ABSTRACT
In the mass of facts, more or less authentic anecdotes, rumours and calumnies, certain main influences in Voltaire’s early life can be detected. Voltaire repaid the care and interest of the Jesuits with a genuine affection. There is the Jesuit-trained mind in Voltaire even when he is bitterly attacking the Jesuits; much as the puritan mind remains with some English rationalists when they denounce the faith they have rejected without being able to divest themselves of its narrow spirit. In later years he exempts the Jesuit tutors from his satire. There is a legend that the youthful Voltaire received a hundred louis for a poem from the Duchesse de Richelieu. Voltaire was interested in Dutch life, struck by its prosperity and freedom; but, if this lesson of commercial republicanism afterwards was of use to him, he neglected it at first by falling in love with “Pimpette “Dunoyer.
