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Recollections of Republican France
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Historical SummaryFRANÇOIS-MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE audaciously lampooned royal absolutism, class privilege, serfdom, slavery, the barbarous in-humanity of the prevailing legal procedure, political oppression, religious intolerance, and war. Nothing escaped his fearless, irreverent, and caustic pen. His attacks forced him to spend many years abroad or on the very borders of France, whence escape would be comparatively easy. Though Voltaire used the weapon of reason against virtually all the political and social institutions of his day, he saved his sharpest darts for the church, which he sought to ridicule out of existence. Expressing himself with wit and clarity, he popularized the aims and methods of the Enlightenment and became "the authentic and inspired voice" of the age in which he lived. By no means a crusader for constitutionalism and democracy, Voltaire nevertheless promoted revolution through his whole intellectual approach toward politics and society. The living Voltaire was in fact the leading advocate of benevolent monarchy; the dead Voltaire became a powerful propagandist for democracy. Though lacking patience toward those who disagreed with him, he helped lay the foundations for the ideals of tolerance and liberalism which determined the course of political life in nineteenth-century Europe. Voltaire died on May 30, 1778, and, as was to be expected, the Archbishop of Paris refused him Christian burial. He was hurriedly interred at Scellières, before the bishop of that diocese had a chance to object. On May 30, 1791, at the height of the French Revolution, the Assembly resolved that his remains be brought to Paris and publicly interred in the Panthéon as befitted a hero of the Revolution. The burial procession of Voltaire, coming three weeks after the king’s flight to Varennes, turned into a republican demonstration. Below are two eyewitness accounts of the bizarre proceedings. The first is by Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston, who entered in his diary an account of the funeral. The second comes from J. G. Millingen’s Recollections of Republican France (1848). The latter was a lad somewhere between eight and ten years of age at the time. Something must be allowed for later reflection or embroidery, or, possibly for discussions with his father, who at the time of the narrative held a position at the Paris mint. Commenting on the funeral of Sir Isaac Newton, Voltaire once praised England, a land where a professor of mathematics "is buried like a king." There is no question that Voltaire would have thoroughly enjoyed his own funeral.
Key Quote"Oedipus," "Caesar," and "Mohammed" join the cortège.
J. G. Millingen
1848
Voltaire Joins the Immortals
[1791]
II.
My father took me, on the preceding evening, to the place of the Bastille, where the remains of this illustrious writer were placed on a pedestal raised on the ruins of the very prison in which he had once been confined. The following day, the procession that accompanied his sarcophagus to the Pantheon, was as numerous as the mass of mourners who followed the mortal remains of Mirabeau. The whole was got up in theatrical style. All the actors and actresses, singers and dancers, of the different theatres, were grouped round a statue of the philosopher, in the various costumes of his dramatis personae. Zaïre was walking next to Mohammed, Julius Caesar arm-in-arm with Oedipus, and Brutus with the widow of Malabar; while another group represented Calas and his family.1 One of the most singular objects in the procession was a portable press, which worked off various hand-bills, as the cortège proceeded, which were scattered amongst the people.
1The rehabilitation of the Huguenot, Jean Calas, a victim of religious prejudice, was considered to be one of Voltaire’s greatest strokes against intolerance.
Chicago: J. G. Millingen, Recollections of Republican France, ed. J. G. Millingen in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed November 21, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QFR6Y2TVECJBNJW.
MLA: Millingen, J. G. Recollections of Republican France, edited by J. G. Millingen, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 21 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QFR6Y2TVECJBNJW.
Harvard: Millingen, JG, Recollections of Republican France, ed. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 21 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QFR6Y2TVECJBNJW.
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