Timeline

- 21st November 1694: birth of François-Marie Arouet in Paris

- 1704-1711: educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand

- 1717: 1st imprisonment at the Bastille as a result of lines of verse written against the Regent

- 1718: success ofOedipus and adoption of the name Voltaire

- 1726: 2nd stay in the Bastille following an altercation with Guy Auguste de Rohan-Chabot

- 1726-1728: stay in England, discovery ofLocke and Newton

- 1733: beginning of Voltaire’s affair with Émilie du Châtelet

- 1734: appearance ofLetters on the English (Philosophical Letters) and refuge at Cirey

- 1744: Madame Denis becomes Voltaire’s mistress

- 1745: Voltaire is appointed as Louis XV’s historiographer

- 1746: election to the Académie Française

- 1750-1753: stay in Prussia at the Court ofFrederick the Great

- 1755: purchase of Les Délices ("The Delights") in Geneva

- 1757: Geneva article in the Encyclopédie immediately censored 

- 1759: publication ofCandide; Voltaire settles at Ferney

- 1762-1764: campaign in favour of the rehabilitation of the Calas family

- 1763: publication ofthe Treatise on Tolerance 

- 1764: the Sirven Affair and publication of the Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary)

- 1765-1766: affair of François-Jean de la Barre

- 1778: return to Paris and triumph of Voltaire at the Comédie-Française

- 30th May 1778: death of Voltaire in Paris

- 2nd June 1778: burial at the Abbey of Sellières in Champagne

- 1778: purchase of Voltaire’s library by Catherine the Great of Russia

- 1791: transfer of Voltaire’s ashes to the Panthéon

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