VOLTAIRE

AND THE

FRENCH
ENLIGHTENMENT

Chapter 5
( The Story of
Philosophy by Durant)
Topics
1.The Encyclopedia
and the
philosophic
Dictionary
2.ÉCRASEZ L’INFÂME!
Who was Voltaire?
Voltaire(1694–1778) , was a French writer and
public activist who played a singular role in
defining the eighteenth-century movement
called the Enlightenment. https://w
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The Encyclopedia and the philosophic
Dictionary
Historical background
La Mettrie (1709-61) was an army physician who had lost his post by writing a
Natural History of the Soul, and had won exile by a work called Man a Machine.
He had taken refuge at the court of Frederick, who was himself something of an
advanced thinker .
La Mettrie said that all the world, not excepting man, was a machine. The soul is
material,.
The greatest figure in this group was Denis Diderot (1713— 84). His ideas were
expressed in various fragments from his own pen, and in the System of Nature of
Baron d'Holbach (1723-89), whose salon was the centre of Diderot's circle.
Diderot said materialism is a good weapon against the
Church, and must be used till a better one is found.
Meanwhile one must spread knowledge and encourage
industry; industry will make for peace, and knowledge
will make a new and natural morality. These are the
ideas which Diderot and d'Alembert laboured to
disseminate through the great Encyclopaedia which
they is- sued, volume by volume, from 1752 to 1772 .
The Church had the first volumes suppressed; and as the opposition
increased, Diderot's comrades abandoned him ; but he worked on
angrily, invigorated by his rage.
.
. After this incident Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), that Diderot just
introduced to Paris created a circle known is the Encyclopaedists;
Voltire was also in this circle and they were glad to call him their
leader; They asked him to write articles for their great undertaking,
and he responded with a facility and fertility which delighted them .
When he had finished this work he set about making an
encyclopaedia of his own, which he called a Philosophic Dietionary;
This dictionary is a series of short, radical essays – alphabetically
arranged – that form a brilliant and bitter analysis of the social and
religious conventions that then dominated eighteenth-century French
thought.
  The most readable and sparkling of Voltaire's works aside from his
romances ; every article is a model of brevity, clarity, and wit.
ÉCRASEZ L’INFÂME!
Voltaire’s works frequently contain the
word “l’infâme” and the expression “écrasez l’infâme,” or
“crush the infamous.” The phrase refers to abuses of the
people by royalty and the clergy(the body of all people
ordained for religious duties, especially in the Christian
Church.),  and the superstition and intolerance that the
clergy bred within the people.

.
In 1765 a young man by the name of La Barre, aged sixteen, was
arrested on the charge of having mutilated crucifixes. Subjected to
.

torture, he confessed his guilt ; his head was cut off, and his body was
flung into the flames, A copy of Voltaire's Philosophic Dictionary,
which had been found on the lad, was burned with him.
For almost the first time in his life, Voltaire became a thoroughly
serious man. He ceased to be merely a man of letters, and became a
man of action too ; he laid aside philosophy for war, or rather turned
his philosophy into relentless dynamite. It was now that he adopted
his famous motto, Ecrasez Vinfame, and beat the soul of France
against the abuses of the church. He began to pour forth such
intellectual fire and brimstone as melted mitres and sceptres, broke
the power of the priesthood in France, and helped to over- throw a
throne..
 .

The end