Louis Philippe Ségur, 1753–1830, was a soldier, diplomat, and writer who served in the American Revolution and under Napoleon. This is an extract from his three-volume Mémoires, published in 1824. He was also the author of an eleven-volume History of France and other historical works.

While all these great events, precursors of so many storms, were occupying all the cabinet ministers and the journalists of all classes…a new spectacle took hold of Parisian curiosity and held it.

Voltaire, the Prince of Poets, the Patriarch of the Philosophers, the glory of his century and of France, had been exiled from his fatherland for a great number of years. All the French read his works with delight, and hardly any of them had ever seen him. His contemporaries had become for him, if one dare say so, almost his posterity.

Admiration for his universal genius was, in many minds, a sort of worship or cult; his writings adorned every library, his name was present in all thoughts, and his physical features were absent to all eyes. His spirit dominated, directed, and modified all the minds of his era; but, apart from a small number of men who had been admitted to his philosophical sanctuary in Ferney, he reigned over the rest of his fellow citizens like an invisible power.

Never perhaps has any mortal operated changes as great as he had in the opinions and morals of his century. Never has the head of any sect both fought and vanquished, without appearing in the skirmishes, more enemies who believed themselves invincible, more errors consecrated by time, more prejudices deeply rooted in old customs.

Nevertheless, without rank, birth, or authority, his forces only composed of the clarity of his reason, the varied eloquence of his style, and the charm of his grace; in short, to strike down the old, formidable colossuses against which he fought, instead of using a club he only used the light weapons of ridicule and irony most of the time. It's true that no one had ever handled it more adroitly than he, nor delivered deeper and more incurable wounds with it.

Capitalizing on a few inexcusable temerities, a few writings contrary to morals, a few spots that slightly tarnished the disk of this brilliant star of our literature, the clergy's influence, a few old parlementarians inclined to severity, a small number of old courtesans, partisans of the old abuses of power, had obtained against him not a condemnation, or even an official order of banishment, but merely insinuations efficient enough to force him to seek his peace and safety in exile.

His return, like his disgrace, was further proof of the weakness of the authorities. Philosophical opinions so prevailed in the public, and intimidated the powers to such a degree, that he was allowed to return without being given the permission. The court refused to receive him, and the entire city seemed to fly to greet him. They refused to accord him the slightest pardon, and he was left to enjoy a smashing triumph.

The queen, swept along by the storm, made vain attempts to obtain permission from the king to receive this famous man, the object of such universal admiration. Louis XVI, from scruples of conscience, believed that he must not let a writer approach him whose bold strokes, not stopping only at abuses, had often undermined even ancient beliefs and venerated doctrines. The enclosures of the throne remained thus closed to the man to whom the nation was rendering a sort of cult in transports of admiration.

The rivals of the great man were dismayed; the clergy, indignant but silent; the parlements maintained silence, and the power of the philosophes grew from the presence and triumph of their chief.

One would have to have seen the public joy at this moment, the impatient curiosity, the tumultuous eagerness of the admiring crowds, to hear, to see, to even glimpse the celebrated old man, contemporary to two centuries, who had inherited the glamour and brilliance of the first and become the glory of the second.1 One would have to have witnessed it all, I say, to give oneself an accurate idea of it.

It was the apotheosis of a demigod, still living. He said to the people, with as much affection as reason, “Are you trying to make me die of pleasure?” Indeed, the enjoyment of so many and such touching homages was more than his strength could bear. He succumbed, and the altars raised to him promptly changed into a tomb.

Being just as avid to admire the illustrious man up close, but more fortunate than the others in not having to push through the crowd of all those who wanted a look, I had the joy of seeing him at my ease two or three times in my parents’ home, as in his youth he had had fairly close relations with them.

My mother was then afflicted with a cruel disease that had been consuming her strength in unbearable suffering for the previous two years. She could no longer leave her bed. Her extreme weakness may be judged by the fact that she breathed her last only a month after the period to which I am referring.

She had always been considered one of the women the most distinguished by her fine intellect, the excellence of her taste and wit, the rectitude of her reason, and by the elegance of her language and manners in Paris. Remarkable in her youth for her attractive features, she was considered a model of good taste and of the most appealing urbanity.

