How did Voltaire help introduce Isaac Newton’s scientific ideas to France?

Voltaire played a pivotal role in introducing Isaac Newton’s scientific ideas to France, primarily by using his influence to challenge the prevailing Cartesian system.

In his influential work, Lettres philosophiques (1734), Voltaire presented Newton as the "destroyer of the system of Descartes". He argued that a true philosopher should disdain empty, a priori speculations—which he associated with René Descartes—and instead follow the example of Newton, who observed facts and reasoned from them. By championing this empirical approach, Voltaire helped shift French intellectual opinion toward Newtonian physics, which was further validated by the successful application of Newton's laws in predicting phenomena such as the return of Halley’s comet.12

Additionally, Voltaire’s intellectual partnership with the mathematician and physicist Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet, was instrumental in this effort. While living at her château at Cirey, they engaged in deep scientific study. Mme du Châtelet later produced the definitive French translation of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, for which Voltaire wrote the preface.3