“The Henriade,” the only French epic, was begun when the author was a prisoner in the Bastille. The second Canto, describing the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, came to Voltaire in a dream, so he told his friend Wagniére, adding that he retained the lines until he had the chance to write them and “he never found anything to change in it.” The poem was ten years in the making. It was ready for printing in 1723, when he was in his thirtieth year. He had received a number of subscriptions for it before he realized that the tone of the Dedication and the poem would bring it under the ban of the censors.
The Dedication is unique of its kind. The young king, Louis XV., had just attained his majority.
“SIRE: Every work in which the great deeds of Henry IV. are spoken of, ought to be offered to your majesty. It is the blood of that hero which flows in your veins. You are king only because he was a great man, and France, that wishes you as much virtue as he possessed, and more happiness, flatters itself that the life and the throne which you owe to him will engage you to imitate him.
“Fortunate in having known adversity, he felt for the miseries of men, and softened the rigors of a rule from which he had suffered himself. Other kings have courtiers; he had friends. His heart was full of tenderness for his true servants.
“That king, who truly loved his subjects, never regarded their complaints as sedition, nor the remonstrance of magistrates as encroachment upon the sovereign authority. Shall I say it, sire? Yes; truth commands me so to do. It is a thing very shameful to kings, this astonishment we experience when they sincerely love the happiness of their people. May you one day accustom us to regard that virtue as something appertaining to your crown! It was the true love of Henry IV. for France which made him adored by his subjects.”
The poem was a brilliant protest against intolerance by the powers of Church and State. How, then, could itself be tolerated? The “privilege” of publication was denied. By the help of friends it was secretly printed in Rouen in 1724. It was smuggled into Paris and had an instant success, as “a wonderful work, a masterpiece of the mind, as beautiful as Virgil.” It has had a lasting popularity in seven languages. The English edition appeared in 1728 as “the first edition published with the author’s sanction.” This time the author dedicated “The Henriade” to Queen Caroline, whose husband had been one year king of England. She had been the friend of Sir Isaac Newton when Princess of Wales.
To the Queen:
“MADAM: — It was the lot of Henry the Fourth to be protected by an English queen. He was assisted by the great Elizabeth, who was in her age the glory of her sex. By whom can his memory be so well protected as by her who resembles so much Elizabeth in her personal virtues? “Your majesty will find in this book bold, impartial truths; morality unstained with superstition; a spirit of liberty, equally abhorrent of rebellion and of tyranny; the rights of kings always asserted and those of mankind never laid aside.
“The same spirit in which it was written gave me the confidence to offer it to the virtuous consort of a king who, among so many crowned heads, enjoys the almost inestimable honor of ruling a free nation: a king who makes his power consist in being beloved, and his glory in being just.
“Our Descartes, who was the greatest philosopher in Europe before Sir Isaac Newton appeared, dedicated his “Principles” to the celebrated Princess Palatine Elizabeth; not, said he, because she was a princess (for true philosophers respect princes, but never flatter them); but because of all his readers she understood him the best, and loved truth the most.
“I beg leave, madam (without comparing myself to Descartes), to dedicate “The Henriade” to your majesty upon the like account, not only as the protectress of all arts and sciences, but as the best judge of them.
“I am, with that profound respect which is due to the greatest virtue as well as the highest rank, may it please your majesty, your majesty’s most humble, most dutiful and most obliged servant,
VOLTAIRE.
The publication enriched its author, who was presented with two thousand crowns by the king and received other honors. “The Henriade” was at last “privileged” to be sold in France, in 1731. Frederick of Prussia wrote a glowing preface for a sumptuous edition he produced at lavish expense, in which he pronounced “The Henriade” the greatest of all epics, ancient or modern.