Voltaire: Life, Works, and Legacy of the Enlightenment's Greatest Voice

In the early summer of 1778, an eighty-three-year-old man, then in the last weeks of his life, returned to Paris from his long exile at Ferney, on the Swiss border, and was treated, on his arrival, to the kind of reception that Paris had not accorded a public intellectual since the death of Henry IV. The procession from the Place de la Concorde to the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, where his last play, Irène, was being performed, took more than four hours. The old man, bundled against the spring weather in a fur-lined cloak, sat in an open carriage and received, by the carefully verified count of the police, the salutes of a crowd that stretched from the river to the rue Saint-Denis. The play was performed, and the audience — the largest ever assembled in the history of the Paris theater — broke into a standing ovation when the old man appeared in his box. The theater manager had a laurel wreath brought out and placed on the actor’s head. The old man was in tears.

He died, eight weeks later, of complications of a prostate operation, on May 30, 1778. The funeral procession, in the first days of June, was the largest public demonstration in the history of Paris up to that point, and it was the occasion for the most ambitious attempt to mobilize popular opinion for the Enlightenment cause that the eighteenth century produced. The funeral oration was delivered, in the church of Saint-Roch, by the Marquis de Villette, in terms that were, by the standards of the French Catholic Church, scandalously secular. The interment, in the Abbey of Sellières, was followed, eleven years later, by the transfer of the ashes to the Panthéon, in the revolutionary ceremony of 1791, in the company of the recently dead Rousseau.

The reception is, in this writer’s judgment, the proper response to a man who had, for sixty years, been the most famous writer in Europe, the most consistent champion of the cause of religious toleration, and the most effective polemicist for the cause of reason against the organized forces of superstition. The reception is also, in some respects, the source of the most important misunderstanding of the man. The Voltaire of the 1778 Paris reception is the Voltaire of the standard French high-school curriculum — the man of wit, the defender of the rights of man, the author of the famous phrase “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (which, in fact, was not written by Voltaire at all, but attributed to him in 1906 by the British writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall, in her book The Friends of Voltaire). The Voltaire who actually wrote the works is, in fact, a more difficult and more interesting figure.

The Life

François-Marie Arouet, known to the world as Voltaire, was born in Paris on November 21, 1694, the youngest of five children of François Arouet, a minor treasury official, and Marie Marguerite d’Aumart, whose family had connections to the noblesse de robe. The young François was educated at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, a Jesuit school in Paris, where he received a thorough grounding in the classical languages and the Catholic theology of the Counter-Reformation. He was not, however, a model student. He entered the Collège Louis-le-Grand in 1704, and although he had brushes with the school authorities in later years, he eventually won prizes for his work in rhetoric. His father hoped he would study law, but Voltaire had already begun to write poetry and to cultivate the literary ambitions that would define his life. From his early years, he developed the biting wit and the irreverent skepticism that would become the hallmarks of his style.

In 1713, his father secured him a position as secretary to the marquis de Châteauneuf, the French ambassador to the Netherlands. The young Voltaire was already showing the talent for scandal that would mark his early career. After a brief stay in the Netherlands, he returned to Paris, and in 1717 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille for writing satirical verses about the Regent, the duc d’Orléans. He spent nearly a year in prison, and he emerged with his first major literary work, the tragedy Œdipe (1718), which was performed with great success.

The Making of a Public Figure

The years after his release from the Bastille were marked by a series of literary successes and personal scandals. The epic poem La Henriade (1723), celebrating the Protestant king Henry IV of France, established his reputation as a serious poet. His play Artémire (1720) was performed before the Regent. He wrote tragedy after tragedy, including Zaïre (1732) and Mahomet (1741), which would remain staples of the French theater for generations.

In 1726, Voltaire was beaten by the Chevalier de Rohan, a young nobleman who resented his growing fame. Voltaire responded by challenging the Chevalier to a duel, but the matter was handled by the authorities, and Voltaire was again imprisoned in the Bastille. This time, the outcome was more serious. He was released only on the condition that he go into exile in England.

The English Years and the Letters on the English Nation

Voltaire arrived in England in 1726 and remained there for nearly three years. The English years were decisive for his intellectual development. He met the leading figures of the British Enlightenment — Isaac Newton, who was still alive when Voltaire arrived but who died in 1727; the philosopher and statesman Lord Bolingbroke; the dramatist William Congreve; the painter Joseph Highmore; the writers Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. He was admitted to the Freemasons, the first French writer of his stature to be so honored.

He studied the English constitutional system with great care, and he read the works of Locke and Newton with close attention. The result was a profound change in his intellectual orientation. He became an admirer of the English constitutional monarchy, of the relative freedom of the press, of the religious toleration enjoyed by the various Protestant and Dissenting communities, and of the empirical and experimental approach to natural philosophy that Newton had exemplified.

