The Age of Voltaire

by Will Durant

  VOLTAIRE. I still have faith in human intelligence; we shall improve ends as well as means as we become more secure in our lives.

  BENEDICT. Are you becoming more secure? Is violent crime decreasing? Is war less terrible than before? You hope against hope that the destructiveness of your weapons will deter you and your enemies from war; but did the equivalent progress from the arrow to the bomb stop nations from challenging each other to the death?

  VOLTAIRE. The education of the human race will take many centuries.

  BENEDICT. Meanwhile consider the spiritual devastation that your propaganda has spread, perhaps more tragic than any ruin of cities. Is not atheism the prelude to a profounder pessimism than believers have ever known? And you, rich and famous, did you not often think of suicide?

  VOLTAIRE. Yes. I tried to believe in God, but I confess to you that God meant nothing in my life, and that in my secret heart I too felt a void where my childhood faith had been. But probably this feeling belongs only to individuals and generations in transition; the grandchildren of these pessimists will frolic in the freedom of their lives, and have more happiness than poor Christians darkened with fear of hell.

  BENEDICT. That fear played only a minor role in the lives of the great majority of the faithful. What inspired them was the feeling that the agony of death was not a meaningless obscenity but the prelude to a larger life, in which all earthly injustices and cruelties would be righted and healed, and they would be united in happiness and peace with those whom they had loved and lost.

  VOLTAIRE. Yes, that was a real comfort, however illusory. I didn’t feel it, because I hardly knew my mother, I seldom saw my father, and I had no known children.

  BENEDICT. You were not a complete man, and so your philosophy was not complete. Did you ever know the life of the poor?

  VOLTAIRE. Only from the outside; but I tried to be just and helpful to the poor who lived on my estates.

  BENEDICT. Yes, you were a good seigneur. And you saw to it that the consoling faith of your people should be renewed by religious instruction and worship. But meanwhile your desolating gospel of no hope beyond the grave was being spread over France. Have you ever answered de Musset’s question?3 After you or your followers have taught the poor that the only heaven they can ever reach must be created by them on earth, and after they have slaughtered their rulers, and new rulers appear, and poverty remains, together with greater disorder and insecurity than before—what comfort will you then be able to offer to the defeated poor?

  VOLTAIRE. I did not recommend slaughtering their rulers; I suspected that the new rulers would be much like the old, but with worse manners.

  BENEDICT. I will not say that revolution is never justified. But we have learned, through the experience accumulated and transmitted by our undying hierarchy, that after every overturn there will soon again be masters and men, rich and relatively poor. We are all born unequal, and every new invention, every added complexity of life or thought, increases the gap between the simple and the clever, the weak and the strong. Those hopeful revolutionists talked of liberty, and equality, and fraternity. But these idols never get along together. If you establish liberty you let natural inequalities multiply into artificial inequalities; and to check these you have to restrain liberty; so your utopias of freedom sometimes become straitjackets of despotism, and in the turmoil fraternity becomes only a phrase.

  VOLTAIRE. Yes, it is So.

  BENEDICT. Well, then, which of us offers the greater consolation to the inevitably defeated majority? Do you think you will be doing a favor to the toilers of France and Italy if you convince them that their wayside shrines, their crosses, religious images, and devout offerings are meaningless mummeries, and that their prayers are addressed to an empty sky? Could there be any greater tragedy than that men should have to believe that there is nothing in life but the struggle for existence, and nothing certain in it but death?

  VOLTAIRE. I sympathize with your feeling, Father. I was touched and disturbed by a letter that came to me from Madame de Talmond. I remember it well: “I think, sir, that a philosopher should never write but to endeavor to render mankind less wicked and unhappy than they are. Now, you do quite the contrary. You are always writing against that religion which alone is able to restrain wickedness and to afford consolation in misfortune.”4 But I have my faith, too—that in the long run truth will be a blessing even to the poor.

  BENEDICT. Truth is not truth unless it remains true through generations. The past generations belie you, future generations will reproach you. Even the victors in the struggle of life will reprove you for taking from the poor the hopes that reconciled them to their humble place in the inevitable stratification of any society.

  VOLTAIRE. I would not lend myself to such a double deception of the poor.

  BENEDICT. We do not deceive them. We teach them faith, hope, and charity, and all three are real boons to human life. You made miserable jokes about the Trinity; but have you any notion of the comfort brought to millions and millions of souls by the thought that God himself had come down to this earth to share their sufferings and atone for their sins? You laughed at the Virgin Birth, but is there in all literature a more lovable and inspiring symbol of womanly modesty and maternal love?

  VOLTAIRE. It is a beautiful story. If you had read all my ninety-nine volumes you would have noted that I acknowledged the value of consolatory myths.5

  BENEDICT. We do not admit that they are myths; they are among the profoundest truths. Their effects are among the most certain facts of history. I will not speak of the art and music they have engendered, which are among the richest portions of man’s heritage.

