This was my primary history coursework for my last year at school, completed last month. I wonder what knowlegable people in Voltaire think about i.e. the conclusions I come to, it would be interesting to hear your views.
Jon F
Discuss the view that Voltaire was a subversive
Any answer to this question must include a study of Voltaire’s attitudes towards politics, society and religion, each of which we will be examining in turn, and which are likely to reveal inconsistencies in the traditional view taken of Voltaire as a subversive. In doing so we must also offer commentary on sources relevant to this topic. These include Voltaire’s extensive correspondence and works such as The Age of Louis XIV, Philosophical Dictionary, Letters on England, and of course Candide, selections from his 19th century critics, and more contemporary assessments such as Bernard Schilling’s Conservative England and the Case Against Voltaire, and Peter Gay’s Voltaire’s Politics.
A brief sketch of some of the more colourful episodes in Voltaire’s life will give us an idea of the controversy that surrounded him. By the tender age of twenty four, he had been exiled three times, put in the Bastille, beaten up, and all while his first major play, Oedipe. He fraternised with Frederick the Great, whether for opportunistic reasons or from sincere feeling, and inevitably fell in and out of favour. He corresponded regularly with Catherine the Great, an avid admirer of his work who eventually purchased Voltaire’s library after his death. He took an interest in social justice with the Calas affair, although he has accused of being more concerned here with criticising the church. He was seen to condone absolutism (but as we will later see this is an oversimplification), while at the same time living in significant affluence. His most famous work, Candide, abounding in satire and scorn, was a savage attack on the Church and the philosophy that optimism and rational thought can curtail the evils perpetrated by human beings. And just as the man, who died at 84, led a capricious life, so too were the events that followed his death arguably the most important and tumultuous of France’s history, even the history of Europe; the revolutions of 1789.
It is perhaps little wonder, therefore, that the most vehement attacks on Voltaire’s attitudes to politics were seen in the years that followed this upheaval in France. So, while critics of Voltaire, such as Paillet-de-Warcy, “who assailed him with a personal venom hardly equalled in the eighteenth century” appear to have a self serving quality, since implicit in this detestation of Voltaire were the fears and animosities generated by the Revolution of 1789, still raw in the minds of many in France, this is an understandable grievance. It is, for this reason, also possible to see why early nineteenth century critics, Paillet-de-Warcy among them, but also the hugely influential Alexis de Tocqueville, and the lesser known scholar within Voltaire criticism, Abbe Maynard, saw him as a monstrous political subversive. We may broadly identify two ways in which they thought this was the case, even if it was, as we will in due course see, a misunderstanding. Firstly, it was believed that Voltaire and most of the Enlightenment philosophes were men of “abstract, literary politics,” lacking the practical sense to reform and preserve the Ancien regime. Secondly, in the words of Peter Gay, “the antievolutionary tradition in France evolved an image of Voltaire of the brilliant, impious conspirator, subverting the Old Regime which had deserved to survive for all its flaw”. So too would they have believed that the revolution in France was the “the words of Voltaire in arms”.
It is certain that some credence may be given to this view when we encounter some of Voltaire’s work. A prime example would be the following line from an aria in his Opera Samson which “became, with the Marseillaise, the song of the Revolution”.
Awake ye people, and break your chains. Freedom is calling you.
If those consumed with revolutionary zeal were to look back at Voltaire and take
these statements completely at face value, then it is little wonder that conservative critics of the enlightenment such as Tocqueville would do the same. Neither were Voltaire’s more political treatises exempt from a judgement of subversiveness. In his Letters on England, for example, Voltaire compares the system of governance in England to that of his own country. In the letter On Parliament, he writes that “the English nation is the only one on earth which has succeeded in controlling the power of kings by resisting them”. And, on the view of critics of Voltaire, to resist kings meant more than simply lobbying for greater political freedom on the part of the people, it signified subversion in violent uprising. As Roger Pearson points out, of Voltaire’s The White Bull, “the French Revolution was just over fifteen years away when it was first published, and the story’s thematic insistence on cutting people’s heads off looks what in the circumstances can only be called prophetic”. Indeed, the revolution which began by trying to make Louis XVI into a constitutional monarch, ended up a few years later cutting his head off. Such instances from Voltaire’s work do indeed suggest that he was, politically at least, subversive.
