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Letters on England Introduction · The Voltaire Library

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  Speaker 1: Introduction of Letters on England by Voltaire, edited by Henry Morley.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Cheyenne Arrowsmith Letters on
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  Speaker 1: England by Voltaire, introduction by Henry Morley. Francois Marie Arroue,
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  Speaker 1: who called himself Voltaire, was the son of Francois Arroe
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  Speaker 1: of Prataus, who lived in Paris, had given up his
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  Speaker 1: office of notary two years before the birth of this
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  Speaker 1: his third son, and obtained some years afterwards a treasurer's
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  Speaker 1: office in the Chambre de Comte. Voltaire was born in
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  Speaker 1: the year sixteen ninety four. He lived until within ten
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  Speaker 1: or eleven years of the outbreak of the Great French Revolution,
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  Speaker 1: and was a chief leader in a movement of thought
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  Speaker 1: that preceded the Revolution. Though he lived to his eighty
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  Speaker 1: fourth year. Voltaire was born with a weak body. His
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  Speaker 1: brother Armond eighty as his senior, became a joannsonist Volutaire,
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  Speaker 1: who when ten years old, was placed with the Jesuits
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  Speaker 1: in the College Louis Lukahan. There he was taught during
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  Speaker 1: seven years, and his genius was encouraged in its bent
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  Speaker 1: for literature, skill in speaking and in writing being especially
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  Speaker 1: fostered in the system of education which the Jesuits had
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  Speaker 1: planned to produce capable men who, by voice and a
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  Speaker 1: pen could give a reason for the faith they held.
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  Speaker 1: Verses written for an invalid soldier at the age of
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  Speaker 1: eleven won for young Volatail the friendship of Nino Lonclo,
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  Speaker 1: who encouraged him to go on writing verses. She died
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  Speaker 1: soon afterwards and remembered him with a legacy of two
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  Speaker 1: thousand livres for purchase of books. He wrote in his
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  Speaker 1: lively school days, a tragedy that afterwards he burned. At
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  Speaker 1: the age of seventeen, he left the College Louis Leocorn,
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  Speaker 1: where he said afterwards that he had been taught nothing
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  Speaker 1: but Latin and stupidities. He was then sent to the
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  Speaker 1: law schools and saw life in Paris as a gay
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  Speaker 1: young poet who, with all his brilliant liveliness, had an
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  Speaker 1: aptitude for looking on the tragic side of things, and
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  Speaker 1: one of whose first poems was an ode on the
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  Speaker 1: misfortunes of life. His mother died when he was twenty.
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  Speaker 1: Voltaire's father thought him a fool for his versifying, and
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  Speaker 1: attached him as secretary to the Marquis of Chateauneuve. When
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  Speaker 1: he went as an ambassador to the Hague in December
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  Speaker 1: seventeen thirteen, he was dismissed for his irregularities in Paris.
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  Speaker 1: His unsteadiness and his addiction to literature caused his father
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  Speaker 1: to rejoice in getting him housed in a country chateau
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  Speaker 1: with Monsieur de Courmachdin. Monsieur de courmak Dan's father talked
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  Speaker 1: with such enthusiasm of Henry the fourth and Sully that
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  Speaker 1: Voltaire planned the writing of what became his own Heard
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  Speaker 1: and his history of the age of Louis the fourteenth,
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  Speaker 1: who died on the first of September seventeen fifteen. Under
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  Speaker 1: the regency that followed, Voltaire had got into trouble again
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  Speaker 1: and again through the sharpness of his pen, and at
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  Speaker 1: last accused of verse that satirized the regent. He was
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  Speaker 1: locked up on the seventeenth of May seventeen seventeen in
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  Speaker 1: the Bastille. There he wrote the first two books of
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  Speaker 1: his own Yard, and finished a play on Oedipus, which
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  Speaker 1: he had begun at the age of eighteen. He did
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  Speaker 1: not obtain full liberty until the twelfth of April seventeen eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: and it was at this time with a clearly formed
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  Speaker 1: design to associate the name he took with work of
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  Speaker 1: high attempt in literature, that Francois Mariellaue, aged twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: first called himself Volataire Voltaires Audip was played with success
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  Speaker 1: in November seventeen eighteen. A few months later he was
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  Speaker 1: again banished from Paris and finished the Chiard in his retirement,
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  Speaker 1: as well as another play, Artemis, that was acted in
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  Speaker 1: February seventeen twenty. Other plays followed. In December seventeen twenty one,
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  Speaker 1: Voltaire visited Lord Bolingbroke, who was then an exile from England,
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  Speaker 1: at the shop two of Las Sour's. There was now
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  Speaker 1: constant literary activity. From July to October seventeen twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: Voltaire visited Holland with Madame de Rue Bellemonde. After a
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  Speaker 1: serious attack of smallpox in November seventeen twenty three, Valtaire
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  Speaker 1: was active as a poet about the court. He was
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  Speaker 1: then in receipt of a pension of two thousn Lefres
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  Speaker 1: from the king, and had inherited more than twice as
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  Speaker 1: much by the death of his father in January seventeen
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  Speaker 1: twenty two. But in December seventeen twenty five a quarrel
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  Speaker 1: fastened upon him by the Chevalier de Roin, who had
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  Speaker 1: him waylaid and beaten, caused him to send a challenge.
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  Speaker 1: For this, he was arrested and lodged once more in
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  Speaker 1: April seventeen twenty sixth in the Bustie. There he was
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  Speaker 1: detained a month, and his first act when he was
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  Speaker 1: released was to ask for a passport to England. Voltaire
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  Speaker 1: left France, reached London in August seventeen twenty six, went
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  Speaker 1: as guest to the house of a rich merchant at Wandsworth,
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  Speaker 1: and remained three years in this country, from the age
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  Speaker 1: of thirty two to the age of thirty five. He
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  Speaker 1: was here when George the First died and George the
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  Speaker 1: Second became king. He published here his own kyard. He
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  Speaker 1: wrote here his history of Charles the twelfth. He read
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  Speaker 1: the Galiver's Travels as a new book, and might have
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  Speaker 1: been presented the first night of the Beggar's Opera. He
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  Speaker 1: was here when Sir Isaac Newton died in seventeen thirty one.
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  Speaker 1: He published at Juan the Letter sur lesse Angeles, which
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  Speaker 1: appeared in England in seventeen thirty three, in the volume
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  Speaker 1: from which they are here reprinted. End of introduction voding
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  Speaker 1: by Shayan Rosmith.