li
III
iiii
■
Iiii
mmm
I
AT LOS ANGELES
10 5 4 5 '
TULTAl Will.
•y^iza^ ,
LIFE
OF
YOLTAIEE.
BY
JAMES PARTON.
C"est dommage, i la v^rit^, de passer ime partie de sa vie a detruire de vieux chateaux enchanWs.
II vaudrait mieux 6tablir des V(5rit(i8 que d examiner des mensonges ; mais ou sont les Teritds?
Voltaire, 1760
VOLUME I.
1 -,',«>
' ' » » » J 4
% 1 ^
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
1881.
83545
Copyright, 1881,
Br JAMES PARTON.
All rights reserved.
t tec - *■ -
r/ie Riverside Press, Cambridge :
Stereotj ped and Printed b3' II. 0. Houghton & Co.
PREFACE.
I ATTEMPT in these volumes to exliibit to the American
people the most extraordinary of Frenchmen, and one of the
most extraordinary of human beings.
When first I ventured, many years ago, to think of this
task, I soon ceased to wonder "why a subject so alluring had
not been undertaken before by any one employing the whole
\ of the existing material. Voltaire Avas then buried under a
■^ mountain of heterogeneous record. The attempts of essayists,
even those of the first rank, to characterize him truly were in
some degree frustrated by an abundance of unsorted informa-
tion that defied all ordinary research. Since that time the
CD Voltairean material has continued to accumulate, and never so
03 rapidly as during the last three years.
^ At this moment, if I lift mjr eyes from the desk on which
(i> I write, I see before me volumes containing fifty thousand
-^ printed pages of his composition, including more than two
^ hundred and sixty separate publications. The published cor-
respondence of Voltaire now comprises more than ten thou-
sand letters. The works relating to him and his doings form
a catalogue of four hundred and twenty-eight entries, which
will probably be increased before these volumes see the light.
Scarcely a month passes without some addition to the wonder-
ful mass. At one time it is a series of letters found in a gro-
cer's shop, or rendered accessible by the death of an heir of
one of his princely correspondents ; now, an enterprising editor
gives his readers an unpublished poem ; recently, Mr. Gallatin
deposited in the library of the New York Historical Society
sixty-six pieces of paper and card containing words written or
dictated by him; and in September, 1880, came from Paris
/
/
11 PREFACE.
the announcement of " Le Sottisiev de Voltaire," from one of tlie
eighteen volumes of manuscript in his library at Petersburg.
No sooner is an edition of his works published than it is made
incomplete by a new discovery. Since the issue of the ninety-
seven-volume edition in 1834, enough matter has accumulated
to fill six or seven volumes more.
Still more strange, the mass of his writings, and, I may
even say, every page of them, has to this hour a certain vital-
ity and interest. If it has not intrinsic excellence, it possesses
the interest of an obsolete kind of agreeable folly ; if it is not
truth, it is a record of error that instructs or amuses. He was
mistaken in supposing that no man could go to posterity laden
with so much baggage. In some cases it is the baggage that
floats him, and many readers of to-day find his prefaces, notes,
and introductions more entertaining than the work hidden in
the midst of them. Nearly every page of this printed matter
contains at least an atom of biography, and I can fairly claim
to have had my eye upon it, indexed it, and given it considera-
tion.
At the elad of this volume will be found a list of the pub-
lications relating to Voltaire (Appendix I.), and this is fol-
lowed by the catalogue of his own works (Appendix II.) ;
both lists being arranged in the order of their publication,
and the titles translated into English.
The reader is probably aware that every circumstance in the
histoi'y of this man, from the date of his birth to the resting-
place of his bones, is matter of controversy. If I had paused
to state the various versions of each event and the interpreta-
tions put upon each action, this work would have been ten vol-
umes instead of two. It would have been, like many other
biographies, not a history of the man, but a history of the
struggles of the author in getting at the man. Generally,
therefore, I have given only the obvious or most probable
truth, and have often refrained from even mentioning anec-
dotes and statements that I knew to be groundless. Why pro-
long the life of a falsehood merely for the sake of refuting it ?
The Voltaire of these volumes is the nearest to the true one
that I have been able to gather and construct. I think the
I
PREFACE. iii
man is to be found in these pages delineated by himself. But
he was such an enormous personage that another writer,
equally intent upon truth, could find in the mass of his re-
mains quite another Voltaire. I received once from Paris, in
the same parcel, two books about him, both written, as it
seemed, by honest, able, and resolute men. One was the work
of the Abbe Maynard, a canon of Poictiers, who ended his two
thick volumes of laborious vituperation by saying that Voltaire
was a mere " monkey of genius, who amused and diverted by
his funny tricks." The other work, " Le Vrai Voltaire," by
Edouard de Pompery, spoke of him as the most virtuous man
of his age, because he did the most good to his kind, and be-
cause there was in his heart the most burning love of justice
and truth. " Voltaire," this author continued, " was the best
Christian of his time, the first and the most glorious disciple
of Jesus."
There was space in Voltaire to include these extremes. He
was faulty enough to gratify the prejudice of that honest priest ;
he was good enough to kindle, justify, and sustain the enthusi-
asm of that young philanthropist.
CONTENTS.
-»-
CHAPTER L
ANCE8TOE9 ^
CHAPTER 11.
Notaries in France 12
CHAPTER HI.
Birth and Home ..." 16
CHAPTER IV.
His Childhood 21
CHAPTER V.
