Part 5

Voltaire was the arch iconoclast of his age, a mere destructive, if you will. Buckie truly remarks: "All great reforms have consisted, not in making something new, but in unmaking something old." W. J. Fox eloquently said: "The destruction of tyranny is political freedom. The destruction of bigotry is spiritual and mental emancipation. Positive and negative are mere forms. Creation and destruction, as we call them, are just one and the same work, the work which man has to do--the extraction of good from evil."

Much has been made of the pseudonymous character of his attacks on Christianity, and of the subterfuges and fibs with which he sought to evade responsibility. One might as well complain of ironclads wearing armor in warfare.

It was the necessity of his position. He wanted to do his work, not to become a martyr, leaving it to unknown hands. It should be remembered that Voltaire had sometimes to bribe publishers to bring out his writings; and, in such circumstances, the pseudonymity is surely open to no suspicion of baseness. His poem on _Natural Religion_ was condemned to the flames by the decree of the Parliament of Paris, 23rd January, 1759. His _Important Examination of the Scriptures_, which he falsely attributed to Lord Bolingbroke, was condemned with five other of his pieces by a decree of the Court of Rome, 29th November, 1771. Could the author have been caught, he would have had a good chance, if not of sharing the fate of his book, at least of permanent lodgment in the Bastille, of which he had already sufficient taste. He knew that although Bolingbroke had no hand in its composition he largely shared its ideas, and he obtained at once publicity and security by attributing it to the dead friend who, Morley says, "was the direct progenitor of Voltaire's opinions in religion." If he stuck at no subterfuge to achieve his work, his lies injured no one. One of the funniest was the signing one of his heterodox publications as the Archbishop of Canterbury, a lie which may remind us of the drunken Sheridan announcing himself as William Wilberforce. Voltaire had been Bastilled twice, and verily believed that another taste would end his days. "I am," he said, "a friend of truth, but no friend at all to martyrdom." Shelter behind any ambush was necessary in such guerilla warfare as his. Over fifty of his works were condemned, and placed upon the Index. Voltaire used no fewer than one hundred and thirty different pen-names, which have enabled bibliographers to display their erudition.(1) But for this underground method, he might have been laid by the heels instead of living to old age, with the satisfaction of seeing the world becoming a little more humane and tolerant through his efforts. In such warfare the only test is success, and the fact remains that Voltaire's blows told. He cleared the course for modern science, and it is not for those who benefit by his labors to sneer because he did not become a martyr in the struggle.

1. Special mention should be made of the _Bibliographie Voltairienne_ of M. L. Querard, and _Voltaire: Bibliographie de ses OEuvres_, in four volumes, by M. G. Bengesco, 1882- 1890.

Condorcet says: "His zeal against a religion which he regarded as the cause of the fanaticism which has desolated Europe since its birth, of the superstition which had burst about it, and as the source of the mischief which the enemies of human nature still continued to do, seemed to double his activity and his forces. 'I am tired,' he said one day, 'of hearing it repeated that twelve men were enough to establish Christianity. I want to show them that one will be enough to destroy it.'" What one man could do he did. But it took not twelve legendary apostles, but the labor of countless thousands of men, through many ages, to build up the great complex of Christianity, and it will need the labors of as many to destroy it. Voltaire himself came to see this, and wrote, in the year before his death, "I now perceive that we must still wait three or four hundred years. One day it cannot but be that good men will win their cause; but before that glorious day arrives, how many disgusts have we to undergo, how many dark persecutions, without reckoning the La Barres of whom they will make an _auto de fe_ from time to time."

John Morley remarks: "The meaner partisans of an orthodoxy, which can only make wholly sure of itself by injustice to adversaries, has always loved to paint the Voltairean school in the characters of demons, enjoying their work of destruction with a sportive and impish delight. They may have rejoiced in their strength so long as they cherished the illusion that those who first kindled the torch should also complete the long course and bear the lamp to the goal. When the gravity of the enterprise showed itself before them, they remained alert with all courage, but they ceased to fancy that courage necessarily makes men happy. The mantle of philosophy was rent in a hundred places, and bitter winds entered at a hundred holes; but they only drew it the more closely around them."

