Voltaire's full name. Voltaire Francois - biography

The surname "Voltaire" was a literary pseudonym. Voltaire's real name was Arouet (François Marie). Voltaire – Anagram from Arouet l. j. (= le jeune), where u accepted as v A j – behind i(Arouetlj=Arovetli – Voltaire). François Voltaire's father came from the third estate and held the humble position of notary. After completing a course at a Jesuit college, Voltaire showed his talents very early and gained access to the great world. The courage of thought that he discovered while still at school even caused one of his teachers to predict that he would become a leading figure of deism in France. His godfather, Abbe Chateauneuve, introduced him while still a very young man into the cheerful and carefree social circles of Paris. Here he met the old woman Ninon de Lenclos, once a famous courtesan. This woman, distinguished by her great intelligence, was amazed by Voltaire’s early development and even refused him, in his spiritual will, a small sum of money to buy books.

Soon, big trouble happened to the young man. After the death of Louis XIV, which coincided with very difficult times for France, various epigrams and other kinds of satirical works began to circulate, among which “Les j"ai vu” attracted special attention, describing in dark colors the slavery of the French people; the author of this the work added that he was not yet twenty years old, but he had already seen all these disasters (j"ai vu ces maux et je n"ai pas vingt ans). Young Voltaire, already famous for his poetry, was suspected of authoring a libel against the late king and imprisoned in the Bastille, although in this case he was not guilty of anything. Thus, as soon as he entered life, he became acquainted with administrative arbitrariness, which deprived personal freedom of any guarantees in France. In the Bastille, Francois Voltaire continued his literary studies ; by the way, here he conceived his "Henriad", an epic poem glorifying Henry IV as a representative of religious tolerance... Around the same time, he wrote the tragedy "Oedipus", which was staged on stage in 1718 and was a success. The time of pure art in the history of French drama had passed, and already here Voltaire gave vent to his oppositional mood, expressing, for example, the idea that “our priests are not at all what the people think of them,” and that “only our gullibility makes up all of them.” wisdom". Voltaire then had to spend almost a year in the Bastille.

Some time after he was released from there, he was destined to become acquainted with this prison for the second time. This time, young Voltaire suffered not only from administrative arbitrariness, but also from the aristocratic arrogance of one nobleman with whom he had a clash. It was one day in the house of the Duke of Sully that he met the young Chevalier de Rohan, with whom he had a quarrel. The aristocrat could not bear the plebeian’s insulting response to his insolence and a few days later ordered his servants to beat the young poet with sticks, who, for his part, decided to challenge him to a duel. De Rohan found such a duel humiliating for himself, and it ended with de Rohan’s influential relatives obtaining an order to put Voltaire back in the Bastille, from where he was released only with orders to immediately leave Paris. The two main sides of the “old order,” thus, made themselves felt very early by the young writer, who was destined to become the hero of the century, a defender of freedom and equality. It is no wonder that subsequently a sense of personal security forced Voltaire to seek connections with the powers that be, and sometimes even refuse the authorship of certain works, for which one could again end up in the Bastille.

Voltaire's trip to England

In 1726 Voltaire went to England. This trip had a decisive influence on his activities. And in England in general, where orders were established that were so different from the French, and where by the beginning of the 18th century. Enormous advances have been made in philosophy, science and political literature, was then a country that had a great influence on the French, who even made a kind of pilgrimage to this kingdom of personal, spiritual and political freedom. The time when Voltaire visited England was wonderful. Her mental life was still under the fresh impression of those impulses that came from Locke (d. 1704) and Newton (d. 1727), and Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke were still at the head of free thinkers. Under the influences coming from the new social situation and from the new mental environment, Voltaire from a poet, only personally inclined to freethinking, turned into a philosopher who set a social goal for his literary activity: the task of “destroying those prejudices to which his fatherland was a slave,” as he put it. Condorcet in his short biography of Voltaire. Deistic philosophy and political literature, which developed the idea of ​​​​"free thought", were two legacies bequeathed by England of the 17th century to England of the next century, and Voltaire, imbued with the basic principles of this philosophy and literature, remained faithful to them until the end of his life. Already in old age, he blessed the little grandson of the American patriot Franklin, placing his hand on the boy’s head with the words: “God and liberty.”

Portrait of Voltaire. Artist M. K. Latour. OK. 1736

Everything in England was new for a living Frenchman, and even more so were the ideas that Francois Voltaire began to popularize in France upon his return to his homeland. For example, the French of that time in philosophy and science continued to strictly adhere to the views of Descartes, knowing almost nothing about the new theories of Locke and Newton. Voltaire was also struck by the honor that the government and society showed in England to thinkers and scientists, and he was also struck by the freedom that writers, printers and booksellers enjoyed here. In England, Voltaire, so to speak, finally believed in reason, in its inherent power to discover the secrets of nature, in its victory over superstition, in the need for freedom, in its powerful influence on public life, and came to the conviction that thinkers, scientists , writers are called to be true leaders of society. Contrasts represented by England in the twenties of the 18th century. with the then France, also caught the eye of the observant traveler.

