by Voltaire
That evening, as I was going to bed, there arrived two familiars of the Inquisition, accompanied by the Holy Hermandad:18 they embraced me tenderly and led me, without a word being spoken, to a very cool cell furnished with a straw bed and a fine crucifix. I remained there for six weeks, at the end of which the reverend Father Inquisitor sent to request that I would come and speak with him: he folded me in his arms for a while with fatherly affection, told me he was sincerely distressed to hear that I had been so badly accommodated, but that all the rooms in the house were full, and how he hoped on another occasion I should be more comfortable. He then asked cordially if I did not know why I was there. I replied to the reverend Father that apparently it was on account of my sins. ‘Well, my dear child, and for which sin in particular? You may tell me in confidence.’ Try as I might I could not guess; he kindly put me on the right track.
At last I remembered my indiscreet words. I was let off with a scourging and a fine of thirty thousand reals. I was taken to pay my respects to the Grand Inquisitor: he was a polite man who asked me what I had thought of his little entertainment. I told him it was delightful, and then went to urge my travelling companions to quit this country straightaway, beautiful as it was. They had had time to discover all the great things the Spaniards had done for religion. They had read the memoirs of the famous Bishop of Chiapa,19 from which it appears that ten million infidels in the Americas had been slaughtered or burned to death or drowned in order to convert them. I thought the Bishop was exaggerating, but even if the number of sacrifices were reduced to five million victims it would remain impressive.
The desire to travel still urged me on. I had thought of finishing my tour of Europe in Turkey, so we headed in that direction. I firmly resolved not to offer any more opinions about the spectacles I might witness. ‘These Turks’, I told my companions, ‘are miscreants who have not been baptized, and are consequently bound to be far crueller than the reverend Father Inquisitors. Let us keep silent when we are among the Muslims.’
I went among them. I was strangely surprised to find many more Christian churches in Turkey than there had been in Candia. I even saw numerous troops of monks who were allowed to pray openly to the Virgin Mary and to curse Mohammed, some in Greek, some in Latin, and others in Armenian. ‘What excellent people are these Turks!’ I exclaimed. But the Greek Christians and the Latin Christians in Constantinople were mortal enemies; these slaves persecuted one another like dogs which bite each other in the street and have to be separated with sticks by their masters. At that time the Grand Vizier was protecting the Greeks. The Greek Patriarch accused me of having supped with the Latin Patriarch, and I was condemned in a session of the Divan20 to a hundred strokes of the bastinado on the soles of my feet, redeemable against a fine of five hundred sequins. The next day the Grand Vizier was strangled; the following day his successor, who was for the Latin party and was strangled only a month later, condemned me to the same fine for having supped with the Greek Patriarch. I found myself under the sad necessity of attending no more either the Greek or the Latin church. To console myself I hired a very beautiful Circassian girl, who was in private the tenderest of companions, and the most devout of worshippers at the mosque. One night, in the soft transports of love, she exclaimed in my embraces: ‘Allah, Illah, Allah!’21 These are the sacramental words of the Turks; I thought they must be words of love, so I cried out just as tenderly: ‘Allah, Illah, Allah!’ ‘Ah!’ she said, ‘praise be to God the merciful! You are a Turk.’ I told her that I blessed Him for giving me my prowess, and thought myself only too happy. The next morning the Imam came to circumcise me; and, as I made some objection, the Cadi22 of the quarter, a forthright fellow, offered to impale me; I saved my foreskin and my backside with a thousand gold sequins, and immediately fled into Persia, resolved never to attend another mass, Greek or Latin, in Turkey, and never again to cry out ‘Allah, Illah, Allah!’ in the midst of a love-tryst.
Arriving in Ispahan, I was asked if I were for the black sheep or the white sheep. I replied that it was a matter of indifference to me, so long as they were tender. You must understand that the Persians were divided at this time between the White Sheep and Black Sheep factions. They thought I was mocking both parties; so at the gates of the city I found myself embroiled in a violent quarrel: it cost me a further fortune in gold sequins to shake off these sheep.
