IV.

Attacks on Religion

For some years Voltaire led a migratory existence, but he finally settled in 1758 at Ferney, where he spent the remaining 20 years of his life. In the interval between his return from Berlin and his establishment at Ferney, he completed his most ambitious work, the Essai sur l'histoire générale et sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations (Essay on General History and on the Customs and the Character of Nations, 1756). In this work, a study of human progress, Voltaire decries supernaturalism and denounces religion and the power of the clergy, although he makes evident his own belief in the existence of God.

After settling in Ferney, Voltaire wrote several philosophical poems, such as Le désastre de Lisbonne (The Lisbon Disaster, 1756); a number of satirical and philosophical novels, of which the most brilliant is Candide (1759); the tragedy Tancrède (1760); and the Dictionnaire philosophique (1764). Feeling secure in his sequestered retreat, he sent forth hundreds of short squibs and broadsides satirizing abuses that he desired to expose. Those who suffered persecution because of their beliefs found in Voltaire an eloquent and powerful defender. The flavor of Voltaire's activities could be summarized in the phrase he often used: écrasons l'infâme (“let us crush the infamous one”). With this phrase, he referred to any form of religion that persecutes nonadherents or that constitutes fanaticism. For Christianity he would substitute deism, a purely rational religion. Candide, in which Voltaire analyzes the problem of evil in the world, depicts the woes heaped upon the world in the name of religion. He died in Paris, May 30, 1778.