Excerpt from Voltaire in Exile: His Life and Works in France and Abroad (England, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, Switzerland); With Unpublished Letters of Voltaire and Mme; Du Chatelet This book is meant to be a faithful history of Vol taire, .a picture as unbiased and perfect as it could be photographed, so to speak, by the hand of an admiring but conscientious artist. The phases and evolutions of the great man's character are left to be' observed through the continuous panorama of his eventful and active life. We are first introduced to a young man in whom genius with all its concomitant temptations is already revealing itself to\ a nature which, with its inborn Epicurean tastes, was easily led' through the in uence of the surrounding. And general Christian, licentiousness into a participation in its dissolute ways. In his dav the lover, l'ami' intime, to use the words of a writer in the Argosy, was an indis pensable part of every fine lady's household. It is true that both. The fair dames and their cavaliers were frequently seen at mass and all sorts of relig ious ceremonies, but they went back to the salon to. irt and make love quite as briskly as ever. Vol taire simply lived as men of the world in his time lived. Therein lies. His only weakness, that, high as he towered in heart and intellect above the Chris, tian herd among which he lived, he did not rise above them in social morality. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."