Since honour, love, humanity and every virtue under the stars has a place in the Voltairean universe, history likewise assumes a place. Till Voltaire enlivened it, history was cruel. Till he wrote it, history was murderous. When he finished, history was the picture of perfection, a picture of the smiling philosopher himself. “The great and only concern one should have is to live happily”. The smile that never changed, and a history that never moved. Voltaire’s history was merely a history that happened.
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