Ladies and Gentlemen: The infidels of one age have often been the
aureoled saints of the next.
The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. As time sweeps
on the old passes away and the new in its turn becomes of old.
There is in the intellectual world, as in the physical, decay and
growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy.
The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of
infidels.
Political rights have been preserved by traitors; the liberty of mind
by heretics.
To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was blasphemy.
For many years the sword and cross were allies. Together they attacked
the rights of man. They defended each other.
The throne and altar were twins--two vultures from the same egg.
James I said: "No bishop; no king." He might have added: No cross,
no crown. The king owned the bodies of men; the priest, the souls. One
lived on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by
fear--both robbers, both beggars.
These robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds. The king made
laws, the priest made creeds. Both obtained their authority from God,
both were the agents of the infinite. With bowed backs the people
carried the burdens of one, and with wonder's open mouth received the
dogmas of the other. If the people aspired to be free, they were
crushed by the king, and every priest was a Herod, who slaughtered the
children of the brain.
The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both. The king
said to the people: "God made you peasants, and He made me king; He
made you to labor, and me to enjoy; He made rags and hovels for you,
robes and palaces for me. He made you to obey and me to command. Such
is the justice of God," And the priest said: "God made you ignorant
and vile; He made me holy and wise; you are the sheep, I am the
shepherd; your fleeces belong to me. If you do not obey me here, God
will punish you now and torment you forever in another world. Such is
the mercy of God."
"You must not reason. Reason is a rebel. You must not
contradict--contradiction is born of egotism; you must believe. He that
has ears to hear let him hear. Heaven is a question of ears."
Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been
heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men
of genius, who have given their lives to better the condition of their
fellow-men.
It may be well enough here to ask the question: "What is greatness?"
A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of
thought, releases souls from the Bastille of fear, crosses unknown and
mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of
thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man does
not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to
happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others. A great man
throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men.
If the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be
barbarians now.
A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's
night, an inspiration and a prophecy. Greatness is not the gift of
majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to
another; they can give place and power, but not greatness. The place
does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is from
within.
The great men are the heroes who have freed the bodies of men; they are
the philosophers and thinkers who have given liberty to the soul; they
are the poets who have transfigured the common and filled the lives of
many millions with love and song. They are the artists who have
covered the bare walls of weary life with the triumphs of genius. They
are the heroes who have slain the monsters of ignorance and fear, who
have outgazed the Gorgon and driven the cruel gods from their thrones.
They are the inventors, the discoverers, the great mechanics, the kings
of the useful who have civilized this world.
At the head of this heroic army, foremost of all, stands Voltaire,
whose memory we are honoring tonight. Voltaire! a name that excites
the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name in
the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a
declaration of war. Pronounce that name, and from the face of the
priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from the mouth of
forgiveness will pour a Niagara of vituperation and calumny. And yet
Voltaire was the greatest man of his century, and did more for the
human race than ally other of the sons of men.
On Sunday, the 21st of November, 1694, a babe was born; a babe
exceedingly frail, whose breath hesitated about remaining. This babe
became the greatest man of the eighteenth century.
When Voltaire came to this "great stage of fools," his country had been
christianized--not civilized--for about fourteen hundred years. For a
thousand years the religion of peace and good will had been supreme.
The laws had been given by christian kings, sanctioned by "wise and
holy men."
Under the benign reign of universal love, every court had its chamber
of torture, and every priest relied on the thumbscrew and rack. Such
had been the success of the blessed gospel that every science was an
outcast. To speak your honest thoughts, to teach your fellow men, to
investigate for yourself, to seek the truth, these were crimes, and the
"Holy Mother Church" pursued the criminals with sword and flame.
The believers in a God of love--an infinite father--punished hundreds
of offenses with torture and death. Suspected persons were tortured to
make them confess. Convicted persons were tortured to make them give
the names of their accomplices. Under the leadership of the church
cruelty had become the only reforming power. In this blessed year 1694
all authors were at the mercy of king and priest. The most of them
were cast into prisons, impoverished by fines and costs, exiled or
executed. The little time that hangmen could snatch from professional
duties was occupied in burning books. The courts of justice were traps
in which the innocent were caught. The judges were almost as malicious
and cruel as though they had been bishops or saints. There was no trial
by jury, and the rules of evidence allowed the conviction of the
supposed criminal by the proof of suspicion or hearsay. The witnesses,
being liable to torture, generally told what the judges wished to hear.
When Voltaire was born the church ruled and owned France. It was a
period of almost universal corruption. The priests were mostly
libertines, the judges cruel and venal. The royal palace was a house
of prostitution. The nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel
to the last degree. The common people were treated as beasts. It took
the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of
things.
The seeds of the revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every
noble and by every priest. They were germinating slowly in the hearts
of the wretched; they were being watered by the tears of agony; blows
began to bear interest. There was a faint longing for blood. Workmen,
blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want; looked at the
white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them. In
those days the witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of
torture; the church was the arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics,
angels, and devils were as common as lies.
