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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/76789-0.txt b/76789-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7133ee9 --- /dev/null +++ b/76789-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1102 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76789 *** + + + + + + TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. =52= + Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius + + + Oration on Voltaire + + Victor Hugo + + + HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY + GIRARD, KANSAS + + + + + Copyright 1923, + Haldeman-Julius Company. + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + ORATION ON VOLTAIRE + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + INTRODUCTION 5 + VICTOR HUGO’S ORATION ON VOLTAIRE 10 + A SKETCH OF VOLTAIRE 28 + GEORG BRANDES ON VOLTAIRE 36 + + + + + ORATION ON VOLTAIRE + + Translated by James Parton. + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +This oration of Victor Hugo brings out in +clear contrast a strange contradiction. Our +progress is but an evolution from and at the +same time it is a revolt against the past. + + “The thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns.” + “Yet the mighty dead still rule us from their urns.” + +This apparent contradiction exists because the peoples are not as yet +familiar with the law of evolution in social progress. The picture of +a child imprisoned within the ribs of a skeleton is the picture of the +world that many have for want of this conception of time and growth. +They revolt against the order of time, because time is not solid, and +is only visible to the eye of the intellect. + +Therefore such revolts have been necessary. They are the great +revolutions and social volcanoes of which Paris has been the favorite +crater in Europe. Hugo’s great soul has seized the lights and shadows +of the great catastrophes of the 18th century, and, their meaning +visible to mankind forever in his wonderful oration. + +It is a warning, a consecration, and a hope. It tells that progress is +the only condition of human safety. It consecrates the noble Voltaire +who made its conditions possible. It is a prophecy of hope and peace in +evolution under the light of knowledge and love. It is the inspiration +of every liberated soul to realize this aspiration for “peace on +earth and good will to men,” which rises immeasurably higher than any +Christian myth ever dreamed. + +The magnificent word painting of this oration and its inspiration is +one of the highest points humanity has ever reached. We are at a loss +to find anything superior to it. Compare with it the great orations of +Pericles, Demosthenes, Cicero, Chatham, Mirabeau, Henry, Webster, or +the consecration of the dead at Gettysburg of Abraham Lincoln, and you +will feel that those mighty voices were limited by local and temporary +interests and feelings. + +Hugo has spoken for all the races of earth and for all time. He has +realized to the heart and eye humanity’s heaven of progress sustained +by all of the powers of the good in the human soul. To those who +can but catch a glimpse of its mighty meaning it will be a treasure +forever. No one can read and understand it and be the same person he +was before. + +Hugo, the greatest French poet of his century, perhaps the greatest +French poet of all time, was a fervent Theist, reverencing the prophet +of Nazareth as a man, and holding that “the divine tear” of Jesus and +“the human smile” of Voltaire “compose the sweetness of the present +civilization.” But he was perfectly free from the trammels of creeds, +and he hated priestcraft, like despotism, with a perfect hatred. In +one of his striking later poems, _Religien et les Religions_, he +derides and denounces the tenets and pretensions of Christianity. The +Devil, he says to the clergy, is only the monkey of superstition; your +Hell is an outrage on Humanity and a blasphemy against God; and when +you tell me that your deity made you in his own image, I reply that he +must be very ugly. + +As a man, as well as a writer, there was something magnificently +grandiose about him. Subtract him from the nineteenth century, and you +rob it of much of its glory. For nineteen years on a lonely channel +island, an exile from the land of his birth and his love, he nursed +the conscience of humanity within his mighty heart, brandishing the +lightnings and thunders of chastisement over the heads of the political +brigands who were stifling a nation, and prophesying their certain +doom. When it came, after Sedan, he returned to Paris, and for fifteen +years he was idolised by its people. There was great mourning at his +death, and “all Paris” attended his funeral. But true to the simplicity +of his life he ordered that his body should lie in a common coffin, +which contrasted vividly with the splendid procession. France buried +him, as she did Gambetta; he was laid to rest in the Church of St. +Genevieve, re-secularized as the pantheon for the occasion; and the +interment took place without any religious rites. + +Hugo’s great oration on Voltaire, in 1878, roused the ire of the Bishop +of Orleans, who reprimanded him in a public letter. The free-thinking +poet sent a crushing reply: + + “France had to pass an ordeal. France was free. A man traitorously + seized her in the night, threw her down and garrotted her. If a + people could be killed, that man had slain France. He made her dead + enough for him to reign over her. He began his reign, since it was + a reign, with perjury, lying in wait, and massacre. He continued + it by oppression, by tyranny, by despotism, by an unspeakable + parody of religion and justice. He was monstrous and little. The + Deum Magnificat, Salvum fac, Gloria tibi, were sung for him. Who + sang them? Ask yourself. The law delivered the people up to him. + The church delivered God up to him. Under that man sank down right, + honor, country; he had beneath his feet oath, equity, probity, the + glory of the flag, the dignity of men, the liberty of citizens. That + man’s prosperity disconcerted the human conscience. It lasted nineteen + years. During that time you were in a palace. I was in exile. I pity + you, sir.” + +Despite this terrible rebuff to Bishop Dupanloup, another priest, +Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, had the temerity and bad taste +to obtrude himself when Victor Hugo lay dying in 1885. Being born on +February 25, 1802, the poet was in his eighty-fourth year, and expiring +naturally of old age. Had the rites of the Church been performed on him +in such circumstances, it would have been an insufferable farce. Yet +the Archbishop wrote to Madame Lockroy, offering to bring personally +“the succor and consolation so much needed in these cruel ordeals.” +Monsieur Lockroy at once replied as follows: + + “Madame Lockroy, who cannot leave the bedside of her father-in-law, + begs me to thank you for the sentiments which you have expressed with + so much eloquence and kindness. As regards M. Victor Hugo, he has + again said within the last few days, that he had no wish during his + illness to be attended by a priest of any persuasion. We should be + wanting in our duty if we did not respect his resolution.” + + + + + VICTOR HUGO’S ORATION ON VOLTAIRE + + Delivered at Paris, May 30, 1878, the hundredth anniversary of + Voltaire’s death. + + +A hundred years ago today a man died. He died immortal. He departed +laden with years, laden with works, laden with the most illustrious and +the most fearful of responsibilities, the responsibility of the human +conscience informed and rectified. He went cursed and blessed, cursed +by the past, blessed by the future; and these, gentlemen, are the two +superb forms of glory. On his death bed he had, on the one hand, the +acclaim of contemporaries and of posterity; on the other, that triumph +of hooting and of hate which the implacable past bestows upon those +who have combatted it. He was more than a man; he was an age. He had +exercised a function and fulfilled a mission. He had been evidently +chosen for the work which he had done, by the supreme will, which +manifests itself as visibly in the laws of destiny as in the laws of +nature. + +The eighty-four years which this man lived occupy the interval that +separates the monarchy at its apogee from the revolution at its dawn. +When he was born Louis XIV still reigned, when he died Louis XVI +reigned already; so that his cradle could see the last rays of the +great throne, and his coffin the first gleams from the great abyss. +[Applause.] + +Before going further, let us come to an understanding, gentlemen, upon +the word abyss. There are good abysses: such are the abysses in which +evil is engulfed. [Bravo!] + +Gentlemen, since I have interrupted myself, allow me to complete my +thought. No word imprudent or unsound will be pronounced here. We are +here to perform an act of civilization. We are here to make affirmation +of progress, to pay respect to philosophers for the benefits of +philosophy, to bring to the eighteenth century the testimony of the +nineteenth, to honor magnanimous combatants and good servants, to +felicitate the noble effort of peoples, industry, science, the valiant +march in advance, the toil to cement human accord; in one word, to +glorify peace, that sublime, universal desire. Peace is the virtue +of civilization; war is its crime. [Applause.] We are here, at this +grand moment, in this solemn hour to bow religiously before the moral +law, and to say to the world, which hears France, this: There is only +one power, conscience in the service of justice; and there is only +one glory, genius in the service of truth. [Movement.] That said, I +continue. + +Before the revolution, gentlemen, the social structure was this: + +At the base, the people: + +Above the people, religion represented by the clergy; + +By the side of religion, justice represented by the magistracy. + +And, at that period of human society, what was the people? It was +ignorance. What was religion? It was intolerance. And what was justice? +It was injustice. Am I going too far in my words? Judge. + +I will confine myself to the citation of two facts, but decisive. + +At Toulouse, October 13, 1761, there was found in a lower story of a +house, a young man hanged. The crowd gathered, the clergy fulminated, +the magistracy investigated. It was a suicide; they made of it an +assassination. In what interest? In the interest of religion. And who +was accused? The father. He was a Huguenot, and he wished to hinder his +son from becoming a Catholic. There was here a moral monstrosity and a +material impossibility; no matter! This father had killed his son; this +old man had hanged this young man. Justice travailled, and this was the +result. On the month of March, 1762, a man with white hair, Jean Calas, +was conducted to a public place, stripped naked, stretched upon a +wheel, the members bound upon it, the head hanging. Three men are there +upon a scaffold, a magistrate, named David, charged to superintend the +punishment, a priest to hold the crucifix, and the executioner with a +bar of iron in his hand. The patient, stupefied and terrible, regards +not the priest, and looks at the executioner. The executioner lifts the +bar of iron, and breaks one of his arms. The victim groans and swoons. +The magistrate comes forward; they make the condemned inhale salts; he +returns to life. Then another stroke of the bar; another groan. Calas +loses consciousness; they revive him, and the executioner begins again; +and, as each limb before being broken in two places receives two blows, +that makes eight punishments. After the eighth swooning the priest +offers him the crucifix to kiss; Calas turns away his head, and the +executioner gives him the _coup de grace_; that is to say, crushes +in his chest with the thick end of the bar of iron. So died Jean Calas. + +That lasted two hours. After his death, the evidence of the suicide +came to light. But an assassination had been committed. By whom? By the +judges. [Great sensation. Applause.] + +Another fact. After the old man, the young man. Three years later, in +1765, at Abbeville, the day after a night of storm and high wind, there +was found upon the pavement of a bridge an old crucifix of worm-eaten +wood, which for three centuries had been fastened to the parapet. Who +had thrown down this crucifix? Who had committed this sacrilege? It +is not known. Perhaps a passerby. Perhaps the wind. Who is the guilty +one? The Bishop of Amiens launches a _monitoire_. Note what a +_monitoire_ was: it was an order to all the faithful, on pain +of hell, to declare what they knew or believed they knew of such or +such a fact; a murderous injunction, when addressed by fanaticism +to ignorance. The _monitoire_ of the Bishop of Amiens does its +work; the town gossip assumes the character of the crime charged. +Justice discovers, or believes it discovers, that on the night when the +crucifix was thrown down, two men, two officers, one named La Barre, +the other d’Etallonde, passed over the bridge of Abbeville, that they +were drunk, and that they sang a guard-room song. The tribunal was the +Seneschalcy of Abbeville. The Seneschalcy of Abbeville was equivalent +to the court of the Capitouls of Toulouse. It was not less just. Two +orders for arrest were issued. d’Etallonde escaped, La Barre was taken. +Him they delivered to judicial examination. He denied having crossed +the bridge; he confessed to having sung the song. The Seneschalcy of +Abbeville condemned him; he appealed to the Parliament of Paris. He +was conducted to Paris; the sentence was found good and confirmed. He +was conducted back to Abbeville in chains. I abridge. The monstrous +hour arrives. They begin by subjecting the Chevalier de La Barre +to the torture, ordinary and