Francois Marie Arouet was born in Paris, France, in 1694, the youngest child of a cultured middle-class family. Educated by the Jesuits at the College Louis-Le-Grand, Arouet abandoned the study of law for a literary career. His first work (Imitation de l'ode du R.P. Lejay sur Sainte Germaine) was published in 1710. Arouet soon discovered his gift for satire, which would land him in trouble over and over again. In 1717 Arouet was imprisoned in the Bastille for 11 months on the suspicion of having written “J'ai vu” (I have seen), a poem defaming the regent. The true author was eventually revealed, prompting Arouet's release; he left prison with a manuscript for what would be a successful play, Oedipus (1718), and a new name, Voltaire, by which he was thereafter known. Over the years, Voltaire experienced literary successes and failures, financial prosperity, another stint of imprisonment in the Bastille, and a period of voluntary exile in England, where he met such literary figures as Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. Returning to France in 1728, Voltaire again became the center of controversy when his Lettres Philosophiques (1734) were condemned and burned by the parliament of Paris.
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