Voltaire was of the people. In the language of that day, he had no
ancestors. His real name was Francois Marie Arouet. His mother was
Marguerite d'Aumard. This mother died when he was seven years of age.
He had an elder brother, Armand, who was a devotee, very religious and
exceedingly disagreeable. This brother used to present offerings to
the church, hoping to make amends for the unbelief of his brother. So
far as we know none of his ancestors were literary people. The Arouets
had never written a line. The Abbe le Chaulieu was his godfather, and,
although an abbe, was a deist who cared nothing about his religion
except in connection with his salary. Voltaire's father wanted to make
a lawyer of him, but he had no taste for law. At the age of 10 he
entered the college of Louis le Grand. This was a Jesuit school, and
here he remained for seven years, leaving at 17, and never attending
any other school. According to Voltaire he learned nothing at this
school but a little Greek, a good deal of Latin, and a vast amount of
nonsense.
In this college of Louis le Grand they did not teach geography,
history, mathematics, or any science. This was a Catholic institution,
controlled by the Jesuits. In that day the religion was defended, was
protected, or supported by the state. Behind the entire creed were the
bayonet, the ax, the wheel, the fagot, and the torture chamber. While
Voltaire was attending the college of Louis le Grand the soldiers of
the king were hunting Protestants in the mountains of Cevennes for
magistrates to hang on gibbets, to put to torture, to break on the
wheel or to burn at the stake.
There is but one use for law, but one excuse for government--the
preservation of liberty--to give to each man his own, to secure to the
farmer what he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he invents and
makes, to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to
express his thoughts. Liberty is the breath of progress. In France
the people were the sport of a king's caprice. Everywhere was the
shadow of the Bastille. It fell upon the sunniest field, upon the
happiest home. With the king walked the headsman; back of the throne
was the chamber of torture. The church appealed to the rack, and faith
relied on the fagot. Science was an outcast, and philosophy,
so-called, was the pander of superstition. Nobles and priests were
sacred. Peasants were vermin. Idleness sat at the banquet and industry
gathered the crumbs and crusts.
At 17 Voltaire determined to devote his life to literature. The father
said, speaking of his two sons, Armand and Francois: "I have a pair of
fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose." In 1713
Voltaire, in a small way, became a diplomat. He went to The Hague
attached to the French minister, and there he fell in love. The girl's
mother objected. Voltaire sent his clothes to the young lady that she
might visit him. Everything was discovered and he was dismissed. To
this girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the keynote of
Voltaire: "Do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. You
know what she is capable of. You have experienced it too well.
Dissemble; it is your only chance. Tell her that you have forgotten me,
that you hate me; then after telling her, love me all the more." On
account of this episode Voltaire was formally disinherited by his
father. The father procured an order of arrest and gave his son the
choice of going to prison or beyond the seas. He finally consented to
become a lawyer, and says: "I have already been a week at work in the
office of a solicitor learning the trade of a pettifogger." About this
time he competed for a prize, writing a poem on the king's generosity
in building the new choir in the cathedral Notre Dame. He did not win
it. After being with the solicitor a little while, he hated the law,
he began to write poetry and the outlines of tragedy. Great questions
were then agitating the public mind, questions that throw a flood of
light upon that epoch.
Louis XIV having died, the regent took possession; and then the prisons
were opened. The regent called for a list of all persons then in the
prisons sent there at the will of the king. He found that, as to many
prisoners, nobody knew any cause why they had been in prison. They had
been forgotten. Many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and
could not guess why they had been arrested. One Italian had been in
the Bastille thirty-three years without ever knowing why. On his
arrival to Paris thirty-three years before he was arrested and sent to
prison. He had grown old. He had survived his family and friends.
When the rest were liberated he asked to remain where he was, and lived
there the rest of his life.
The old prisoners were pardoned; but in a little while their places
were taken by new ones. At this time Voltaire was not interested in
the great world--knew very little of religion or of government. He was
busy writing poetry, busy thinking of comedies and tragedies. He was
full of life. All his fancies were winged, like moths. He was charged
with having written some cutting epigrams. He was exiled to Tulle,
three hundred miles away. From this place he wrote in the true vein:
"I am at a chateau, a place that would be the most agreeable in the
world if I had not been exiled to it, and where there is nothing
wanting for my perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving. It
would be delicious to remain if I only were allowed to go." At last
the exile was allowed to return. Again he was arrested; this time sent
to the Bastille, where he remained for nearly a year. While in prison
he changed his name from Francois Marie Arouet to Voltaire, and by that
name he has since been known. Voltaire began to think, to doubt, to
inquire. He studied the history of the church of the creed. He found
that the religion of his time rested on the usurpation of the
scriptures--the infallibility of the church--the dreams of insane
hermits--the absurdities of the fathers--the mistakes and falsehoods of
saints--the hysteria of nuns--the cunning of priests and the stupidity
of the people. He found that the Emperor Constantine, who lifted
christianity into power, murdered his wife Fansta and his eldest son
Crispus the same year that he convened the council of Nice to decide
whether Christ was a man or the son of God. The council decided, in
the year 325, that Christ was consubstantial with the Father. He found
that the church was indebted to a husband who assassinated his wife--a
father who murdered his son--for settling the vexed question of the
divinity of the Savior. He found that Theodosius called a council at
Constantinople in 381 by which it was decided that the Holy Ghost
proceeded from the Father--that Theodosius, the younger, assembled a
council at Ephesus in 431 that declared the Virgin Mary to be the
mother of God--that the Emperor Martian called another council at
Chalcedon in 451 that decided that Christ had two wills--that Pognatius
called another in 680 that declared that Christ had two natures to go
with his two wills--and that in 1274, at the council of Lyons, the
important fact was found that the Holy Ghost "proceeded" not only from
the Father, but also from the Son at the same time.
