Chapter VII: Part 7

The Positive Philosophy was taken up by John Stuart Mill, who wrote a fine essay on it. It was Mill who introduced the work to Harriet Martineau. Mr. and Mrs. Mill had intended to translate and condense the philosophy of Comte for English readers, but when Miss Martineau expressed her intention of attempting the task, they relinquished the idea, but backed her up in her efforts.

Miss Martineau condensed the six volumes into two, and what is most strange, Comte thought so well of the work that he wrote a glowing acknowledgment of it.

The Martineaus were of good old Huguenot stock, and the French language came easy to Harriet. For the plain people of France she had a profound regard, and being sort of a revolutionary by prenatal instincts, Comte's work from the start appealed to her. James Martineau had such a bristling personality--being very much like his sister Harriet--that when this sister wrote a review of a volume of his sermons, showing the fatuity and foolishness of the reasoning, and calling attention to much bad grammar, the good man cut her off with a shilling--"which he will have to borrow," said Harriet.

James hugged the idea to his death that his sister had insulted his genius--"But I forgive her," he said, which remark proves that he hadn't, for if he had, he would not have thought to mention the matter. James Martineau was a great man, but if he had been just a little greater he would have taken a profound pride in a sister who was so sharp a shooter that she could puncture his balloon. James Martineau was a theologian; Harriet was a Positivist. But Positivity had a lure for him, and so there is a long review, penned largely with aqua fortis, on Miss Martineau's translation, done by her brother for the "Edinburgh Review," wherein Harriet is not once mentioned.

When Robert Ingersoll's wife would occasionally, under great stress of the servant-girl problem, break over a bit, as good women will, and say things, Robert would remark, "Gently, my dear, gently--I fear me you haven't yet gotten rid of all your Christian virtues."

The Reverend Doctor James Martineau never quite got rid of his Christian virtues, which perhaps proves that a little hate, like strychnin, is useful as a stimulant when properly reduced, for Doctor Martineau died only a few years ago, having nearly rounded out a century run.

Harriet Martineau was in much doubt about how Comte would regard her completed work, but was greatly relieved when he gave it his unqualified approval. On his earnest invitation she visited him in Paris. Fortunately, she did not have to resort to the Herbert Spencer expedient of wearing ear-muffs for protection against loquacious friends. She liked Comte first-rate, until he began to make love to her. Then his stock dropped below par.

Comte was always much impressed by intellectual women. His wife had given him a sample of the other kind, and caused him to swing out and idealize the woman of brains.

So that, when Harriet Martineau admired the Positive Philosophy, it was proof sufficient to Comte of her excellence in all things. She knew better, and started soon for Dover.

Mr. and Mrs. Mill had called on Comte a few months before, and given him a glimpse of the ideal--an intellectual man mated with an intellectual woman. But Comte didn't see that it was plain commonsense that made them great. Comte prided himself on his own commonsense, but the article was not in his equipment, else he would not have put the blame of all his troubles upon his wife. A man with commonsense, married to a woman who hasn't any, does not necessarily forfeit his own.

Mr. or Mrs. Mill would have been great anywhere--singly, separately, together, or apart. Each was a radiant center. Weakness multiplied by two does not give strength, and naught times naught equals naught.

* * * * *

Having finished the Positive Philosophy, Comte's restless mind began to look around for more worlds to conquer.

In the expenditure of money he was careful, and in his accounts exact; but the making of money and its accumulation were things that to him could safely be delegated to second-class minds. A haughty pride of intellect was his, not unmixed with that peculiar quality of the prima donna which causes her to cut fantastic capers and make everybody kiss her big toe.

Comte had done one thing superbly well. England had recognized his merit to a degree that France had not, and to his English friends he now made an appeal for financial help, so he could have freedom to complete another great work he had in his mind. To John Stuart Mill he wrote, outlining in a general way his new book on a social science, to be called "The Positive Polity." It was, in a degree, to be a sequel to the Positive Philosophy.

Mill communicated with Grote, the banker, known to us through his superb history of Greece, and with the help of George Henry Lewes and a mite from Herbert Spencer to show his good-will, a purse equal to about twelve hundred dollars was sent to Comte.

Matters went along for a year, when Comte wrote a brief letter to Mill suggesting that it was about time for another remittance. Mill again appealed to Grote, and Grote, the man of affairs, wrote to his Paris correspondent, who ascertained that Comte, now believing he was free from the bread-and-butter bugaboo, was giving his services to the Polytechnic, gratis, and also giving lectures to the people wherever some one would simply pay for the hall.

To advance money to a man that he might write a book showing how the nation should manage its finances, when the author could not look after his own, reminded Grote of the individual who wrote from the Debtors' Prison to the Secretary of the Exchequer, giving valuable advice. All publishers are familiar with the penniless person who writes a book on "How to Achieve Success," expecting to achieve success by publishing it.

Grote wrote to Mill, expressing the wholesome truth that the first duty of every man was to make a living for himself--a fact which Mill states in "On Liberty." Mill hadn't the temerity to pass Grote's maxim along to Comte, and so sent a small contribution out of his own pocket. This was very much like the Indian who, feeling that his dog's tail should be amputated, cut it off a little at a time, so as not to hurt the animal. We have all done this, and got the ingratitude we deserved.

