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 _The WORKS of VOLTAIRE_

 _EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION_

 _Limited to one thousand sets
 for America and Great Britain._

             “_Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared
 eighteen hundred years apart, there is a mysterious relation.
 *    *    *    *    *    Let us say it with a sentiment of
 profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED.
 Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the
 sweetness of the present civilization._”
                                             _VICTOR HUGO._


[Illustration: AT THIS INTERESTING MOMENT, AS MAY EASILY BE
IMAGINED, WHO SHOULD COME IN BUT THE UNCLE]




 _EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION_

 THE WORKS OF
 VOLTAIRE
 A CONTEMPORARY VERSION

 With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized
 New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an
 Introduction by Oliver H. G. Leigh

 A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY
 BY
 THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY

 _FORTY-THREE VOLUMES_

 ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT DESIGNS,
 COMPRISING REPRODUCTIONS OF RARE OLD
 ENGRAVINGS, STEEL PLATES, PHOTOGRAVURES,
 AND CURIOUS FAC-SIMILES

 VOLUME IV

 E. R. DuMONT
 PARIS : LONDON : NEW YORK : CHICAGO




 COPYRIGHT 1901
 BY E. R. DUMONT

 OWNED by
 THE WERNER COMPANY
 AKRON, OHIO


 MADE BY
 THE WERNER COMPANY
 AKRON, OHIO




 VOLTAIRE

 ROMANCES

 IN THREE VOLUMES
 VOL. III.




       CONTENTS

       ——————
    I. ANDRÉ DES TOUCHES IN SIAM … 5

   II. THE BLIND AS JUDGES OF COLOR … 13

  III. THE CLERGYMAN AND HIS SOUL … 15

   IV. A CONVERSATION WITH A CHINESE … 28

    V. MEMNON THE PHILOSOPHER … 33

   VI. PLATO’S DREAM … 42

  VII. AN ADVENTURE IN INDIA … 47

 VIII. BABABEC … 51

   IX. ANCIENT FAITH AND FABLE … 56

    X. THE TWO COMFORTERS … 61

   XI. DIALOGUE BETWEEN MARCUS AURELIUS AND A RECOLLET
       FRIAR … 64

  XII. DIALOGUE BETWEEN A BRAHMIN AND A JESUIT … 70

 XIII. DIALOGUES BETWEEN LUCRETIUS AND POSIDONIUS … 76

  XIV. DIALOGUE BETWEEN A CLIENT AND HIS LAWYER … 95

   XV. DIALOGUE BETWEEN MADAME DE MAINTENON AND MDLLE. DE
       L’ENCLOS … 101

  XVI. DIALOGUE BETWEEN A SAVAGE AND A BACHELOR OF ARTS … 108

       ——————
       A TREATISE ON TOLERATION.
       [In 1762 Jean Calas, a Protestant of Toulouse, was
       done to death by torture on the wheel on the false
       charge of having slain his son, a suicide. His widow
       and children were put to the torture to extort a
       confession, in utter lack of evidence. Voltaire
       devoted years of unremitting labor to agitating the
       terrible crime and raising money compensation for the
       victims. His pamphlets aroused substantial sympathy
       and protests in England and over the Continent. His
       efforts led to the writing of over one hundred plays,
       poems, and pamphlets on the case. Voltaire had the
       satisfaction of witnessing the triumph of his long
       struggle. He narrates the facts in this Treatise,
       which expands into a sweeping exposure of the
       cruelties committed in the name of religion, in all
       ages and countries.]



       LIST OF PLATES—VOL. IV

       ——————
       MEMNON AND THE LADY’S UNCLE … _Frontispiece_

       THE DISCONSOLATE WOMAN … 62

       THE MAID OF ORLEANS AT THE STAKE … 144

       WIDOW CALAS APPEALS TO THE KING … 286




 ANDRÉ DES TOUCHES IN SIAM.


André Des Touches was a very agreeable musician in the brilliant
reign of Louis XIV., before the science of music was perfected by
Rameau, and before it was corrupted by those who prefer the art of
surmounting difficulties to nature and the real graces of composition.