At School 29
CHAPTER VI.
The School Poet 40
CHAPTER VII.
Wild Oats •"'0
CHAPTER VIII.
Head over Ears in Love 59
CHAPTER IX.
Solicitor'.s Clerk 69
CHAPTER X.
At the Chateau of Saint-Ange 75
CHAPTER XI.
Exiled for an Epigram 83
CHAPTER XII.
In the Bastille 95
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIIL
Eleven Months in Prison . 109
CHAPTER XIV.
" (Edipe " Pekeormed . 116
CHAPTER XV.
From Chateau to Chateau 127
CHAPTER XVI.
Beginnings op his Fortune 139
CHAPTER XVII.
Journey to Holland 145
CHAPTER XVin.
"La Henriade" Published 158
CHAPTER XIX.
Voltaire a Courtier 171
CHAPTER XX.
In the Bastille Again 184
CHAPTER XXL
,| First Impressions of England 195
CHAPTER XXII.
\ Residence in England 209
CHAPTER XXIII.
Return to France 237
CHAPTER XXIV.
Pursuit of Literature under Difficulties 247
CHAPTER XXV.
The Convulsionist Miracles 260
CHAPTER XXVL
The Tender "Zaire" 271
CHAPTER XXVIL
The English Letters Published 284
CONTENTS. vii
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Madame du Chatelet and hee Chateau 298
CHAPTER XXIX.
Man of Business 314
CHAPTER XXX.
Literary Work at Cirey 331
CHAPTER XXXI.
Frederic, Prince Royal of Prussia 343
CHAPTER XXXIL
Flight into Holland 353
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Voltaire and Science 363
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Visitors at Cirey .... 376
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Abbe Desfontaines 397
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Frederic becomes King of Prussia 414
CHAPTER XXXVII.
First Meeting of Voltaire and Frederic 429
CHAPTER XXXVIIL
Voltaire as Amateur Diplomatist 43.5
CHAPTER XXXIX.
" Mahomet " and " Merope " 449
CHAPTER XL.
Voltaire and Madame Study History together .... 464
CHAPTER XLI.
Amateur Diplomatist Again 475
CHAPTER XLIL
Voltaire at the Court of France 486
viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLIII.
Oct op Favor at Court 513
CHAPTER XLIV. ; '.
Precipitate Flight from Court 522
CHAPTER XLV.
Death of Madame du Chatelet 547
CHAPTER XLVI.
The Widower 570
CHAPTER XL VII.
Householder in Paris 577
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Settling in Prussia 597
APPENDIX I.
List of Publications relating to Voltaire and to his Works, ar-
ranged according to the Dates of Publication so far as known,
and with their Titles translated into English .... 615
APPENDIX II.
A List of the Works of Voltaire, in the Order, so far as known,
OF their Publication, with THE Titles translated INTO English . 632
LIFE OF VOLTAIPvE.
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTORS.
Francois-Marie Arouet, who at the age of twenty-four
assumed the name of Voltaire, was born at Paris on Sunday,
November 21, 1694.
At that time Louis XIV. liad been for fifty-one years styled
King of France, and had twenty-one years to live. William
and Mary reigned in England. Prussia was a dukedom.
Charles XII. of Sweden was a good and studious boy of twelve
under his father's tutelage, and Peter I. of Russia, twelve
years Czar, had not begun to build the present capital of tlie
Russian Empire. The great Newton, still in the prime of his
years, liad done the immortal part of his work, and was about
to become Master of the Mint. Racine lived, the first name
in the literature of the Continent, and Dryden, the head of
English literature, was translating Virgil. Pope was six years
of age.
Fran Qois- Marie was the first of the Arouets to acquire dis-
tinction, and he neither knew nor cared for his pedigree. In
one of the last weeks of his life, when a local genealogist
wrote to him to say that two cities of old Poitou were con-
tending for the honor of having nourished his ancestors, he
replied by a jocular allusion to the seven cities that claimed
to be the birthplace of Homer, and added, " I have no way of
reconciling this dispute." ^ In his vast correspondence, all
topics are more frequently touched upon than that of his own
family and origin. In old age he wrote once to a neighbor
who meditated buying a piece of land in which he held a life
interest, " Now, sir, I give you notice that I count upon living
to the age of eighty-two at least, since my grandfather, who
1 Voltaire to Du Moustier de La Fond, April 7, 1778
10 LIB^E OF VOLTAIRE.
was as dried up as I am, and wrote neither verse nor prose,
lived to eiglity-tliree." ^
This dried-up grandfather was Francois Arouet, of Paris, a
retired draper, living in 1666 in his own house, Rue St. Denis,
with his two children, Marie and Fran^-ois. Country born
and bred, he had come up to Paris in early Hfe, probably with
some capital, and, having establislied himself in business, had
thriven, married, and gained a competence. It was a time
when a Paris tradestnau could comfortably retire upon a capi-
tal of a hundred thousand francs.
The family was ancient and respectable. The earliest an-
cestor of whom anything is known was Heleuus Arouet, who
was living in 1525 at a village in the valley of the Tliouet, a
tributary of the Loire, not far froui Poitiers, and about two
hundred miles southwest of Paris. He was a tanner by trade,
married a tanner's daughter, and brought up one of his sons
a tanner. He possessed and transmitted two small estates.