extraordinary, to make him reveal his +accomplices. Accomplices in what? In having crossed a bridge and sung +a song. During the torture one of his knees was broken; his confessor, +on hearing the bones crack, fainted away. The next day, June 5, 1766, +La Barre was drawn to the great square of Abbeville, where flamed a +penitential fire; the sentence was read to La Barre; then they cut off +one of his hands; then they tore out his tongue with iron pinchers; +then, in mercy, his head was cut off and thrown into the fire. So died +the Chevalier de La Barre. He was nineteen years of age. [Long and +profound sensation.] + +Then, O Voltaire! thou didst utter a cry of horror, and it will be +thine eternal glory! [Thunders of applause.] + +Then didst thou enter upon the appalling trial of the past; thou didst +plead, against tyrants and monsters, the cause of the human race, +and thou didst gain it. Great man, blessed be thou forever! [Renewed +applause.] + +Gentlemen, the frightful things which I have recalled were accomplished +in the midst of a polite society; its life was gay and light; people +went and came; they looked neither above nor below themselves; their +indifference had become carelessness; graceful poets, Saint-Aulaire, +Boufflers, Gentil-Bernard, composed pretty verses; the court was all +festival; Versailles was brilliant; Paris ignored what was passing; and +then it was that, through religious ferocity, the judges made an old +man die upon the wheel, and the priests tore out a child’s tongue for a +song. [Vivid emotion. Applause.] + +In the presence of this society, frivolous and dismal, Voltaire alone, +having before his eyes those united forces, the court, the nobility, +capital; that unconscious power, the blind multitude; that terrible +magistracy, so severe to subjects, so docile to the master, crushing +and flattering, kneeling upon the people before the king [Bravo!] that +clergy, vile _melange_ of hypocrisy and fanaticism; Voltaire +alone, I repeat it, declared war against that coalition of all the +social iniquities, against that enormous and terrible world, and he +accepted battle with it. And what was his weapon? That which has +the lightness of the wind and the power of the thunderbolt. A pen. +[Applause.] + +With that weapon he fought; with that weapon he conquered. + +Gentlemen, let us salute that memory. + +Voltaire conquered; Voltaire waged the splendid kind of warfare, the +war of one alone against all; that is to say, the grand warfare. The +war of thought against matter, the war of reason against prejudice, the +war of the just against the unjust, the war for the oppressed against +the oppressor, the war of goodness, the war of kindness. He had the +tenderness of a woman and the wrath of a hero. He was a great mind, and +an immense heart. [Bravos.] + +He conquered the old code and the old dogma. He conquered the feudal +lord, the gothic judge, the Roman priest. He raised the populace to +the dignity of people. He taught, pacificated, and civilized. He fought +for Sirven and Montbailly, as for Calas and La Barre; he accepted all +the menaces, all the outrages, all the persecutions, calumny, and +exile. He was indefatigable and immovable. He conquered violence by +a smile, despotism by sarcasm, infallibility by irony, obstinacy by +perseverance, ignorance by truth. + +I have just pronounced the word _smile_. I pause at it. Smile! It +is Voltaire. + +Let us say it, gentlemen, pacification (_apaise-ment?_) is the +great side of the philosopher: in Voltaire the equilibrium always +reestablishes itself at last. Whatever may be his just wrath, it +passes, and the irritated Voltaire always gives place to the Voltaire +calmed. Then in that profound eye the SMILE appears. + +That smile is wisdom. That smile, I repeat, is Voltaire. That smile +sometimes becomes laughter, but the philosophic sadness tempers it. +Toward the strong, it is mockery; toward the weak, it is a caress. +It disquiets the oppressor, and reassures the oppressed. Against the +great, it is raillery; for the little, it is pity. Ah, let us be moved +by that smile! It had in it the rays of the dawn. It illuminated the +true, the just, the good, and what there is of worthy in the useful. +It lighted up the interior of superstitions. Those ugly things it is +salutary to see; he has shown them. Luminous, that smile was fruitful +also. The new society, the desire for equality and concession, and +that beginning of fraternity which called itself tolerance, reciprocal +good-will, the just accord of men and rights, reason recognized as the +supreme law, the annihilation of prejudices and fixed opinions, the +serenity of souls, the spirit of indulgence and of pardon, harmony, +peace--behold what has come from that great smile! + +On the day--very near, without any doubt--when the identity of wisdom +and clemency will be recognized, the day when the amnesty will be +proclaimed, I affirm it, up there, in the stars, Voltaire will smile. +[Triple salvo of applause. Cries, _Vive l’amnestie!_] + +Gentlemen, between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen +hundred years apart, there is a mysterious relation. + +To combat Pharisaism; to unmask imposture; to overthrow tyrannies, +usurpations, prejudices, falsehoods, superstitions; to demolish the +temple in order to rebuild it, that is to say, to replace the false by +the true; to attack a ferocious magistracy; to attack a sanguinary +priesthood; to take a whip and drive the money-changers from the +sanctuary; to reclaim the heritage of the disinherited; to protect the +weak, the poor, the suffering, the overwhelmed, to struggle for the +persecuted and oppressed--that was the war of Jesus Christ. And who +waged that war? It was Voltaire. + +The completion of the evangelical work is the philosophical work; the +spirit of meekness began, the spirit of tolerance continued. Let us say +it with a sentiment of profound respect: Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. +Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the sweetness +of the present civilization. [Prolonged applause.] + +Did Voltaire always smile? No. He was often indignant. You remarked it +in my first words. + +Certainly, gentlemen, measure, reserve, proportion are reason’s +supreme law. We can say that moderation is the very respiration of the +philosopher. The effort of the wise man ought to be to condense into +a sort of serene certainty all the approximations of which philosophy +is composed. But at certain moments, the passion for the true rises +powerful and violent, and it is within its right in so doing, like the +stormy winds which purify. Never, I insist upon it, will any wise man +shake those two august supports of social labor, justice and hope; and +all will respect the judge if he is embodied justice, and all will +venerate the priest if he represents hope. But if the magistracy calls +itself torture, if the Church calls itself Inquisition, then Humanity +looks them in the face, and says to the judge: I will none of thy law! +and says to the priest: I will none of thy dogma! I will none of thy +fire upon earth and thy hell in the future! [Wild sensation. Prolonged +applause.] Then philosophy rises in wrath, and arraigns the judge +before justice, and the priest before God! [Redoubled applause.] + +This is what Voltaire did. It was grand. + +What Voltaire was, I have said; what his age was, I am about to say. + +Gentlemen, great men rarely come alone; large trees seem larger when +they dominate a forest; there they are at home. There was a forest of +minds around Voltaire; that forest was the eighteenth century. Among +those minds there were summits, Montesquieu, Buffon, Beaumarchais, and +among others, two, the highest after Voltaire--Rousseau and Diderot. +Those thinkers taught men to reason; reasoning well leads to acting +well; justness in the mind becomes justice in the heart. Those toilers +for progress labored usefully. Buffon founded naturalism; Beaumarchais +discovered outside of Molière, a kind of comedy till then unknown, +almost the social comedy; Montesquieu made in law some excavations so +profound that he succeeded in exhuming the right. As to Rousseau, as +to Diderot, let us pronounce those two names apart; Diderot, a vast +intelligence, inquisitive, a tender heart, a thirst for justice, wished +to give certain notions as the foundation of true ideas, and created +the encyclopaedia. Rousseau rendered to woman an admirable service, +completing the mother by the nurse, placing near one another those two +majesties of the cradle. Rousseau, a writer, eloquent and pathetic, a +profound oratorical dreamer, often divined and proclaimed political +truth; his ideal borders upon the real; he had the glory of being +the first man in France who called himself citizen. The civic fiber +vibrates in Rousseau; that which vibrates in Voltaire is the universal +fiber. One can say that in the fruitful eighteenth century, Rosseau +represented the people; Voltaire, still more vast, represented Man. +Those powerful writers disappeared, but they left us their soul, the +Revolution. [Applause.] + +Yes, the French Revolution was their soul. It was their radiant +manifestation. It came from them; we find them everywhere in that blest +and superb catastrophe, which formed the conclusion of the past and +the opening of the future. In that clear light, which is peculiar to +revolutions, and which beyond causes permits us to perceive effects, +and beyond the first plan the second, we see behind Danton Diderot, +behind Robespierre Rousseau, and behind Mirabeau Voltaire. These formed +those. + +Gentlemen, to sum up epochs, by giving them the names of men, to name +ages, to make of them in some sort human personages, has only been done +by three peoples, Greece, Italy, France. We say, the Age of Pericles, +the Age of Augustus, the Age of Leo X, the Age of Louis XIV, the Age of +Voltaire. Those appellations have a great significance. This privilege +of giving names to periods belonging exclusively to Greece, to Italy, +and to France, is the highest mark of civilization. Until Voltaire, +they were the names of the chiefs of states; Voltaire is more than the +chief of a state; he is a chief of ideas; with Voltaire a new cycle +begins. We feel that henceforth the supreme governmental power is to +be thought. Civilization obeyed force; it will obey the ideal. It was +the scepter and the sword broken, to be replaced by the ray of light; +that is to say, authority transfigured into liberty. Henceforth, no +other sovereignty than the law for the people, and the conscience for +the individual. For each of us, the two aspects of progress separate +themselves clearly, and they are these: to exercise one’s right; that +is to say, to be a man; to perform one’s duty; that is to say, to be a +citizen. + +Such is the signification of that word, the Age of Voltaire; such is +the meaning of that august event, the French Revolution. + +The two memorable centuries which preceded the eighteenth, prepared for +it; Rabelais warned royalty in Gargantua, and Molière warned the church +in Tartuffe. Hatred of force and respect for right are visible in those +two illustrious spirits. + +Whoever says today, _might makes right_, performs an act of the +Middle Ages, and speaks to men three hundred years behind their time. +[Repeated applause.] + +Gentlemen, the nineteenth century glorifies the eighteenth century. The +eighteenth proposed, the nineteenth concludes. And my last word will be +the declaration, tranquil but inflexible, of progress. + +The time has come. The right has found its formula: human federation. + +Today, force is called violence, and begins to be judged; war is +arraigned. Civilization, upon the complaint of the human race, orders +the trial, and draws up the great criminal indictment of conquerors +and captains. [Emotion.] This witness, History, is summoned. The +reality appears. The factitious brilliancy is dissipated. In many +cases, the hero is a species of assassin. [Applause.] The peoples +begin to comprehend that increasing the magnitude of a crime cannot be +its diminution; that, if to kill is a crime, to kill much cannot be +an extenuating circumstance [Laughter and bravos]; that, if to steal +is a shame, to invade cannot be a glory [Repeated applause]; that +_Te Deums_ do not count for much in this matter; that homicide is +homicide; that bloodshed is bloodshed; that it serves nothing to call +one’s self Caesar or Napoleon; and that in the eyes of the eternal God, +the figure of a murderer is not changed because, instead of a gallow’s +cap, there is placed upon his head an emperor’s crown. [Long continued +acclamation. Triple salvo of applause.] + +Ah! let us proclaim absolute truths. Let us dishonor war. No; glorious +war does not exist. No; it is not good, and it is not useful, to make +corpses. No; it cannot be that life travails for death. No; oh, mothers +who surround me, it cannot be that war, the robber, should continue +to take from you your children. No; it cannot be that women should +bear children in pain, that men should be born, that people should +plow and sow, that the farmer should fertilize the fields, and the +workmen enrich the city, that industry should produce marvels, that +genius should produce prodigies, that the vast human activity should, +in presence of the starry sky, multiply efforts and creations, all +to result in that frightful international exposition which is called +a field of battle! [Profound sensation. The whole audience rises and +applauds the orator.] + +The true field of battle, behold it’s here! It is this rendezvous of +the masterpieces of human labor which Paris offers the world at this +moment.