Written in History: Letters That Changed the World by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Author:Simon Sebag Montefiore [Montefiore, Simon Sebag]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781984898166
Google: 9fq-wwEACAAJ
Publisher: Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2019-11-15T23:19:13.608953+00:00

Voltaire to M. Tronchin, 24 November 1755

Voltaire was the most famous European of his day and a master of the art of letter writing in its golden age. His letters were often copied out for public distribution and read across the continent. Voltaire—real name François-Marie Arouet, born in 1694—was the polymathic French author of the satirical novel Candide and of poetry, history, and essays. He corresponded with monarchs like Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great while he amassed a huge fortune through financial speculation. “Écrasez l’infâme!” he often wrote—wipe out superstition, particularly with regard to religion. His wit was razor-sharp: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Voltaire initially enjoyed the king’s patronage, but soon ran afoul of royal censorship and retired to live in splendor at his chateau in Switzerland. His first great love was the clever beauty the Marquise du Châtelet—a mother of three who was also a philosopher and scientist—and then after her death, his own young niece. On All Saints’ Day 1755 an earthquake hit Lisbon, killing over thirty thousand, a natural disaster that shocked Europe. Voltaire wrote his Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon in response to the destruction. Here in a letter he considers the meaning of such events in a way that seems just as appropriate today.

This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how the laws of movement operate in such fearful disasters in the best of all possible worlds—where a hundred thousand ants, our neighbors, are crushed in a second on our ant-heaps, half dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath débris from which it was impossible to extricate them, families all over Europe reduced to beggary, and the fortunes of a hundred merchants—Swiss, like yourself—swallowed up in the ruins of Lisbon. What a game of chance human life is! What will the preachers say—especially if the Palace of the Inquisition is left standing! I flatter myself that those reverend fathers, the Inquisitors, will have been crushed just like other people. That ought to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike. I believe it is our mountains which save us from earthquakes.

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