Henriade

Henriade is a epopee into ten Chant S of Voltaire.

Voltaire wrote Henriade in the honor of the king de France Henri IV and of the tolerance. The subject is the head office of Paris, begun with Henri III and Henri de Navarre, future Henri IV. The seat was completed by this last and was completed by this last alone. The place of the scene does not extend further that from Paris with Ivry, where this famous battle was given which decided fate of France and royal house. The poem is founded on a known history, which one preserved the truth in the principal events. The others, less sizeable, or were cut off, or arranged according to the probability which a poem requires.

Henriade is made up of two parts; real events and fictions all drawn from the system of the Marvellous, such as the Prediction of the conversion of Henri IV, the protection which gives him holy Louis, his appearance, the fire of heaven, etc the others, like the voyage of the Discord to Rome, the Policy, Fanaticism personified, the temple of the love, finally passions and the defects, are purely allegorical.

Voltaire had published a first version of Henriade , of which it quotes two worms in Ingenuous the , in 1723 under the title of the League .

Genesis

Voltaire teaches us itself that it began Henriade with Saint-Angel, at Louis Caumartin, intendant of finances, after having made Oedipus and before this part was played. However Oedipus , completed as of 1713, appeared on the scene only in 1718. It is thus in this five years interval that was conceived Henriade . The foreword of an edition of 1730 assigns even a positive date with the composition of several songs, and inter alia second, written under the bolts of the Bastille, when Voltaire was held there in 1717.

A poem with the glory of Henri IV could not, this seems, being more suitably dedicated than to king de France. Also Voltaire proposed it to offer to Louis XV the dedication of his work. The drafting of its epistle was even almost completed, when the most inconceivable refusal disturbed its projects. The censure had noticed in the poem more than one place containing of the proposals badly sounding and feeling the heresy, and required suppressions in which, apparently, the author did not believe to be able to agree to it. It then had to think of making appear out of France a poem which it could not hope for to publish there with the approval of the authority, homage while having been refused by the king.

In 1722, a bookseller of $the Hague announced an edition of Henri IV, or the League, heroic poem which was to form a volume in-4° and to be decorated with engravings made under the eyes of Voltaire, for that which it had had the intention to dedicate to Louis XV. This new project remained pareillement without execution. Voltaire took finally the party to make print his poem clandestinely. All, at least, carries to believe that it published to him even the edition mentioned under number 1 in the table drawing up the chronological list of the principal editions of Henriade (established and retained by Bore-hole, bookseller in its edition of 1836). It is about the edition which was published in 1723 pennies the title the League or Henry the large one, poem epic in Geneva, at Mokpap, in-8° VIII and 231 pages. This poem has only 9 songs and there are several gaps, filled by points or stars. This edition was made in Rouen, by the bookseller Viret, it exists a counterfeit about it, carrying the same address and the same date, it is one in-8° VIII and 168 pages.

This poem was also printed, in November 1723, in London on a copy concealed with the author and was published under the title of the League whereas this work was not completed yet. However Voltaire could not also give his care to this edition is it filled of faults, transpositions and considerable gaps.

Anecdote

From Bore-hole, in its edition of 1836 teaches us that Henriade which was published in 1785 in 2 vol. in-8° by the printing works of the typographical Company literary under the title of Henriade , poem, followed notes and of variantes', thirty specimens of this edition have drawn summers on vellum and that one two was placed, in 1818, in the belly of the horse of the equestrian statue of Henri IV, restored this same year on the quay level of the Pont-Neuf.

Modern edition

Henriade , O.R. Taylor, ED., Geneva, Inst. & Voltaire Museum, 1965.

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