Probably the family had been established in the region for
generations : an ancestor may have witnessed the battle of
Poitiers in 1356, whence the Black Prince bore away captive
to England John, King of France. There is no part of France
more purely and primitively French than that portion of the
old province of Poitou. A grandson of this Helenus Arouet,
who was also named Helenus, passed his days at the little
town of St. Loup, in the same neighborhood, where he became
the father of five cliildren, and inherited one of his grand-
father's small estates. Francois, the retired cloth merchant
of Paris, was one of his sons. After serving the usual long
apprenticeship to a weaver in a village of the same neighbor-
hood, Francois Arouet passed some years in business at his
native city of St. Loixp, and then made a bold stroke to im-
prove his circumstances in removing to Paris. This he did
about the year 1621, when the Pilgrim Fathers of New Eng-
land were starving through their first summer at Plymouth.
When he died, in 1667, a dried-up grandfather of eighty-three,
his son Fran9ois was eighteen years of age, and his daughter
Marie was twenty. She married Mathurin JNIarchand, a " pur-
veyor to Monsieur, the brother of the king."
Besides these lineal ancestors of Voltaire, we have slight
1 2 Lettres Inedites de Voltaire, 163. Paris, 1857.
ANCESTORS. 11
occasional notices of otlier connections and relations, all in-
dicating the respectable boui-geois rank of the family. He
speaks himself, in his '* Charles XII." (Book V.), of deriving
important information from " the letters of M. Bru, my re-
lation, first dragoman (^drogman, he spells it) at the Ottoman
Porte." Jean Arouet, a near relation of his father, was the
apothecary of St. Loup for many years, and Samuel Arouet, an-
other relation, was the notary of the same place. But there
is no trace of a literary man in any record of the family yet
discovered : for that Ren 6 Arouet, notary and poet of Poi-
tou, who died in 1499, and who has been reckoned among the
progenitors of Voltaire for a century past, proves to be Rend
Adouet.^
It was then not alone the extremely dry grandfather of Vol-
taire who wrote neither prose nor verse. No known Arouet
has ever written except Frangois-Marie Arouet, the subject
of this work. A thriving, painstaking race they seem to have
been, with some spirit of enterprise among them ; trustworthy,
vivacious, irascible, but not gifted, nor interested in the prod-
ucts of the gifted. The occupations often chosen by them —
tanner, weaver, draper, apothecary, purveyor, notary — are
such as required exactness, fidelity, patience, and contentment
with moderate gains.
St. Loup, in or near which for many generations the Arou-
ets exercised such useful and homely vocations, is an ancient
little city, the centre of the wine, leather, and wool trade of
the vicinity, containing at present seventeen hundred inhab-
itants. Sheep, cattle, asses, and the vine, then as now, made
the wealth of the region round about, and the trades of the
Arouets, particularly tanner, weaver, and draper, are still
among those that most flourish there. In portions of the de-
partment, now named Deux-Sevres, industry is almost confined,
says Reclus, to tanning and weaving, and to the breeding of
horses, asses, and mules. During the Revolution, St. Loup,
mindful of its Arouets and their famous descendant, changed
its ancient name to Voltaire. But the new appellation did not
adhere. At present they who would find the name upon the
map of the world must look for it among the possessions of
Great Britain. Cape Voltaire is a headland of Australia.
1 La Jeuncsse dc Voltiiiie, par Desuoiresterrea, page 6.
CHAPTER IL
NOTARIES IN FRANCE.
P Francois Aeouet, the father of Voltaire, was a Paris no-
tary in large practice. Left an orphan at the age of eighteen,
joint heir with his sister Marie of a considerable estate, he
:could choose an occupation deemed more eligible than that of
'draper, by which his father had thriven. He became, therefore,
by purchase, one of the hundred and thirteen notaries licensed
in Paris under Louis XIV.
In the Latin nations of Europe, as frequenter's of the Ital-
ian opera and all readers of French and Spanish literature
must have observed, notaries are more important functionaries
than they are now with us. Columbus and the other naviga-
tors of his age had notaries with them to witness and attest
their taking possession of discovered lands. A royal notary
witnessed the king's signature when he gave a coronet or re-
nounced a crown. Readers will readily recall the notary of
comed}^ and opera, who enters in the closing scene, — an odd
figure in a black robe, with long, curling wig, and a hat of any
preposterous and unauthorized shape which the resources of
the theatre can supply. He advances to a table provided for
him, and salutes the company with ofl&cial gayety or official
gloom, according to the nature of the service he is about to
render. He is the personage waited for, and his entrance
often crowns the occasion ; for in France, as in Italy and
Spain, no betrothal, marriage contract, will, agreement, or rec-
ord has legal validity unless it bears the attestation of a li-
censed notary. Hence his importance in life and his utility
in literature. The entrance of the notary, followed by his
clerk, both robed in black, deepens the gloom of a tragic
finale ; and the same personages are available for the farcical
element in a romantic drama, and add comic force to an act of
Moliere.
NOTARIES IN FRANCE. 13
In countries where few can write, but all are subject to the
same laws, some such practitioner as the Roman notarius^ the
French notaire, the English notary, is indispensable ; and we
should still find him so in the United States and Great Britain
if most of us had not learned to write our documents for our-
selves. The father of John Milton was a London notary in
the reign of James I., and the business was then so lucrative
in England that he earned by it the estate that enabled him to
give his son every educational advantage which the wealthiest
nobleman could have procured for an heir, including twenty
consecutive years of study and fifteen months of foreign travel.
All that a London notary was in 1620, when John Milton was
a boy, a Paris notary was when Voltaire was born, seventy-
four years after.
