The narrative is compiled from biographies written at various periods since 1778, and is enriched in being supplemented by the little-known tributes of the most charming English writer among Voltaire's contemporaries, Oliver Goldsmith, who was personally acquainted with the great Frenchman, whose genius he admired as enthusiastically as he championed his character.
François Marie Arouet was born at Paris on November 21, 1694. He assumed the name de Voltaire when in his twenty-fifth year.
1711—From the first, as a schoolboy, Voltaire outclassed his fellows. At the close of his sixth school year he was awarded prize after prize and crown after crown, until he was covered with crowns and staggered under the weight of his prize books. J. B. Rousseau, being present, predicted a glorious future for him. He was a good scholar, a favorite of his teachers, and admired and beloved by his companions.
Left school in August, aged nearly seventeen, tall, thin, with especially bright eyes as his only mark of uncommon good looks. He was welcomed to the Temple by such grand seigniors as the duke de Sully, the duke de Vendôme, prince de Conti, marquis de Fare, and the other persons of rank forming their circle, who put him on a footing of perfect familiarity. He became a gay leader of fashion, flattered by the ladies, made much of by the men, supping with princes and satirizing the follies of the hour in sparkling verse.
1717—Voltaire returned in the spring to Paris, where many uncomplimentary squibs were being circulated concerning the pleasure-loving regent, of which he was at once suspected, rightly or wrongly; he was arrested in his lodgings in the "Green Basket," sent to the Bastille and assigned a room, which was ever after known as Voltaire's room. Here he dwelt for eleven months, during15
