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
General Lally, of the English General 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'Etallonde.
D'Etallonde 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'Etallonde
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.
_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 the law, and the judgment was confirmed.
The sentence was carried out on the first day of July, 1766.
When Voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he made up his mind
to abandon France. He wished to leave forever a country where such
cruelties were possible.
He wrote a pamphlet, giving the history of the case.
He ascertained the whereabouts of D'Etallonde, wrote in his behalf to
the King of Prussia; got him released from the army; took him to his
own house; kept him for a year and a half; saw that he was instructed
in drawing, mathematics, engineering, and had at last the happiness of
seeing him a captain of engineers in the army of Frederick the Great.
Such a man was Voltaire. He was the champion of the oppressed and the
helpless. He was the Cæsar to whom the victims of church and state
appealed. He stood for the intellect and heart of his time.
And yet for a hundred and fifty years those who love their enemies have
exhausted the vocabulary of hate, the ingenuity of malice and mendacity,
in their efforts to save their stupid creeds from the genius of
Voltaire.
From a great height he surveyed the world. His horizon was large. He had
some vices--these he shared in common with priests--his virtues were his
own.
He was in favor of universal education--of the development of the brain.
The church despised him. He wished to put the knowledge of the whole
world within the reach of all. Every priest was his enemy. He wished to
drive from the gate of Eden the cherubim of superstition, so that
the children of Adam might return and eat of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge. The church opposed this because it had the fruit of the tree
of ignorance for sale.
He was one of the foremost friends of the Encyclopedia--of Diderot, and
did all in his power to give information to all. So far as principles
were concerned, he was the greatest lawyer of his time. I do not mean
that he knew the terms and decisions, but that he clearly perceived not
only what the law should be, but its application and administration. He
understood the philosophy of evidence, the difference between suspicion
and proof, between belief and knowledge, and he did more to reform the
laws of the kingdom and the abuses at courts than all the lawyers and
statesmen of his time.
At school, he read and studied the works of Cicero--the lord of
language--probably the greatest orator that has uttered speech, and the
words of the Roman remained in his brain. He became, in spite of the
spirit of caste, a believer in the equality of men. He said:
"Men are born equal."
"Let us respect virtue and merit."
"Let us have it in the heart that men are equal." He was an
abolitionist--the enemy of slavery in all its forms. He did not think
that the color of one man gave him the right to steal from another man
on account of that man's color. He was the friend of serf and peasant,
and did what he could to protect animals, wives and children from the
fury of those who loved their neighbors as themselves.
It was Voltaire who sowed the seeds of liberty in the heart and brain of
Franklin, of Jefferson and Thomas Paine.
Pufendorf had taken the ground that slavery was, in part, founded on
contract.
Voltaire said: "Show me the contract, and if it is signed by the party
to be the slave, I may believe."
He thought it absurd that God should drown the fathers, and then come
and die for the children. This is as good as the remark of Diderot: "If
Christ had the power to defend himself from the Jews and refused to use
it, he was guilty of suicide."
He had sense enough to know that the flame of the fagot does not
enlighten the mind. He hated the cruel and pitied the victims of church
and state. He was the friend of the unfortunate--the helper of the
striving. He laughed at the pomp of kings--the pretensions of priests.
He was a believer in the natural and abhorred with all his heart the
miraculous and absurd.
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 every day
use but for disaster, as ships carry life boats 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 did more to break the chains of superstition--to drive the phantoms
of fear from the heart and brain, to destroy the authority of the church
and to give liberty to the world than any other of the sons of men. In
the highest, the holiest sense he was the most profoundly religious man
of his time.