The Age of Voltaire

  Table of Contents

  Apology

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  List of Illustrations

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter I. FRANCE: THE REGENCY: 1715–23

  I. The Young Voltaire

  II. The Struggle for the Regency

  III. Boom and Crash

  IV. The Regent

  V. Society Under the Regency

  VI. Watteau and the Arts

  VII. Authors

  VIII. The Incredible Cardinal

  IX. Voltaire and the Bastille

  BOOK I: ENGLAND: 1714–56

  Chapter II. THE PEOPLE

  I. Prelude to the Industrial Revolution

  1. The Sustainers

  2. Industry

  3. Invention

  4. Capital and Labor

  5. Transport and Trade

  6. Money

  II. Aspects of London

  III. Schools

  IV. Morals

  V. Crime and Punishment

  VI. Manners

  VII. Chesterfield

  Chapter III. THE RULERS

  I. George I

  II. George II and Queen Caroline

  III. Robert Walpole

  IV. Bolingbroke

  V. How to Get into a War

  VI. Ireland

  VII. Scotland

  VIII. Bonnie Prince Charlie

  IX. The Rise of William Pitt

  Chapter IV. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

  I. The Religious Situation

  II. The Deistic Challenge

  III. The Religious Rebuttal

  IV. John Wesley

  V. Of Bees and Men

  VI. David Hume

  1. The Young Philosopher

  2. Reason Deflated

  3. Morals and Miracles

  4. Darwinism and Christianity

  5. Communism and Democracy

  6. History

  7. The Old Philosopher

  Chapter V. LITERATURE AND THE STAGE

  I. The Realm of Ink

  II. Alexander Pope

  III. The Voices of Feeling

  IV. The Stage

  V. The Novel

  1. Samuel Richardson

  2. Henry Fielding

  3. Tobias Smollett

  VI. Lady Mary

  Chapter VI. ART AND MUSIC

  I. The Artists

  II. William Hogarth

  III. The Musicians

  IV. Handel

  1. Growth

  2. The Conquest of England

  3. Defeat

  4. The Oratorios

  5. Prometheus

  V. Voltaire in England

  BOOK II: FRANCE: 1723–56

  Chapter VII. THE PEOPLE AND THE STATE

  I. The Nobility

  II. The Clergy

  III. The Third Estate

  1. The Peasantry

  2. The Proletariat

  3. The Bourgeoisie

  IV. The Government

  V. Louis XV

  VI. Mme. de Pompadour

  Chapter VIII. MORALS AND MANNERS

  I. Education

  II. Morals

  III. Manners

  IV. Music

  V. The Salons

  Chapter IX. THE WORSHIP OF BEAUTY

  I. The Triumph of Rococo

  II. Architecture

  III. Sculpture

  IV. Painting

  1. In the Antechamber

  2. Boucher

  3. Chardin

  4. La Tour

  Chapter X. THE PLAY OF THE MIND

  I. The Word Industry

  II. The Stage

  III. The French Novel

  IV. Minor Sages

  V. Montesquieu

  1. Persian Letters

  2. Why Rome Fell

  3. The Spirit of Laws

  4. Aftermath

  Chapter XI. VOLTAIRE IN FRANCE: 1729–50

  I. In Paris: 1729–34

  II. Letters on the English

  III. Idyl in Cirey: 1734–44

  IV. The Courtier: 1745–48

  V. Liebestod

  VI. Mme. Denis

  BOOK III: MIDDLE EUROPE: 1713–56

  Chapter XII. THE GERMANY OF BACH

  I. The German Scene

  II. German Life

  III. German Art

  IV. German Music

  V. Johann Sebastian Bach

  1. Chronology

  2. Compositions

  a. Instrumental

  b. Vocal

  3. Coda

  Chapter XIII. FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MARIA THERESA

