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Voltaire's Name

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ira Owen Wade
Ira Owen Wade*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

Ever since the Chevalier de Rohan met Voltaire at the Comédie Française and asked: “M. de Voltaire, M. Arouet, comment vous appelez-vous?” his name has been the subject of much dispute. Lately, the discussion was reopened when a certain M. P., having read in Excelsior that Voltaire was the name of a house in Saint-Loup, addressed a query to the Intermédiaire des chercheurs et des curieux in an effort to verify the statement. Students, admirers, or compatriots of Voltaire immediately gave their views, but other than a restatement of several of the old theories no positive result was gained. Somewhat previously Mr. G. B. Watts published a short article upon “Voltaire's Change of Name,” but this article did not aim to throw light upon the general problem. At the present writing, Desnoiresterres' treatment of the subject and that of Maynard remain the most satisfactory. Nevertheless, neither critic pretended to have solved the question. They merely endeavored to collect in compact form the various theories previously proposed. Even in this modest endeavor, their presentations are defective, for, although they were prevented by circumstances from uniting all the theories, they have not always been careful to weigh their testimony. Moreover, the origin of the name is only one of three questions confronting the investigator. We are not only interested in how Voltaire chose his name, we are further curious to know why and when he did so. In the discussion which follows I do not claim to have solved these three questions; I shall be satisfied if I succeed in offering suggestions which may contribute to their solution.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1929 , pp. 546 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 546 Intermédiaire, LXXXVII-LXXXVIII, passim.

Note 2 in page 546 Mod. Lang. Notes, XXXVIII (1923), 329-333.

Note 3 in page 546 G. Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et la société française au XVIIIè siècle, Paris, 1867, I, 159-161.

Note 4 in page 546 Abbé Maynard, Voltaire, sa vie et ses oeuvres, Paris, 1868, I, 69.

Note 5 in page 546 See Voltaire, Œuvres (Moland ed.), I, 190.

Note 6 in page 546 Servières, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de M. de Voltaire, Amsterdam, 1785, Part I, p. 30.

Note 7 in page 547 Lord Brougham, Works, Edinburgh, 1872, II, 11.

Note 8 in page 547 Nonnotte, Les Erreurs de Voltaire, Lyon, 1770, I, 198-199. “Il a été bien plus adroit, en changeant son nom bourgeois d'Arouet, pour l'ennoblir à l'aide d'une anagramme et de l'addition de deux lettres, et en faire le nom de Voltaire.” It is to be noted that Nonnotte apparently did not know the source of the two extra letters 1 and j. It is not surprising that he sought to explain Voltaire as an anagram of Arouet. Anagrams were so common in his time that any one would endeavor to explain a name thus. Such an explanation does not, however, always prove acceptable. No one has ever satisfactorily explained d'Alembert's name by an anagram. One recalls also that J. B. Rousseau's new name, M. de Verniettes, was interpreted by some wag as being the anagram of “tu te renies.”

Note 9 in page 547 Lettres champenoises, 1820, II, 288.

Note 10 in page 547 Chevrier, Les Amusements des dames de B, Rouen (1762), Part III, Je m'y attendais bien, p. 175.

Note 11 in page 547 Paillet de Warcy, Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Voltaire, 1824, I, 20.

Note 12 in page 547 Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy, Paris, 1834-35, III, 206.

Note 13 in page 547 Montalant-Bougleux, A Propos d'une anagramme sur le nom de Voltaire, 1847.

Note 14 in page 547 Jal, Dictionnaire historique ou critique, 1867, p. 1283.

Note 15 in page 547 Desnoiresterres, op. cit., I, 161, note 1.

Note 16 in page 548 Borel d'Hauterive, Annuaire de la noblesse de France, 1869, XXVI, 198-220.

Note 17 in page 548 See Pall Mall Budget, Feb. 26, 1869, p. 19.

Note 18 in page 548 W. R. Price, Symbolism in Voltaire's Novels, N. Y., 1911, p. 96 ff.

Note 19 in page 548 Some of them, in fact, are completely devoid of proof. For instance, Voltaire, who was never in Italy, could not possibly have taken his name from Volterra for the reason assigned by Chevrier. Furthermore, although one of young Arouet's nicknames was Zozo, we have no record that he was ever called “le petit volontaire.” As for the property called “Veautaire” left him by his cousin Gromichel, we neither know that there ever was a piece of property “Veautaire,” nor that he had a cousin Gromichel. We have no evidence, moreover, that Voltaire knew L'Interprecte ou traducteur du français, espagnol et basque or Balde, reine des Sarmates, although since the latter work was dedicated to the Président de Maisons, with whose family he was intimate, he could have been acquainted with it. Up to the present writing no document has been produced to prove that he had any maternal or paternal ancestors named Voltaire. Nor can much justification be found for the symbolic interpretations of the word.

Note 20 in page 548 Those supporting the estate suggestion are Condorcet, Mirecourt, Long-champs et Wagnière, Jal, Beuchot, Servières, and Cousin d'Avallon. Those supporting the anagram theory are Oettinger, Roche, Nonnotte, Maynard, Lettres champenoises, Lepan, Paillet de Warcy, Quérard. Desnoiresterres shows an inclination to accept either suggestion.

Note 21 in page 549 J. Guiffrey, Voltaire et la famille de Nicolay, p. 5. Saint-Simon also wrote Volterre.

Note 22 in page 549 Cf. G. Bengesco, Bibliographie des oeuvres de Voltaire, Nos. 628, 660.

