VOLTAIRE (Francis de), one of the most celebrated French authors and wits, was born in the year 1694. At twelve years of age, having written some verses that appeared to be superior to what could have been expected at that early period, he was introduced to
the celebrated Ninon d'Enclos by the Abbe Chateau-neuf, her intimate friend; and that extraordinary woman bequeathed to him the sum of 2000 livres to buy books; which legacy was punctually paid.
Notwithstanding his extreme youth, he was admitted to an intimacy with the Abbe Chaulieu, the Marquis de la Fare, the duke of Sully, and the Abbe Courtin; and he has often told us that his father believed him entirely ruined, because he kept company with people of fashion and made verses.
At the age of 18, he began the tragedy of Oedipus, in which he proposed to introduce choruses after the manner of the ancients. The players were very unwilling to appear in a tragedy, the subject of which had been already treated by Corneille, whose performance was what is commonly called a stick play. It was not acted till 1718, and even then not without an order from the court. The young man, who was excessively dissipated, and immersed in all the pleasures common at his time of life, was not sensible of the risk he ran, nor did he give himself any trouble whether his pieces succeeded or not. He indulged himself in a thousand follies on the stage; and at last wantonly laid hold of the train of the chief priest, in a scene where that pontiff was producing a very tragical effect. Mareschal Villars's lady, who was in the first box, inquired who the young man was that had played that trick, as it seemed to be done with a view to ruin the piece; and being told that he was the author, she sent for him into the box, and the attachment he formed from that time to the mareschal and his lady continued during their lives.
After having finished his Oedipus, but before it had been performed, he began the Henriade; when, with Monsieur de Caumartin, intendant of the finances at St Ange, having one day read several cantos of his poem when on a visit to his intimate friend the young president de Maisons, he was so teized with objections, that he lost patience, and threw his manuscript into the fire. The president Henaut with difficulty rescued it. "Remember (said M. Henaut to him, in one of his letters), it was I that saved the Henriade, and that it cost me a handsome pair of ruffles." Some years after, several copies of this poem were handed about while it was only a sketch; and an edition of it with many chasms was published under the title of The League. All the poets in Paris, and even many of the learned, fell foul of him. The Henriade was played at the fair; and it was insinuated to the old bishop of Frejus, preceptor to the king, that it was indecent, and even criminal, to write in praise of admiral Coligny and queen Elizabeth. The cabal had interest enough to engage cardinal de Bissy, then president of the assembly of the clergy, to pass a judicial censure upon the work; but this strange design proved abortive. The young author was filled with equal surprise and resentment at these intrigues. His dissipation prevented him from making friends among the literati; and he had not the art of combating his enemies with their own weapons, which is said to be absolutely necessary in Paris, if a man wishes to succeed in any kind of pursuit.
In 1722, he gave the tragedy of Marianne. That princess was poisoned by Herod. When she drank the cup, the faction cried out, "The queen drinks;" and the piece was damned. These continual mortifications deter-
Voltaire. determined him to print the Henriade in England, as he could neither obtain privilege nor patronage for it in France.
Here king Geo. I. and more particularly the princess of Wales, afterwards queen of England, raised an immense subscription for him. Their liberality laid the foundation of his fortune: for on his return to France in 1728, he put his money into a lottery established by Mr Desforts, comptroller general of the finances. The adventurers received a rent-charge on the Hotel-de Ville for their tickets; and the prizes were paid in ready money: so that if a society had taken all the tickets, it would have gained 1,000,000 of livres. He joined with a numerous company of adventurers, and was fortunate.
We are afterwards informed of the bad success of his Brutus and Zara; and of the refusal of the academicians to admit him into their society. About this time he became intimately acquainted with the illustrious marchioness of Chatellet, with whom he studied the principles of Newton, and the systems of Leibnitz. They retired to Cirey, in Champagne, for several years; two of which Mr Koenig, an eminent mathematician, passed with them. Mr Voltaire caused a gallery to be erected, where they performed all the experiments on light and electricity. When he attempted to publish his Elements of the Newtonian Philosophy, a philosophy then scarce known in France, he could not obtain a privilege from the chancellor Aguesseau, who was a man of universal learning, but being bred a Cartesian, discouraged the new discoveries as much as he could. Our author's attachment to the principles of Newton and Locke, drew upon him a new crowd of enemies. He wrote to Mr Falkner, to whom he dedicated his Zara. "It is believed that the French love novelty, but it must be in cookery and fashions, for as to new truths they are always proscribed among us; it is only when they grow old that they are well received."
By way of relaxation from his studies in natural philosophy, he amused himself in writing his Maid of Orleans. Although this poem was only comic, yet there is much more fancy in it than in the Henriade; but it was vilely disgraced by some shameless scoundrels, who printed it with horrid lewdness. The only good editions are those of Geneva. Not long afterwards, he became acquainted with the celebrated Rousseau at Brussels; and they soon conceived a strong aversion for each other. Rousseau having shown his antagonist a lyric epistle addressed to posterity, met with this re-partee: "My friend, this letter will never be delivered according to its direction." Rousseau never forgave this piece of raillery.