Voltaire had not forgotten her. He requested pressingly to see her and, despite the fact that she was barely in condition to see, hear, or answer him, she received him.

We often imagine men, places, and things that we have never seen, but that have struck our imagination from afar, quite differently from the reality. I had experienced this many a time, but when I saw Voltaire, he appeared to me exactly as I had imagined him.

His thinness bespoke of his long, immense works; his singular, antique dress2 recalled to mind the last witness of the age of Louis XIV, the historian of that age and the immortal portraitist of Henri IV. His penetrating eyes sparkled with genius and mischief. One saw in them the tragic poet, the author of Oedipus and Mahomet, the profound philosopher, the ingenious, cunning storyteller, and the witty, satirical observer of the human race. His lean, bent body was now only a light envelope, almost transparent, through which it seemed one could see his soul and genius.

I was seized with admiration and pleasure, like someone who was suddenly permitted to be transported to distant times to find himself face to face with Homer, Plato, Virgil, or Cicero. Perhaps it is difficult today to understand such an impression. We have seen so many men, events, and things that we have become blasé. To conceive what I felt just then, one would have to partake of the atmosphere I lived it in: it was one of exaltation.

We did not yet know the sad fruit of long storms, of political discord, of envy, egotism, the need for rest, the unconcern produced by weariness, the indifference that follows the sad awakening from deceived illusions. We were dazzled by prisms of new ideas and doctrines, radiating with hope, consumed with ardor for every glory, enthusiastic for all talents, and lulled by the seductive dreams of a philosophy that wished to assure the happiness of the human race by chasing with its lighted torch the long, sad darkness that had enchained it with superstition and despotism for so many centuries. Far from foreseeing the woes, the excesses, the crimes, the overthrowing of thrones and principles, we saw only all the good that would be assured humanity in the future by the reign of reason.

Judge, after these dispositions, what must have been the effect on our minds at the sight of the illustrious man that our greatest writers and most famous philosophers regarded as their model and their master.

I was all eyes and ears in approaching Voltaire, as if I was expecting some oracle to ring forth from his mouth at any minute. It was not, however, either the time or the place to pronounce one, had he been Apollo himself, for he was at the bedside of a dying woman, whose sight could but inspire sad thoughts. She no longer seemed capable of either admiration or even consolation. Nevertheless, she made a great effort to conquer nature; her eyes recaptured some of their shine and her voice some of its force.

Voltaire, tactfully seeking to distract her from the present by the remembrance of the past, asked few questions about her condition. He merely told her, in few words, that having been in such agonies several times and as exhausted, he had, through the same courage she was showing, triumphed over his sufferings and recovered his health. “The doctors,” said he, “perform few miracles; but nature works many wonders, especially for those to whom she has given this vital element that still shines in your eyes.”

He then recalled many anecdotes regarding the society they once lived in together, and he did it with a vivacity of wit, a freshness of memory, a variety in phrasing and sallies that would have made you forget his age if his features and voice did not remind us that he was an octogenarian.

He could not cure anyone as ill as the woman who was listening to him, but he brought her back to life. For a few moments, she seemed to no longer feel her weakness and her sufferings. She carried the conversation in a rather lively manner, alluded to myself and so gave me one last faint ray of hope.

A few days later, Voltaire came back to see her again. As, by a stroke of luck, she felt a bit more strength that day than usual, she took a more active part in the conversation and even reproached the old philosopher, gently but energetically, the stubbornness with which he strove, in his numerous writings, to strike, to ridicule the Church and all its members, even religion itself, under the pretext of combating old errors, absurd superstitions, and dangerous fanatics.

“Be generous and moderate after the victory,” she told him, “What have you to fear from such adversaries at present? The fanatics are struck down. They can do no more harm. Their reign has passed.” “You are mistaken,” Voltaire replied intensely, “the fires are covered but smoldering. These fanatics, these Tartuffes,3 are mad dogs. They've been muzzled, but they still have all their teeth. They are no longer biting, it's true, but on the first occasion, if we don't pull out their teeth, you will see if they know how to bite.”

Anger sparkled in his eyes, and the passion that inflamed him momentarily made him lose the decency and measure of the expressions that both reason and good taste dictate, and of which he was usually the most inimitable of models.

