THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

VOLTAIRE 191
Meanwhile his play, Irene, was being performed at the theatre; against
the advice of the physicians again, he insisted on attending. The play was
poor; but people marveled not so much that a man of eighty-three should
write a poor play, but that he should write any play at all; 124 and they
drowned the speech of the players with repeated demonstrations in honor
of the author. A stranger, entering, supposed himself to be in a madhouse,
and rushed back frightened into the street. 125
When the old patriarch of letters went home that evening he was
almost reconciled to death. He knew that he was exhausted now; that he
had used to the full that wild and marvelous energy which nature had
given to him perhaps more than to any man before him. He struggled as
he felt life being torn from him; but death could defeat even Voltaire.
The end came on May 30, 1778.
He was refused Christian burial in Paris; but his friends set him up
grimly in a carriage, and got him out of the city by pretending that he
was alive. At Scellieres they found a priest who understood that rules
were not made for geniuses; and the body was buried in holy ground. In
1791 the National Assembly of the triumphant Revolution forced Louis
XVI to recall Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon. The dead ashes of the
great flame that had been were escorted through Paris by a procession of
100,000 men and women, while 600,000 flanked the streets. On the funerai
car were the words: "He gave the human mind a great impetus; he pre
pared us for freedom." On his tombstone only three words were necessary:
Tallentyre, 525.
HERE LIES VOLTAIRE
mlbid., 545-