  I. Imperial Prelude

  II. Prussian Prelude

  1. Frederick William I

  2. Der junge Fritz

  3. The Prince and the Philosopher

  III. The New Machiavelli

  IV. The War of the Austrian Succession

  V. Frederick at Home: 1745–50

  VI. Voltaire in Germany: 1750–54

  Chapter XIV. SWITZERLAND AND VOLTAIRE

  I. Les Délices

  II. The Cantons

  III. Geneva

  IV. The New History

  BOOK IV: THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING

  1715–89

  Chapter XV. THE SCHOLARS

  I. The Intellectual Environment

  II. The Scholarly Revelation

  Chapter XVI. THE SCIENTIFIC ADVANCE

  I. The Expanding Quest

  II. Mathematics

  1. Euler

  2. Lagrange

  III. Physics

  1. Matter, Motion, Heat, and Light

  2. Electricity

  IV. Chemistry

  1. The Pursuit of Oxygen

  2. Priestley

  3. Lavoisier

  V. Astronomy

  1. Instrumental Prelude

  2. Astronomic Theory

  3. Herschel

  4. Some French Astronomers

  5. Laplace

  VI. About the Earth

  1. Meteorology

  2. Geodesy

  3. Geology

  4. Geography

  VII. Botany

  1. Linnaeus

  2. In the Vineyard

  VIII. Zoology

  1. Buffon

  2. Toward Evolution

  IX. Psychology

  X. The Impact of Science upon Civilization

  Chapter XVII. MEDICINE

  I. Anatomy and Physiology

  II. The Ingenuity of Disease

  III. Treatment

  IV. Specialists

  V. Surgery

  VI. The Physicians

  BOOK V: THE ATTACK UPON CHRISTIANITY

  1730–74

  Chapter XVIII. THE ATHEISTS: 1730–51

  I. The Philosophic Ecstasy

  II. The Background of Revolt

  III. Jean Meslier

  IV. Is Man a Machine?

  Chapter XIX. DIDEROT AND THE Encyclopédie: 1713–68

  I. Shiftless Years

  II. The Blind, the Deaf, and the Dumb

  III. History of a Book

  IV. The Encyclopédie Itself

  Chapter XX. DIDEROT PROTEUS: 1758–73

  I. The Pantheist

  II. The Dream of d’Alembert

  III. Diderot on Christianity

  IV. The Nephew of Rameau

  V. Ethics and Politics

  VI. Diderot on Art

  VII. Diderot and the Theater

  VIII. Diderot

  Chapter XXI. THE SPREADING CAMPAIGN: 1758–74

  I. Helvétius

  1. Development

  2. Philosophy

  3. Influence

  II. Auxiliaries

  III. D’Holbach

  1. The Amiable At
heist

  2. The System of Nature

  3. Morals and the State

  4. D’Holbach and His Critics

  Chapter XXII. VOLTAIRE AND CHRISTIANITY: 1734–78

  I. Voltaire and God

  II. Voltaire and the Encyclopédie

  III. The Theology of Earthquakes

  IV. Candide

  V. The Conscience of Europe

  VI. Écrasez l’infâme!

  VII. Religion and Reason

  VIII. Voltaire Bigot

  Chapter XXIII. THE TRIUMPH OF THE Philosophes: 1715–89

  I. The Clergy Fights Back

  II. The Antiphilosophes

  III. The Fall of the Jesuits

  IV. Education and Progress

  V. The New Morality

  VI. Religion in Retreat

  VII. Summing Up

  EPILOGUE IN ELYSIUM

  Photographs

  About the Authors

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL GUIDE

  INDEX

  TO OUR BELOVED

  GRANDSON

  JIM

  Apology

  BLAME for the length of this volume must rest with authors fascinated to exuberant prolixity by the central theme—that pervasive and continuing conflict between religion and science-plus-philosophy which became a living drama in the eighteenth century, and which has resulted in the secret secularism of our times. How did it come about that a major part of the educated classes in Europe and America has lost faith in the theology that for fifteen centuries gave supernatural sanctions and supports to the precarious and uncongenial moral code upon which Western civilization has been based? What will be the effects—in morals, literature, and politics—of this silent but fundamental transformation?

  The scale of treatment in each volume has grown with the increasing number of past events and personalities still alive in their influence and interest today. This and the multiplicity of topics—all aspects of civilization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756—may offer some excuse for the proliferation of the tale. So The Age of Voltaire has burst its seams, and spills over into a contemplated Part X, Rousseau and Revolution, which will carry the story to 1789. This will look at the transformation of the world map by the Seven Years’ War; the later years of Louis XV, 1756–74; the epoch of Johnson and Reynolds in England; the development of the Industrial Revolution; the flowering of German literature from Lessing to Goethe, of German philosophy from Herder to Kant, of German music from Gluck to Mozart; the collapse of feudalism in the France of Louis XVI; and the history of those peripheral nations—Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, Spain—which have been deferred from this volume partly to save space, and as not directly involved (except through the papacy) in the great debate between reason and faith. This final volume will consider the later phases of that debate in the revolt of Rousseau against rationalism, and the heroic effort of Immanuel Kant to save the Christian theology through the Christian ethic. The perspective of the age of Voltaire will be completed in that Part X of The Story of Civilization. The epilogue to the present volume reviews the case for religion; the epilogue to Rousseau and Revolution, surveying all ten volumes, will face the culminating question: What are the lessons of history?