The desire to see this extraordinary man had drawn fifty or sixty people into my mother's salon, crowding them in rows around her bed, all craning their necks, rising up on their toes and, without the slightest noise, lending an attentive ear to every word that left Voltaire's mouth, so avid they were to seize the least of them, as well as the slightest movement of his features.

There, I saw to what point bias and enthusiasm, even among the most enlightened, can resemble superstition and approach the absurd. My mother, questioned by Voltaire on the details of the state of her health, replied that the most painful of her suffering came from the destruction of her stomach and the difficulty of finding some sort of food it could bear.

Voltaire sympathized with her and, seeking to console her,⁴ told her that he had been in the same languor for nearly a year, thought incurable, and that nevertheless a simple means had cured him: it consisted of eating only egg yolks mixed with potato flour and water.

Obviously, there could be no question of clever sallies or ingenious witticisms in such a subject of conversation, and yet scarcely had he pronounced the words egg yolks and potato flour than one of my neighbors, well-known, it is true, for his excessive disposition to infatuation and for the mediocrity of his wit, fixed an ardent eye upon me, hugged me in his arms and said, with a cry of admiration: “What a man! What a man! Not a word without a witticism!”

You will laugh at this absurdity, which seems beyond all probability; and yet to convince you that it is not rare, observe in any country, in any era, the eager multitude that surrounds not only the quarters of a man of genius, or the throne of a great king, but the pulpit of a firebrand preacher, even the armchair where a prince who has scarcely left his crib is playing, and you will see that among the numerous and servile homages dictated by flattery, there are many, and the most absurd, that are sincere and born of a sort of idolatry that any sort of elevation inspires in a crowd of people. For it is not always through fear, but foolishness, that so many demigods of so many kinds have been created, both literally and figuratively.

Until then, I had held myself modestly, as I should, in the last row of those contemplating Voltaire. But at the end of the second visit, as he left my mother's chamber and passed into another room, I was presented to him. Several of his friends, Count d'Argental, the Chevalier de Chastellux, the Duke of Nivernais, the Count of Guibert, the Chevalier de Boufflers, Marmontel, and d'Alembert, who no doubt judged me too favorably, had spoken to him of me with a great deal of praise.

I owed it certainly only to their great kindness, since I was then only known for a few slight productions: a few short stories, some fables, and a few romances, whose success in society depended on the caprices of fashion, and often do not outlast them.

At bottom, I had only made myself worthy of their affection by the eagerness with which I strove to perfect my taste and wit in my discussions with them, and to enlighten myself with their knowledge. Thus it was more the zeal of a disciple than the budding talent of a writer that they praised in me.

Whatever the case, Voltaire charmed my vanity in speaking to me with grace and finesse of my passion for literature and of my first attempts. He encouraged me with some advice: “Don't forget,” he said, “that you have earned the good that is said of you by carefully mixing some realities into the images of lighter pieces of poetry, some morality into the sentiments, and a few grains of philosophy into the gaiety. But beware of your penchant for poetry. You may follow it, but do not let yourself be swept away by it. From what I've been told, and in your position, you are destined for far more serious occupations. You have done well to begin by exercising yourself in writing verses, because it is difficult for those who have never loved them, and who know neither their art nor their charm, to ever write very well in prose. Come, young man! Receive the warm wishes of an old man who predicts a happy destiny for you. But remember that poetry, divine as it is, is a seductress.”

I thanked him for the literary benediction he had given me, “remembering,” I told him on this occasion, with vivid pleasure that in olden days, the words meaning great poet and prophet (vates, in Latin) were synonyms.

After that moment, I did not see Voltaire again until the performance of Irène at the Théatre-Français, a day of triumph that proved, by the amount of applause given the most mediocre of tragedies, the excess of enthusiasm with which its author inspired the public.

It could be said that there were two courts in Paris during several weeks; that of the king at Versailles and that of Voltaire in Paris; the first where the good king, Louis XVI, lived in simplicity without pomp or display, dreaming only of the reform of abuses and of the happiness of a people too taken with glamour to appreciate his modest virtues. This first court, I say, seemed to be the peaceful refuge of a sage in comparison with this townhouse on the Quai des Théatins,5 where the cries and acclamations of an immense and adoring throng, which eagerly came to give homage to the greatest genius in Europe, were heard the whole day long.

