But the place is Voltaire’s mind? | EUROtoday

On Mar 22, 2025

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MLooks, Voltaire continued to disturb, and his physique – or moderately his songs – supplied himself a remaining nostril to future. Because if the center of the thinker rests at this time on the National Library of France, his mind, he adopted a very totally different journey, passing by way of the palms of keen medical doctors, skeptical librarians and never very impressed actors. But the place is the satan subsequently Voltaire’s mind?

Voltaire died on May 30, 1778 in Paris, below unclear situations. It is rumored that the poor man, then 83 years previous, had utterly misplaced his head and had tended to eat his excrement. However, it appears that evidently this rumor was launched by its sworn enemies, the Jesuits. One factor is safer: his final moments are marked by cries of ache. “Let me die!” Has he yelled on his mattress.

The cumbersome corpse of Voltaire

Voltaire had deliberate every thing: a burial within the church of Ferney, on the Swiss border. Everything besides to die in Paris, a metropolis the place his corpse was going to pose an actual downside. The thinker is a star, it’s indeniable. But he additionally has many enemies, particularly within the church. It should be stated that he’s not tender with some. In a letter, he writes that the world can be higher the day after we strangle “the last Jesuit with the guts of the last Jansenist” (letter to Helvétius of May 11, 1761).

Read too Voltaire and Rousseau: intimate enemies of the EnlightenmentHe is just not atheated. Witness his well-known system: “The universe embarrasses me and I cannot think that this clock exists and has no watchmaker. No matter, the church, strongly thwarted by the pamphlets of the philosopher, refuses to bury him as long as he has not denied his writings. “If Voltaire doesn’t submit, it will likely be the widespread pit,” she threatens.

Father Gaultier extorts him a confession of faith in extremis, but that will not be enough to calm the religious authorities. It is ultimately his nephew, Father Mignot, who takes things in hand: in all discretion, he exfiltrates the corpse and makes him bury under an anonymous slab at the Sellières abbey, near Troyes. But before that, there is a last obligatory passage: autopsy.

A philosopher with a little heart but with a big brain

The day after his death, Voltaire was therefore opened by a certain M. Try, surgeon of rue du Bac, assisted by the Mitouart apothecary. On the report, it is written that the bladder is in a pitiful state, the kidneys are gangrenous and that the heart is small, but the brain is immense! To thank him for his good services, Mitouart obtains the right to keep the philosopher’s brain. As for his friend the Marquis de Villette, he seizes the heart, which he is locking in a box of golden silver. Two relics, two very distinct destinies.

Read too Tolerance according to VoltaireThirteen years after his death, in 1791, Voltaire finally received the honors of the nation: his body was transferred to the pantheon in a triumphant procession, acclaimed by hundreds of thousands of Parisians. Meanwhile, his heart begins a most incredible odyssey. Villette installs it first in her room with a pompous inscription: “Her mind is everywhere and her heart is here. When he died, the relic goes from hand to hand, until Napoleon III decides to make it national good. Since 1864, it has been resting in a statue base, at the National Library of France. But what about the brain?

Who stole the brain of Voltaire?

Apothecary Mitouart preciously keeps Voltaire’s brain in his pharmacy, exhibiting him as a curiosity to attract customers. Her more conscientious son tried several times to offer it to the National Library, in 1799 and then in 1830. But the institution refused net: what would it do with such a bulky organ?

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

Finally, a descendant of the Mitouarts discovered an sudden resolution, in 1924: she exchanged it for 2 orchestra armchairs within the Comédie-Française, legitimate for twenty years. A singular transaction for such a prestigious relic. This is how the mind of the Grand Voltaire is discovered below the bottom of a reproduction of the well-known Houdon statue, within the temple of the French theater. Finally, in concept …

Because for many years, the relic of the thinker has been not discovered. Stolen? Forgotten in some dusty nook? No one actually is aware of. It is likely-but not certain-that the center remains to be on the Comédie-Française. The case recollects this tasty anecdote between Jules Claretie, administrator of the Théâtre-Français, and the actress Berthe Bovy. One day, Claretie exhibits her a small field by proudly declaring: “Do you know what it contains?” Voltaire’s mind. “And the actress to retort, perfidious:” And you by no means got here to the thought of utilizing it? ” »»

https://www.lepoint.fr/eureka/mais-ou-est-le-cerveau-de-voltaire-22-03-2025-2585394_4706.php