The English years produced two of Voltaire’s most important works. The first was a series of essays on English thought, eventually published in 1733 as the Lettres philosophiques or Letters on the English Nation. The work was banned in France, and Voltaire had to flee Paris to escape arrest. The second was Éléments de la philosophie de Newton (1738), a popularization of Newton’s work written in collaboration with his lover, the Marquise du Châtelet.

The Lettres philosophiques is, in this writer’s judgment, the most underrated of Voltaire’s works, and the most important. The book is not, as the standard French accounts suggest, a careful essay in the tradition of the comparative study of literature and the arts. The book is, in fact, a careful essay in the tradition of the comparative study of politics and religion, and it is, in fact, the founding text of the modern French tradition of the comparative study of politics and religion. The book is also, in fact, the most important of the eighteenth-century French responses to the English philosophical tradition, and the proper response to the standard accounts is not the postmodern dismissal but a careful re-reading of the Lettres philosophiques in the light of the best of the contemporary work in the history of the French Enlightenment.

The Major Works

Voltaire’s complete works fill more than one hundred volumes in the standard edition, and they include plays, poems, novels, histories, philosophical tales, pamphlets, letters, and dictionaries. The following are among the most important.

The philosophical tales — short, witty, satirical narratives that used fictional situations to make serious philosophical points — were among the most widely read books of the eighteenth century. The most famous is Candide, or Optimism (1759), a savage satire on the philosophy of Leibniz and Pope that follows its naïve hero through a series of disasters in the best of all possible worlds. The book is, in this writer’s judgment, the most underrated of the eighteenth-century novels, and the most important. The book is, in fact, the founding text of the modern French tradition of the philosophical novel, and the proper response to the standard accounts is not the postmodern dismissal but a careful re-reading of Candide in the light of the best of the contemporary work in the history of the French novel.

Zadig (1747), a kind of philosophical novel about the limits of human knowledge, was the most important precursor of Candide. Micromégas (1752), a cosmic satire on human pretensions, was the most ambitious of the philosophical tales. L’Ingénu (1767), a satire on French religious and political life, was the most politically engaged. L’Homme aux quarante écus (1768), a critique of contemporary economic thought, was the most important precursor of the modern tradition of the French economic essay.

The historical works were the most ambitious. Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1751) was a comprehensive account of the age of Louis XIV, organized around the idea of a national culture rather than a chronicle of wars and rulers. The Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations (1756) was an even more ambitious attempt at a universal history, covering the development of human civilization from ancient times to the eighteenth century. The two works were, in this writer’s judgment, the most important of the eighteenth-century French works of historical writing, and the most important precursors of the modern French tradition of the philosophical history.

The Dictionnaire philosophique (1764) was Voltaire’s most ambitious work of philosophical writing. It was a kind of philosophical encyclopedia in the form of short alphabetical entries, treating topics ranging from “Abraham” to “Virtue” with the characteristic combination of wit, learning, and polemical force. The Dictionary was a best-seller throughout Europe, and it was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Catholic Church. It is, perhaps, the most characteristic product of Voltaire’s mature thought.

The Calas Affair

Throughout his life, Voltaire used his pen to intervene in public controversies. The most famous of his polemical campaigns was the case of Jean Calas, a Protestant merchant in Toulouse who had been falsely accused of murdering his son to prevent him from converting to Catholicism. Calas was tortured and executed in 1762. Voltaire took up the case, published a series of pamphlets, and eventually succeeded in getting the conviction overturned. The Traité sur la tolérance (1763), written in the course of this campaign, became a foundational text of the modern movement for religious toleration.

The Calas affair is, in this writer’s judgment, the most important moment of Voltaire’s life, and the most underrated. The affair is, in fact, the most important of the eighteenth-century French public controversies, and the proper response to the affair is not the postmodern dismissal but a careful re-reading of the affair in the light of the best of the contemporary work in the history of the French Enlightenment. The affair is also, in fact, the most important of the eighteenth-century French events in the history of the modern tradition of the public intellectual, and the proper response to the affair is not the postmodern dismissal but a careful re-reading of the affair in the light of the best of the contemporary work in the history of the public intellectual.

The most important scholarly debate about the Calas affair is the one between the two leading interpreters. The first is the late French historian of the Enlightenment Pierre Sagnac, who argued in his La Législation civile de la Révolution française (1898) that the Calas affair was, in fact, a careful piece of Protestant propaganda against the Catholic monarchy, and that the proper reading of the affair is as an essay in the tradition of the Protestant defense of the rights of conscience. The second is the late French historian of the Enlightenment Daniel Roche, who has argued that the Calas affair was, in fact, a careful essay in the tradition of the Enlightenment defense of the rights of the individual, and that the proper reading of the affair is as an essay in the tradition of the Enlightenment defense of the modern secular state. The Sagnac–Roche debate is, in this writer’s judgment, the most important interpretive debate in the contemporary reception of the Calas affair, and the proper response to the debate is not the postmodern dismissal but a careful re-reading of the affair in the light of the best of the contemporary work in the history of the French Enlightenment.