Under Louis XIV., there was required to be one notary in
every parish of the kingdom that contained sixty households ;
two in the smaller market towns, from four to ten in the
larger ; twenty in towns having a parliament, and one hundred
and thirteen in Paris : so many, but no more. The notaries
were commissioned by the king ; they were allowed to exhibit
over their door the royal arms as a sign ; they could stand in
the exercise of their vocation at the door of the king's cabinet.
As most charges in the time of Louis XIV. were purchasable,
a notary could buy, sell, give, and bequeath his business, pro-
vided the recipient was a Catholic Frenchman of twenty-five
years, had satisfied the conscription, had studied the profes-
sion of notary six years, and served one year as a notary's first
clerk.
Besides the more interesting duties mentioned above, nota-
ries drew, attested, and registered such documents as leases,
deeds, transfers, agreements of all kinds, papers relating to an-
nuities, bankruptcies, gifts, reversions, apprenticeships, and all
other services. Their legal fee was very small. The old nota-
rial manuals enumerate fifty-one acts for which a notary could
charge but one franc, and these comprised nearly all that
W'Ould commonly be required in the country or in country
towns. There were two fees allowed of two francs, seven of
three francs, three of five francs, one of ten francs, four of fif-
teen francs, one of twenty-five francs. Reading over the list
of these moderate fees, we wonder how a notary, even as busy
14 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
and thriving as the father of Voltaire, could have gained a
revenue of several thousand francs a year, until we come to the
transactions for which he was allowed to charge a percentage
of the sum involved. If a gentleman had money to lend, it
was to his notary that he applied to find a borrower, and the
notary received a percentage of the amount. The lending of
money and the purchase of annuities were important branches
of notarial business, the judicious cultivation of which ren-
dered the notary himself a capitalist, and enabled him to use
to his own signal advantage the knowledge of families and es-
tates which it belonged to his vocation to possess. A very
large proportion of the business done among us by solicitors,
attorneys, conveyancers, brokers, note discounters, life insur-
ers, and confidential family lawyers was and is performed in
France by notaries.
The profession bears an honorable name, which is justified
by the excellent character of its members. Their commission
being an estate, which can be sold, transferred, or bequeathed,
but which can also be lost by misconduct, notaries are subject
to that force and composition of motives to do right which ex-
perience shows to be generally necessary and generally suffi-
cient. From the earliest ages the profession has increased in
importance, even to the present time, when a notary, in such
practice as Voltaire's father had, gains a quarter of a million
francs a year, and when there is a stately edifice in Paris, called
The Chamber of Notaries, which is in fact the real-estate ex-
change of France, as well as the Paris notaries' rendezvous.
The profession boasts a literature. Even in a New York
library is a massive volume of 816 pages, " Nouveau Manuel
des Notaires," published in 1818, and " Le Parfait Notaire,"
in three larger volumes, published in 1821.
The rank of a French notary in the time of Louis XIV. is
difficult to fix, because, strictly speaking, he had no rank,
either in the legal profession or in the social scale. In Roman
times he was a slave, as most men were who performed useful
offices. A French author discovered, some years since, among
stray parchments, an ordinance of Philippe le Bel, dated 1304,
which forbade members of this profession to exercise tlie bar-
ber's trade, because, being the depositary of family secrets, a
notary ought not to be trusted with the use of a barber's im-
NOTARIES IN FRANCE. 15
plements, which then included the lancet and the knife, as well
as the razor and the shears. The ordinance added that, since
the business of a notary did not furnish the means of subsist-
ence, he could exercise any trade except that of barber.^ As
life grew more complicated in France, the business of notaries
increased, until their importance had far outgrown their tech-
nical rank, and given them a standing not unlike that of a so-
licitor in an English town, whose tin boxes are stuffed with
family papers, and who knows the secrets of half the county
families.
In a satirical romance, published in Paris when Voltaire was
a boy, there is a " tariff or valuation of matches," designed, as
the author says, to exhibit the "corruption of the age which
had introduced the custom of marrying one sack of money to
another sack of money." This table, burlesque though it be,
is the burlesque of a not unskillful hand, and it may help us to
understand the social importance of notaries in Paris then.
According to this authority, a girl who had a dowry of two
thousand to ten thousand francs was a match for a retail
trader, a lawyer's clerk, or a bailiff. A dowry of ten to twelve
thousand francs justified a maiden in aspiring to a dealer in
silk, a draper, an innkeeper, a secretary to a great lord. A
young lady of twelve to twenty thousand francs was a match
for a clerk of court, an attorney, a court registrar, A NOTARY.
She who possessed twenty to thirty thousand francs might
look as high as an advocate or a government officer of consid-
erable rank. Higher grades in the law and government serv-
ice could be matched by dowries rising from thirty thousand
francs to a hundred thousand crowns ; which last could be
fairly wedded to " a real marquis," a president of a parliament,
a peer of France, a duke.^
By courtesy a notary was called maitre, a word which has
as many shades of meaning as our word master, and, like
master, is not always a title of honor. Applied to a notary,
it was a flattering intimation that he, too, belonged to the
law, — la robe, — which had its noblesse, its retainers, and its
servants of many grades.
1 Histoire de la Detention des Philosoplies et Gens de Lettres b, la Bastille, etc.,
par J. Deloi-t. Paris, 1829. Vol. ii. p. 11.