I pressed on as far as China with an interpreter, who assured me that here was a country where everyone lived freely and happily. The Tartars had made themselves its masters, after spreading devastation and bloodshed; and the reverend Father Jesuits on the one side, like the reverend Father Dominicans on the other, claimed they were garnering souls for God, without anyone knowing anything about it. Never have there been such zealous missionaries: for they persecuted each other freely, sent back volumes of calumnies to Rome, and treated each other as infidels and corrupt officials. Above all there was a dreadful quarrel going on between them over the method of bowing. The Jesuits wanted the Chinese to salute their fathers and mothers after the Chinese custom, and the Dominicans wanted them to salute after the manner of Rome. It so happened that the Jesuits took me for a Dominican. I was presented to His Tartar Majesty as a Papal spy. The supreme council ordered a first mandarin, who in turn ordered a sergeant, who commanded four local policemen to arrest and ceremonially bind me. After one hundred and forty genuflections I was taken before His Majesty. He asked me if I was the Pope’s spy, and if it were true that this prince was coming in person to dethrone him. I replied that the Pope was a seventy-year-old priest; that he lived four thousand leagues away from His Sacred Majesty of Tartar-China; that he had about two thousand soldiers who mounted guard under parasols; that he was not given to dethroning anybody, and that His Majesty could sleep in peace. This was the least disastrous adventure of my life. I was sent to Macao, from where I embarked for Europe.
My vessel needed to be refitted off the coast of Golconda, so I took the opportunity to visit the court of the great Aureng-Zebe,23 about whom such incredible things were said around the world; he was at that time resident in Delhi. I had the consolation of seeing him on the day of a pompous ceremony when he received the celestial present sent to him by the Sherif of Mecca. This was a broom which had been used to sweep out the holy house, the Kaaba or Beth Alla. This broom is the symbol of the divine broom which sweeps out all the filth of the soul. Aureng-Zebe did not seem to have much need of it, being the most pious man in all Hindustan. It is true that he had cut the throat of one of his brothers and poisoned his father, and that twenty Rajahs and as many Omras had been tortured and put to death. But this counted for nothing, and only his piety was spoken of. He was compared to no less than His Sacred Majesty and Most Serene Emperor of Morocco, Muley Ismaël,24 who chopped off heads every Friday after prayer.
I said nothing; travel had educated me, and I felt that it was not my place to decide between two such august sovereigns. A young Frenchman with whom I was lodging was lacking, I confess, in respect towards the Emperors of the Indies and of Morocco. He took it into his head to say most indiscreetly that in Europe there were to be found pious sovereigns who governed their states well and even frequented churches, without however killing their fathers and brothers, and without cutting off the heads of their subjects. Our interpreter translated this impious speech into Hindu. Instructed by past events, I quickly had my camels saddled and the Frenchman and I took off. I learned afterwards that the officers of the great Aureng-Zebe came for us that very night, but found only the interpreter. He was executed in the public square, and all the courtiers confessed without flattery that his death was richly deserved.
I still had to see Africa, so as to enjoy all the pleasures of our Continent. And see it I did. My ship was captured by negro pirates. Our captain protested loudly and asked them why they were violating international law in this manner. The negro captain replied: ‘Your nose is long, and ours is flat; your hair is straight and ours is frizzy; your skin is the colour o
f ashes, ours the colour of ebony; consequently by the sacred laws of nature we must always be enemies. You purchase us in markets on the coast of Guinea, like beasts of burden, to make us work at occupations as painful as they are ridiculous. You beat us with whips made from a bull’s pizzle to make us dig in the mountains for a kind of yellow earth which in itself is good for nothing and not nearly as valuable as a good Egyptian onion. So, when our paths cross, and we happen to be the stronger, we make slaves of you and make you labour in our fields, or we cut off your noses and ears.’
There was nothing to be said in answer to so wise a speech. I went to work the fields belonging to an old negress, in order to keep my nose and ears. I was ransomed at the end of a year. I had seen all that is beautiful, good and admirable on earth: I resolved henceforth to see nothing but my household gods. I married in my own country. I was cuckolded, and I came to see that this was the most agreeable condition life has to offer.
The Consoler and the Consoled
One day the great philosopher Citophilus said to a grief-stricken lady, who moreover had good reason to grieve: ‘Dear lady, once upon a time the Queen of England, daughter of the great Henri IV,1 was as unhappy as you. She had been exiled from her kingdoms; she had come close to perishing on the seas amid tempests, and she had seen her royal husband die on the scaffold.’
