The Two Voltaires

It is I myself, but not that mocking and caustic Spirit of former times; the little king of the eighteenth century, who dominated by his thought and his genius so many sovereigns, no longer has upon his lips today that biting smile that made enemies, and even friends, tremble! My cynicism vanished before the revelation of the great things that I wished to touch and that I knew only beyond the tomb!

Poor minds, too narrow to contain so many marvels! Humans, be silent, humble yourselves before the supreme power; admire and contemplate: that is what you can do. How do you wish to fathom God and his great work? Despite all its resources, does not your reason annihilate itself before the atom and the grain of sand, which it cannot define?

I spent my life seeking to know God and his principle; my reason weakened and I came to deny not God, but his glory, his power, and his greatness. I explained him as developing himself in time. A celestial intuition told me to reject such an error, but I did not listen and I made myself the apostle of a deceptive doctrine… Do you know why? Because, in the tumult and confusion of my thoughts, which ceaselessly collided with one another, I saw only one thing: my name engraved on the pediment of the temple of memory of the nations! I saw only the glory promised me by that universal youth which surrounded me and seemed to savor with sweetness and delight the quintessence of the doctrine I was teaching it.

Meanwhile, impelled by I know not what remorse of my conscience, I wished to stop, but it was too late. Like every utopia, every system that we embrace carries us along; at first one follows the torrent, then it drags us along and breaks us, so swift and violent is its fall at times.

Believe me, you who are here in search of the truth: you will find it when you have driven from your heart the love of tinsel, which a foolish self-love and a ridiculous pride make glitter before your eyes. Do not fear, on the new path along which you march, to combat error and to strike it down when it rises before you. Is it not a monstrosity to exalt a lie against which no one dares to defend himself, because we have made disciples who have surpassed our beliefs?

As you see, my friends, the Voltaire of today is no longer that of the eighteenth century. I am more Christian, because I come here to make you forget my glory and to remind you of what I was in my youth and what I loved in childhood. Oh! how I loved to lose myself in the world of thought! My ardent and lively imagination roamed the valleys of Asia after him whom you call the Redeemer… I loved to travel the roads that he had traveled. And how great and sublime that Christ seemed to me amid the multitude! I thought I heard his powerful voice, instructing the peoples of Galilee, of the shores of the lake of Tiberias and of Judea!… Later, in my sleepless nights, how many times did I rise to open an old Bible and reread its holy pages! Then my brow bowed before the cross, that eternal sign of redemption, which unites the Earth to Heaven, the creature to the Creator!… How many times did I admire that power of God, subdividing himself, so to speak, and whose spark incarnates to make itself so small, coming to surrender the soul on Calvary in expiation!… August victim whose divinity I denied and who, nevertheless, made me say: Thy God whom thou hast betrayed, thy God whom thou blasphemest, For thee, for the Universe, died in these places!