It may remain an inspiration to others, as it assuredly is a proof of the temperance and moderation of his own life, that much of Voltaire's best work was done after he had reached his sixtieth year. _Candide_, his masterpiece, was written at the age of sixty-four. Four years later he produced his _Sermon of the Fifty_, and he was sixty-nine when he published his epoch-making _Treatise upon Toleration_, and _Saul_, the wittiest of his burlesque dramas. At the age of seventy he issued his most important work, the _Philosophical Dictionary_, and his burlesque upon existing superstitions, which he entitled _Pot-Pourri_. This was, indeed, the period of his greatest literary activity against "l'Infame." His _Questions on the Miracles_, his _Examination of Lord Bolingbroke_, the _Questions of Zapata_, the _Dinner of Count de Boulainvilliers_ (the charming _resume_ of Voltaire's religious opinions, which had the honor to be burnt by the hand of the hangman), the _Canonisation of St. Cucufin_, the romance of the _Princess of Babylon_, the _A. B. and C._, the collection of _Ancient Gospels_, and his _God and Men_, all being issued while he was between seventy and seventy-five. It was at this time he edited the _Recueil Necessaire avec l'Evangile de la Raison_, a collection of anti-Christian tracts dated Leipsic and London, but printed at Amsterdam. He was eighty when he put forth his _White Bull_ (one of the funniest of his pieces, which was translated by Jeremy Bentham), and his ridiculous skit on Bababec and the Fakirs; eighty-two when he wrote _The Bible Explained_ and _A Christian against Six Jews_; and eighty-three when he published his _History of the Establishment of Christianity_.

It was thus in the last twenty years of his long life that Voltaire did his best work for the destruction of prejudice and the spread of enlightenment. At the same time he maintained a large correspondence, both with the principal sovereigns of Europe, whom he urged in the direction of tolerance, and with the leading writers, whom he wished to combine in a great and systematic attempt to sap the creed he believed to be at the root of superstition and intolerance.

It is in his lengthy and varied correspondence with intimates, extending over sixty years, that Voltaire most truly reveals himself. He is therein his own minute biographer, revealing not only his actions, but their actuation. We see him therein not merely the prince of _persifleurs_, but the serious sensitive thinker, keenly alive to friendship, love, and work for the higher interests of humanity. His letters are among the most varied, interesting, and delightful of any left by a great man of letters. Like all his other productions, they display the fertility of his genius. Over ten thousand separate letters are catalogued by Bengesco. Their very extent prevents their being widely read, but they reveal the perennial brightness of his mind, his delight in work, his love of literature and liberty, his constant gaiety and goodness of heart, with here and there only a flash of indignation and contempt. They are imbued with the spirit of friendship, abound in anecdotes and pleasantries, mingled with a passionate earnestness for the interest of mankind. Constantly we find him endeavoring to elevate the literary class, to raise the drama, continually seeking to encourage talent, to relieve suffering, and to defend the oppressed.

LAST DAYS

With the authorities at Geneva Voltaire had got into dispute, owing to his attempt to establish a private theatre in the territory still dominated by the ghost of Calvin. Moreover, he was continually reminding them of Servetus. When D'Alembert's article on Geneva appeared the citizens were enraged, and Voltaire thought proper to also purchase an estate near Lausanne, in the Vaud Canton, which was somewhat less austere in theatrical matters. Here Gibbon was also residing at the time.

Stupid stories have been told of Gibbon's attempts to see Voltaire, and of their mutual laughter at each other's ugliness. Voltaire is said to have refused himself to the young Englishman, which is very unlikely, and that he replied: "You are like the Christian God: he permits one to eat and drink, but will never show himself." It is said that he got Voltaire's mare let loose on purpose to see the old man chase after him. Voltaire sent a servant to charge him twelve sous for seeing the great beast, whereupon he gave twenty-four, with the remark, "that will pay for a second visit." Gibbon himself, speaking of the winter of 1757-58, which he spent in the neighborhood of Lausanne, says: "My desire of beholding Voltaire, whom I then rated above his real magnitude, was easily gratified. He received me with civility as an English youth, but I cannot boast of any peculiar notice or distinction. The highest gratification which I derived from Voltaire's residence at Lausanne was the uncommon circumstance of hearing a great poet declaim his own productions on the stage. He had formed a company of gentlemen and ladies, some of whom were not destitute of talents. My ardor, which soon became conspicuous, seldom failed of procuring me a ticket.... The wit and philosophy of Voltaire, his table and theatre, refined in a visible degree the manners of Lausanne; and, however addicted to study, I enjoyed my share of the amusements of society."

This taste for directing theatrical representations was shared, perhaps we might say followed, by his great German admirer Goethe. It was Voltaire's relaxation. One of his most particular friends was the great actor Le Kain. The drama was with him an instrument of education. He believed it to be a means both of softening and refining manners, and also of dispersing intolerance and superstition.

