Francois-Marie d'Arouet, the author known as Voltaire, was perhaps the most influential philosopher of the eighteenth century; he was the most widely read philosopher of the Enlightenment and his criticisms of powerful French institutions seeded the resistance to orthodoxy imbued in the French Revolution that occurred eleven years after his death in seventeen seventy-eight. The Renaissance instilled in Voltaire the virtues of science and a respect for the natural world that forced him to examine the institutions of France from an objective eye. From this, Voltaire was able to see through the veil over religion and the state to examine the underlying hypocrisy and corruption of these institutions and as a result he was able to produce a biting commentary in his great work, Candide.

Prior to penning Candide, Voltaire was schooled at a Jesuit college in Paris that gave him a great insight into the church, the...