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.