Voltaire summarized all his impressions and presented them in the famous “English Letters” (“Lettres sur les Anglais”, the title is sometimes translated as “Philosophical Letters”), which were published, however, only a few years (1734) after his return to his homeland. Although in this book he cut himself short and had to wait for some favorable time for its publication, nevertheless, it necessarily took on the character of criticism of French customs, since after all, Voltaire did not deny himself the pleasure of doing something here and there. comparison of someone else's with one's own. The Paris parliament sentenced the book to public burning by the hand of an executioner. The main thing that struck Voltaire in England was, after all, spiritual Liberty. Montesquieu (who visited England shortly after Voltaire left it) became an ardent supporter of its political system, as providing personal and political freedom. Even later, for the physiocrats, England became a country with the most exemplary economic practices (which in reality was not the case, but which was fair in comparison with France). Francois Voltaire was the first of the French who opened the way for English influence in France, and the fact that this multilateral man was not interested in either political forms or the economic system indicates, on the one hand, the weakness of political interest at the beginning of the educational movement, and on the other hand on the other hand, on the purely abstract, individualistic and rationalistic source of this mental movement.

Voltaire and the Marquise du Chatelet

Returning from England, Voltaire began what he began to consider the main task of his entire life, relying on the extensive knowledge he had acquired before his trip abroad and taken from the country he had visited. In his struggle against feudalism and Catholicism, he used the weapon of evil, caustic, murderous ridicule, harsh characterizations of people and things, and all other ways in which he could force himself to be read and talked about both in France and outside France. First changing his place of residence, as was his custom, in 1735 he settled for a long time in the castle of Ciret, with the owner of which, Marquise Emilie du Châtelet, he became close friends two years before, and continued to live there until her death in 1749. This remarkable a woman who, by the way, studied Newton, helped Voltaire a lot in his literary pursuits. The most intense work absorbed almost all of his time, and at this time of his life he developed his activities more and more widely. His work was interrupted only by travel, which he loved very much and which was sometimes directly necessary for him, since sometimes he simply needed to go somewhere out of fear for his freedom.

Marquise Emilie du Chatelet - Voltaire's lover

By the way, the Marquise du Châtelet, like Voltaire himself, competed in the Academy of Sciences on one scientific issue (about combustion conditions) proposed for the prize. In general, at this time Voltaire was quite involved in natural science and even did various kinds of physical experiments himself, a feature that we also find in other writers of the 18th century who, however, were not specialists in natural science - for example, in Montesquieu. (Voltaire is also important as a popularizer of Newton’s philosophy in France with his essay The Principles of Newton’s Philosophy, 1738). During the years of cohabitation with the Marquise du Châtelet, Voltaire wrote especially a lot, and at that time he was already at the height of his fame. Thanks to the patronage Madame Pompadour, the favorite of Louis XV, who personally hated Voltaire, he even received a court position (gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre du roi) and was made a historiographer of France. Around the same time (1746) he was elected a member of the French Academy. However, in order to achieve such honors, he had to write a play for the court theater, dedicate his “Mahomet” to Pope Benedict XIV and publicly declare his devotion to the very church that he constantly attacked.

Voltaire and Frederick the Great

In 1750, after the death of the marquise, Voltaire went to Prussia, to Frederick II the Great, who, while still crown prince, entered into correspondence with him and then repeatedly invited him to his place. Voltaire settled in the royal palace and received the position of chamberlain, the order pour le mérite (“for merit”) and an annual pension of 20 thousand livres. It is known, however, that these two remarkable people of their time did not get along with each other. There is a whole anecdotal story of Voltaire’s stay at the Prussian court, the essence of which boils down to the fact that, due to their characters, both Voltaire and Frederick the Great did not know how to yield to each other, which was also helped by kind people who passed on various gossip about each other. Either Voltaire learned that the king compared him to a lemon, which is thrown away when the juice is squeezed out of it, then, on the contrary, they brought to the attention of Frederick II how the philosopher complains that the king instructs him to wash his dirty linen, meaning poetry, which Frederick II loved to write and gave to Voltaire for corrections. There were other reasons for mutual displeasure. By the way, Voltaire very angrily ridiculed the president of the Royal Academy in Berlin, a French scientist, under the name of “Doctor Acacia” Maupertuis, who was depicted with more than strange scientific plans, such as the idea that it would be good to drill a hole to the center of the earth, or to dissect the brains of living people in order to find out how the soul works, or even to build a special city where everyone would speak English. Latin, and where one could learn Latin in this way. Frederick the Great himself laughed at the evil satire when it was still in manuscript, but did not want it to be published. Voltaire, however, published it in Holland. The Prussian king then stood up for the honor of the president of his academy, and the work, which ridiculed Maupertuis, was publicly burned by royal order. The extreme irritation of Frederick the Great is evidenced by those words in which he expresses his view of Voltaire as a low soul, and as a monkey who should be torn off for his tricks, etc.

Frederick II the Great, King of Prussia

Voltaire could not bear the insult; he sent the king the chamberlain's key, the order and the pension patent with a note in which he compared these things with the souvenirs that a deserted lover returns to his beloved. Although reconciliation occurred between host and guest, Voltaire eventually (in the spring of 1753) left Prussia. Soon, however, he had to undergo a new insult. Leaving Prussia, he took with him a volume of poems by Frederick the Great, among which were both obscene and politically inconvenient - in them the Prussian king gave vent to his evil tongue about some crowned heads. In Frankfurt am Main, a Prussian resident came to the philosopher and demanded that he return the poems, but since the suitcase in which they were hidden was not with Voltaire, and therefore he had to wait until all his things were brought, he had to to undergo a kind of arrest for more than a month (although Frankfurt was an imperial city and, therefore, Prussian officials had no right to dispose of it, and even with a French subject). Despite this incident, correspondence between Frederick II and Voltaire continued afterwards. Even the essay he published on the private life of the Prussian king, which was extremely unfavorable for Frederick the Great, did not deprive the author of this book of the pension that was assigned to him by the offended king.

Voltaire - “Crush the reptile!”