2 Le Roman Bourgeois. Paris, 1712. Page 18.
CHAPTER III.
BIRTH AND HOME.
r Maitee Feancois Aeouet is known to have been a com-
petent notary ; but, in accordance with the system into which
I he was born, he obtained every step in his profession by pur-
i chase. In 1675, when he was twenty-six years of age, his
seven years' apprenticeship being accomplished, he bought for
ten thousand francs, duly paid to his predecessor, the place of
notary to the city court of Paris, called the Chatelet. The
sum was large for that primitive day, before John Law had
inflated the mind, as well as the money, of France. We can
get an idea of its value from one of Madame de Maintenon's
letters of 1680, in which she says that her brother and his
wife kept house handsomely in Paris, paying rent, having
a good dinner every day, keeping ten domestics, two coach-
men, and four horses, upon nine thousand francs a year, of
which they allowed three thousand for the theatre, cards,
fancies, and "magnificences." In other words, Maitre Arouet's
ten thousand francs was equivalent to at least sixty thousand
francs of the present time.
r^ A thriving young notary, with a good office, several im-
I portant clients, and some capital of his own to lend them,
could marry out of his sphere, even under Louis XIV. In
1683, when he had reached the prudent age of thirty-four,
Maitre Arouet married Mademoiselle Marguerite d'Aumard,
of a noble family of Poitou, the ancient province of the
Arouets. Nicholas d'Aumard, her father, had held a post of
dignity in the parliament of his province, and her brother
an office of some authority under the king. Their marriage
contract, which is still preserved and accessible, indicates
that her rank had its influence upon the terms of the union ;
she brinffing to him a smaller dowry than he might have
demanded from an equal, and he making for her, in case sh<^
BIRTH AND HOME. 17
survived him, a more liberal provision than was usual in his
rank. A French author, who has recently read the docu-
ment, reports that the marriage, on the part of the husband,
was far from being " a marriage of money." ^
Of this lady, the mother of Voltaire, we know too little.;
In all the multifarious writings of her son, I find but five
meagre lines about his mother, though she lived till he was;
seven years of age. Only twice in his works, I believe,
occur the words ma mere, when he means his own mother;
and he records of her three particulars, not unimportant,
but all needing explanation. One is that Ninon de Lenclos
had formerly known ma mere ; another is that ma mere had
been much the friend of the Abb<^ de Chateauneuf, Ninon's
last lover ; and the third that ma mere had once seen the
poet Boileau, and said of him that he was " a good book and
a silly man." ^
As Fran^'ois Arouet was notary both to Ninon and to
Boileau, his name still being legible upon the poet's will,
his wife's acquaintance with both may have been accidental
and momentary. The notarial office was, for some years,
only a room in the famil}'^ abode. But the gay, the witty,
the worldly Abbe de Chateauneuf, we know, was an intimate
friend of the mother and of the house, — a fact which goes far
to prove that the incongruous element now introduced into
the ancient line of the steady-going Arouets was brought
to it by Marguerite d'Aumard, of the old Poitou noblesse.
The marriage was too fruitful for the delicate mother's'
welfare. Within ten months, twin boys were born, one of^
whom soon died, and the other, Armand by name, lived to'
succeed his father. Less than thirteen months after was
born Marguerite-Catherine, the sister whom Voltaire loved,
mother of Madame Denis. In twenty months more, Robert
was born, who died in infancy. On Sunday, November 21,
1694, after an interval of five years, the child was born:
who named himself, twenty-four years after, Voltaire, but
who received, on Monday, November 22, 1694, at the
baptismal font of a church in Paris, the name of Fran^ois^
Marie.
1 Jeunesse de Voltaire, page 9.
2 63 CEuvres de Voltaire, page 168. 80 CEuvres de Voltaire, page 300.
VOT,. I. 2
18 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
He seems to have always supposed that lie was born
February 20, 1694 ; but the baptismal register, drawn under
the eye, and perhaps by the hand, of his own father, one of
the first notaries of Paris, bears date November 22d, and
adds, " Born the day previous." A letter has also been
recently discovered which removes the last doubt. A Poitou
cousin, who wrote home from Paris, November 24, 1694,
gives this item of family news : " Father, our cousins have
another son, born three days ago. Madame Arouet will give
me the christening cakes for you and the family. She has
I been very sick ; but it is hoped she will now mend. The
' child has but a weakly appearance, resulting from the mother's
low condition." ^
^ He was the last child of his parents, and when he was born
I his brother Armand was ten years old, and his sister Margue-
frite nine.
He was born into an affluent and, as it appears, a cheerful
and agreeable home. His father, in the prime of life, had ac-
' quired the title of counselor to the king, as well as the post of
notary to the Chatelet. This latter place, owing apparently to
the increase of his private practice, he sold in 1692. Among
his clients were the heads of several historic houses, ducal and
other. " Many a time," says the Duke de St. Simon, " I have
seen him [Maitre Arouet] bring papers for my father to
sign ; " and again, " He was my father's notary, and mine as
long as he lived." ^ The Duke de Sully, the Duke de Praslin,
the Duke de Richelieu, the Count de Morangi^s, are men-
tioned among his clients ; upon whom, we may infer, he waited
assiduously in their houses, but received ordinary clients at his
own abode in " the city," decorated and designated by the royal
arms. The Duchess de St. Simon held one of his children at
the font, with the Duke de Richelieu by her side, and there are
other indications that Maitre Arouet was the man of confi-
dence to his noble clients, and held in high esteem by them.
