Amazing Writers: B2. Katerina Mestheneou

de Rohan and was sent to prison at the Bastille. He was exiled to England. In England, Voltaire was recognized as a great writer. 1729 Voltaire returned to Paris. 1732 He published a play called Zaïre. 1733 Voltaire published a collection of essays called Letters on the English Nation. He went to Lorraine to avoid being sent to prison. He went to stay at the Château de Cirey, owned by his friend Émilie du Châtelet. 1735 He was given permission to return to Paris but he chose to stay at Cirey and only returned to Paris occasionally. 1738 Elements of the Philosophy of Newton was published. 1740–1743 Voltaire lived in Prussia and Brussels, where he worked as a diplomat. 1745 King Louis XV made him Royal Historiographer of France. 1746 He was elected to the French Academy. 1748 He published the philosophical tale Zadig. 1749 Émilie du Châtelet died. 1751 Voltaire moved to Potsdam in Germany. He became a philosopher and poet to his close friend, Frederick the Great. He published The Age of Louis XIV. 1752 He published Micromegas. 1753 A conflict began between Voltaire and Maupertuis. Voltaire was forced by Frederick II to leave Berlin and he slowly travelled to Paris. 1754 Louis XV refused to allow Voltaire into the city of Paris. Voltaire moved on to Geneva in Switzerland and bought a large estate named Les Délices. He met the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 1758 He moved to Ferney in France after the local law in Geneva forbade theatre performances. He bought another estate and entertained many important guests at his home. 1759 He published his short story Candide (ou l’Optimisme). 1762 Voltaire began writing letters to Catherine II of Russia. 1763 He published Treatise on Tolerance. 1764 He published one of his most popular philosophical works, Dictionnaire Philosophique. 1767 The philosophical tale L’Ingénu was published. 1769 A new edition of the Philosophical Dictionary was published under the name The Alphabet of Reason. 1770–1772 Questions sur l’Encyclopédie was published in nine books. 1778 Voltaire returned to Paris. He lived to see the performance of his last play, a tragedy called Irène. He died three months later, aged 83.

       Charlotte Brontë

       1816–1855

      the woman who wrote Jane Eyre

       Writing stories was a way to escape from the ugly, sad, miserable moments in life. Even though much of my work was based on my life experiences and included those difficult parts of it, my novels were also based on my dreams of love and happiness.

      I was born on 21^st April 1816 in the village of Thornton, in West Yorkshire, England. I had four sisters – two were older than me and two were younger and I had a brother who was born a year after I was. My father, Patrick, was an Anglican vicar and my mother, Maria Branwell, was kept busy looking after her family. When I was 4 years old, we moved to a village not far away called Haworth, where my father had been given the position of curate at the village church. My mother had been unwell for some time and a year later, she died. We were looked after by her sister, who we called Aunt Branwell but whose name was Elizabeth.

      My father, who was still very upset by my mother’s death, had difficulty coping with us all. In 1824, he sent me and three of my sisters – Maria, Elizabeth and Emily – to a school, the Clergy Daughters School, that was for daughters of Anglican church employees. Maria, who was 10 years old, and Elizabeth, at the age of 9, went there first in July. Then, in September, my father sent me and Emily. I was 8 and Emily was only 6 years old. My other sister, Anne, and my brother, Branwell, stayed at home.

      The school was in a village called Cowan Bridge in the neighbouring county of Lancashire. None of the girls’ parents had to pay for their daughters to go to this school – all the expenses were paid by the church – and for this reason, we were called Charity Children by the teachers and the other people who worked there. It was horrible and made us feel ashamed and stupid. We were all given a special ugly uniform to wear and every time we left the school, to go to church for example, it showed that we were Church Charity Children.

      Life at the school was unpleasant and difficult. When we arrived, winter was approaching and as it got colder and colder, we suffered. We slept all together in one large room where there was no heating. In the morning when we got up, we had to wash in cold water – on the really cold mornings, and there were many of them, we had to break the ice that had formed overnight in the bowls of water. Our uniforms were not adequate for the cold weather and the damp that was everywhere reached through to our bones and froze us. On Sundays after we got up, we had to say prayers for an hour and a half. Then we had to go to church. The church was five kilometres away and we had to walk there and back in all weathers. Our thin clothes gave us no protection against the cold, wind, rain and snow. We were always cold and we never stopped being hungry, as we were never given enough food. The food that they did give us was of poor quality and it often made us sick.