Having visited some German courts, Voltaire appeared in Geneva in 1755, not wanting and even fearing to return to France. “I am afraid of monarchs and bishops,” this is how he explained his choice of residence in a republican and Protestant city. Voltaire was a very rich man, having made his fortune partly through various financial speculations. Soon afterwards he bought himself - already on French territory, not far from Geneva - the famous Ferney, an estate in which he lived for the last twenty years of his life. This estate offered the convenience of being close to Geneva and in case of persecution one could be in some safety. Voltaire was already 64 years old when he settled in Ferney. He was a sickly and weak old man, and yet he continued to work with the same tirelessness, sometimes eighteen hours a day, even studying at night and barely having time to finish the work he started with the help of his secretaries. His struggle against Catholicism, which he passionately hated, mainly dates back to this period of his life - a struggle whose motto became the furious words so often found in his letters: “crush the reptile!” (“Ecrasez l"infâme!”).

Voltaire and the Kalas case

That was the time when in France, despite expulsion of the Jesuits, the general direction of domestic policy was distinguished by great intolerance: they persecuted not only the new philosophy in the person of its representatives and in their enterprise, which was called the Encyclopedia, but also Protestantism. In Languedoc, for example, one Huguenot pastor was hanged for performing the duties of his office, and three young Protestants were beheaded for coming with weapons at the sound of the alarm bell, which announced the arrest of the heretical pastor. In Toulouse there lived a Protestant named Jean Calas. His youngest son converted to Catholicism, and when soon the son, who led a dissolute life, committed suicide, they accused the father of killing his son himself, not wanting to see him convert to Catholicism. Despite the lack of obvious evidence, the unfortunate old man was wheeled on the wheel by the verdict of the local parliament, and his wife and children were tortured and only with great difficulty escaped to Geneva to Voltaire. Catholics declared the suicide a martyr and even talked about miracles happening at his grave (1762). This gave Voltaire a reason to write a treatise on religious tolerance; he interested Paris, France, and Europe in this matter, and achieved a review of the process, which resulted in the rehabilitation of the executed man and the issuance of a large pension to his family. For three years, Voltaire was occupied with the Calas case: not once, he says, during this time did a smile appear on his face, since he himself would have considered it an injustice. In this matter, the writer earned himself a pan-European reputation as a “champion of humanism and tolerance,” but its very essence still cannot be considered finally resolved. The evidence in Kalas's case is conflicting, and some historians still believe that he was actually guilty of killing his son. Examples of such Protestant fanaticism have been encountered before. Voltaire could not help but know about them; I couldn’t help but know that the case with Kalas contained a lot of mystery. It turned out that while earning public popularity as a fighter against “Catholic fanaticism,” the famous writer acted as a justifier of Calvinist fanaticism.

In the same year as the story of Kalas, the bishop of Castres forcibly took away his young daughter from a certain Sirven, also a Protestant, and placed her in a nunnery to be raised in the Catholic faith. The girl went crazy, ran away from the monastery and drowned herself in a well. Sirven was accused of the death of his daughter and escaped from the fate of Kalas only by flight. Among the hardships of his difficult journey, he lost his wife and found refuge only with Voltaire. Meanwhile, the Toulouse parliament sentenced the fugitive to death and confiscation of property, but Voltaire loudly and publicly spoke out as a defender of “tolerance”, interested European monarchs in the fate of Sirven (by the way, Catherine II), and achieved a review of the process. A few years later (1766) in Abbeville, two eighteen-year-old boys, de la Barre and d'Etalonde, were accused of breaking a crucifix, although they themselves claimed that the denunciation of them was made “out of fanaticism and personal malice.” D" Etalon escaped and, on the recommendation of Voltaire, received a place with Frederick II, and de la Barre was sentenced by the Amiens court to have his hand and tongue cut off and burned at the stake, and only the Parisian parliament replaced such an execution with beheading. In addition, while living in Ferney, Voltaire learned about the plight of the serfs belonging to the monastery of St. Claudius in the Jura Mountains, and wrote several short articles about their slavery. The rumor about this reached the downtrodden villagers, and they were ready to replace the statue of the saint in the church niche with a statue of Voltaire who interceded for them.

Voltaire in Ferney

In Ferney, Voltaire built a new castle, attracted a small population to his estate, mainly from watchmakers, to whom he delivered orders, set up a theater and became “the innkeeper of the whole Europe,” since Ferney began to be visited by many visitors of different nationalities. Even foreign courts were interested in Ferney life; Emperor Joseph II visited this estate during his trip to France, but limited himself to a walk in the park and left without seeing the owner to please his pious mother Maria Theresa. From Ferney, Voltaire corresponded with Frederick II, Catherine II and other sovereigns. Christian VII of Denmark considered it necessary to justify himself to him that he was not able to immediately crush everything that impeded the civil freedom of his people. Gustav III of Sweden treated Voltaire with great respect, and was proud, like a reward, of his interest in the affairs of the North. Both old and aspiring writers, and various high-ranking persons, such as marshals and bishops, and many private individuals turned to Francois Voltaire, asking him for advice, instructions, posing questions, for example, about the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, as he did some burgomaster from Middleburg, or about the correctness of certain turns of speech - a question that was once addressed to him by two cavalrymen who had argued among themselves. Voltaire was in the habit of answering all letters, and the volume of his correspondence is worthy of taking place next to his writings; it deserves, however, attention both for its content and for its literary quality.

