The Jesuits had usurped the possession of a well descended family, who, by their property, were prevented from recovering their rights. Voltaire gave them the means of accomplishing that; and oppressors of every kind, who, long had feared his writings, now learnt to dread his activity, his generosity and his courage.

This last event almost immediately preceded the destruction of the Jesuits. Voltaire, educated among them, had maintained a correspondence with his former masters. While they were living they restrained the fury of the fraternity from any open attack, and Voltaire was respectful to the Jesuits, both in deference to the connections of his youth and also to preserve allies in the party which at that time governed the devotees. But, after the death of these friends, wearied by the clamours of the "Journal de Trévoux," which, by unceasing accusations of impiety seemed to call down persecutions on his head, he no longer preserved the same respect for the Jesuits, nor did his zeal for the defence of the oppressed extend to them, when they, in their turn, became oppressed.

He exulted in the destruction of an order, the friend of letters but the enemy of reason, which was desirous of destroying all talents, or of drawing them into its bosom, to corrupt them, by employing them to serve its designs, and to hold the human race in infancy, in order to govern them. Yet he pitied individuals treated with barbarity by the hatred of the jansenists; and he gave an asylum, in his own house to a Jesuit, to point out to the devotees that true humanity knows only misfortune and forgets opinions. Father Adam, to whom a sort of celebrity was given by his abode at Ferney, was not absolutely useless to his host. He played with him at chess, and he played the game with sufficient address sometimes to conceal his superiority. He also spared Voltaire labour in his learned researches ; he even served him as an almoner, for Voltaire wished to oppose his fidelity in fulfilling the exterior duties of the Romish religion to the accusations which were brought against him of impiety.

At this period a great revolution was engendering in the human mind. Since the revival of philosophy, religion, exclusively established throughout Europe, had been attacked only in England. Leibnitz, Fontenelle, and other less celebrated philosophers, accused of free-thinking, had respected religion in their writings. Bayle, himself, by a precaution that was necessary to his safety, while he indulged himself in all objections, assumed the air of wishing to prove that revelation alone could resolve them, and of having formed the project of exalting faith by humiliating reason. In England, these attacks had little success or effect. In France, there had appeared some bold writers, but the blows which they aimed were still indirect. Even the work of Helvetius "De l'Esprit" (on the understanding) was only an attack on religious principles in general; it questioned the foundations of all religions, and left the reader to draw consequences and make applications. "Emilius" appeared; the savoyard vicar's profession of faith contained nothing relative to the utility, toward morals, of the belief of a God, and the inutility of revelation, which is not to be found in the poem of "Natural Law;" but the attack was open, and the persons attacked were brought upon the stage under their proper name and character, and not under that of the priests of India or Thibet. This boldness astonished Voltaire and excited his emulation. The success of "Emilius" encouraged him, nor was he terrified by the fear of persecution. Rousseau had not been persecuted at Paris had he not put his name to the work, nor at Geneva had he not maintained in another part of " Emilius" that the people possessed not the power of renouncing the right of reforming a depraved government. This doctrine authorized the citizens of that republic to overthrow the

aristocracy which its magistrates had established, and which secured an hereditary authority to certain rich families.

Voltaire believed that he could securely shun persecution by concealing his name; and a multiplicity of works, in which he successively employed argument and humour, were dispersed throughout Europe, under the various forms which could be invented by the necessity of veiling truth, or of rendering it engaging. An examination of works, which Christians regarded as proceeding from inspiration, the analization of dogmas, which have been successively introduced since the origin of that religion, the history of the ridiculous or bloody quarrels which have been excited by those, the miracles, prophecies, tales scattered through legends and ecclesiastical histories, the religious wars, the massacres ordained in the name of God, the butchers and scaffolds which, at the voice of priests, covered Europe, the blood of kings flowing from the steel of assassins, and the fanaticism which unpeopled America, all these were incessantly repeated in his works under a thousand varied forms. He excited indignation, he wrung tears from the heart, he exhausted the springs of ridicule. Men trembled at an atrocious action, they laughed at an absurdity. Voltaire did not fear frequently to place the same objects before his readers, to urge the same reasonings to them." They tell me that I repeat the same things," said he in one of his writings, " true; I shall repeat them till I see men reformed."

The works, rigorously prohibited in France, in Italy, at Vienna, in Portugal, and in Spain, could not be speedily circulated; all of them could not reach every reader; but there was not an obscure corner in the provinces, there was not any nation in foreign countries suffering under the yoke of intolerance, which did not feel the influence of some of these writings.

The zeal of Voltaire created him enemies in all those who had obtained, and all who expected to obtain, affluence or even subsistence from religion. Yet that party no longer possessed such men as Bossuet, Arnaud, and Nicole; those who replaced them by their talents and their acquaintance with philosophy and letters, had ranged themselves with the contrary party; and the members of the clergy who approached nearest to them in ability, yielding to the desire of not debasing themselves in the opinion of enlightened men, stood aloof, or contented themselves with maintaining the political use of a belief which they would have blushed to have partaken with the people, and substituted for the credulous superstition or their predecessors, a species of religious Machiavelism.

