FOR four hundred years the Bastile 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 Bastile. The battle-cry was "Vive
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; 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 Bastile 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 Bastile,
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 death.
The vast multitude bowed in reverence, hushed with love and awe heard
these words uttered by a priest: "God shall be avenged."
The cry of the priest was a prophecy. Priests skulking in the shadows
with faces sinister as night, ghouls in the name of the gospel,
desecrated the grave. They carried away the ashes of Voltaire.
The tomb is empty.
God is avenged.
The world is filled with his fame.
Man has conquered.
Was there in the eighteenth century, a man wearing the vestments of the
church, the equal of Voltaire?
What cardinal, what bishop, what priest in France 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 victims 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 the man who abolished torture in this. If God
be the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, he should not imprison there
the men who broke the chains of slavery here. He cannot afford to make
an eternal convict of Voltaire.
Voltaire was 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 crumbling 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, and 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 and 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 "Odipus" at seventeen, "Irene" at eighty-three, and crowding
between these two tragedies the accomplishment of a thousand lives.
From his throne at the foot of the Alps, he pointed the finger of scorn
at every hypocrite in Europe. For half a century, past rack and stake,
past dungeon and cathedral, past altar and throne, he carried with brave
hands the sacred torch of Reason, whose light at last will flood the
world.