[1] + +The true victory is the victory of Paris. [Applause.] + +Alas! we cannot hide it from ourselves, that the present hour, worthy +as it is of admiration and respect, has still some mournful aspects; +there are still shadows upon the horizon; the tragedy of the peoples +is not finished; war, wicked war, is still there, and it has the +audacity to lift its head in the midst of this august festival of +peace. Princes, for two years past, obstinately adhere to a fatal +misunderstanding; their discord forms an obstacle to our concord, and +they are ill-inspired to condemn us to the statement of such a contrast. + +Let this contrast lead us back to Voltaire. In the presence of menacing +possibilities, let us be more pacific than ever. Let us turn toward +that great death, toward that great life, toward that great spirit. Let +us bend before the venerated tombs. Let us take counsel of him whose +life, useful to men, was extinguished a hundred years ago, but whose +work is immortal. Let us take counsel of the other powerful thinkers, +the auxiliaries of this glorious Voltaire, of Jean Jacques, of Diderot, +of Montesquieu. Let us give the word to those great voices. Let us stop +the effusion of human blood. Enough! enough! despots. Ah! barbarism +persists; very well, let civilization be indignant. Let the eighteenth +century come to the help of the nineteenth. The philosophers, our +predecessors, are the apostles of the true; let us invoke those +illustrious shades; let them, before monarchies meditate wars, +proclaim the right of man to life, the right of conscience to liberty, +the sovereignty of reason, the holiness of labor, the beneficence of +peace; and since night issues from the thrones, let the light come from +the tombs. [Acclamations unanimous and prolonged. From all sides bursts +the cry: “Vive Victor Hugo.”] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: The exposition of 1878 was then open in Paris.] + + + + + A SKETCH OF VOLTAIRE + + +Francois Marie Arouet, generally known by the name of Voltaire, was +born at Chatenay on February 20, 1694. To write his life during those +eighty-three years would be to give the intellectual history of Europe. + +While Voltaire was living at Ferney in 1768, he gave a curious +exhibition of that profane sportiveness which was a strong element in +his character. On Easter Sunday he took his secretary Wagnière with +him to commune at the village church, and also “to lecture a little +those scoundrels who steal continually.” Apprised of Voltaire’s sermon +on theft, the Bishop of Anneci rebuked him, and finally “forbade every +curate, priest, and monk of his diocese to confess, absolve or give the +communion to the seigneur of Ferney, with his express orders, under +pain of interdiction.” With a wicked light in his eyes, Voltaire said +he could commune in spite of the Bishop; nay, that the ceremony should +be gone through in his chamber. Then ensued an exquisite comedy, which +shakes one’s side even as described by the stolid Wagnière. Feigning +a deadly sickness, Voltaire took to his bed. The surgeon, who found +his pulse was excellent, was bamboozled into certifying that he was in +danger of death. Then the priest was summoned to administer the last +consolation. The poor devil at first objected, but Voltaire threatened +him with legal proceedings for refusing to bring the sacrament to a +dying man, who had never been excommunicated. This was accompanied +with a grave declaration that M. de Voltaire “had never ceased to +respect and to practice the Catholic religion.” Eventually the priest +came “half dead with fear.” Voltaire demanded absolution at once, but +the Capuchin pulled out of his pocket a profession of faith, drawn up +by the Bishop, which Voltaire was required to sign. Then the comedy +deepened. Voltaire kept demanding absolution, and the distracted priest +kept presenting the document for his signature. At last the Lord +of Ferney had his way. The priest gave him the wafer, and Voltaire +declared “Having my God in my mouth,” that he forgave his enemies. +Directly he left the room, Voltaire leaped briskly out of bed, where a +minute before he seemed unable to move. “I have had a little trouble,” +he said to Wagnière, “with this comical genius of a Capuchin; but that +was only for amusement, and to accomplish a good purpose. Let us take a +turn in the garden. I told you I would be confessed and commune in my +bed, in spite of M. Biord.” + +Voltaire treated Christianity so lightly that he confessed and took the +sacrament for a joke. Is it wonderful if he did the same thing on his +death-bed to secure the decent burial for his corpse? He remembered his +own bitter sorrow and indignation, which he expressed in burning verse, +when the remains of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur were refused sepulture +because she died outside the pale of the Church. Fearing similar +treatment himself, he arranged to cheat the Church again. By the agency +of his nephew, the Abbé Mignot, the Abbé Gautier was brought to his +bedside, and according to Condorcet he “confessed Voltaire, receiving +from him a profession of faith, by which he declared that he died in +the Catholic religion, wherein he was born.” This story is generally +credited, but its truth is by no means indisputable; for in the Abbé +Gautier’s declaration to the Prior of the Abbey of Scellieres, where +Voltaire’s remains were interred, he says that when he visited M. de +Voltaire, he found him “_unfit to be confessed_.” + +The curate of St. Sulpice was annoyed at being forestalled by the Abbé +Gautier, and as Voltaire was his parishioner he demanded “a detailed +profession of faith and a disavowal of all heretical doctrines.” He +paid the dying Freethinker many unwelcome visits, in the vain hope of +obtaining a full recantation, which would be a fine feather in his hat. +The last of these visits is thus described by Wagnière, who was an +eye-witness to the scene. I take Carlyle’s translation: + + “Two days before that mournful death, M. l’Abbé Mignot, his nephew, + went to seek the Curé of St. Sulpice and the Abbé Gautier, and brought + them into his uncle’s sick room; who, on being informed that the Abbé + Gautier was there, ‘Ah, well!’ said he, ‘give him my compliments + and my thanks.’ The Abbé spoke some words to him, exhorting him to + patience. The Curé of St. Sulpice then came forward, having announced + himself, and asked of M. de Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he + acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ? The sick man + pushed one of his hands against the Curé’s calotte (coif), shoving him + back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, ‘Let me die in + peace (Laissez-moi mourir en paix).’ The Curé seemingly considered + his person soiled, and his coif dishonored, by the touch of the + philosopher. He made the sick-nurse give him a little brushing, and + then went out with the Abbé Gautier.” + +A further proof that Voltaire made no real recantation lies in the +fact that the Bishop of Troyes sent a peremptory dispatch to the Prior +of Scellieres, which lay in his diocese, forbidding him to inter +the heretic’s remains. The dispatch, however, arrived too late, and +Voltaire’s ashes remained there until 1791, when they were removed to +Paris and placed in the Pantheon, by order of the National Assembly. + +Voltaire’s last moments are described by Wagnière. I again take +Carlyle’s translation: + + “He expired about a quarter past eleven at night, _with the most + perfect tranquility_, after having suffered the cruelest pains + in consequence of those fatal drugs, which his own imprudence, and + especially that of the persons who should have looked to it, made + him swallow. Ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand + of Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watching him, pressed it, + and said, ‘_Adieu, mon cher Morand, je me meurs_’--‘Adieu, my + dear Morand, I am gone.’ These are the last words uttered by M. de + Voltaire.” + +Such are the facts of Voltaire’s decease. He made no recantation, +he refused to utter or sign a confession of faith, but with the +connivance of his nephew, the Abbé Mignot, he tricked the Church into +granting him a decent burial, not choosing to be flung into a ditch or +buried like a dog. His heresy was never seriously questioned at the +time, and the clergy actually clamored for the expulsion of the Prior +who had allowed his body to be interred in a church vault. + +Many years afterwards the priests pretended that Voltaire died raving. +They declared that Marshal Richelieu was horrified by the scene and +obliged to leave the chamber. From France the pious concoction spread +to England, until it was exposed by Sir Charles Morgan, who published +the following extracts from a letter by Dr. Burard, who, as assistant +physician, was constantly about Voltaire in his last moments: + + “I feel happy in being able, while paying homage to the truth, + to destroy the effects of the lying stories which have been told + respecting the last moments of Mons. de Voltaire. I was, by office, + one of those who were appointed to watch the whole progress of his + illness, with M. M. Tronchin, Lorry, and Try, his medical attendants. + I never left him for an instant during his last moments, and I can + certify that we invariably observed in him the same strength of + character, though his disease was necessarily attended with horrible + pain. (Here follow the details of his case.) We positively forbade him + to speak in order to prevent the increase of a spitting of blood, + with which he was attacked; still he continued to communicate with us + by means of little cards, on which he wrote his questions; we replied + to him verbally, and if he was not satisfied, he always made his + observations to us in writing. He therefore, retained his faculties up + to the last moment, and the fooleries which have been attributed to + him are deserving of the greatest contempt. It could not even be said + that such or such person had related any circumstance of his death, + as being witness to it; for at the last, admission to his chamber + was forbidden to any person. Those who came to obtain intelligence + respecting the patient, waited in the saloon, and other apartments at + hand. The proposition, therefore, which has been put in the mouth of + Marshal Richelieu is as unfounded as the rest. + + “Paris, April 3rd, 1819. + + (Signed) BURARD.” + +Another slander appears to emanate from the Abbé Barruel, who was so +well informed about Voltaire that he calls him “the dying Atheist,” +when, as all the world knows, he was a Deist. + + “In his last illness he sent for Dr. Tronchin. When the doctor came, + he found Voltaire in the greatest agony, exclaiming with the utmost + horror--‘I am abandoned by God and man.’ He then said, ‘Doctor, I will + give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me six months’ + life.’ The doctor answered, ‘Sir, you cannot live six weeks.’ Voltaire + replied, ‘Then I shall go to hell, and you will go with me!’ and soon + after expired.” + +When, the clergy are reduced to manufacture such contemptible +rubbish as this, they must indeed be in great straits. It is flatly +contradicted by the evidence of every contemporary of Voltaire. + +My readers will, I think, be fully satisfied that Voltaire neither +recanted nor died raving, but remained a skeptic to the last; passing +away quietly, at a ripe old age, to “the undiscovered country from +whose bourne no traveler returns,” and leaving behind him a name that +brightens the track of time. + + + + + GEORG BRANDES ON VOLTAIRE + + 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.” + + + II. + +While there is no lack of historical accounts about the relations +existing between Voltaire and Frederick the Great, yet there are +phases of that relationship which still lend themselves to fresh +interpretation when viewed by one so keenly analytical as Georg +Brandes. The Danish critic declares emphatically that history can +show few instances where a ruler in his relations with a great +productive mentality has proceeded in such a way as to make the contact +significant to both principals. + +“In ancient times,” Brandes writes, “Aristotle was the teacher of +Alexander, and the latter, when on his campaign would send Aristotle +books and material for study. But Alexander could exert no influence on +the philosopher. Caesar and Cicero knew each other thoroughly. Cicero +was Caesar’s political opponent. Nevertheless, Caesar paid homage to +Cicero as the representative of literature and repaid his attacks by +showing him knightly attention. But neither Caesar nor Cicero owed +each other any intellectual enrichment. + +“In later times the relations between Goethe and Karl August lasted +from the early youth of both until the death of the prince. Goethe +was indebted to the Duke of Weimar for a secure position and received +through this connection much experience. But intellectual impression +he did not obtain from this source, for in spite of Karl August’s +considerable capability, a genius he was not. + +“In even later times there is the relationship between Richard Wagner +and Ludwig II. Wagner had King Ludwig to thank for comfort and a place +where he could work in quiet. But the King did not influence the +composer intellectually. + +“The historical relation between Voltaire and Frederick the Great +stands alone. This is no harmonious relationship. In the course of +the first fifteen years enthusiasm is abroad; then the friendship is +undermined through Voltaire’s undisciplined methods and Frederick’s +exasperation. Then again the relationship is renewed, the break is +healed and the friendliness is maintained through the lives of both. +This is striking evidence of the spirit of world-citizenship that +prevailed in the eighteenth century, since the ruler and the writer +belong to two different people, even while their language is the same. +But the decisive fact here is that both the