was above all fear, and grandeur of character superior to all dissimulation; that in his eyes the most important situation was but the means of executing his salutary views, and appeared to him no more than a vile slavery when that hope should be lost. In fine, Voltaire knew that, free from all prejudices, and detesting in those prejudices the most dangerous enemies of the human race, M. Turgot regarded the liberty of thought and of the press as the right of each citizen, and the right of whole nations, whose happiness the progress of reason alone can establish on an immovable basis.

In the nomination of M. Turgot, Voltaire saw the dawn of the reign of reason; so long disavowed and much longer persecuted; he dared to look for the rapid fall of prejudices, and for the destruction of that cowardly and tyrannic policy which, to flatter the pride or indolence of men in place, had condemned the people to humiliation and misery.

Yet his attempts in favour of the vassals of Mount Jura were ineffectual; and in vain he endeavoured to obtain for d'Etallonde, and for the memory of the chevalier de la Barre, that distinguished justice which humanity and the national honour equally required. These objects were foreign to the department of the finances; and that superiority of information, of character, of virtue, which M. Turgot could not conceal, had created him, in the other ministers and in the intriguing subalterns of office, too many enemies; who, finding neither ambition nor personal projects to oppose in him, bent themselves against all that they believed consonant with his just and beneficent designs.

Hence the only advantage which Voltaire could obtain, from the administration of M. Turgot, was to withdraw the little country of Gex from the tyranny of the farms. Separated from France by mountains, having an easy communication with Geneva and Switzerland, this unfortunate country could not be subjected to the revenue laws, without becoming the theatre of perpetual war between the servants of the revenue and the inhabitants, nor without paying expenses for the collection still more burthensome than the imposts themselves. The little importance of this regulation should have rendered it easy; yet, it was long solicited, in vain, by M. de Voltaire.

Voltaire's respect for M. Turgot would have been augmented by the edicts of 1776, had he not already known that minister's genius, and comprehended his views. This great statesman had perceived that, placed at the head of the finances at a moment in which he was embarrassed by the mass of the public debt, and by obstacles which the courtiers and the first minister opposed to every great reform in administration and to all important economy, he could not diminish the imposts; but he wished, at least, to give some consolation to the people, and some indemnity to the proprietors of lands, by restoring to them rights of which they had been deprived by oppressive regulations.

The remains of feudal slavery, which spread desolation through the country, which compelled the poor to labour without hire, and deprived agriculture of the husbandman's cattle, were changed into an impost, paid only by the proprietors of land. Through all the cities, ridiculous corporations obliged a part of the inhabitants to purchase the right of labouring; those who subsisted by commerce or their own industry were compelled to live under the vassalage of a certain number of privileged people, or to pay a tribute to these bodies; this absurd institution disappeared, and the right of freely employing their time and strength was restored to the citizens.

The proprietors of grain and of wine, the first harassed by popular prejudices, the other by despotic privileges, which had been extorted by particular cities, were

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relieved from those oppressions; and these wise laws could not fail to accelerate the progress of agriculture, and multiply the national wealth, by ensuring the subsistence of the people.

But these beneficent edicts were the signal of that minister's fall who had the boldness to conceive them. They excited the opposition of the parliaments who were interested in supporting the Jurandes, the fertile source of lucrative lawsuits, who were not less attached to the old regulations which furnished them with the means of acting on the minds of the people, who were irritated to see the burden of making roads laid on the opulent owners of land, and were without any hope that an unworthy condescension would continue to lighten the weight of their individual taxes, but who were more particularly alarmed at the influence which seemed to be acquired by a minister, whose benevolent spirit menaced the overthrow of their

power.

The intrigues of the enemies of M. Turgot were strengthened by this league of the parliaments: and it was then perceived how serviceable to their secret and pernicious designs was the manner in which the tribunal had been re-established; it was then seen how dangerous it is to a minister to design the welfare of the people; and, perhaps, were we to mount up to the cause of events, we should find that the fall even of vicious ministers has originated in the good which they wished to do, and not in the evil which they have produced.

Such

In the calamities of France, Voltaire beheld the destruction of hopes which he had entertained for the advancement of the human mind. He had imagined, that intolerance, superstition, and the monstrous prejudices which infected every branch of legislation, every department of power, and all conditions of society, would have filed before a minister who was the friend of justice, of liberty, and reason. as have accused Voltaire of base adulation, such as have bitterly reproached him with the use which he made of praise, perhaps too frequently, to influence the minds of powerful men, and to compel them to be just and humane, may compare those praises to his eulogy of M. Turgot, and to his "Epistle to a Man" which he addressed to that minister at the moment of his disgrace. They will then distinguish the admiration which is the result of feeling, from a compliment; and the esteem which arises in the soul, from the play of imagination: and they will perceive that Voltaire committed no other crime than that of treating courtiers as

worden.