  VOLTAIRE. The art was excellent, but your Gregorian chant is a gloomy bore.

  BENEDICT. If you were profounder you would appreciate the value of our rituals and our sacraments. Our ceremonies bring the worshipers together in a living drama and a unifying brotherhood. Our sacraments are really what we call them—outward signs of an inward grace. It is a comfort to parents to see their child, through baptism and confirmation, accepted into the community and into the inheritance of the ancient faith; so the generations are united into a timeless family, and the individual need not feel alone. It is a boon to the sinner to confess his sins and receive absolution; you say that this merely permits him to sin again; we say that it encourages him to begin a better life, unburdened with the weight of guilt. Are not your psychiatrists struggling to find a substitute for the confessional? And do they create as many neurotics as they cure? Is it not beautiful that in the sacrament of the Eucharist weak man is strengthened and inspired by union with God? Have you ever seen anything lovelier than children going to their First Communion?

  VOLTAIRE. I’m still shocked by the idea of eating God. It’s a remnant of savage customs.

  BENEDICT. Again you confuse the outward sign with the inward grace. There is nothing so shallow as sophistication; it judges everything from the surface, and thinks it is profound. All modern life has been misled by it. In religion the mature mind has passed through three stages: belief, unbelief, and understanding.

  VOLTAIRE. You may be right. But that does not justify the hypocrisy of your sinful prelates, or the persecution of honest thought.

  BENEDICT. Yes, we have been guilty. The faith is good, but its ministrants are men and women, fallible and sinful.

  VOLTAIRE. But if its ministrants are fallible, why do they claim infallibility?

  BENEDICT. The Church claims infallibility only for her most official, fundamental, and considered judgments. Somewhere debate has to stop if the mind or the society is to have peace.

  VOLTAIRE. And so we come back to the stifling consorship and brutal intolerance that were the bane of my life and the disgrace of ecclesiastical history. I can see the doors of the Inquisition opening again.

  BENEDICT. I hope not. It was because the papacy was weak that the Inquisition was so cruel; my predecessors strove to check it.

  VOLTAIRE. The popes too were gu
ilty. They looked with equanimity upon the killing of hundreds of Jews during the Crusades, and they conspired with the French state to slaughter the Albigenses. Why should we go back to a faith that, with all its charm, could engender, and can still condone, such savagery?

  BENEDICT. We shared in the manners of our time. We share now in the improvement of morals. See our priests; are they not a fine group of men in education, devotion, and conduct?

  VOLTAIRE. So I am told, but perhaps that is because they have competition. Who knows what they will be when the higher birth rate of their adherents gives them political supremacy? The Christians of the first three centuries of our era were noted for their superior morals, but you know what they became when they rose to power. They killed a hundred times more people for religious dissent than all the Roman emperors had ever done.

  BENEDICT. Our people were then only emerging into education. Let us hope that we shall do better next time.

  VOLTAIRE. The Church did do better at times. During the Italian Renaissance some of your predecessors showed an urbane tolerance of unbelief when unbelievers made no attempt to deprive the poor of their consolatory faith. I, for one, do not wish to destroy the faith of the poor. And I assure you that the poor do not read my books.

  BENEDICT. Blessed be the poor.

  VOLTAIRE. Meanwhile you must forgive me if I and my like continue our efforts to enlighten a minority sufficiently numerous and resolute to prevent any recurrence of ecclesiastical domination over the thought of educated men. History would be worthless to us if it did not teach us to keep on our guard against the natural intolerance of an orthodoxy wielding power. I honor and reverence you, Benedict, but I must remain Voltaire.

  BENEDICT. May God forgive you.

  VOLTAIRE. Pardon is the word for all.

  FIG. 1—PORTRAIT AFTER NICOLAS DE LARGILLIÈRE: Voltaire as a Young Man. Château de Versailles PAGE 3

  FIG. 2—MICHEL CORNEILLE: Philippe d’Orléans, Regent. Château de Versailles PAGE 6

  FIG. 3—UNKNOWN ARTIST: The Rue Quincampoix in 1718. (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 12

  FIG. 4—Regency Wall Paneling. Château de Versailles PAGE 24

  FIG. 5—ALLAN RAMSAY: The Fourth Earl of Chesterfield. National Portrait Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 81

  FIG. 6—PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN MARC NATTIER: Prince Charles Edward Stuart (The Young Pretender). National Portrait Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 109

  FIG. 7—ANTONIO CANALETTO: View of the Thames from Richmond House. The Good-wood Estate (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 60

  FIG. 8—ALLAN RAMSAY: David Hume. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh PAGE 140

  FIG. 9—W. HAMILTON: John Wesley. National Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 128

  FIG. 10—JACOPO AMIGONI: Caroline of Ansbach. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 94

  FIG. 11—ANTOINE WATTEAU: The Embarkation for Cythera. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 26

  FIG. 12—CHALK PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM HOARE: Alexander Pope. National Portrait Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 164

