When Voltaire was born the church ruled and owned France. It was a period of almost universal corruption. The priests were mostly libertines, the judges cruel and venal. The royal palace was a house of prostitution. The nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel to the last degree. The common people were treated as beasts. It took the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things.
The seeds of the Revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every noble and by every priest.
They were germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched; they were being watered by the tears of agony; blows began to bear interest. There was a faint longing for blood. Workmen, blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them.
In those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture; the church was the arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics, angels and devils were as common as lies.
In order to appreciate a great man we must know his surroundings. We must understand the scope of the drama in which he played—the part he acted, and we must also know his audience.
In England George I. was disporting with the "May-pole" and "Elephant," and then George II., jealous and choleric, hating the English and their language, making, however, an excellent image or idol before whom the English were glad to bow—snobbery triumphant—the criminal code getting bloodier every day—223 offences punishable with death—the prisons filled and the scaffolds crowded—efforts on every hand to repress the ambition of men to be men—the church relying on superstition and ceremony to make men good—and the state dependent on the whip, the rope and axe to make men patriotic.
In Spain the Inquisition in full control—all the instruments of torture used to prevent the development of the mind, Spain, that had driven out the Jews, that is to say, her talent; that had driven out the Moors, that is to say, her taste and her industry, was still endeavoring by all religious means to reduce the land to the imbecility of the true faith.
In Portugal they were burning women and children for having eaten meat on a holy day, and this to please the most merciful God.
In Italy the nation prostrate, covered with swarms of cardinals and bishops and priests and monks and nuns and every representative of holy sloth. The Inquisition there also—while hands that were clasped in prayer or stretched for alms, grasped with eagerness and joy the lever of the rack, or gathered fagots for the holy flame.
In Germany they were burning men and women charged with having made a compact with the enemy of man.