Note 23 in page 550 Voltaire, Œuvres, XVIII, 479; XXXI, 53.

Note 24 in page 550 Baston, Voltariana ou Eloges amphigouriques de F. Marie Arrouet, Paris, 1748, p. 270.

Note 25 in page 550 B. Fillon, Inventaire des autographes, 1879, No. 1066.

Note 26 in page 550 Saint-Simon, Mémoires (Boislisle ed.), XXXI, 347.

Note 27 in page 550 Dangeau, Journal, XVII, 418, Nov. 18, 1718.

Note 28 in page 550 See the passage in his Mémoires quoted below on p. 558.

Note 29 in page 550 Baston, op. cit., p. 2.

Note 30 in page 551 See Paillet de Warcy, Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Voltaire, 1824, p. 20, note 1.

Note 31 in page 551 Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire. See Voltaire, Œuvres, I, 190. Cousin d'Avallon, in his Voltairiana, 1819, makes the same statement.

Note 32 in page 551 The reasons given by Voltaire and his contemporaries are for the most part accepted by later critics and biographers. Servières, Price, Sabatier de Castres, Baston, Harel, Delort, Fillon, Crouslé, Paillet de Warcy and Montalant-Bougleux give as his primary reason that he was unhappy with his patronymic. Price, Delort, Fillon, Paillet de Warcy, and Watts accept also in good faith his statement that he wished to be distinguished from the poet Roy. Price and Crouslé mention incidentally his aspirations to become a noble as a factor in the change. On the negative side, Paillet de Warcy, the author of the Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy, and Desnoiresterres affirm that he was dissatisfied with François-Marie Arouet either because, as the author of the Souvenirs quotes him, it was “un nom insupportable et ignoble,” or because, as Paillet de Warcy quotes him, it was“ce rouet à rouet qui lui porte malheur,” or because, as Desnoiresterres points out, “son nom prêtait à l'équivoque.” The Pall Mall Budget admits that he hated it as savoring of the peasantry, and Montalant-Bougleux stresses his well-known vanity. Finally, several of the later critics (Montalant-Bougleux, Simien-Despréaux and Desnoiresterres) call attention to the euphony of “Voltaire” and the cacophony of “Arouet.”

Note 33 in page 552 G. B. Watts, Mod. L. Notes, XXXVIII, 329-333.

Note 34 in page 552 Le Journal salyrique intercepté ou Apologie de M. de Voltaire, etc., par le sieur Bourguignon. M.DCCXIX, p. 29 ff.

Note 35 in page 553 “Monseigneur, faudra-t-il que le pauvre Voltaire ne vous ait d'autres obligations que de l'avoir corrigé par une année de Bastille?”

Note 36 in page 554 Fillon, Borel d'Hauterive, Pol Potier de Courcy, Beaune, Beauchet-Filleau, and, in recent years, M. Guy Chardonchamp have all made investigations, particularly among his paternal forbears. Although his genealogy is still obscure in many places, much has been accomplished and we are now reasonably certain about the major points of information concerning the Arouet family.

Note 37 in page 554 G. Chardonchamp, La Famille des Arouet, Paris, 1911, p. 31.

Note 38 in page 555 Beauchet-Filleau, Dictionnaire historique . . . . des familles de l'ancien Poitou, Vol. I.

Note 39 in page 555 Archives départementales, Deux-Sèvres, Série E, p. 132.

Note 40 in page 555 B. Fillon and O. Rochebrune, op. cit., p. 7.

Note 41 in page 555 G. Desnoiresterres, op. cit., I, 4.

Note 42 in page 556 Voltaire, Œuvres (Moland ed.), XXXIII, iii.

Note 43 in page 556 G. Lanson, Voltaire, Paris, 1924, p. 16.

Note 44 in page 556 Baston, op. cit., p. 39.

Note 45 in page 557 Voltaire, A S. A. S. Mgr. le Prince de Conti, 1718.

Note 46 in page 557 This resemblance has been noted recently by Emile Bourgeois in Le Secret du Règent. Cf. “Entre l'oeuvre de Rigault et l'admirable monument que Houdon a consacré à la vieillesse de Voltaire, il faudrait signaler plus d'une ressemblance inattendue.”

Note 47 in page 558 Dubois, Mémoires, 1829, IV, 161 ff.

Note 48 in page 558 This attitude was common to Voltaire throughout his life. See Desnoiresterres, op. cit., I, 3.

Note 49 in page 559 J. Guiffrey, Voltaire et la famille de Nicolay (1722-1730), p. 6.

Note 50 in page 560 G. Lanson, Voltaire, Paris, 1924, p. 16.

Note 51 in page 560 Voltaire, Œuvres, XLV, 76.

Note 52 in page 560 Ibid., XXI, 67.

Note 53 in page 560 Ibid., XXI, 40.

Note 54 in page 561 Baston, op. cit., p. 246.

Note 55 in page 562 Ibid., p. 264.

Note 56 in page 562 Ravaisson, Les Archives de la Bastille. Voltaire, Paris, 1867.

Note 57 in page 563 Voltaire stated in the second sentence of the letter: “Il se flattait que, après l'avoir mis en purgatoire, vous vous souviendriez de lui dans le temps que vous ouvrez le paradis à tout le monde.” That is to say, the Bastille is Hell, Châtenay is purgatory, Paris is Heaven.

Note 58 in page 563 See E. Campardon, Voltaire, documents inédits recueillis aux Archives Nationales, Paris, 1880.

Note 59 in page 563 Act I, sc. 3.

Note 60 in page 564 I, 20.