VOLTAIRE. 217 VOLTAIRE. from there to I'aris, ami to Versaillos, where through the inlhience of l^ouis XV.'s famous mistress, •Madame de Pompadour, he even became a Court cliaracter. His first step in tliis direc- tion was his api)ointment as liistoriograplier of France and Iheii as one of the ^'ontlemeu of the King's bedchamher, which were soon followed by his election to the I<'rcncli Academy (ITKi). ifis I'ocine dc Funlenoy (1745), describing a battle won by the French over tiie Eng- lish during the War of the Austrian Suc- cession, and his Precis du sievlc de Louis XV., as well as his two dramatic Court entertainments, La princesse de Kavarre and Le triomplie de Trajan, were the outcome of the con- nection of Voltaire with the Court of Louis XV. The performance of the Triomphe de Trajan marked the end of Voltaire's favor at ('(nirt. While still holding his Court oll'iees, Voltaire re- turned to Circy, meaning to spend there the re- mainder of his life. There should also be men- tioned the comedy L'enfant prodiyue (1730) and the tragedies Mahomet (1742) and Merope (1743). All his plans were upset in 1749 by the death of Madame du Chatelet, who had formed a new and secret connection with the poet Saint-Lambert ; and he returned to Paris, where he tried to make himself a home, kept by one of his nieces, a younr; widow, Mailamc Denis. He found the French public somewhat estranged; rivals had arisen during his absence from Paris, and he determined to fight them iipon their own ground and to put on the stage dramas written on themes already treated by them. This is one of the most unsatisfactory periods of Voltaire's life. He was dissatisfied with him- self as "well as with the rest of the world, and therefore determined to accept the offers made to him of a total change of existence by Fred- erick II., King of Prussia. His intercourse with this great man had begun in 1730, when Frederick had asked him to become one of his regular cor- respondents. Both as Prince Eoyal and after 1740 as King of Prussia^ Frederick overwhelmed the great writer with all sorts of flatteries. Af- ter Ills accession he used every efl'ort to induce Voltaire to live permanently at the Court of Prussia, but at first all these endeavors failed. There were meetings between the tw-o men, however, visits of Voltaire to Berlin and Potsdam, during one of which he performed an important diplomatic mission in behalf of the Frencli Government. The death of Madame du Chatelet removed the greatest obstacle that kept Voltaire from accepting Frederick's offers. He managed to get the permission of the King of France for this important step, and in 1750 went to Berlin. He was received with demonstrations of the deepest afTec- tion; but the opposition of their characters soon manifested itself in quarrels due largely to Frederick's autocratic temper and to the freedom with which Voltaire ridiculed, not without good reasons, the president of the Eoyal Academy of Berlin, the Frencli scientist Maupertuis. Less than two years after reaching Berlin, Voltaire left it, never to return. His stay in Prussia, however, had not been barren of literary results. While there he completed and had published in Leipzig (1751) his Siecle de Louis XIV., the success of which was greater than that of any other history previously pub- lished. .
epilogue of 'oltaire's stay with Fred-
erick happened in Frankfort, where, b}' order of Frederick, he was arrested and made to suffer harsh and insulting treatment, under the pre- text of Ids having carried away a volume of Frederick's poems. This only added to his rage, and made Frederick exceedingly unpopular for a time among men of letters. Voltaire returne<l to lrance and for a while he was without abode. Louis XV. had been offended by Voltaire's request to leave France for Berlin while holding the title of (Jcntleman of the King's Bedchamber, and would not [jcrmit him to return to Paris. Seeing him unwelcome at the Court, the men in power in other places also de-. clined to welcome him, and finally he determined again to move out of France, and in 1754 settled in the Republic' of Geneva, where he l)ought a house. He also bought a small estate in the Vaud country, tlien under the government of the Republic of Bern. But he soon discovered that he was not likely to enjoy nuich more freedom under republican and Protestant governments than under the King of lrance, and conceived the idea of being, as it were, his own .sovereign. He bought, for his lifetime, two estates in France near the boundaries of the Republic of Geneva, the estates of Tournay and of Ferney. This purchase gave him the possession of feudal rights, transferred to him and secured through the good ollices of the Dnkc of Choiseul, who had recently become the Prime Minister of Louis XV. and by whom he was greatly ad- mired. He settled in Ferney in 1758, there to spend the last twenty years of his eventful life. In the interval between his return from Berlin and his settlement at Ferney, he had published his most ambitious historic work, Essai sur I'hiS' toire f/eiicrale et sur les nia'urs et Vesprit des nations, the title given to the universal history already mentioned above. When Voltaire settled in Ferney, all his ex- tensive works, with the exception of liis Diction- naire philosophique, had been published: but his work was not yet half done. In Ferney he felt se- cure; persecution could hardly reach him. He therefore assumed a much more aggressive atti- tude toward all the abuses which he desired to destroy. Instead of undertaking large composi- tions, which he considered miwise for a man then over sixty years of age, who had always been of a sickly disposition, he sent forth hun- dreds of short writings issued under all sorts of names, .seldom under his own, printed in many different places and finding their way to the public in spite of the severe restrictions placed upon the production of literary works. His main theme was the fight against religious intolerance and religious fanaticism, against belief in miracles, and in favor of the sover- eignty of reason. Every man who suffered on ac- count of his belief found in him an eloquent and, as the event demonstrated, a powerful de- fender. The clearest demonstration of this fact was given by him in his labors in favor of the Calas family. (See C.L.s, .Je.x.) A touching episode of this period of Voltaire's life is his conduct toward a grand-niece of the great tragic poet. Pierre Corneille, of whose poverty he had heard and whom he invited to Ferney. acting to her as a father and educator, and preparing, in order to secure a dowry for her, a complete edi-