Comte wrote back a most sarcastic letter, accusing Mill and Grote with having broken faith with him.

He now treated them very much as he had Saint-Simon; and in his lectures seldom failed to tell in pointed phrase what a lot of money-grubbing barbarians inhabited the British Isles. To the credit of Mill be it said that he still believed in the value of the Positive Philosophy, and did all he could to further Comte's reputation and help the sale of his books.

* * * * *

In Eighteen Hundred Forty-five, when Comte was forty-seven years old, he met Madame Clothilde de Vaux. Her husband was in prison, serving a life-sentence for political offenses, and Comte was first attracted to her through pity. Soon this evolved into a violent attachment, and Comte began to quote her in his lectures.

Comte was now most busy with his "Polity" in collaboration with Madame De Vaux. Her part of the work seems to have been to listen to Comte while he read her his amusing manuscript: and she, being a good woman and wise, praised the work in every part. They were together almost daily, and she seemed to supply him the sympathy he had all of his life so much craved.

In one short year Madame De Vaux died, and Comte for a time was inconsolable. Then his sorrow found surcease in an attempt to do for her in prose what Dante had done for Beatrice in poetry. But the vehicle of Comte's thoughts creaked. The exact language of science when applied to a woman becomes peculiarly non-piquant and lacking in perspicacity and perspicuity. No woman can be summed up in an algebraic formula, and when a mathematician does a problem to his lady's eyebrow, he forgets entirely that femininity forever equals _x_. Those who can write Sonnets from the Portuguese may place their loves on exhibition--no others should. Sweets too sweet do cloy.

For the rest of his life, Comte made every Wednesday afternoon sacred for a visit to the grave of Madame De Vaux, and three times every day, with the precision of a Mussulman, he retired to his room, locked the door, and in silence apostrophized to her spirit. Comte now continued as industrious as ever, but the quality of his writing lamentably declined. His popular lectures to the people on scientific themes were always good, and his work as a teacher was satisfactory, but when he endeavored to continue original research, then his hazards of mind lacked steady flight.

The Positive Polity degenerated into a dogmatic scheme of government where the wisest should rule. The determination of who was wisest was to be left to the wise ones themselves, and Comte himself volunteered to be the first Pope.

The worship of Humanity would be the only religion, and women would shine as the high priests. Comte thought it all out in detail, and arranged a complete scheme of life, and actually wished to form a political party and overthrow the government, founding a gynecocracy on the ruins. His ebbing mind could not grasp the thought that tyranny founded on goodness is a tyranny still, and that a despotic altruism is a despotism nevertheless. Slavery blocks evolution.

So thus rounded out the life of Auguste Comte--beginning in childhood, he traversed the circle, and ended where he began.

He died in his sixtieth year. M. Littre, his most famous pupil, touchingly looked after his wants to the last, ministered to his necessities, advancing money on royalties that were never due. M. Littre occasionally apologized for the meagerness of the returns, and was closely questioned and even doubted by Comte, who died unaware of the unflinching loyalty of a friendship that endured distrust and contumely without resentment. Such love and patience and loyalty as were shown by M. Littre redeem the race.

The best certificate to the worth of Auguste Comte lies in the fact that, in spite of marked personal limitations and much petty querulousness, he profoundly influenced such men as Littre, Humboldt, Mill, Lewes, Grote, Spencer and Frederic Harrison.

To have helped such men as these, and cheered them on their way, was no small achievement. Comte's sole claim for immortality lies in the Positive Philosophy. The word "positive," as used by Comte, is similar in intent to pose, poise--fixed, final. So, besides a positive present good, Comte believed he was stating a final truth; to-wit: that which is good here is good everywhere, and if there is a future life, the best preparation for it is to live now and here, up to your highest and best. Comte protested against the idea of "a preparation for a life to come"--now is the time, and the place is here.

The essence of Positive Philosophy is that man passes through three mental periods--the Theological or fictitious; the Metaphysical or abstract; the Positive or scientific.

Hence, there are three general philosophies or systems of conceptions concerning life and destiny.

The Theological, or first system, is the necessary starting-point of the human intellect. The Positive, or third period, is the ultimate goal of every progressive, thinking man; the second period is merely a state of transition that bridges the gulf between the first and the third.

Metaphysics holds the child by the hand until he can trust his feet--it is a passageway between the fictitious and the actual. Once across the chasm, it is no longer needed. Theology represents the child; Metaphysics the youth; Science the man.

The evolution of the race is mirrored in the evolution of the individual. Look back on your own career--your first dawn of thought began in an inquiry, "Who made all this--how did it all happen?"

And Theology comes in with a glib explanation: the fairies, dryads, gnomes and gods made everything, and they can do with it all as they please. Later, we concentrate all of these personalities in one god, with a devil in competition, and this for a time satisfies.

Later, the thought of an arbitrary being dealing out rewards and punishments grows dim, for we see the regular workings of Cause and Effect. We begin to talk of Energy, the Divine Essence, and the Reign of Law. We speak, as Matthew Arnold did, of "a Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness." But Emerson believed in a power that was in himself that made for righteousness.

