Spirits of the Age
It was the aim of Frederick the Great to shake down the old political
order in Europe, which had been Catholic and unenlightened. To that
end he exalted Prussia, which was a Protestant and progressive State,
and fought against Austria, an empire clinging to obsolete ideas of
feudal military government. He brought upon himself much condemnation
for his unjust partition of Poland with Russia. He argued, however,
that Poland had hitherto been a barbaric feudal State, and must benefit
by association with countries of commercial and intellectual activity.
Galicia fell to Maria Theresa at the end of the war, and was likely to
remain in religious bondage.
Frederick II dealt many hard blows at the Holy Catholic Church, but he
did not intend to wage a religious war in Europe. He insisted on
toleration in Prussia though he was not himself a religious man, and
invited to his court that enemy of the old faith of France--François
Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, a title he derived from the
name of an estate in the possession of his family.
The French scholar came to Frederick after he had suffered every
persecution that inevitably assailed a fearless writer in an age of
narrow bigotry. Very soon after his appearance in Paris, Voltaire was
accused {157} of writing verses which recounted the evils of a country
where magistrates used their power to levy unjust taxes, and loyal
subjects were too often put in prison. As a consequence, he was thrown
into the Bastille. It was quite useless to protest that he was not the
author of _Je l'ai vu_ ("I have seen it"). His opinions were suspected
although he was but twenty-one and was under the protection of his
godfather, the Abbé Chateauneuf. Voltaire was philosopher enough to
use his year in the Bastille very profitably--he finished his first
great tragedy, _Oedipe_, and produced it in 1716, winning the
admiration of French critics.
Although Voltaire was now embarked on a brilliant career as a
dramatist, he was unjustly treated by his superiors in social rank. He
was the son of a notary of some repute, and was too rich to sue for
patronage, but nobles were offended by the freedom of the young wit,
who declared that a poet might claim equality with princes. "Who is
the young man who talks so loud?" the Chevalier Rohan inquired at an
intellectual gathering. "My lord," was Voltaire's quick reply, "he is
one who does not bear a great name but wins respect for the name he
has."
This apt retort did not please the Chevalier, who instructed his lackey
to give the poet a beating. Voltaire would have answered the insult
with his sword, but his enemy disdained a duel with a man of inferior
station. The Rohan family was influential, and preferred to maintain
their dignity by putting the despised poet in prison.
Voltaire was ordered to leave Paris and decided to visit England, where
he knew that learned Frenchmen found a welcome. He was amazed at the
high honour paid to genius and the social and political consequence
which could be obtained by writers. Jonathan Swift, {158} the famous
Irish satirist, was a dignitary of the State Church and yet never
hesitated to heap scorn on State abuses. Addison, the classical
scholar, was Secretary of State, and Prior and Gay went on important
diplomatic missions. Philosophers, such as Newton and Locke, had
wealth as well as much respect, and were entrusted with a share in the
administration of their country. With his late experience of French
injustice, Voltaire may have been inclined to exaggerate the absolute
freedom of an English subject to handle public events and public
personages in print. "One must disguise at Paris what I could not say
too strongly at London," he wrote, and the hatred quickened in him of
all forms of class prejudice and intellectual obstinacy.
His _Lettres anglaises_, which moved many social writers of his time,
were burnt in public by the decree of the Parlement of Paris in 1734.
The Parlement, composed of men of the robe (lawyers), was closely
allied to the court in narrow-minded bigotry. It was always to the
fore to prevent any manifestation of free thought from reaching the
people. The old order, clinging to wealth and favour, judged it best
that the people--known as the Third Estate--should remain in ignorance
of the enormous oppressions put upon them. It had been something of a
shock to Voltaire to discover that in England both nobles and clergy
paid taxes, while in France the saying of feudal times held good--"The
nobles fight, the clergy pray, the people pay."
