A Very Boswell Christmas, Part IV

When we last saw Boswell he was leaving Rousseau, intending at some point to visit the other great French luminary, Voltaire. On Monday, December 24, Boswell took a coach to Ferney, Voltaire's residence. When Boswell arrived, Voltaire was still in bed, so he had to wait until Voltaire finally rose and came down in his dressing gown. They talked some small talk -- Scotland, painting, Lord Kames's aesthetic theories, Hume (whom Voltaire called "a true philosopher"), and so forth. While Boswell dined that night at Ferney, with a number of Voltaire's guests, Voltaire did not attend the dinner, which was instead presided over by his niece, Madame Denis. Dinner conversation seems to have been lively, although Boswell seems at one point to have become exasperated over a number of snide comments made about Rousseau.

The next day, Christmas, Boswell sent a charming and witty letter to Madame Denis, begging for the privilege of being able to spend a night under Voltaire's roof; the request was granted. Boswell again had managed to put himself in a situation that would allow him to interact more closely with a Great Man. Due to visiting, Boswell did not return to Ferney until the 27th.

At Ferney Boswell would find that all the guests tended to amuse themselves, except for occasional periods during which Voltaire would grace the company with his presence. They talked for some time about Britain, and especially about English literature. According to a letter Boswell wrote to Temple, Voltaire and Boswell also had quite the debate about religion:

Monseieur de Voltaire and I remained in the drawing-room with a great Bible before us; and if ever two mortal men disputed with vehemence, we did. Yes, upon that occasion he was one individual and I another. For a certain portion of time there was a fair opposition between Voltaire and Boswell. The daring bursts of his ridicule confounded my understanding. He stood like an orator of ancient Rome. Tully was never more agitated than he was. He went too far. His aged frame trembled beneath him. He cried, "Oh, I am very sick; my head turns round," and he let himself gently fall upon an easy chair.1

It's difficult to say how seriously we should take this spell of faintness; Voltaire seemed to have mastered the art of fainting in order to change the subject. And while the subject did not change, the tone of the conversation did, and they talked less disputatiously about the subject:

I demanded of him an honest confession of his real sentiments. He gave it me with a candour and with a mild eloquence that touched my heart. I did not believe him cpaable of thinking in the manner that he declared to me was "from the bottom of his heart." He expressed his veneration--his love--of the Supreme Being, and his entire resignation to the will of Him who is All-wise. He expressed his desire to resemble the Author of Goodness by being good himself. His sentiments go no farther. He does not inflame his mind with grand hopes of the immortality of the soul. He says it may be, but he knows nothing of it.2

Boswell doubted Voltaire's sincerity, and pressed him on the subject; but Voltaire insisted that this was truly his belief.

The next day, Boswell wrote down one of his poems, an Ode to Ambition, for Voltaire. (The poem itself does not seem to have survived, although Boswell mentions it several times.) However, serious conversation with Voltaire seems to have had to wait, as the great man was not feeling well. We find, however, that on the 29th Boswell managed to have a discussion with Voltaire about the immortality of the soul. Boswell opened, quite cleverly, by tell Voltaire frankly that when he had come to visit he had expected to meet a very great but very bad man; but that the same sincerity which required him to say that also required him to say that he had found that this was not the case. However, he said, he was worried about Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, and, in particular, the article on the soul. Is it not more pleasing and noble to imagine that the soul is immortal?

No doubt, Voltaire replied. One may also have a noble desire to be King of Europe; and that may be something to wish for, but it is not likely. More precisely, the problem with the question of the immortality of the soul is that before we say whether the soul is immortal, we should ask ourselves what it is: "I know not the cause. I cannot judge. I cannot be a juryman."3 When Boswell asked whether Voltaire then thought that we should not have religious worship, Voltaire replied that he thought that we should, but suggested a different approach from the ordinary:

Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren.4

Before the end of the conversation, Boswell managed to extract from Voltaire a promise that if Boswell wrote to him in English Voltaire would reply.

At some point in the interaction with Voltaire, Voltaire had assured Boswell that he was unafraid of death, and encouraged the young man to seek out a certain Dr. Tronchin, Voltaire's physician, for confirmation. Boswell, of course, did. Tronchin did not have a high opinion of Rousseau (and, in fact, it was probably he who was Voltaire's source of information for the devastating pamphlet Voltaire published about Rousseau's personal life). Tronchin confirmed the claim, saying that while Voltaire had moments of wavering from deism, he was never so much a deist as when he was feeling bad. "His illness makes him feel more of God as a merciful Being."5 Boswell came away with a conviction that the interview with Tronchin gave him a way to respond to bigots who attacked Voltaire.

When Boswell wrote to Voltaire about his visit, Voltaire responded drily:

you seem sollicitous about that pretty thing call'd soul. i do protest you i know nothing of it. nor wether it is, nor what it is, nor what it shall be. young scolars, and priests know all that perfectly. for my part j am but a very ignorant fellow.6

Thus ended Boswell's remarkable Christmas season in 1764, where he saw two of the great luminaries of the intellectual world and did us the favor of recording something of his visits so that through him we, too, might know something of Rousseau and Voltaire in person.