Metaphysics reaches its highest stage when it affirms "All is One," or "All is Mind," just as Theology reaches its highest conception when it becomes Monotheistic--having one God and curtailing the personality of the devil to a mere abstraction.

But this does not long satisfy, for we begin to ask, "What is this One?" or "What is Mind?"

Then Positivity comes in and says that the highest wisdom lies in knowing that we do not know anything, and never can, concerning a First Cause. All we find is phenomena and behind phenomena, phenomena. The laws of Nature do not account for the origin of the laws of Nature. Spencer's famous chapter on the Unknowable was derived largely from Comte, who attempted to define the limits of human knowledge. And it is worth noting that the one thing which gave most offense in both Comte's and Spencer's works was their doctrine of the Unknowable. This, indeed, forms but a small part of the work of these men, and if it were all demolished there would still remain their doctrine of the known. The bitterness of Theology toward Science arises from the fact that as we find things out we dispense with the arbitrary god, and his business agent, the priest, who insists that no transaction is legal unless he ratifies it.

Men begin by explaining everything, and the explanations given are always first for other people. Parents answer the child, not telling him the actual truth, but giving him that which will satisfy--that which he can mentally digest. To say, "The fairies brought it," may be all right until the child begins to ask who the fairies are, and wants to be shown one, and then we have to make the somewhat humiliating confession that there are no fairies.

But now we perceive that this mild fabrication in reference to Santa Claus, and the fairies, is right and proper mental food for the child. His mind can not grasp the truth that some things are unknowable; and he is not sufficiently skilled in the things of the world to become interested in them--he must have a resting-place for his thought, so the fairy-tale comes in as an aid to the growing imagination. Only this: we place no penalty on disbelief in fairies, nor do we make special offers of reward to all who believe that fairies actually exist. Neither do we tell the child that people who believe in fairies are good, and that those who do not are wicked and perverse.

Comte admits that the theological and metaphysical stages are necessary, but the sooner man can be graduated out of them the better. He brought vast research to bear in order to show the growth and death of theological conceptions. Hate, fear, revenge and doubt are all theological attributes, detrimental to man's best efforts. That moral ideas were an afterthought, and really form no part of theology, Comte emphasized at great length, and shows from much data where these ideas were grafted on to the original tree.

And the sum of the argument is, that all progress of mind, body and material things has come to man through the study of Cause and Effect. And just in degree as he has abandoned the study of Theology as futile and absurd, and centered on helping himself here and now, has he prospered.

Positivism is really a religion. The object of its worship is Humanity. It does not believe in a devil or any influence that works for harm, or in opposition to man. Man's only enemy is himself, and this is on account of his ignorance of this world, and his superstitious belief in another. Our troubles, like diseases, all come from ignorance and weakness, and through our ignorance are we weak and unable to adjust ourselves to conditions. The more we know of this world the better we think of it, and the better are we able to use it for our advancement.

So far as we can judge, the Unknown Cause that rules the world by unchanging laws is a movement forward toward happiness, growth, justice, peace and right. Therefore, the Scientist, who perceives that all is good when rightly received and rightly understood, is really the priest or holy man--the mediator and explainer of the mysteries. As fast as we understand things they cease to be supernatural, for the supernatural is the natural not yet understood. The theological priest who believes in a god and a devil is the real modern infidel. Such a belief is fallacious, contrary to reason, and contrary to all the man of courage sees and knows.

The real man of faith is the one who discards all thought of "how it first happened," and fixes his mind on the fact that he is here. The more he studies the conditions that surround him, the greater his faith in the truth that all is well.

If men had turned their attention to Humanity, discarding Theology, using as much talent, time, money and effort to wring from the skies the secrets of the Unknowable, this world would now be a veritable paradise. It is Theology that has barred the entrance to Eden, by diverting the attention of men from this world to another. Heaven is Here.

All religious denominations now dimly perceive the trend of the times, and are gradually omitting theology from their teachings and taking on ethics and sociology instead. A preacher is now simply Society's walking delegate. We are evolving theology out and sociology in. Theology has ever been the foe of progress and the enemy of knowledge. It has professed to know all and has placed a penalty on advancement. The Age of Enlightenment will not be here until every church has evolved into a schoolhouse, and every priest is a pupil as well as a teacher.

VOLTAIRE

We are intelligent beings; and intelligent beings can not have been
formed by a blind, brute, insensible being. There is certainly some
difference between a clod and the ideas of Newton. Newton's
intelligence came from some greater Intelligence.

--_The Philosophical Dictionary_

The man, Francois Marie Arouet, known to us as Voltaire (which name he adopted in his twenty-first year), was born in Paris in Sixteen Hundred Ninety-four. He was the second son in a family of three children. During his babyhood he was very frail; in childhood sickly and weak; and throughout his whole life he suffered much from indigestion and insomnia.

In all the realm of writers no man ever had a fuller and more active career, touching life at so many points, than Voltaire.