Up till then, we had seen triumphs justly awarded great men by the governments of their country. The triumph of Voltaire was of an entirely new type; it was awarded by public opinion that had braved, so to say, the power of magistrates, the thunderbolts of the Church, and the authority of the monarch.

The avenger of Calas, the apostle of liberty, the constant enemy and happy victor of prejudices and fanaticism, had returned triumphantly to Paris after sixty years of war.

At the Académie Française, which he went to visit, the members came out to lead him in; and after this public homage, which no prince had ever received, the Prince of Letters presided over the literary senate of France, and the reunion of all its diverse talents in each of which his genius had produced masterpieces.

Back in his house, which seemed transformed into a palace by his presence, and seated amidst a sort of council composed of philosophers, and the boldest, most celebrated writers of this century, his courtiers were the most outstanding men of all classes, and the most distinguished foreigners of every country.

The only thing lacking this royalty were guards, and he truly needed some to assure his safety in the midst of this eager throng, rushing to see him from all quarters, besieging his door, engulfing him as soon as he exited, and barely leaving his horses the possibility of finding a passage.

His coronation took place at the Palace of the Tuileries, on the stage of the Théatre-Français. One cannot depict the ecstasy with which this illustrious old man was received by a public that flowed in, filling every bench, every loge, every corridor and all the exits of the room. Never has the gratitude of a nation burst forth in such lively transports of joy.

I will never forget the scene, and cannot conceive how Voltaire still found enough force in himself to support it. As soon as he appeared, the actor Brizard came to place a crown of laurel leaves upon his head, which he promptly tried to take off, but which the shouts of the people begged him to keep. In the midst of all these lively acclamations, people shouted and repeated the titles of all his works.

Long after the curtain was raised, it was still impossible to begin the play. Everyone in the room was still too occupied with seeing and contemplating Voltaire, with noisily shouting his praise. They were all too busy acting themselves to listen to those on the stage.

When finally a sort of weariness allowed the actors to come out, they found themselves constantly interrupted by the tumultuous agitation of the audience. As M. Grimm rightly said of this performance of Irène, “Never was a play more badly performed, more applauded, and less listened to.”

When it was over, a bust of Voltaire was placed before the stage and surrounded by all the actors of the tragedy still wearing their costumes, by the guards who had been in the play, by the throng of spectators who had managed to crowd into the theater; and what was most singular was that the actor who came to lay a crown on the bust of this obstinate enemy of superstition was still dressed as a monk, as Léonce, a character in the play.

This bust remained upon the stage during the whole time a second little play was performed: Nanine, which was no better listened to and no less applauded than Irène. To complete this glorious day, Voltaire saw the captain of the guards of one of our princes enter his loge. He had come to tell him with what joy the prince associated himself with the just homage being paid to his genius in France.

A few days earlier, an unexpected death almost deprived Voltaire of this stunning triumph. A violent hemorrhage had put him in grave danger.

The clergy, who no longer dared combat him, had hoped to convert him. At first, Voltaire gave in, received Abbé Gaultier, confessed, and wrote a profession of faith that did not fully satisfy the priests, and that displeased a number of philosophers.

But once out of harm's way, he forgot his fears and prudence.6 A few weeks later, in a relapse more serious than the first, he refused to see a single priest and ended, with apparent indifference, a great long life, agitated by so many projects, by so many storms, and radiant with such glory.

Those who had not had the power to oppose his triumph refused him a tomb in the midst of the Parisians. One of his relatives, a councilor in Parlement, removed his body and quickly transported it to the Abbey of Scellières, where he was buried before the local pastor received notice forbidding him to provide a burial. It arrived three hours too late. Without the zeal of this friend, the mortal remains of one of our greatest men would not have obtained a few feet of dirt to cover them.

Despite the efforts of the clergy, the magistrates, and the authorities, who forbid the papers to speak of Voltaire's death and the theaters to perform his plays, Paris was flooded with a deluge of verses, pamphlets, and epigrams; the only weapons that remained to the public to avenge this outrage to the memory of a man who had rendered his country and century illustrious.