International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Voltaire was the penname of François Marie Arouet. As a writer and philosopher, he was one of the prime movers of the Enlightenment , the revolutionary intellectual movement that exalted reason (as the alternative to religious faith) and progress, and shaped the modern world by promoting the values of human rights, religious toleration, and democracy. Voltaire's primary weapon was his wickedly satirical pen, which he used to advocate social reform, defend civil liberties, and criticize French institutions and the Catholic Church. His voluminous work includes poems, plays, fiction, history, philosophical dialogues, scientific treatises, encyclopedia entries, tracts, pamphlets, and volumes of letters. Born in Paris to a well-off middle-class family on November 21, 1694, Voltaire harbored resentment toward the French nobility, which refused to accept him as an equal despite his supreme intellectual and artistic achievements. The young man's sensitivity to arbitrary injustice was sharpened when some satirical verses he wrote in 1716 landed him in the Bastille for almost a year. In 1726 when a nobleman, the Chevalier de Rohan, mocked Voltaire's origins, he published an acerbic and witty reply that earned him a beating at the hands of men in the Chevalier's employ. Voltaire's appeals to aristocratic circles for justice backfired. Nonetheless, his antipathy toward the nobility did not ... log in or subscribe to read full text