This is one of the most unsatisfactory periods of Voltaire's life. He was dissatisfied with him self as well as with the rest of the world, and therefore determined to accept the offers made to him of a total change of existence by Fred erick IL, Ring of Prussia. His intercourse with tide great man had begun in 1731i, when Frederick had asked him to become one of his regular cor respondents. Both as Prince Royal and after 1740 as King of Prussia, Frederick overwhelmed the great writer with all of flatteries. ter his accession he used every effort to induce Voltaire to live permanently at the Court of Prussia, but at first all these endeavors failed. There were meetings between the two men, however, visits of Voltaire to Berlin and Potsdam. during one of which he performed an important diplomatic mission in behalf of the French Government. The death of !Madame du Chiltelet removed the greatest obstacle that kept Voltaire from accepting Frederick's offers. Ile managed to get the permission of the King of France for this important step, and in 1750 \vent to Berlin. Ile was received with demonstrations of the deepest affec tion; but the opposition of their characters soon manifested itself in quarrels due largely to Frederick's autocratic temper and to the freedom with which Voltaire ridiculed, not without good reasons, the president of the Royal Academy of Berlin, the French scientist Maupertuis. Less than two years after reaching Berlin, Voltaire left it, never to return. His stay in Prussia, however, had not been barren of literary results. While there be completed and had published in Leipzig (1751) his Sieeic rte Louis XIV., the success of which was greater than that of any other history previously pub lished. An epilogue of Voltaire's stay with Fred erick happened in where, by order of Vrederiek, he was arrested and made to suffer harsh and insulting treatment, under the pre text of his having carried away a V01111111. of Frederick's poems. This only added to his rage, and made Frederick exceedingly unpopular for a time among men if letters.
Voltaire returned to Vranee and for a while he was without abode. Louis NV. had been offended by Voltaire's request to leave France for Berlin while holding the title of Gentleman of the Ring's Itedellamber, and would not permit him to return to Paris. Seeing him unwelcome at the Court, the men in power in other places also de clined to welcome him, and finally he determined again to move 'Olt of France, and in 1754 settled in the Republic of Geneva, where he boiteht a house. Ile also bought a small estate in the Vaud country, then under the government of the Republic of Bern. But he soon discovered that he was not likely to enjoy much more freedom. under republican and Protestant governments than under the King of 1?'ranee, and conceived the idea of being, as it were, his own sovereign. Ile bought, for his lifetime, two estates in France near the boundaries of the Republic of Geneva, the estates of Tournay and of Verney. This purchase gave him the possession of feudal rights, transferred to him and secured through the good offices of the Duke of Choiseul, who had recently become the Prime 'Minister of Louis XV. and by whom he was greatly ad mired. Ile settled in Ferney in 1758. tlwre to spend the last twenty years of his eventful life. In the interval between his return from Berlin and his settlement at Verney, he had published his most ambitious historic work, Essai sur l'his toirc ycne'rule et sot- less !wears et sprit des nations, the title given to the universal history already mentioned above.
When Voltaire settled in Ferney, all his ex tensive works, with the exception of his Diction (la ire philosophique, had been published: but his work was not yet half done. In Forney lie felt se cure; persecution could hardly reaeh him. He therefore assumed a much more aggressive atti tude toward all the abuses which he desired to destroy. Instead of undertaking large composi tions, which he considered unwise for a man then over sixty years of age, who had always been of a sickly disposition, he sent forth hun dreds of short writings issued under all sorts of names, seldom under his own, printed in many different places and finding their way to the publie in spite of the severe restrictions placed upon the production of literary works.
His main theme was the fight against religious into] era nee aucl religious fanaticism. against belief in miracles. and in favor of the sover eignty of reason. Every man who suffered on ac count of his belief found in him an eloquent and, as the event demonstrated, a powerful de fender. The clearest demonstration of this fact was given by him in his labors in favor of the ('alas family. (See CALAS. JEAN.) A touching episode of this period of Voltaire's life is his conduct toward a grand-niece of the great tragic poet, Pierre Corneille of whose poverty he had heard and whom he invited to Ferney, acting to her as a father and educator, and preparing, in order to secure a dowry for her, a complete edi lion of Pierre Corneille's works. Every person of note in Europe, from the King of France down, showed the greatest eagerness to subscribe. The romance Candidc appeared in 1750 and the tragedy Taneri'cle in 1760.
ln the year 1778 his friends besought him to pay a visit to Paris. Louis XV. was dead and Louis XVI. had not energy enough to forbid what he disliked. In spite of the opinion of his physi cian, the celebrated Tronchin, who told him that an oak cannot be transplanted when more than eighty years old, Voltaire yielded to the tempta tion. The Parisians received him with every demonstration of the greatest enthusiasm. His bust was crowned in his own presence at the Theatre Francais on the occasion of the first performance of his tragedy of Irene; the French Academy held a special meeting in which he heard nothing but eulogies of his own deeds and writings. He was visited by every person of note. Benjamin Franklin, then residing in Paris as the agent of the newly founded Republic of the States, took to him his own grandson, on whom he asked Voltaire to pronounce a bless ing. Voltaire placed his hand upon the young man's head, uttering at the same time in English, "God and Liberty." Voltaire has been repre sented as an atheist, but withopt warrant as far as his written or spoken utterances are concerned.
To the success of his fight for liberty a com parison between the condition of things at the time of his death and at the time when he began to write bears sufficient witness. His exertions while in Paris had the effect which Tronchin had foreseen. and lie died there on May 30, 1778. His body. which was first carried away from Paris by his nephew, Abbe Mignot, was afterwards taken to the Pantheon. where, in spite of various state ments that it had been disinterred, it is believed still to be resting.
As a writer, Voltaire is not, perhaps, the au thor of a single great masterpiece; lint every one of his productions, at least in prose, presents to us an unsurpassed example of clear ness, perspicuity, and wit. He wrote in order to convince, and so far succeeded that many of his writings have to a certain extent lost their inter est because of the very destruction of the abuses against which they were directed. One who wishes to appreciate his greatness must look upon him more as a man of action who used lit erature as a weapon than as a mere literary man.
The best editions of his works are those pub lished at Kehl (70 or SO vols.. 1784-89) : the Beuckot edition (70 vols., Paris, 1839 et seq.) ; the Noland edition (50 vols., ib., 1875 et seq.). The hest collection of selected works is the one edited by Georges Bengeseo and published in Paris by the 1.ffirairie des Bibliophiles (13 vols.), Consult, espeeially: Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et In sociOt: fra»voise au XVIIIi.me si('cle (Paris, 1867-76) ; Bengeseo. Voltaire: Bibliographic de Rea 0'7112re s (i1)., 1882-90) ; and the biographies by Strauss (ib., 1876), Morley ( London, 1878), Parton (Roston, 1881 ) , Seim ma eller ( 1895 ) , Espinasse (London, 18921, and Miguel (Paris, 1897) ; also 1.minshury, Shakespeare and Voltaire (New York, 1902).