THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

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THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
VI. FERNEY: CANDIDE
Les Delices had been a temporary home, a centre from which Voltaire
might prospect to find a shelter of more permanence. He found it in 1758
at Ferney, just inside the Swiss line near France; here he would be secure
from the French power, and yet near to French if refuge the Swiss Government
should trouble him. This last change ended his Wanderjahre. His fitful runnings to and fro had not been all the result of nervous rest-
lessness; they had reflected, too, his ubiquitous insecurity from persecution;
only at sixty-four did he find a house that could be also his home.
There is a passage at the end of one of his tales, "The Travels of Scar-
to its author: "As I had now seen all
mentado," which almost applies
that was rare or beautiful on earth, I resolved for the future to see nothing
but my own home; I took a wife, and soon suspected that she deceived
me; but notwithstanding
this doubt I still found that of all conditions of
life this was much the happiest." He had no wife, but he had a niece
which is better for a man of genius. "We never hear of his wishing to
be in Paris. . . . There can be no doubt that this wise exile prolonged
his days." 46
He was happy in his garden, planting fruit trees which he did not
expect to see flourish in his lifetime. When an admirer praised the work
he had done for posterity he answered, "Yes, I have planted 4000 trees."
He had a kind word for everybody, but could be forced to sharper speech.
One day he asked a visitor whence he came. "From Mr. Haller's." "He is
a great man," said Voltaire; "a great poet, a great naturalist, a great
philosopher, almost a universal genius." "What you say, sir, is the more
admirable, as Mr. Haller does not do you the same justice." "Ah," said
Voltaire, "perhaps we are both mistaken."47
Femey now became the intellectual capital of the world; every learned
man or enlightened ruler of the day paid his court either in person or by
correspondence. Here came sceptical priests, liberal aristocrats, and
learned ladies; here came Gibbon and Boswell from England; here came
d'Alembert, Helvetius, and the other rebels of the Enlightenment; and
countless others. At last the entertainment of this endless stream of visitors
proved too expensive even for Voltaire; he complained that he was becoming
the hotel-keeper for all Europe. To one acquaintance who announced
that he had come to stay for six weeks, Voltaire said: "What is
the difference between you and Don Quixote? He mistook inns for
chateaux, and you mistake this chateau for an inn." "God preserve me
from my friends," he concluded; "I will take care of my enemies myself."
Add to this perpetual hospitality, the largest correspondence the world
tas ever seen, and the most brilliant. Letters came from all sorts and
**MorIey, 239.
*T
Tallentyre, 349.