AFTER an exile of twenty-seven years, occupying during all that time
a first place in the civilized world, Voltaire returned to Paris. His
journey was a triumphal march. He was received as a conqueror. The
Academy, the Immortals, came to meet him--a compliment that had never
been paid to royalty. His tragedy of "Irene" was performed. At the
theatre he was crowned with laurel, covered with flowers; he was
intoxicated with perfume and with incense of worship. He was the supreme
French poet, standing above them all. Among the literary men of the
world he stood first--a monarch by the divine right of genius. There
were three mighty forces in France--the throne, the altar and Voltaire.
The king was the enemy of Voltaire. The court could have nothing to do
with him. The church, malign and morose, was waiting for her revenge,
and yet, such was the reputation of this man--such the hold he had upon
the people--that he became, in spite of Throne, in spite of Church, the
idol of France.
He was an old man of eighty-four. 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 king--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.
Towards 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 Curé of Saint
Sulpice and the Abbé Gautier, and brought them into his uncle's sick
chamber. 'Ah, well!' said Voltaire, 'give them my compliments and my
thanks.' The Abbé spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience.
The curé of Saint Sulpice 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 curés coif, shoving him back and cried, turning abruptly to
the other side, 'Let me die in peace.' The curé 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 Abbé
Gautier."
He expired, says Wagnière, on the 30th of May, 1778, at about a
quarter-past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. A few
minutes before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his _valet de
chambre_, 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 sum 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.
Why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives
to the liberation of their fellow-men should have been hissed at in
the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended
slavery--practiced polygamy---justified the stealing of babes from
the breasts of mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor, are
supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the
angels? Why should we think that the brave thinkers, the investigators,
the honest men, must have left the crumbling shore of time in dread
and fear, while the instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew;
the inventors and users of thumb-screws, of iron boots and racks; the
burners and tearers of human flesh; the stealers, the whippers and the
enslavers of men; the buyers and beaters of maidens, mothers and babes;
the founders of the Inquisition; the makers of chains; the builders of
dungeons; the calumniators of the living; the slanderers of the
dead, and even the murderers of Jesus Christ, all died in the odor of
sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace,
while the destroyers of prejudice, the apostles of humanity, the
soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters, the creators of light,
died surrounded by the fierce fiends of God?
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 Abbé Mignot made arrangements for
the burial at Romilli-on-the-Seine, more than 100 miles from Paris. On
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 afterwards, 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.
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 toward 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 the Dawn--the first thinking
of revenge, and the others dreaming of equality, liberty and fraternity.