At this moment the crowd burst into one of the hymns of the poet Chenier, who, up to his death, most of all men cherished the memory of Voltaire.  Madame de Villette and the young girls of the amphitheatre descended into the street, now strewed with flowers, and walked before the car.  The Theatre Francais, then situated in the Faubourg St. Germain, had erected a triumphal arch on its peristyle.  On each pillar a medallion was fixed, bearing in letters of gilt bronze the title of the principal dramas of the poet; on the pedestal of the statue erected before the door of the theatre was written, “He wrote Irene at eighty-three years; at seventeen he wrote OEdipus.”

The immense procession did not arrive at the Pantheon until ten o’clock at night, for the day had not been sufficiently long for this triumph.  The coffin of Voltaire was deposited between those of Descartes and Mirabeau,—­the spot predestined for this intermediary genius between philosophy and policy, between the design and the execution.  This apotheosis of modern philosophy, amidst the great events that agitated the public mind, was a convincing proof that the Revolution comprehended its own aim, and that it sought to be the inauguration of those two principles represented by these cold ashes—­Intelligence and Liberty.  It was intelligence that triumphantly entered the city of Louis XIV. over the ruins of the prejudices of birth.  It was philosophy taking possession of the city and the temple of Sainte Genevieve.  The remains of two schools, of two ages, and two creeds were about to strive for the mastery even in the tomb.  Philosophy who, up to this hour, had timidly shrunk from the contest, now revealed her latest inspiration—­that of transferring the veneration of the age from one great man to another.

V.

Voltaire, the sceptical genius of France in modern ages, combined, in himself, the double passion of this people at such a period—­the passion of destruction, and the desire of innovation, hatred of prejudices, and love of knowledge:  he was destined to be the standard-bearer of destruction; his genius, although not the most elevated, yet the most comprehensive in France, has hitherto been only judged by fanatics or his enemies.  Impiety deified his very vices; superstition anathematised his very virtues; in a word, despotism, when it again seized on the reins of government in France, felt that to reinstate tyranny it would be necessary first to unseat Voltaire from his high position in the national opinion.  Napoleon, during fifteen years, paid writers who degrade, vilify, and deny the genius of Voltaire; he hated his name, as might must ever hate intellect; and so long as men yet cherished the memory of Voltaire, so long he felt his position was not secure, for tyranny stands as much in need of prejudice to sustain it as falsehood of uncertainty and darkness; the restored church could no longer suffer his glory to shine with so great a lustre; she had the right to hate Voltaire, not to deny his genius.