So Voltaire has been called a mocker! What did he mock? He mocked
kings that were unjust; kings who cared nothing for the sufferings of
their subjects. He mocked the titled fools of his day. He mocked the
corruption of courts; the meanness, the tyranny, and the brutality of
judges. He mocked the absurd and cruel laws, the barbarous customs.
He mocked popes and cardinals, bishops and priests, and all the
hypocrites on the earth. He mocked historians who filled their books
with lies, and philosophers who defended superstition. He mocked the
haters of liberty, the persecutors of their fellow-men. He mocked the
arrogance, the cruelty, the impudence and the unspeakable baseness of
his time.
He has been blamed because he used the weapon of ridicule. Hypocrisy
has always hated laughter, and always will. Absurdity detests humor
and stupidity despises wit. Voltaire was the master of ridicule. He
ridiculed the absurd, the impossible. He ridiculed the mythologies and
the miracles, the stupid lives and lies of the saints. He found
pretense and mendacity crowned by credulity. He found the ignorant
many controlled by the cunning and cruel few. He found the historian,
saturated with superstition, filling his volumes with the details of
the impossible, and he found the scientists satisfied with "they say."
Voltaire had the instinct of the probable. He knew the law of average;
the sea level; he had the idea of proportion; and so he ridiculed the
mental monstrosities and deformities--the non sequiturs--of his day.
Aristotle said women had more teeth than men. This was repeated again
and again by the Catholic scientists of the eighteenth century.
Voltaire counted the teeth. The rest were satisfied with "they say."
We may, however, get an idea of the condition of France from the fact
that Voltaire regarded England as the land of liberty. While he was in
England he saw the body of Sir Isaac Newton deposited in Westminster
Abbey. He read the works of this great man and afterward gave to
France the philosophy of the great Englishman. Voltaire was the
apostle of common sense. He knew that there could have been no
primitive or first language from which all other languages had been
formed. He knew that every language had been influenced by the
surroundings of the people. He knew that the language of snow and ice
was not the language of palm and flower. He knew also that there had
been no miracle in language. He knew it was impossible that the story
of the Tower of Babel should be true. That everything in the whole
world had been natural. He was the enemy of alchemy, not only in
language, but in science. One passage from him is enough to show his
philosophy in this regard. He says: "To transmute iron into gold two
things are necessary. First, the annihilation of the iron; second, the
creation of gold." Voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature, of
cheerfulness. He despised with all his heart the philosophy of Calvin,
the creed of the somber, of the severe, of the unnatural. He pitied
those who needed the aid of religion to be honest, to be cheerful. He
had the courage to enjoy the present and the philosophy to bear what
the future might bring. And yet for more than a hundred and fifty
years the Christian world has fought this man and has maligned his
memory. In every christian pulpit his name has been pronounced with
scorn, and every pulpit has been an arsenal of slander. He is one man
of whom no orthodox minister has ever told the truth. He has been
denounced equally by Catholics and Protestants.
Priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, presiding elders and
popes have filled the world with slanders, with calm calumnies about
Voltaire. I am amazed that ministers will not or cannot tell the truth
about an enemy of the church. As a matter of fact, for more than 1,000
years almost every pulpit has been a mint in which slanders were coined.
For many years this restless man filled Europe with the product of his
brain. Essays, epigrams, epics, comedies, tragedies, histories, poems,
novels, representing every phase and every faculty of the human mind.
At the same time engrossed in business, full of speculation, making
money like a millionaire, busy with the gossip of courts, and even with
the scandals of priests. At the same time alive to all the discoveries
of science and the theories of philosophers, and in this babel never
forgetting for a moment to assail the monster of superstition. Sleeping
and waking he hated the church. With the eyes of Argus he watched, and
with the arms of Briarieius he struck. For sixty years he waged
continuous and unrelenting war, sometimes in the open field, sometimes
striking from the hedges of opportunity, taking care during all this
time to remain independent of all men. He was in the highest sense
successful. He lived like a prince, became one of the powers of
Europe, and in him, for the first time, literature was crowned.