And yet so often Voltaire is misquoted, misinterpreted, and this is therefore an image that is deeply flawed, a gross misunderstanding. In the case of the The White Bull, Voltaire appears prophetic yes, but does not actually condone cutting people’s heads off. So too in the Letter On Parliament, if we take the line in isolation then one can indeed accuse Voltaire of wanting, however implicitly, to subvert the Old Regime in France, but we should not take it in isolation, since he goes on to say that the English “have at last established that wise Government where the Prince is all-powerful to do good, and, at the same time, is restrained from committing evil; where the nobles are great without insolence, though there are no vassals; and where the people share in the Government without confusion”. To “share in government” does not mean to subvert it. Further, Dorinda Outram, in her useful guide to The Enlightenment, points out the “danger of imposing anachronistic terminology” to the subject of Voltaire’s connection with the French revolution, since “the Enlightenment was not entirely at ease in itself with the concept of ‘revolution.’ It is clear, for example, that it was only gradually in the eighteenth century that the word came to take on its twentieth-century connotations.”
What is more, not only did Voltaire not desire to subvert government of France, he also wanted to strengthen it. If we are to believe Peter Gay in his masterly Voltaire’s Politics, that “there was nothing new in deploring the selfishness, stupidity, cruelty of the governors and the sufferings of the government,” then it is perfectly possible to see that Voltaire was neither unique in, nor a pioneer of, criticising the existing monarchy and government… What was new, under Voltaire and other enlightenment philosophes, was the idea that “the sickness of the state could be cured”. It is worth stepping aside at this point to evaluate Gay’s classic monograph on Voltaire. It some respects, his could be seen as a partisan work. After all, Gay admits that “I honour what Voltaire honoured and I oppose what he opposed.” However, he also works hard to “anchor his (Voltaire’s) political writings firmly in the ground of his society, his experience, and the history of his century.” His conclusion that “Voltaire was a realist, a practical hard-headed political man,” who was neither radical, nor revolutionary, seems to be justified, not only by the breath of Gay’s scholarship, but also by his readiness to criticise Voltaire - “Voltaire…showed little concern for the poor”.
As the realistic political idealist the Gay portrays him, Voltaire looked to the crown as “the only possible agent of reform,” and as he said in a letter to d’Alembert, a man with whom he shared many views, “the cause of the king is the cause of the philosophes”. This is probably the most succinct statement of a lifelong conviction, and as such provides a significant counter to the view that Voltaire was politically radical. Gay also lays a heavy emphasis on “Voltaire’s royalism,” a considered, informed view of the theses royale, based on an intimate knowledge of French history and French politics. This thesis royale dated back to the fifteenth century, and was “popular among administrators and practical politicians in Voltaire’s own time”. Can we really imagine, then, that “the tendency of his (Voltaire’s) life work was to undermine the political order”? That Voltaire was, therefore, quite politically conservative has inextricable links with his views on society, and so we will now come on to address the question of whether he was socially subversive.
It is perhaps sensible to return to the views of contemporaries of Voltaire, and those writing shortly after his time had passed. In relation to Voltaire and society, special attention must be paid to the view, prevalent in the 1850s, that he was a champion of the poor, “an apostle of freedom and tolerance against the forces of despotism and superstition, a great liberator”. Certainly Voltaire promoted freedom from the “forces of superstition,” in his attitudes to the Church in France, as we shall come one to see. Yet we cannot infer that Voltaire had any section of class society in mind, and it is probably unlikely that he had the rights of the poorest members of society in mind. After all, he was perfectly happy to live a life of luxury. As Roger Pearson details in his biography Voltaire Almighty:
Voltaire owned a coat- a sumptuous confection of ermine and velvet costing 432 livres. Six horses, four carriages, a coachman and postillon, two footmen, one valet, a French cook, an under chef, a secretary and assorted other slaves.
He even led of life of affluence within the court of Frederick the Great for a short time. Voltaire made small efforts to condemn serfdom, and yet we see above that he kept numerous and “assorted slaves.”. Clearly, it is difficult to square this with the view that Voltaire was a champion of the poor, or that he was socially subversive.
However, not only did Voltaire happily except a life of affluence, he also actively courted it. As we have already seen, Paillet-de-Warcy was a vehement critic, and while he may have been wrong in the suggestion, alongside others, that Voltaire was a political subversive, some of the criticisms he makes of our subject are quite pertinent. Certainly, Voltaire was not the best of characters at times, even his supporters must admit that; he often was vindictive, avaricious, and conceited, taking any chance presented to advance his social standing. What is more, Voltaire advanced his position in society often at the expense of others, with the lower classes achieving no special mention in the majority of work. As Gay points out; “the predecessors of the Lettres Philosophiques (another of Voltaire’s more influential works) - breathed the spirit of noblesse oblige, an aristocratic concern for the lot of the poor. Voltaire, on the other hand, showed little concern for the poor”.