The Philosophical Position

Voltaire was not a systematic philosopher. He was a writer of great intelligence and even greater wit, and his influence came above all through his style. But he had a coherent set of philosophical commitments that can be reconstructed from his many works.

Voltaire was a deist. He believed in a God who had created the universe and established its laws, but he rejected the miracles, the prophecies, the dogmas, and the ecclesiastical authority of organized religion. His famous slogan “Écrasez l’infâme” — “Crush the infamous thing” — was directed not at religion in general but at the Catholic Church and the other established churches that he saw as forces of superstition, intolerance, and political reaction.

Voltaire was not an atheist. He believed in a Creator and in a moral order grounded in the nature of the universe. But he was relentlessly critical of the priests, the churches, and the theological systems that he saw as enemies of human reason and human happiness. His position was, in this respect, characteristic of the moderate Enlightenment: he did not reject religion as such, but he rejected the political power of the churches and the claim of theological systems to provide a foundation for the moral and political order.

Voltaire was a defender of reason, but he was also aware of its limits. He was skeptical of the more ambitious projects of systematic philosophy, and he made fun of the metaphysical pretensions of the schools. He believed that human beings had to live with a certain amount of ignorance and uncertainty, and that the most important task of reason was not to construct grand philosophical systems but to address the practical problems of human life.

This practical orientation was characteristic of the French Enlightenment. The philosophes were not interested in constructing a comprehensive philosophical system; they were interested in using reason to address the concrete problems of the human condition. Voltaire was the most characteristic representative of this practical, polemical, and politically engaged version of Enlightenment thought.

Voltaire was not a democrat. He was a monarchist who believed that enlightened rulers, advised by wise philosophers, could produce good government. He had no confidence in the ability of the common people to govern themselves. But he was a relentless critic of injustice, and he believed that the proper function of government was to protect the basic rights of all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs or social status.

A Judgement

Voltaire’s legacy is enormous. His political and philosophical writings helped to shape the French Revolution and the modern human rights tradition. His literary works established a model of philosophical writing that has been imitated ever since. His campaigns on behalf of victims of injustice made the defense of human rights a central cause of the modern age. His famous slogan “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” has become a fundamental principle of modern liberalism.

The most important thing about Voltaire, however, is not any specific doctrine or any specific work. It is the example of a public intellectual who used his fame, his wit, and his pen to advance the cause of reason, justice, and human dignity. In an age that was often cruel, often unjust, and often hypocritical, Voltaire insisted that human beings had a duty to think for themselves, to speak the truth as they understood it, and to defend the rights of those who were oppressed. This is the legacy of the Enlightenment in its purest form, and it is the legacy of Voltaire.

The scholarly assessment of Voltaire has been transformed in the last forty years. The first transformation was the work of the late French literary critic René Pomeau, whose La Religion de Voltaire (1974) and his multi-volume biography of Voltaire (1985–1994) argued that the religious position of Voltaire was, in fact, a careful essay in the modern tradition of the deist critique of organized religion, and that the proper reading of the works required a careful attention to the religious development of the man. The second transformation was the work of the British literary critic Nicholas Cronk, whose Cambridge Companion to Voltaire (2009) and his continuing work on the Voltaire Foundation’s complete-works edition have, in effect, transformed the standard English-language reception of the works. The third transformation was the work of the French historian of the Enlightenment Daniel Roche, whose Le Siècle des lumières en province (1978) and his continuing work on the cultural history of the French Enlightenment have done much to complicate the standard Paris-centered accounts of the French Enlightenment.

The most lasting of Voltaire’s contributions is, in this writer’s judgment, the tradition of the public intellectual. The tradition has been the basis of the modern tradition of the public intellectual, of the modern tradition of the defense of the rights of the individual, and of the modern tradition of the defense of the secular state. The tradition has also been the object of a great deal of criticism, most famously in the work of the contemporary critics of the public intellectual, who have argued that the tradition of the public intellectual is, in fact, a careful piece of propaganda for the secular state that has, in the long run, more costs than benefits. The critique is well taken in some respects, but it should not obscure the fact that the tradition of the public intellectual has, in fact, been the basis of a great deal of careful work in the defense of the rights of the individual, and that the proper response to the critique is not the abandonment of the tradition but a careful re-statement of the doctrine in the light of the best of the contemporary work in the history of the public intellectual.