at sufferings, borne with
serenity, he knew how to die.

III

The movement of Voltaire's mind went with that of the general mind
of France. During the first half of the century he was primarily a
man of letters; from about 1750 onwards he was the aggressive
philosopher, the social reformer, using letters as the vehicle of
militant ideas.

Born in Paris in 1694, the son of a notary of good family,
FRANCOIS-MARIE AROUET, who assumed the name VOLTAIRE (probably an
anagram formed from the letters of _Arouet l.j._, that is _le jeune_),
was educated by the Jesuits, and became a precocious versifier of
little pieces in the taste of the time. At an early age he was
introduced to the company of the wits and fine gentlemen who formed
the sceptical and licentious Society of the Temple. Old Arouet
despaired of his son, who was eager for pleasure, and a reluctant
student of the law. A short service in Holland, in the household of
the French ambassador, produced no better result than a fruitless
love-intrigue.

Again in Paris, where he ill endured the tedium of an attorney's office,
Voltaire haunted the theatres and the _salons_, wrote light verse
and indecorous tales, planned his tragedy _OEdipe_, and, inspired
by old M. de Caumartin's enthusiasm for Henri IV., conceived the idea
of his _Henriade_. Suspected of having written defamatory verses
against the Regent, he was banished from the capital, and when
readmitted was for eleven months, on the suspicion of more atrocious
libels, a prisoner in the Bastille. Here he composed--according to
his own declaration, in sleep--the second canto of the _Henriade_,
and completed his _OEdipe_, which was presented with success before
the close of 1718. The prisoner of the Bastille became the favourite
of society, and repaid his aristocratic hosts by the brilliant sallies
of his conversation.

A second tragedy, _Artemire_, afterwards recast as _Mariamne_, was
ill received in its earlier form. Court pensions, the death of his
father, and lucky financial speculations brought Voltaire
independence. He travelled in 1722 to Holland, met Jean-Baptiste
Rousseau on the way, and read aloud for his new acquaintance _Le Pour
et le Contre_, a poem of faith and unfaith--faith in Deism, disbelief
in Christianity. The meeting terminated with untimely wit at
Rousseau's expense and mutual hostility. Unable to obtain the
approbation for printing his epic, afterwards named _La Henriade_,
Voltaire arrange