ABSTRACT
Monsieur de Voltaire’s life are never anything but a convention, a convenient frame to the biographer ; for it is quite impossible to pin him down to any one place or manner of life for long ; he darted about Europe like a nervous fish in a tank. Nevertheless, the period 1734-1744 is always associated with Cirey and the Marquise du Chatelet, and it was there that Voltaire, while continuing his work in poetry and the drama, carried on his extensive studies of history and worked at mathematics and science under the influence of his learned mistress. Voltaire indeed held—and this is only one of his many differences from the Sage of Craigenputtock—that universal frugality would result in much unemployment and that luxury is on the whole favourable to the arts. The usual serenity of Cirey was sometimes disturbed by little tempests which generally arose from the vivacity of Voltaire’s impressions and his total inability to control them.
