Voltaire rebuilt the castle entirely from 1758.

Tiqets

Earlier Voltaire received a letter from Frederick Prince of Prussia, starting a long correspondence. In Sept 1749 Madame du Châtelet died in childbirth, devastating Voltaire. So eventually he accepted the invitation of the then-King Frederick to move. The move failed and after 2 years Voltaire was granted leave, leaving Potsdam 1753. Voltaire bought a stylish country house near Geneva in 1754. Having some weal­th then, he built a priv­ate thea­tre but Geneva had a law forbidding theatrical perf­orm­ances. In late 1758 he bought an extensive property on Lake Geneva at Ferney. There he spent his last 20 years, entertaining so­ciety and producing fine works.

The irr­ev­erent Cand­ide (1759) was a witty romance, but also a clear attack on France’s religious philosoph­y. 5 years after Candide, Voltaire published his greatest philosophical writings, Philosophical Dictionary in 1764 where the ideal religion taught morality & rej­ected dogma. Naturally his book was condemned in Paris, Amsterdam and Geneva!!

Candide

published in 1759

In 1778 after 20 years in Ferney, Voltaire longed to return to Paris. He had completed his last work, the tragedy Irene, its first per­formance being at Paris’ National Theatre. His niece-lover Madame Denis was also very keen to return home so they set out, arriving to a hero’s wel­come. The 83 year old man prepared for the opening of Irene, but became seriously ill and soon died. The Church refused to give Voltaire a Christian burial, so his body was taken secretly to an abbey in Champagne and buried.

Voltaire was the perfect Enlightenment man, spending much of his adult career in prison or exile. Alas Vol­taire's France was one in which the monarchy, nobility & clergy dominated. It was an era of book burning and imprison­ment by the ruling class. Ironically the time the French Re­volution began 11 years after Vol­taire died, ideas of universal humanity were popular and only then could Voltaire’s liter­at­ure and campaigning against injustice be truly valued.