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Voltaire and the Ministers of Geneva

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

André Delattre
André Delattre
Affiliation:
Wayne University, Detroit, Michigan
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Extract

“There is no city where cultured people and philosophers are to be found in greater number than in Geneva,” Voltaire wrote in March 1756. His praise had been constant since he had settled there a year before. After leaving Louis XV for the service of Frederick II, he had broken away from the latter in the most humiliating circumstances of his existence; forbidden now by the French King to return to Paris, he was in a frame of mind particularly susceptible to enjoy republican hospitality and to appreciate the very original character of his city of refuge. Geneva was as democratic as ancient Athens and ruled, in principle at least, by the universal suffrage of its citizens; its stabilility and conservatism, on the other hand, had allowed the development of a distinguished patrician society; his new residence was provided with a back-drop both picturesque and elegant. The intellectual life of the city could have been matched by very few capitals: Theodore Tronchin, the first doctor of Europe (and Voltaire's excuse for having settled there), Charles Bonnet, the naturalist and paleontologist, the philologist Abauzit, among scores of others, were in the vanguard of scientific progress. Above all, Geneva symbolized a major victory over Catholicism; true, it had stopped half way, in his judgment, but matters had progressed since the sixteenth century and the present prospects were very hopeful: “Geneva is not any more the Geneva of Calvin,” he wrote to Cideville, “not by a long shot; it is a country filled with philosophers…” And to Pierre Rousseau, a year later: “Geneva is at present perhaps the city in Europe where there are most philosophers…”

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1944 , pp. 243 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1944

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References

1 In a particular eighteenth century sense of the word in France, it meant unbelievers, freethinkers, and referred generally to the group led by the Encyclopedists.

2 Voltaire to Dupont, , 03 10, 1756Google Scholar, Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire. Moland, edition (Garnier Frères, Paris, 1880, 52 volumes), XXXIX, 4Google Scholar. Hereafter referred to as Moland.

3 Moland, , XXXIX, 21, 04 12, 1756.Google Scholar

4 Moland, , XXXIX, 180, 02 24, 1757.Google Scholar

5 … “Papist fanatics, Calvinist fanatics, they all are molded from the same excrement mixed with putrid blood” Moland, , XXXIX, 327Google Scholar, Voltaire to d'Alembert, , 12 12, 1757.Google Scholar

6 Moland, , XXXIX, 433, 03 25, 1758Google Scholar

7 “It is convenient to keep the rather arbitrary distinction made by Leslie Stephen in English Thought in the Eighteenth Century between constructive and critical deism. The former means the adoption of a natural religion based on common ideas of morality and including the worship of a rather indefinite Supreme Being whose laws are plain and engraved in the hearts of all men, opposed to Christianity with its supernatural doctrines and positive religious duties…. The critical deists were not content with the acceptance of this natural religion, but considered Christianity, in so far as it diverged therefrom, an obstacle to the natural morality and goodness of man and hence an object of attack. With varying degrees of antipathy, but usually with bitter hatred for the Christian clergy which was admittedly corrupt and self-seeking, they set about to undermine the foundations of the established religion” Torrey, Norman L., Voltaire and the English Deists (New Haven, 1930), 1–2.Google Scholar

8 The “Déclaration de la Compagnie des Pasteurs” was published on 02 8, 1758Google Scholar; 1500 copies were printed.

9 “Placez devant vous, disait-il, un homme qui, touchant les points contestés de la théologie, les ignore, suspend son jugement, ou soit incapable de les comprendre; mais cet homme remplit les devoirs d'un chrétien pieux et intègre, il se reconnaît pauvre et misérable pécheur devant Dieu, il ressent une vraie repentance de ses fautes, il se réfugie sans réserve dans la miséricorde divine, il se livre tout entier à Jésus-Christ, il demande son pardon, il repose en lui tonte sa confiance. Aidé par la grâce divine, il s'efforce d'être juste, charitable envers le prochain, d'exercer la patience, la tempérance, l'humilité, il atteint l'heure de la mort en s'en remettant complètement au pardon céleste … Qui voudra retrancher cet homme du troupeau de Jésus-Christ?” Biographies Nationales (Lausanne, Georges Bridei, 1873), I, 520.Google Scholar

10 Massen, P. M.. La Religion de J.-J. Rousseau (Paris, Hachette), I, 199.Google Scholar

11 Ibid. 1,207.

12 Vuilleumier, Henri, Histoire de l'Eglise Réformée du Pays sous le Régime Bernois (Lausanne, Concorde, 1927–1933, 4 volumes), III, 568.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., passim. We acknowledge once for all our debt to this work for much of our information on eighteenth century French Switzerland.

