3 Vauban and Boisguillebert are both to be found in Les Economistes Financiers du XVIIIiÈme SiÈcle, published by Guillaumin, 1851.
4 ‘Je ne sais si, À tout prendre, et malgrÉ les vices Éclatants de quelques uns de ses membres, il y eut jamais dans le monde un clergÉ plus remarquable que le clergÉ catholique de France au moment oÙ la RÉvolution l’a surpris, plus ÉclairÉ, plus national, moins retranchÉ dans les seules vertus privÉes, mieux pourvu de vertus publiques et en meme temps de plus de foi: la persÉcution l’a bien montrÉ’—De Tocqueville, Ancien RÉgime, liv. ii. c. 11.
5 Rem. sur les PensÉes de M. Pascal. Œuvres, xliii. p. 68.
7 Some fault has been found with this passage by one or two private critics, as being not entirely just to the eminent thinker to whom it refers, and to whom my own obligations, direct and indirect, are so numerous, notwithstanding my final inability to follow him in his ideas of social reconstruction, that the idea of adding to the sum of misrepresentation of which Comte and his doctrines have been the victims, is particularly disagreeable to me. Here, therefore, is one passage in which Comte seems to speak rather more warmly of Voltaire than the words in the text imply: ‘Toutefois, l’indispensable nÉcessitÉ mentale et sociale d’une telle Élaboration provisoire laissera toujours, dans l’ensemble de l’histoire humaine, une place importante À ses principaux coopÉrateurs, et surtout À leur type le plus Éminent, auquel la postÉritÉ la plus lointaine assurera une position vraiment unique; parceque jamais un pareil office n’avait pu jusqu’alors Échoir, et pourra dÉsormais encore moins appartenir À un esprit de cette nature, chez lequel la plus admirable combinaison qui ait existÉ jusqu’ici entre les diverses qualitÉs secondaires de l’intelligence prÉsentait si souvent la sÉduisante apparence de la force et du gÉnie’ (Phil. Pos. v. 518). Against this we have to place the highly significant fact that Voltaire only appears in the calendar as a dramatic poet, as well as the whole tenour and spirit of Comte’s teaching, namely, as he puts it in one place, that ‘une pure critique ne peut jamais mÉriter beaucoup d’estime’ (Politique Positive, iii. 547).
71EncyclopÉdic Nouvelle de Jean Reynaud et Pierre Leroux, s.v. Voltaire, p. 736. De Maistre audaciously denies that Voltaire ever did more than dip into Locke. SoirÉes, vi.
72 Villemain’s Cours de Lit. FranÇaise, i. p. 111. See also De Maistre, SoirÉes de St. Petersbourg, vi. p. 424. On the other hand, see Lanfrey’s L’Eglise et les Philosophes du 18iÈme SiÈcle, pp. 99, 108, etc.
73 Madame de Grafigny. Cf. Desnoiresterres, Voltaire au ChÂteau de Cirey, p. 246, etc.
102 In some readings given before popular audiences in Paris in 1850, it was found that Voltaire was only partially effective. ‘Trop d’artifice,’ says Ste. Beuve, ‘trop d’art nuit auprÈs des esprits neufs; trop de simplicitÉ nuit aussi; ils ne s’en Étonnent pas, et ils ont jusqu’À un certain point besoin d’Être ÉtonnÉs.’ (Causeries, i. 289.)
105 The dates of the most famous of his tragedies are these: Œdipe, 1718; Brutus, 1730; ZaÏre, 1732; Mort de CÉsar, 1735; Alzire, 1736; Mahomet, 1741; MÉrope, 1743; SÉmiramis, 1748; TancrÈde, 1760.
106 Hettnerr, for instance: Literaturgeschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts, ii. 227.
111 Lett. sur les Anglais, xix. Œuvres, xxxv. p. 151.
112 Introduction to Semiramis. Œuvres, v. p. 194. See also Du ThÉÂtre Anglais (1761). Ib. x. p. 88. Lettre À l’Acad. FranÇ. (1778), iv. p. 186.