‘I feel sorry for her,’ said the lady, and began to weep over her own misfortunes.
‘And then,’ continued Citophilus, ‘remember Mary Stuart: she was deeply in love with a gallant musician endowed with a very fine bass-baritone. Her husband killed her musician in front of her eyes. Then her good friend and cousin Elizabeth, who called herself the Virgin Queen, had her beheaded on a scaffold draped in black, after keeping her in prison for eighteen years.’2
‘That was very cruel,’ said the lady, and fell back into her melancholy.
‘Perhaps’, said her consoler, ‘you have heard of the beautiful Queen of Naples, who was seized and strangled?’3
‘I vaguely remember,’ said the sufferer.
‘After dinner’, said the other, ‘I must tell you about a sovereign queen who was dethroned in my own lifetime, and perished on a desert island.’
‘I know all about her,’ replied the lady.
‘Very well, then, I shall tell you what happened to another great princess, whom I introduced to the study of philosophy. She had a lover, as do all great and beautiful princesses. Her father entered her chamber and surprised the lover, whose face was on fire and his eyes glittering like carbuncles, the lady likewise extremely flushed. The young man’s visage so displeased the father that he gave it the most resounding slap that had ever been heard throughout the province. At which the young man took a pair of fire-tongs and cracked the skull of the father, who has never fully recovered, and still bears the scars. The distracted lady leapt from the window and dislocated her foot; to this day she limps visibly though otherwise she has an admirable figure. The lover was condemned to death for fracturing the skull of a great prince. You may imagine the princess’s state of mind while he was being led off to be hanged. I visited her at length in prison; she only ever spoke about her misfortunes.’
‘Why then do you insist on relieving me of mine?’ asked the lady.
‘Because’, replied the philosopher, ‘you must not dwell on them, and because so many great ladies have been so unfortunate, that it ill becomes you to despair. Think of Hecuba,4 think of Niobe.’5
‘Ah!’ said the lady, ‘had I lived in their time, or the time of all those great princesses, and you were to describe my misfortunes to them by way of consolation, do you think they would have listened?’
The next day the philosopher lost his only son, and was close to dying of grief. The lady drew up a list of all the kings who had lost their children, and brought it to him. He read it, found it very accurate, and continued to weep nonetheless. Three months later they met again, and were astonished to find each other in very good spirits. They had a handsome statue erected, which they dedicated to Time, with the inscription: TO THE ONE WHO CONSOLES.
The Story of a Good Brahmin
During my travels I met an old Brahmin, a very wise man of lively intellect and great learning; who was moreover wealthy and, consequently, all the wiser: for, lacking nothing, he had no need to deceive anyone. His household was well managed by three beautiful wives who strove to please him. When he was not enjoying himself with his wives, he passed the time in philosophizing.
Near his house, which was beautifully decorated with charming gardens, there lived an old Indian woman, bigoted, imbecilic and impoverished.
One day the Brahmin said to me: ‘I wish I had never been born.’ On my asking him why, he replied: ‘I have been studying for forty years, which is to say forty wasted years; I teach others yet am ignorant of everything; this state of affairs fills my soul with so much humiliation and disgust that my life is intolerable. I was born into Time, I live in Time, and I do not know what Time is. I find myself at a point between two eternities, as our wise men say, yet I have no conception of eternity. I am composed of matter, I think, but have never been able to discover what produces thought. I do not know whether or not my understanding is a simple faculty within me, such as walking or digesting, and whether or not I think with my head in the same way that I hold things with my hands. Not only is the origin of my thought unknown to me, but the origin of my movements is equally hidden: I do not know why I exist. Yet every day people ask me questions on all these issues. I must give answers, yet have nothing worth saying, so I talk a great deal, and am confused and ashamed of myself afterwards for having spoken.