  FIG. 13—PORTRAIT FROM THE STUDIO OF RICHARD BROMPTON: William Pitt the Elder. National Portrait Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 113

  FIG. 14—JOSEPH HIGHMORE: Samuel Richardson. National Portrait Gallery, London PAGE 188

  FIG. 15—SIR GODFREY KNELLER: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Reproduced by permission of the Marquess of Bute and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh PAGE 205

  FIG. 16—ENGRAVING BASED ON A SKETCH BY WILLIAM HOGARTH: Henry Fielding. (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 193

  FIG. 17—UNKNOWN ITALIAN ARTIST: Tobias Smollett. National Portrait Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 199

  FIG. 18—WILLIAM HOGARTH: Scene from Marriage à la Mode. Tate Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 220

  FIG. 19—WILLIAM HOGARTH: The Shrimp Girl National Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 218

  FIG. 20—WILLIAM HOGARTH: self portrait. National Gallery, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 217

  FIG. 21—WILLIAM HOGARTH: Engraving, The Sleeping Congregation. (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 217

  FIG. 22—TBOMAS HUDSON; George Frederick Handel. Staatsbibliothek, Hamburg (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 226

  FIG. 23—JACQUES ANDRÉ AVED: Jean Philippe Rameau. Musée Dijon (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 295

  FIG. 24—The Tuileries Palace and Gardens. From an engraving in the Albertina Museum, Vienna (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 295

  FIG. 25–HYACINTHE RIGAUD: Louis XV at the Age of Six. Château de Versailles (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 272

  FIG. 26–MAURICE QUENTIN DE LA TOUR: Louis XV. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 320

  FIG. 27–HYACINTHE RIGAUD: Cardinal Fleury. Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 269

  FIG. 28–CARLE VANLOO: Marie Leszczyńska. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 2

  FIG. 29–FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: Madame de Pompadour. Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London PAGE 279

  FIG. 30– MAURICE QUENTIN DE LA TOUR: Madame de Pompadour. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 322

  FIG. 31–JEAN MARC NATTIER: Madame de Châteauroux. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles PAGE 275

  FIG. 32–Interior Decoration, Louis Quinze Style: Drawing Room in the Hôtel de Ludre, Paris. From French Art of the 18th Century, Ed. Stéphane Faniel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957) PAGE 304

  FIG. 33–Faïence Soup Tureen from Lunéville in Lorraine, Period of King Stanislas. Nicolier Collection (reproduced from French Art of the 18th Century, ed. Faniel) PAGE 305

  FIG. 34–JACQUES CAFFIÉRI AND A. R. GAUDREAU: Commode. Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 304

  FIG. 35–Andirons, Period of Louis XV. Château de Versailles PAGE 306

  FIG. 36–Mantel Clock, Period of Louis XV. Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London PAGE 306

  FIG. 37–Tapestry, Period of Louis XV. Thiérard Collection (reproduced from French Art of the 18th Century, ed. Faniel) PAGE 305

  FIG. 38– ROSLIN: François Boucher. Château de Versailles PAGE 313

  FIG. 39– JEAN LAMOUR: Iron Gates of the Place Stanislas, Nancy. From Max Osborn, Die Kunst des Rokoko (Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag, 1926) PAGE 308

  FIG. 40–FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: The Luncheon from Italian Scenes Tapestries. The Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California PAGE 315

  FIG. 41– GUILLAUME COUSTOU I: One of the Horses of Marly, Place de la Concorde, Paris. Photograph courtesy of Roger Viollet (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 308

  FIG. 42–JEAN BAPTISTE CHARDIN: Le Bénédicité. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 318

  FIG. 43–JEAN BAPTISTE CHARDIN: The Artist’s Second Wife. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 318

  FIG. 44–JEAN BAPTISTE CHARDIN: Self-Portrait. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 316

  FIG. 45–FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: The Rape of Europa. Louvre, Paris (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 314

  FIG. 46—UNKNOWN ARTIST OF THE FRENCH 18th-CENTURY SCHOOL: Voltaire. Château de Versailles PAGE 361

  FIG. 47–ENGRAVING AFTER A PAINTING BY DEVERIA: Montesquieu. (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 340

  FIG. 48–NICOLAS DE LARGILLIÈRE: Madame du Châtelet. Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus, Ohio (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 365

  FIG. 49—FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: Le Coucher du Soleil (Sunset). Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 316

  FIG. 50—MATTHÄUS DANIEL PÖPPELMANN: The Zwinger Palace, Dresden (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 399

  FIG. 51–JOHANN MICHAEL FISCHER: The Abbey Church (Klosterkirche) of the Benedictine Monastery at Ottobeuren. (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 406

  FIG. 52–BALTHASAR NEUMANN: Staircase of the Prince-Bishop’s Residenz, Würzburg. From Werner Weisbach, Die Kunst des Barock (Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag, 1924) PAGE 405


  FIG. 53—JAKOB PRANDTAUER: The Cloister at Melk. (Bettmann Archive) PAGE 432