Voltaire: A Sketch of His Life and Works

Chapter 34: Mortifying the Flesh

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About This Book

The volume sketches the subject’s life from childhood and education through episodes of imprisonment, exile, foreign sojourns, and domestic retreats, charting the production of major writings and the circumstances of his later years while offering contemporary tributes and character assessments. It pairs the biographical narrative with curated selections of his prose and verse that illustrate recurring concerns: history and politics, war and population, critiques of religious authority and superstition, satire and moral reflection, and brief detached aphorisms. Together the sketches and extracts portray a public career devoted to reason, toleration, and literary engagement.

Mortifying the Flesh

Had vanity never any share in the public mortifications which attended the eyes of the multitude? “I scourge myself, but ’tis to expiate your faults; I go stark naked, but ’tis to reproach the luxury of your garments; I feed on herbs and snails to correct your vice of gluttony; I put an iron ring on my body to make you blush at your lewdness. Reverence me as a man cherished by the gods, who can draw down their favors on you. When accustomed to reverence, it will not be hard to obey me; I become your master in the name of the gods; and if you transgress my will in the least particular, I will have you impaled to appease the wrath of heaven.” If the first fakirs did not use these words, they probably had them engraven at the bottom of their hearts.—Dict. Phil. (Art. “Austerities”).