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Today's Featured Biography
Voltaire
 In order to justly estimate the life, character, and genius of a man it is necessary to possess some knowledge of the environments and heredity which generated him. Any study of Voltaire which ignores these influences will fail not only in doing him justice, but in comprehending his unique and exceptional place in history. The most careful examination of these, together with the voluminous bibliography relating to Voltaire provided by French, German, and English literature, still will leave him something of an enigma.
The stage properties and scenery were prepared for the great Frenchman long before he appeared, as is always the case with the famous actors in the drama of history. The time in which he was born was that of Louis XIV., king by divine right, whose history is that of one who was more the tinsel-robed actor, strutting in the semblance of royalty, and less the king than many
"A poor player
Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more."
Louis XIV. wore all the outward guise of regal office, in his bearing, politeness, address, magnificence, and high-heeled dignity, but he was sensual, ferocious, ignorant, profligate, and superstitious. His greatness was fictitious, his splendor superficial, and his character false. The king was the state, but his mistresses governed. A court thus constituted led the fashions and formed the manners of the people. It stamped the age with that type of character which belongs to the...
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