The first requisite in a long and useful career would seem to be, have yourself born weak and cultivate dyspepsia, nervousness and insomnia. Whether or not the good die young is still a mooted question, but certainly the athletic often do. All those good men and true, who at grocery, tavern and railroad-station eat hard-boiled eggs on a wager, and lift barrels of flour with one hand, are carried to early graves, and over the grass-grown mounds that cover their dust, consumptive, dyspeptic and neurotic relatives, for twice or thrice a score of years, strew sweet myrtle, thyme and mignonette.

Voltaire died of an accident--too much Four-o'Clock--cut off in his prime, when life for him was at its brightest and best, aged eighty-three.

The only evidence we have that the mind of Voltaire failed at the last came from the Abbe Gaultier and the Cure of Saint Sulpice. These good men arrived with a written retraction, which they desired Voltaire to sign. Waiting in the anteroom of the sick-chamber they sent in word that they wished to enter. "Assure them of my respect," said the stricken man. But the holy men were not to be thus turned away, so they entered. They approached the bedside, and the Cure of Saint Sulpice said: "M. de Voltaire, your life is about to end. Do you acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ?"

And the dying man stretched out a bony hand, making a gesture that they should depart, and murmured, "Let me die in peace."

"You see," said the Cure to the Abbe, as they withdrew, "you see that he is out of his head!"

* * * * *

The father of Voltaire, Francois Arouet, was a notary who looked after various family estates and waxed prosperous on the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.

He was solicitor to the Duc de Richelieu, the Sullys, and also the Duchesse de Saint-Simon, mother of the philosopher, Saint-Simon, who made the mistake of helping Auguste Comte, thus getting himself hotly and positively denounced by the man who formulated the "Positive Philosophy."

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. He was forty, past. The second son, Francois fils, was ten years younger than his brother Armand, so the father was over fifty when our hero was born. Francois fils used to speak of himself as an afterthought--a sort of domestic postscript--"but," added he musingly, "our afterthoughts are often best."

One of the most distinguished clients of M. Arouet was Ninon de Lenclos, who had the felicity to be made love to by three generations of Frenchmen. Ninon has been likened for her vivacious ways, her flashing intellect, and her perennial youth, to the divine Sara, who at sixty plays the part of Juliet with a woman of thirty for the old nurse. Ninon had turned her three-score and ten, and swung gracefully into the home-stretch, when the second son was born to M. Arouet. She was of a deeply religious turn of mind, for she had been loved by several priests, and now the Abbe de Chateauneuf was paying his devotions to her.

Ninon was much interested in the new arrival, and going to the house of M. Arouet, took to bed, and sent in haste for the Abbe de Chateauneuf, saying she was in sore trouble. When the good man arrived, he thought it a matter of extreme unction, and was ushered into the room of the alleged invalid. Here he was duly presented with the infant that later was to write the "Philosophical Dictionary." It was as queer a case of kabojolism as history records.

Doubtless the Abbe was a bit agitated at first, but finally getting his breath, he managed to say, "As there is a vicarious atonement, there must also be, on occasion, vicarious births, and this is one--God be praised."

The child was then baptized, the good Abbe standing as godfather.

There must be something, after all, in prenatal influences, for as the little Francois grew up he evolved the traits of Ninon de Lenclos and the Abbe much more than those of his father and mother.

When the boy was a little over six years old the mother died. Of her we know absolutely nothing. In her son's writings he refers to her but once, wherein he has her say that "Boileau was a clever book, but a silly man."

The education of the youngster seemed largely to have been left to the Abbe, his godfather, who very early taught him to recite the "Mosiad," a metrical effusion wherein the mistakes of Moses were related in churchly Latin, done first for the divertisement of sundry pious monks in idle hours.

At ten years of age Francois was sent to the College of Louis-le-Grand, a Jesuit school where the minds of youth were molded in things sacred and secular.

In only one thing did the boy really excel, and that was in the matter of making rhymes. The Abbe Chateauneuf had taught him the trick before he could speak plainly, and Ninon had been so pleased with the wee poet that she left him two thousand francs in her will for the purchase of books. As Ninon insisted on living to be ninety, Voltaire discounted the legacy and got it cashed on dedicating a sonnet to the divine Ninon. In this sonnet Voltaire suggests that a life of virtue conduces largely to longevity, as witness the incomparable Ninon de Lenclos, to which sentiment Ninon filed no exceptions.

In one of the school debates young Francois presented his argument in rhyme, and evidently ran in some choice passages from the "Mosiad," for Father le Jay, according to Condorcet, left his official chair, and rushing down the aisle, grabbed the boy by the collar, and shaking him, said, "Unhappy boy! you will one day be the standard-bearer of deism in France!"--a prophecy, possibly, made after its fulfilment.

Young Francois remained at the college until he was seventeen years old. From letters sent by him while there, it is evident that the chief characteristic of his mind was already a contempt for the clergy. Of two of his colleagues who were preparing for the priesthood, he says, "They had reflected on the dangers of a world of the charms of which they were ignorant; and on the pleasures of a religious life of which they knew not the disagreeableness." Already we see he was getting handy in polishing a sentence with the emery of his wit. Continuing, he says: "In a quarter of an hour they ran over all the Orders, and each seemed so attractive that they could not decide. In which predicament they might have been left like the ass, which died of starvation between two bundles of hay, not knowing which to choose. However, they decided to leave the matter to Providence, and let the dice decide. So one became a Carmelite and the other a Jesuit."

