Voltaire Kids Encyclopedia

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (also known as Voltaire) was a French philosopher. He was born in 1694 and grew up in Poitou. He died in Paris in 1778.

Voltaire did not like France at the time because he thought that it was old fashioned. He also did not like the Church and thought that people should be allowed to believe what they want. However he did not like democracy either and thought that a country needed to be led by a wise and strong king. Voltaire had to live in exile in England for three years from 1726 to 1729 where these ideas were more common. He liked the philosophy of John Locke.

Voltaire was also a writer. He wrote many books, poems and plays, some of which are still liked today. A lot of his work was against France and the Church. This meant that he was unpopular at first but became more popular towards the time of the French Revolution. When he died, aged 83, Voltaire was a hero of French people. He also studied science and wrote a lot about people and places he knew.

Voltaire believed in God but did not believe in a god personally involved in people's lives, like the Christian god. This is called Deism. When he died in Paris, Voltaire was not allowed to be buried in a church because he did not believe in the Christian god.

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  Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille from 16 May 1717 to 15 April 1718 in a windowless cell with ten-foot thick walls.

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  In the frontispiece to Voltaire's book on Newton's philosophy, Émilie du Châtelet appears as Voltaire's muse, reflecting Newton's heavenly insights down to Voltaire.

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  Pastel by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1735

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  Die Tafelrunde by Adolph von Menzel. Guests of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci, including members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and Voltaire (third from left).

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  Voltaire's château at Ferney, France

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  House in Paris where Voltaire died

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  Voltaire's tomb in the Paris Panthéon

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  Frontispiece and first page of an early English translation by T. Smollett et al. of Voltaire's Candide, 1762

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  Voltaire at Frederick the Great's Sanssouci, by Pierre Charles Baquoy

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  Voltaire at 70; engraving from 1843 edition of his Philosophical Dictionary

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  Voltaire, by Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1778. National Gallery of Art