Voltaire, in spite of his surroundings, in spite of almost universal
tyranny and oppression, was a believer in God and in what he was
pleased to call the religion of nature. He attacked the creed of his
time because it was dishonorable to his God. He thought of the Deity
as a father, as the fountain of justice, intelligence and mercy, and
the creed of the Catholic church made him a monster of cruelty and
stupidity. He attacked the bible with all the weapons at his command.
He assailed its geology, its astronomy, its idea of justice, its laws
and customs, its absurd and useless miracles, its foolish wonders, its
ignorance on all subjects, its insane prophecies, its cruel threats,
and its extravagant promises. At the same time he praised the God of
nature, the God who gives us rain and light, and food and flowers, and
health and happiness--he who fills the world with youth and beauty.
In 1755 came the earthquake at Lisbon. This frightful disaster became
an immense interrogation. The optimist was compelled to ask, "What was
my God doing? Why did the Universal Father crush to shapelessness
thousands of his poor children, even at the moment when they were upon
their knees returning thanks to Him?" What could be done with this
horror? If earthquake there must be, why did it not occur in some
uninhabited desert on some wide waste of sea? This frightful fact
changed the theology of Voltaire. He became convinced that this is not
the best possible of all worlds. He became convinced that evil is evil
here, now and forever.
Who can establish the existence of an infinite being? It is beyond the
conception--the reason--the imagination of man--probably or
possibly--where the zenith and nadir meet this God can be found.
Voltaire, attacked on every side, fought with every weapon that wit,
logic, reason, scorn, contempt, laughter, pathos and indignation could
sharpen, form, devise or use. He often apologized, and the apology was
an insult. He often recanted, and the recantation was a thousand times
worse than the thing recanted. He took it back by giving more. In the
name of eulogy he flayed his victim. In his praise there was poison.
He often advanced by retreating, and asserted by retraction. He did
not intend to give priests the satisfaction of seeing him burn or
suffer. Upon this very point of recanting, he wrote: "They say I must
retract. Very willingly. I will declare the Pascal is always right.
That if St. Luke and St. Mark contradict one another it is only another
proof of the truth of religion to those who know how to understand such
things; and that another lovely proof of religion is that it is
unintelligible. I will even avow that all priests are gentle and
disinterested; that Jesuits are honest people; that monks are neither
proud nor given to intrigue, and that their odor is agreeable; that the
Holy Inquisition is the triumph of humanity and tolerance. In a word,
I will say all that may be desired of me, provided they leave me in
repose, and will not prosecute a man who has done harm to none."
He gave the best years of his wondrous life to succor the oppressed, to
shield the defenseless, to reverse infamous decrees, to rescue the
innocent, to reform the laws of France, to do away with torture, to
soften the hearts of priests, to enlighten judges, to instruct kings,
to civilize the people, and to banish from the heart of man the love
and lust of war. Voltaire was not a saint. He was educated by the
Jesuits. He was never troubled about the salvation of his soul. All
the theological disputes excited his laughter, the creeds his pity, and
the conduct of bigots his contempt. He was much better than a saint.
Most of the Christians in his day kept their religion not for everyday
use but for disaster, as ships carry lifeboats to be used only in the
stress of storm.
Voltaire believed in the religion of humanity--of good and generous
deeds. For many centuries the church had painted virtue so ugly, sour
and cold that vice was regarded as beautiful. Voltaire taught the
beauty of the useful, the hatefulness and hideousness of superstition.
He was not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists, but he was the
greatest man of his time, the greatest friend of freedom, and the
deadliest foe of superstition. He wrote the best French plays--but
they were not wonderful. He wrote verses polished and perfect in their
way. He filled the air with painted moths--but not with Shakespearean
eagles.
You may think that I have said too much; that I have placed this man
too high. Let me tell you what Goethe, the great German, said of this
man: "If you wish depth, genius, imagination, taste, reason,
sensibility, philosophy, elevation, originality, nature, intellect,
fancy, rectitude, facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance,
variety, fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep
of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone excellent,
urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness, purity, cleanness, eloquence,
harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gayety, pathos, sublimity, and
universality perfection, indeed, behold Voltaire."
Even Carlyle, the old Scotch terrier, with the growl of a grizzly bear,
who attacked shams, as I have sometime thought, because he hated
rivals, was forced to admit that Voltaire gave the death stab to modern
superstition. It was the hand of Voltaire that sowed the seeds of
liberty in the heart and brain of Franklin, of Jefferson, and of Thomas
Paine.
Toulouse was a favored town. It was rich in relics. The people were
as ignorant as wooden images, but they had in their possession the
dried bodies of seven apostles--the bones of many of the infants slain
by Herod--part of a dress of the Virgin Mary, and lots of skulls and
skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints.
In this city the people celebrated every year with great joy two holy
events: The expulsion of the Huguenots and the blessed massacre of St.
