Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de: The Ferney Years and Candide

The Ferney Years and Candide

Voltaire purchased (1758) an estate, Ferney (see Ferney-Voltaire), just over the French border, where he lived until shortly before his death. He conducted an extensive correspondence with most of the outstanding men and women of his time; received hosts of visitors who came to do homage to the “patriarch of Ferney”; employed himself in seeking justice for victims of religious or political persecution and in campaigning against the practice of torture; contributed to the Encyclopédie; and managed his estate, taking an active interest in improving the condition of his tenants.

Voltaire also edited the works of Corneille, wrote commentaries on Racine, and turned out a stream of anonymous novels and pamphlets in which he attacked the established institutions of his time with unremitting virulence. Ironically, it is one of these disavowed works, Candide (1759), that is most widely read today. It is the masterpiece among his “philosophical romances,” which also include the inimitable short tale Jeannot et Colin (1764), perhaps the quintessence of Voltaire's style. In Candide Voltaire attacked the philosophical optimism made fashionable by Leibniz. Its conclusion, “Let us cultivate our garden” (instead of speculating on unanswerable problems), expresses succinctly Voltaire's practical philosophy of common sense.

Sections in this article:

See more Encyclopedia articles on: French Literature: Biographies