The life of François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, was marked by extremes. Born in 1694 in Paris, he was a Parisian by birth but spent much of his life exiled from the city. Despite being a close companion of the Crown Prince of Prussia, he was banished from Prussia when Frederick the Great became King. Voltaire often used pseudonyms for his work and disavowed his own writing.
Voltaire was a shrewd investor and became fabulously wealthy, making him a leading figure of the Age of Enlightenment. He was a prolific writer, producing works in various genres such as plays, poems, essays, and scientific papers. He criticized slavery, organized religions, and the legitimacy of absolute monarchies, and used history, science, nature, and humanity to argue for the existence of a Supreme Being.
However, Voltaire remained opposed to the dogmas of religious authorities throughout his life. He was also suspicious of the absolute power of the government and equally skeptical of democracy. His writing often questioned the authority of nature, his fellow man, and morality.
Voltaire's life was marked by many controversies. He was exiled multiple times, including to the Bastille in Paris and to England. Despite his legal difficulties, his fame, influence, and popularity made him a wealthy man. His works, however, often created enemies, and his legal difficulties were not yet over.
In 1726, Voltaire had a public confrontation with the Chevalier de Rohan, which led to his second imprisonment at the Bastille. After two weeks in the Bastille, he was granted voluntary exile to England, where he was welcomed and entertained by luminaries like Jonathan Swift, William Congreave, and Alexander Pope. He debated with political leaders, attended Shakespeare's plays, and began work on his "Letters on the English."
Upon his return to Paris in 1728, Voltaire published and produced several plays, including some imitations of Shakespeare's works. His philosophical letters on the English were published in London, and he found himself in trouble with the authorities again. Forced to flee Paris, he sought refuge with his new mistress, the Marquis de Chateaulay, at Siri near the border with Lorraine.
Voltaire spent the next 16 years in France and Europe, writing of his relationship with the Marquis and his niece, and producing plays and essays on history, science, the Bible, and organized religion. In 1759, he published "Candide," a satirical novel that criticized slavery and religious dogma. The book was immediately banned or censored throughout France.
In 1778, Voltaire died at the end of May, probably of uremia. His political and religious enemies claimed that on his deathbed, he had accepted baptism into the Roman Catholic Church and confessed his sins to a priest. However, there is no evidence to support these claims. Despite the Catholic Church's denial of his request for a burial in consecrated ground in Paris, Voltaire's legacy continues to resonate, serving as a reminder of his unwavering opposition to religious and political intolerance.
1. Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet in Paris in 1694, was a prominent French writer and philosopher [Document(page_content="00:01:55.08: remained unadulteratedly opposed to the\n00:01:57.60: dogmas of religious authorities a\n00:01:59.46: writing to Fred the great anyone who has\n00:02:01.56: the power to make you believe\n00:02:02.70: absurdities has the power to make you\n00:02:04.80: commit injustices though he opposed\n00:02:06.78: absolute power of government he was\n00:02:08.46: equally suspicious of democracy calling\n00:02:10.38: it The idiocy of the masses impossible\n00:02:12.66: to sum up his life was one constant\n00:02:14.94: questioning of authority of nature of\n00:02:17.10: his fellow man and of morality his was a\n00:02:19.80: life of extremes indeed\n00:02:27.90: foreign\n00:02:29.30: [Music]\n00:02:33.68: was baptized in Paris in November 16194\n00:02:37.26: the son of an affluent lawyer and Court\n00:02:39.18: functionary who by marriage held minor\n00:02:41.22: privileges in the hierarchy of French\n00:02:42.96: nobility falter later disputed that the\n00:02:45.36: man who gave him his name was his actual\n00:02:47.34: father claiming to have been born in\n00:02:49.02: February 1694 as the illegitimate son of\n00:02:51.90: another nobleman sickly and slide as a\n00:02:53.88: chart he displayed a quick mind and an\n00:02:55.38: eagerness to learn his formal education\n00:02:57.30: began at the age of 10 when he entered\n00:02:58.98: the Jesuit college Louis Legrand\n00:03:00.90: situated on the Left Bank of the sane in\n00:03:03.00: Paris he later praised his education\n00:03:04.92: highly writing of the priests quote they\n00:03:07.20: inspired in me a taste for literature\n00:03:09.42: and sentiments which will be consolation\n00:03:11.28: to me to the end of my life I had the\n00:03:13.86: Good Fortune to be formed by more than\n00:03:15.78: one Jesuit all their hours divided\n00:03:17.88: between the care they took of us and the\n00:03:19.98: exercises of their austere profession\n00:03:21.72: Voltaire left the college after\n00:03:23.22: graduating at the age of 17 desirous of\n00:03:25.80: making his career as a writer his father\n00:03:27.60: intervened insisting his son prepare for\n00:03:29.40: a career in the law the young man\n00:03:30.78: resented his father's implication that a\n00:03:32.40