Œuvres complètes de Voltaire 71C Œuvres de 1769–1770 (III) Éditées par W. D. Howarth, Russell Goulbourne et al (review)

‘Il me paraît que le goût est égaré dans tous les genres et que la littérature ne va pas mieux que les finances’; Voltaire’s lament to d’Argental on 24 November 1770 could stand as an epigraph for the texts in this volume, coloured as they are by Voltaire’s broad sense of pessimism at France’s perceived cultural decline and economic misfortune. As the Épître au roi de la Chine puts it, ‘Les biens sont loin de nous et les maux sont ici’ (p. 373); edited by Basil Guy and John Iverson, this text articulates many of Voltaire’s preoccupations at the time, such as censorship, frivolity, and theological disputes, as well as taking aim at the usual suspects like Fréron, Le Franc de Pompignan, and Rousseau. Voltaire, of course, is the man to offer guidance and solutions in the form of financial prudence, hard work, and respect for France’s cultural heritage (such as it is understood by the philosophe himself). The most substantial text presented in this volume is Le Dépositaire, Voltaire’s last comedy and his only five-act comedy in alexandrines, with which, as Russell Goulbourne and W. D. Howarth demonstrate in their excellent introduction, he attempts to revive the tradition of Moliéresque comedy (contemporaries recognized the play’s debt to Le Tartuffe). Depicting Ninon de Lenclos’s financial rectitude and moral generosity, the play enjoyed minimal success, and Voltaire acknowledged that it was out of step with public taste. But in staging an event in a celebrated figure’s private life, this otherwise formally conservative play paved the way for the comédie anecdotique that flourished between the 1780s and 1830s. Myrtille Méricam-Bourdet’s exemplary introduction to the Défense de Louis XIV considers Voltaire’s complex response to the Physiocrats, who contested the mercantilist policies practised by Colbert. She convincingly argues that Voltaire’s unoriginal and partial historical analysis (often in contradiction to his other writings) gives way to an ad hominem polemic that failed to sway his contemporary readers. Voltaire’s views on agricultural labour are developed in the Requête à tous les magistrats du royaume (edited by Roland Mortier), a short text ostensibly written by the rural poor who desire to work on holy days so as to prevent starvation: ‘Nous demandons à jeûner, mais non à mourir’ (p. 286). Both paternalistic and acerbically anticlerical, this deceptively polite piece implicitly advocates the clear separation between religious and secular powers. The volume also contains a number of short texts in prose and verse alike in which Voltaire responds to current events, philosophical debates, and artistic developments. The tone tends towards the subjective and even the spiteful, as in the Lettre à monsieur Pigalle (edited by Simon Davies), in which an attack on Fréron precedes any praise for the addressee’s skill and craft: although Pigalle may be respected for his labour, it is Voltaire’s concerns that come first.