CHAPTER XXV.
LIFE AT LAUSANNE AND FERNEY.
A glimpse of Voltaire, while he lived at Lausanne in 1757-58, is afforded by the historian Gibbon, then a youth of twenty, who had been sent thither to complete his education, and who thus records their acquaintance in his Autobiography:—
"Before I was recalled from Switzerland, I had the satisfaction of seeing the most extraordinary man of the age,—a poet, a historian, a philosopher, who has filled thirty quartos of prose and verse with his various productions, often excellent, and always entertaining. Need I add the name of Voltaire? After forfeiting, by his own misconduct, the friendship of the first of kings, he retired, at the age of sixty, with a plentiful fortune, to a free and beautiful country, and resided two winters (1757 and 1758) in the town and neighbourhood of Lausanne. My desire of beholding Voltaire, whom I then rated above his real magnitude, was easily gratified. He received me with civility as an English youth, but I cannot boast of any peculiar notice or distinction,—Virgilium vidi tantum.
"The ode which he composed on his first arrival on the banks of the Leman Lake, 'O Maison d'Aristippe! O Jardin d'Epicure,' &c., had been imparted as a secret to the gentleman by whom I was introduced. He allowed me to read it twice; I knew it by heart; and as my discretion was not equal to my memory, the author was soon displeased by the circulation of a copy. In writing this trivial anecdote, I wished to observe whether my memory was impaired, and I have the comfort of finding that every line of the poem is still engraved in fresh and indelible characters. The highest gratification which I derived from Voltaire's residence at Lausanne was the uncommon circumstance of hearing a great poet declaim his own productions on the stage. He had formed a company of gentlemen and ladies, some of whom were not destitute of talents. A decent theatre was framed at Monrepos,[1] a country house at the end of a suburb; dresses and scenes were provided at the expense of the actors; and the author directed the rehearsals with the zeal and attention of paternal love. In two successive winters his tragedies of 'Zaire,' 'Alzire,' 'Zulime,' and his sentimental comedy of the 'Enfant Prodigne,' were played at the theatre of Monrepos. Voltaire represented the characters best adapted to his years,—Lusignan, Alvarez, Benassar, Euphemon. His declamation was fashioned to the pomp and cadence of the old stage, and he expressed the enthusiasm of poetry rather than the feelings of nature. My ardour, which soon became conspicuous, seldom failed of procuring me a ticket. The habits of pleasure fortified my taste for the French theatre, and that taste has perhaps abated my idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of an Englishman. The wit and philosophy of Voltaire, his table and theatre, refined, in a visible degree, the manners of Lausanne; and, however addicted to study, I enjoyed my share of the amusements of society. After the representation of Monrepos, I sometimes supped with the actors."
This taste for directing theatrical representations Voltaire had in common with one who, perhaps, may alone contest his pre-eminence in the field of letters, and who gave so much of his time and interest to the theatre at Weimar. On acquiring the estate of Ferney in 1759, on the western shore of the lake, he built a theatre, the ruins of which still exist, and the conduct of which continued to afford him extraordinary delight. On one occasion, while seated watching the performance of "Zaire" from the side-scenes, he became so excited as the catastrophe approached, that he wheeled his arm-chair on to the stage, and continued unconsciously to press forward till he got between the actors, so that Orosman was unable to stab the heroine. This or any other fancy he could well afford to indulge, for his income was great, and far beyond his expenses. He had about £7000 a-year,—a princely revenue in those days; and one of his Parisian visitors observed that he was the only man in France who really lived like a grand seigneur. He kept an extremely hospitable and well-supplied table, habitually entertaining a great number of guests, and maintaining a large establishment of servants. The audience at his plays were always entertained at supper, and the repast was sometimes followed by a ball. Besides building a theatre, he pulled down the ruinous church of Ferney and replaced it with another at his own cost, which bore the inscription, Deo erexit Voltaire. "The church that I have built," he wrote, "is the only church in the universe that is dedicated to God alone—all the others are dedicated to saints. For my part, I would rather build for the master than the valets." He built also the chateau of Ferney, and surrounded it with gardens in the English taste, and drained and improved the surrounding land. The neighbouring hamlet, in which a few miserable labourers inhabited dilapidated cottages, gave place to a small town, built at his cost, and tenanted by skilful workmen, whose branch of industry he encouraged and rendered prosperous. "Fifteen years ago," says a guest, writing when Voltaire was eighty-four, "there were barely at Ferney three or four cottages, and forty inhabitants; now it is astonishing to see a numerous and civilised colony, a theatre, and more than a hundred pretty houses." His charities were munificent. When the order of Jesuits was suppressed he took one of the body, Father Adam, into his house, and made him his almoner, a post which was far from being a sinecure. He also received into his family Mademoiselle Corneille, the grandniece of the poet, whom he thus rescued from poverty: "It is giving," he said, "to an old soldier the opportunity of being useful to the daughter of his general." He welcomed her warmly, always spoke of her with praise, treated her like a young relation, and gave her for a marriage portion the profits of his "Commentaries on Corneille."
A description is given of him in his last days at Ferney, seated under a vine, on the occasion of a fête, and receiving the congratulations and complimentary gifts of his tenantry and neighbours, when a young lady, whom he had adopted, brought him in a basket a pair of white doves with pink beaks, as her offering. He afterwards entertained about 200 guests at a splendid repast, followed by illuminations, songs, and dances, and was himself so carried away in an access of gaiety as to throw his hat into the air. But his merriment ended in a tempest of wrath; for learning, in the course of the evening, that the two doves which had figured so prettily in the fête had been killed for the table, his indignation at the stolid cruelty which could shed the blood of the creatures they had all just admired and caressed, knew no bounds.