writer and the ruler are +geniuses, the acknowledged geniuses of the period, and that they +influence each other.” + +Where Georg Brandes excels in portraying great men of the past is in +his masterful pictures of contrasts, the analytical and synthetic so +nicely proportioned that in its final presentation the picture leaves +no doubt but what scholarly devotion to a set task leaves little to be +said on the subject beyond what Brandes himself contributes. On the +question of the Voltaire relationship with Frederick he writes further: + +“When in August, 1736, Voltaire received the first letter from the +Crown Prince of Prussia he was in his forty-second year. The writer was +24 years old. Voltaire was famed throughout Europe and looked upon as +the most important author of the period. Frederick was a young prince, +unknown except for what he had gone through. He had had to suffer for +his inclination and peculiar intellectuality, just as Voltaire had to +pay a price for his wit and the revolutionary might of his thinking. +Both had been the victims of the brutality of the time and the +arbitrariness of the system of government. + +“The father of Frederick, whom Carlyle idealized, in spite of all his +good qualities as organizer, was restive and quick tempered; with all +his rectitude often raw and cruel. He had prescribed an educational +program for his son that excluded everything unnecessary, among this +Latin and literature. The King detested everything foreign. If he +permitted French this was simply because German was then scarcely +considered a language. He took pleasure in personally giving his +subjects a beating on the street in case the one or other incident gave +him dissatisfaction. + +“When Frederick as a youth studied forbidden things, got into debt, +cared nothing for parades of the troops, the father demanded that +he should renounce his right to the throne. When he refused he was +treated barbarously, called a coward because he did not resist. In 1730 +he made an attempt to escape to England. But an intercepted letter +to his friend Katte revealed the scheme to the King. Again he was +treated abominably and a court-martial was appointed for the purpose +of sentencing him to death. That was the custom of the time. Twelve +years before, Peter the Great had his son Alexei beaten to death and +he himself wielded the knout. When the Prussian court-martial failed to +act as blindly as the Russian the King had the prince put in prison in +Kuestrin.” + +Passing over the years intervening between that earlier time and when +Frederick ascended the throne, May 31, 1740, a period replete with +letter writing and exchange of compliments describing in Brandes’ +inimitable manner, the Danish critic tells of Frederick’s joy that now +at last he can come face to face with the object of his admiration. + +“Frederick, in spite of the many things to occupy him, makes his debut +as a true disciple of Voltaire,” declares Brandes. “His first act is +the doing away with torture as punishment, the dissolution of the +Potsdam guard, the guard that the father had hired, secured at whatever +cost, and calling back a thinker like Wolff to become once more +professor at Halle.” + +The first meeting between Voltaire and Frederick the Great gives +Brandes an opportunity for bringing into play his exceptional faculty +for entering into the very minutest description of these contrasting +personalities, and while German culture of that day affected the French +satirist quite differently from what he experienced on English soil, +still there is no doubt that Voltaire’s international outlook was +broadened through contact with the King who in his own way stood head +and shoulders over his people. + +Badly as Voltaire was being treated at home, the fact that the King of +Prussia made so much of him and gave his admiration public expression +did not fail to improve his status in the eyes of the leading men of +France. The time had gone by when Louis XIV dominated Europe so that +fear prevailed because of the French generals and armies. A number of +defeats like that at Dettingen resulted in the fact that Europe as a +whole made merry on account of French politics and French militarism. + +Outside of France Louis the Beloved did not count. All eyes were +directed toward the King of Prussia. Every power tried to draw him +within its particular circle. The English strove to keep alive his +dislike of France. It would mean much to the French nation, who so far +had been unable to retain her former allies and had been unsuccessful +in gaining new ones, if it by any possibility could enter into an +alliance with just that King whose name spelled ingenious energy. +Frederick was a hero to Voltaire. On the other hand, Voltaire was the +idol of the King. At any rate, therefore, it was worth the trial to +utilize the poet as secret diplomat. + +What followed has been dealt with exhaustively by many able pens, but +Brandes manages to give the historical facts a setting so picturesque +and informing that the entire relationships between Frederick the +Great and Voltaire appears in a new light and illustrates pointedly +what the French nation owed to the man whose doctrines were the cause +of a persecution that reflects little glory on the period so far as +France was concerned. Nevertheless, Francois de Voltaire has found in +the twentieth century no writer who to better purpose brings out the +particular qualities that places him among the great internationalists +than Georg Brandes has done in his monumental work. + + + III. + +“Voltaire’s ‘Charles XII,’” says Brandes, “stands as a portrait of +a remarkable man, executed by a master. It caused Europe to take an +interest in the Sweden of that time comparable with what Denmark must +thank Shakespeare for in the case of Hamlet. + +“Characteristically enough, Voltaire starts his story by a dramatic +contrast between the two main persons, Charles XII and Peter the +Great, both of whom are sketched in detail. Peter is immediately +brought on the scene because no matter how great the interest of +the author in the Swedish King’s grandly-planned character and his +remarkable fate, his real hero is not Charles, but Peter; not only +that bellicose and obstinate in Peter’s character that plunged his +country into misfortune, but the sovereign who in spite of the brutal +in the pleasures that he sought, in spite of the wildness and cruel +vengefulness was an educator, a civilizing influence who conquered +a barbarism many centuries old, and introduced industry, technique, +building art, science among a people gifted in a way, but fighting +against innovations. + +“With that clarity that is Voltaire’s foundation quality as historian +he places Polish society and the Polish nation side by side with +the Swedish and the Russian, and thus the description of August +the Strong’s and later Stanislaw Leszczynski’s personalities is as +necessary as a background as the characterization of the Swedish and +Russian nature through the presentation of Charles XII and Peter the +Great.” + +With regard to Voltaire’s relations to Russia as a whole, Brandes tells +how Frederick the Great looked with jealous eyes on the attention +that Voltaire paid to the Russian people in depicting the life-work +of Peter, since he looked for undivided devotion of the man whose +pen in that day was enough to shed luster on a country. Elizabeth, +the daughter of Peter the Great, while uncouth in many ways, was not +without taste for intellect and wit, and in approaching Voltaire after +becoming Empress sent him her portrait surrounded by large diamonds. +But it was in the person of Catherine II that Voltaire a second time +enters into acquaintance with a sovereign who is also a genius, a +decided and reformative genius, who puts herself into apprenticeship +under him and does everything to show him how grateful she is for what +he has done. + +“There are certain parallels between Frederick and Catherine,” states +Brandes. “Both were of German antecedents and had in their blood German +respect for intellectual superiority, the German taste for knowledge +and mental values. But neither one stood in any cultural relation +to Germanism; both wrote and spoke French to perfection. Both were +Voltairians to their fingers’ tips. But in spite of their love for +French civilization neither one of them had ever seen Paris or France.” + + + IV. + +There is a reference to Voltaire’s internationalism and view of life in +the closing chapter of Brandes’ work on the great Frenchman which sums +up his personality in a most conspicuous manner, as follows: + +“There exists a curious little planet, the highly gifted population of +which is distinguished among other things by its equally thoughtless +tendency to praise and condemn. It poisons its wise men, it crucifies +its saviors, its heroes and thinkers it burns at the stake, its +deliverer it puts into prison, then releases them, utilizes them, +applauds them after they have died, and then usually puts them into a +hole as one would filth or treasure. + +“The giant from Sirius discovered this little planet in the universe +and found that it was populated by what to him seem funny little +creatures, mostly concerned with making existence unpleasant for each +other, to destroy and eliminate each other. He did not underestimate +their many no doubt valuable and lovable qualities. Now and then he saw +them aid each other. + +“But he wondered at their marked predilections to misunderstand, ill +use and praise their leading personalities. Those who would drag these +little beings out of that mudbed of stupidity into which they not +unseldom had strayed they liked best of all to drown in this mire. +Afterwards they would raise statues in honor of these same individuals, +in earliest times made of wood or stone, later of gold and ivory, more +recently of marble and bronze. When this was done they took pleasure in +throwing all kinds of filthiness on these statues, cleanse them again, +then once more defile them, and after a long period let them appear +finally in their true shape and color.” + +Here we have the story of Francois de Voltaire in a nutshell. + + + + + =TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES= + +Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced. + +Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed. + +A Table of Contents has been added. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76789 *** diff --git a/76789-h/76789-h.htm b/76789-h/76789-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..444b12f --- /dev/null +++ b/76789-h/76789-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1343 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Oration on Voltaire | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +/* General headers */ + +h1 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +/* General headers */ +h2, h3 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1.5em; +} + +.nindc {text-align:center; text-indent:0;} + +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.spa1 { + margin-top: 1em + } + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + + +.space-above2 { margin-top: 2em; } +.space-below2 { margin-bottom: 2em; } + + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + + + +/* Images */ + +img {max-width: 100%; width: 100%; height: auto;} + + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} +.width500 {max-width: 500px;} +.x-ebookmaker .width500 {width: 100%;} + + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} + + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76789 ***</div> + + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="cover"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="1816" height="2560" alt="A speech +by Victor Hugo on the life and legacy of the French Enlightenment +philosopher and writer, Voltaire."> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc">TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. <b>52</b><br> +Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</p> +</div> + + +<h1>Oration on Voltaire</h1> + +<p class="nindc space-above2"><span class="large">Victor Hugo</span></p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2">HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY<br> +GIRARD, KANSAS +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +Copyright 1923,<br> +Haldeman-Julius Company.</p> + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +<span class="allsmcap">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"><span class="large"> +ORATION ON VOLTAIRE</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tbody><tr> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"> <span class="allsmcap">PAGE</span></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">INTRODUCTION</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VICTOR HUGO’S ORATION ON VOLTAIRE</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">A SKETCH OF VOLTAIRE</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">GEORG BRANDES ON VOLTAIRE</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td> +</tr> +</tbody> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="nindc"><span class="large">ORATION ON VOLTAIRE</span></p> +<p class="nindc space-below2">Translated by James Parton.</p> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</h2> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + + +<p>This oration of Victor Hugo brings out in +clear contrast a strange contradiction. Our +progress is but an evolution from and at the +same time it is a revolt against the past.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns.”</div> + <div class="verse indent2">“Yet the mighty dead still rule us from their urns.