A funeral procession of a hundred
miles; every village with its flags and arches in his honor; all the
people anxious to honor the philosopher of France--the savior of
Calas--the destroyer of superstition! On reaching Paris the great
procession moved along the Rue St. Antoine. Here it paused, and for
one night upon the ruins of the Bastille rested the body of
Voltaire--rested in triumph, in glory--rested on fallen wall and broken
arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears, on rusting chain, and
bar and useless bolt--above the dungeons dark and deep, where light had
faded from the lives of men and hope had died in breaking hearts. The
conqueror resting upon the conquered. Throned upon the Bastille, the
fallen fortress of night, the body of Voltaire, from whose brain had
issued the dawn.

For a moment his ashes must have felt the Promethean fire, and the old
smile must have illumined once more the face of the dead.

While the vast multitude were trembling with love and awe, a priest was
heard to cry, "God shall be avenged!"

The grave of Voltaire was violated. The cry of the priest, "God shall
be avenged!" had borne its fruit. Priests, skulking in the shadows,
with faces sinister as night-ghouls--in the name of the gospel,
desecrated the gave. They carried away the body of Voltaire. The tomb
was empty. God was avenged! The tomb was empty, but the world is
filled with Voltaire's fame. Man has conquered!

What cardinal, what bishop, what priest raised his voice for the rights
of men? What ecclesiastic, what nobleman, took the side of the
oppressed--of the peasant? Who denounced the frightful criminal code
the torture of suspected persons? What priest pleaded for the liberty
of the citizen? What bishop pitied the victim of the rack? Is there
the grave of a priest in France on which a lover of liberty would now
drop a flower or a tear? Is there a tomb holding the ashes of a saint
from which emerges one ray of light? If there be another life, a day
of judgment, no God can afford to torture in another world a man who
abolished torture in his. If God be the keeper of an eternal
penitentiary, He should not imprison there those who broke the chain of
slavery here. He cannot afford to make eternal convicts of Franklin,
of Jefferson, of Paine, of Voltaire.

Voltaire was perfectly equipped for his work. A perfect master of the
French language, knowing all its moods, tenses, and declinations, in
fact and