Sadly wanting in respect to those in high places was that Voltaire who
had not long ago been beaten by a noble's lackeys. He did not cease to
write, and continued to give offence, though the sun of the court shone
on him once through Madame de Pompadour, the King's favourite. She
caused him to write a play {159} in 1745 to celebrate the marriage of
the Dauphin. The _Princesse de Navarre_ brought him more honour than
had been accorded to his finest poems and tragedies. He was admitted
to the Academy of Letters which Richelieu had founded, made Gentleman
of the Chamber, and Historiographer of France.
It was well in those times to write for royal favour, though the
subjects of the drama must be limited to those which would add glory to
the Church or State. Yet Voltaire did not need the patronage which was
essential for poor men of genius like the playwrights of the famous
generation preceding his own. He had private means which he invested
profitably, being little anxious to endure the insults commonly
directed at poverty and learning. He lived in a quiet château at
Cirey, industrious and independent, though he looked toward the
Marquise du Châtelet for that admiration which a literary man craves.
It was the Marquise who shared with Frederick the Great the tribute
paid by the witty man of letters, _i.e._ that there were but two great
men in his time and one of them wore petticoats. She differed from the
frivolous women of court life in her earnest pursuit of intellectual
pleasures. Her whole day was given up to the study of writers such as
Leibnitz and Newton, the philosopher. She rarely wasted time, and
could certainly claim originality in that her working hours were never
broken by social interruptions. She was unamiable, but had no love for
slander, though she was herself the object of much spiteful gossip from
women who passed as wits in the corrupt court life of Versailles.
Voltaire came and went, moving up and down Europe, often the object of
virulent attacks which made flight a necessity, but for fifteen years
he returned regularly {160} to the solitary château of Cirey, where he
could depend upon seclusion for the active prosecution of his studies.
He was a man with a wide range of interests, dabbling in science and
performing experiments for his own profit. He wrote history, in
addition to plays and poetry, and later, in his attacks upon the
Church, proved himself a skilful and unscrupulous controversialist.
In 1750, Madame du Châtelet being dead, Voltaire accepted the
invitation which had been sent to him from Berlin by the King of
Prussia. He was installed sumptuously at Potsdam, where the court of
Frederick the Great was situated. There he could live in familiar
intercourse with "the king who had won five battles." He loved to take
an active part in life, and moved from one place to another, showing a
keen interest in novelty, although his movements might also be inspired
by fear of the merciless actions of the government.
At Potsdam he found activity, but not activity of intellect. Frederick
the Great was drilling soldiers and received him into a stern barracks.
There was a commendable toleration for free speech in the country, but
there was constant bickering. At court, Voltaire found his life
troubled by the intrigues of the envious courtiers, by the unreasonable
vanity of the King, and the almost mediaeval state of manners. There
were quarrels soon between the King and his guest, which led to
exhibitions of paltriness and parsimony common to their characters.
The King stopped Voltaire's supply of chocolate and sugar, while
Voltaire pocketed candle-ends to show his contempt for this meanness!
The saying of Frederick that the Frenchman was only an orange, of
which, having squeezed the juice, he {161} should throw away the skin,
very naturally rankled in the poet to whom it was repeated.
There was jealousy and tale-bearing at Potsdam which went far to
destroy the mutual admiration of those two strong personalities who had
thought to dwell so happily together. Voltaire spoke disparagingly of
Frederick's literary achievements, and compared the task of correcting
his host's French verses with that of washing dirty linen. Politeness
had worn very thin when the writer described the monarch as an ape who
ought to be flogged for his tricks, and gave him the nickname of _Luc_,
a pet monkey which was noted for a vicious habit of biting!