  We have tried to reflect reality by combining history and biography. The experiment will legitimately invite criticism, but it carries out the aim of “integral history.” Events and personalities go hand in hand through time, regardless of which were causes and which were effects; history speaks in events, but through individuals. This volume is not a biography of Voltaire; it uses his wandering and agitated life as connective tissue between nations and generations, and it accepts him as the most significant and illustrative figure of the period between the death of Louis XIV and the fall of the Bastille. Which, of all the men and women of that turbulent era, is more vividly remembered, more often read, more alive in influence today, than Voltaire? “Voltaire,” said Georg Brandes, “summarizes a century.”1 “Le vrai roi du dix-huitième siècle,” said Victor Cousin, “c’est Voltaire.”2 Let us follow that living flame through his century.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The manuscript has had the advantage of being read by Dr. Theodore Bester-man, Director of the Institut et Musée Voltaire in Geneva; we thank him for his patience, and for opening to us his great collection of Voltaireana. He found one serious error in our text, but otherwise voted us “a very high degree of accuracy.” Doubtless some errors still remain. We shall welcome all corrections that are tempered with mercy.

  Our warm appreciation to Sarah and Harry Kaufman for their help in classifying the material, and to our grandson, James Easton, for revising the chapter on the history of science. Our daughter Ethel not only typed the manuscript but improved it by her suggestions. And we have had again the benefit of expert and scholarly editing of the text, the notes, and the index by Mrs. Vera Schneider.

  NOTES ON THE USE OF THIS BOOK

  1. Dates of birth and death will be found in the Index.

  2. Voltaire reckoned a 50 per cent depreciation of French currency between 1640 and 1750.3 The general reader may use the following rough equivalents, as between 1750 and 1965, in terms of the currency of the United States of America:

  crown, $6.25

  ducat, $6.25

  écu, $3.75

  florin, $6.25

  franc, $1.25

  guilder, $5.25

  guinea, $26.25

  gulden, $5.25

  livre, $1.25

  louis d’or, $25.00

  mark, $16.67

  penny, $.10

  pound, $25.00

  shilling, $1.25

  sou, $.0625

  thaler, $4.00

  3. The location of works of art, when not indicated in the text, will usually be found in the Notes. In allocating such works, the name of the city will imply its leading gallery, as follows:

  Amsterdam—Rijksmuseum

  Berlin—Staatsmuseum

  Bologna—Accademia di Belle Arti

  Budapest—Museum of Fine Arts

  Chicago—Art Institute

  Cincinnati—Art Institute

  Cleveland—Museum of Art

  Detroit—Institute of Art

  Dresden—Gemälde-Galerie

  Dulwich—College Gallery

  Edinburgh—National Gallery

  Frankfurt—Städelsches Kunstinstitut

  Geneva—Musée d’Art et d’Histoire

  The Hague—Mauritshuis

  Kansas City—Nelson Gallery

  Leningrad—Hermitage

  London—National Gallery

  Madrid—Prado

  Milan—Brera

  Naples—Museo Nazionale

  New York—Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Paris—Louvre

  San Marino, Calif.—Henry E. Huntington Art Gallery

  Vienna—Kunsthistorisches Museum

  Washington—National Gallery

  4. Passages in reduced type are especially dull and recondite, and are not essential to the general picture of the age.

  List of Illustrations

  THE page numbers in the captions refer to a discussion in the text of the subject or the artist, and sometimes both.

