Political Writings

by Voltaire, David Williams (Editor)

This edition of Voltaire's political writings presents a varied selection of his most interesting and controversial texts, many of which have not previously been translated into English. Their themes include the nature and legitimacy of political power, law and the social order, and the growing disorder in the French economy, and in addition they touch on specific issues such as the Seven Years' War and relations with Frederick II, and the sensational trials of Jean Calas, Sirver and the Chevalier De La Barre.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy

348 pages, Paperback

First published June 24, 1994

About the author

Complete works (1880) : https://archive.org/details/oeuvresco...

In 1694, Age of Enlightenment leader Francois-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, was born in Paris. Jesuit-educated, he began writing clever verses by the age of 12. He launched a lifelong, successful playwriting career in 1718, interrupted by imprisonment in the Bastille. Upon a second imprisonment, in which Francois adopted the pen name Voltaire, he was released after agreeing to move to London. There he wrote Lettres philosophiques (1733), which galvanized French reform. The book also satirized the religious teachings of Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal, including Pascal's famed "wager" on God. Voltaire wrote: "The interest I have in believing a thing is not a proof of the existence of that thing." Voltaire's French publisher was sent to the Bastille and Voltaire had to escape from Paris again, as judges sentenced the book to be "torn and burned in the Palace." Voltaire spent a calm 16 years with his deistic mistress, Madame du Chatelet, in Lorraine. He met the 27 year old married mother when he was 39. In his memoirs, he wrote: "I found, in 1733, a young woman who thought as I did, and decided to spend several years in the country, cultivating her mind." He dedicated Traite de metaphysique to her. In it the Deist candidly rejected immortality and questioned belief in God. It was not published until the 1780s. Voltaire continued writing amusing but meaty philosophical plays and histories. After the earthquake that leveled Lisbon in 1755, in which 15,000 people perished and another 15,000 were wounded, Voltaire wrote Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (Poem on the Lisbon Disaster): "But how conceive a God supremely good/ Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,/ Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?"

Voltaire purchased a chateau in Geneva, where, among other works, he wrote Candide (1759). To avoid Calvinist persecution, Voltaire moved across the border to Ferney, where the wealthy writer lived for 18 years until his death. Voltaire began to openly challenge Christianity, calling it "the infamous thing." He wrote Frederick the Great: "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." Voltaire ended every letter to friends with "Ecrasez l'infame" (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). His pamphlet, The Sermon on the Fifty (1762) went after transubstantiation, miracles, biblical contradictions, the Jewish religion, and the Christian God. Voltaire wrote that a true god "surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough," or inspired "books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror." He also published excerpts of Testament of the Abbe Meslier, by an atheist priest, in Holland, which advanced the Enlightenment. Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary was published in 1764 without his name. Although the first edition immediately sold out, Geneva officials, followed by Dutch and Parisian, had the books burned. It was published in 1769 as two large volumes. Voltaire campaigned fiercely against civil atrocities in the name of religion, writing pamphlets and commentaries about the barbaric execution of a Huguenot trader, who was first broken at the wheel, then burned at the stake, in 1762. Voltaire's campaign for justice and restitution ended with a posthumous retrial in 1765, during which 40 Parisian judges declared the defendant innocent. Voltaire urgently tried to save the life of Chevalier de la Barre, a 19 year old sentenced to death for blasphemy for failing to remove his hat during a religious procession. In 1766, Chevalier was beheaded after being tortured, then his body was burned, along with a copy of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. Voltaire's statue at the Pantheon was melted down during Nazi occupation. D. 1778.

Voltaire (1694-1778), pseudónimo de François-

Reviews

[Revanth Ukkalam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voltaire is a pleasure to read - different kinds of pleasure. He is cool and pleasant like the breeze; but sometimes he is deeply fizzy; other times he makes you feel uncomfortable but in a way that makes you want for more. When one wants to kill time and is ready to devour tasteful writing, one must go to Voltaire. Voltaire detests war and the delivery of justice through violence. He is a lover of good writing and culture. He almost hates religion and the men who claim to know God. But he also hates populism and a state ruled by the mob. He praises the English but puts down almost nobody. He looks at the universe and therefore thinks in universals. He at once sees before him both his contemporary Louis XIV and Lycurgus and Solon. He also views in the same breath the Japanese and Spanish in America. In these pages he studies Montesquie, analyses Grotius, and grills Rousseau. But all with wit. Some gems:

I am talking about all those other men who, over supper or in their study, set out their systems of government, reform the army, the Church, the law and the world of finance.

Poverty must work for opulence in order one day to be its equal.

I could not bear my wig-maker to be a legislator. I would prefer never to wear a wig.

You pleasure-loving Parisian, you say you love your homeland! You, who have travelled only as far as Dieppe for fresh fish… who speak your mother-tongue so nicely because you don’t know any other language, that’s what you love.