Editing Voltaire (section)

== Appreciation and influence ==
[[File:Nicolas de Largillière, François-Marie Arouet dit Voltaire adjusted.png|thumb|Portrait of Voltaire in the [[Palace of Versailles]], 1724-1725]]
According to [[Victor Hugo]]: "To name Voltaire is to characterize the entire eighteenth century."<ref name="Will Durant 1933 259">{{Cite book |last=Will Durant |title=The Story of Philosophy 2nd ed. |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1933 |page=259}}</ref> Goethe regarded Voltaire as the greatest literary figure of modern times, and possibly of all time.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} According to [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]], Voltaire's influence would extend far into the future.<ref name="Besterman 1969 11">{{Cite book |last=Theodore Besterman |url=https://archive.org/details/voltaire00best |title=Voltaire |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc |year=1969 |page=[https://archive.org/details/voltaire00best/page/11 11] |url-access=registration}}</ref><!--START OF NOTE-->{{efn|Diderot, in a letter to E.M. Falconet, dated 15 February 1766: ''Pile assumptions on assumptions; accumulate wars on wars; make interminable disturbances succeed to interminable disturbances; let the universe be inundated by a general spirit of confusion; and it would take a hundred thousand years for the works and the name of Voltaire to be lost.''<ref name="Besterman 1969 11" /><!--END OF NOTE-->}} [[Napoleon]] commented that till he was sixteen he "would have fought for [[Rousseau]] against the friends of Voltaire, today it is the opposite&nbsp;... The more I read Voltaire the more I love him. He is a man always reasonable, never a charlatan, never a fanatic"{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=880}} (though he later criticized Voltaire's work ''[[Mahomet (play)|Mahomet]]'' during his captivity on [[Saint Helena]]).<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG18891021.2.21 Ashburton Guardian: "A Protest"], 21 October 1889</ref> Frederick the Great commented on his good fortune for having lived in the age of Voltaire, and corresponded with him throughout his reign until Voltaire's death.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=139}} On 12 May 1760, Frederick wrote: "For my part I shall go to [[Hades]] and tell Virgil that a Frenchman has surpassed him in his own art. I shall say as much to [[Sophocles]] and [[Euripides]]; I shall speak to [[Thucydides]] of your histories, to [[Quintus Curtius Rufus|Quintus Curtius]] of your ''Charles XII''; and perhaps I shall be stoned by these jealous dead because a single man has united all their different merits in himself."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great |publisher=Brentano's |year=1927 |location=New York |page=266}}</ref> In England, Voltaire's views influenced [[William Godwin|Godwin]], [[Thomas Paine|Paine]], [[Mary Wollstonecraft]], [[Jeremy Bentham|Bentham]], [[Lord Byron|Byron]] and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} [[Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay|Macaulay]] made note of the fear that Voltaire's very name incited in tyrants and fanatics.<ref name="Wheeler and Foote 69" /><!--START OF NOTE-->{{efn|Macaulay, in his essay on Frederick the Great: ''In truth, of all the intellectual weapons that have been wielded by man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailings and cursing of millions, turned pale at his name.''<ref name="Wheeler and Foote 69">{{Cite book |last1=Wheeler |first1=J.M. |title=Voltaire: A Sketch of His Life and Works |last2=Foote |first2=G.W. |publisher=Robert Forder |year=1894 |page=69 |author-link=Joseph Mazzini Wheeler |author-link2=George William Foote}}</ref><!--END OF NOTE-->}}

In Russia, Catherine the Great had been reading Voltaire for sixteen years prior to becoming Empress in 1762.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=139}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/history/soviet-bloc/catherine-ii/rise-to-power|title=Catherine II: &#124; Infoplease|website=Infoplease}}</ref> In October 1763, she began a correspondence with the philosopher that continued till his death. The content of these letters has been described as being akin to a student writing to a teacher.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=139–40}} Upon Voltaire's death, the Empress purchased his library, which was then transported and placed in [[Hermitage Museum|The Hermitage]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=879}} [[Alexander Herzen]] remarked that "The writings of the egoist Voltaire did more for liberation than those of the loving Rousseau did for brotherhood."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herzen |first=Alexander |title=From the Other Shore |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1979}}</ref> In his famous letter to [[Nikolai Gogol|N. V. Gogol]], [[Vissarion Belinsky]] wrote that Voltaire "stamped out the fires of fanaticism and ignorance in Europe by ridicule."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Belinsky |first=Vissarion Grigoryevich |url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/works/belinsky/gogol.htm |title=Selected Philosophical Works |publisher=University Press of the Pacific |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-89875-654-8 |author-link=Vissarion Belinsky |access-date=3 November 2018 |orig-date=1948}}</ref>

