The Bastille and the Birth of Voltaire

On a cold morning in May 1717, the heavy gates of the Bastille prison closed behind François-Marie Arouet, not yet known as Voltaire. At twenty-three, the brilliant young wit had finally gone too far. His verses suggesting that the Regent, Philippe d'Orléans, had committed incest with his daughter had circulated through Paris salons like wildfire. Now he would have eleven months to contemplate the price of mocking power.

But as his eyes adjusted to the gloom of his cell, the young prisoner was already transforming adversity into opportunity. He had paper, ink, and most importantly, time. By day, he worked on his epic poem "La Henriade," celebrating religious tolerance through the story of Henri IV. By night, he revised his tragedy "Œdipe," which would make his fortune. And in the margins of both manuscripts, he played with new signatures, creating the name that would become synonymous with the Enlightenment: Voltaire.

The name itself was a riddle—perhaps an anagram of "Arouet l.j." (le jeune), perhaps a play on "volontaire" (voluntary) or "révolté" (rebel). Like everything about Voltaire, it combined wordplay with deeper meaning. He was voluntarily exiling himself from his father's bourgeois world, revolting against stupidity and oppression wherever he found them.

When he emerged from the Bastille in April 1718, François-Marie Arouet was dead. In his place stood Voltaire: playwright, poet, philosopher, and above all, the man who would teach Europe to laugh at its own absurdities. He had learned that wit could be a weapon, that laughter could demolish what logic merely wounded. For the next sixty years, he would wage war against l'infâme—that infamous alliance of superstition, intolerance, and tyranny. His ammunition would be words, his strategy would be mockery, and his victory would help create the modern world.