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>This apparent contradiction exists because the peoples are not as yet +familiar with the law of evolution in social progress. The picture of +a child imprisoned within the ribs of a skeleton is the picture of the +world that many have for want of this conception of time and growth. +They revolt against the order of time, because time is not solid, and +is only visible to the eye of the intellect.</p> + +<p>Therefore such revolts have been necessary. They are the great +revolutions and social volcanoes of which Paris has been the favorite +crater in Europe. Hugo’s great soul has seized the lights and shadows +of the great catastrophes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> of the 18th century, and, their meaning +visible to mankind forever in his wonderful oration.</p> + +<p>It is a warning, a consecration, and a hope. It tells that progress is +the only condition of human safety. It consecrates the noble Voltaire +who made its conditions possible. It is a prophecy of hope and peace in +evolution under the light of knowledge and love. It is the inspiration +of every liberated soul to realize this aspiration for “peace on +earth and good will to men,” which rises immeasurably higher than any +Christian myth ever dreamed.</p> + +<p>The magnificent word painting of this oration and its inspiration is +one of the highest points humanity has ever reached. We are at a loss +to find anything superior to it. Compare with it the great orations of +Pericles, Demosthenes, Cicero, Chatham, Mirabeau, Henry, Webster, or +the consecration of the dead at Gettysburg of Abraham Lincoln, and you +will feel that those mighty voices were limited by local and temporary +interests and feelings.</p> + +<p>Hugo has spoken for all the races of earth and for all time. He has +realized to the heart and eye humanity’s heaven of progress sustained +by all of the powers of the good in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> human soul. To those who +can but catch a glimpse of its mighty meaning it will be a treasure +forever. No one can read and understand it and be the same person he +was before.</p> + +<p>Hugo, the greatest French poet of his century, perhaps the greatest +French poet of all time, was a fervent Theist, reverencing the prophet +of Nazareth as a man, and holding that “the divine tear” of Jesus and +“the human smile” of Voltaire “compose the sweetness of the present +civilization.” But he was perfectly free from the trammels of creeds, +and he hated priestcraft, like despotism, with a perfect hatred. In +one of his striking later poems, <i>Religien et les Religions</i>, he +derides and denounces the tenets and pretensions of Christianity. The +Devil, he says to the clergy, is only the monkey of superstition; your +Hell is an outrage on Humanity and a blasphemy against God; and when +you tell me that your deity made you in his own image, I reply that he +must be very ugly.</p> + +<p>As a man, as well as a writer, there was something magnificently +grandiose about him. Subtract him from the nineteenth century, and you +rob it of much of its glory. For nineteen years on a lonely channel +island, an exile from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> the land of his birth and his love, he nursed +the conscience of humanity within his mighty heart, brandishing the +lightnings and thunders of chastisement over the heads of the political +brigands who were stifling a nation, and prophesying their certain +doom. When it came, after Sedan, he returned to Paris, and for fifteen +years he was idolised by its people. There was great mourning at his +death, and “all Paris” attended his funeral. But true to the simplicity +of his life he ordered that his body should lie in a common coffin, +which contrasted vividly with the splendid procession. France buried +him, as she did Gambetta; he was laid to rest in the Church of St. +Genevieve, re-secularized as the pantheon for the occasion; and the +interment took place without any religious rites.</p> + +<p>Hugo’s great oration on Voltaire, in 1878, roused the ire of the Bishop +of Orleans, who reprimanded him in a public letter. The free-thinking +poet sent a crushing reply:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“France had to pass an ordeal. France was free. A man traitorously +seized her in the night, threw her down and garrotted her. If a +people could be killed, that man had slain France. He made her dead +enough for him to reign over her. He began his reign, since it was +a reign, with perjury, lying in wait, and massacre. He continued +it by oppression, by tyranny, by despotism,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> by an unspeakable +parody of religion and justice. He was monstrous and little. The +Deum Magnificat, Salvum fac, Gloria tibi, were sung for him. Who +sang them? Ask yourself. The law delivered the people up to him. +The church delivered God up to him. Under that man sank down right, +honor, country; he had beneath his feet oath, equity, probity, the +glory of the flag, the dignity of men, the liberty of citizens. That +man’s prosperity disconcerted the human conscience. It lasted nineteen +years. During that time you were in a palace. I was in exile. I pity +you, sir.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Despite this terrible rebuff to Bishop Dupanloup, another priest, +Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, had the temerity and bad taste +to obtrude himself when Victor Hugo lay dying in 1885. Being born on +February 25, 1802, the poet was in his eighty-fourth year, and expiring +naturally of old age. Had the rites of the Church been performed on him +in such circumstances, it would have been an insufferable farce. Yet +the Archbishop wrote to Madame Lockroy, offering to bring personally +“the succor and consolation so much needed in these cruel ordeals.” +Monsieur Lockroy at once replied as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Madame Lockroy, who cannot leave the bedside of her father-in-law, +begs me to thank you for the sentiments which you have expressed with +so much eloquence and kindness. As regards<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> M. Victor Hugo, he has +again said within the last few days, that he had no wish during his +illness to be attended by a priest of any persuasion. We should be +wanting in our duty if we did not respect his resolution.”</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VICTOR_HUGOS_ORATION_ON_VOLTAIRE">VICTOR HUGO’S ORATION ON VOLTAIRE</h2> +</div> + +<p class="nindc space-below2"> +Delivered at Paris, May 30, 1878, the hundredth anniversary of +Voltaire’s death.</p> + + +<p>A hundred years ago today a man died. He died immortal. He departed +laden with years, laden with works, laden with the most illustrious and +the most fearful of responsibilities, the responsibility of the human +conscience informed and rectified. He went cursed and blessed, cursed +by the past, blessed by the future; and these, gentlemen, are the two +superb forms of glory. On his death bed he had, on the one hand, the +acclaim of contemporaries and of posterity; on the other, that triumph +of hooting and of hate which the implacable past bestows upon those +who have combatted it. He was more than a man; he was an age. He had +exercised a function and fulfilled a mission. He had been evidently +chosen for the work which he had done, by the supreme will,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> which +manifests itself as visibly in the laws of destiny as in the laws of +nature.</p> + +<p>The eighty-four years which this man lived occupy the interval that +separates the monarchy at its apogee from the revolution at its dawn. +When he was born Louis XIV still reigned, when he died Louis XVI +reigned already; so that his cradle could see the last rays of the +great throne, and his coffin the first gleams from the great abyss. +[Applause.]</p> + +<p>Before going further, let us come to an understanding, gentlemen, upon +the word abyss. There are good abysses: such are the abysses in which +evil is engulfed. [Bravo!]</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, since I have interrupted myself, allow me to complete my +thought. No word imprudent or unsound will be pronounced here. We are +here to perform an act of civilization. We are here to make affirmation +of progress, to pay respect to philosophers for the benefits of +philosophy, to bring to the eighteenth century the testimony of the +nineteenth, to honor magnanimous combatants and good servants, to +felicitate the noble effort of peoples, industry, science, the valiant +march in advance, the toil to cement human accord; in one word, to +glorify peace, that sublime, universal desire. Peace is the virtue +of civilization; war is its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> crime. [Applause.] We are here, at this +grand moment, in this solemn hour to bow religiously before the moral +law, and to say to the world, which hears France, this: There is only +one power, conscience in the service of justice; and there is only +one glory, genius in the service of truth. [Movement.] That said, I +continue.</p> + +<p>Before the revolution, gentlemen, the social structure was this:</p> + +<p>At the base, the people:</p> + +<p>Above the people, religion represented by the clergy;</p> + +<p>By the side of religion, justice represented by the magistracy.</p> + +<p>And, at that period of human society, what was the people? It was +ignorance. What was religion? It was intolerance. And what was justice? +It was injustice. Am I going too far in my words? Judge.</p> + +<p>I will confine myself to the citation of two facts, but decisive.</p> + +<p>At Toulouse, October 13, 1761, there was found in a lower story of a +house, a young man hanged. The crowd gathered, the clergy fulminated, +the magistracy investigated. It was a suicide; they made of it an +assassination. In what interest? In the interest of religion.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> And who +was accused? The father. He was a Huguenot, and he wished to hinder his +son from becoming a Catholic. There was here a moral monstrosity and a +material impossibility; no matter! This father had killed his son; this +old man had hanged this young man. Justice travailled, and this was the +result. On the month of March, 1762, a man with white hair, Jean Calas, +was conducted to a public place, stripped naked, stretched upon a +wheel, the members bound upon it, the head hanging. Three men are there +upon a scaffold, a magistrate, named David, charged to superintend the +punishment, a priest to hold the crucifix, and the executioner with a +bar of iron in his hand. The patient, stupefied and terrible, regards +not the priest, and looks at the executioner. The executioner lifts the +bar of iron, and breaks one of his arms. The victim groans and swoons. +The magistrate comes forward; they make the condemned inhale salts; he +returns to life. Then another stroke of the bar; another groan. Calas +loses consciousness; they revive him, and the executioner begins again; +and, as each limb before being broken in two places receives two blows, +that makes eight punishments. After the eighth swooning the priest +offers him the crucifix to kiss; Calas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> turns away his head, and the +executioner gives him the <i>coup de grace</i>; that is to say, crushes +in his chest with the thick end of the bar of iron. So died Jean Calas.</p> + +<p>That lasted two hours. After his death, the evidence of the suicide +came to light. But an assassination had been committed. By whom? By the +judges. [Great sensation. Applause.]</p> + +<p>Another fact. After the old man, the young man. Three years later, in +1765, at Abbeville, the day after a night of storm and high wind, there +was found upon the pavement of a bridge an old crucifix of worm-eaten +wood, which for three centuries had been fastened to the parapet. Who +had thrown down this crucifix? Who had committed this sacrilege? It +is not known. Perhaps a passerby. Perhaps the wind. Who is the guilty +one? The Bishop of Amiens launches a <i>monitoire</i>. Note what a +<i>monitoire</i> was: it was an order to all the faithful, on pain +of hell, to declare what they knew or believed they knew of such or +such a fact; a murderous injunction, when addressed by fanaticism +to ignorance. The <i>monitoire</i> of the Bishop of Amiens does its +work; the town gossip assumes the character of the crime charged. +Justice discovers, or believes it discovers, that on the night when the +crucifix was thrown down,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> two men, two officers, one named La Barre, +the other d’Etallonde, passed over the bridge of Abbeville, that they +were drunk, and that they sang a guard-room song. The tribunal was the +Seneschalcy of Abbeville. The Seneschalcy of Abbeville was equivalent +to the court of the Capitouls of Toulouse. It was not less just. Two +orders for arrest were issued. d’Etallonde escaped, La Barre was taken. +Him they delivered to judicial examination. He denied having crossed +the bridge; he confessed to having sung the song. The Seneschalcy of +Abbeville condemned him; he appealed to the Parliament of Paris. He +was conducted to Paris; the sentence was found good and confirmed. He +was conducted back to Abbeville in chains. I abridge. The monstrous +hour arrives. They begin by subjecting the Chevalier de La Barre +to the torture, ordinary and extraordinary, to make him reveal his +accomplices. Accomplices in what? In having crossed a bridge and sung +a song. During the torture one of his knees was broken; his confessor, +on hearing the bones crack, fainted away. The next day, June 5, 1766, +La Barre was drawn to the great square of Abbeville, where flamed a +penitential fire; the sentence was read to La Barre; then they cut off +one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> of his hands; then they tore out his tongue with iron pinchers; +then, in mercy, his head was cut off and thrown into the fire. So died +the Chevalier de La Barre. He was nineteen years of age. [Long and +profound sensation.]