Before he had recourse to these talents he had been a musketeer, and
before that, in 1688, he went into Siam with the Jesuit Tachard, who
gave him many marks of his affection, for the amusement he afforded
on board the ship; and Des Touches spoke with admiration of Father
Tachard for the rest of his life.

In Siam he became acquainted with the first commissary of Barcalon,
whose name was Croutef, and he committed to writing most of those
questions which he asked of Croutef, and the answers of that Siamese.
They are as follows:

DES TOUCHES.—How many soldiers have you?

CROUTEF.—Fourscore thousand, very indifferently paid.

DES TOUCHES.—And how many talapoins?

CROUTEF.—A hundred and twenty thousand, very idle and very rich. It
is true that in the last war we were beaten, but our talapoins have
lived sumptuously and built fine houses.

DES TOUCHES.—Nothing could have discovered more judgment. And your
finances, in what state are they?

CROUTEF.—In a very bad state. We have, however, about ninety thousand
men employed to render them prosperous, and if they have not
succeeded, it has not been their fault, for there is not one of them
who does not honorably seize all that he can get possession of, and
strip and plunder those who cultivate the ground for the good of the
state.

DES TOUCHES.—Bravo! And is not your jurisprudence as perfect as the
rest of your administration?

CROUTEF.—It is much superior. We have no laws, but we have five or
six thousand volumes on the laws. We are governed in general by
customs; for it is known that a custom, having been established by
chance, is the wisest principle that can be imagined. Besides, all
customs being necessarily different in different provinces, the
judges may choose at their pleasure a custom which prevailed four
hundred years ago or one which prevailed last year. It occasions a
variety in our legislation which our neighbors are forever admiring.
This yields a certain fortune to practitioners. It is a resource for
all pleaders who are destitute of honor, and a pastime of infinite
amusement for the judges, who can, with safe consciences, decide
causes without understanding them.

DES TOUCHES.—But in criminal cases—you have laws which may be
depended upon?

CROUTEF.—God forbid! We can condemn men to exile, to the galleys, to
be hanged; or we can discharge them, according to our own fancy. We
sometimes complain of the arbitrary power of the Barcalon, but we
choose that all our decisions should be arbitrary.

DES TOUCHES.—That is very just. And the torture—do you put people to
the torture?

CROUTEF.—It is our greatest pleasure. We have found it an infallible
secret to save a guilty person, who has vigorous muscles, strong
and supple hamstrings, nervous arms, and firm loins, and we gayly
break on the wheel all those innocent persons to whom nature has
given feeble organs. It is thus we conduct ourselves with wonderful
wisdom and prudence. As there are half proofs, I mean half truths,
it is certain there are persons who are half innocent and half
guilty. We commence, therefore, by rendering them half dead; we then
go to breakfast; afterwards ensues entire death, which gives us
great consideration in the world, which is one of the most valuable
advantages of our offices.

DES TOUCHES.—It must be allowed that nothing can be more prudent and
humane. Pray tell me what becomes of the property of the condemned?

CROUTEF.—The children are deprived of it. For you know that nothing
can be more equitable than to punish the single fault of a parent on
all his descendants.

DES TOUCHES.—Yes. It is a great while since I have heard of this
jurisprudence.

CROUTEF.—The people of Laos, our neighbors, admit neither the
torture, nor arbitrary punishments, nor the different customs,
nor the horrible deaths which are in use among us; but we regard
them as barbarians who have no idea of good government. All Asia
is agreed that we dance the best of all its inhabitants, and
that, consequently, it is impossible they should come near us in
jurisprudence, in commerce, in finance, and, above all, in the
military art.

DES TOUCHES.—Tell me, I beseech you, by what steps men arrive at the
magistracy in Siam.

CROUTEF.—By ready money. You perceive that it may be impossible to be
a good judge if a man has not by him thirty or forty thousand pieces
of silver. It is in vain a man may be perfectly acquainted with all
our customs; it is to no purpose that he has pleaded five hundred
causes with success—that he has a mind which is the seat of judgment,
and a heart replete with justice; no man can become a magistrate
without money. This, I say, is the circumstance which distinguishes
us from all Asia, and particularly from the barbarous inhabitants of
Laos, who have the madness to recompense all kinds of talents, and
not to sell any employment.

