Excerpt from The Works of Voltaire, Vol. 31 of 43: A Contemporary Version Voltaire spent a happy month in 1753 as the guest of the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha, who expressed regret that there was popular history of the German Empire, such as might intensify her son's interest in the deeds of his ancestors. The wish was accepted as a command by the courtly guest, who forthwith began the remarkable compendium of historical facts, sketches, criticisms, and cogent reflections which form these Annals.The world abounds with troubles and with crimes (he wrote to the Duchess), and history is other than a picture of the outrages and distress of mankind. The popularity of his Age of Louis XIV. led to the unauthorized issue of three editions of the Annals within a month of its appearance, from which he t only received profit, but probably sustained loss. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.