</p> + +<p>Then, O Voltaire! thou didst utter a cry of horror, and it will be +thine eternal glory! [Thunders of applause.]</p> + +<p>Then didst thou enter upon the appalling trial of the past; thou didst +plead, against tyrants and monsters, the cause of the human race, +and thou didst gain it. Great man, blessed be thou forever! [Renewed +applause.]</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, the frightful things which I have recalled were accomplished +in the midst of a polite society; its life was gay and light; people +went and came; they looked neither above nor below themselves; their +indifference had become carelessness; graceful poets, Saint-Aulaire, +Boufflers, Gentil-Bernard, composed pretty verses; the court was all +festival; Versailles was brilliant; Paris ignored what was passing; and +then it was that, through religious ferocity, the judges made an old +man die upon the wheel, and the priests tore out a child’s tongue for a +song. [Vivid emotion. Applause.]</p> + +<p>In the presence of this society, frivolous and dismal, Voltaire alone, +having before his eyes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> those united forces, the court, the nobility, +capital; that unconscious power, the blind multitude; that terrible +magistracy, so severe to subjects, so docile to the master, crushing +and flattering, kneeling upon the people before the king [Bravo!] that +clergy, vile <i>melange</i> of hypocrisy and fanaticism; Voltaire +alone, I repeat it, declared war against that coalition of all the +social iniquities, against that enormous and terrible world, and he +accepted battle with it. And what was his weapon? That which has +the lightness of the wind and the power of the thunderbolt. A pen. +[Applause.]</p> + +<p>With that weapon he fought; with that weapon he conquered.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, let us salute that memory.</p> + +<p>Voltaire conquered; Voltaire waged the splendid kind of warfare, the +war of one alone against all; that is to say, the grand warfare. The +war of thought against matter, the war of reason against prejudice, the +war of the just against the unjust, the war for the oppressed against +the oppressor, the war of goodness, the war of kindness. He had the +tenderness of a woman and the wrath of a hero. He was a great mind, and +an immense heart. [Bravos.]</p> + +<p>He conquered the old code and the old dogma. He conquered the feudal +lord, the gothic judge,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> the Roman priest. He raised the populace to +the dignity of people. He taught, pacificated, and civilized. He fought +for Sirven and Montbailly, as for Calas and La Barre; he accepted all +the menaces, all the outrages, all the persecutions, calumny, and +exile. He was indefatigable and immovable. He conquered violence by +a smile, despotism by sarcasm, infallibility by irony, obstinacy by +perseverance, ignorance by truth.</p> + +<p>I have just pronounced the word <i>smile</i>. I pause at it. Smile! It +is Voltaire.</p> + +<p>Let us say it, gentlemen, pacification (<i>apaise-ment?</i>) is the +great side of the philosopher: in Voltaire the equilibrium always +reestablishes itself at last. Whatever may be his just wrath, it +passes, and the irritated Voltaire always gives place to the Voltaire +calmed. Then in that profound eye the SMILE appears.</p> + +<p>That smile is wisdom. That smile, I repeat, is Voltaire. That smile +sometimes becomes laughter, but the philosophic sadness tempers it. +Toward the strong, it is mockery; toward the weak, it is a caress. +It disquiets the oppressor, and reassures the oppressed. Against the +great, it is raillery; for the little, it is pity. Ah, let us be moved +by that smile! It had in it the rays of the dawn. It illuminated the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +true, the just, the good, and what there is of worthy in the useful. +It lighted up the interior of superstitions. Those ugly things it is +salutary to see; he has shown them. Luminous, that smile was fruitful +also. The new society, the desire for equality and concession, and +that beginning of fraternity which called itself tolerance, reciprocal +good-will, the just accord of men and rights, reason recognized as the +supreme law, the annihilation of prejudices and fixed opinions, the +serenity of souls, the spirit of indulgence and of pardon, harmony, +peace—behold what has come from that great smile!</p> + +<p>On the day—very near, without any doubt—when the identity of wisdom +and clemency will be recognized, the day when the amnesty will be +proclaimed, I affirm it, up there, in the stars, Voltaire will smile. +[Triple salvo of applause. Cries, <i>Vive l’amnestie!</i>]</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen +hundred years apart, there is a mysterious relation.</p> + +<p>To combat Pharisaism; to unmask imposture; to overthrow tyrannies, +usurpations, prejudices, falsehoods, superstitions; to demolish the +temple in order to rebuild it, that is to say, to replace the false by +the true; to attack a ferocious magistracy; to attack a sanguinary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +priesthood; to take a whip and drive the money-changers from the +sanctuary; to reclaim the heritage of the disinherited; to protect the +weak, the poor, the suffering, the overwhelmed, to struggle for the +persecuted and oppressed—that was the war of Jesus Christ. And who +waged that war? It was Voltaire.</p> + +<p>The completion of the evangelical work is the philosophical work; the +spirit of meekness began, the spirit of tolerance continued. Let us say +it with a sentiment of profound respect: Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. +Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the sweetness +of the present civilization. [Prolonged applause.]</p> + +<p>Did Voltaire always smile? No. He was often indignant. You remarked it +in my first words.</p> + +<p>Certainly, gentlemen, measure, reserve, proportion are reason’s +supreme law. We can say that moderation is the very respiration of the +philosopher. The effort of the wise man ought to be to condense into +a sort of serene certainty all the approximations of which philosophy +is composed. But at certain moments, the passion for the true rises +powerful and violent, and it is within its right in so doing, like the +stormy winds which purify. Never, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> insist upon it, will any wise man +shake those two august supports of social labor, justice and hope; and +all will respect the judge if he is embodied justice, and all will +venerate the priest if he represents hope. But if the magistracy calls +itself torture, if the Church calls itself Inquisition, then Humanity +looks them in the face, and says to the judge: I will none of thy law! +and says to the priest: I will none of thy dogma! I will none of thy +fire upon earth and thy hell in the future! [Wild sensation. Prolonged +applause.] Then philosophy rises in wrath, and arraigns the judge +before justice, and the priest before God! [Redoubled applause.]</p> + +<p>This is what Voltaire did. It was grand.</p> + +<p>What Voltaire was, I have said; what his age was, I am about to say.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, great men rarely come alone; large trees seem larger when +they dominate a forest; there they are at home. There was a forest of +minds around Voltaire; that forest was the eighteenth century. Among +those minds there were summits, Montesquieu, Buffon, Beaumarchais, and +among others, two, the highest after Voltaire—Rousseau and Diderot. +Those thinkers taught men to reason; reasoning well leads to acting +well; justness in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> mind becomes justice in the heart. Those toilers +for progress labored usefully. Buffon founded naturalism; Beaumarchais +discovered outside of Molière, a kind of comedy till then unknown, +almost the social comedy; Montesquieu made in law some excavations so +profound that he succeeded in exhuming the right. As to Rousseau, as +to Diderot, let us pronounce those two names apart; Diderot, a vast +intelligence, inquisitive, a tender heart, a thirst for justice, wished +to give certain notions as the foundation of true ideas, and created +the encyclopaedia. Rousseau rendered to woman an admirable service, +completing the mother by the nurse, placing near one another those two +majesties of the cradle. Rousseau, a writer, eloquent and pathetic, a +profound oratorical dreamer, often divined and proclaimed political +truth; his ideal borders upon the real; he had the glory of being +the first man in France who called himself citizen. The civic fiber +vibrates in Rousseau; that which vibrates in Voltaire is the universal +fiber. One can say that in the fruitful eighteenth century, Rosseau +represented the people; Voltaire, still more vast, represented Man. +Those powerful writers disappeared, but they left us their soul, the +Revolution. [Applause.]</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> + +<p>Yes, the French Revolution was their soul. It was their radiant +manifestation. It came from them; we find them everywhere in that blest +and superb catastrophe, which formed the conclusion of the past and +the opening of the future. In that clear light, which is peculiar to +revolutions, and which beyond causes permits us to perceive effects, +and beyond the first plan the second, we see behind Danton Diderot, +behind Robespierre Rousseau, and behind Mirabeau Voltaire. These formed +those.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, to sum up epochs, by giving them the names of men, to name +ages, to make of them in some sort human personages, has only been done +by three peoples, Greece, Italy, France. We say, the Age of Pericles, +the Age of Augustus, the Age of Leo X, the Age of Louis XIV, the Age of +Voltaire. Those appellations have a great significance. This privilege +of giving names to periods belonging exclusively to Greece, to Italy, +and to France, is the highest mark of civilization. Until Voltaire, +they were the names of the chiefs of states; Voltaire is more than the +chief of a state; he is a chief of ideas; with Voltaire a new cycle +begins. We feel that henceforth the supreme governmental power is to +be thought. Civilization obeyed force; it will obey the ideal.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> It was +the scepter and the sword broken, to be replaced by the ray of light; +that is to say, authority transfigured into liberty. Henceforth, no +other sovereignty than the law for the people, and the conscience for +the individual. For each of us, the two aspects of progress separate +themselves clearly, and they are these: to exercise one’s right; that +is to say, to be a man; to perform one’s duty; that is to say, to be a +citizen.</p> + +<p>Such is the signification of that word, the Age of Voltaire; such is +the meaning of that august event, the French Revolution.</p> + +<p>The two memorable centuries which preceded the eighteenth, prepared for +it; Rabelais warned royalty in Gargantua, and Molière warned the church +in Tartuffe. Hatred of force and respect for right are visible in those +two illustrious spirits.</p> + +<p>Whoever says today, <i>might makes right</i>, performs an act of the +Middle Ages, and speaks to men three hundred years behind their time. +[Repeated applause.]</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, the nineteenth century glorifies the eighteenth century. The +eighteenth proposed, the nineteenth concludes. And my last word will be +the declaration, tranquil but inflexible, of progress.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> + +<p>The time has come. The right has found its formula: human federation.</p> + +<p>Today, force is called violence, and begins to be judged; war is +arraigned. Civilization, upon the complaint of the human race, orders +the trial, and draws up the great criminal indictment of conquerors +and captains. [Emotion.] This witness, History, is summoned. The +reality appears. The factitious brilliancy is dissipated. In many +cases, the hero is a species of assassin. [Applause.] The peoples +begin to comprehend that increasing the magnitude of a crime cannot be +its diminution; that, if to kill is a crime, to kill much cannot be +an extenuating circumstance [Laughter and bravos]; that, if to steal +is a shame, to invade cannot be a glory [Repeated applause]; that +<i>Te Deums</i> do not count for much in this matter; that homicide is +homicide; that bloodshed is bloodshed; that it serves nothing to call +one’s self Caesar or Napoleon; and that in the eyes of the eternal God, +the figure of a murderer is not changed because, instead of a gallow’s +cap, there is placed upon his head an emperor’s crown. [Long continued +acclamation. Triple salvo of applause.]</p> + +<p>Ah! let us proclaim absolute truths. Let us dishonor war. No; glorious +war does not exist.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> No; it is not good, and it is not useful, to make +corpses. No; it cannot be that life travails for death. No; oh, mothers +who surround me, it cannot be that war, the robber, should continue +to take from you your children. No; it cannot be that women should +bear children in pain, that men should be born, that people should +plow and sow, that the farmer should fertilize the fields, and the +workmen enrich the city, that industry should produce marvels, that +genius should produce prodigies, that the vast human activity should, +in presence of the starry sky, multiply efforts and creations, all +to result in that frightful international exposition which is called +a field of battle! [Profound sensation. The whole audience rises and +applauds the orator.]