Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO M. DE CIDEVILLE. - The Works of Voltaire, Vol. X The Dramatic Works Part 1 (Zaire, Caesar, The Prodigal, Prefaces) and Part II (The Lisbon Earthquake and Other Poems).

Return to Title Page for The Works of Voltaire, Vol. X The Dramatic Works Part 1 (Zaire, Caesar, The Prodigal, Prefaces) and Part II (The Lisbon Earthquake and Other Poems).

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Literature

TO M. DE CIDEVILLE. - Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. X The Dramatic Works Part 1 (Zaire, Caesar, The Prodigal, Prefaces) and Part II (The Lisbon Earthquake and Other Poems). [1901]

Edition used:

From The Works of Voltaire, A Contemporary Version, (New York: E.R. DuMont, 1901), A Critique and Biography by John Morley, notes by Tobias Smollett, trans. William F. Fleming. Vol. X The Dramatic Works Part 1 (Zaire, Caesar, The Prodigal, Prefaces) and Part II (The Lisbon Earthquake and Other Poems).

Part of: The Works of Voltaire. A Contemporary Version, in 21 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO M. DE CIDEVILLE.

  • Pardon at Easter ever due
  • To Christians who their penance do:
  • Mine’s done, a silence that’s so lasting,
  • Is penance worse by far than fasting.
  • A pardon full you therefore owe me,
  • So plenary indulgence show me.
  • Of a true sage I long in quest
  • Travelled, but now I am at rest;
  • No more about the world I roam,
  • I’m ten times happier at home.
  • All that I sought at length I find,
  • I’m blest and hid from humankind.
  • The throne and all its slavish pride,
  • Grandeurs by men with envy eyed,
  • Can’t with my hermitage compare,
  • Where never enters anxious care.
  • Kings I have seen, who, in retreat,
  • Thought themselves, like Aurelius, great;
  • But virtue was no more their care,
  • When trumpets’ clangors pierced the air;
  • Good resolutions then are o’er,
  • They still are kings, but men no more:
  • They scour the world with eager haste,
  • To seize on realms, or to lay waste;
  • They all are to ambition slaves,
  • But my free soul ambition braves.
  • Princes, the grandeur of a throne
  • Renounced, I wish for friends alone.