Bartholomew. The citizens of Toulouse had been educated and civilized
by the church. A few Protestants, mild because in the minority, lived
among these jackals and tigers. One of these Protestants was Jean
Calas--a small dealer in dry goods. For forty years he had been in
this business, and his character was without a stain. He was honest,
kind and agreeable. He had a wife and six children, four sons and two
daughters. One of the sons became a Catholic. The eldest son, Marc
Antoine, disliked his father's business and studied law. He could not
be allowed to practice unless he became a Catholic. He tried to get
his license by concealing that he was a Protestant. He was
discovered--grew morose. Finally he became discouraged and committed
suicide by hanging himself one evening in his father's store. The
bigots of Toulouse started the story that his parents had killed him to
prevent his becoming a Catholic. On this frightful charge the father,
mother, one son, a servant, and one guest at their house were arrested.
The dead son was considered a martyr, the church taking possession of
the body. This happened in 1761. There was what was called a trial.
There was no evidence, not the slightest, except hearsay. All the
facts were in favor of the accused. The united strength of the
defendants could not have done the deed.
Jean Calas was doomed to torture and to death upon the wheel. This was
on the 9th of March, 1762, and the sentence was to be carried out the
next day. On the morning of the 10th the father was taken to the
torture room. The executioner and his assistants were sworn on the
cross to administer the torture according to the judgment of the court.
They bound him by the wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four
feet from the ground and his feet to another ring in the floor. Then
they shortened the ropes and chains until every joint in his arms and
legs were dislocated. Then he was questioned. He declared that he was
innocent. Then the ropes were again shortened until life fluttered in
the torn body; but he remained firm. This was called the question
ordinaire. Again the magistrate exhorted the victim to confess, and
again he refused, saying that there was nothing to confess. Then came
the question extraordinaire. Into the mouth of the victim was placed a
horn holding three pints of water. In this way thirty pints of water
were forced into the body of the sufferer. The pain was beyond
description, and yet Jean Calas remained firm. He was then carried to
a scaffold in a tumbril. He was bound to a wooden cross that lay on
the scaffold. The executioner then took a bar of iron, broke each leg
and arm in two places, striking eleven blows in all. He was then left
to die if he could. He lived for two hours, declaring his innocence to
the last. He was slow to die and so the executioner strangled him.
Then his poor lacerated, bleeding and broken body was chained to a
stake and burned. All this was a spectacle--a festival for the savages
of Toulouse. What would they have done if their hearts had not been
softened by the glad tidings of great joy, peace on earth and good will
to men?
But this was not all. The property of the family was confiscated; the
son was released on condition that he become a Catholic; the servant if
she would enter a convent. The two daughters were consigned to a
convent and the heart-broken widow was allowed to wander where she
would.
Voltaire heard of this case. In a moment his soul was on fire. He took
one of the sons under his roof. He wrote a history of the case. He
corresponded with kings and queens, with chancellors and lawyers. If
money was needed he advanced it. For years he filled Europe with the
echoes of the groans of Jean Calas. He succeeded. The horrible
judgment was annulled--the poor victim declared innocent and thousands
of dollars raised to support the mother and family. This was the work
of Voltaire.
Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his wife and three
daughters. The housekeeper of the bishop wanted to make one of the
daughters a Catholic. The law allowed the bishop to take the child of
Protestants from its parents for the sake of its soul. The little girl
was so taken and placed in a convent. She ran away and came back to
her parents. Her poor little body was covered with the marks of the
convent whip. "Suffer little children to come unto me." The child was
out of her mind; suddenly she disappeared; and three days after her
little body was found in a well, three miles from home. The cry was
raised that her folks had murdered her to keep her from becoming a
Catholic. This happened only a little way from the christian city of
Toulouse while Jean Calas was in prison. The Sirvens knew that a trial
would end in conviction. They fled. In their absence they were
convicted, their property confiscated. The parents sentenced to die by
the hangman, the daughters to be under the gallows during the execution
of their mother and then to be exiled. The family fled in the midst of
winter; the married daughter gave birth to a child in the snows of the
Alps; the mother died, and at last the father, reaching Switzerland,
found himself without the means of support. They went to Voltaire. He
espoused their cause. He took care of them, gave them the means to
live, and labored to annul the sentence that had been pronounced
against them for nine long and weary years. He appealed to kings for
money, to Catherine II of Russia, and to hundreds of others. He was
successful. He said of this case:--The Sirvens were tried and
condemned in two hours in January, 1762, and now in January, 1772,
after ten years of effort, they have been restored to their rights."
This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the worshipers of God hate
the lovers of men?
Espenasse was a Protestant, of good estate. In 1740 he received into
his house a Protestant clergyman, to whom he gave supper and lodging.
In a country where priests repeated the parable of the "Good Samaritan"
this was a crime. For this crime Espenasse was tried, convicted and
sentenced to the galleys for life. When he had been imprisoned for
twenty-three years his case came to the knowledge of Voltaire, and he
was, through the efforts of Voltaire, released and restored to his
family.
This was the work of Voltaire. There is not time to tell of the case
of Gen. Lally, of the English Gen. Byng, of the niece of Corneille, of
the Jesuit Adam, of the writers, dramatists, actors, widows and orphans
for whose benefit he gave his influence, his money and his time.
