By Julius Moritzen.
It is hardly to be expected that 144 years after the death of Francois
de Voltaire any new and startling facts should have been discovered
anent the career of one of the greatest Frenchmen that ever lived. But
there is that in the writings of Georg Brandes that when this Danish
critic and internationalist undertakes a task like that of writing a
new history of Voltaire we are very sure to find an old subject given
a new interpretation. That Brandes’ “Francois de Voltaire” is today
considered perhaps the most picturesque presentation of a personality
whose influence on the history of France has been most profound is
but a natural corollary considering what the author of “William
Shakespeare, a Critical Study,” did in the case of England when
analyzing the character of Shakespeare.
Georg Brandes places Voltaire in the various environments that went to
widen the horizon of the French satirist, and it is quite apart from
his literary achievements that Voltaire rises before the reader’s mind
as having done so much for making nations better acquainted with each
other. Himself a man with an international vision, Brandes for this
reason emphasizes Voltaire’s English education and what English culture
of that period did toward infusing the spirit of liberalism into a
France surcharged with the dominance of a Louis XV through an arrogant
court circle. Whether or not Voltaire led the way for the Revolution
that swept aside a regime that became unbearable, the fact is not to
be denied that his last stay at Ferney saw him prepare unconsciously
for an event that he had inspired while he himself was far from being
revolutionary in spirit.
Banished from French soil for so great a part of his life, Francois de
Voltaire could not fail to discern the weak points of his own country’s
national life as compared with what England had to show him. Brandes is
very explicit on this score.
“Voltaire was released from the Bastile on the second day of May on
orders of the King and his royal highness, the Duke,” writes Brandes,
“and Conde was instructed to accompany him to Calais and watch him go
on board and leave the harbor. His exile, designed as a punishment,
proved in every way an advantage to his development.”
Differing as day from night, English social conditions as compared with
the France of the period could not fail to impress the young exile.
“Landing at Greenwich,” Brandes continues, “Voltaire slept his first
night in London at Lord Bolingbroke’s palace in Pall Mall, after
spending the evening in the company of ladies and gentlemen of the most
exclusive society. Bolingbroke knew the foremost writers of England, so
that through him Voltaire could immediately make their acquaintance,
except where language prevented. Bolingbroke called the triumvirate
of the English Parnassus, Pope, Swift and Gray, by their first names.
Voltaire could not have had a better introduction to the literary and
aristocratic world of England.”
It was characteristic of the manners and customs of the day that
Voltaire arrived in England supplied with letters of introduction
from members of the very French government that had exiled him. The
abler men among the ministers were apparently ashamed that they had
been obliged to exile a man, not because of what wrongs he had done
but because of the injustice he had suffered. The French minister of
foreign affairs, M. de Morville, requested Horatio Walpole, a brother
of the English Premier, Sir Robert Walpole, and Stair’s successor as
England’s ambassador to France, to do all he could for the welfare of
Voltaire on English soil.
Brandes places emphasis on a letter Walpole wrote the Duke of
Newcastle as follows: “I trust you will pardon me when, at the earnest
solicitation of M. de Morville, I recommend to you M. de Voltaire, a
writer and a most talented one who has recently come to England in
order to have published through subscription a splendid poem, called
‘Henry IV.’ It is true that he has been imprisoned in the Bastile, but
not on account of anything having to do with the government. It was
merely through a dispute with a private individual, and I therefore
hope that your Excellency will bestow on him your favor and protection
by furthering the subscription.”
Walpole wrote a similar letter to Bubb Dodington, Duke of Melcombe,
the rich and highly placed patron of men of letters in whose house
in Eastbury Voltaire lived for more than three months, and whom he
always remembered with gratitude as a wealthy and active man, of
keen intelligence and sound character. Voltaire at a later period
introduced Thierot to him with the remark that he had once sent
Dodington his “History of Charles XII” but that now he sent him
something much better.
In Eastbury, Voltaire made the acquaintance of Edward Young who, later,
was to win repute as a devotional writer, and eventually became his
friend. Young had not then become a clergyman and had not yet written
his “Night Thoughts” which Voltaire later called a “confusing mixture
of bombastical and obscure trivialities.” In Eastbury Voltaire met also
James Thomson, the popular author of “The Seasons,” and the impression
he left on him was that of a “great genius and great simplicity.”
Very characteristic of Brandes’ style and analytical skill is the
following: “From the very first Voltaire had access to the Minister
Robert Walpole, the Duke of Newcastle, the Archduchess of Marlborough,
and the two courts, that of the King and of the Prince and Princess
of Wales. Some years before he had paid his respects, though only in
a literary fashion, to King George I, when in 1718 he sent him his
‘Ædipe’ with flattering verses which have a humorous effect today. He
termed the clumsy boarish Hanoveranian a man of wisdom and a hero,
whereupon the King sent Lord Stair a watch as a gift to Voltaire. A
letter from Voltaire to his Lordship requests that he send the watch
to his father, for Voltaire evidently hoped to raise himself in his
parent’s eyes when he saw that he had a son who received presents from
an English monarch.”
“What most impressed Voltaire,” Brandes continues, “who had come from
a country where the gag was the sceptre, the chief instrument of the
art of government, was the utter absence of such a thing in England.
Here every writer, from Swift downward, could attack the policy of
the cabinet with a derisive violence that in France would have put
him behind the bars for life. Here no one touched a hair on his head.
Most remarkable of all, he found this freedom of speech was perfectly
consistent with peace and order.
“Voltaire discovered that in England nobility did not stand for caste,
but that the great merchant whose trade benefited England and the
world was raised to the nobility while he gave the younger sons to
civic enterprise and industry. It is unquestionably true that while
Voltaire’s exile was meant as a punishment it brought the young writer
knowledge and insight. It sharpened his sense for what was actual and
his instinct for the possible. It gave to his inborn elasticity of
mind that practical understanding without which there can be no great
writer.”