Short biography:François Marie Harouet (1694-1778), says Voltaire , is a French writer author of tragedies, philosophical tales (Zadig, Candide ...) and historical works. A time spy, he was the greatest "journalist" of his time, his abundant correspondence reflecting a century of events and thoughts. Great spirit of the Enlightenment, he contributed to Diderot's Encyclopedia. Opposed to royal absolutism, Voltaire is the promoter of an "enlightened monarchy" rather than a radical change in the social order as suggested by Rousseau. He remains a source of inspiration for the revolutionaries of 1789 and two years later, the Constituent Assembly confers on him the honors of the Pantheon where his ashes are transferred.
BIOGRAPHY OF VOLTAIRE (complete):
Voltaire:from libertine to polemicist
François Marie Arouet, future Voltaire, was born on November 21, 1694 in Paris. Raised by the Jesuits, he very early frequented Parisian salons and libertine circles. He wrote several plays, poems, and excelled in the art of the pamphlet, which earned him imprisonment several times in the Bastille. After a stay in the famous prison for a poem written against the regent, the Duke of Orléans in May 1717 the pseudonym of Voltaire, an anagram of his name. Independent-minded and insolent, Voltaire was imprisoned again in 1726 following a quarrel with the Chevalier de Rohan. Voltaire was then forced into exile in England, and this stay would have a profound influence on his mind.
Voltaire discovers there the English parliamentary and liberal monarchy from which he draws the Philosophical Letters (1734), praise of a society where the progress of the arts and sciences is exercised freely. Implicitly, it is French society that is criticized, its mores, its customs as well as the privileges of its nobility. Voltaire then puts on the mask of irony through the features of foreigners or "tourists" from a distant world. The work is prohibited, and Voltaire, wanted by the police, takes refuge in the castle of Cirey in Lorraine with his friend Madame du Châtelet, with whom he will maintain a long affair. He then devoted himself to reflection and writing.
Identical to Montesquieu in the Persian Letters , Voltaire will use the same process in his tales with the Babylonian Zadig (1747), the Westphalian Candid (1759) or the Heron of L’Ingénu (1767). He pours his irony into it, which has become a trademark in order to expose his critical point of view on mores and institutions. Speaking of institutions, he skilfully succeeded in being elected to the French Academy in 1746.
His little-known career as an agent of the King's Secret
Voltaire frequents Baron de Goertz in Paris (the one who dreams of redrawing the map of Europe), approaches Baron de Hogguers who runs a shop "of State secrets" , discovers Salomon Levi who was a spy, double or triple agent, meets Cardinal Dubois Minister of the Regent to whom he offers his services "being able to go to Germany having received an invitation from Prince Eugene" and thanks to Levi "knowing the suppliers of the armies of the emperor " ! Ten years pass like this until the day Voltaire circulates a letter full of praise and a request for correspondence that he has just received from Frederick, King of Prussia!
We are at the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession. Voltaire is then summoned by Fleury, the prime minister of Louis XV, who sends him to Frédéric de Prussia, in order to know his intentions. The first meeting took place in September 1740 at the Château de Meuse, the second in November at Rheinsberg. In June 1741, Frederick II and France signed a treaty of alliance. But suddenly the King of Prussia broke the alliance a year later and made peace with Austria!
New mission for Voltaire in Aix la Chapelle:to know the reasons for the breaking of the alliance by the king of Prussia. In September, he reports on his mission by post, but measures his words knowing that his letters will be opened and read "I had plenty of time to speak with great freedom about everything Your Eminence had prescribed to me..."; "Frédéric was worried about the reactions in France to his leaving the alliance, I replied that indeed all the French had felt with indignation...". His reasons “they are so singular that I doubt that we are informed of them in France”. In fact the reasons are simple:"France is exhausted of men and money and entirely discouraged, if it had believed you more powerful, it would have been more faithful to you".
And Voltaire to reassure the cardinal "Frederick does not give in to the pressing proposals of the English"! Fleury is delighted to read this reply “you spoke of gold, Sir, I thank you a thousand times for your attention in informing me of your conversation with the King of Prussia. You can count on my esteem, on my friendship and on all the other feelings that you deserve so as not to put a ceremony on it”.
