Voltaire was now become a potentate more dreaded than a sovereign-prince on his throne, an object of hatred and terror to political and other oppressors. After some hesitation he had chosen for his retreat the ever-memorable Ferney--a place within French territory, on the borders of Switzerland--and also a spot near Geneva, where he alternately resided, escaping at pleasure either from Catholic intolerance or from Puritanic rigour, with his niece--Madame Denis, who had anxiously attended him during a recent illness. From these retreats he made himself heard over all Europe in defence of reason and humanity. It was about this time (1756) that he employed his eloquence to save Admiral Byng, a victim to ministerial necessities, who was nevertheless condemned, as his advocate expresses it in _Candide_, “pour encourager les autres.” A like philanthropic effort, equally vain, was made on behalf of the still more unfortunate Comte de Lally. The year 1757 is memorable in literature as that in which he gave to the world an accurate edition of his already published works, enriched by one of his most meritorious productions, the _Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations_, which now appeared in its complete form. History, the author justly complained, had hitherto been but a uniform chronicle of kings, courts, and court intrigues. The history of legislation, arts, sciences, commerce, morals, had been always, or almost always, neglected. “We imagine [says Condorcet], while we read such histories, that the human race was created only to exhibit the political or military talents of a few individuals, and that the object of society is not the happiness of the Species but the pleasure of the Few.” If the best historical works of the present day are a considerable improvement upon those which were in fashion before Voltaire’s _critiques_, the remarks of Condorcet are not altogether inapplicable to the popular and school manuals still in vogue. At all events this style of composing “history,” ridiculed by the wit of Lucian sixteen centuries before, was the universal method down to the appearance of the celebrated _Essai_.