Fearing persecution and, for example, not daring to go to Italy for this reason, Voltaire often published his most daring works anonymously or attributed them to deceased authors, or directly renounced them. For his part, he was ready for much more than he could ever hope to reconcile powerful and dangerous people with himself. As a Ferney landowner, he, for example, built a church on his land with a proud inscription: “Voltaire erected to God” (Deo erexit Voltaire) and kept the Capuchin monk Adam for 13 years, about whom he said that although he was not the first man, he nevertheless a good man. But regarding the consecration of the church, during which Voltaire, as the patron of the temple, delivered something like a sermon against theft, he had a clash with the clergy. The bishop of the diocese where Ferney was located saw blasphemy in Voltaire’s entire behavior in this matter and began to seek that the Ferney owner be expelled from France. Voltaire then considered it necessary to reconcile with the church and therefore fasted in his church on Easter in 1768. This prompted an extremely harsh letter from the bishop, to which Voltaire responded by asking why the fulfillment of such a Christian duty was met with only abuse by the bishop. However, not only the bishop, who knew Voltaire’s religious views, was indignant about this: Voltaire’s friends also condemned his act, seeing in it obvious opportunism and cowardice. The philosopher justified himself only by the fact that, having no desire to burn at the stake, he saw in this act a means of silencing all kinds of spies. Meanwhile, the bishop forbade the Ferney priest from henceforth to confess and give communion to his landowner. Then Voltaire had a desire to annoy the enemy, and by various hooks and crooks he achieved that the rector of the Ferney church violated the command of the bishop, although Voltaire for this had to resort to the help of a notary. Moreover, Voltaire obtained for himself the title of honorary trustee Order of the Capuchins, which was delivered to him by influential people, and he was very amused by writing letters to the bishop and signing them “† Voltaire, capucin indigne.”

The death of Voltaire and the significance of his activities

Voltaire lived to see the beginning of his reign LouisXVII and welcomed the advent of an era of reform with the appointment of the philosopher and economist Turgot as minister (1774), although he also had to see the fall of Turgot (1776), which plunged the “Fernay hermit” into despair. At the same time, he began to work hard to be allowed to visit Paris, but only in the spring of 1778 did he receive permission to come to the capital of France. The solemn welcome given to him on the streets of Paris, and the ovation given at the French Academy and at the theater where one of his plays was staged, greatly shocked the old man, who was already in his ninth decade, and on May 30, 1778, after a short illness, he died just a few years before the start of that revolution, which was prepared by new cultural ideas and the general spirit of Voltairianism. During the era of the great French Revolution, Voltaire's ashes were transferred to the Church of St. Genevieve, turned to the Pantheon, as a tomb of the great people of France, and on his tomb there was an inscription characterizing the attitude of the witnesses of his activities towards Voltaire. “Poet, historian, philosopher, he exalted the human mind and taught it to be free. He defended Calas, Sirven, de la Barre and Montbailly. He refuted atheists and fanatics. He preached tolerance. He restored human rights against the slavery of feudalism."

Seated Voltaire. Sculpture by J. A. Houdon, 1781

Condorcet, himself one of the philosophers of the 18th century, and later a prominent figure in the revolution, defined the significance of Voltaire in his biography of the latter: “the Russian empress, the kings of Prussia, Denmark and Sweden tried to earn Voltaire’s praise; in all countries, nobles and ministers striving for glory sought the favor of the Ferney philosopher and entrusted to him their hopes for the success of reason, their plans for the spread of enlightenment and the destruction of fanaticism. He founded a union throughout Europe, the soul of which was himself. The motto of this union was: reason and tolerance! Here, however, it is necessary to make a reservation that by excessively exaggerating the “fanaticism” of Catholics, Voltaire planted the sprouts of such “free-thinking”, which, having achieved power in France after 1789, in a few years overshadowed the entire centuries-old history with its intolerance and bloody persecution of dissent. Inquisition.

One of the largest French enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century: poet, prose writer, satirist, tragedian, historian, publicist.

The son of an official, François Marie Arouet, Voltaire studied at a Jesuit college for “Latin and all sorts of nonsense” and was destined by his father to become a lawyer, but preferred literature to law; began his literary career in the palaces of aristocrats as a poet-freeloader; for satirical poems addressed to the regent and his daughter, he ended up in the Bastille (where he was later sent a second time, this time for other people’s poems).

He was beaten by a nobleman from the de Rogan family, whom he ridiculed, wanted to challenge him to a duel, but due to the intrigue of the offender, he again found himself in prison, was released on the condition of traveling abroad; An interesting fact is that in his youth two astrologers predicted Voltaire to be only 33 earth years old. And it was this failed duel that could have made the prediction a reality, but chance decided differently. Voltaire wrote about this at the age of 63: “I have deceived astrologers out of spite for thirty years, for which I humbly ask you to forgive me.”

Later he left for England, where he lived for three years (1726-1729), studying its political system, science, philosophy and literature.

Returning to France, Voltaire published his English impressions under the title “Philosophical Letters”; the book was confiscated (1734), the publisher paid with the Bastille, and Voltaire fled to Lorraine, where he found shelter with the Marquise du Châtelet (with whom he lived for 15 years). Accused of making a mockery of religion (in the poem "The Man of the World"), Voltaire fled again, this time to the Netherlands.

In 1746, Voltaire was appointed court poet and historiographer, but, having aroused the discontent of the Marquise de Pompadour, he broke with the court.

Quotes and aphorisms

Think how difficult it is to change yourself, and you will understand how insignificant your ability to change others is.

The main thing is to get along with yourself.

The more we think, the more we become convinced that we know nothing.

A person is worth something only when he has his own point of view.

Only the weak commit crimes: the strong and happy do not need them.

The strength of women is in the weaknesses of men.

Freedom is not something that was given to you. This is something that cannot be taken away from you.

I make plans in the morning and do stupid things in the afternoon.