113Voltaire: sechs VortrÄge. Von D. F. Strauss; p. 74. The same idea is found in a speech of Wilhelm Meister, bk. iii. ch. 8.
114MÉm. de Marmontel, liv. vii. ii. 245. For Diderot’s criticism, see his MÉmoires et Œuvr. InÉdites, i. 234 (1830). For D’Alembert’s, cf. Voltaire’s Œuv. lxxv. p. 118.
125Vie de Voltaire, p. 88. On the same subject of chastity, of Condorcet’s Works, vi. p. 264, and pp. 523-26; also a passage in his correspondence, i. p. 221.
126 Essai sur la PoÉsie Epique. Œuvres, xiii. p. 474
154 It may be worth mentioning that there actually existed in the sixteenth century a French physician, who changed his real name of Sans-Malice into Akakia, and left descendants so called. See M. Jal’s Dictionnaire Critique de Biographie et d’Histoire, p. 19 (1869).
157 Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et FrÉderic, cc. 9 and 10. Carlyle’s Frederick, bk. xvi. ch. 12.
158 See Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et FrÉdÉric, pp. 124-153, including a facsimile of the fraudulently altered agreement. Also Carlyle’s Frederick, bk. xvi. ch. 7.
167 Corr. 1743. Œuv. lviii. p. 131. A very long and careful list of the oppressions practised on writers in this reign is given in Mr. Buckle’s Hist. of Civilisation, i. 675-681.
168 Foisset’s Corres. de Voltaire avec de Brasses, etc., p. 318. Also Corr. 1757. Œuvres, Ixvi. pp. I-50 passim.
176 1 It was to the last-named book, one may suppose, that Voltaire referred, when he asked how it was that Locke, after having so profoundly traced the development of the human understanding, could so degrade his own understanding in another work. (Diet Phil. s.v. Platon. (Œuv. lvii. p. 369.)
177 2 See Collins’s Apology for Free Debate and Liberty of Writing, prefixed to the Grounds and Reasons of Christianity.
181 For the composition of this body see Voltaire’s Histoire du Parlement de Paris. Œuv. xxxiv. Or in Martin s Hist, de France, iv. 295; xii. 280; and xii. 53.
182 Sikcle de Louis xv. c. 36. Œuvres, xxix. p. 3.
238 The dates of the publication of Voltaire’s historical works are these:—Charles XII., 1731; SiÉcle de Louis XIV., 1752 (a portion of it in 1739); Annales de l’Empire, 1753-54; Essai sur les Moeurs, 1757 (surreptitiously in 1754); Histoire de Russie, Pt. I. in 1759, Pt. II. in 1763; Precis du Siecle de Louis XV., 1768; Histoire du Parlement de Paris, 1769.
239 Le Pyrrhonisme de l’Histoire, cc. xii. xiii. Œuvres, xxxvi, p. 346; also p. 428.
253Moeurs, like ??? is untranslatable by any single English word. The full title is Essai sur les Moeurs et l’Esprit des Nations, et sur les principaux faits de l’Histoire depuÍs Charlemagne jusqu’ À Louis XIII.
266 A drawing of Voltaire’s chÂteau at Ferney is given in Blancheton’s Vues Pittoresques des ChÂteaux de France (Paris, 1826), Part II. The chÂteau is still standing, and the prospect from the terrace repays a visit, apart from the interest of association. The church is now a receptacle for wine-casks.
267 The reader who is curious as to the most indifferent details, will find what he seeks in a singular monument of painstaking spleen, entitled MÉnage et Finances de Voltaire, by M. Nicolardot (Paris, 1854).
275 Corr. 1772. Œuvres, lxxi. p. 496. The marked copy is still in existence, along with the rest of Voltaire’s books, at St. Petersburg; see Lavergne’s Economistes du 18iÈme SiÈcle, p. 285.