Clio Continues an Argument

Last year, Clio's mortal got into an argument with a reader about Voltaire's residual religious allegiances. The reader ended by proclaiming that neither he - the reader - or CM knew enough about Voltaire to make any definitive statements about the man. Naturally, CM was rather offended by this slight to her knowledge, and responded a bit sharply, and the reader dropped the matter. CM forgot about it for a long time, being too lazy to go and hunt down the particular references she recalled in the massive collection of Voltaire's works at the University of Ottawa library. Recently, however, while perusing the archives of the New Criterion, she discovered that a kindly book-reviewer had done her work for her, quoting from a biography of Voltaire by Roger Pearson called Voltaire Almighty, published in 2005.

I can't link to the article, because you have to be a subscriber to read it, but here's the relevant paragraph:

In the spring of 1761, an aging François-Marie Arouet (a.k.a. Voltaire) took it upon himself to rebuild the small parish church that stood on his sprawling estate at Ferney. The self-proclaimed Deist, mocker of the Biblical storyline, and indefatigable critic of ecclesiastical abuses spared little expense in this latest—and most curious—project of reform and reformation. In place of the old façade, he erected a new one in the modern neoclassical style, with two handsome bell towers, each capped with a gleaming dome. Over the altar, he installed a baldachino as well as an imposing crucifix (costing 1,200 livres) by a prominent sculpture from Lyon. A letter to the Pope, inquiring if his Holiness had any relics to spare, produced—somewhat disappointingly—a hair shirt once worn by St. Francis (Voltaire had been hoping for a couple of bones). And then, with the renovations complete, the manor lord did something that no one could have foreseen; he became a regular attendee at Sunday Mass—even, it was reported, receiving communion on the Easter feast day.

I have no doubt that some people would argue that this proves little more than Voltaire's eagerness to observe the proprieties, although this was not notably one of the man's characteristic traits. (Indeed, he had a remarkable talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.) Still, they could be right; after all, Voltaire wrote a great many diatribes against faith and the Christian religion in particular. I suspect, though, that he was one of those confused but not uncommon souls who somehow manage simultaneously to hold two sets of contradictory beliefs. His skepticism, his distaste for the abuses of the Church, and for the follies of belief, were real enough; so too, was his belief in God.