It was decided to place it with his ashes in the Pantheon. But the tomb was empty.
The Marquis de Villette died in 1793, thereby escaping the guillotine, to which he had been condemned for refusing to vote for the death of the King. Belle-et-Bonne, a widow at thirty-six, consecrated her life to Voltaire’s memory.
In 1878, his centenary was celebrated with the warmest enthusiasm by the most fickle capital in the world.
Victor Hugo eulogised Voltaire with much emotion and applause, and fervent words which mean nothing in particular. But the fact that the Fighter had been dead a century did not prevent him from being still a cause of strife. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, hotly attacked the infidel and demanded an injunction against a new edition of his works, which was refused.
This was the last famous assault on the Great Assaulter. France, perhaps even Catholic France, recognises in some sort the debt she owes to Voltaire. Is not the enemy who shows a nation her weak points, forces her to look to her ships and her armaments, to remedy abuses in her organisation, and feebleness, viciousness, and incompetency in her servants, something very like a friend in disguise?
It may be truly said that Voltaire did good to Roman Catholicism by attacking much that degraded it; by hooting out of it the superstition and tyranny which have made some of the noblest souls on earth decline it; and by forcing its children to give a reason for the faith that was in them.
Then, too, if the Church of Rome could withstand that deadly, breathless, and brilliant onslaught called Voltairism, she may well point triumphantly to the fulfilment of that ancient prophecy and consolation, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
To the Church in France it may be acknowledged that Voltaire was not wholly an evil, while to her country he was a great glory.
In England there is still against him a prejudice, which, said Buckle, nothing but ignorance can excuse. To the ordinary Briton Voltaire is only a very profane scoffer who made some rather amusing and very doubtful jokes.
Yet this was he who, as Frederick the Great said, was extraordinary in everything. Here was the man who was poet, playwright, novelist, letter-writer, historian, critic, philosopher, theologian, socialist, philanthropist, agriculturist, humorist, reformer, wit, and man of the world.