* * * * *

Arouet, at first intent on having his son become a priest, now fell back on the law as second choice. The young man was therefore duly articled with a firm of advocates and sent to hear lectures on jurisprudence. But his godfather introduced him into the Society of the Temple, a group of wits, of all ages, who could take snuff and throw off an epigram on any subject. The bright young man, flashing, dashing and daring, made friends at once through his skill in writing scurrilous verse upon any one whose name might be mentioned. This habit had been begun in college, where it was much applauded by the underlings, who delighted to see their unpopular teachers done to a turn. The scribbling habit is a variant of that peculiar propensity which finds form in drawing a portrait on the blackboard before the teacher gets around in the morning. If the teacher does not happen to love art for art's sake, there may be trouble; but verses are safer, for they circulate secretly and are copied and quoted anonymously.

The thing we do best in life is that which we play at most in youth.

Ridicule was this man's weapon. For the benefit of the Society of the Temple he paid his respects to the sham piety and politics of Versailles. He had been educated by priests, and his father was a politician feeding at the public trough. The young man knew the faults and foibles of both priest and politician, and his keen wit told truths about the court that were so well expressed the wastebasket did not capture them. One of these effusions was printed, anonymously, of course, but a copy coming into the hands of M. Arouet, the old gentleman recognized the literary style and became alarmed. He must get the young man out of Paris--the Bastile yawned for poets like this!

A brother of the Abbe de Chateauneuf was Ambassador at The Hague, and the great man, being importuned, consented to take the youth as clerk.

Life at The Hague afforded the embryo poet an opportunity to meet many distinguished people.

In Francois there was none of the bourgeois--he associated only with nobility--and as he had an aristocracy of the intellect, which served him quite as well as a peerage, he was everywhere received. In his manner there was nothing apologetic--he took everything as his divine right.

In this brilliant little coterie at The Hague was one Madame Dunoyer, a writer of court gossip and a social promoter of ability, separated from her husband for her husband's good. Francois crossed swords with her in an encounter of wit, was worsted, but got even by making love to her; and later he made love to her daughter, a beautiful girl of about his own age.

The air became surcharged with gossip. There was danger of an explosion any moment. Madame Dunoyer gave it out that the brilliant subaltern was to marry the girl. The Madame was going to capture the youth, either with her own charms or those of her daughter--or combined. Rumblings were heard on the horizon. The Ambassador, fearing entanglement, bundled young Arouet back to Paris, with a testimonial as to his character, quite unnecessary. A denial without an accusation is equal to a plea of guilty; and that the young man had made the mistake of making violent love to the mother and daughter at the same time there is no doubt. The mother had accused him and he said things back; he even had shown the atrocious bad taste of references in rhyme to the mutual interchange of confidences that the mother and daughter might enjoy. The Ambassador had acted none too soon.

The father was frantic with alarm--the boy had disgraced him, and even his own position seemed to be threatened when some wit adroitly accused the parent of writing the doggerel for his son.

M. Arouet denied it with an oath--while the son refused to explain, or to say anything beyond that he loved his father, thus carrying out the idea that the stupid old notary was really a wit in disguise, masking his intellect by a seeming dulness. No more biting irony was ever put out by Voltaire than this, and the pathos of it lies in the fact that the father was quite unable to appreciate the quip.

It was a sample of filial humor much more subtle than that indulged in by Charles Dickens, who pilloried his parents in print, one as Mr. Micawber and the other as Mrs. Nickleby. Dickens told the truth and painted it large, but Francois Arouet dealt in indiscreet fallacy when he endeavored to give his father a reputation for raillery.

A peculiarly offensive poem, appearing about this time, with the Regent and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, for a central theme, a rescript was issued which indirectly testified to the poetic skill of young Arouet. He was exiled to a point three hundred miles from Paris and forbidden to come nearer on penalty, like unto the injunction issued by Prince Henry against the blameless Falstaff. Rumor said that the father had something to do with the matter.

But the exile was not for long. The young poet wrote a most adulatory composition to the Regent, setting forth his innocence. The Regent was a mild and amiable man and much desired peace with all his subjects--especially those who dipped their quills in gall. He was melted by the rhyme that made him out such a paragon of virtue, and made haste to issue a pardon.

The elder Arouet now proved that he was not wholly without humor, for he wrote to a friend, "The exile of my dear son distressed me much less than does this precipitate recall."

In order to protect himself the father now refused a home to the son, and Francois became a lodger at a boarding-house. He wrote plays and acted in them, penned much bad poetry, went in good society and had a very rouge time. Up to this period he knew little Latin and less Greek, but now he had an opportunity to furbish up on both. He found himself an inmate of the Bastile, on the charge of expressing his congratulations to the people of France on the passing of Louis the Fourteenth. In America libel only applies to live men, but the world had not then gotten this far along.