André Des Touches, who was a little off his guard, said to the
Siamese that most of the airs which he had just sung sounded
discordant to him, and wished to receive information concerning real
Siamese music. But Croutef, full of his subject, and enthusiastic for
his country, continued in these words:

“What does it signify that our neighbors, who live beyond our
mountains, have better music than we have, or better pictures,
provided we have always wise and humane laws? It is in that
circumstance we excel. For example:

“If a man has adroitly stolen three or four hundred thousand pieces
of gold we respect him, and we go and dine with him. But if a poor
servant gets awkwardly into his possession three or four pieces
of copper out of his mistress’ box we never fail of putting that
servant to a public death; first, lest he should not correct himself;
secondly, that he may not have it in his power to produce a great
number of children for the state, one or two of whom might possibly
steal a few little pieces of copper, or become great men; thirdly,
because it is just to proportion the punishment to the crime, and
that it would be ridiculous to give any useful employment in a prison
to a person guilty of so enormous a crime.

“But we are still more just, more merciful, more reasonable in the
chastisements which we inflict on those who have the audacity to
make use of their legs to go wherever they choose. We treat those
warriors so well who sell us their lives, we give them so prodigious
a salary, they have so considerable a part in our conquests, that
they must be the most criminal of all men to wish to return to their
parents on the recovery of their reason, because they had been
enlisted in a state of intoxication. To oblige them to remain in one
place, we lodge about a dozen leaden balls in their heads, after
which they become infinitely useful to their country.

“I will not speak of a great number of excellent institutions which
do not go so far as to shed the blood of men, but which render life
so pleasant and agreeable that it is impossible the guilty should
avoid becoming virtuous. If a farmer has not been able to pay
promptly a tax which exceeds his ability, we sell the pot in which he
dresses his food; we sell his bed in order that, being relieved of
all his superfluities, he may be in a better condition to cultivate
the earth.”

DES TOUCHES.—That is extremely harmonious!

CROUTEF.—To comprehend our profound wisdom you must know that our
fundamental principle is to acknowledge in many places as our
sovereign a shaven-headed foreigner who lives at the distance of nine
hundred miles from us. When we assign some of our best territories
to any of our talapoins, which it is very prudent in us to do, that
Siamese talapoin must pay the revenue of his first year to that
shaven-headed Tartar, without which it is clear our lands would be
unfruitful.

But the time, the happy time, is no more when that tonsured priest
induced one-half of the nation to cut the throats of the other half
in order to decide whether Sammonocodom had played at leap-frog or
at some other game; whether he had been disguised in an elephant or
in a cow; if he had slept three hundred and ninety days on the right
side or on the left. Those grand questions, which so essentially
affect morality, agitated all minds; they shook the world; blood
flowed plentifully for it; women were massacred on the bodies of
their husbands; they dashed out the brains of their little infants
on the stones with a devotion, with a grace, with a contrition truly
angelic. Woe to us! degenerate offspring of pious ancestors, who
never offer such holy sacrifices! But, heaven be praised, there are
yet among us at least a few good souls who would imitate them if they
were permitted.

DES TOUCHES.—Tell me, I beseech you, sir, if in Siam you divide the
tone major into two commas, or into two semi-commas, and if the
progress of the fundamental sounds are made by one, three, and nine?

CROUTEF.—By Sammonocodom, you are laughing at me. You observe no
bounds. You have interrogated me on the form of our government, and
you speak to me of music!

DES TOUCHES.—Music is everything. It was at the foundation of all
the politics of the Greeks. But I beg your pardon; you have not a
good ear, and we will return to our subject. You said that in order
to produce a perfect harmony—

CROUTEF.—I was telling you that formerly the tonsured Tartar
pretended to dispose of all the kingdoms of Asia, which occasioned
something very different from perfect harmony. But a very
considerable benefit resulted from it; for people were then more
devout toward Sammonocodom and his elephant than they are now, for,
at the present time, all the world pretends to common sense, with an
indiscretion truly