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Musée de Versailles, Cl.
Bordas-Guiley-Lagache
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| A portrait of the young
Voltaire, by the artist La Tour
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Voltaire is often referred to as the Prince of the
Philosophes. His life embodies the true culture and intellect of the
18th century and the Age of Reason. To Voltaire, superstition and magic
were ridiculous; emotionalism absurd. Reason was the guiding light
toward truth and progress. His goal: to create a world that gives people
the right to live and worship as they choose. "To be free," he
wrote, "implies being subject to laws alone."
An image of France during the Enlightenment would
not be complete without Voltaire. A character of his age, he was loved
and hated by so many. Born Francois Marie Arouet, he changed his name
because it too closely resembled that of a monarch he despised. He was
well educated and trained in the royal courts, even though he was of
bourgeois (middle class) descent. He carried on many a scandalous
affair, even one with his niece whom he lived with until his death at
age 84.
Voltaire witnessed great persecution in his life.
Much of his work focused on how to eradicate the injustices caused by
religious intolerance. After hearing of the torture and execution of
Jean Calas, who was accused of killing his own son (his son was an
unstable boy that committed suicide, as it turned out), he wrote one of
his most famous works on the subject, A Treatise on Tolerance,
which retold the story and portrayed this as the most heinous of crimes.
His thesis was simple yet dangerous. He illustrated
that the most inhumane of crimes perpetrated throughout history were
done so in the name of religion, a contradiction that Voltaire could not
tolerate. In his opinion, mass extermination, torture, infanticide, and
regicide had all been related to some type of religious zealotry.
Especially disgusting to Voltaire were crimes committed by Christians
against other Christians. Throughout his life he risked his freedom to
clear the names of the martyred for his cause.
Voltaire, too, was once falsely accused and
incarcerated, which left him filled with a lasting hatred of arbitrary
arrest. He felt it was necessary to grant the accused an open trial to
determine one's guilt or innocence. This repugnance combined with his
outspoken character got him into trouble and imprisoned in the Bastille
more than once in his life.
Voltaire and most of the other philosophes
were deists — they believed in God as the creator, but refused to
acknowledge any formal religious doctrine. They thought it wrong for the
state to be so closely tied to the church and its ideologies.
Voltaire was quite a talker. His brilliance shined
in the salons throughout Europe and helped to bring attention to his
causes and the changes that he felt were necessary in order for progress
to occur. His most famous work, Candide, is a satire that openly
questions the existence of God and the character of the individual. At
this time, Voltaire's deism was lapsing into agnosticism (questioning
God's existence), which is evident in the book.
Many of the so-called enlightened despots admired
his work and kept in close contact with Voltaire. His relationship with
Frederick the Great of Prussia led to his moving into the castle for
almost a year and teaching Frederick French and assisting the king with
his scholarly pursuits. Frederick is seen as one of the most benevolent
of despots because of his enthusiastic support for the intellectual life
of his country.
Voltaire's thinking changed the civilized world.
Although he is remembered more so as a brilliant satirist and writer, he
remains one of the philosophers who was highly regarded for encouraging
the world to question everything. He and the other philosophers
considered the most important concept that of reason. Critical thinking
was the mode of transportation for getting there. No longer were people
expected to quietly accept myths, legends, and religious dogma without
proof of fact. The "make-believe" world of the Middle Ages was
forever changed.