In the prison it was provided that Sieur Arouet fils should not be allowed pens and paper on account of his misuse of these good things when outside. He was given copies of Homer, however, in Greek and Latin, and he set himself at work, with several of the other prisoners, to perfect himself in these languages. We have glimpses of his dining with the governor of the prison, and even organizing theatrical performances, and he was finally allowed writing materials on promise that he would not do anything worse than translate the Bible, so altogether he was very well treated.

In fact, he himself referred to this year spent in prison as "a pious retreat, that I might meditate, and chasten my soul in quiet thought."

He was only twenty-one, and yet he had set Paris by the ears, and his name was known throughout France. "I am as well known as the Regent and will be remembered longer," he wrote--a statement and a prophecy that then seemed very egotistical, but which time has fully justified.

It was in prison that he decided to change his name to Voltaire, a fanciful word of his own coining. His pretended reason for the change was that he might begin life anew and escape the disgrace he had undergone of being in prison. There is reason to believe, however, that he was rather proud of being "detained," it was proof of his power--he was dangerous outside. But his family had practically cast him off--he owed nothing to them--and the change of name fostered a mysterious noble birth, an idea that he allowed to gain currency without contradiction. Moliere had changed his name from Poquolin--and was he not really following in Moliere's footsteps, even to suffering disgrace and public odium?

* * * * *

The play of "Oedipe" was presented by Voltaire at the Theater Francaise, November Eighteenth, Seventeen Hundred Eighteen. This play was written before the author's sojourn in prison, but there he had sandpapered its passages, and hand-polished the epigrams.

It was rehearsed at length with the help of the "guests" at the Bastile, and once Voltaire wrote a note of appreciation to the Prefect of Police, thanking him for his thoughtfulness in sending such excellent and pure-minded people to help him in his work.

These things had been managed so they discreetly leaked out, and the cafes echoed with the name of Voltaire.

Very soon after his release the play was presented to a crowded house. It was a success from the start, for into its lines the audience was allowed to read many veiled allusions to Paris public characters. It ran for forty-five nights, and was the furore. On one occasion when interest seemed to lag, Voltaire, on a sudden inspiration, dressed up as a bumpkin page, and attended the Pontiff, carrying his train, playing various and sundry sly pranks in pantomime, a la Francis Wilson.

In one of the boxes sat a famous beauty, the Duchesse de Villars. "Who is this strange person who is intent upon spoiling the play?" she asked. On being told that he was the author of the drama, her censure turned to approbation and she sent for the young man. His appearance in her box was duly noted. The Regent and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, could not resist the temptation to attend the play, and see how much they were satirized. Voltaire did his little train-bearing act for their benefit, with a few extra grimaces, which pleased them very much, and seeing his opportunity, wrote a gracious letter of thanks to His Highness for having deigned to visit his play, winding up with thanks for the years in the Bastile where, "God wot, all of my evil inclinations were duly chastened and corrected."

It had the desired effect--each side feared the other. The Regent wanted the ready writers on his side, and the playwright who was opposed by the party in power could not hope for success. The Regent sent a present of a thousand crowns to Voltaire and also fixed on him a pension of twelve hundred livres a year. At once every passage in the play that could be construed as bearing on royalty was revised into words of adulation, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Financially the play was a success, and better yet was the pension and the good-will of the young King and his Regent.

Thus at twenty-two did Voltaire have the world at his feet.

* * * * *

When Voltaire was twenty-four, his father died. The will provided that the property should be equally divided between his three children, but it was stipulated that the second son should not come into possession of his share until he was thirty-five, and not then unless he was able to show the Master in Chancery that he was capable of wisely managing his own affairs.

This doubt of the father concerning the son's financial ability has often been commented upon ironically, in view of the pronounced thrift shown by Voltaire in later life.

But who shall say whether the father by that provision in his will did not drive home a stern lesson in economy? Commodore Vanderbilt had so much distrust of his son William's capacity for business that he exiled him to a Long Island farm, on an allowance. Years after, when William had shown his ability to outstrip his father, he rebuked a critic who volunteered a suggestion to the effect that the father had erred in the boy problem. Said William, "My father was right in this, as in most other things--I was a fool, and he knew it."

Voltaire's vacation of a year in the Bastile had done him much good. Then the will of his father, with its cautious provisions, tended to sober the youth to a point where he was docile enough for society's needs.

A good deal of ballast in way of trouble was necessary to hold this man down.

Marriage might have tamed him. Bachelors are of two kinds--those who are innocent of women, and those who know women too well. The second class, I am told, outnumbers the first as ten to one.

Voltaire had been a favorite of various women--usually married ladies, and those older than himself. He had plagiarized Franklin, saying, fifty years before the American put out his famous advice, "If you must fall in love, why, fall in love with a woman much older than yourself, or at least a homely one--for only such are grateful."

In answer to a man who said divorce and marriage were instituted at the same time, Voltaire said: "This is a mistake: there is at least three days' difference. Men sometimes quarrel with their wives at the end of three days, beat them in a week and divorce them at the end of a month."