  Part I. This section follows page 78

  FIG. 1—PORTRAIT AFTER NICOLAS DE LARGILLIÈRE: Voltaire as a Young Man

  FIG. 2—MICHEL CORNEILLE: Philippe d’Orléans, Regent

  FIG. 3—UNKNOWN ARTIST: The Rue Quincampoix in 1718

  FIG. 4—Regency Wall Paneling

  FIG. 5—ALLAN RAMSAY: The Fourth Earl of Chesterfield

  FIG. 6—PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN MARC NATTIER: Prince Charles Edward Stuart (The Young Pretender)

  FIG. 7—ANTONIO CANALETTO: View of the Thames from Richmond House

  FIG. 8—ALLAN RAMSAY: David Hume

  FIG. 9—W. HAMILTON: John Wesley

  FIG. 10—JACOPO AMIGONI: Caroline of Ansbach

  FIG. 11—ANTOINE WATTEAU: The Em
barkation for Cythera

  FIG. 12—CHALK PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM HOARE: Alexander Pope

  FIG. 13—PORTRAIT FROM THE STUDIO OF RICHARD BROMPTON: William Pitt the Elder

  FIG. 14—JOSEPH HIGHMORE: Samuel Richardson

  FIG. 15—SIR GODFREY KNELLER: Lady Mary Worthy Montagu

  FIG. 16—ENGRAVING BASED ON A SKETCH BY WILLIAM HOGARTH: Henry Fielding

  FIG. 17—UNKNOWN ITALIAN ARTIST: Tobias Smollett

  FIG. 18—WILLIAM HOGARTH: Scene from Marriage à la Mode

  FIG. 19—WILLIAM HOGARTH: The Shrimp Girl

  FIG. 20—WILLIAM HOGARTH: Self-Portrait

  FIG. 21—WILLIAM HOGARTH: Engraving, The Sleeping Congregation

  FIG. 22—THOMAS HUDSON: George Frederick Handel

  FIG. 23—JACQUES ANDRÉ AVED: Jean Philippe Rameau

  FIG. 24—The Tuileries Palace and Gardens

  Part II. This section follows page 206

  FIG. 25—HYACINTHE RIGAUD: Louis XV at the Age of Six

  FIG. 26—MAURICE QUENTIN DE LA TOUR: Louis XV

  FIG. 27—HYACINTHE RIGAUD: Cardinal Fleury

  FIG. 28—CARLE VANLOO: Marie Leszczyńska

  FIG. 29—FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: Madame de Pompadour

  FIG. 30—MAURICE QUENTIN DE LA TOUR: Madame de Pompadour

  FIG. 31—JEAN MARC NATTIER: Madame de Châteauroux

  FIG. 32—INTERIOR DECORATION, LOUIS QUINZE STYLE: Drawing Room in the Hôtel de Ludre, Paris

  FIG. 33—Faïence Soup Tureen from Lunéville in Lorraine, Period of King Stanislas

  FIG. 34—JACQUES CAFFIÉRI AND A. R. GAUDREAU: Commode

  FIG. 35—Andirons, Period of Louis XV

  FIG. 36—Mantel Clock, Period of Louis XV

  FIG. 37—Tapestry, Period of Louis XV

  FIG. 38—ROSLIN: François Boucher

  FIG. 39—JEAN LAMOUR: Iron Gates of the Place Stanislas, Nancy

  FIG. 40—FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: The Luncheon from Italian Scenes Tapestries

  FIG. 41—GUILLAUME COUSTOU I: One of the Horses of Marly, Place de la Concorde

  FIG. 42—JEAN BAPTISTE CHARDIN: Le Bénédicité

  FIG. 43—JEAN BAPTISTE CHARDIN: The Artist’s Second Wife

  FIG. 44—JEAN BAPTISTE CHARDIN: Self-Portrait

  FIG. 45—FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: The Rape of Europa

  Part III. This section follows page 334

  FIG. 46—UNKNOWN ARTIST OF THE FRENCH 18TH-CENTURY SCHOOL: Voltaire

  FIG. 47—ENGRAVING AFTER A PAINTING BY DEVERIA: Montesquieu

  FIG. 48—NICOLAS DE LARGILLIÈRE: Madame du Châtelet

  FIG. 49—FRANÇOIS BOUCHER: Le Coucher du Soleil (Sunset)

  FIG. 50—MATTHÄUS DANIEL PÖPPELMANN: The Zwinger Palace, Dresden

  FIG. 51—JOHANN MICHAEL FISCHER: The Abbey Church of the Benedictine Monastery at Ottobeuren

  FIG. 52—BALTHASAR NEUMANN: Staircase of the Prince-Bishop’s Residenz, Würzburg