"Voltaire's agitation came at the cost of truth. As the legal historian Benoît Garnot has shown, the famous philosophe[, inventor of 'that political-moral-literary event, "l'affaire,"'] rode roughshod over the facts of his 'causes.' He caricatured the law's careful and restrained procedures, and he brushed aside inconvenient evidence as he sought to shape images of cruelty and injustice that had as their goal the smearing of the Church. Records show that it was usually the Church that took the lead, before Voltaire joined the fray, in seeking mercy and reprieve. If Voltaire invented 'l'affaire,' he did not wield it as a tool of reason. Harnessing the crowd for the sake of righteousness required appealing to passions and manipulating sentiments. Voltaire sought to whip up the 'intimate' heart, often through the deliberate distortion of facts. The modern word for such techniques is propaganda."
Ephraim Radner, "L'affaire Voltaire," First things no. 309 (January 2021): 63 (64-63). Radner is probably referring to the following, among (possibly) others, none of which I have yet read:
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