Impiety deified his very vices; superstition anathematised his very virtues; in a word, despotism, when it again seized on the reins of government in France, felt that to reinstate tyranny it would be necessary first to unseat Voltaire from his high position in the national opinion.

Napoleon, during fifteen years, paid writers who degrade, vilify, and deny the genius of Voltaire; he hated his name, as _might_ must ever hate _intellect_; and so long as men yet cherished the memory of Voltaire, so long he felt his position was not secure, for tyranny stands as much in need of prejudice to sustain it as falsehood of uncertainty and darkness; the restored church could no longer suffer his glory to shine with so great a lustre; she had the right to hate Voltaire, not to deny his genius.
If we judge of men by what they have _done_, then Voltaire is incontestably the greatest writer of modern Europe.

No one has caused, through the powerful influence of his genius alone, and the perseverance of his will, so great a commotion in the minds of men; his pen aroused a world, and has shaken a far mightier empire than that of Charlemagne, the European empire of a theocracy.

His genius was not _force_ but _light_.

Heaven had destined him not to destroy but to illuminate, and wherever he trod light followed him, for reason (which is _light_) had destined him to be first her poet, then her apostle, and lastly her idol.
VI.
Voltaire was born a plebeian in an obscure street of old Paris.[5] Whilst Louis XIV.