Complete Works of Voltaire 74B - Oeuvres de 1772 (II) (Hardcover, Critical edition)

This volume contains further full critical editions of some of Voltaire's many and varied writings of 1772. When Voltaire hears that Gustav III has assumed power in Sweden after a coup d'etat, he welcomes a new member to the club of enlightened rulers with the poem "Au roi de Suede, Gustave III". He returns to legal considerations, this time in their relation to religious toleration, in the "Reflexions philosophiques sur le proces de mademoiselle Camp", and the abuse of ecclesiastical privilege is attacked in "La Voix du cure sur le proces des serfs du Mont-Jura". The theme of religious intolerance surfaces again in his treatment of the Crusades in "Quelques petites hardiesses de Mr. Clair, a l'occasion d'un panegyrique de Saint Louis". He also publishes a treatise of sceptical deism, oddly entitled "Il faut prendre un parti ou le principe d'action". Voltaire continued to write poetry in a range of styles and genres: two verse satires, "Les Systemes" and "Les Cabales", a slighter work, "Jean qui pleure et qui rit", and towards the end of the year, one of his most important poems, the "Epitre a Horace", which shows him comparing notes with Horace as to how each of them will be treated by posterity: 'J'ai vecu plus que toi; mes vers dureront moins.'