Always thriving, he bought in 1701 another office, — one more
lucrative than that of notary to the Chatelet, if not of more
importance.
There was then a certain ancient high court in Paris, called
1 Jeunesse de Voltaire, page 4.
2 13 M^moires de St. Simon, 55. 14 Memoires de St. Simon, 10, Paris. 187*.
BIRTH AND HOME. 19
the Chamber of Accounts, which stood above all the collectors
of the revenue, decided questions relating to the king's claims
and dues, and, in general, saw that the royal treasury received
no detriment. Duplicates of documents relating to titles, suc-
cessions, reversions, and estates were stored away in the pile
of ancient structures in which it had its seat. It performed,
or professed to perform, much that is done with us by auditors,
registrars, the court of claims, and investigating committees.
Being an ancient court of an ancient monarchy, and having in
charge the king's most vital interest, it had grown to prepos-
terous proportions, and gave pretext to such an extraordinary
number of snug offices, useful only to the incumbents of the
same, that the Chamhre des Comptes became a by-word in
France for hoary abuse and cumbrous inadequacy, like the
English Court of Chancery at a later day.
It was an office in this ancient court which Maitre Arouet
bought in 1701, and which, after holding for the rest of his
life, he resigned to his eldest son, Armand, who enjoyed it as
long as he lived. The office was that of " payer of fees to the
Chamber of Accounts." At that period, litigants in French
courts paid fees to the judges who tried their causes. It was
the duty of Maitre Arouet to collect such fees in the court to
which he was attached, and pay them to the judges, receiving
at the same time a fee for his own services. Either the causes
were numerous or the fees were large, for it is a matter of rec-
ord that the revenue of this office in the year 1700 was thir-
teen thousand francs.
As he retained always his private notarial practice, Maitre
Arouet could henceforth be reckoned among the opulent bour-
geois of Paris, his annual income being, as probable tradition
reports, twenty-four thousand francs. From an attested docu-
ment we learn that he possessed a country-house at Chatenay,
a beautiful village five miles from the city. That he kept
a gardener his undutiful son has told us. " I had a father
formerly," wrote Voltaire, in 1772, to La Harpe, " who was as
bad a scold as Grichard [in the comedy of the " Grondeur"].
One day, after he had horribly and without cause scolded his
gardener, and had almost beaten him, he said to him, 'Get
out, you rascal ! I wish you may find a master as patient as I
am.' I took my father to see the ' Grondeur,' having before-
20 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
hand asked the actor to add those identical words to his part ;
and my good father corrected himself a little." ^
This anecdote of the prosperous, irascible bourgeois is nearly
all the light which the writings of the son cast upon the fa-
ther. He mentions more than once tbat on a certain occasion
his father saw the aged poet. Corneille, and even took wine
with him. The young notary was no more pleased with the
old dramatist than his wife with Boileau. " My father told
me," wrote Voltaire in 1772, " that that great man was the
most wearisome mortal he had ever seen, and the man of the
lowest conversation." 2
\ 191 CEuvres de Voltaire, 246.
2 80 CEuvres de Voltaire, 433.
CHAPTER IV.
HIS CHILDHOOD.
-"1
Feancois-Mame, the last born of a weakly and declining
mother, was abandoned to the care of a nurse, who had
charge of him in an upper room of the paternal abode. He
had at first but the feeblest breath of life, and the family
did not expect to rear him. Every morning, for several
months, the nurse came down-stairs to tell his mother that the
child was dying, and every day the Abbe de Chateauneuf,
godfather of the infant and familiar friend of its parents,
went up-stairs to discuss with the nurse some new expedient
for saving its life. So reports the Abbe Duvernet, who
heard from an old friend of Voltaire all that he usually
told of his earliest days. It was not till the child had lan-
guished the greater part of a year that he began to mend
sufficiently to give his parents hopes of saving him. Grad-
ually from that time he gained strength, and became at
length a healthy and active child, though never robust.
It fared otherwise with the mother, who, so far as we
know, contributed nothing to the formation of this boy ex-
cept the friends whom she attracted to her home and who
continued to frequent it when she was no more. She lingered
seven years after his birth, dying July 13, 1701, aged forty.
His father, a busy, thriving man, occupied with his office,
his clients, and his growing capital, appears to have con-
cerned himself no more about the boy than busy fathers
usually did about their young children. He must have been
a liberal and agreeable man, if only to keep about him the
learned and gifted persons whom his wife may have originally
drawn. But, so far as we know, he taught his son nothing
but the art of thriving, and this he did without intending
it. Such knowledge pervaded the air of the notary's home,
22 LIFE OF ^
and the boy inhaled it unconsc luities, reversions,
estates, revenues, interest, sh mortgages, all of
which the son came to unders mdle better than
any other literary man of an the stuff out of
which his father's business ai vere made. The
old man little thought what an accomj^lished notary his
younger son was learning to be, when he disturbed the
clerks assiduously copying in the notarial office, and played
with the rolls of parchment. He caught the secret of all
,^hat exact and patient industry, though it disgusted him.
-^~~ Of his sister we know little more than that she was his
favorite in the small household, as far as a sister of six-
teen might be to a boy of seven. She was married young to
one of the numerous officers of the Chamber of Accounts,
and became the mother of four children, descendants of whom
are still living in France, and have even figured in French
politics within living memory. One of her grandsons, M.
d'Hornoi, was a member of the House of Deputies in 1827.