Voltaire soon afterwards purchased a third estate at Ferney, just a little over the French border, and here, eventually, he lived _en grande seigneur_, and was known as the "patriarch of Ferney." A philosopher, he said, with hounds at his heels, like a fox should never trust to one hole. Accordingly, he had within easy distance the choice of three distinct governments wherein to find a place of refuge, for, as Carlyle remarks, he "had to keep his eyes open and always have covert within reach, under pain of being torn to pieces, while he went about in the flesh, or rather in the bones, poor lean being." He now had wealth, independence, and an assurance of safety, and had come to that time of life when most men who are able think they may fairly retire from their labors. But now was the time when he, casting aside all other pleasures and ambitions, threw himself with unflagging energy and unsurpassed industry into the great task of his life. It was from Ferney he issued all the remarkable works of his later years.

At Ferney, the old church obstructing his view of the Alps, he built a new one, and got into trouble for doing so. He had inscribed on it, "Deo erexit Voltaire, 1761," a phrase which betrayed rather patronage than devotion.

"It is," he remarked, "the only church dedicated to God alone; all the others are dedicated to saints. For my part, I would rather worship the master than the valets." On another occasion, he said: "Yes, I adore God; but not monsieur his son, and madame his mother." It was observed of the inscription that he had only a single word between himself and God. From the wall of his church he also built a tomb for himself. "The wicked will say that I am neither inside nor outside," he remarked. Of the church he remarked: "The wicked will say, no doubt, that I am building this church in order to throw down the one which conceals a beautiful prospect, and to have a grand avenue; but I let the impious talk, and go on working out my salvation." If the wicked made the remarks predicted, they doubtless spoke the truth. It was even reported that Voltaire personally superintended the removal of the old ruinous one, saying, "Take away that gibbet" when pointing to the crucifix. The _cure_ of Moens, the parish adjoining Ferney, cited Voltaire before the ecclesiastical official of Gex as guilty of impiety and sacrilege, and Wagniere, Voltaire's secretary, says: "Those gentlemen indulged the confident hope that M. de Voltaire would be burned, or at least hanged, for the greater glory of God and the edification of the faithful. This they said publicly." Voltaire was enabled to strike terror to his persecutor by producing a royal ordinance of 1627 forbidding a _cure_ to serve either as prosecutor or judge in such cases. The church remains, but the celebrated inscription was effaced during the Restoration of the Monarchy.

Ferney became an asylum for the oppressed both from France and Switzerland. Many of these Voltaire located in and about his chateau, but, as their number increased, he built nice stone houses, and, in a little time, the miserable hamlet which before his arrival had been a wilderness, became a prosperous colony of twelve hundred individuals and a veritable free State. There were both Protestants and Catholics among them, but such was the unanimity in which they lived under his protection, that we are told no one could conceive that different religions existed among them. Among this colony he established the manufacture of weaving and of watches, by means of which his people presently became wealthy; the Empress Catherine II., even when engaged in her Turkish campaigns, paying her _bon ami_ Voltaire the compliment of assisting the Ferney colony by an order for watches to the value of some thousand roubles. He pushed the work of his colonists into repute throughout the world, and was justified in saying to the Duke of Richelieu, "Give me a fair chance, and I am the man to build a city."

Though everywhere maligned as an infidel and a scoffer, his life was one long act of benevolence. The watches of Ferney became known as those of Geneva. "Fifteen years ago," said a visitor, "there were barely at Ferney three or four cottages and forty inhabitants; now it is astonishing to see a numerous and civilised colony, a theatre, and more than a hundred pretty houses." "His charities," says General Hamley, "were munificent. When the Order of Jesuits was suppressed he took one of the body, Father Adam, into his house, and made him his almoner, a post which was far from being a sinecure." Hearing that Mademoiselle Corneille, the grandniece of the poet, was in poverty, Voltaire, in the most delicate manner, invited her to his house, treated her as a relation, and gave her an education suitable to her descent. "It is," he said, "the duty of an old soldier to be useful to the daughter of his general." That she might not feel under personal obligation, he devoted to her dowry the profits of his _Commentaries on Corneille_.

"A description is given of him in his last days at Ferney, seated under a vine, on the occasion of a _fete_, and receiving the congratulations and complimentary gifts of his tenantry and neighbors, when a young lady, whom he had adopted, brought him in a basket a pair of white doves with pink beaks, as her offering. He afterwards entertained about 200 guests at a splendid repast, followed by illuminations, songs, and dances, and was himself so carried away in an access of gaiety as to throw his hat into the air. But his merriment ended in a tempest of wrath; for learning, in the course of the evening, that the two doves which had figured so prettily in the _fete_ had been killed for the table, his indignation at the stolid cruelty which could shed the blood of the creatures they had all just admired and caressed, knew no bounds."