All the arguments of men are not worth one feeling of a woman.

Judge a person more by his questions than by his answers.

We need words to hide our thoughts.

Happiness always arrives on wings and leaves on crutches.

I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the last drop of my blood your right to express your own point of view.

The person who always remains the same is stupid.

How many stupid things people say just because they want to say something.

We never live, we only hope that we will live.

It would be wise, instead of being angry at the world around us, to find the courage to act.

You cannot have a true idea of ​​something that has not been experienced.

The triumph of reason lies in the ability to get along with people who do not have it.

There are never great things without great difficulties.

History is a lie that everyone agrees with.

Most people die without ever living.

To reveal someone else's secret is treason; to reveal one's own is stupidity.

Voltaire's best quotes (Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)) updated: November 21, 2016 by: website

On November 21, 1694, in Paris, a boy was born into the family of Marie Marguerite Domar and Francois Arouet, recorded at baptism as Francois-Marie. His mother, Marie Domar, died when the child was only seven years old, so Voltaire's childhood can hardly be called happy. Moreover, he never loved his father, Francois Arouet - perhaps because he considered his profession of a notary and tax collector to be shameful. Subsequently, he abandoned his own surname and not only worked, but also lived under a pseudonym. Many researchers believe that Voltaire is an anagram of the Latin spelling "Arue the Younger." Voltaire's dislike for his father turned out to be so great that in 1744 he declared himself the illegitimate son of the poor poet and musketeer de Rocherun.

For six years Voltaire studied at the Paris Jesuit College. Actually, in those days the Jesuits were the best teachers, and their only drawback was excessive piety. When young Voltaire graduated from college in 1711, his practical father decided that he should become a lawyer, and arranged for his son to study the law as an office worker with the lawyer Alain. However, the young man was much more interested in drama and poetry than in absorbing the wisdom of a lawyer; moreover, he was part of the circle of aristocrats of the Temple Society. This society was headed by the Duke of Vendôme, the head of the Parisian templars. Very quickly, Voltaire gained a reputation as the author of magnificent satirical poems and wit. Contemporaries also noted Voltaire's extremely radical views.

The result of Voltaire's negligence in practicing law and obvious neglect of office work were numerous clashes with his father, which, however, did not put the young man on the right path. Some of his poems were directed at the Duke of Orleans. At the same time, anonymous poems were attributed to Voltaire, which he did not compose at all. One of these creations cost him eleven months in the Bastille. They say that in those days the conditions of detention of prisoners in this famous Parisian prison were more or less tolerable and brought moral rather than physical suffering. But a fair sentence and almost a year behind bars was more than enough for Voltaire to absorb hatred of the despotism of the authorities and carry it throughout his life. Although every cloud has a silver lining - some biographers claim that it was in a prison cell that Voltaire conceived and began to compose his famous epic poem “Henriad”.

After his release from the Bastille, Voltaire began staging the play Oedipus, a very slippery work that seemed to contain criticism of pagan superstitions, but was actually directed against saints. With the production of this tragedy on the stage of the Comedy Française theater, twenty-four-year-old Voltaire began his ascent to the pinnacle of fame. Already at that time he was hailed as a worthy rival to Racine, Corneille and Sophocles. By the way, “Oedipus” was already published under the pseudonym “Voltaire”. True, the author did not hesitate to add a short aristocratic “de” to the signature.

At the same time, Voltaire wrote the first version of the epic poem about King Henry IV - the work would later be known as the Henriad. Such writings brought him the favor of the king, and by the age of thirty he was considered the leading writer in France. But at the end of 1725, Voltaire again fell out of favor.

Having been insulted by the scion of one of the noble families of France, young de Rohan-Chabot, Voltaire was unable to remain silent. It is clear that his answer was precise and caustic, but there was no need to talk about correctness. A couple of days later, Rohan-Chabot and Voltaire collided again in the theater and exchanged insults. However, the Chevalier went further. The Duke de Sully invited Voltaire to dinner, during which the writer was called outside. There he was attacked, and Rohan-Chabot gave instructions to the attackers from the carriage window. Almost all of Voltaire's aristocratic friends supported the writer in this situation. However, in April 1726, the government, in order to avoid complications, put not the offender, but the victim, in the Bastille.

After a couple of weeks, Voltaire was released on the condition that he leave Paris. He dreamed of settling accounts with the Chevalier, but the threat of another arrest forced him to cross the English Channel and settle in England. In fact, he lived in Foggy Albion from May 1726 to the beginning of 1729. In England, Voltaire became acquainted with the peculiarities of the life of the population with great interest, read a lot and visited theaters. The French writer was especially struck by Shakespeare's plays with their lively action. Voltaire believed that England gave him the opportunity to increase his own experience. Here he became friends with Pope and Swift, became interested in the works of Newton and the teachings of deists, who argued that for a believer to be virtuous, it is enough to honor God, and not attend church and study the Holy Scriptures. But the greatest influence on Voltaire’s worldview was his acquaintance with the philosopher John Locke, a rationalist-empiricist.

Returning to France, Voltaire continued his career. Now he did not need money, since he had successfully invested capital and could live comfortably. Having fallen in love with comfort, the famous writer acquired a mistress in the person of Madame du Chatelet. For the most part, he lived in the castle of Sir, which belonged to his “divine Emilia.” It is not at all surprising for that time that this woman was engaged in science and was especially committed to mathematics and physics. Under the influence of Madame du Châtelet, Voltaire devoted part of his time to writing books popularizing Newtonian physics.