Second official mission for the spy Voltaire
The war continues, very sadly for France in 1743. Voltaire went into "voluntary" exile in The Hague:one of his plays has just been banned from the Comédie- French the day before the premiere, her accession to the French Academy was refused. He therefore left first for Holland, then he ended up with Frederick II with the cover of a man "disgusted with Paris, disgusted with Versailles, who has no other way out than to throw himself into the arms of his adorable monarch":the Secret worked well, the first phase of the mission was successful. This time, it's an official mission, approved by Louis XV:"to go and see what's going on in Holland, a country which had promised its alliance to England, which was afraid of an offensive from France against the Austrian Netherlands”. The costs will be reimbursed to him, a secret code is given to him to allow him to write freely...
Voltaire moved to the Prussian Embassy in The Hague and, waiting to be received by Frédéric, let his eyes and ears wander everywhere. In the space of three months, he brought back so much information that he proved to be a “brilliant intelligence agent”:speed in the detection of sources, diversity in information, meticulous search for detail. He begins by obtaining duplicates of government decisions which he sends to Versailles "I am in intimate contact with some foreigners (the mistress of a Dutch statesman) who inform me of all matters and who will put me in condition of embroiling Frederick II with England”.
In July, he sends to d'Argenson, secretary to the Minister of War, the state of the Dutch military forces:84,000 men divided into cavalry, infantry, dragoons, Swiss and gunners, as well as the ordinary and extraordinary budget of the war of this country. He adds the amount of the Dutch debt as well as the annual interest and announces that The Hague has decided to send 14,600 men to the coalition against France and concludes "you can be sure that the Dutch will not do you much harm. . It is 8 o'clock in the evening on July 15, at 7 o'clock the general who was waiting for the order to leave, received a new order to put the horses out to graze for the next 15 days. The foot guards will receive orders on July 24. It is obvious that we are no longer trying to obey the English, without openly failing them in their word”. On July 18, he sent a new letter “we said yesterday in my presence to the Count of Nassau, general of the infantry:you will not be there for two months! .
A talented diplomat
A zealous diplomat, he succeeded in pushing d'Argenson to pay to "feed the horses and clothe the men", to be in constant contact with the English ambassadors and the envoy from Hanover, as well as the commander of the English army, Lord Stairs, all representatives of the enemy forces, who were not at all suspicious of Voltaire, "people speak to me familiarly, so little do they think I am within reach, by my character and my situation, to take advantage of this franchise". He informs the Secret du Roi “the coalition aims to wrest Alsace and Lorraine from France; the King of Prussia borrows 400,000 florins from Amsterdam” by issuing the possibility of offering some subsidies to Frederick, in order to make supplies in Germany and thus starve the armies of the allies.
On August 1, he announced the departure of the horse guards "the best heads of Holland confess that they would not be a little embarrassed if you send a corps to the Meuse” and adds “one of the best educated men tells me that the English are making the strongest proposals to the King of Prussia. He promised to give me a copy... Fifteen days later, he was happy to announce to d’Argenson “Frederick refuses the defensive treaty proposed by England and Russia; the ammunition business continues to go well since the transports are not progressing” and he attaches the complete list!
Applied to his work, he did not have his head in the air, on the contrary his feet on the ground and does not delude himself as he writes on August 27 leaving for Berlin to join the King of Prussia “I believe up to now that I have given no false advice. I also don't want to give false hopes”.
He makes people jealous, like the French ambassador in The Hague who, in revenge, writes "I must not hide from you that the reason for his trip (Voltaire) to the King of Prussia is no longer a secret! “It doesn't matter,” says d'Argenson, “Voltaire gave us excellent information; we hope at the same time that he will bring the King of Prussia back into the alliance with France”.
In Berlin, the mission is stale, Frédéric informs "as he had a few protectors at Versailles, he thought that was enough to give himself the air of a negotiator, he had no point of credit and his mission became a game, a simple joke. Things go further, the ambassador in Berlin receives letters warning him that his embassy "is decreasing because of the influence of Voltaire", he reassures him by affirming that he "only aspires to be his secretary”, and vis-à-vis Frédéric, Voltaire admitted that he had been “suggested to cultivate the feelings of reciprocal esteem existing between the two monarchs”.