In March 1753, Voltaire left the court, thoroughly weary of life in a
place where there was so little interest in letters. He had a _fracas_
at Frankfort, where he was required to give up the court decorations he
had worn with childlike enjoyment, and also a volume of royal verses
which Frederick did not wish to be made public. For five weeks he lay
in prison with his niece, Madame Denis, complaining of frightful
indignities. He boxed the ears of a bookseller to whom he owed money,
attempted to shoot a clerk, and in general committed many strange
follies which were quite opposed to his claims to philosophy. There
was an end of close friendship with Prussia, but he still drew his
pension and corresponded with the cynical Frederick, only occasionally
referring to their notorious differences. In dispraise of the niece
Madame Denis, the King abandoned the toleration he had professedly
extended. "Consider all that as done with," he wrote on the subject of
the imprisonment, "and never let me hear again of that wearisome niece,
who has not as much merit as her uncle with which to cover her {162}
defects. People talk of the servant of Molière, but nobody will ever
speak of the niece of Voltaire."
The poet resented this contempt of his niece, for he was indulgently
fond of the homely coquette who was without either wit or the good
sense to win pardon for the frivolity of her tastes and extravagances.
Living in a learned circle, she talked, like a parrot, of literature
and wrote plays for the theatre of Ferney. "She wrote a comedy; but
the players, out of respect to Voltaire, declined to act in it. She
wrote a tragedy; but the one favour, which the repeated entreaties of
years could never wring from Voltaire, was that he would read it."
In spite of his quarrels, Voltaire spoke favourably of the German
freedom which allowed writings to be published reflecting on the Great
Elector. He could not endure the hostile temper of his own land and
deserted Paris to settle at Geneva, that free republic which extended
hospitality to refugees from all countries. He built two hermitages,
one for summer and one for winter, both commanding beautiful scenes,
which he enjoyed for twenty years to come, though he was not content
with one shelter. He bought a life-interest in Tournay and the
lordship of Ferney in 1758, declaring that "philosophers ought to have
two or three holes underground against the hounds who chase them."
From Ferney he denounced the religion of the time, accusing the Church
of hatred of truth and real knowledge, with which was coupled a
terrible cruelty and lack of toleration.
To make superstition ridiculous was one of the objects of Voltaire's
satire, for, in this way, he hoped to secure due respect for reason.
All abuses were to be torn away, and such traditions as made slaves of
the {163} people. The shameful struggles between Jesuits and
Jansenists were at their height. How could religion exist when one
party believing in works denied the creed of a second believing grace
better than deeds, and when both sides were eager to devote themselves
to persecution?
In Voltaire's day, the condemnation of free writing came chiefly from
the clergy. They would shackle the mind and bring it in subjection to
the priesthood. Here was a man sneering at the power claimed by
members of a holy body. The narrow bigotry of priests demanded that he
should be held in bondage. Yet he did not mock at men who held good
lives but at the corrupt who shamed their calling. The horrors of the
Inquisition were being revived by zealous Jesuits who were losing
authority through the increasing strength of another party of the
Catholic Church, then known as Jansenists.
The Jansenists followed the doctrines of Calvin in their belief in
predestination and the necessity for conversion, but they differed
widely from the Protestants on many points, holding that a man's soul
was not saved directly he was converted although conversion might be
instantaneous. They were firmly convinced that each human soul should
have personal relation with its Maker, but held that this was only
possible through the Roman Church. Their chief cause of quarrel with
the Jesuits was the accusation brought against the priests of that
order that they granted absolution for sins much too readily and
without being certain of the sinners' real repentance.
Voltaire's blood boiled when he heard that three young Protestants had
been killed because they took {164} up arms at the sound of the tocsin,
thinking it was the signal for rebellion. He received under his
protection at Geneva the widow and children of the Protestant Calas,
who had been broken on the wheel in 1762 because he was falsely
declared to have killed his son in order to prevent his turning
Catholic. A youth, named La Barre, was sentenced, at the instance of a
bishop, to have his tongue and right hand cut off because he was
suspected of having tampered with a crucifix. He was condemned to
death afterwards on the most flimsy evidence.
