Voltaire après la nuit: Paris, Moscou, Genève by François Jacob

Abstract

Reviewed by: Voltaire après la nuit: Paris, Moscou, Genève by François Jacob Simon Davies Voltaire après la nuit: Paris, Moscou, Genève. By François Jacob. Ferney-Voltaire: Centre International d'Étude du xviiie Siècle. 2021. ii+186 pp. €40. ISBN 978–2–84559–150–9. François Jacob published his biography Voltaire in 2015 (Paris: Gallimard). His new book investigates Voltaire from a different angle, his reputation in post-Second World War countries until a Congress in 1963. The cities in his subtitle represent France, the Soviet Union, and one man, the 'savant anglais' Theodore Besterman. Besterman created the Institut et Musée Voltaire in Geneva, of which, years later, Jacob was to become the Director. The monograph's sources are wide-spread, published and archival. It explores primarily the image of Voltaire rather [End Page 243] than the reception of his works. This image is often situated in a political context. In France he could be portrayed as an anti-Semite during the German occupation to buttress the persecution of Jews. Simultaneously he was depicted as an 'anti-vychiste' and a 'résistant'. The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth was commemorated in 1944, yet the French Catholic Church continued to worry about his malign influence. French people were also anxious about his potential linkage to communism. The Soviets, while uncomfortable with his life as a landed gentleman, published a catalogue of his library and volumes of his marginalia. Nevertheless, it was the English-speaking world that did most to explore his life and works. Here, arguably unwisely, Jacob cites Kathleen O'Flaherty's Voltaire, Myth and Reality (Cork: Cork University Press, 1945). She views Voltaire as a bogeyman from the perspective of a conservative Irish Catholic. The extraordinary mood changer was Besterman. Winning support across the Atlantic, he championed Voltaire for spreading Enlightenment values, and Voltaire became more an international than a French figure. Besterman's edition of the patriarch's correspondence was ground-breaking in a positive and, for the French, a negative sense. He published the most comprehensive edition of the letters not in France, but in Switzerland (Voltaire's Correspondence, 107 vols (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1953–65)). If that was one affront to patriotic pride, a second was even more damaging: the missives were annotated in English. Besterman had a troubled relationship with the CNRS, with the result that the 'hexagone' was not involved in celebrating its Voltairean heritage. Moreover, the Englishman began publishing Studies on Voltaire in 1955—France was losing its 'patrimoine'. He organized the first international Congress on the Enlightenment in Switzerland in 1963, with a limited participation from French scholars. Having contacted Besterman, Nancy Mitford produced her account of Voltaire's love life in English (Voltaire in Love (London: Hamilton, 1957)). Voltaire's works could still inspire adaptations, particularly those of Candide. Leonard Bernstein's musical work is well known but the tale also encouraged film versions in France. However, it could be contended that these offspring did little to enhance the understanding of the qualities of Voltaire and his works. Although it is not pertinent to the time-frame of this study, Besterman was also instrumental in launching the edition of Voltaire's Œuvres complètes which was completed at the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford in 2022—an achievement marked at a reception in the British Embassy in Paris in June that year. Overall, Jacob's study underscores the importance of editorial decisions and their context. He highlights the difficulty of embarking on major projects on Voltaire which are free from 'toute empreinte idéologique' (p. 49). Voltaire has become a standard point of reference in the advocacy of tolerance—witness the 'Je suis Charlie' slogan created as the response to the terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2015. This publication succeeds in illustrating the fact that scholarly editing is not a value-free undertaking and that history and chance can play a significant role. [End Page 244] Simon Davies Belfast Copyright © 2023 Modern Humanities Research Association