How did Voltaire lack integrity? What questions are left unanswered about Voltaire's life?

Eldon Friedell writes in A Cultural History of the Modern Age that Voltaire was “the essence of all France and of all the 18th century … a compendium of all the faults and errors, vices and contradictions, of his nation and his generation.” Hence, the question of how Voltaire lacked integrity may be answered by saying he was a man of his time. Voltaire lived during the Rococo period, and as Friedell so aptly writes, Voltaire lacked integrity “because the Rococo mind lacked integrity.” The Enlightenment brought with it the freedom to think and know (Immanuel Kant used the Latin “sapere aude” meaning “dare to know” or “have the courage to use your own understanding”) rather than rely on the “divine order,” i.e., the Church and State, to impose their ideas on the masses. Voltaire was a great eighteenth century thinker, but his greatness was tempered by his weaknesses, i.e., his lack of integrity.

New attitudes emerged in eighteenth century Europe, especially about morality and religion. Voltaire bought into the new ideologies and seemed to be a self-indulgent drunkard and a rascal. He enjoyed the “higher life style” with all it’s vices, and even in his early childhood, coveted luxury. To support the coveted lifestyle, he wrote, though his father told him he could never make a living as a writer. Via his writing Voltaire became a celebrity in his own right; he was so popular in France that people flocked to see him wherever he went, and when he retired to Ferney, they traveled vast distances to see him (Friedell, 197).

While Voltaire’s early life was often not as lucrative as he would have liked, nevertheless he was a very wealthy man by age forty. Some of his wealth came from his vast amounts of writing (a great deal of Voltaire’s work was burned by the public executioner, many of those were especially desired by his fans, and he always had an escape route in mind if the authorities were looking for him). He received some pensions, but most of his wealth came from deceitful financial maneuvers. Friedell accuses him of “dubious money transactions of all sorts,” including stock exchange and real estate speculation, corn deals, army contracts, and high interest loans (198).

One particularly scandalous transaction was between Voltaire and a Jewish banker in Berlin. Voltaire presumably altered the words of his contract with the banker, which brought the wrath of Frederick the Great upon Voltaire. Frederick, like many others of the Enlightened Despots in Europe, had invited (actually finagled) Voltaire to join his court in Potsdam (near Berlin). While there, Voltaire not only cheated the banker, but he fleeced Frederick out of as much money as possible. Voltaire found himself on the opposite sides of the King on numerous other occasions before he was finally dismissed and returned to France. Another lucrative, yet scandalous, transaction had Voltaire participating with the “Paris brothers” in a contract to supply the French army with food and munitions.

Numerous other antics in Voltaire's life suggest his lack of integrity (dishonesty, untrustworthiness, and irresponsibility) including

• his association with conspirators to depose the Regent de’Orleans (5 year-old King Louis XV’s mentor), which led to his first imprisonment in the Bastille.


• a bribe for dedicating his new edition of La Henriade to the daughter-in-law of England’s King George I; the 200 pounds were a presumed payoff from the English crown for Voltaire to break ties with Bolingbroke and his Tory friends.


• among his several affairs, his open and public affair with Emilie du Chatelet, a married woman with three children, who herself had engaged in numerous affairs. The two, Voltaire and Emilie, were wanton to break all the social rules of the time by appearing together in public.


• his attempt to procure a seat on the coveted French Academy when his friend Cardinal Fleury died. Voltaire denied having written the English Letters, denied the essence of his epic La Henriade, and vehemently declared what a good Catholic he, a presumed deist given to ranting against the Church, was. (He was ultimately denied the seat.)


• his use of trickery, perfected through practice. He once used trickery against Frederick the Great after having said, “I have no scepter, but I have a pen.”


• keeping foreign investment accounts, earning about 45,000 francs a year, in case he had to leave France to avoid arrest.

Voltaire led a very prolific intellectual life. He wasn’t afraid to break the rules, but he was always ready to flee the authorities if necessary. His life and work leave some unanswered questions, however. Much of what Voltaire wrote was for his friends and admirers, i.e., that specific group who understood his way of thinking, which leaves some modern scholars with lingering questions.

• When and where did Voltaire actually write the Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (Philosophical Letters on the English). He insists, himself, that they were written in English, in England. Some parts seem to have been written after his return to France partly because it was not until after his return from France that Voltaire wrote several letters to colleagues seeking advice about writing the book.


• What were his thought processes in writing English Letters. Voltaire was in the habit of writing friends, telling them about his writing, asking for advice, and sharing copies. He did not follow that pattern during his writing of the Letters, but only did so near the end of their writing in 1733.


• Above all, what were Voltaire’s real thoughts about God? He challenged the Church and questioned God’s existence all the while saying philosophy, i.e., reason, tells us God exists. He said “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him;” yet he believed nature “cries out the existence of God.” He also wrote Treatise on Toleration, a satirical plea for religious toleration, on behalf of two Protestant families persecuted and imprisoned, the fathers each being accused of murdering one of their children who wanted to convert to Catholicism (Friedell, 201). And he wrote what appears to be a confession of his faith six years before his death.

There is a vast array of literature written about Voltaire, and to some extent, the answers the two questions above could be specific to the sources an instructor has chosen to share with his/her students. That said, Voltaire was an extraordinary man who some say lived as an infidel (an unbeliever). He could be ruthless in money dealings and was a womanizer. On the one hand, he penned many mean spirited treatises even against his friends. On the other, he was a hero to those for whom he advocated in the cause for justice. He was an intelligent prolific writer whose works have been an inspiration for nations and peoples that followed him. But he was in everything ultimately human, neither more perfect nor less perfect than any other human being.