There was many manners of defining that which one will call “king Voltaire”, liberator for the ones, Antéchrist for the others. He is in his time the most famous mortal, the Master uncontested in all the kinds. The epic poet celebrated the glory of Henri IV, the tragedy is equalized in Corneille and in Racine, the philosopher made known in France the thought of Newton, the author of the Test on manners renewed the design of the history.

Voltaire is the universal spirit, the genius makes man. Of Oedipus, in 1718, in Irene, in 1778, pas one moment its fame did not weaken.

Its long existence made of him the link between the revolutionary Great century and times. That which lived its youth under the old man Louis XIV could, if he had lived twenty years moreover, have seen to be completed Terror and have sunk a world. Always suffering, always dying, it was vitality even, overflowing of an incredible energy. Nothing equalizes the promptness of its intelligence, nothing does not escape its curiosity.

If its tragedies and its comedies hardly any more concern us, it remains sparkling it writer of the tales, of Candide Zadig, the author of this philosophical Dictionary which wanted to put “the opinion in alphabet”, the man who claimed to make think and reflect his century on some of the great questions - metaphysics, nuns, philosophical - which continue to challenge the modern world.

This man of letters was also a man of action. He pled for the reform of the criminal legislation, issued charge the crimes against humanity, fought for the tolerance and freedom of thought, fought without slackening the prejudices, fanaticisms, the superstition. No one made nothing any more but him to teach justice and pity. “Voltaire, this torch”, Victor Hugo will say: the light which clarified its century, that which knew to inspire the scruple in the human conscience.

                                                                                                                        Text of Raymond Trousson, professor