/The Ultimate Voltaire Resource Page.Html

Voltaire is one of the most influential people in history. An essayist, philosopher, and writer, he’s known to have written more than 2,000 books and pamphlets, including over 20,000 letters. A true rebel, Voltaire ardently supported social reform, though it was considered a crime in those days. He was part of the Enlightenment movement that helped to influence the people who started the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet on November 21, 1694 in Paris, France. His father, Francois, was a notary and his mother, Marie, came from a noble French family. He was well-educated and fluent in at least five languages. From an early age, François-Marie wanted to be a writer, though his father wished for him to become a lawyer. He started out by writing poetry. His wit and humor made him popular amongst France’s aristocratic families. While working as secretary to a French ambassador stationed in the Netherlands, he fell in love and planned to elope with a French refugee by the name of Catherine Olympe Dunoyer. When his father learned of it, he put a stop to the affair, forcing Voltaire to return to France. Upon his return his problem with authority worsened.

François-Marie put a lot of effort and time into attacking the French government and Catholic Church, leading to frequent imprisonment. He was accused of authoring a series of satirical verses about France’s aristocracy. During an eleven month stay in prison, he wrote his debut play, Œdipe. The play won him adulation, but it was the confessions of the real author of those satires that set him free.

In 1718, he decided to take a pen-name He decided to use Voltaire, which was an anagram of Arovet Li, the Latinized spelling of his last name combined with the first letters of the French nickname le juene, meaning “the younger”. Voltaire also echoes the syllables of the name of one his family’s chateaus, Airvault. Many historians believe that his decision to take this name was also a way to cut himself from his family and his past. However, this is just one of around 178 pen-names he used during his lifetime.

Unfortunately, the wit that had endeared Voltaire to the French aristocracy did not earn him favor when he turned on the nobles. Eventually, Voltaire was exiled from France after responding to an insult by a nobleman’s son. This led him to Great Britain, where he spent more than two years being influenced by different aspects of the country. He was impressed not only with Britain’s constitutional monarchy but their literature as well, especially that of Shakespeare. When he returned to Paris, he published his views about the superiority of the British monarchy to that of the French in an essay titled Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais. It caused such a great deal of controversy that copies were burned and he had to leave France again. He fled to the borders of Champagne and Lorraine where he began renovating the Château de Cirey.

It was there that he met Gabrielle Émilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, wife to Marquis Florent-Claude de Chatelet, the owner. Despite her being married, they soon became lovers. The pair discovered that they were intellectual equals and spent fifteen years together, during which they collected over 21,000 books. Together they would study these books and often experimented with “natural sciences”.

Voltaire was a believer in Newton’s theories concerning optics and gravity and his published book, Eléments de la philosophie de Newton, was probably co-written with the Marquise. The pair also studied history, which inspired him to write a biographical essay about Charles XII, reigniting his criticism of organized religion. The essay stated his belief that church and state should be separated and that people should have religious freedom, and won him a historian position at the king’s court.

In 1744, Voltaire was feeling confined by life at the château. He visited Paris later that year and found a new love, his niece, Marie Louise Mignot. The two lived together, possibly platonically, however many of Voltaire's writings to Marie show that he was very passionate about her.

Meanwhile, the Marquise also found love, with the Marquis de Saint-Lambert. Late in 1749 the Marquise died during childbirth. Voltaire returned to Paris following her death before travelling to Berlin in 1750 to join Frederick the Great.

He wrote Micromégas in 1752. His relationship with Frederick soon worsened when he wrote Diatribe du docteur Akakia, a satire of the Berlin Academy of Science's president. Frederick was so angered that he ordered Voltaire arrested. Voltaire attempted to return to Paris but was banned by Louis XV. Voltaire instead went to Geneva, where be bought an estate and stayed until 1758, when Geneva banned the publication of The Maid of Orleans. Upon the banning, Voltaire fled then to Ferney, where he wrote his best known work, Candide, ou l'Optimisme, or Candide, or Optimism and purchased an even larger estate.

Voltaire stayed at his Ferney estate for close to the entirety of his last 20 years. Voltaire would often host important guests. In 1764, he wrote his most important work, a philosophical series of articles called, Dictionnaire Philosophique. The articles greatly expanded his views on Christian history and dogma.

In 1762, Voltaire began to stand up for the unjustly persecuted. In 1763, he took on the case of Jean Calas, who was convicted of murdering his son for wanting to convert to Catholicism. Calas was executed and his children were taken from his widow and made to live in a monastery. Voltaire worked to get that conviction overturned and in 1765 he succeeded.

In February of 1778, for the first time in 20 years, Voltaire returned to Paris to see the opening of his play Irene. However, the 83-year-old struggled with the 5-day journey and, believing himself to be dying on February 28, he wrote a farewell passage. Voltaire recovered however, and in March was able to see Irene.

Voltaire became again and died, on May 30, 1778. A priest asked Voltaire, while on his deathbed, to accept God and reject the devil. This is allegedly when Voltaire spoke his last words, telling the priest, “For God's sake, let me die in peace.”

Voltaire was denied a Christian funeral because of his outspokenness against the Church but his friends secretly buried him in the abbey of Scellières in Champagne, embalming his brain and heart separately. In July of 1971, his remains were enshrined in the Pantheon in Paris as Voltaire was recognized as a forerunner of the revolution. An estimated one million people were present for the procession which made its way throughout the city.

Full List of Published Volumes: Oxford University’s Complete Works of Voltaire Project offers a list of all of Voltaire's pieces. Please refer to the list below for a sample of Voltaire's works.

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