Voltaire was small and slight in stature, but his bubbling wit and graceful presence more than made amends for any deficiency in way of form and feature. Had he desired, he might have taken his pick among the young women of nobility, but we see the caution of his nature in limiting his love-affairs to plain women, securely married. "Gossip isn't busy with the plain women--that is why I like you," he once said to Madame de Bernieres. What the Madame's reply was, we do not know, but probably she was not displeased. If a woman knows she is loved, it matters little what you say to her. Compliments by the right oblique are construed into lavish praise when expressed in the right tone of voice by the right person.

The Regent had allowed Voltaire another pension of two thousand francs, at the same time intimating that he hoped the writer's income was sufficient so he could now tell the truth. Voltaire took the hint, so subtly veiled, to the effect that if he again affronted royalty by unkind criticisms, his entire pension would be canceled.

From this time on to the end of his life, he was full of lavish praise for royalty. He was needlessly loyal, and dedicated poems and pamphlets to nobility, right and left, in a way that would have caused a smile were not nobility so hopelessly bound in three-quarters pachyderm. He also wrote religious poems, protesting his love for the Church. And here seems a good place to say that Voltaire was a member of the Catholic Church to his death. Many of his worst attacks on the priesthood were put in way of defense for outrageous actions which he enumerated in detail. He kept people guessing as to what he meant and what he would do next.

Immediately after the death of President McKinley there was a fine scramble among the editors of certain saffron sheets--to get in line and shake their ulsters free from all taint of anarchy. Some writers, in order to divert suspicion from themselves, hotly denounced other men as anarchists.

Throughout his life Voltaire had spasms of repentance, prompted by caution, possibly, when he warmly denounced atheists, and swore, i' faith, that one object of his life was to purify the Church and cleanse it of its secret faults.

In his twenty-sixth year, when he was trying hard to be good, he got into a personal altercation with the Chevalier de Rohan, an insignificant man bearing a proud name. The Chevalier's wit was no match for the other's rapier-like tongue, but he had a way of his own in which to get even. He had his servants waylay the luckless poet and chastise him soundly with rattans.

Voltaire was furious; he tried to get the courts to take it up, but the prevailing idea was that he had gotten what he deserved, and the fact that the whole affair occurred after dark and the Chevalier did not do the beating in person, made conviction impossible.

But Voltaire now quit the anapest and dactyl and devoted his best hours to taking fencing lessons. His firm intent was to baptize the soil with Rohan's blood. Voltaire was of enough importance so the secret police knew of all his doings. Suddenly he found himself taking a post-graduate course in the Bastile. I am not sure that the fiery little man was entirely displeased with the procedure. It proved to the world that he was a dangerous character, and it also gave him a respite from the tyranny of the fencing-master, and allowed him to turn to his first, last and only love--literature. In Voltaire's cosmos was a good deal of the Bob Acres quality.

There were plenty of reasons for locking him up--heresy and treason have ever been first cousins--and pamphlets lampooning Churchmen high in office were laid at his door. No doubt some of the anonymous literature was not his--"I would have done the thing better or not at all," he once said in reference to a scurrilous brochure. The real fact was, that that particular pamphlet was done by a disciple, and if Voltaire's writings were vile, then was his offense doubled in that he vitalized a ravenous brood of scribblers. They played Caliban to his Setebos.

Voltaire's most offensive contributions were always attributed by him to this bishop or that, and to various dignitaries who had no existence save in the figment of his own fertile pigment.

He once carried on a controversy between the Bishop of Berlin and the Archbishop of Paris, each man thundering against the other with a monthly pamphlet wherein each one gored the other without mercy, and revealed the senselessness of the other's religion. They flung the literary stinkpot with great accuracy. "The other man's superstition is always ridiculous to us--our own is sacred," said Voltaire, and so he allowed his controversialists to fight it out for his own quiet joy, and the edification of the onlookers.

Then his plan of printing an alleged sermon, giving some unknown prelate due credit on the title-page, starting in with a pious text and a page of trite nothings and gradually drifting off into ridicule of the things he had started in to defend--all this gives a comic tinge to his wail that "some evil-minded person is attributing things to me I never wrote," If an occasional sly Churchman got after him with his own weapon, writing things in his style more hazardous than he dare express, surely he should not have complained.

But this was a fact--the enemy could not follow him long with a literary fusillade--they hadn't the mental ammunition.

Well has Voltaire been called "the father of all those who wear shovel-hats."

* * * * *

A few months in the Bastile, and Voltaire's indeterminate sentence was commuted to exile. He was allowed to leave his country for his country's good. Early in the year Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six he landed in England, evidently knowing nobody there except one merchant, a man of no special prominence.

Voltaire belonged to the nobility by divine right--as much as did Disraeli. Both had an inward contempt for titles, but they knew the hearts of the owners so well that they simply played a game of chess, and the "men" they moved were live knights, bishops, kings and queens, with rollers under the castles. The pawns they pushed here and there were the literary puppets of the time.

