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Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) appears in Cox's study with an adult-corrected estimate around 190. He had a documented childhood at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris where Jesuit education gave Cox the kind of structured early records her methodology rewards.

His output is immense: roughly 20,000 letters of surviving correspondence, plus over 2,000 published books and pamphlets across literature, history, philosophy, and political polemic. Candide (1759) is his best-known work; his Lettres philosophiques and Dictionnaire philosophique were foundational for the Enlightenment.

He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille, twice exiled from France, and conducted long correspondences with Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia. He died days after returning to Paris from a 28-year residence in Ferney near the Swiss border, where he had effectively run a small canton.