Voltaire had met Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke in the early 1720s when the Englishman was himself in exile. The two became firm friends, and Voltaire, always a great letter writer, corresponded with him regularly. It was perhaps this relationship that led the Frenchman to spend most of the next three years in England. The consensus is that this period in Voltaire's life was of the greatest importance to him. John Morley, one of his better known English biographers, went so far as to say that the English Deists formed Voltaire's mind. This, no doubt, is an exaggeration, in view of the Frenchman's apprenticeship to the Abbé de Châteauneuf, his admiration of Henri Bayle, and the evidence found in his growing list of publications. But certainly Saintsbury did not exaggerate when he wrote as follows (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition):
Before the English visit, Voltaire had been an elegant trifler, an adept in the forms of literature popular in French society, a sort of superior Dorat or Boufflers of earlier growth. He returned from that visit one of the foremost literary men in Europe.
The cultural and intellectual climate of England at this time (1726 to 1729) delighted the young Voltaire. He was welcomed in Tory and Whig circles alike. Among his friends and acquaintances were the leading literary figures of the day, among them Pope, Swift, Gay, Young, and Thomson. He was to record his respect and admiration for the author of A Tale of a Tub and the newly published Gulliver's Travels, a work that was not without its influence on Candide. But especially he revered Alexander Pope, with whom he had so much in common—the satiric gift, wit, great facility at versifying, the critical temperament and, yes, the vindictiveness, the inability to suffer a fool gladly.
While in England, Voltaire learned to read and write the language fluently. He read avidly the works of Bacon, Shakespeare, Milton (whose allegory of Death and Sin he found unacceptable), Newton, and Locke (whose views on tolerance particularly were acceptable to him). His newfound interest in Shakespeare was to lead him to begin writing his own Roman play, Brutus. Later he was to establish himself as a dedicated Newtonian and to write a treatise on Newton's system. Voltaire also collected materials for his Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais, in which he interpreted most favorably English culture for his countrymen and contrasted it with that of France. Gustave Lanson, the noted French literary historian, called these English Letters the first bomb thrown at the ancien régime. It is clear that Voltaire had only admiration for England and Englishmen. In contrast to the France he had known, he found freedom and tolerance in his temporary home. This was the man who declared that he might disapprove of what an individual said but that he would defend to his own death the individual's right to say it. Little wonder that he so admired the island kingdom. As regards the exile in England, one more thing may be reported. He brought out an English edition of L'Henriade, dedicating it to the English queen. It was a great success, the author realizing some 1000 pounds from subscriptions alone.
Voltaire, however, remained a Frenchman and a Parisian. However much he enjoyed the sojourn in England, he yearned to return home. In the spring of 1729, he secured permission to do so. But not too much time passed before Voltaire again experienced difficulties. In 1733, the publication of the English letters and the satirical poem Temple du Goût enraged many people of influence. The first, while lauding the English, attacked the French government and the Church; the second satirized contemporary writers, especially J. B. Rousseau, the man who had once predicted that Voltaire was to make a great name for himself. The government issued a warrant for Voltaire's arrest, and his house was searched. By that time, however, the author of the two offensive works was at Cirey in Lorraine, an independent duchy, the guest of Emilie de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, with whom he had been intimate during the previous year. The relationship between her and Voltaire was to last for some sixteen years and marks the next important stage in his long career.
Mme. du Châtelet, twelve years Voltaire's junior, was in many ways a remarkable woman. Short of temper, often difficult, persona non grata in fashionable society, she nevertheless had her attractions. A woman of keen intellect, she was devoted to mathematics, science, and philosophy. Particularly was she dedicated to the optimistic philosophy of Leibnitz; assisted by Voltaire, she spent much of her time writing an exposition of the German's conclusions. She shared Voltaire's enthusiasm for Newton, and while her companion worked on an exposition of the Newtonian system, she translated the Principia into French, adding a commentary.
These were indeed productive years for Voltaire. Among other works, he completed a treatise on metaphysics, wrote six plays, completed two poems—Le Mondain, a satire against the Jansenists, whose doctrine had much in common with Calvinism, and the philosophical Discours sur l'homme. He also labored on the Siècle de Louis XIV and his universal history, Essai sur moeurs.
Once the Regent had died, Paris again beckoned to him. After 1743, he found himself in favor at Court, thanks largely to Richelieu and Madame de Pompadour, who admired the dramatist Voltaire. When a new work, Poème de Fontenay (1745), proved to be a success, he was rewarded by being made the royal historiographer and received a substantial pension. The post had been held earlier by Racine and Corneille. It was about this time that he turned to another type of writing, the philosophical tales, among which Candide was to become best known. He also continued to write plays, now in competition with Crébillon, with whom he was to engage in a bitter quarrel. In 1746, finally, Voltaire was elected to the French Academy; most certainly he had attained maturity as a literary artist and philosophe.
Nothing could stop the audacities of Voltaire's pen. In his bitingly satirical Trajan est-il content? there were obvious references to Louis XV himself. In 1748, he found it expedient to find refuge with the Duchess de Sceaux, and somewhat later he joined Mme. de Châtelet at Lunéville. In September 1749, his close friend Mme. de Châtelet, died while giving birth to a child, the father of whom was neither her husband nor Voltaire. Again he had reached the crossroads in his eventful life. What to do now? He could not return to Paris, especially because of the continuing feud with Crébillon.
Frederick the Great, whom Voltaire had once met and with whom he had been corresponding regularly for some time, had been urging the Frenchman to come to Potsdam, where the Prussian king had established his academy and was anxious to add another star to his galaxie of philosophes, the intellectuals of Europe. So Voltaire took up his residence at Potsdam in 1750. There, the recipient of a generous pension, he completed his most ambitious historical work, the Siècle de Louis XIV; wrote a new philosophical tale, Micromégas, which illustrates the influence of Swift's Gulliver's Travels upon his own fiction; and worked on his universal history.
Unfortunately, the friendship of Frederick and Voltaire did not flourish; both could be difficult individuals in their respective ways. Voltaire was offended by elements in the king's personal life and found him to be particularly arrogant. What ultimately led to the break in their relationship, however, was Voltaire's attack upon the president of Frederick's cherished Academy of Science. Entitled the Diatribe du Doctor Akakia, it was published without permission, and despite his assurance that all copies would be destroyed, Voltaire took malicious pleasure in seeing to it that the work circulated. As a result, he suffered the indignity of being arrested at Frankfort and having his baggage searched. No longer could he stay in Germany under the patronage of the man whom he had once eulogized as a Horace, a Catullus, a Maecenas, a Socrates, as Augustus and as the Solomon of the North.
Aware that he would not be welcome back in Paris, especially because his sojourn in Germany was looked upon as an insult to his fellow countrymen, Voltaire took up residence in Geneva, where in most respects the air of freedom was purer. He was now a wealthy man. He had inherited sums of money from his father and brother, he had been given pensions by the French and Prussian kings, and he had gained more money from many of his works (particularly his plays). Early in young manhood, he had demonstrated his skill in speculation. Indeed, had he chosen to concentrate on finance rather than literature, he very well could have emerged as a Rothschild. He purchased a chateau near Geneva and called it Les Délices, his "summer palace." He bought another residence at Monrion, Lausanne, which he called his "winter palace." As busy as ever as a writer, he nevertheless found time to encourage the local manufacturers, particularly the watchmakers. It was here that he wrote Candide, as well as a tragedy and much verse. Polemical works also came from his pen, for he continued the attack upon religion with his war cry "Écrasez l'Infame."