The first thing Voltaire had to master in England was the language, and this he did passably inside of three months. He took Grub Street by storm; dawdled at Dodsley's; met Dean Swift, and these worthies respected each other's wit so much that they simply took snuff, grimaced and let it go at that; Pope came in for a visit, and the French poet crossed Twickenham ferry and offered a handmade sonnet in admiration of the "Essay on Man," which he had probably never read. Gay gave Voltaire "The Beggar's Opera," in private, and together they called on Congreve, who interrupted the Frenchman's flow of flattery long enough to say that he wished to be looked on as a gentleman, not a poet. And Voltaire replied that there were many gentlemen but few poets, and if Congreve had had the misfortune to be simply a gentleman he would not have troubled to call on him at all. Congreve, who really regarded himself as the peer of Shakespeare, was won, and sent Voltaire on his way with letters to Horace Walpole of Strawberry Hill. Thomson, who lived at Hammersmith, and wrote his "Seasons" in a "public" next door to Kelmscott, corrected and revised some of Voltaire's attempts at English poetry. Young evolved some of his "Night Thoughts" while on a visit with Voltaire at Bubb Dodington's.

A call on the Duchess of Marlborough led to a dinner at Lord Chesterfield's. Next he met Queen Caroline and assured her that she spoke French like a Parisian. King George the Second quite liked Voltaire, because Voltaire quite liked Lady Sandon, his mistress. Only a Frenchman could have successfully paid court to the King, Queen and Lady Sandon at the same time, as Voltaire did. His great epic poem, "Henriade," that he had been sandpapering for ten years, was now published, dedicated to the Queen. The King headed the subscription-list with more copies than he needed, at five guineas each, on agreement. Voltaire afterward said that he would not be expected to read the poem. The Queen's good offices were utilized--she became for the time a royal book-agent, and her signature and the author's adorned all deluxe copies. A suggestion from the Queen was equal to an order, and the edition was soon worked off.

Voltaire now spent three years in England. He had written his "Life of Charles the Twelfth," several plays, an "English Note-Book," and best of all, had gotten together a thousand pounds good money as proceeds of "Henriade," a stiff and stilted piece of pedantic bombast, written with sweat and lamp-smoke.

The "Letters on the English" were published a few years later in Paris with good results, considering it was only a by-product. It is a deal better-natured than Dickens' "American Note-Book," and had more humor than Emerson's "English Traits." Among other things quite Voltairesque in the "Letters" is this: "The Anglican Church has retained many of the good old Catholic customs--not the least of which is the collection of tithes with great regularity."

* * * * *

The priestly habit of Voltaire's life manifested itself even to the sharp collecting from the world all that the world owed him.

The snug little sum he had secured in England would have shown his ability, but there was something better in store, awaiting his return to France. It seems the Controller of Finance had organized a lottery to help pay the interest on the public debt. A considerable sum of money had been realized, but there was still a large number of tickets unsold, and the drawing was soon to take place. Voltaire knew the officials who had the matter in charge and they knew him. He organized a syndicate that would take all tickets there were left, on guarantee that among the tickets purchased would be the one that called for the principal prize of forty thousand pounds. Just how it was known in advance what ticket would win must be left to those good people who understand these little things in detail. In any event, Voltaire put in every sou he had--and his little fortune was then a matter of about ten thousand dollars. Several of his friends contributed a like sum.

The drawing took place, and the prize of forty thousand pounds was theirs. It is said that Voltaire took twenty-five thousand pounds as his share--the whole scheme was his anyway--and his friends were quite satisfied with having doubled their money in a fortnight.

Immediately on securing this money, Voltaire presented himself at the office of the President of Accounts, and asked for the legacy left him by his father. As proof of his financial ability, and as a guarantee of good faith, he opened a hand-satchel and piled on the President's table a small mountain of gold and bank-notes. The first question of the astonished official was, "Will M. de Voltaire have the supreme goodness to explain where he stole all this money?"

This was soon followed by an apology, as the visitor explained the reason of his visit.

The father's legacy amounted to nearly four thousand pounds, and this was at once paid over to Voltaire with a flattering letter expressing perfect faith in his ability to manage his own finances.

There is a popular opinion that Voltaire made considerable money by his pen, but the fact is, that at no period of his life did literature contribute in but a very scanty way to his prosperity.

After the lottery scheme, Voltaire embarked in grain speculations, importing wheat from Barbary for French consumption. In this he made a fair profit, but when war broke out between Italy and France, he entered into an arrangement with Duverney, who had the army commissariat in his hands, to provision the troops. It was not much of a war, but it lasted long enough, as most wars do, for a few contractors to make much moneys. The war spirit is usually fanned by financiers, Kuhn, Loeb and Company giving the ultimatum.

Voltaire cleared about twenty thousand pounds out of his provision contract.

Thus we find this thrifty poet at forty with a fortune equal to a half-million dollars. This money he loaned out in a way of his own--a way as original as his literary style. His knowledge of the upper circles again served him well. Among the proud scions of nobility there were always a few who, through gambling proclivities, and other royal qualities, were much in need of funds. Voltaire picked the men who had only a life interest in their estates, and made them loans, secured by the rentals. The loans were to be paid back in annuities as long as both men lived.

All insurance is a species of gambling--the company offers to make you a bet that your house will burn within a year.