Part 32

Voltaire established himself in Paris: a widowed niece, Mdme. Denis, whom he adopted as his daughter, kept house for him, and remained his companion for the rest of his life. In 1750 Frederick the Great invited the distinguished author to settle at Potsdam as his permanent guest. Voltaire accepted the offer, reaching Berlin in July of the same year. He was received with almost regal honours: a pension of 20,000 livres, the golden key of Great Chamberlain, and the Cross of the Order of Prussia bestowed upon him. All his plays were performed in succession at the theatre of Potsdam. At the King’s private suppers the French poet was privileged to make any remarks he pleased, and not bound to observe any form of Court etiquette. This (to Voltaire) ideal existence lasted two years and six months, during which time he wrote and published at Berlin the _Siècle de Louis XIV._ Voltaire began to take too great an advantage of the licence accorded to him by the Prussian monarch; he presumed to correct Frederick’s French prose, and to make light of his verses. He quarrelled with the Court banker, Hirsch (the direct ancestor of the late great financier Baron Hirsch), about a doubtful monetary speculation, and a lawsuit took place between them. It seems probable that this affair, which has never been satisfactorily cleared up, contributed far more than a literary dispute to the final rupture between King Frederick and his pet philosopher. Voltaire had always shown great financial ability, and had amassed a large fortune, which he continued to increase during the remainder of his career.

In the early spring of 1753, Voltaire and Frederick parted never to meet again, mutually disgusted with one another. The poet departed with his niece to Weime, on a visit to the Grand Duke and Duchess. Frederick, discovering soon after that Voltaire had taken with him a volume of very obscene, scurrilous, and questionable verse, which the King had had printed for private circulation only, a commission, led by a stupid and hotheaded officer named Freytag, was despatched in pursuit, with orders to take it by force if necessary from the former favourite, together with his golden key, and the Cross of Prussia. Voltaire and Mdme. Denis were accordingly arrested at Frankfort and kept in durance for thirty-six days, during which time they were subjected to every possible form of arrogant insult.

Although Voltaire desired to conciliate the religious party in France, even going so far as to confess and communicate at Easter in Lyons, he could not persuade them to overlook his anti-Christian publications. The appearance in print of the _Siècle de Louis XIV._, and an abominable skit upon Joan of Arc, called _La Pucelle_, destroyed the last chance of his ever again being received at Court. He therefore purchased an estate in Switzerland, where he built a charming villa called _Les Délices_; in 1760 he bought the estate of Ferney, near the Swiss and French frontier, but in French territory. For the next eighteen years he resided there in great state, and was visited by innumerable famous and distinguished personages, from kings and princes to authors and actors. One of his visitors has thus described life at Ferney:

Voltaire is very rich; he is as proud of his wealth as of his literary reputation. He loves to act the part of _Seigneur du Village_, and to show his guests his houses, gardens, fields, woods, horses (of which he has twelve in his private stable), and his cattle. He dresses with elegance and care; on feast days his attire is splendid. He has built a church for the villagers, and attends Mass in state on Sundays, with an escort of two game-keepers carrying loaded muskets. He exacts all feudal rights and privileges as a landlord. He is always ill, or ailing, and yet an indefatigable worker, with an activity and liveliness of mind and intellect of a young man. His temper is variable. He is by turns capricious, obstinate, irascible, passionate, and revengeful. His reputation for avarice is undeserved, but, on the other hand, he is often very liberal and generous; though, being a man of great business capacity, he administers his affairs with practical common sense, and will not allow himself to be cheated of a farthing.

His writings continued to make more and more stir in the world of letters, and he was to a great extent the arbiter of intellectual thought all over Europe during the last twenty years of his life. He hailed the advent of Louis XVI. to the throne of France with joy, believing a new and enlightened _régime_ was about to begin.

Pressure was put upon him on all sides to return to Paris, Queen Marie Antoinette herself interceded with the King to give the required permission for the exile’s reception at Court, and in February 1778, Voltaire quitted Ferney and arrived in Paris on the evening of the 10th of that month. He had been an exile for twenty-nine years. From this time until his death his existence was one perpetual ovation. The excitement of this round of entertainments and receptions--which culminated, when after a performance of his new tragedy _Irene_, his bust was crowned upon the stage of the _Théâtre Français_--was too much for his aged feeble frame to support, and taken suddenly ill he expired on May 30, 1778, aged eighty-four and three months. He desired to receive the last Sacraments, but when the priest arrived the patient was already unconscious. He had, however, confessed himself to the Abbé Gauthier, an ex-Jesuit, and received the Communion on the previous March 2, when he signed a retractation of his deistic and infidel opinions. He added--“I shall die adoring God, loving my friends, and detesting superstition of every kind.”

Voltaire was buried in the Abbey of Scellières, where his body lay until it was removed to the Panthéon by the order of the Convention.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] See Appendix.

[2] These articles have since 1802 increased a hundredfold in value.--[ED.]

[3] This bird is undoubtedly a Penguin.

[4] Probably an albatross.

[5] Italian or rather Corsican pronunciation.

[6] This statue is the celebrated dying Gladiator immortalised by Byron.

[7] Chauvilet.

[8] I must here relate two very extraordinary circumstances respecting the younger Sheares, whom I described in Letter XII. as a charming young man and the admirer of Mlle. Théronne (Théroigne). During the King’s trial he sat near me, and was so extremely affected he shed tears, observing at the same time that the French would dishonour their name and the cause of freedom by this proceeding.

Some days later we visited Versailles together, and as we were contemplating the scenery of the beautiful garden at Petit Trianon, laid out by the Queen, he went to the top of the look-out, fell upon one knee, and exclaimed, drawing a dirk: “By heaven! I’ll thrust this dirk into the heart of the man who shall dare to propose the least injury to Marie Antoinette.” His brother, who was of a more cool and less enthusiastic temperament, immediately observed, “You had better set off post to Paris and take her out of the Temple.” It may appear incredible to those who have been unconnected with any of the agents of those convulsions which have disturbed the world for the last twelve years, that men previously distinguished for the sensibility of their natures and for their humanity, have proved, when immersed in the Revolution whirlpool, the most cruel and inexorable of incarnate devils. Carrier, Robespierre, Foquet-Tinville, and most of those exterminating furies who thinned the best part of the population of France, are instances in point.

[9] A peculiar motive, which I shall not here explain, obliges me to omit the insertion of the case alluded to, but I have given the beginning, which contains an account of Mr. Paine’s mode of life before he was sent to prison, and the conclusion.

[10] This passage and the following, which I have marked in italics, deserves the solemn reflection of every one who formerly entertained a favourable prepossession in behalf of the French Revolution.

[11] At this period the French talked of the “Rights of Man,” of the Republic one and indivisible, democratic and imperishable; and branded English people with the epithets of English slaves, serfs of George, &c. &c.

[12] Of the Committee of Public Safety, at that time the executive power of France in every sense of the word. For the benefit of the Great Nation they pocketed £400 for signing these very passports, permitting two of the “serfs _of George and agents of Pitt_” to escape from France.

[13] So that the £400 these Public Safety scoundrels had touched would have caused their murder had they delayed their departure for a few hours, as Barrère wisely observed, “dead men tell no tales”--it would have been vain to plead the bribe; this plea itself would have been such an outrage to the Majesty of the Republic that it alone would have satisfied the consciences of the jury of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

[14] The use of packs of cards with figures of royal personages, _i.e._, the kings and queens of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades, were forbidden by the revolutionary authorities as being emblems of royalty, and those who used them were condemned as Royalists.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the original.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.