In the year 1738, he commenced a correspondence with the king, then hereditary prince-royal, of Prussia; and in the year 1740 he went to pay his court at Berlin before the king was prepared for invading Silesia. Soon after his return from Berlin, he wrote the tragedies of Mahomet and Merope. The tragedy of Merope is the first piece, not upon a sacred subject, that succeeded without the aid of an amorous passion, and which procured our author more honour than he hoped from it. It was played on the 26th of February 1743.
Soon after, we see him again taking a journey to the king of Prussia, who was always inviting him to Berlin, but could never prevail on him to quit his old
Voltaire. friends for any considerable time. In his journey he performed a singular service to the king his master; as we see by the letters which passed between him and Mr Amelot the minister of state.
In the year 1749, after the death of the illustrious marchioness of Chatellet, whom Mr Voltaire had attended to the court of Stanislaus, the king of Prussia gave him an invitation to come and live with him. It was not till towards the end of the month of August 1750, after having for six months combated the opinions of all his friends, who strongly dissuaded him from going, that we find him resolved to quit France, and attach himself to his Prussian majesty for the rest of his life. He could not withhold the letter which the king of Prussia wrote to him on the 23d of August from the apartments destined for his future guest in the palace of Berlin: a letter which has been often printed, and is universally known.
After this letter, the king of Prussia asked the consent of the king of France, by his minister at that court, which was readily granted. Our author was presented at Berlin with the order of Merit, the key of chamberlain, and a pension of 20,000 livres. However, he did not give up his house at Paris; and by the account of Mr Delaleu the notary, we find that Mr Voltaire was at the expense of 30,000 livres a-year there. He was attached to the king of Prussia by the most respectful regard, as well as by their conformity of taste. He has a hundred times said, that monarch was as agreeable in company as he was formidable at the head of an army; and that he had never more pleasing evening-parties at Paris, than those to which that prince would have constantly admitted him. His regard for the king of Prussia rose to a degree of enthusiasm. His apartments were under the king's, and he never quitted them but to go to supper. The king composed works in philosophy, history, and poetry, in the upper apartments, while his favourite cultivated the same arts and the same talents in the lower. They communicated their works to one another. The Prussian monarch wrote his Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg at Potsdam; and the French author having carried his materials with him, wrote his Age of Lewis XIV. at the same place. Thus did his days glide along in tranquillity, enlivened by such agreeable employments.
This happiness would have been more lasting, if it had not been for a dispute on a subject in mixed mathematics which arose between Maupertuis, who likewise lived at that time with the king of Prussia, and Koenig librarian to the princess of Orange at the Hague. This dispute was a continuation of that which for a long time had divided the mathematicians about the living and dead forces. The tempers of the disputants were soured; and Maupertuis, who ruled the academy at Berlin, procured a condemnation of Koenig's opinion in the year 1752, on the authority of a letter of the late Leibnitz, without being able to produce the original of that letter, which however had been seen by Mr Wolf. He went still farther—He wrote to the princess of Orange, to beg her to dismiss Koenig from his employment of librarian; and represented him to the king of Prussia as a man who had been wanting in the respect due to his Majesty. Voltaire, who had passed two whole years at Cirey with Koenig,
Kœnig, during which he had contracted an intimacy, thought it was his duty openly to espouse the cause of his friend. The quarrel became violent; and Maupertuis having reported that Voltaire had spoken disrespectfully of the king's literary abilities, the latter returned the key of chamberlain, &c. which, however, the king sent him back.
Soon after his departure from Berlin, he purchased the seignory of Ferney in the pays de Gex, about a league from Geneva. It was here that he undertook the defence of the celebrated family of Calas; and it was not long before he had a second opportunity of vindicating the innocence of another condemned family of the name of Sirven. It is somewhat remarkable, that in the year 1774, he had the third time a singular opportunity of employing that same zeal which he had the good fortune to display in the fatal catastrophe of the families of Calas and Sirven.
In this retreat M. Voltaire continued long to enjoy the pleasures of a rural life, accompanied with the admiration of a vast number of wits and philosophers throughout all Europe. Weaned at length, however, with his situation, or yielding to the importunities of friends, he came to Paris about the beginning of the year 1778, where he wrote a new tragedy called Irene. By this time his understanding seems to have been impaired, either through the infirmities of age, or continued intoxication by the flattery of others; and he ridiculously suffered himself to be crowned in public with laurel, in testimony of his great poetical merit. He did not long survive this farce: for having over-heated himself with receiving visits, and exhausted his spirits by supplying a perpetual fund of conversation, he was first seized with a spitting of blood; and at last becoming restless in the night-time, he was obliged to use a soporific medicine. Of this he unluckily one night took so large a dose, that he slept 36 hours, and expired a very short time after awaking from it.