Learn about Voltaire

So number 3 on my list is Voltaire. Now he was an outspoken supporter of social reform despite strict laws in France against those who did speak about it or write about it. There are really harsh penalties but he didn’t really care, he wrote about it anyway. And he used satire in order to cause controversy and he frequently made used of his works actually to criticize church dogma and French institutions during his time. He wrote a biographical essay over King Charles XII which was when he first publicly started to reject religion, he once even further as to write that human lies were not destined or controlled by bigger things. Voltaire also dealt with Metaphysics which is part of Philosophy that talks about things that can’t necessarily be proven such as why we have life, what’s its purposes, if God really exists. Now on the latter part, Voltaire analyzed the Bible and wanted to know if it’s even applicable to his modern life and the world he was living in. Voltaire moved to Berlin to join Frederick the Great, a close friend and admirer of his. Now this King paid him a really good salary but soon he had to deal with a lawsuit. He had a huge argument with the president of the Berlin Academy of Science because Voltaire had written the Diatribe of Dr. Akakia which derided the president. Now this really upset his friend Mr. Frederick the Great, who ensured all the copies of the document were burnt. He even went on to arrest Voltaire at the hotel where he was staying along his trip back home. So Louis XIV banned Voltaire from Paris which was where he was supposed to go and instead he headed out to Geneva. So in 83, when he was 83 years old, he returned to Paris where he is finally allowed to go, but believe it or not, he was so excited that he actually died. The church didn’t permit his burial under church grounds because of all those comments he had made in the past and didn’t know what to do it. But ever since then he’s been moved or his body’s been moved at least from one place to the next, one cemetery to another and finally they rested his body in the church abbey of Champagne, France.

Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services