Voltaire (1694-1778)

Voltaire was the pen name of Francois Marie Arouet, a French author and philosopher. He was the son of a lawyer and was was born in Paris.

He received an excellent education at a Jesuit school. He showed little inclination to study law, and his schooling ended at the age of 16. He soon joined a group of sophisticated aristocrats who had little reverence for anything except wit, pleasure, and literary talent. Paris society sought Voltaire's company because of his cleverness, his remarkable ability to write verses, and his gift for making people laugh.

In 1717, he was imprisoned in the Bastille for satirical verses that he may or may not have written ridiculing the government.

Forced to leave France from 1726 to 1729, he lived in England, for him a land of political and religious freedom. There, he met the writers Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift and was attracted to the ideas of the philosopher John Locke and the scientist Sir Isaac Newton.

He returned to France in 1729, and published several works.

From 1734 to 1749, he lived in her chateau at Cirey in Lorraine. During this period, he wrote several plays, an essay on metaphysics, two works on Sir Isaac Newton, and some poetry. He also wrote two notable philosophical tales. One of them, Zadig (1747), explores the problem of human destiny. The other, Micromegas, was started at Cirey and was published in 1752. In it, he used giant visitors from a distant star and from the planet Saturn to discuss the relative insignificance of human pretensions in answering religious questions. In this work, he also encouraged the use of human reason for the development of science.

In 1759, he purchased an estate called Ferney on the French-Swiss border. He lived there until just before his death.

In an effort to correct the wrongs he saw in the world, Voltaire produced a constant flow of books, plays, pamphlets, and letters.

He fought religious intolerance and aided victims of religious persecution. His rallying cry was "ecrasez l'infame" ("Crush the evil thing"), referring to religious superstition.

He returned to Paris at the age of 83 and was enthusiastically received. There he saw his last play, Irene (1778), warmly applauded. But the excitement of the trip was too much for him, and he died in Paris.

The Roman Catholic Church, because of much criticism by Voltaire, refused to allow him to be buried in church ground. However, his body was finally taken to an abbey in Champagne. In 1791, his remains were transferred to the Pantheon in Paris, where many of France's greatest are buried.

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