Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom

"I chose this one because I think it’s by far the best modern life of Voltaire. First of all, because it’s written in an incredibly rhythmic and even jaunty style. It’s also got some good jokes. Roger Pearson is not just a good biographer; he’s also a distinguished Voltaire scholar. It’s not quite written in the style of Voltaire, but he certainly presents Voltaire as though he were the hero of one of his own fictions. Given Voltaire’s self-invention, I think it’s smart not to treat him in an overly pious or serious way. Roger Pearson gets the underlying facetiousness of his subject and perfectly captures the idea that Voltaire was always performing. Voltaire loved acting, especially in his own plays. This becomes increasingly true in later life as he becomes a celebrity. The name ‘Voltaire’ becomes hugely famous. All celebrities (to some extent) have to inhabit the structures that have been created for them. You wouldn’t say he was a victim of his celebrity—if only because he knows how to handle it. But he responds to celebrity by acting himself even more. Roger Pearson brings this out beautifully. In that sense, it’s the most amusing of the modern biographies, and also the most truthful. Without being too simplistic, I am tempted to look at Voltaire’s career in two parts: pre-Calas and post-Calas. The Calas affair is something that absolutely rocked France in the early 1760s. Calas was a prosperous merchant in Toulouse, the head of a protestant family in a heavily Catholic city. One of his sons was found dead in his house. The police came in and arrested the father for murdering his son. It was said in court that his son was going to convert to Catholicism and that his father had murdered him to prevent this ( et pour encourager les autres , Voltaire would have said). The evidence was slim, but the judges were trenchant and Calas was sentenced to death. It was a particularly gruesome death. He was torn limb from limb by four horses in a square in Toulouse, in a public spectacle. The death took several hours. From our perspective, the execution seems like some barbaric medieval torture. And, under the ancien régime , if you were condemned in that way, then your family was dispossessed, so his widow and children were left penniless. Voltaire is asked if he would help. He becomes interested in the case and pretty quickly draws the conclusion that this was an act of religious prejudice—the judges were all Catholic and they hadn’t gone through any formal due process for the accused protestant man. The legal system of the ancien régime is of course very alien to us. The accused wasn’t allowed to know the terms of the accusation in the court; he had no right to question the evidence. From our perspective, it’s a very strange form of justice. So, Voltaire takes it up. He writes a whole series of pamphlets and letters to people in authority, many of which he publishes. He writes a book called the Treatise on Toleration, which I could also have chosen, specifically addressing the Calas affair. This episode really brings out everything that is most brilliant about Voltaire. He originally trained as a lawyer although he soon gave it up because he didn’t like the law (probably all part of rejecting his father). But he does have a lawyer’s mind. The Calas affair makes him think about the legal system of the ancien régime , which he perhaps hadn’t really done before. And he comes to it with a lawyer’s acuity. When he sees a flaw in an argument, he can use ridicule like no one else. “The Calas Affair really brings out everything that is most brilliant about Voltaire” He just dismantles the arguments of the judges in Toulouse, but in an incredibly clever way. He doesn’t just condemn them wholesale; he appeals to the more senior judges in Paris, who see themselves as far superior to the provincial judges in Toulouse. He gets them to revoke the Toulouse judges’ decision. You might say that’s another example of him colluding with those in power. Tactically, it’s incredibly clever because he’s got the senior court revoking the decision of the ‘junior’ court—he’s got the system fighting itself from within. It takes a couple of years, but Calas is finally pardoned. Though it’s too late for him, it helps his widow and his children. Voltaire learns several things from this episode. He’s now much more critical of how the ancien régime and its legal system works. But if this had happened 50 years earlier, it wouldn’t have had the same resonance. The reason the incident has the impact it does is partly because of his writing’s brilliance, but also partly how quickly it spread once published—not just around France but Europe. The Calas judgement becomes, in European public opinion, the Calas affair . Newspapers are more fast-moving and frequent than they had been 50 years earlier, and they are beginning to play a role in shaping public opinion. One of the things about the Enlightenment is that it created—and needed—public opinion. Issues of all sorts are now discussed not just by a narrow group of intellectuals or philosophers, but by a broader reading public. And the Calas affair is perfect for public opinion, because from every possible angle it’s a great human story. Voltaire’s brochures and pamphlets—some of which are brilliantly funny and clever—are not only translated into English, but also printed in the English provincial press. We didn’t really know this until quite recently, since it’s all been digitised. Calas became a current affair. Out of the Calas affair, Voltaire really learns what you can do with public opinion; he can use his brilliant stylistic abilities and actually move public opinion. All through the 1760s, he grows into this new role as public campaigner. The theme throughout is the use of common sense and basic rationality to look at arguments, avoid prejudice, and, above all, to attack religious fanaticism."