Voltaire, whose real name is Fran? ois-Marie Arouet (Fran? OIS- Marie Arouette) (1694- 1778), Voltaire is his pen name. French enlightenment thinker, writer, philosopher and historian. Voltaire was the standard-bearer of the French bourgeois enlightenment in the18th century, and was known as "the king of French thought", "the best poet in France" and "the conscience of Europe". Advocating an enlightened monarch and emphasizing freedom and equality. Famous figures of the French Enlightenment, such as Diderot, Rousseau, Condilac, Buffon, etc. , are his successors, they admire him and admit that he is their mentor. Representative works include Philosophical Correspondence, Metaphysics, Louis XIV and Honest Man.