\b0 Born in Paris in 1694, Franτois-Marie Arouet, the son of a notary, used the pen name of Voltaire
to sign his early works. Their fame was to earn him, at different times, both recognition and a cell in the Bastille prison. Opposed to wars of conquest, religious intolerance, and injustice, he also struck out at bad writers and feeble thinkers. During
his life, his free way with the pen and the many enemies that this earned him forced him to seek powerful protectors and then into exile with Frederick II in Prussia (1750-3), before settling at Ferney, close to the Swiss border. Enjoying enormous popula
rity at the end of his life and seen as a symbol of the \i ôAge of Enlightenment,ö\i0 he agreed to surrender in Paris in 1779, where he died a few weeks after reaching the age of eighty-five.\par