Moreover, alongside this thesis royale, Voltaire held a profound belief in the rule of law, which he was therefore “deeply devoted to as an ideal”. From his knowledge and time in England, Voltaire saw that this worked well, and wrote in Questions sur l’Encyclopaedie, that “to be free is to depend on the laws alone”. This is not the position of a radical subversive, but of a man of ideology. Crucially in the social context, the rule of law provides certainty “in the midst of uncertainty by permitting men to predict the consequences of their actions”. It seems unlikely that Voltaire, a man so committed to the rule of law, would in any way want to condone violent uprising the likes of which was seen in 1798, unpredictable and destabilizing as it was.
In fact, Voltaire would much rather see a strong monarchical and even authoritarian government, to the politically unstable state that a revolution could reduce it to. The best example of this in his writing is that famous, but too little quoted and too little studied Siecle de Louis XIV (The Age of Louis XIV), where he informs us that “supreme authority, which may be abused, is dangerous, but a divided authority is even more so”. Voltaire was content to have the social order of France at the time of his writing remain, provided reform of the system of government was possible, but would not have appreciated a “people’s revolt” since it would inevitably undermine this social order. We may perhaps conclusively suggest, therefore, that he was both politically and socially conservative.
But what of Voltaire’s attitudes to religion? There is little doubt that he was a fervent and long lasting critic of not only the church in France, but also Christianity itself. After all, what became Voltaire’s most used motto, common in his correspondence, was Ecrasez l’infaime (crush the infamy), that infamy being the church. Writing to Frederick the Great, Voltaire complained with vehemence that “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world”. In a further example, taken from his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire passes the judgement that “nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” Outram goes further than to simply cite examples such of Voltaire’s hostility towards religion, in suggesting that “the hostility of thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot towards the Catholic Church was quite different from the profound interest in theological questions by such German thinkers as Christian Wolff and Leibniz,” and as an expert on enlightenment philosophy with a significant academic history, we have good reason to trust the validity of her statement. It is perhaps more excusable, when we take this into account, that critics attacked Voltaire’s subversiveness on the basis of his attitudes to religion, which were less constructive and more satirical.
We may also suggest, since the few lines mentioned above provide just a tiny microcosm of Voltaire’s attacks on religion, that it is little wonder that Bernard Schilling, in presenting Conservative England and the Case Against Voltaire, believes “Voltaire did undermine the church in France before the revolution; it is essential to peaceful maintenance of order that the people cling to their religious belief”. The latter point is a view that appears to achieve a large historical consensus. Edmund Burk, for example, believed that “Church and state are ideas inseparable - and scarcely is the one mentioned without mentioning the other”. M.S. Anderson too, a contemporary historian, maintains that Voltaire’s attacks on religion “undermined faith and weakened the churches as bulwarks of social and political stability".
However, this also highlights the impossibility of separating religious from social and political factors. The Calas affair is a classic example. Jean Calas was a Toulouse cloth merchant, convicted of the murder of his eldest son, Marc-Antoine Calas. A rumour had been circulated by the canaille of Toulouse (the common people) that Marc-Antoine was murdered by his protestant father just as the former was about to convert to Catholicism. Jean Calas was sentenced to be broken on the wheel and execution. This terrible story reached Voltaire and caused him great consternation alongside morbid excitement. He set about trying to vindicate the Calas family, who he had convinced himself were innocent of the murder. Voltaire’s motives for involving himself in the case are a cause of much debate among historians. Paillet-de-Warcy for example, saw Voltaire’s interest in the Calas case as atheistically partisan, and not the result of any plan for social reform, whereas Gay believes that religion played a minimal part in Voltaire’s consideration of the matter, which instead “converted him into a legal reformer, and his abstract, benevolent demands for justice - into a concrete program.” However dichotomous their views on the matter may be, both historians seem to miss the point that religious and social issues were, for Voltaire, indivisible. Further, this all serves to demonstrate the difficulties, when examining the view that Voltaire of a subversive, of separating his views on religion from his political and social treatises.
And yet this is what we must do, since it enables us to expose one major truth about Voltaire; that he has been recorded by critical historians as a monstrous subversive, when really it was only his attitudes to religion that can be seen to actively subvert. That has been the great tragedy of Voltaire’s story, that “has had many reputations, most of them unjustified.” So we must conclude by saying that Voltaire only sought to subvert the religious order to achieve social and political harmony; in his own words, “Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.”
WORD COUNT: 2,790.
Bibliography
A Primary Sources
[1] Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de, Candide and Other Stories, translated by Pearson, Roger (Oxford University Press, 1990)
[2] Voltaire, Correspondence.
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[28] Porter, Roy, The Enlightenment (Palgrave, 2001)
[29] Porter, Roy & Teich, Mikulas, The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge University Press, 1981)
[30] Scurr, Ruth, Why Voltaire Speaks to us Still, The Times Books November 12 2005, including a review of Roger Pearson’s Voltaire Almighty.
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