Defamatory writings and attacks sprang up profusely; but Voltaire, by answering alone, preserved the name of these works, which were read by none but those to whom they were useless, and who were unwilling or unable to understand either the objections or the answers.

To the clamours of fanaticism, Voltaire opposed the protection of monarchs. The Empress of Russia, the kings of Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia, interested themselves in his labours, perused his works, sought to deserve his approbation, and sometimes seconded his zeal for the welfare of mankind. In every country the powerful, and such ministers as sought reputation and were intent on spreading their fame through Europe, were ambitious to enjoy the suffrage of the philosopher of Ferney, confided to him their hopes and fears for the progress of reason, and their projects for the increase of knowledge and the ruin of fanaticism. He had formed a league which included all the great men of Europe, of which he was the soul, and whose cry was, "Reason and toleration." Did any striking injustice arise in a nation, did Voltaire hear of any act of bigotry, any insult offered to human nature, his pen exposed the guilty to Europe; and who

knows how often the fear of this sure and terrible vengeance has withheld the oppressor's arm?

But it was in France, more especially, that he exercised this dominion of reason. Since the affair of Calas, every victim, unjustly sacrificed or pursued by the sword of the law, found in him a protector, or an avenger.

The execution of the Count de Lally excited his indignation. The lawyers of Paris, sitting in judgment on the conduct of a general in India, a sentence of death passed without proof of a single determinate crime, nay, mere suspicion produced as the gravest accusation, a judgment pronounced on the testimony of declared enemies, on the memorial of a Jesuit who had composed two of them contradictory to each other, uncertain whether he should accuse the general or his enemies, not knowing which he hated most or which it would be most convenient to ruin; such proceedings and such a sentence could not but rouse the feelings of every friend or justice, although the calumnies heaped on the head of the unfortunate general and the horrid barbarity of dragging him to death with a gag in his mouth, should not have shaken every fibre in every heart which the habit of disposing of the lives of men had not turned to stone.

Yet Voltaire, during a long time, spoke singly against this enormity. The vast number of persons employed by the East India Company who were interested in throwing the fatal consequences of their conduct on a man who no longer existed, the powerful tribunal which had condemned the general, all those whom that body included in its suite whose voice was sold to it, the other corps, who, united with that by the same name, by common functions, and like interests, regarded its cause as their own; in fine, the administration, ashamed of the weakness or the cruel policy which sacrificed the Count de Lally to the hope of concealing in his tomb the faults which had lost India, all seemed to oppose a tardy justice. But Voltaire, by reiterated attacks on the same object, triumphed over prejudice and the interests of such as are attentive to preserve and extend its empire. Just minds needed only to be informed of the circumstances; others, he hurried along with him; and when the son of the Count de Lally, since so celebrated by his eloquence and courage, had attained an age at which he could demand justice, the minds of men were prepared to applaud the attempt and to solicit its execution. Voltaire was dying when, twelve years afterwards, this unjust sentence was reversed; he back to life, and he wrote-"I die conheard the intelligence; powers sprang tent; I see the king loves justice." The last words which were traced by that hand which had so long maintained the cause of humanity and justice.

his

In the same year, 1766, another arret astonished Europe; which, while it read the works of our philosophers, concluded that knowledge was disseminated through France, or at least through those classes of society whose particular duty it was to inform themselves; and thought that, after a period of more than fifteen years, the brethren of Montesquieu might have had time to comprehend his principles.

The crucifix of wood, placed on the bridge of Abbeville, was insulted during the night. The indignation of the people was heightened and kept in action by the ridiculous ceremony of doing penance. The Bishop of Amiens, governed in his old age by fanatics, and no longer capable of foreseeing the consequences of this religious farce, added to its solemnity by his presence. Meantime, the malice of a townsman of Abbeville directed the suspicions of the people to the Chevalier de la Barre, a young officer whose relations were of the long robe and members of the chief magistracy, and who at that time lived with his kinswoman the Abbess de Villancourt, near the gates of Abbeville. A trial was commenced, and the judges of Abbeville condemned to tortures whose horror would dismay the imagination

of a cannibal, the Chevalier de la Barre and d'Etallonde his friend, who had taken the precaution to fly. The Chevalier de la Barre had awaited the issue of the trial; he had more to lose than the other by quitting France; and relied on the protection of his relations, who filled the first employments in the parliaments and in the council. His hopes were deceived; the family feared to attract the notice of the public toward this persecution, instead of endeavouring to seek support from the general opinion; and, at the age of nearly seventeen, the Chevalier de la Barre was condemned, by a majority of two votes, to be beheaded, after having had his tongue cut out, and having undergone the torture.

