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The work promoted a rational and scrupulous study of history, in accordance with the Enlightenment vision of the world. In 1764 he published his Dictionnaire philosophique, a collection of short philosophical contemplations.Īpart from his historiographies of France under the absolute monarchy, an important historical work by Voltaire is Essai sur les moeurs (1756), with its socio-historical and cultural-historical approach, and its focus on world history without fitting it into a theological/ religious framework. On his estate he received internationally reputed intellectuals, such as James Boswell, Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon. Measures against his satirical and polemical publications forced him in 1755 to settle in Switzerland and in 1758 in Ferney, where he wrote his famous parody of Leibniz’s philosophical optimism, Candide, ou l’optimisme (1759). He spent some time at Frederick’s palace Sanssouci. In the 1740s Voltaire stayed in the Netherlands and corresponded with king Frederick of Prussia, whom he met in 1742. After his return in Paris he received a large inheritance from his father and settled in Château de Cirey, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine, where he resumed his intellectual activities, which were directed at the disclosure of Newtonian scientific principles, the writing of history (Le siècle de Louis XV, 1746-1752).
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From this period he remained a strong advocate of freedom of expression and reform of the judicial system, defending the cause of thinkers accused of illicit writings.ĭuring his stay in England he was influenced by English literature and political and scientific thought and he wrote several treatises about the English system of governance (Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais, 1734). Because of his outspokenness and his fight for freedom of thought, combined with the popularity of his work among the aristocracy, Voltaire was repeatedly persecuted by the authorities, and he spent several periods in prison or in exile in England. After a brief period in Caen and the Dutch Republic Voltaire settled in Paris to pursue a literary career. Voltaire was born in Paris, from a noble family, and was educated at a Jesuit college. He was feared and admired for his sharp wit and criticism, especially of the Catholic Church, the monarchy and censorship. He was a writer of prose, poetry and theatre plays, beside philosophical treatises and polemical texts. Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), better known by his pseudonym Voltaire was one of the main thinkers of the French Enlightenment.