During his visit to Paris his admiration of M. Turgot was infused through all his discourse. M. Turgot was the man whom he opposed to all who complained of the depravity of our age; and to him his mind gave its entire approbation. He has been seen to take his hands, bathe them with his tears, kiss them, in despite of M. Turgot's resistance, and cry with a voice interrupted with sobs: "Let me kiss

the hand which would seal the happiness of the people."

Voltaire had long desired to revisit his country, and to enjoy his reputation in

the midst of the same

people who had been the witness of his first success and too often the accomplice of his enemies. M. de Villette had lately, at Ferney, espoused Mademoiselle de Varicour, a lady descended from a noble family in the county of Gex,

companied them to Paris, partly led by the desire of seeing the representation of the tragedy of "Irene." which he had shortly before finished. It had been kept a profound secret; and malice had not time to prepare her poison, nor would the public enthusiasm have permitted its operation. A crowd of men and women of

who had so frequently admired his genius at the theatre and in reading his works,

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were eager to behold him. This enthusiasm was even spread through the common ranks of the people; they crowded round his windows, and passed whole hours there with the hope of seeing him for a moment. His carriage, which could scarcely proceed along the streets, was surrounded by a numerous multitude, who blessed him and celebrated his works.

The French academy, which had not adopted him till the age of fifty-two, lavished honours on him, and received him rather as sovereign of the empire of letters than as an equal. The children of those haughty courtiers, whose pride had been wounded to see him live in their society without meanness, and who had wished to humiliate in his person the superiority of genius and talents, contended for the honour of being presented to him, and of an opportunity to boast that they had seen Voltaire.

But it was at the theatre, where he had so long reigned, that he had the greatest honours to expect. He went to the third representation of "Irene ;" which was, indeed, but a feeble tragedy; which, however, possessed many beauties, and in which the wrinkles of age could not conceal the sacred impression of genius. He alone drew the attention of a people, eager to distinguish his features, to observe his gestures, to pursue the direction of his eyes. His bust was crowned on the stage in the midst of applause, cries of joy, and tears of enthusiasm. To quit the theatre he must pass through the multitude that crowded round him; feeble, scarce able to support himself, the guards, which were designed to protect him from the eagerness of zeal, became useless; at his approach, each retired with a respectful attention, or disputed the honour of supporting him a moment on the stairs; each step offered him new aid, nor was any one permitted to arrogate too long the right of giving him assistance.

The spectators followed him to his apartment, and the air was filled with the cries of long live Voltaire! long live the Henriade! long live Mahomet; numbers fell at his feet, and numbers kissed his garment. Never has man been received with more interesting marks of admiration and of public affection, nor ever has genius been honoured by a more flattering homage: "They wish me to die of pleasure," said he; but it was the voice of sensibility, and not the artifice of self-love. In the midst of the honours paid him by the French academy, he was particularly struck by the possibility of introducing into that place a more daring philosophy: "They treat me with more attention than I merit," he said to me, one day, do you know that I do not despair of causing the eulogium of Coligny to be spoken there?"

During the run of "Irene," he was employed in revising his essay on the "Manners and the Spirit of Nations ;" and to give, in that work, some new wounds to fanaticism. He had with secret pleasure observed, at the theatre, that the lines which were received with the greatest acclamations, were those in which he attacked superstition and the names she had long rendered sacred; and it was to this object he ascribed all the glory he had attained. He beheld, in that general admiration, the empire which he had exercised over the mind, and the destruction of prejudices which he had accomplished.

At this same time, Paris boasted, also, the presence of the celebrated Franklin, who, in another hemisphere, had been the apostle of philosophy and toleration. Like Voltaire, he had often employed the weapon of humour which corrects the absurdities of men, and had displayed their perverseness as a folly more fatal, but also worthy of pity. He had joined to the science of metaphysics the genius of practical philosophy; as Voltaire, that of poetry. Franklin was eager to see a man whose reputation had long been spread over both worlds; Voltaire, although

be had lost the habit of speaking English, endeavoured to support the conversation in that language; and, afterwards reassuming the French, he said: “Je n'ai pu résister au désir de parler un moment la langue de M. Franklin”—(I could not resist the desire of speaking the language of Mr. Franklin for a moment).

The American philosopher presented his grandson to Voltaire, with a request that he would give him his benediction. "God and liberty!" said Voltaire :"it is the only benediction which can be given to the grandson of Franklin." They went together to a public assembly of the academy of sciences, and the public at the same time beheld with emotion these two men, born in different quarters of the globe, respectable by their years, their glory, the employment of their life, and both enjoying the influence which they had exercised over the age in which they lived. They embraced each other in the midst of public acclamations, and it was said to be Solon who embraced Sophocles.

Age had not enfeebled the activity of Voltaire, and the transports with which he was received by his fellow-citizens seemed to renew his vigour. He formed the design of refuting whatever the Duke de St. Simon in his memoirs, then unpublished, had written under the influence of hatred and prejudice, lest these memoirs, which might derive some authority from the known probity of the author and from his rank and title of contemporary, should appear at a time in which men would be too far removed from the events of which he speaks, to detect error and defend the truth.