He constituted himself the champion of those whom he considered oppressed. His remark on the death of Admiral Byng, that he had been executed "to encourage the others," is well known; it is not, perhaps, so well known that he interfered actively to prevent the catastrophe. The commander of the successful expedition which Byng was expected to frustrate was Voltaire's friend, the Duke of Richelieu, and from him he begged for such a letter as might exonerate the unfortunate Admiral, then on his trial. After the evidence given at the court-martial was closed, a letter from Voltaire to Byng, written in English, was read: "Sir, though I am almost unknown to you, I think 'tis my duty to send you the copy of the letter which I have just received from the Marshal Duc de Richelieu; honour, humanity, and equity order me to convey it to your hands. The noble and unexpected testimony from one of the most candid, as well as most generous, of my countrymen, makes me presume your judges will do you justice."
He endeavoured, in a succession of cases, to obtain justice for the victims of judicial blunders. A young man, named Calas, had committed suicide by hanging himself. A ridiculous charge was brought against his father, a Calvinist, of having hanged him in order to prevent him from becoming a Roman Catholic. The mob, sagacious and tender as mobs usually are, credited the accusation and clamoured for his execution; the clergy were willing to see a useful example made; the parliament of Toulouse gave judgment against him, and he was broken on the wheel. His case was thus beyond the reach of remedy; but the same judgment had condemned his family to infamy. Voltaire, utterly disbelieving even the possibility of the alleged crime, used his credit, his friends, and his money in behalf of the family, employed advocates, and himself urged their innocence in various appeals. He thus obtained a revision and reversal of the sentence. In a similar case, that of Sirven, he saved the life, by his indefatigable efforts, of the accused man; and afterwards obtained the acquittal of a woman whose husband had, on an incredible charge, been broken on the wheel, and who had been condemned with him. The case of Lally, who was executed in Paris under circumstances of atrocious injustice, is also well known: in this instance Voltaire's efforts failed of success, yet he had the satisfaction, many years afterwards, of seeing the sentence condemned, on a revision obtained by the victim's son. Other cases are recorded in which his sympathy with the oppressed had impelled him to untiring efforts in their behalf. It must be admitted that, though he alone can be called perfectly good who fulfils two orders of duties, one of these, his duty to his fellow-man, was performed with unusual spirit by Voltaire.
All this time the increasing weight of years by no means diminished the activity of his pen. In 1757 the whole of his works were for the first time published in an authorised and complete edition, under his direction at Geneva. He wrote in this last epoch of his life the Essay on the "Philosophy of History," from which extracts have been already given; added a sketch of the "Age of Louis XV." to its predecessor; wrote a history of "Peter the Great" to please his admirer and correspondent the Empress Catherine; employed himself at intervals on his 'Philosophical Dictionary;' produced many fresh tragedies (not always equal to the earlier ones) and four comedies; innumerable tales and satires in verse, and many occasional poems; many novelettes, too, in the style of "Zadig;" and a host of papers in prose. Several of the most telling satires were prompted by a personal attack which had been made on Voltaire. A M. Le Franc de Pompignan had been elected to the French Academy, and had conceived the unlucky idea of giving point to his inaugural discourse by censorious remarks on the philosopher and some of his disciples, who were also members of the Academy. On learning this, Voltaire discharged on the aggressor such a deluge of ridicule that he never again dared to show his face in the Academy, and, instead of vanishing quietly from the world, has remained pickled for posterity. And, all the time, flowed on in full stream that copious correspondence, never intended for publication, but which is esteemed as a most precious example of letter-writing, and which of itself would seem to constitute the labour of an industrious life.
In the correspondence with his friend and brother-philosopher, D'Alembert, is seen more clearly than elsewhere what it was that he had all his life considered it his mission to battle against. The nature of his creed will have been recognised in the extracts from his works already given, and he would probably have considered Pope's "Universal Prayer" as exactly expressing it. The morality of the New Testament was altogether in unison with that creed and with his own frequently-expressed views of the obligations which man's conscience enjoins; but he put no faith in the morality of the Old Testament, nor in the miracles of Scripture. He had the strongest belief in the elevating effects of developing the human intellect: to this he considered the Catholic Church and Clergy as systematically opposed; and hence his unceasing hostility to them. While the mind of the time saw before it the prospects, so full of promise, which the great movements of the sixteenth century had opened, the dominant religious body opposed a rigid bar to progress, not only in the doctrines which it inculcated, but in its system of education, which, dealing well and thoroughly with the learning of the past, sought to arrest, in all directions, the advance of thought. It is in writing to D'Alembert that he frequently insists on the necessity of putting an end to what he designates as "the Infamous:"—
"I want you to crush the Infamous—that is the great point. It must be reduced to the position which it occupies in England: 'tis the greatest service that can be rendered to the human race. You will perceive that I speak only of superstition; as for religion, I love and respect it as you do."
Afterwards, D'Alembert, in a letter to Voltaire, defines very clearly the views of both:—
"For me, who see everything just now in a rose-coloured light, I think I behold the Jansenists perishing next year, after having, this year, brought the Jesuits to a violent end—toleration established, the Protestants recalled, priests married, confession abolished, and fanaticism crushed without one being aware of it."
Had these mutineers been Englishmen they would have found nothing to quarrel with, and would never have made themselves conspicuous for hostility to any system of faith.
- ↑ Gibbon's misnomer for Monrion.