Although Voltaire did find greater tolerance in Switzerland, his relations with the Calvinists were not harmonious. Specifically, they were shocked to learn that he had built a private theater at Les Délices and frequently staged plays. So, retaining possession of that chateau, he bought the chateau and demesne of Ferney, in France, quite close to the Swiss border; he moved there in 1760 and lived with his niece, Mme. Denis. Here indeed he flourished as a manorial lord, served by as many as sixty persons. He was extremely hospitable and welcomed the many distinguished visitors from all parts of Europe who came to see and talk with the now widely famous man. He remained in residence at Ferney for twenty years.
Although he continued to the end to write on literary subjects, they received less attention. All his life he had been convinced that all literature should teach, and he had used drama and tales for that very purpose. His works demonstrate his sustained interest in religious, political, social, and philosophical questions. But now he was not content merely to use belletristic literature as his medium. He became the active champion of tolerance and justice, emerging as an eighteenth-century Zola. Most notable is his Traité sur la tolerance (1763), which he wrote in defense of Jean Calais, who had been tortured and executed as a result of a religious controversy. This was effective enough so that Calais was recognized as the victim of judicial murder. The death of the young Chevalier de la Barre for alleged sacrilege led Voltaire to write another powerful tract that was effective in clearing the Chevalier's name. To note just one other example, he came to the rescue of one Sirven, a French Protestant declared guilty of the murder of his Roman Catholic daughter and who had been banished as a then penniless criminal. Voltaire succeeded in having the sentence reversed. Little wonder that he was hailed as the apostle of freedom, as well as intellectual potentate of Europe.
Voltaire began his literary career as a tragic poet, if one excepts minor verse; he was to end it as one—and to end it triumphantly. In the spring of 1778, his last play, the tragedy Irene, was accepted for performance in Paris, and the old man was determined to be present at the premiere. His return to the city from which he had been exiled time and again created a sensation. He was honored by the French Academy as its most distinguished member. But his rapidly failing health made it impossible for him to witness the great success of his tragedy on the opening night. He was able, however, to attend the sixth performance and to receive the acclaim of an enthusiastic audience.
Voltaire, the longtime valetudinarian who now was eighty-four years of age, died on May 30, 1778. Typically, the man who had erected a Catholic Church on one of his estates (having the inscription "Deo erexit Voltaire" placed upon it), and who in his last years played chess regularly with a Jesuit, refused Extreme Unction and absolution. There was thus difficulty relating to his burial, and his body was hastily interred at the abbey of Scellières in Champagne barely before the interdict of the bishop. But thirteen years later the body was brought back to Paris for repose in the Pantheon, the famous church that is the French equivalent of Westminster Abbey.
It is clear that Voltaire was a brilliant, complex individual. He manifested great charm that won him many friends among influential members of both sexes; he also possessed almost a genius for making enemies. He was a man who liked to oppose. Witness his quarrel with J. B. Rousseau and the completely uncalled-for one with Crébillon. And surely it was not all Frederick the Great's fault that Voltaire did not flourish at Potsdam. There is a comparable contrast with reference to his reputation. Goethe praised him in superlatives, speaking of his genius, his "eagle's sweep of vision," his "vast understanding"; for the great German, the Frenchman was "perfection indeed." One dissenter was the writer Joseph Joubert, who believed that Voltaire lacked compassion—a curious judgment on the man who came to the defense of such victims of intolerance as Calais, Sirven, and the Chevalier de la Barre. We shall find that the critical estimates of Candide also vary markedly, but the consensus is that, of its kind, the tale is unsurpassed.
Reference has been made to various works by Voltaire, giving an indication of his breadth. Indeed one must turn to a Lope de Vega or a Daniel Defoe to find as prolific a writer. It is now desirable to provide a short survey of the works. They are properly described as "vast and various" by Saintsbury and may be easily classified as to type.
First are the tragedies and comedies, some fifty to sixty in all. As has been indicated Voltaire was a dramatist early and late, beginning his literary career with a tragedy and ending it with one. Nanine has been called his best comedy although, curiously enough, this man with such a superior wit was not too well at home in this genre. Zaïre (1732) and Mérope (1741) have been placed among the superior plays of the entire Classical School in France.
The second grouping is that of the non-dramatic poems. He was an indefatigable writer in this area. It will suffice to note three here. First is the heroic epic L'Henriade, an ambitious work modeled after Virgil's Aeneid and written in alexandrine couplets. Next is the scandalous but often amusing La Pucelle (surreptitiously printed in 1755; first authorized edition, 1755); this is actually a burlesque attacking the reputation of Joan of Arc. It was one of the several works (including Candide) the authorship of which Voltaire for a time denied. The third poem that deserves notice, particularly because of its close relationship to Candide, is Désastre de Lisbon, published in 1756, the year following the terrifying earthquake. It is true that Voltaire lacked what may be called the true passion, but his verse is memorable for technical virtuosity and superior diction—and quite often for superior wit.
A third classification is that of the historical works, which, excepting Voltaire's correspondence, are most voluminous. Mention has been made of the Siècle de Louis XIV and to Essai sur les moeurs, chiefly remarkable for the amount of private, personal information Voltaire was able to include in them. His short monographs on Charles XII and on Peter the Great, as well as the Annales de l'empire, deserve mention. In this field Voltaire was competent enough, but there is no danger of anyone confusing him with an Edward Gibbon.
Voltaire wrote a great deal on the subject of physics in which he demonstrated considerable knowledge, but it is to the philosophical works that we now turn, to two in particular: the Dictionnaire philosophique, which is largely made up of material that he had prepared for the Encyclopédie, of which Diderot may be considered the guiding spirit; and the ambitious Traité de Metaphysique. The first is a prime source for Voltaire's religious and political views; the second, which did not really succeed, merely proves that Voltaire, however intellectual he may have been, was not a philosopher in the sense that Locke or Leibnitz was.
Still another division is that of critical and miscellaneous writing. In pamphlet after pamphlet, he demonstrated superior ability as a journalist. The ones in defence of Calais and others are prime examples. The best of his several critical works is his Commentaire sur Corneille.
Logically the prose tales should have been discussed after the plays and the poems, but it is desirable to conclude this introduction with a discussion of them, since Candide is the best known philosophic tale, one that has been called "the most remarkable fruit of Voltaire's genius." The author, who believed that all literature should teach, used the tale as a vehicle for his profoundest views on politics, religion, and philosophy. Besides Candide, memorable among them are Zadig (1747), first published under the title of Memnon, in which the young hero, like Candide, travels far and wide, and experiences great dangers. The special interest of this tale is that Voltaire concluded it on a completely optimistic note. L'Homme aux quarante écus (1768) attacks certain political and social practices of eighteenth-century France. A few are out-and-out lampoons on the Bible. Histoires des voyages de Scarmentado (1756) has been described by Gustave Lanson as a kind of preliminary sketch of Candide.
