All, however, was not labour, peace, and amusement. The publication of the poem of the "Pucelle" threatened a renewal of the persecutions of which he had been the victim in his earlier days. Several forged verses in ridicule of Louis XV. and madame de Pompadour had been foisted into the surreptitious edition that appeared, and it was with difficulty that his friends proved that he was not the writer. Voltaire, indeed, was always in a state of inky war. A man who had provoked the priesthood of Europe, and whose talent for perceiving and pourtraying the ridiculous was unequalled and unsparing, could not fail in creating a host of enemies. Satires, epigrams, and libels rained on him. In his retirement of Les Delices, he might, if he had chosen, have been insensible to these attacks; but not one but found their way; he answered all, dealing about his shafts dipped in sarcasm and irony, and spreading abroad a sort of terror that served as a wholesome check to his enemies. A word or line from his pen marked a man for ever. Several among those thus attacked were forced to hide themselves till a new victim was immolated, and their own disgrace forgotten. In his "Life of Molière," speaking of the epigrams with which Boileau and Molière attacked, and, it is said, caused the death of Cotin, Voltaire called this the sad effect of a licence rather perilous than useful, which is more apt to flatter the malignity of men than to inspire good taste; and in his "Essay on Satire," he severely blames Boileau for naming the poets whom he censures. Yet, with blind inconsistency, Voltaire never spared an enemy. He conceived that, if attacked by, he had a fair right to annihilate, as he well could, the stinging gadflies of literature. The society of Paris was kept alive by his multitudinous epigrams. This engendered a baneful spirit of sarcasm, and spread abroad an appetite for injuring others by ridicule, slander, and jests that wound. They rendered society more heartless and more cruel than ever.
Voltaire, himself, was visited by the effects of the disturbed state of feeling he helped to engender. He had hoped to find a safe asylum in the Genevese territories. But his attacks on their prejudices created a host of enemies. He began to feel that the dark shadows of persecution were gathering round. 1762.
Ætat.
68. He found that, although his presence in Paris would not be permitted, he might, in safety, take up his abode in a remote part of France. He purchased, therefore, the estate of Ferney, on the French territory, within a short distance of Geneva; and thus with a foot, as it were, in two separate states, he hoped to find safety in one if threatened with hostility in the other.
He was more fortunate than he anticipated. The persecutions he afterwards endured were reduced to little more than threats, and were less than might be expected by a man who first raised the voice of hostility to, and resolved on, the destruction of a system of religion supported by a powerful hierarchy which was in possession of half the wealth of the nations who professed their faith, and which was regarded as the bulwark of their power by the monarchs of Europe. Voltaire's poem on the law of Nature, and his version of Ecclesiastes, were burnt in Paris as deistical and blasphemous, although the latter had no fault but that of turning the sublime into commonplace. A poem on the earthquake at Lisbon was also produced at this time; and "Candide" was written and published. To collect together the most dreadful misfortunes, to heap them on the head of a single individual, and in one canvass to group all of disastrous that a fertile imagination can paint, and present this as a picture of life, does not seem at first sight the most worthy occupation of a philosopher. Voltaire himself, though he had met reverses, was a living refutation of "Candide." But as, in truth, whether by sudden reverse or the slow undermining of years, all human hope does fade and decay, as life proceeds to its close; so Voltaire, now nearly seventy years of age, might, on looking back, consider disappointment and sorrow as the mark of humanity; and, by showing these ills to be inevitable, inculcate a philosophical indifference. Still the tone of "Candide" is not moral, and, like all Voltaire's lighter productions, is stamped with a coarseness which renders it unfit for general perusal. In addition to these minor productions, Voltaire laboured at the correction and enlargement of his historical work on the "Manners and Spirit of Nations,"—one of the greatest monuments which his genius achieved.
While Voltaire was at Berlin, d'Alembert and Diderot had set on foot the project of the "Encyclopédie." Their plan was, to write a book which would become indispensable to every library, from its containing the most recent discoveries in philosophy, and the best explanations and details on every topic, and this mingled with an anti-catholic spirit, that would serve to sap the foundations of the national religion. Voltaire contributed but few, and those merely literary, articles to this work—whose progress, however, he regarded with lively interest.
The outcry against the "Encyclopédie" was of course prodigious; every one who did not belong to the party formed by the lovers of innovation rose against it. Parliament and clergy pronounced its condemnation, and succeeded so far in suppressing it, that the editors were obliged to continue it clandestinely. They, however, did not submit without a struggle: a literary war was declared, which raged furiously. Voltaire was considered at the head of the liberal party, and he gave his mighty aid to turn the opposers of his opinions into ridicule. One after the other, they sank under the shafts of his wit, and were forced to take shelter in retirement from the ridicule with which his epigrams had covered them. Voltaire considered his thus abetting his friends a sacred duty. "I belong to a party," he wrote, "and a persecuted, party, which, persecuted as it is, has nevertheless gained the greatest possible advantage over its enemies, by rendering them at once odious and ludicrous."
