Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1856-05-30
From Life Illustrated.
vOLTAIRE.
A FRAGMENT By WALT WHITMAN.


Condition Of Hritsrs before the Amer-
ican Era-Bjrth and grose,i of Toitairs.
Louis the Grand was king of France,
under confessors, and devotee wife
wonderful men and wonderful women
were plenty-literature looked up at last
from its knees where it had so long been
kneeling and mumbling. The eye hard
ly knew what to make Of it !; it had been
accustomed to see writers exist merely
by permission of the court, or protected
By mobiles. Rousseau-was he not exiled
from France, home, friends, happiness,
fortune, for forty years, because he strung
together four or five witty phrases? Ra-
cine, Boileau, Corneille, Moliere, La
Bruyere, Fenelon--what had they to eat
or drink but the shadows of royalty or
the aristoeracy? Was it not in England
the same? Had it not been with Sbaks-
peare and his contemporaries the same !?
There was only one other choice for lit
erateurs. Some were devoted to the SER
vice Of priests. Kings and the Catholic
church directed with strong hand the
wrists Of erudition, and punished with all
bloody and remorseless punishments,
whoever questioned them or their viii.
Among the profuse shoals of the writers
Of those times, not one appeared'to speak
for man, for mind, for freedom, against su-
perstition and caste.
Francis-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, a
! fit precursor, in one or two points, of the
American era, was born in the year 81
before it, (namely l694) He devoted
himself to letters from his boyhood. He
mixed with the world, went to court
went among women-was educated at 9
Jesuit school-had hardly come of age
before he was packed off to the BastiIt
for writing two or three lines the govern
ment did not like-came out by and by
wrote his tragedy of qdipus-succeedeC
became theneeforth a known and estab
lished man. (The only like instance o
such luck, and proportionate success long
afterward, is the case of the German
Goethe.) Voltaire saw the BastiIe arair
in his thirty-second year, for giving {
spirited reply to an insult from one o
the pets of the court. Such were tn,
conditions under which writers held thei
pens and Hvesl
The French EncycEopedia-voltaire
from being quite an habitue of the Bas.
tile, and seeing others often sent there foi
no better reasons, began to cast around
him with a mixture of feelings of man
illness, resentment, ambition, ,benevolence
conscious power, and pride. Year,
elapsed in the process and determination
Of the mind. He himself had perhap.
not so much to complain of; he belonged
to the chosen circles. Men of wit, but
terhies, learned persons, women such a
no other land has produced, were arouni
him; they knew-the great mass of tn
people were ignorant, all over Europe
J Out of such reflections; out of an age Q
: irony and lieentiousness above. and ser
Witty and superstition below; out of tn
times of the goddesses Of the opera, an,
of the filthy orgies of the Regency; GU
of the times of Button, La AIotte, Fon
tenelle, Diderot, Piron, Crebillon tn
tragic, and Crebillon the gay-of Made
moiselle Clairon, Sophie Arnold, Mad
anne de Pompadour, and Marie Anton
ette-rose the Encyclopedia Francai
Long live free literature Long live SC
encel The French Encyclopedia turne
the instruments of the great oyertures {
the French Revolution and the America
revolution.
This article is only fragment.
skips clean over, after all, the breadth
the existence Of the mighty infdel.
Last Days and Death Of VoIaire.-
+, The stretch finishing life passed
4 many noble labors, the old man extende
4 long and long in exile. Now it can
\ time for him to come home and die.
IT FROM "woMEv IN FRANCE" BIZ JUL
: KAyAHAGH.
/ After an absence Of twenty-seve
h years, and in the eighty-fourth year
i his age, Voltaire once more visited PAR
1t was decided that he should not be r
ceiyed at court. Marie Antoinette, le
q strictly de9out than her hosbaud, regre
N ted being unable to behold one Of Il
Y most alustrious men Of his age. yoltai
il was amply compensated for the slight
D. the court, by the extraordinary homo
mi with which be was everywhere else r
"a ceived. he no sooner appeared in Il
theatre, where bis last piece, Irene, "
acted, than the whole audience rose al
ID greeted him with long and enthasiasf