</p> + +<p>The true field of battle, behold it’s here! It is this rendezvous of +the masterpieces of human labor which Paris offers the world at this +moment.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>The true victory is the victory of Paris. [Applause.]</p> + +<p>Alas! we cannot hide it from ourselves, that the present hour, worthy +as it is of admiration and respect, has still some mournful aspects; +there are still shadows upon the horizon; the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> tragedy of the peoples +is not finished; war, wicked war, is still there, and it has the +audacity to lift its head in the midst of this august festival of +peace. Princes, for two years past, obstinately adhere to a fatal +misunderstanding; their discord forms an obstacle to our concord, and +they are ill-inspired to condemn us to the statement of such a contrast.</p> + +<p>Let this contrast lead us back to Voltaire. In the presence of menacing +possibilities, let us be more pacific than ever. Let us turn toward +that great death, toward that great life, toward that great spirit. Let +us bend before the venerated tombs. Let us take counsel of him whose +life, useful to men, was extinguished a hundred years ago, but whose +work is immortal. Let us take counsel of the other powerful thinkers, +the auxiliaries of this glorious Voltaire, of Jean Jacques, of Diderot, +of Montesquieu. Let us give the word to those great voices. Let us stop +the effusion of human blood. Enough! enough! despots. Ah! barbarism +persists; very well, let civilization be indignant. Let the eighteenth +century come to the help of the nineteenth. The philosophers, our +predecessors, are the apostles of the true; let us invoke those +illustrious shades; let them, before monarchies meditate wars, +proclaim<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> the right of man to life, the right of conscience to liberty, +the sovereignty of reason, the holiness of labor, the beneficence of +peace; and since night issues from the thrones, let the light come from +the tombs. [Acclamations unanimous and prolonged. From all sides bursts +the cry: “Vive Victor Hugo.”]</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> The exposition of 1878 was then open in Paris.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_SKETCH_OF_VOLTAIRE">A SKETCH OF VOLTAIRE</h2> +</div> + +<p>Francois Marie Arouet, generally known by the name of Voltaire, was +born at Chatenay on February 20, 1694. To write his life during those +eighty-three years would be to give the intellectual history of Europe.</p> + +<p>While Voltaire was living at Ferney in 1768, he gave a curious +exhibition of that profane sportiveness which was a strong element in +his character. On Easter Sunday he took his secretary Wagnière with +him to commune at the village church, and also “to lecture a little +those scoundrels who steal continually.” Apprised of Voltaire’s sermon +on theft, the Bishop of Anneci rebuked him, and finally “forbade every +curate, priest, and monk of his diocese to confess, absolve or give the +communion to the seigneur of Ferney, with his express orders, under +pain of interdiction.” With a wicked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> light in his eyes, Voltaire said +he could commune in spite of the Bishop; nay, that the ceremony should +be gone through in his chamber. Then ensued an exquisite comedy, which +shakes one’s side even as described by the stolid Wagnière. Feigning +a deadly sickness, Voltaire took to his bed. The surgeon, who found +his pulse was excellent, was bamboozled into certifying that he was in +danger of death. Then the priest was summoned to administer the last +consolation. The poor devil at first objected, but Voltaire threatened +him with legal proceedings for refusing to bring the sacrament to a +dying man, who had never been excommunicated. This was accompanied +with a grave declaration that M. de Voltaire “had never ceased to +respect and to practice the Catholic religion.” Eventually the priest +came “half dead with fear.” Voltaire demanded absolution at once, but +the Capuchin pulled out of his pocket a profession of faith, drawn up +by the Bishop, which Voltaire was required to sign. Then the comedy +deepened. Voltaire kept demanding absolution, and the distracted priest +kept presenting the document for his signature. At last the Lord +of Ferney had his way. The priest gave him the wafer, and Voltaire +declared “Having my God in my mouth,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> that he forgave his enemies. +Directly he left the room, Voltaire leaped briskly out of bed, where a +minute before he seemed unable to move. “I have had a little trouble,” +he said to Wagnière, “with this comical genius of a Capuchin; but that +was only for amusement, and to accomplish a good purpose. Let us take a +turn in the garden. I told you I would be confessed and commune in my +bed, in spite of M. Biord.”</p> + +<p>Voltaire treated Christianity so lightly that he confessed and took the +sacrament for a joke. Is it wonderful if he did the same thing on his +death-bed to secure the decent burial for his corpse? He remembered his +own bitter sorrow and indignation, which he expressed in burning verse, +when the remains of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur were refused sepulture +because she died outside the pale of the Church. Fearing similar +treatment himself, he arranged to cheat the Church again. By the agency +of his nephew, the Abbé Mignot, the Abbé Gautier was brought to his +bedside, and according to Condorcet he “confessed Voltaire, receiving +from him a profession of faith, by which he declared that he died in +the Catholic religion, wherein he was born.” This story is generally +credited, but its truth is by no means indisputable;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> for in the Abbé +Gautier’s declaration to the Prior of the Abbey of Scellieres, where +Voltaire’s remains were interred, he says that when he visited M. de +Voltaire, he found him “<i>unfit to be confessed</i>.”</p> + +<p>The curate of St. Sulpice was annoyed at being forestalled by the Abbé +Gautier, and as Voltaire was his parishioner he demanded “a detailed +profession of faith and a disavowal of all heretical doctrines.” He +paid the dying Freethinker many unwelcome visits, in the vain hope of +obtaining a full recantation, which would be a fine feather in his hat. +The last of these visits is thus described by Wagnière, who was an +eye-witness to the scene. I take Carlyle’s translation:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Two days before that mournful death, M. l’Abbé Mignot, his nephew, +went to seek the Curé of St. Sulpice and the Abbé Gautier, and brought +them into his uncle’s sick room; who, on being informed that the Abbé +Gautier was there, ‘Ah, well!’ said he, ‘give him my compliments +and my thanks.’ The Abbé spoke some words to him, exhorting him to +patience. The Curé of St. Sulpice then came forward, having announced +himself, and asked of M. de Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he +acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ? The sick man +pushed one of his hands against the Curé’s calotte (coif), shoving him +back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, ‘Let me die in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +peace (Laissez-moi mourir en paix).’ The Curé seemingly considered +his person soiled, and his coif dishonored, by the touch of the +philosopher. He made the sick-nurse give him a little brushing, and +then went out with the Abbé Gautier.”</p> +</div> + +<p>A further proof that Voltaire made no real recantation lies in the +fact that the Bishop of Troyes sent a peremptory dispatch to the Prior +of Scellieres, which lay in his diocese, forbidding him to inter +the heretic’s remains. The dispatch, however, arrived too late, and +Voltaire’s ashes remained there until 1791, when they were removed to +Paris and placed in the Pantheon, by order of the National Assembly.</p> + +<p>Voltaire’s last moments are described by Wagnière. I again take +Carlyle’s translation:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“He expired about a quarter past eleven at night, <i>with the most +perfect tranquility</i>, after having suffered the cruelest pains +in consequence of those fatal drugs, which his own imprudence, and +especially that of the persons who should have looked to it, made +him swallow. Ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand +of Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watching him, pressed it, +and said, ‘<i>Adieu, mon cher Morand, je me meurs</i>’—‘Adieu, my +dear Morand, I am gone.’ These are the last words uttered by M. de +Voltaire.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Such are the facts of Voltaire’s decease. He made no recantation, +he refused to utter or sign a confession of faith, but with the +connivance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> of his nephew, the Abbé Mignot, he tricked the Church into +granting him a decent burial, not choosing to be flung into a ditch or +buried like a dog. His heresy was never seriously questioned at the +time, and the clergy actually clamored for the expulsion of the Prior +who had allowed his body to be interred in a church vault.</p> + +<p>Many years afterwards the priests pretended that Voltaire died raving. +They declared that Marshal Richelieu was horrified by the scene and +obliged to leave the chamber. From France the pious concoction spread +to England, until it was exposed by Sir Charles Morgan, who published +the following extracts from a letter by Dr. Burard, who, as assistant +physician, was constantly about Voltaire in his last moments:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“I feel happy in being able, while paying homage to the truth, +to destroy the effects of the lying stories which have been told +respecting the last moments of Mons. de Voltaire. I was, by office, +one of those who were appointed to watch the whole progress of his +illness, with M. M. Tronchin, Lorry, and Try, his medical attendants. +I never left him for an instant during his last moments, and I can +certify that we invariably observed in him the same strength of +character, though his disease was necessarily attended with horrible +pain. (Here follow the details of his case.) We positively forbade him +to speak in order to prevent the increase<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> of a spitting of blood, +with which he was attacked; still he continued to communicate with us +by means of little cards, on which he wrote his questions; we replied +to him verbally, and if he was not satisfied, he always made his +observations to us in writing. He therefore, retained his faculties up +to the last moment, and the fooleries which have been attributed to +him are deserving of the greatest contempt. It could not even be said +that such or such person had related any circumstance of his death, +as being witness to it; for at the last, admission to his chamber +was forbidden to any person. Those who came to obtain intelligence +respecting the patient, waited in the saloon, and other apartments at +hand. The proposition, therefore, which has been put in the mouth of +Marshal Richelieu is as unfounded as the rest.</p> + +<p>“Paris, April 3rd, 1819.</p> + +<p class="right"> +(Signed) <span class="allsmcap">BURARD</span>.”<br> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Another slander appears to emanate from the Abbé Barruel, who was so +well informed about Voltaire that he calls him “the dying Atheist,” +when, as all the world knows, he was a Deist.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“In his last illness he sent for Dr. Tronchin. When the doctor came, +he found Voltaire in the greatest agony, exclaiming with the utmost +horror—‘I am abandoned by God and man.’ He then said, ‘Doctor, I will +give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me six months’ +life.’ The doctor answered, ‘Sir, you cannot live six weeks.’ Voltaire +replied, ‘Then I shall go to hell, and you will go with me!’ and soon +after expired.”</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p> + +<p>When, the clergy are reduced to manufacture such contemptible +rubbish as this, they must indeed be in great straits. It is flatly +contradicted by the evidence of every contemporary of Voltaire.</p> + +<p>My readers will, I think, be fully satisfied that Voltaire neither +recanted nor died raving, but remained a skeptic to the last; passing +away quietly, at a ripe old age, to “the undiscovered country from +whose bourne no traveler returns,” and leaving behind him a name that +brightens the track of time.</p> + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="GEORG_BRANDES_ON_VOLTAIRE">GEORG BRANDES ON VOLTAIRE</h2> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="nindc space-below2">By Julius Moritzen.</p> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> a punishment, +proved in every way an advantage to his development.”</p> + +<p>Differing as day from night, English social conditions as compared with +the France of the period could not fail to impress the young exile.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> 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.”</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2"><span class="large">II.