The writer worked so actively that in 1745 he was offered the position of royal historiographer, and in 1746 he became a member of the French Academy. Just a year later, he also received the title of “gentleman admitted to the king’s bedchamber.” The King of France himself becomes his patron. However, it turned out to be impossible for Voltaire to restrain the zeal of his own pen, and he wrote a rather tactless poem that praises the bright virtues of Madame Pompadour, the king's favorite. The king did not like the poem, but it irritated the queen even more.

In the early autumn of 1749, Madame du Châtelet died suddenly. In the last years of her life, she convinced Voltaire not to accept the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick. The death of his mistress put an end to the writer's doubts, and already in the middle of the summer of 1750 he arrived in Potsdam. At the court of Frederick the Great, Voltaire is received enthusiastically and with all due honors. He receives a court title, a traveling carriage and a decent pension.

Frederick was a despotic and harsh monarch, but he considered himself a great patron of the arts. In Voltaire he saw not a person, but rather a magnificent butterfly that perfectly complemented his collection. At the beginning of his communication with the philosopher king, Voltaire was full of enthusiasm. He especially liked the fact that at the court of the Prussian king there were practically no clear rituals and formalities typical of the royal court of France. However, very soon Voltaire began to be burdened by the responsibility of editing Frederick’s works in French - the king was quite prolific in both prose and poetry. Voltaire began to pick quarrels with anyone and everyone, even the king himself. He was also haunted by his own vanity, and he was extremely jealous of Maupertuis, who headed the royal academy. Voltaire ignored even the monarch’s direct orders to abandon the idea of ​​being a rector at the academy and constantly plotted intrigues. It became clear that he would not take root at the Prussian court. Voltaire himself said that he felt truly happy as soon as he escaped from the “tenacious claws of the lion.”

Since 1753, Voltaire begins to travel around Europe and even makes plans for a trip to America, to Pennsylvania. Only the fear of the hardships of a sea voyage forced him to replace Pennsylvania with Geneva. But the writer did not like the puritanism of the inhabitants of Geneva - after all, he would hardly have been able to stage at least one of his performances here.

During the winter, Voltaire preferred to live in Lausanne, which had its own legislation, and later acquired two castles in the neighborhood - the medieval Torne and Fernet, of a more modern construction. In 1760, Voltaire moved to Ferney, located on the French-Swiss border. Thus, the writer had the opportunity to easily move from Switzerland to France and back without claims from governments. For eighteen years Voltaire worked on his “little kingdom.” His interests were very diverse. He created several watch workshops, the production of pottery and began experiments in breeding thoroughbred horses and pedigree cattle. It can be said that Ferney Castle has become a place of pilgrimage for people from different walks of life and different countries. People even came to Voltaire for plant seeds, which he cultivated with great success on his land.

And yet, the main thing for Voltaire was his creativity. In his works, he denounced wars as a factor in the destruction of social ties, stood up for those unjustly persecuted, and promoted the ideas of political and religious freedom. Nevertheless, Frederick II, King Gustav of Sweden, and Empress Catherine II from distant Russia were proud of their correspondence with Voltaire. Voltaire generally maintained a very active correspondence, sometimes sending thirty to forty letters to recipients a day. The founder of the Enlightenment, he became one of the heralds of penal reform, and his thoughts were fully exploited by the French Revolution.

When Louis XVI took the throne of France in 1778, eighty-four-year-old Voltaire was able to return to Paris. He arrived in the city like a triumphant man and was crowned with a laurel wreath to the roar of an excited crowd. Witnesses of this action claimed that many women preferred to faint at the sight of the great Voltaire. He later received hundreds of visitors at his mansion. Even President Franklin considered it an honor to visit the outstanding philosopher and writer. In Paris, Voltaire attended the premiere of his latest work, the tragedy “Irene” at the Comedy Française.

King Louis XVI clearly disliked Voltaire, but was literally forced to appoint him director of the French Academy. Old age did not prevent Voltaire from reworking the academic dictionary with a view to its new edition.

But this peak of fame did not last, alas, very long. In France, Voltaire immediately began to experience incomprehensible but extremely severe pain, which forced him to take large doses of opium. Only a few weeks before his death, Dr. Tronchin gave Voltaire a fatal diagnosis: cancer. The pain reached such intensity that the writer joked only in exceptional cases, and his smile was often erased from his face by the grimace of the next attack. On May 25, a medical council of luminaries of French medicine predicted Voltaire’s imminent death.

Five days later, Voltaire’s nephew, Abbot Mignot, made another attempt to reconcile his uncle with the church. He invited the local priest and abbot Gautier to the house. Legend has it that, in view of his imminent death, the clergy suggested that Voltaire renounce the powers of Satan in order to come to his master, to which they received the following answer: “Why multiply the number of your enemies before death?” Voltaire's last words were a request to let him die in peace.

On the evening of May 30, 1778, Voltaire passed away. Three years later, by order of the Convention, the writer’s remains were removed from the cemetery and, with a huge crowd of people, transferred to the Pantheon, where they rest to this day.

The clarity and wisdom of Voltaire's works, his subtle wit and sophistication of language still delight readers. However, the orthodox Christians consider him a monster of atheism. But Voltaire was by no means an atheist or a fan of Satan. He considered himself a deist and never spoke out against religion, only calling for freedom of faith and ridiculing superstition and fanaticism.

He did not live to see the French Revolution for only a few years, although the outrages that it inevitably brought would certainly have horrified and alienated the great philosopher and writer. However, Voltaire's fame resulted in a real movement and reached its apogee precisely at that cruel time. His plays were constantly staged in France, and “The Death of Caesar” prompted the Jacobins to place a red Phrygian cap on the bust of the author. Only by the 19th century did Voltairianism begin to decline, but the name of its founder was revived in any place where the revolution began.