Her children and grandchildren supplied the sole legitimate
domestic element in Voltaire's life, and connected him with
his country's social system. To this boy of seven, left mother-
less, she could be only the good elder sister ; not always
patient with his whims, not capable of directing his mind,
and much absorbed, doubtless, as girls naturally are, with
the opening romance of her own life.
Her brother Armand, who w-as seventeen years of age at
> the death of their mother, had already imbibed at the semi-
nary of St. Magloire, in Paris, extreme and gloomy views of
religion, which he held through life. He touched Voltaire
only to repel him. " My Jansenist of a brother," he fre-
quently calls Armand, — a term equivalent to Roman Catholic
Calvinist. Credulous, superstitious, austere, devout, Armand
passed his days, as many Avorth}^ people did in that age, and do
in this age, in making virtue odious and repulsive. The con-
trast which he presents to his brother is not unusual in re-
ligious communities, but is seldom so complete and striking
as in this instance. It recalls to mind that inconofruous
brother of John Milton, the long-forgotten Christopher Mil-
ton ; extreme tory and High Churchman, partisan most zeal-
ous of the three Stuarts, knighted and raised to the bench
HIS CHILDHOOD. 23
by James 11. Armand Arouet carried his credulity to the /
point of writing a work defending the Convulsionist miracles, >
which is said to exist among the Voltaire manuscripts at
Petersburgh ; and Duvernet assures us that in 1786 there
could still be seen, above the pulpit of the church in which
Voltaire was baptized, a votive offering, placed there by Ar-
mand Arouet in expiation of his brother's unbelief.
This elder brother, then, had little to do with forming the,
motherless child, except to make him recoil with loathing;
and contempt from whatever savored of the serious and the'
elevated.
Among the frequenters of the Arouet home were three
persons who enjoyed the ecclesiastical title of abbe without
possessing other ecclesiastical quality. In old Paris there
were many such, most of them younger sons of noble fami-
lies, who had taken nominally a course of theology, in case
anything good should fall in their way which a secular abbe
could enjoy, — a canonicate, or a portion of the revenues of
a veritable abbey. In the olden time, it seems, the monks
were accustomed to place their convent under the protection
of a powerful lord, by electing him their abbd and assigning
him a part of their income. From the chief of a great house
to a younger son of the same was a natural transition ; and
hence the swarm of abb^s, in semi-clerical garb, more or
less endowed with clerical revenue, who figured in French
society of that century, — gentlemen of leisure, scholars by
profession, and much given as a class to the more decorous
audacities of unbelief. The French are not particular in
the matter of titles. In the course of time any man in
France who had a tincture of the ecclesiastic in him might
style himself abb^, — a word that, after all, only means
father.
The Abb^ Rochebrune was one of these, described by
Voltaire himself, in after years, as an agreeable poet, and still
known to collectors as the author of a cantata upon the story
of Orpheus, which was set to music by Cldrambault, a noted
composer and organist of Paris. This cantata was performed
at court before Louis XIV., with great applause, at a time
when such compositions were in the highest vogue.
Nicholas G^doyn, another of the abbds, was a more ini-
24 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
portant and more interesting person. Like Rocliebrune, lie
was the scion of an ancient race, a circumstance that gave him
a canonicate and a revenue from two abbeys while he was still
in the prime of manhood. He had a passion for the classic
authors of antiquity, and published free translations of Quin-
tilian and Pausanias, which remained for two generations
popular works in France, and are still read. He was one of
that antique race of scholars who could not go anywhere with-
out their pocket Horace. He loved his Horace, and wrote
a "Conversation" upon him. The titles of his works show
the bent of his mind : " Life of Epaminondas," " Roman
Urbanity," " The Pleasures of the Table among the Greeks,"
" Apology for Translations," " The Ancients and the Mod-
erns," " The Judgments of Photius upon the Greek Ora-
tors." He also wrote a treatise upon the " Education of Chil-
dren," that explains in part the warm interest which we know
he took in the education of the little Francois Arouet, whom
pointed an ambassador to reside at the capital of the Nether-
lands, and the person chosen was the Marquis de Chateauneuf,
brother to the late abb^, the boy poet's guide, philosopher, and
fiiend. The old diplomatist was good enough to appoint the
youth one of his pages, or, as we should term it, attaches un-
paid ; and so, amid the general joy of that summer, our stu-
dent of law had the additional pleasure of a journey to the
Hague in the train of an ambassador. Virtue itself is not al-
ways so agreeably rewarded.
The marquis and his retinue reached the Hague September
28, 1718, though his formal reception occurred later. " It is
a pleasant jest," wrote the page, " to make a solemn entry
into a city where you have been living for several weeks."
This appointment in the diplomatic line was not, perhaps,
the mere expedient of an exasperated father to get a trouble-
some son out of Paris. Voltaire all his life had a certain
hankering to be employed in diplomacy. Pierre de Ronsard,
French poet of the sixteenth century, had begun his truly fine
career as page to an ambassador, a post from which he ad-
vanced to the most confidential trusts a subject could fulfill.
Maitre Arouet might well have accepted this proceeding as
a happy compromise with his unmanageable son, and might
have indulged a rational expectation of his advancement.
60 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
With a quarter of his talents and ten times his prudence, he
might have come to be ambassador to a small kingdom at
sixty-five.
