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Updated: June 7, 2025
Arouet belonged to the middle class and never knew that he sprang from a noble line until his son announced the fact. It was then too late to deny it. He was a devout Churchman, upright in all his affairs, respectable, took snuff, walked with a waddle and cultivated a double chin. M. Arouet pater did not marry until his mind was mature, so that he might avoid the danger of a mismating.
His father, François Arouet, was a successful notary of Paris, an honorable profession, which included all that is now done among us by lawyers, brokers, life-insurers, and administrators of estates. Many of the characteristics which we discover in his father, and, indeed, in all the Arouets, survive in Voltaire.
He beseeched his father to release him from his course of study, and he consented that he should return to the country-seat of a friend, and consider the matter. Here Arouet found a large library, and fed upon it. He staid there until the death of the king, when he went up to Paris to witness the joy of the people.
"Whereupon arose explosions, as we hint; family explosions on the part of M. Arouet Senior; such that friends had to interfere, and it was uncertain what would come of it.
"About a week after, M. Arouet Junior was again dining with the Duc de Sulli, and a fine company as before. A servant whispers him, That somebody has called, and wants him below.
It is like a ballroom, a typical place of worship for a generation that had no desire to pray, but strutted in gaudy silks and ogled over pretty fans, pretending to discuss the latest audacity of Monsieur Arouet de Voltaire. The Spaniards possess to the fullest degree the art of evoking devout emotions, and in their various churches may be experienced every phase of religious feeling.
All these rulers dallied with creeds and were diplomats to the Machiavellian limit of duplicity. They burned and hanged and tortured on the plea of the strong State. Frederick, the Great, too, Mr. Morley classes as a pupil of Machiavelli, though, once, the "crank" on tall grenadiers threatened to write a refutation of "The Prince" and thereby drew from Arouet de Voltaire a characteristic mot.
The poem was called "Henriade," and was regarded with admiration by his contemporaries. Arouet was finally set free, his innocence being satisfactorily proved. He now issued the tragedy of "Oedipus," which had a great success. This success was only deserved in part.
She was pleased to put me down in her will; she left me two thousand francs to buy books; her death followed close upon my visit and her will." Young Arouet was finishing brilliantly his last year of rhetoric, when John Baptist Rousseau, already famous, saw him at the distribution of prizes at the college.
I should not amuse myself by writing down such a trifle, if this same Arouet, having become a great poet and academician under the name of Voltaire, had not also become after many tragical adventures a manner of personage in the republic of letters, and even achieved a sort of importance among certain people.
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