Voltaire: A Sketch of His Life and Works. Foote George William

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1

He was a younger son. The name Voltaire is, perhaps, an anagram of the Arouet 1. j. (le jeune) the u being converted into r, and the j into r. In like manner, an old college- tutor of his, Père Thoulié, transformed himself, by a similar anagrammatic process, into the Abbé Olivet – omitting the unnecessary h from his original name. This method of reforming a plebeian name into one more distinguished-looking seems not to have been uncommon in those times, as Jean Baptiste Pocquelin took the name of Molière, and Charles Secondât that of Montesquieu.

2

“Our priests are not what foolish people suppose; all their science is derived from our credulity.”

3

Some of the accounts say that Voltaire said, “You, my lord, are the last of your house; I am the first of mine.”

4

Ever one foot in the grave,

And gambolling with the other.