But I will tell another case: In 1765 at the town of Abbeville an old
wooden cross on a bridge had been mutilated--whittled with a knife--a
terrible crime. Sticks, when crossing each other, were far more sacred
than flesh and blood. Two young men were suspected--the Chevalier de
la Barre and d'Ettalonde. D'Ettallonde fled to Prussia and enlisted as
a common soldier. La Barre remained and stood his trial. He was
convicted without the slightest evidence, and he and d'Ettallonde were
both sentenced: First, to endure the torture, ordinary and
extraordinary; second, to have their tongues torn out by the roots with
pincers of iron; third, to have their right hands cut off at the door
of the church; and fourth, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron and
burned to death by a slow fire. "Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us." Remembering this, the judges
mitigated the sentence by providing that their heads should be cut off
before their bodies were given to the flames. The case was appealed to
Paris; heard by a court composed of twenty-five judges learned in law,
and the judgment was confirmed. The sentence was carried out on the
1st day of July, 1766.
Voltaire had fought with every weapon that genius could devise or use.
He was the greatest of all caricaturists, and he used this wonderful
gift without mercy. For pure crystallized wit he had no equal. The
art of flattery was carried by him to the height of an exact science.
He knew and practiced every subterfuge. He fought the army of
hypocrisy and pretense, the army of faith and falsehood. Voltaire was
annoyed by the meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the cringers
and crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by those who wished to
gain the favors of priests, the patronage of nobles. Sometimes he
allowed himself to be annoyed by these scorpions; sometimes he attacked
them. And, but for these attacks, long ago they would have been
forgotten. In the amber of his genius Voltaire preserved these insects,
these tarantulas, these scorpions.
It is fashionable to say that he was not profound. This is because he
was not stupid. In the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was
called irreverent. He thought God would not damn even a priest
forever. This was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to prevent
Christians from murdering each other, and did what he could to civilize
the disciples of Christ. Had he founded a sect, obtained control of
some country, and burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have
won the admiration, respect and love of the christian world. Had he
only pretended to believe all the fables of antiquity, and had he
mumbled Latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself, devoured now and
then the flesh of God, and carried fagots to the feet of Philosophy in
the name of Christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying
a sight of the damned.
If he had only adopted the creed of his time--if he had asserted that a
God of infinite power and mercy had created millions and billions of
human beings to suffer eternal pain, and all for the sake of his
glorious justice--that he had given his power of attorney to a cunning
and cruel Italian pope, authorizing him to save the soul of his
mistress and send honest wives to hell--if he had given to the nostrils
of this God the odor of burning flesh--the incense of the fagot--if he
had filled his ears with the shrieks of the tortured--the music of the
rack, he would now be known as St. Voltaire.
Instead of doing these things he willfully closed his eyes to the light
of the gospel, examined the bible for himself, advocated intellectual
liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant faith,
assisted the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed to
reason, endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the
indigent, and defended the oppressed. He demonstrated that the origin
of all religions is the same, the same mysteries--the same
miracles--the same impostures--the same temples and ceremonies--the
same kind of founders, apostles and dupes--the same promises and
threats--the same pretense of goodness and forgiveness and the practice
of the same persecution and murder. He proved that religion made
enemies--philosophy, friends--and that above the rites of gods were the
rights of man. These were his crimes. Such a man God would not suffer
to die in peace. If allowed to meet death with a smile, others
might follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy
fires of the auto da fe. It would not do for so great, so successful
an enemy of the church to die without leaving some shriek of fear, some
shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer of chattered horror, uttered by
lips covered with blood and foam. For many centuries the theologians
have taught that an unbeliever--an infidel--one who spoke or wrote
against their creed, could not meet death with composure; that in his
last moments God would fill his conscience with the serpents of
remorse. For a thousand years the clergy have manufactured the facts
to fit this theory--this infamous conception of the duty of man and the
justice of God. The theologians have insisted that crimes against men
were, and are, as nothing compared with crimes against God. That,
while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows
wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent
and helpless, God would maintain the strictest neutrality; but when
some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to
the truth of the scriptures, or prayed to the wrong god, or to the
right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded
tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore the wretched
soul.
There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has
been paralyzed--no truthful account in all the literature of the world
of the innocent child being shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are
being committed ever day--men are at this moment lying in wait for
their human prey--wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and
death--little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring,
tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers--sweet
girls are deceived, lured and outraged, but God has no time to prevent
these things--no time to defend the good and protect the pure. He is
too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows. He listens for
blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal
registers; watches professors in college who begin to doubt the geology
of Moses and the astronomy of Joshua. He does not particularly object
to stealing, if you don't swear. A great many persons have fallen dead
in the act of taking God's name in vain, but millions of men, women and
children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of
burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the
wrathful hand of God. All kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet
death with reasonable serenity. As a rule there is nothing in the
death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The
murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly
exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded
in making his home a hell meets death without a quiver, provided he has
never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ or the eternal
"procession" of the Holy Ghost.