In his native Paris, Voltaire was remembered as the defender of Jean Calas and [[Pierre-Paul Sirven|Pierre Sirven]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} Although Voltaire's campaign had failed to secure the annulment of [[François-Jean de la Barre|la Barre]]'s execution for blasphemy against Christianity, the criminal code that sanctioned the execution was revised during Voltaire's lifetime.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|pp=734–36}} In 1764, Voltaire successfully intervened and secured the release of Claude Chamont, arrested for attending [[Protestant]] services. When [[Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally|Comte de Lally]] was executed for treason in 1766, Voltaire wrote a 300-page document in his defense. Subsequently, in 1778, the judgment against de Lally was expunged just before Voltaire's death. The Genevan Protestant minister Pomaret once said to Voltaire, "You seem to attack Christianity, and yet you do the work of a Christian."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=736}} Frederick the Great noted the significance of a philosopher capable of influencing judges to change their unjust decisions, commenting that this alone is sufficient to ensure the prominence of Voltaire as a humanitarian.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=736}}
[[File:Les salons au XVIIIe siècle - Histoire Image.jpg|thumb|right|250px|''[[In the Salon of Madame Geoffrin in 1755]]'' by [[Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier]], 1812. A reading of a work by Voltaire in the [[Salon (France)|salon]] of [[Marie Thérèse Geoffrin|Madame Geoffrin]]]]
Under the [[French Third Republic]], anarchists and socialists often invoked Voltaire's writings in their struggles against militarism, nationalism, and the Catholic Church.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McKinley |first=C. Alexander |title=Illegitimate Children of the Enlightenment: Anarchists and the French Revolution, 1880–1914 |date=2008 |publisher=Peter Lang |page=87}}</ref> The section condemning the futility and imbecility of war in the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' was a frequent favorite, as were his arguments that nations can only grow at the expense of others.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McKinley |first=C. Alexander |title=Illegitimate Children of the Enlightenment: Anarchists and the French Revolution, 1880–1914 |date=2008 |publisher=Peter Lang |page=88}}</ref> Following the [[liberation of France]] from the Vichy regime in 1944, Voltaire's 250th birthday was celebrated in both France and the Soviet Union, honoring him as "one of the most feared opponents" of the Nazi collaborators and someone "whose name symbolizes freedom of thought, and hatred of prejudice, superstition, and injustice."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fellows |first=Otis |title=From Voltaire to "La Nouvelle Critique" : Problems and Personalities |date=1970 |publisher=Librairie Droz |page=13}}</ref>

[[Jorge Luis Borges]] stated that "not to admire Voltaire is one of the many forms of stupidity" and included his short fiction such as ''[[Micromégas]]'' in "The Library of Babel" and "A Personal Library."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Borges |first1=Jorge Luis |title=Conversations |last2=Ferrari |first2=Osvaldo |date=2015 |publisher=Seagull Books |location=London |pages=220–26 |author-link=Jorge Luis Borges}}</ref> [[Gustave Flaubert]] believed that France had erred gravely by not following the path forged by Voltaire instead of Rousseau.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Flaubert |first=Gustave |title=Lettre à Amélie Bosquet du 2 janvier 1868 |journal=[[Flaubert's letters|Correspondance]] |publisher=Biblioteque de la Pléiade |volume=Tome III |quote=Je crois même que, si nous sommes tellement bas moralement et politiquement, c’est qu’au lieu de suivre la grande route de M. de Voltaire, c’est-à-dire celle de la Justice et du Droit, on a pris les sentiers de Rousseau, qui, par le Sentiment, nous ont ramené au catholicisme.}}</ref> Most architects of modern America were adherents of Voltaire's views.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} According to Will Durant:{{Blockquote|Italy had a [[The Renaissance|Renaissance]], and Germany had a [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]], but France had Voltaire; he was for his country both Renaissance and Reformation, and half the [[French Revolution|Revolution]].<ref name="Will Durant 1933 259" /> He was first and best in his time in his conception and writing of history, in the grace of his poetry, in the charm and wit of his prose, in the range of his thought and his influence. His spirit moved like a flame over the continent and the century, and stirs a million souls in every generation.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=753}}}}