Letters on England | Page 3

this "Small Print!" and all
other references to Project Gutenberg, or:

[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that
you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money

should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1894 Cassell & Company edition.

LETTERS ON ENGLAND
by Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet)

INTRODUCTION

Francois Marie Arouet, who called himself Voltaire, was the son of
Francois Arouet of Poitou, who lived in Paris, had given up his office
of notary two years before the birth of this his third son, and obtained
some years afterwards a treasurer's office in the Chambre des Comptes.
Voltaire was born in the year 1694. He lived until within ten or eleven
years of the outbreak of the Great French Revolution, and was a chief
leader in the movement of thought that preceded the Revolution.
Though he lived to his eighty-fourth year, Voltaire was born with a
weak body. His brother Armand, eight years his senior, became a
Jansenist. Voltaire when ten years old was placed with the Jesuits in the
College Louis-le-Grand. There he was taught during seven years, and
his genius was encouraged in its bent for literature; skill in speaking
and in writing being especially fostered in the system of education
which the Jesuits had planned to produce capable men who by voice
and pen could give a reason for the faith they held. Verses written for
an invalid soldier at the age of eleven won for young Voltaire the
friendship of Ninon l'Enclos, who encouraged him to go on writing

verses. She died soon afterwards, and remembered him with a legacy of
two thousand livres for purchase of books. He wrote in his lively
school-days a tragedy that afterwards he burnt. At the age of seventeen
he left the College Louis-le-Grand, where he said afterwards that he
had been taught nothing but Latin and the Stupidities. He was then sent
to the law schools, and saw life in Paris as a gay young poet who, with
all his brilliant liveliness, had an aptitude for looking on the tragic side
of things, and one of whose first poems was an "Ode on the
Misfortunes of Life." His mother died when he was twenty. Voltaire's
father thought him a fool for his versifying, and attached him as
secretary to the Marquis of Chateauneuf; when he went as ambassador
to the Hague. In December, 1713, he was dismissed for his
irregularities. In Paris his unsteadiness and his addiction to literature
caused his father to rejoice in getting him housed in a country chateau
with M. de Caumartin. M. de Caumartin's father talked with such
enthusiasm of Henri IV. and Sully that Voltaire planned the writing of
what became his Henriade, and his "History of the Age of Louis XIV.,"
who died on the 1st of September, 1715.
Under the regency that followed, Voltaire got into trouble again and
again