14 Moland, , XXXIX, 343.Google Scholar

15 Moland, , XXXTX, 376.Google Scholar

16 Cf. d'Alembert's answer to Rousseau: “Ces sentiments sont d'ailleurs une suite nécessaire des principles de la religion protestante; et si vos ministres ne jugent pas à propos de les adopter ou de les avouer aujourd'hui, la logique que je leur connais doit naturellement les y conduire, ou les laissera à moitié chemin. Quand ils ne seraient pas Sociniens, il faudrait qu'ils le devinssent, non pour l'honneur de leur religion, mais pour celui de leur philosophie.” D'Alembert, , Article Genève de l'Encyclopédie, Profession de foi des ministres genevois et réponse à la lettre de M Rousseau (Amsterdam, Chatelain, 1759), 152.Google Scholar

17 Havens, Georges R., “Voltaire's Marginalia on the Pages of Rousseau” (Ohio State University Studies, Columbus, O., 1933).Google Scholar

18 Ibid., 169.

19 For instance Jean-Antoine-Noé Polier de Bottens, of Lausanne, whom Voltaire calls “a priest by profession, an unbeliever by common sense.” Moland, , XXXIX, 181.Google Scholar

20 Cf Luzac, Elic, ed., La Bibliothèque Impartiale (Goettingue and Leyde), XVII, 135–136 (01–02 1758)Google Scholar; 366–382 (May-June 1758)

21 The “recueil des écrits concernant la députation qui a été envoyée en l'an 1757 visiter l'Académie de Lausanne,” composed of fifty-one documents, is in the Cantonal Archives in Berne.

22 Voltaire was that winter in Lausanne, where he had a house rue du Grand-Chêne, from December 18, 1757 to March 15, 1758

23 Théodore Tronchin was in a rather uncomfortable position At their meeting of December 23, 1757, the Consistory of Geneva, “informed that in the Encyclopédie, at the word Genève, there are found many things disadvantageous to the ministers of this Church,” had appointed an investigating commission, which was also to write an answer Its members were nine ministers (Vernet, president, Luillier, Delarive, Sarasin, Maurice, Eynard, André Trembley, Jean Trembley, Lecointe) and a layman, Théodore Tronchin, who was made the secretary. Cf Roget, Amédée, “L'article Genève de l'Encyclopédie et la réplique de la Compagnie des Pasteurs,” Carey, , ed, Etrennes Genevoises (Geneva, 1880), 101–160Google Scholar In the summer of 1757, in a controversy on Calvin between Voltaire and Vernet, the doctor had outspokenly sided with the former. He collaborated with the Encyclopédie. However, one must remember that, in its early stages, the character of the publication was more that of a scientific and technical compilation than of an antireligious work Among its other contributors in Protestant Switzerland was Albert de Haller, of Berne, an unimpeachable guardian of Calvinist orthodoxy Others were Polier de Bottens, of Lausanne, whose articles on theological matter were so radical that Voltaire had to “christianize” them again, Louis Necker de Germagny (articles Forces, Frottements) and Georges-Louis Lesage of Geneva, who gave articles on physical sciences.

24 Dr Miguel Serveto, born in Spain in 1511, burnt in Geneva in 1553

25 Nicolas Antoine, a Catholic priest of Pont-à-Mousson, became a Protestant about 1630 in Geneva, then embraced the Jewish faith in Venice. He came back to Geneva to preach Judaism, and was burnt there in 1632.

26 Mme Denis.

27 D'Alembert was the illegitimate son of Mme de Tencin.

28 “Religion is almost reduced there to the worshipping of one God, at least among almost all those who are not of the common people: respect for Jesus-Christ and for the Scriptures is perhaps the only thing which distinguishes from pure Deism the Christianity of Geneva” Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, article “Genève”

29 Arminianism and Gomarism had been rival theological camps in Holland in the preceding century The Arminians were condemned by the Calvinist Synod of Dordrecht, in 1619; an ancestor of the doctor, Professor Théodore Tronchin (1582–1657), was a resolute Gomarist and his personal influence, which was great, had much to do with the condemnation of the Arminians.

30 Dr. Tronchin's wife, Hélène de Witt, of Amsterdam, was not a descendant of Jean de Witt (1625–1672), as it has been claimed, but of Pieter de Witt, who was beheaded on October 9, 1658.

31 Van Olden Barneveldt, 1549–1619, a leader of the Arminians and the political adversary of Maurice de Nassau.

32 A “Declaration de la Compagnie des Pasteurs” was published on February 8, 1758. But the patricians of the “Conseil des Vingt-Cinq” disclaimed any part in it. Cf. Naves, R., Voltaire et l'Encylopédie (Paris, 1938), 37–38.Google Scholar

33 The “Soeurs Hospitalières” of Faubourg St. Marcel were suspected of Jansenist tendencies and had been forbidden by the Archbishop of Paris to take communion. Cf. Bernis, , Mémoires (Paris, 1878, 2 volumes), II, 51–53Google Scholar; and Barbier, , Journal (Paris, 1857, 8 volumes), VII, 1–3.Google Scholar