Opening paragraphs...............

Once upon a time in Paris, in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, there lived a young boy whom nature had endowed with the quickest of wits and the most wilful of dispositions.  His soul - if he had one - was written on his countenance.  He was quite sound in his judgement, and he had the most straightforward of minds.  His family nicknamed him Zozo:  he later called himself Voltaire.  While he believed in God Almighty, he none the less considered that there was still work to be done.  "God created man free," he wrote at the age of seventy-three: "and that is what I have become."  This is the story of his extraordinary life, the story of a search for freedom.

-Roger Pearson,  Voltaire Almighty:  A Life in Pursuit of Freedom