1694-1778) - an outstanding thinker, philosopher of the French Enlightenment, an ardent supporter of the principles of freedom, equality and unlimited private property. In his numerous works, he considered the history of mankind as a history of the struggle for progress and survival. Author of the term “philosophy of history”. Main works: “Philosophical Letters” (1733); "Philosophical Dictionary" (1764-1769); "Philosophy of History" (1764). Quote: “If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.” Voltaire

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WALTER FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET

(Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet) (1694–1778) French publicist, novelist, playwright, poet, historian, polemicist, journalist and popularizer in various fields of knowledge "Voltaire" is an anagram of "Arouet LI" (Le jeune - where the pairs I and J, as well as U and V are considered as one and the same letter). Voltaire was a huge success in his time, but is now little regarded except for his satirical novel Candide. Voltaire rejected formal religion, treating it as an insult to the supreme being in whom he, being a deist, believed. Voltaire was a relativist, convinced that different societies need different political systems. Appreciating the English system for its commitment to the ideals of freedom, he considered enlightened absolutism to be the best form of government for France. Unlike Montesquieu, he supported the French monarchy against the church and aristocracy. At the same time, he believed that the existing system of direct democracy was more suitable for Geneva and tried to direct it towards a more egalitarian path. Having failed in his attempt to transform King Frederick II of Prussia into a more enlightened despot, he focused on the concept of justice and its application to specific cases and wrote a Treatise on Tolerance in 1763.

Voltaire(birth name François-Marie Arouet, French François Marie Arouet; Voltaire - anagram of “Arouet le j(eune)” - “Arouet the Younger” (Latin spelling - AROVETLI)) - one of the greatest French enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century: poet of the Enlightenment, prose writer, satirist, tragedian, historian, publicist, novelist, playwright and poet.

Known primarily under the name Voltaire.

Born in Paris, he lost his mother at the age of seven. His father, Francois Arouet, was a notary. The son spent six years at the Jesuit College of Louis the Great in Paris. When he left college in 1711, his practical-minded father got him into the office of lawyer Allen to study laws. However, young Arouet was much more interested in poetry and drama, moving in the circle of freethinking aristocrats (the so-called “Society of the Temple”), united around the Duke of Vendôme, head of the Order of the Knights of Malta.

After numerous everyday troubles, young Arouet, with his characteristic impetuosity and recklessness, began to compose satirical poems that were aimed at the Duke of Orleans. This venture, naturally, ended in imprisonment in the Bastille. There he had to spend eleven months, and it is said that, wanting to brighten up the long hours in a prison cell, he laid the foundation for his future famous epic poem Henriade. His tragedy Oedipus (Oedipe, 1718) was a resounding success on the stage of the Comédie Française, and its twenty-four-year-old author was hailed as a worthy rival to Sophocles, Corneille and Racine. The author, without false modesty, added the aristocratic “de Voltaire” to his signature. Under the name Voltaire he achieved fame.

At the end of 1725, at the Opera Theater, Voltaire was insulted by the scion of one of the most noble families in France - the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot. Full of irony, Voltaire’s answer, as one might guess, was more caustic than tactful. Two days later there was another skirmish at the Comédie Française. Soon Voltaire, who was dining with the Duke de Sully, was called out into the street, attacked and beaten, with the Chevalier giving instructions while sitting in a carriage nearby. Voltaire’s high-born friends without hesitation took the aristocrat’s side in this conflict. The government decided to avoid further complications and hid not the Chevalier in the Bastille, but Voltaire. This happened in mid-April 1726. About two weeks later he was released, setting the condition that he would leave Paris and live in exile. Voltaire decided to leave for England, where he arrived in May and where he remained until the end of 1728 or early spring of 1729. He enthusiastically studied various aspects of English life, literature and social thought. He was struck by the liveliness of the action he saw on the stage of Shakespeare's plays.

Returning to France, Voltaire spent most of the next twenty years living with his mistress Madame du Châtelet, the “divine Emilie,” at her castle of Ciret in the east of the country, near the Lorraine border. She diligently studied science, especially mathematics. Partly under her influence, Voltaire became interested, in addition to literature, in Newtonian physics. The years in Sira became a decisive period in Voltaire’s long career as a thinker and writer. In 1745 he became the royal historiographer, was elected to the French Academy, and in 1746 became “a gentleman admitted to the royal bedchamber.”

In September 1749, Madame du Chatelet died unexpectedly. For several years, driven by a feeling of jealousy, although, of course, prudence, she dissuaded Voltaire from accepting the invitation of Frederick the Great and settling at the Prussian court. Now there was no longer any reason to reject this offer. In July 1750 Voltaire arrived in Potsdam. At first, his close communication with the “philosopher king” inspired only enthusiasm. In Potsdam there was no elaborate ritual and formality typical of the French court, and there was no timidity in the face of non-trivial ideas - unless they went beyond the boundaries of private conversation. But Voltaire soon became burdened with the responsibility of editing the king's French writings in verse and prose. Frederick was a harsh and despotic man; Voltaire was vain, envied Maupertuis, who was placed at the head of the Royal Academy, and, despite the orders of the monarch, achieved his goals bypassing the established order. A clash with the king became inevitable. In the end, Voltaire felt happy when he managed to escape “from the lion’s claws” (1753).

