INTRODUCTION
On November 21st, 1694, François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire was born in Paris. He became famous later on in life as an Enlightened thinker and made many contributions towards works and ideas of the many important thinkers of American and French Revolutions. He later became known by his pen name: Voltaire; and proceeded to do what he seemed to well, write. He created works in almost every literary form, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works, producing 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books. In these works, he was known to be trenchant towards intolerance, religious doctrine and the French institutions of his day.
LIFE
The youngest of five, in which only 3 survived, François Arouet became a notary who was a minor treasury official, his wife, Marie Marguerite d’Aumart, came from a noble family in the province of Poitou. Voltaire received his education at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in 1704-1711 where he learned Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and English—becoming fluent in all five languages. In the time Voltaire left school, he came to the conclusion that becoming a writer is what he wanted, which was against the wishes of his father who wanted him to become a notary. Despite his father’s will, he spent most of his time writing poetry—when his father discovered this, he sent Voltaire to school to study law in Caen, or Normandy. Regardless, he continued with his passion of writing: constructing essays and historical studies. Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for even mild critiques of the government and religious bigotry. These activities were to result in numerous imprisonments and exiles.

“VOLTAIRE” THE NAME François adopted his pen name, Voltaire, in 1718, it’s an anagram of Arovet Li, a translation of his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of le jeune which means the younger. The