He had also induced the French academy to adopt the design of forming its dictionary on a new plan. They were to have deduced the history of each word from the period in which it had appeared in the language, to give the various meanings which it assumed in different ages, and the various acceptations it had received, and to employ, in order to display these varied shades, not capricious phrases, but examples selected from authors of the greatest authority. Then would have been seen the true literary and grammatical dictionary of the language, and not only foreigners but even Frenchmen might, in that work, have acquired a knowledge of all its delicacy.

This dictionary would have presented instructive pages to men of letters, would have contributed to form the national taste, and arrested the progress of corruption. Each academician was to have explained a letter of the alphabet: Voltaire undertok the letter A; and, to excite the industry of his brethren, and to banish the difficulty of executing this plan, he was desirous to finish, within a few months that part of the work which he had assumed.

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His strength was wasted by such excessive application; and he had been much reduced by a spitting of blood, caused by his efforts during the representation of "Irene." Yet, the activity of his mind subdued all, and concealed from him the real weakness of his constitution. At length, deprived of sleep by an irritation produced by too intense labour, he wished to procure some hours' repose, that he might be in a condition to lead the academy irrevocably to engage in the new dictionary, against which some objections had arisen; and he resolved to take opium. His imagination possessed all its vivacity, his soul was equally restless and impetuous, his character abated not of its gaiety and its vigour, when he took the opiate which he judged to be necessary. During the same evening, his friends had heard hine express his detestation of prejudices with his usual eloquence; and soon after bebeld him viewing them only on the ridiculous side, and deriding them with that peculiar grace and aptness which characterised his sallies of wit. But he took the opiate at several doses, and was deceived as to the quantity, probably in the species of intoxication which the first had produced. The same accident happened to him

about thirty years before, and then placed his life in danger. Unhappily, this time, his wasted powers were unable to contend with the poison. He had long been subject to a complaint in the bladder, and in the general decay of his organs, that soon contracted an incurable disease.

Scarcely could he, during the long interval between this fatal accident and his death, preserve his recollection for a few successive moments, or disengage himself from the lethargy in which he was plunged. To the young Count de Lalli, however, he was even then celebrated for his courage, and who has since deserved celebrity by his eloquence and patriotism, he wrote, in one of these intervals, those lines, the last which were traced by his hand, in which he applauds the royal authority whose justice had lately annulled one of the atrocious acts of parliamentary despotism. At length, he expired on the 30th of May, 1778.

The arrival of Voltaire at Paris had rekindled the fury of the fanatics, and wounded the pride of the chiefs of the hierarchy; but it had also inspired some priests with an idea of building their reputation and their fortune on the conversion of this illustrious enemy. Certainly, they could not flatter themselves with the hope of subduing him, but they did not despair of inducing him to dissemble. Voltaire, who wished to remain at Paris without being tormented by sacerdotal accusations, and who, from a habit acquired in his youth, thought it beneficial to the interest even of the friends of reason, that certain scenes of intolerance should not succeed his last moments, had sent in the beginning of his malady for an almoner of the incurables, and who had boasted of having restored to the bosom of the church the Abbé de l'Attaignant, known by offences of another kind.

The Abbé Gauthier confessed Voltaire, and received a profession of faith from him, by which he declared that he died in the Catholic religion, in which he was born.

When the circumstance was known, which offended enlightened men rather more than it edified the devotees, the curate of St. Sulpice ran to his parishioner, who received him with politeness, and gave him according to usage a handsome offering for his poor people. But, mortified that the Abbé Gauthier had anticipated him, he discovered that the almoner of the incurables had been too easily satisfied with his penitent, and that he ought to have required a more particular profession of faith, and an express disavowal of all the doctrines, contrary to orthodoxy, which he had been accused of maintaining. The Abbé Gauthier had pretended that, by requiring every thing, all would have been lost. During all this dispute, Voltaire recovered, "Irene" was played, and the conversion was forgotten. But, in the moment of the relapse, the curate returned to Voltaire, absolutely resolved not to inter him, if he could not obtain the desired recantation of his errors.

This curate was among those men who are a mixture of hypocrisy and imbecility; he spoke with the obstinate persuasion of a maniac, and acted with the flexibility of a Jesuit; he was humble in his manners even to baseness, arrogant in his sacerdotal pretensions, fawning with the great, and charitable to the populace who are governed by the priests that distribute alms to them, and in fine, he harrassed the simple citizens by his imperious fanaticism. He earnestly wished to compel Voltaire at least to acknowledge the divine nature of Jesus Christ; to which he was more attached than to any other dogma. He one day drew Voltaire from his lethargy, by shouting in his ear: "Do you believe the divinity of Jesus Christ ?” --"In the name of God, sir," replied Voltaire," speak to me no more of that man; but let me die in peace."

"

The priest then declared that he was compelled to refuse him burial; but he was not authorized in this refusal; for, according to the laws, it ought to have been

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