Now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty, has
appeared. Such men have denounced the superstition of their day. They
have pitied the multitude. To see priests devour the substance of the
people--priests who made begging one of the learned professions--filled
them with loathing and contempt. These men were honest enough to tell
their thoughts, brave enough to speak the truth. Then they were
denounced, tried, tortured, killed by rack or flame. But some escaped
the fury of the fiends who loved their enemies and died naturally in
their beds. It would not do for the church to admit that they died
peacefully. That would show that religion was essential at the last
moment. Superstition gets its power from the terror of death. It would
not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the
bible, refuse to kiss the cross; contend that humanity was greater than
Christ, and then die as sweetly as Torquemada did after pouring molten
lead into the ears of an honest man, or as calmly as Calvin after he
had burned Servetus, or as peacefully as King David after advising with
his last breath one son to assassinate another.
The church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all
infidels (that Christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely
wretched and despairing. It was alleged that words could not paint the
horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. Every good Christian was
expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. They have been
told and retold in every pulpit of the world. Protestant ministers
have repeated the lies invented by Catholic priests, and Catholics, by
a kind of theological comity, have sworn to the lies told by the
Protestants. Upon this point they have always stood together, and will
as long as the same falsehood can be used by both. Upon the death-bed
subject the clergy grew eloquent. When describing the shudderings and
shrieks of the dying unbeliever their eyes glitter with delight. It is
a festival. They are no longer men. They become hyenas. They dig open
graves. They devour the dead. It is a banquet. Unsatisfied still,
they paint the terrors of hell. They gaze at the souls of the infidels
writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. They see them in
flames--in oceans of fire--in gulfs of pain--in abysses of despair.
They shout with joy. They applaud.
It is an auto da fe, presided over by God. But let us come back to
Voltaire--to the dying philosopher. He was an old man of 84. He had
been surrounded with the comforts, the luxuries of life. He was a man
of great wealth, the richest writer that the world had known. Among
the literary men of the earth he stood first. He was an intellectual
monarch--one who had built his own throne and had woven the purple of
his own power. He was a man of genius. The Catholic God had allowed
him the appearance of success. His last years were filled with the
intoxication of flattery--of almost worship. He stood at the summit of
his age. The priests became anxious. They began to fear that God would
forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of
Voltaire. Toward the last of May, 1778, it was whispered in Paris that
Voltaire was dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered the
unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey. Two
days before his death, his nephew went to seek the cure of Saint
Surplice and the Abbe Gautier, and brought them to his uncle's sick
chamber, who, being informed that they were there, said: "Ah, well,
give them my compliments and my thanks." The abbe spoke some words to
him, exhorting him to patience. The cure of Saint Surplice then came
forward, having announced himself, and asked of Voltaire, elevating his
voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
sick man pushed one of his hands against the cure's coif, shoving him
back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side: "Let me die in
peace." The cure seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif
dishonored by the touch of a philosopher. He made the nurse give him a
little brushing and went out with the Abbe Gautier. He expired, says
Wagnierre, on the 30th of May, 1778, at about a quarter past 11 at
night, with the most perfect tranquility. A few moments before his
last breath he took the hand of Morand, his valet de chambee, who was
watching by him, pressed it, and said: "Adieu, my dear Morand, I am
gone." These were his last words. Like a peaceful river, with green
and shaded banks, he flowed without a murmur into the waveless sea,
where life is rest.
From this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so philosophic and
tender; so natural and peaceful; from these words so utterly destitute
of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the
despairing utterances have been drawn and made. From these materials,
and from these alone, or rather, in spite of these facts, have been
constructed by priests and clergymen and their dupes all the shameless
lies about the death of this great and wonderful man. A man, compared
with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were, and are, but
dust and vermin. Let us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome
increase the mental wealth of man as much as Bruno? Did all the
priests of France do as great a work for the civilization of the world
as Voltaire or Diderot? Did all the ministers of Scotland add as much
to the such of human knowledge as David Hume? Have all the clergymen,
monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, from
the day of Pentecost to the last election, done as much for human
liberty as Thomas Paine? What would the world be if infidels had never
been? The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower
of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of
liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers
and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on
the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be.
In those days the philosophers--that is to say, the thinkers--were not
buried in holy ground. It was feared that their principles might
contaminate the ashes of the just. And they also feared that on the
morning of the resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip
into heaven. Some were burned and their ashes scattered; and the
bodies of some were thrown naked to beasts, and others buried in unholy
earth. Voltaire knew the history of Adrienne Le Couvreur, a beautiful
actress, denied burial. After all, we do feel an interest in what is
to become of our bodies. There is a modesty that belongs to death.
Upon this subject Voltaire was infinitely sensitive. It was that he
might be buried that he went through the farce of confession, of
absolution, and of the last sacrament. The priests knew that he was
not in earnest, and Voltaire knew that they would not allow him to be
buried in any of the cemeteries of Paris. His death was kept a secret.