</span></p> + +<p>While there is no lack of historical accounts about the relations +existing between Voltaire and Frederick the Great, yet there are +phases of that relationship which still lend themselves to fresh +interpretation when viewed by one so keenly analytical as Georg +Brandes. The Danish critic declares emphatically that history can +show few instances where a ruler in his relations with a great +productive mentality has proceeded in such a way as to make the contact +significant to both principals.</p> + +<p>“In ancient times,” Brandes writes, “Aristotle was the teacher of +Alexander, and the latter, when on his campaign would send Aristotle +books and material for study. But Alexander could exert no influence on +the philosopher. Caesar and Cicero knew each other thoroughly. Cicero +was Caesar’s political opponent. Nevertheless, Caesar paid homage to +Cicero as the representative of literature and repaid his attacks by +showing him knightly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> attention. But neither Caesar nor Cicero owed +each other any intellectual enrichment.</p> + +<p>“In later times the relations between Goethe and Karl August lasted +from the early youth of both until the death of the prince. Goethe +was indebted to the Duke of Weimar for a secure position and received +through this connection much experience. But intellectual impression +he did not obtain from this source, for in spite of Karl August’s +considerable capability, a genius he was not.</p> + +<p>“In even later times there is the relationship between Richard Wagner +and Ludwig II. Wagner had King Ludwig to thank for comfort and a place +where he could work in quiet. But the King did not influence the +composer intellectually.</p> + +<p>“The historical relation between Voltaire and Frederick the Great +stands alone. This is no harmonious relationship. In the course of +the first fifteen years enthusiasm is abroad; then the friendship is +undermined through Voltaire’s undisciplined methods and Frederick’s +exasperation. Then again the relationship is renewed, the break is +healed and the friendliness is maintained through the lives of both. +This is striking evidence of the spirit of world-citizenship that +prevailed in the eighteenth century,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> since the ruler and the writer +belong to two different people, even while their language is the same. +But the decisive fact here is that both the writer and the ruler are +geniuses, the acknowledged geniuses of the period, and that they +influence each other.”</p> + +<p>Where Georg Brandes excels in portraying great men of the past is in +his masterful pictures of contrasts, the analytical and synthetic so +nicely proportioned that in its final presentation the picture leaves +no doubt but what scholarly devotion to a set task leaves little to be +said on the subject beyond what Brandes himself contributes. On the +question of the Voltaire relationship with Frederick he writes further:</p> + +<p>“When in August, 1736, Voltaire received the first letter from the +Crown Prince of Prussia he was in his forty-second year. The writer was +24 years old. Voltaire was famed throughout Europe and looked upon as +the most important author of the period. Frederick was a young prince, +unknown except for what he had gone through. He had had to suffer for +his inclination and peculiar intellectuality, just as Voltaire had to +pay a price for his wit and the revolutionary might of his thinking. +Both had been the victims of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> brutality of the time and the +arbitrariness of the system of government.</p> + +<p>“The father of Frederick, whom Carlyle idealized, in spite of all his +good qualities as organizer, was restive and quick tempered; with all +his rectitude often raw and cruel. He had prescribed an educational +program for his son that excluded everything unnecessary, among this +Latin and literature. The King detested everything foreign. If he +permitted French this was simply because German was then scarcely +considered a language. He took pleasure in personally giving his +subjects a beating on the street in case the one or other incident gave +him dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>“When Frederick as a youth studied forbidden things, got into debt, +cared nothing for parades of the troops, the father demanded that +he should renounce his right to the throne. When he refused he was +treated barbarously, called a coward because he did not resist. In 1730 +he made an attempt to escape to England. But an intercepted letter +to his friend Katte revealed the scheme to the King. Again he was +treated abominably and a court-martial was appointed for the purpose +of sentencing him to death. That was the custom of the time. Twelve +years before, Peter the Great had his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> son Alexei beaten to death and +he himself wielded the knout. When the Prussian court-martial failed to +act as blindly as the Russian the King had the prince put in prison in +Kuestrin.”</p> + +<p>Passing over the years intervening between that earlier time and when +Frederick ascended the throne, May 31, 1740, a period replete with +letter writing and exchange of compliments describing in Brandes’ +inimitable manner, the Danish critic tells of Frederick’s joy that now +at last he can come face to face with the object of his admiration.</p> + +<p>“Frederick, in spite of the many things to occupy him, makes his debut +as a true disciple of Voltaire,” declares Brandes. “His first act is +the doing away with torture as punishment, the dissolution of the +Potsdam guard, the guard that the father had hired, secured at whatever +cost, and calling back a thinker like Wolff to become once more +professor at Halle.”</p> + +<p>The first meeting between Voltaire and Frederick the Great gives +Brandes an opportunity for bringing into play his exceptional faculty +for entering into the very minutest description of these contrasting +personalities, and while German culture of that day affected the French +satirist quite differently from what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> he experienced on English soil, +still there is no doubt that Voltaire’s international outlook was +broadened through contact with the King who in his own way stood head +and shoulders over his people.</p> + +<p>Badly as Voltaire was being treated at home, the fact that the King of +Prussia made so much of him and gave his admiration public expression +did not fail to improve his status in the eyes of the leading men of +France. The time had gone by when Louis XIV dominated Europe so that +fear prevailed because of the French generals and armies. A number of +defeats like that at Dettingen resulted in the fact that Europe as a +whole made merry on account of French politics and French militarism.</p> + +<p>Outside of France Louis the Beloved did not count. All eyes were +directed toward the King of Prussia. Every power tried to draw him +within its particular circle. The English strove to keep alive his +dislike of France. It would mean much to the French nation, who so far +had been unable to retain her former allies and had been unsuccessful +in gaining new ones, if it by any possibility could enter into an +alliance with just that King whose name spelled ingenious energy. +Frederick was a hero to Voltaire. On the other hand, Voltaire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> was the +idol of the King. At any rate, therefore, it was worth the trial to +utilize the poet as secret diplomat.</p> + +<p>What followed has been dealt with exhaustively by many able pens, but +Brandes manages to give the historical facts a setting so picturesque +and informing that the entire relationships between Frederick the +Great and Voltaire appears in a new light and illustrates pointedly +what the French nation owed to the man whose doctrines were the cause +of a persecution that reflects little glory on the period so far as +France was concerned. Nevertheless, Francois de Voltaire has found in +the twentieth century no writer who to better purpose brings out the +particular qualities that places him among the great internationalists +than Georg Brandes has done in his monumental work.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2"><span class="large">III.</span></p> + +<p>“Voltaire’s ‘Charles XII,’” says Brandes, “stands as a portrait of +a remarkable man, executed by a master. It caused Europe to take an +interest in the Sweden of that time comparable with what Denmark must +thank Shakespeare for in the case of Hamlet.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p> + +<p>“Characteristically enough, Voltaire starts his story by a dramatic +contrast between the two main persons, Charles XII and Peter the +Great, both of whom are sketched in detail. Peter is immediately +brought on the scene because no matter how great the interest of +the author in the Swedish King’s grandly-planned character and his +remarkable fate, his real hero is not Charles, but Peter; not only +that bellicose and obstinate in Peter’s character that plunged his +country into misfortune, but the sovereign who in spite of the brutal +in the pleasures that he sought, in spite of the wildness and cruel +vengefulness was an educator, a civilizing influence who conquered +a barbarism many centuries old, and introduced industry, technique, +building art, science among a people gifted in a way, but fighting +against innovations.</p> + +<p>“With that clarity that is Voltaire’s foundation quality as historian +he places Polish society and the Polish nation side by side with +the Swedish and the Russian, and thus the description of August +the Strong’s and later Stanislaw Leszczynski’s personalities is as +necessary as a background as the characterization of the Swedish and +Russian nature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> through the presentation of Charles XII and Peter the +Great.”</p> + +<p>With regard to Voltaire’s relations to Russia as a whole, Brandes tells +how Frederick the Great looked with jealous eyes on the attention +that Voltaire paid to the Russian people in depicting the life-work +of Peter, since he looked for undivided devotion of the man whose +pen in that day was enough to shed luster on a country. Elizabeth, +the daughter of Peter the Great, while uncouth in many ways, was not +without taste for intellect and wit, and in approaching Voltaire after +becoming Empress sent him her portrait surrounded by large diamonds. +But it was in the person of Catherine II that Voltaire a second time +enters into acquaintance with a sovereign who is also a genius, a +decided and reformative genius, who puts herself into apprenticeship +under him and does everything to show him how grateful she is for what +he has done.</p> + +<p>“There are certain parallels between Frederick and Catherine,” states +Brandes. “Both were of German antecedents and had in their blood German +respect for intellectual superiority, the German taste for knowledge +and mental values. But neither one stood in any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> cultural relation +to Germanism; both wrote and spoke French to perfection. Both were +Voltairians to their fingers’ tips. But in spite of their love for +French civilization neither one of them had ever seen Paris or France.”</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2"><span class="large">IV.</span></p> + +<p>There is a reference to Voltaire’s internationalism and view of life in +the closing chapter of Brandes’ work on the great Frenchman which sums +up his personality in a most conspicuous manner, as follows:</p> + +<p>“There exists a curious little planet, the highly gifted population of +which is distinguished among other things by its equally thoughtless +tendency to praise and condemn. It poisons its wise men, it crucifies +its saviors, its heroes and thinkers it burns at the stake, its +deliverer it puts into prison, then releases them, utilizes them, +applauds them after they have died, and then usually puts them into a +hole as one would filth or treasure.</p> + +<p>“The giant from Sirius discovered this little planet in the universe +and found that it was populated by what to him seem funny little +creatures, mostly concerned with making existence unpleasant for each +other, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> destroy and eliminate each other. He did not underestimate +their many no doubt valuable and lovable qualities. Now and then he saw +them aid each other.</p> + +<p>“But he wondered at their marked predilections to misunderstand, ill +use and praise their leading personalities. Those who would drag these +little beings out of that mudbed of stupidity into which they not +unseldom had strayed they liked best of all to drown in this mire. +Afterwards they would raise statues in honor of these same individuals, +in earliest times made of wood or stone, later of gold and ivory, more +recently of marble and bronze. When this was done they took pleasure in +throwing all kinds of filthiness on these statues, cleanse them again, +then once more defile them, and after a long period let them appear +finally in their true shape and color.”</p> + +<p>Here we have the story of Francois de Voltaire in a nutshell.</p> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote spa1"> +<p class="nindc"><b>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</b></p> + + +<p>Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced.</p> + +<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed.</p> + +<p>A Table of Contents has been added.</p> +</div></div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76789 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/76789-h/images/cover.jpg b/76789-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..56624c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/76789-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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