Rascal Voltaire

Following le plat de résistance at CERN, the participants of the Museumsgesellschaft's summer tour 2025 savored an excellent dessert by visiting the Château de Voltaire at Ferney the following day.

When entering the château, you find the entrance door framed by statues of the Vieux Patriarch and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Voltaire looks mockingly at the reading Rousseau.

Although both men were enlightened and shared some common ideals, such as critiques of the Church and traditional authorities, they had very different philosophies, temperaments, and views on society, which led to sharp personal and intellectual clashes.

Voltaire took on Rousseau after the publication of Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique: "One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours."

Rousseau, in turn, regarded Voltaire as insincere, elitist, corrupted by luxury and salon society, and accused him of orchestrating a conspiracy to ridicule him.

Despite their mutual dislike, both giants of the Enlightenment profoundly influenced the French Revolution and modern democratic thinking. Voltaire, being the liberal, reformist strand, and Rousseau, the radical, populist one.

Their disputes reflect the broad debates of the epoch between reason and emotion, civilization and nature, elite reform and popular revolution.

Here are some photos from the exhibition at the Château:

Voltaire et ses amis. The Patriarch enjoyed good company.

I recognized le Père Adam, l'Abbé Mauré, d'Alembert, and Diderot (For details, read here in German).

Henri IV accueillant Voltaire aux Champs-Elysées

The assassinated Henri IV receives Voltaire on the banks of the River Lethe. The Huguenot king stands here as a symbol of Voltaire's fight against l'Église.

Le Triomphe de Voltaire 1775

Also called The Apotheosis of Voltaire, led by Truth and crowned by Glory. In the center, Melpomene, muse of tragedy, leads Voltaire towards Apollo. On the right stands the Temple of Memory with its central niche vacant, flanked by Sophocles and Euripides on one side, with Corneille and Racine on the other.

Catherine the Great. The inscription reads: paint à dinant par
Pierre-Lyon-peintre-de Sa Majesté Limpératrice Reine J:R:A
 donné à M. de Voltaire, le 15 juillet 1770

Madame Denis' bedroom, Voltaire's mistress

In stepping out of the castle, Ferney's old village church catches the eye. Since it obstructed the view of his castle, Voltaire wanted to have it torn down. However, the local authorities would not allow him to do so.

The Patriarch had the building restored and erected a monumental façade bearing the inscription, "Deo erexit Voltaire MDCCLXI (Erected by Voltaire to God in 1761)." What a scandal, Voltaire's name was written with larger letters than God's.

A fake inscription: This is not Voltaire's tomb.

On the right side wall of the church, Voltaire had a half-pyramid installed, which is said to symbolize his troubled relation with the Church: "Half of me is in, half of me is out.

Voltaire was a hypochondriac all his life. As he grew older, his fear of dying and being buried in a mass grave grew. So he decreed that when he was dying, he should be taken to Geneva. After his death, he was to be transported back to Ferney. Thus, rascal Voltaire wanted to die a Calvinist but be buried a Catholic. 

However, things turned out differently. Following Voltaire's triumphal return to Paris at the beginning of February 1778, he died there on May 30. The Parisian clergy, as expected, opposed a church funeral. Only through deception was Voltaire's family able to bury his body in the Abbey of Scellières (Champagne).

During the French Revolution, Voltaire's remains were transferred to the Pantheon. His tomb lies opposite that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 

Finally pacified in death?

*