and found no warrant in his writings, which had always inculcated those principles of toleration and justice that were no more respected by the Revolutionary Government than by the despotism which it destroyed.
In spite of this—in spite, too, of the fact that he had never been an assailant of the system of the monarchy—writers have gone on, down to this time, repeating, some in praise, some in blame, that he was a chief author of the Revolution. It is a matter impossible either of proof or of disproof; it must rest rather on opinion than evidence. What is more apparent is, that when a people have been so long and grievously misgoverned and oppressed, and find their relations with the Government so changed as they were when Louis XVI. and the people's representatives assumed towards each other such novel attitudes, the impending convulsion is not so much to be ascribed to the influence of this or that man, as to the constant accumulation of destructive force on the one side, and the constant diminution of repressive power on the other.
However this may be, it is chiefly as a literary phenomenon that Voltaire is now interesting to us. In that light it appears to the present writer that no inconsiderable part of his extraordinary fame was owing to the circumstances of the period, and the conditions in which he wrote, and has reasonably vanished with the lapse of time. That he still retains so eminent a position in France is due, in great measure, to those gifts of expression which do not much aid in extending a writer's reputation beyond his own country. But, after the winnowings of generations, a wide and deep repute still remains to him; nor will any diminution which it