This horrible sentence was executed; and yet the accusations were as ridiculous as the punishment was atrocious. He was not only vehemently suspected to have taken a part in the adventure of the crucifix, but he was declared to be convicted of having sung, in parties of conviviality, some of those songs which are half obscene, half religious, and which, notwithstanding their grossness, amuse the imagination in the first years of youth, by the contrast which they form with the scrupulous respect which education inspires toward the same objects; of having recited an ode whose author was perfectly known, and at that time enjoyed a pension from the king's privy purse; of having made some genuflexions to certain libertine works which were written to the taste of a time in which men, led away by religious austerity, could not distinguish between pleasure and debauchery; and, in fine, he was reproached with having spoken in a language worthy of those songs and those

books.

These accusations were all supported by the testimony of low people who had served these young men in their parties of pleasure, and by the tourriéres [old women, who are entrusted to be door-keepers] of convents, who easily find cause

of offence

This sentence revolted the minds of all men; no law existed which ordained sentence of death either for the breaking of images, or for that species of blasphemy of which the Chevalier de la Barre had been accused; thus, the judges had exceded even the penalties decreed by laws, which no enlightened man can still see sullying our criminal code without horror. There was no father of a family who had not reason to tremble, since there are few young men who escape similar indiscretions; and the judges had condemned the unfortunate victim to a cruel death for language, in which the greatest part of them had indulged in their youth—in which, perhaps, they still indulged, and whose children were as culpable as he whom they had condemned.

While Voltaire's indignation was roused, his apprehensions were strongly excited. The "Philosophical Dictionary" had been artfully placed among the number of books before which it was said that the Chevalier de la Barre had prostrated himself. His enemies wished it to be understood that the reading of Voltaire's works had been the cause of these indiscretions, which had been construed into acts of impiety. Still the danger did not prevent Voltaire from undertaking the defence of these victims of fanaticism. D'Etallonde, then a refugee at Wezel, obtained, through his recommendation, a commission in a Prussian regiment. The circumstances of the affair of Abbeville were unfolded to Europe in several publications; and the judges trembled, on their very seats, at the terrible judgment which they had passed, and which dragged them from their obscurity to devote them to a disgraceful immortality.

The reporting judge of Count de Lally's trial, accused of having contributed to the death of the Chevalier de la Barre, compelled to acknowledge the influence of that power which is independent of rank or situation, and which nature has given

to genius for the consolation and defence of the human race, wrote a letter in which actuated alternately by shame and pride, he attempted to excuse himself, and suffered menaces to escape him. Voltaire replied by the following historical trait: -"I forbid you," said an emperor of China to the chief mandarin of the historians, "to mention me, henceforward, in your works." The mandarin, on this, took up his pen. "What do you now ?" said the emperor. "I write the order which your Majesty has just given me."

During twelve years that Voltaire survived this act of injustice, he never lost sight of the hope of obtaining reparation for it, but he had not the consolation of success. The fear of offending the parliament of Paris still bore down the love of justice; and, at a time when the leaders of administration had a contrary interest, they were restrained by the fear of displeasing the clergy. Governments do not sufficiently know how much real importance they acquire, both with the people whom they govern and with foreign nations, by such illustrious acts of individual ustice; and how much more sure the support of public opinion is, than the deference paid them by certain bodies of men, rarely capable of gratitude, and part of whose authority over the vulgar mind it would be more politic to take away by these great examples, than to augment, by proving, in the respect which they themselves pay to them, the fears which such bodies inspire.

Voltaire did not, meantime, neglect the means of avoiding the storm; he diminished his domestic establishment, and secured some property which he could dispose of at pleasure, with which he might procure a new place of refuge. Such had ever been his secret design, in all the arrangements which he had made of his fortune; and it would have required a league among the powers of Europe, to have deprived him of independence, and to have reduced him to want. Princes and nobles were among his debtors, who do not indeed pay with much punctuality, but he had calculated the degrees of human corruption, and he knew that these same men, though they act with little delicacy in such affairs, would find means to reimburse him during the moment of persecution, when their negligence would otherwise render them the objects of the horror and disdain of Europe, indignant to behold such a man oppressed.

This persecution appeared for a time ready to burst forth. Ferney is situated in the diocese of Geneva, the titular bishop of which resides in the small town of Annecy. François de Salles, who has been raised to the rank of saints, having formerly been the bishop, in order that the heretics might not find cause of scandal in their own metropolis, it had been thought most proper to confide this see to none but a man who would not incur the reproach of pride, luxury, and effeminacy, of which the Catholic priests are accused by the Protestants.

But it had long been difficult to discover saints, who, possessing understanding or birth, would condescend to accept so small a diocese. He who filled the see of Annecy, in 1767, was a man of low extraction, educated in a seminary at Paris, where he was no otherwise distinguished than by austere manners, trifling devotion, and ignorant fanaticism. He wrote to the Count de St. Florentine, to induce him to banish Voltaire out of his diocese, and consequently out of his kingdom, though the poet had then built a church at his own expense, and spread abundance through a country which the persecutions against the Protestants had laid waste. But the bishop pretended that the lord of Ferney had given a moral exhortation against theft in the church after mass, and that the workmen who were employed by him in erecting this church, had not removed an old cross with sufficient veneration: these, indeed, were grave inducements to drive from his country an old man who was the glory of that country, and to rob him of an asylum to which the kingdoms