… Informal Inquiries: Voltaire goes to prison (and others should be next).
Voltaire was imprisoned because, in some satirical verse, he accused the French Regent of incest with with his own daughter, which sounds as if he could have been charged with libel, which is a crime. The best commentary on Voltaire in my view is Joseph de Maistre's: "Voltaire, who touched upon every subject, without ever penetrating the surface of any …"
A lot of truth in that, Tim.
ReplyDeleteRe Voltaire: I like Herder's description of him as 'a senile child'.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI'm not a lawyer, but the First Amendment obviously does not protect against libel, though public figures have a hard time bringing a case. My natural inclination is in favor of letting people say what they want. We do live in coarse times, to be sure.