‘It is worse still when I am asked if Brahma was born of Vishnu or if they are both eternal.1 God is my witness I have not the remotest idea, and my ignorance is clear from my replies. “Ah, Holy One!” they say to me, “tell us why evil swamps the earth.” I am as perplexed as those who ask me this question. Sometimes I tell them that everything is for the best; but those who are tormented by the gravel, or who have been ruined and mutilated in the wars, do not believe a word of it, and nor do I. I return home overwhelmed both by my own curiosity and my ignorance. I read our ancient books, and they only increase my darkness. I ask my companions; some reply that we must enjoy life and make a sport of mankind; others think they know something, and lose themselves in extravagant speculation. Everything increases the anguish I feel. I am ready sometimes to despair when I think that after all my seeking I neither know where I come from, nor where I am going, nor who I am, nor what I shall become.’
The state of this good man was truly painful to me: nobody was more rational or more sincere than he. I perceived that his unhappiness increased in proportion as his understanding developed and his sensitivity deepened.
The same day I saw the old woman who lived near him. I asked her if she had ever been afflicted by the thought that she was ignorant of the nature of her soul. She did not even understand my question. Never in her life had she reflected for a single moment on any of the problems which tormented the Brahmin; she believed with all her heart in the metamorphoses of Vishnu and, provided she could occasionally obtain a little Ganges water to perform her ablutions, thought herself the happiest of women.
Struck by the contentment of this poor creature, I returned to my philosopher: ‘Are you not ashamed to be unhappy,’ I said, ‘when outside your gates there is an old automaton who thinks about nothing and yet lives happily?’ ‘You are right,’ he replied; ‘I have told myself a hundred times that I would be happy were I as brainless as my neighbour, and yet I would not want such happiness.’
This answer from my Brahmin impressed me more than all the rest. I set to examining myself, and saw that in truth I would not care to be happy at the price of being an imbecile.
I put the matter before some philosophers, and they were of my opinion. ‘Nevertheless’, I said, ‘there is a furious contradiction in this way of thinking: for what is at issue after all is – how to be happy. W
hat does it matter whether one has brains or not? Moreover, those who are happy in their existence are certain of their happiness, whereas those who reason are not certain that they reason well. It is clear, therefore,’ I continued, ‘that one must elect not to have common sense, however little common sense contributes to our discomfort.’ Everyone agreed, and yet I found nobody who was willing to accept the bargain of becoming an imbecile in exchange for happiness. From which I conclude that, if we attach importance to happiness, we attach even greater importance to reason.
But on reflection, to prefer reason to felicity would seem to be highly irrational. How can this contradiction be explained? Like all other contradictions: it is matter for much talk.
Pot-Pourri
CHAPTER I
Brioché1 was the father of Punchinello;2 not his real father but his tutelary father. Brioché’s actual father was Guillot Gorju, who was the son of Gilles, who was the son of Fat-René,3 who in turn drew his origins from the Prince of Fools and from Mother Fool; such is the account given in the Almanac of the Fairground.4 Monsieur Parfaict,5 an equally trustworthy source, claims Tabarin as Brioché’s sire, out of Big-William, out of John-the-Sausage,6 but traced back nonetheless to the Prince of Fools. If these two historians contradict one another, that is proof of the pudding as far as Father Daniel7 is concerned, who reconciles the two accounts with admirable sagacity, and in so doing makes short work of the Pyrrhonism of history.
CHAPTER II
As I was finishing this opening paragraph of the notebooks of Merry Hissing in my study, whose window gives on to the rue Saint-Antoine, I saw the syndics of the society of apothecaries passing by, on their way to seize contraband drugs and verdigris which the Jesuits of the rue Saint-Antoine were selling; my cousin Monsieur Husson, who is a level-headed fellow, came to visit me and said: ‘My friend, you laugh to see the Jesuits vilified; you are delighted to learn that they are convicted of parricide in Portugal,8 and of fomenting a rebellion in Paraguay;9 the public outcry which has been raised against them in France,10 the hatred borne them, the increasing opprobrium heaped upon them, all this seems to console you. But you must realize that if they are ruined, as all honest folk desire, you will gain nothing by it: you will be overwhelmed instead by the Jansenist faction.11 These are rabid enthusiasts, with souls of bronze, worse than the Presbyterians who overthrew Charles I. Remember that fanatics are more dangerous than crooks. One can never talk reason to a firebrand, whereas crooks will listen.