Since he was believed to have fled to Germany three years earlier, Paris was now closed to him. After much hesitation, he settled in Geneva. At one time he spent the winter in neighboring Lausanne, which had its own legislation, then he bought the medieval castle of Torne and another, more modern one, Ferne; they were close to each other, on both sides of the French border. For about twenty years, from 1758 to 1778, Voltaire, in his words, “reigned” in his small kingdom. He set up watch workshops and pottery production there, carried out experiments with the breeding of new breeds of cattle and horses, tested various improvements in agriculture, and conducted extensive correspondence. People came to Ferne from all over the world. But the main thing was his work, denouncing wars and persecution, standing up for those unjustly persecuted - and all this with the goal of protecting religious and political freedom. Voltaire is one of the founders of the Enlightenment; he is the herald of penal reform carried out during the French Revolution.

In February 1778, Voltaire was persuaded to return to Paris. There, surrounded by universal worship, despite the open reluctance of Louis XVI and experiencing a surge of energy, he was carried away by one endeavor after another: he was present at the Comedie Française at the performance of his last tragedy, Irene, met with B. Franklin, and invited the Academy to prepare everything articles with "A" for the new edition of her Dictionary.

Voltaire's works amounted to fifty volumes of almost six hundred pages each in the famous edition of Maulant, supplemented by two large volumes of Indexes. Eighteen volumes of this edition are occupied by the epistolary heritage - more than ten thousand letters.

Voltaire's numerous tragedies, although they greatly contributed to his fame in the 18th century, are now little read and have hardly been staged in the modern era. Among them, the best remain Zaira (Zare, 1732), Alzire (Alzire, 1736), Mahomet (Mahomet, 1741) and Merope (Mrope, 1743).

Voltaire's light poems on secular topics have not lost their shine, his poetic satires are still capable of hurting, his philosophical poems demonstrate a rare ability to fully express the author's ideas, without deviating anywhere from the strict requirements of poetic form. Among the latter, the most important are the Epistle to Uranie (Eptre Uranie, 1722) - one of the first works denouncing religious orthodoxy; The man of the world (Mondain, 1736), a playful in tone, but quite serious in thought, justification of the advantages of a life of luxury over self-restraint and simplification; Discourse about man (Discours sur l "Homme, 1738–1739); Poem about natural law (Pome sur la Loi naturelle, 1756), which talks about “natural” religion - a popular topic at that time, but dangerous; the famous Poem about the death of Lisbon (Pome sur le Dsastre de Lisbonne, 1756) - about the philosophical problem of evil in the world and the suffering of the victims of the terrible earthquake in Lisbon on November 1, 1755. Guided by prudence and heeding the advice of friends, Voltaire, however, gave the final lines of this poem a moderately optimistic sound .

One of Voltaire’s highest achievements is his works on history: History of Charles XII, King of Sweden (Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Sude, 1731), The Age of Louis XIV (Sicle de Louis XIV, 1751) and Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations ( Essai sur les moeurs et l "esprit des nations, 1756), first called General History. He brought his remarkable gift of clear, fascinating narrative to historical writings.

One of the early works of Voltaire the philosopher that deserves special attention is the Philosophical Letters (Les Lettres philosophiques, 1734). It is often also called Letters about the English, since it directly reflected the impressions the author made from his stay in England in 1726–1728. With constant insight and irony, the author depicts Quakers, Anglicans and Presbyterians, the English system of government, and parliament. He promotes vaccinations against smallpox, introduces readers to the philosopher Locke, sets out the main provisions of Newton's theory of gravity, and in several sharply written paragraphs characterizes the tragedies of Shakespeare, as well as the comedies of W. Wycherley, D. Vanbrugh and W. Congreve. In general, the flattering picture of English life is fraught with criticism of Voltaire’s France, which loses against this background. For this reason, the book, published without the name of the author, was immediately condemned by the French government and was publicly burned, which only contributed to the popularity of the work and strengthened its impact on minds. Voltaire paid tribute to Shakespeare's ability to construct stage action and appreciated his plots, drawn from English history. However, as a consistent student of Racine, he could not help but be indignant at the fact that Shakespeare neglects the classicist “law of three unities” and in his plays elements of tragedy and comedy are mixed. The Treatise on Tolerance (Trait sur la tolrance, 1763), a reaction to the outbreak of religious intolerance in Toulouse, was an attempt to rehabilitate the memory of Jean Calas, a Protestant who had been a victim of torture. The Philosophical Dictionary (Dictionnaire philosophique, 1764) conveniently, in alphabetical order, sets out the author's views on the nature of power, religion, war and many other ideas characteristic of him.

Throughout his long life, Voltaire remained a convinced deist. He sincerely sympathized with the religion of moral behavior and brotherly love, which does not recognize the power of dogma and persecution for dissent. Therefore, he was attracted to the English Quakers, although much of their everyday life seemed to him amusing eccentricity. Of all that Voltaire wrote, the most famous is the philosophical story Candide (1759). The fast-paced story describes the vicissitudes of life of a naive and simple-minded young man named Candide. Candide studied with the philosopher Pangloss (lit. “just words,” “bad talk”), who inspired him, following Leibniz, that “everything is for the best in this best of possible worlds.” Little by little, after repeated blows of fate, Candide begins to doubt the correctness of this doctrine. He is reunited with his beloved Cunegonde, who has become ugly and quarrelsome due to the hardships she has endured; he is again next to the philosopher Pangloss, who, although not so confidently, professes the same view of the world; his small company consists of several other characters. Together they organize a small commune near Constantinople, in which a practical philosophy prevails, obliging everyone to “cultivate his own garden”, doing the necessary work without overly zealous clarification of the questions “why” and “for what purpose”, without trying to unravel the insoluble speculative mysteries of a metaphysical nature . The whole story seems like a light-hearted joke, and its irony masks a damning refutation of fatalism.