Voltaire was all aflame at the ignorance of such fanatics. There was
laughter in the writings of the unbelievers of the time, but it was
laughter inspired by the miserable belief that jesting was the only
means of enduring that which might come. "Witty things do not go well
with massacres," Voltaire commented. There was force in him to
destroy, and he set about destruction.
The clergy had refused in 1750 to bear their share of taxation, though
one-fifth of France was in their hands. Superstition inevitably tends
to make bad citizens, the philosopher observed, and set forth the evils
to society that resulted from the idle lives which were supported by
the labour of more industrious subjects. But in his praiseworthy
attack upon the spirit of the Catholicism of his day which stooped to
basest cruelty, Voltaire appealed always to intelligence rather than to
feeling. He wanted to free the understanding and extend knowledge. He
set up reason as a goddess, and left it to another man to point the way
to a social revolution.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau it was who led men to consider the possibility of
a State in which all citizens {165} should be free and equal. He
suffered banishment and much hardship for the bold schemes he
presented. The Parlement of Paris was ruthless when the two
books--_Émile_ and the _Social Contract_--were published in 1762.
Rousseau, a writer of humble origin, had been the close student of
Voltaire since his mind had first formed into a definite individuality.
He had been poor and almost starving many times, had followed the
occupations of engraver and music-copier, and had treated with
ingratitude several kindly patrons. Like Voltaire, too, he journeyed
over Europe, finding refuge in Geneva, whence came his father's family.
He was a man of sordid life and without morality; but he was true to
his life's purpose, and toiled at uncongenial tasks rather than write
at other bidding than that of his own soul.
Rousseau's play _Le Devin du Village_ had a court success that brought
him into favour with gay ladies. Many a beauty found it difficult to
tear herself away from the perusal of his strangely romantic novel _La
Nouvelle Héloïse_, which preached a return to Nature, so long neglected
by the artificial age of Paris. All conventions should be thrown off
that man might attain the purity which God had originally intended.
Kings there should not be to deprive their subjects of all liberty, nor
nobles who claimed the earth, which was the inheritance of God's
creatures.
At first, this theory of return to Nature pleased the ruling classes.
The young King and Queen were well-meaning and kindly to the people.
Louis XVI went among the poor and did something to alleviate the misery
that he saw. Marie Antoinette gave up {166} the extravagant career of
fashion and spent happy hours in the rustic village of Trianon. Nobles
and maids of honour played at rusticity, unconscious of the deadly
blows that Jean-Jacques had aimed at them in the writings which
appealed so strongly to their sentiment. There was a new belief in
humanity which sent the Duchess out early in the morning to give bread
to the poor, even if at evening she danced at a court which was
supported in luxury by their miseries. The poet might congratulate
himself on the sensation caused by ideas which sent him through an
edict of Parlement into miserable banishment. He did not aim at
destruction of the old order, but he depicted an ideal State and to
attain that ideal State men butchered their fellows without mercy. The
_Social Contract_ became the textbook of the first revolutionary party,
and none admired Rousseau more ardently than the ruthless wielder of
tyranny who followed out the theorist's idea that in a republic it was
necessary sometimes to have a dictator.
There were rival schools of thought during the lifetime of Voltaire and
Rousseau. The latter was King of the Markets, destined in years to
come to inspire the Convention and the Commune. Voltaire, companion of
kings and eager recipient of the favours of Madame de Pompadour, had
little sympathy with the author of a book in which the humble
watchmaker's son flouted sovereignty and showed no skill in his
handling of religion. The elder man offered the younger shelter when
abuse was rained upon him; but Jean-Jacques would have none of it, and
thought Geneva should have cast out the unbeliever, for Jean-Jacques
was a pious man in theory and shocked by the worship {167} of pure
reason. The mad acclamations which greeted the return of Voltaire to
Paris after thirty years of banishment must have echoed rather bitterly
in the ears of Rousseau, who had despised salons and chosen to live
apart from all society.
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