It is pleasant to turn from these matters, which often display the self-love and intolerance of the philosophers of the day, to such acts as stamp Voltaire as a generous man, full of the warmest feelings of benevolence, and capable of exerting all his admirable faculties in the noblest cause,—that of assisting and saving the unfortunate. A great niece of Corneille lived in indigence in Paris. A friend of hers conceived the happy thought of applying to Voltaire for assistance; and that which he instantly afforded, at once rescued her from privation and care. His answer to the application deserves record. "It becomes an old follower of the great Corneille to endeavour to be useful to the descendant of his general. When one builds chateaux and churches, and has poor relations to support, one has but little left to assist one, who ought to be aided by the first people in the kingdom. I am old. I have a niece who loves the fine arts, and cultivates them with success. If the young lady of whom you speak will accept a good education under my niece's care, she will look on her as a daughter, and I will be to her as a father." This offer was of course gratefully accepted. The young lady was clever, lively, yet gentle. Voltaire himself assisted in her education. "I do not wish to make her learned," he writes, "but desire that she should learn how to conduct the affairs of life and to be happy." He was rewarded for his exertion by his protégée's docility and gratitude. As a means of obtaining a dowry for her, he wrote his elaborate commentary on Corneille's works, and published it, with an edition of the great tragedian's works, by subscription—inducing the monarchs and nobles of Europe, through his mighty influence, to send in their names, and thus fabricated a fortune for the orphan.
Soon after, another and more important occasion offered itself for serving his fellow creatures, and he acquitted himself of the task with resolution and success.
The frightful spirit of persecution of the Huguenots, engendered by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV. and his dragoon-missionaries, still survived in the provinces; and not only embittered the minds of the ignorant, but influenced the legal authorities, and led them always to associate the ideas of crime and Protestantism together. Jean Calas had been a merchant of Thoulouse for forty years. He was a Protestant—an upright and good man, and by no means bigoted. One of his sons was a convert to Catholicism; but, far from showing displeasure. Calas made him an allowance for his maintenance. A female servant who had been in his family for thirty years was a Catholic. One of his sons, named Marc-Antoine, committed suicide. He was a young man of a restless, sombre, discontented disposition; he disliked trade, and found himself excluded by the laws against his religion from entering on any profession. He read various books on suicide—conversed on the subject with his friends—and one day, having lost all his money in play, resolved on the fatal act. The family supped together; they had a guest with them—a young man only nineteen, named Lavaisse, known for his amiable and gentle disposition. After supper, Marc-Antoine left them; and when, shortly after, Lavaisse took his leave, and the father went down stairs to let him out, they discovered his son hanging from a door: he had undressed himself, folded up his clothes, and committed the act with the utmost deliberation. The family were seized with terror. They summoned medical aid and officers of justice; their cries and terror gathered a crowd about the house. The only error they committed was, that, knowing the horror in which suicide was held, they at first declared that the unfortunate man had died a natural death. The falsehood of this assertion being at once detected, the most frightful suspicions were the consequence.
The people of Thoulouse were peculiarly fanatical—they regarded Protestants as monsters capable of any crime: a whisper was raised that Jean Calas had murdered his son. A story was quickly fabricated and believed. It was alleged that Marc-Antoine was on the point of abjuring Protestantism, and that his family and Lavaisse had murdered him, to prevent him from putting his design into execution. A thousand other details were swiftly invented for the purpose of adding terror to the scene. The chief magistrate of Thoulouse, named David, excited by these rumours, and paying no attention to possibility or proof, without even proceeding with legal forms, threw the whole family of Calas, their Catholic servant, and Lavaisse into prison. In the frenzy of the moment, they turned the supposed victim into a martyr, and buried him in the church of St. Etienne, as if he had already abjured his faith, and died in consequence. One of the religious confraternities of the town celebrated his funeral with pomp; a magnificent catafalque was raised to his honour, on which was placed a skeleton, who was supposed to represent Marc-Antoine, which was made to move; it held a pen, with which it was supposed to sign the act of abjuration. The people, excited by their priests, were transported with fanaticism: they invoked the son as a saint; they demanded the execution of the father as a murderer.
The details of the trial of the unfortunate man accused of murdering his own son were not less frightful and unjust: of twelve judges, six acquitted him—it required a plurality of voices for his condemnation. Two judges were terrified into retiring; others were gained over; a majority of two was obtained, and the unfortunate Calas broken on the wheel.