aroused a
world, and has shaken a far mightier empire than that of Charlemagne,
the European empire of a theocracy. His genius was not _force_ but
_light_. Heaven had destined him not to destroy but to illuminate, and
wherever he trod light followed him, for reason (which is _light_) had
destined him to be first her poet, then her apostle, and lastly her
idol.

VI.

Voltaire was born a plebeian in an obscure street of old Paris.[5]
Whilst Louis XIV. and Bossuet reigned in all the pomp of absolute power
and Catholicism at Versailles, the child of the people, the Moses of
incredulity, grew up amidst them: the secrets of destiny seem thus to
sport with men, and are alone suspected when they have exploded. The
throne and the altar had attained their culminating point in France. The
Duc d'Orleans, as regent, governed during an interregnum,--one vice in
the room of another, weakness instead of pride. This life was easy and
agreeable, and corruption avenged itself for the monacal austerity of
the last years of Madame de Maintenon and Letellier. Voltaire, alike
precocious by audacity as by talent, began already to sport with those
weapons of the mind of which he was destined, after years, to make so
terrible a use. The regent, all unsuspicious of danger, suffered him to
continue, and repressed, for form's sake alone, some of the most
audacious of his outbreaks, at which he laughed even whilst he punished
them. The incredulity of the age took its rise in debauchery and not in
examination, and the independence of thought was rather a _libertinage_
of manners, than a conclusion arising from reflection. There was vice in
irreligion, and of this Voltaire always savoured. His mission began by a
contempt and derision of holy things, which, even though doomed to
destruction, should be touched with respect. From thence arose that
mockery, that irony, that cynicism too often on the lips, and in the
heart, of the apostle of reason; his visit to England gave assurance and
gravity to his incredulity, for in France he had only known libertines,
in London he knew philosophers; he became passionately attached to
eternal reason, as we are all eager after what is new, and he felt the
enthusiasm of the discovery. In so active a nature as the French, this
enthusiasm and this hatred could not remain in mere speculation as in
the mind of a native of the north. Scarcely was he himself persuaded,
than he wished in his turn to persuade others; his