Diderot, who shares with Voltaire the glory of being the intellectual landmark of last century, and who equalled him as an artist and excelled him as a philosopher, only met Voltaire a little before his death. The fame of Voltaire's wealth had kept him from Ferney. Speaking of Voltaire in old age, Diderot says: "He is like one of those old haunted castles, which are falling into ruins in every part; but you easily perceive that it is inhabited by some ancient magician." Diderot was the better critic, and controverted the patriarch as to the merits of Shakespeare, whom he compared to the statue of Saint Christopher at Notre Dame--unshapely and rude; but: such a colossus that ordinary petty men could pass between his legs without touching him.

Late in life, Voltaire adopted Reine Philiberte de Vericourt, a young girl of noble but poor family, whom he had rescued from a convent life, installed in his own house, and married to the Marquis de Villette. Her pet name was _Belle et Bonne_, and no one had more to do with the happiness of the last years of Voltaire than she. She watched by the dying Voltaire's bedside, and Lady Morgan thus records her report: "To his last moment everything he said and did breathed the benevolence and goodness of his character. All announced in him tranquility, peace, resignation; except a little moment of ill-humor which he showed to the _cure_ of St. Sulpice when he begged him to withdraw, and said, 'Let me die in peace.'"

Voltaire himself wrote to Mme. du Deffand: "They say sometimes of a man, 'He died like a dog'; but, truly, a dog is very happy to die without all the ceremony with which they persecute the last moments of our lives. If they had a little charity for us, they would let us die without saying anything about it. The worst is that we are then surrounded by hypocrites, who worry us to make us think as they do not in the least think; or else by imbeciles, who desire us to be as stupid as they are. All this is very disgusting. The only pleasure of life at Geneva is that people can die there as they like; many worthy persons summon no priest at all. People kill themselves if they please, without any one objecting; or they await the last moment, and no one troubles them about it."

Under suffering, age, and impending death, Voltaire's bearing, as Carlyle acknowledges, "one must say is rather beautiful." Voltaire had all his life "enjoyed" bad health. He had always a feeble constitution, and was a confirmed invalid for the greater part of his life, suffering from bladder disorder, and a variety of other diseases that would have soon finished an ordinary man. We may say he was sustained by his work, which was ever gay, even when most pessimistic. "My eyes are as red as a drunkard's," he writes, "and I have not the honor to be one." His wit lasted in old age. A visitor to Ferney, hearing him praise Haller enthusiastically, told him that Haller did not do him equal justice. "Ah," said Voltaire, lightly, "perhaps we are both mistaken." To Bailly, the astronomer, he wrote, at the age of eighty-one: "A hundred thanks for the book of medicine which you sent me, together with your own [_History of Ancient Astronomy_], when I was very unwell. I have not opened the first. The second I have read and feel much better." He kept himself at work with coffee. His interest was ever in his work. At the very last, the new dictionary he had proposed to the Academy was on his mind; it was not proceeding as rapidly as his indefatigable spirit desired. "J'ai fait un pen de bien; c'est mon meilleur ouvrage"--"I have done a little good; that is my best work," was one of his latest utterances.

His physicians gave their opinion that he might have lived even longer than he did had he not been lured to Paris by his niece (unprepossessing Madame Denis) to superintend the production of his last tragedy _Irene_. Asked at the barrier if there was anything contraband in the carriage, he replied, "Only myself." On entering Paris he received a shock in the news that his friend Le Kain, the actor, had been buried the day before. He was visited by Benjamin Franklin, who brought his grandson, whom they desired to kneel for the patriarch's blessing. Pronouncing in English the words, "God, Liberty, Toleration"--"this," said Voltaire, "is the most suitable benediction for the grandson of Franklin." Poems, addresses and deputations came thick upon him, and his hotel was thronged with visitors of rank and eminence. The popular voice hailed the aged patriarch, especially as the defender of Calas, the apostle of universal toleration; and this title was more gratifying to him than any other.

In one house where Voltaire called on his last visit to Paris, the mistress reproached him for the obstinacy with which, in extreme old age (over eighty-three), he continued to assail the Church and its beliefs. "Be moderate and generous," said she, "after the victory. What can you fear now from such adversaries? The fanatics are prostrate (_a terre_). They can no longer injure. Their reign is over." Voltaire replied: "You are in error, madame; it is a fire that is covered but not extinguished. Those fanatics, those Tartuffes, are mad dogs. They are muzzled, but they have not lost their teeth. It is true they bite no more; but on the first opportunity, if their teeth are not drawn, you will see if they will not bite." All that one man could do was done by Voltaire. More than any other, he helped to muzzle the mad dog of religious intolerance, lassoing it dexterously with his finespun silken thread, since replaced by a stronger cord. But the beast even yet is not dead; its teeth are not all drawn. Give it a chance and it will still bite. What we have to thank Voltaire for is, that he has left works which, as he himself said, are "scissors and files to file the teeth and pare the talons of the monsters."