Editing Voltaire (section)

=== Geneva and Ferney ===
[[File:Château de Voltaire à Ferney 3.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|Voltaire's ''[[château]]'' at [[Ferney]], France]]

Voltaire's slow progress toward Paris continued through [[Mainz]], [[Mannheim]], [[Strasbourg]], and [[Colmar]],{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=236–37}} but in January 1754 [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]] banned him from Paris,{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=238}} and he turned for [[Geneva]], near which he bought a large estate (''[[Les Délices]]'') in early 1755.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=244–45}} Though he was received openly at first, the law in Geneva, which banned theatrical performances, and the publication of ''[[The Maid of Orleans (poem)|The Maid of Orleans]]'' against his will soured his relationship with Calvinist Genevans.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=247}} In late 1758, he bought an even larger estate at [[Ferney]], on the French side of the [[Franco-Swiss border]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=263–64}} The town would adopt his name, calling itself Ferney-Voltaire, and this became its official name in 1878.<ref>{{cite web |last=Le Royer |first=Élie |date=23 November 1878 |title=Décret du Président de la République française n°6148 du 23 novembre 1878 |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2141069 |access-date=6 May 2021 |website=Gallica |language=FR}}</ref>

Early in 1759, Voltaire completed and published ''[[Candide|Candide, ou l'Optimisme]]'' (''Candide, or Optimism''). This satire on Leibniz's philosophy of optimistic determinism remains Voltaire's best-known work. He would stay in Ferney for most of the remaining 20 years of his life, frequently entertaining distinguished guests, such as [[James Boswell]] (who recorded their conversations in his journal and memoranda),<ref name=Boswell>{{cite book |last1=Boswell |first1=James |author1-link = James Boswell |editor-first = Frederick A. | editor-last=Pottle |url-access = registration | oclc = 868987 | series = [[Yale University|Yale]] editions of the private papers of James Boswell |title=Boswell on the grand tour : Germany and Switzerland, 1764 |date=1953 |publisher=[[McGraw Hill Education|McGraw-Hill]] |location=New York |pages=279–281, 293–294, 298–301, 303–304 |url=https://archive.org/details/boswellongrandto00bosw/page/279/mode/1up?view=theater |access-date=30 June 2024}}</ref> [[Adam Smith]], [[Giacomo Casanova]], and [[Edward Gibbon]]. In 1764, he published one of his best-known philosophical works, the ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'', a series of articles mainly on Christian history and dogmas, a few of which were originally written in Berlin.<ref name="The Life of Voltaire" />

From 1762, as an unmatched intellectual celebrity, he began to champion unjustly persecuted individuals, most famously the [[Huguenot]] merchant [[Jean Calas]].<ref name="The Life of Voltaire" /> Calas had been tortured to death in 1763, supposedly because he had murdered his eldest son for wanting to convert to Catholicism. His possessions were confiscated, and his two daughters were taken from his widow and forced into Catholic convents. Voltaire, seeing this as a clear case of religious persecution, managed to overturn the conviction in 1765.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=284–90}}

Voltaire was initiated into [[Freemasonry]] a little over a month before his death. On 4 April 1778, he attended ''[[Les Neuf Sœurs|la Loge des Neuf Sœurs]]'' in Paris, and became an [[Entered Apprentice]] Freemason. According to some sources, "Benjamin Franklin&nbsp;... urged Voltaire to become a freemason; and Voltaire agreed, perhaps only to please Franklin."<ref name="Ridley2011">{{Cite book |last=Jasper Ridley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h7q3VIZCiwQC&pg=PT141 |title=The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society |publisher=Skyhorse Publishing Inc. |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-61145-010-1 |page=141}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=I did not know that: Mason Facts |url=http://www.americanmason.com/didntARC.ihtml |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070112071055/http://www.americanmason.com/didntARC.ihtml |archive-date=12 January 2007}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/voltaire/voltaire.html|title=Voltaire|website=freemasonry.bcy.ca}}</ref> However, Franklin was merely a visitor at the time Voltaire was initiated, the two only met a month before Voltaire's death, and their interactions with each other were brief.<ref>{{cite web |last=Young |first=Adrian |date=19 July 2010 |title=When Franklin Met Voltaire |url=http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/exclusive-when-franklin-met-voltaire |publisher=Family Security Matters |access-date=25 June 2018 |archive-date=8 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808085518/http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/exclusive-when-franklin-met-voltaire |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:Voltaire-last-house.jpg|thumb|House in Paris where Voltaire died]]