All this subsides after a short trip to the family of the King of Prussia in Germany. Voltaire resumes his mail for Versailles in September then in October and mentions "the King of Prussia wishes the King of England a great deal of harm" and returns to France with an oral word from Frederick II for Louis XV "that France declares war on England and I walk! Voltaire left Berlin on October 12, 1743, France declared war on England on March 15, 1744, Frédéric took the offensive with 80,000 men! Mission accomplished!
From the court of Versailles to the retirement of Ferney
Voltaire is rewarded:Versailles orders entertainment from him for the marriage of the Dauphin to the Infanta of Spain, was appointed a month later historiographer to the king, the following year he was admitted to the French Academy and was made ordinary gentleman of the chamber. However, Voltaire got caught up in the game of being a man of the Court, first with Louis XV in Versailles, then with Frederick II of Prussia in Berlin. However, he dislikes his status and falls out with the enlightened despot.
He left Germany in 1753 to settle with Mrs. Denis, his niece and companion, in Ferney, near Geneva. France refused him asylum, Louis XV not appreciating his sarcasm and his school of thought. His return to a standing ovation by the people in Paris will have to wait until the dawn of his death, which occurs on May 30, 1778. Supreme honour, his remains are transferred to the pantheon on July 11, 1791, consecrating his place in the Age of Enlightenment. On his coffin is inscribed:"He enlarged the human spirit, and taught him to be free".
Voltaire, man of letters
If today, Voltaire has gone down in history mainly with his philosophical tales, his life as a man of letters began above all with poetry and theater. A huge playwright for whom he wanted to be known, Voltaire published many plays in the tradition of Boileau and Racine, let us retain among more than fifty:Œdipe (1718), Zaire (1732), Mahomet or Fanaticism (1741). We will also remember his plethoric epistolary correspondence (more than 20,000 letters).
Happy historian with The Century of Louis XIV (1751) and an Essay on the customs and spirit of nations (1756), Voltaire also expresses his ideas, stemming from the English philosopher John Locke, on liberalism in his philosophical poems:Discours sur l'homme (1738), Poem on the Lisbon Disaster (1756). However, more than his work as a playwright or philosopher-poet, it is above all his fight for reason, humanity and tolerance that made him famous.
Voltaire's fight for tolerance
For the philosophers of the Enlightenment, literature is conceived as a fight. Enlightenment thought necessarily presents itself as reformist and it generally develops in a polemical context. Moreover, the thought of the Enlightenment was intended to be rational and this attachment to reason in France under the Ancien Régime could only be fully expressed there in polemics. And it is with this thought that Voltaire becomes one of the fiercest representatives against obscurantism and religious fanaticism. His work, which challenges the established order and insists on freedom of thought and action, inspired the French Revolution and the drafters of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
In his desire to systematically crush the "infamous" that the Catholic Church represents, he forged a solid reputation and used his notoriety to defend causes or take on injustice. He thus becomes a true model of public engagement, not in the intellectual domain of the Enlightenment but in its thought. The writer notably intervenes in the Calas and Sirven cases as well as in that of the Chevalier de La Barre, which have become symbols of religious intolerance and political arbitrariness.
Nevertheless, he remains a deist and the virulent atheist of some of his colleagues such as Baron d'Holbach the scares. Voltaire seeks to go beyond simple anticlerical discourse and is interested in the nature of man as we can read in Candide as well as in the relationship with God in his Treatise on Tolerance (1763) where despite a global pessimism – nothing is going for the best on earth – there remains a note of hope, that of mutual tolerance between men.
Main works
- Philosophical Letters (1734)
- Zadig or Destiny (1747)
- The Century of Louis XIV (1751)
- Candid (1759)
- Treatise on Tolerance (1763)
Bibliography
- Voltaire in his time, by René Pomeau. Fayard, 1995.
- Voltaire, biography of Pierre Milza. Perrin, 2007.
- Voltaire, biography of Raymond Trousson. text, 2017.