The Abbe Mignot made arrangements for the burial at
Romilli-on-the-Seine, more than 100 miles from Paris. Sunday evening,
on the last day of May, 1778, the body of Voltaire, clad in a dressing
gown, clothed to resemble an invalid, posed to simulate life, was
placed in a carriage; at its side a servant, whose business it was to
keep it in position. To this carriage were attached six horses, so
that people might think a great lord was going to his estates. Another
carriage followed in which were a grand-nephew and two cousins of
Voltaire. All night they traveled, and on the following day arrived at
the courtyard of the abbey. The necessary papers were shown, the mass
was performed in the presence of the body, and Voltaire found burial.
A few moments afterward the prior who "for charity had given a little
earth" received from his bishop a menacing letter forbidding the burial
of Voltaire. It was too late. He could not then be removed, and he
was allowed to remain in peace until 1791.
Voltaire was dead. The foundations of State and throne had been
sapped. The people were becoming acquainted with the real kings and
with the actual priests. Unknown men born in misery and want, men
whose fathers and mothers had been pavement for the rich, were rising
towards the light and their shadowy faces were emerging from darkness.
Labor and thought became friends. That is, the gutter and the attic
fraternized. The monsters of the night and the angels of dawn--the
first thinking of revenge and the others dreaming of equality, liberty
and fraternity. For 400 years the Bastille had been the outward symbol
of oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a
perpetual threat. It was the last and often the first argument of king
and priest. Its dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its
secret cells, its instruments of torture, denied the existence of God.
In 1789, on the 14th of July, the people, the multitude, frenzied by
suffering, stormed and captured the Bastille. The battlecry was, "Vive
le Voltaire!"
In 1791 permission was given to place in the Pantheon the ashes of
Voltaire. He had been buried 110 miles from Paris. Buried by stealth
he was to be removed by a nation. A funeral procession of a hundred
miles; every village with its flags and arches in his honor; all the
people anxious to honor the philosopher of France--the savior of
Calas--the destroyer of superstition! On reaching Paris the great
procession moved along the Rue St. Antoine. Here it paused, and for
one night upon the ruins of the Bastille rested the body of
Voltaire--rested in triumph, in glory--rested on fallen wall and broken
arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears, on rusting chain, and
bar and useless bolt--above the dungeons dark and deep, where light had
faded from the lives of men and hope had died in breaking hearts. The
conqueror resting upon the conquered. Throned upon the Bastille, the
fallen fortress of night, the body of Voltaire, from whose brain had
issued the dawn.
For a moment his ashes must have felt the Promethean fire, and the old
smile must have illumined once more the face of the dead.
While the vast multitude were trembling with love and awe, a priest was
heard to cry, "God shall be avenged!"
The grave of Voltaire was violated. The cry of the priest, "God shall
be avenged!" had borne its fruit. Priests, skulking in the shadows,
with faces sinister as night-ghouls--in the name of the gospel,
desecrated the gave. They carried away the body of Voltaire. The tomb
was empty. God was avenged! The tomb was empty, but the world is
filled with Voltaire's fame. Man has conquered!
What cardinal, what bishop, what priest raised his voice for the rights
of men? What ecclesiastic, what nobleman, took the side of the
oppressed--of the peasant? Who denounced the frightful criminal code
the torture of suspected persons? What priest pleaded for the liberty
of the citizen? What bishop pitied the victim of the rack? Is there
the grave of a priest in France on which a lover of liberty would now
drop a flower or a tear? Is there a tomb holding the ashes of a saint
from which emerges one ray of light? If there be another life, a day
of judgment, no God can afford to torture in another world a man who
abolished torture in his. If God be the keeper of an eternal
penitentiary, He should not imprison there those who broke the chain of
slavery here. He cannot afford to make eternal convicts of Franklin,
of Jefferson, of Paine, of Voltaire.
Voltaire was perfectly equipped for his work. A perfect master of the
French language, knowing all its moods, tenses, and declinations, in
fact and in feeling, playing upon it as skillfully, as Paganini on his
violin, finding expression for every thought and fancy, writing on the
most serious subjects with the gayety of a harlequin, plucking jests
from the mouth of death, graceful as the waving of willows, dealing in
double meanings--that covered the asp with flowers and flattery, master
of satire and compliment, mingling them often in the same line, always
interested himself, therefore interesting others, handling thoughts,
questions, subjects, as a juggler does balls, keeping them in the air
with perfect ease, dressing old words in new meanings, charming,
grotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth with tears, wit with wisdom, and
sometimes wickedness, logic, and laughter. With a woman's instinct
knowing the sensitive nerves--just where to touch--hating arrogance of
place, the stupidity of the solemn, snatching masks from priest and
king, knowing the springs of action and ambition's ends, perfectly
familiar with the great world, the intimate of kings and their
favorites, sympathizing with the oppressed and imprisoned, with the
unfortunate and poor, hating tyranny, despising superstition, and
loving liberty with all his heart. Such was Voltaire, writing "Edipus"
at seventeen, "Irene" at eighty-three, and crowding between these two
tragedies, the accomplishment of a thousand lives.