His diplomatic career was short, and very much in the style
of an ambassador's page in an Italian comedy. Among the
great number of French people then living in Holland, as in
all Protestant countries and colonies, refugees from the sav-
age intolerance of Louis XIV. 's priests, there was a Madame
Dunoyer, Protestant by birth, the wife of a French Catholic
gentleman of repute, from whom she was separated. Exiled
by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, she had lived in
Switzerland, in London, in Holland, the precarious, demoraliz-
ing life of a woman without any of the usual means of sup-
port. She had written various kinds of trash, and in 1704
published at Cologne a work in seven volumes', entitled " Let-
ters Historical and Gallant," full of the scandal and gossip by
which the dullest and meanest of our kind can make a certain
sensation in the world. The letters were fictitious, supposed
to be the correspondence between a woman of fashion in Paris
and a lady living in the country. These volumes had made
Madame Dunoyer an object of interest to a portion of the
public, and an object of dread to another portion. She was
feared, courted, and despised, as the editor of a scurrilous
journal is sometimes feared, courted, and despised ; for what
she had done once she could do again.
A moth does not fly to a candle by a more inevitable im-
pulse than such a page as Arouet at nineteen gets within
range of such a woman, living in such a place. She had two
daughters : the elder married and living in Paris ; the younger,
Olirape, not pretty, as he used to say sixty years after, but
extremely amiable and winning. He fell in love with her,
— he nineteen and without a profession, she twenty-one and
^^' without a sou. It was an honest and virtUjQUS love on his
part, creditable to him as a human being, nor quite as rash
and reckless as it seemed. It was the best love he ever ex-
perienced, and, in other circumstances, might have had its
natural issue, to the lasting good of both. His scheme was to
get her to return to France, where her father still lived, where
she had influential connections, and where no one was more
sure of a welcome than a stray lamb returning to the fold of
HEAD OVER EARS IN LOVE. 61
Louis XIV.'s church. " The king wishes every one in France
to be of his religion," truly said a blunt soldier to the Protest-
ants whom he was sent to convert, at the head of a body of
cavalry. The mother, according to this sage lover, was a .
dragon, who treated her daughter harshly, and did not deserve
to possess such an adorable creature. In other words, Madame
Dunoyer, who had made a promising match for one daughter,
was intent on getting for " Pimpette " a husband w^ho would
be both able and willing to establish comfortably a mother-in-
law. A page of nineteen, a notary's son, without fortune,
bore no resemblance whatever to that son-in-law of her dreams
who was to end her long and bitter struggle with adverse fort-
une.
All went prosperously with his love for a few weeks, the
young lady returning his affection, and the mother not remark-
hig it. October and November passed, and still they were
happy. But one dreadful evening, about the first of Decem-
ber, when the lover returned late to the embassy, the ambas-
sador confi-onted him, told him all was discovered, and he
must start for home the next day. The Marquis de Chateau-
neuf, with the timidity natural to a public man at the critical
hour of a ticklish mission, dared not make an enemy of this
woman of the audacious pen, and feared she might affront his
page in some way which he could not avoid officially noticing.
The lover begged for mercy, but all he could get was a single
day's grace, with the condition annexed of not leaving the ^
embassy until the moment of his final departure. He must
go in forty-eight hours, and not see his Pimpette again.
His valet was a cunning Norman named Lef(5vre, a true
valet of comedy, whom he could implicitly trust, and by him
he sent a long letter to Pimpette, relating the disaster, and
unfolding his plans for their speedy reunion. Already she had
/ agreed to rejoin her father, and this explosion, as he urged,
should only hasten her flight from a mother unworthy of her.
" Send me three letters," he wrote, " one for your father, one
for your uncle, and one for your sister ; that is absolutely neces-
sary ; but I shall only deliver them when circumstances favor, es-
pecially the one for your sister. Let the shoemaker be the bearer
of those letters ; promise him a reward ; and let him come with a "
last in his hand, as if to mend my shoes. Add to those letters a
62 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
note for me ; let me have that comfort on setting out ; and, ahove
all, in the name of the love I bear you, my dear, send me your
portrait; use all your efforts to get it from your mother; it had
better be in my hands than in hers, for it is already in my heart.
The servant I send you is wholly devoted to me, and if you wish
to pass him off to your mother as a snuff-box maker, he is a Nor-
man and will play the part well. ... I shall do all that is possi-
ble to see you to-morrow before leaving Holland ; but, as I cannot
assure you of it, I bid you good-by, my dear heart, for the last
time, and I do it swearing to you all the tender love which you
merit. Yes, my dear Pimpette, I shall love you always. Lovers
the least faithful say the same ; but their love is not founded, as
mine is, upon perfect esteem. [I love your goodness as much as I
love your person, and I only ask of Heaven the privilege of im-
bibing from you the noble sentiments you possess^ . . . Adieu, once
more, my dear mistress ; think a little of your unhappy lover, but
not so as to dash your spirits. Keep your health if you wish to
preserve mine. Above all, have a great deal of discretion ; burn
my letter and all that you get from me ; it were better to be less
generous to me, and take better care of yourself. Let us take
comfort from the hope of seeing one another very soon, and let us
love one another as long as we live. Perhaps I shall even come
back here in quest of you, and, if so, I shall be the happiest of
men. But, after all, provided you get to Paris, I shall be only
too well satisfied ; for, wishing only your welfare, I would willingly
secure it at the expense of my own, and should feel myself richly
recompensed in cherishing the sweet assurance that I had contrib-
uted to restore you to happiness."
So far, so well. Tliis was tlie letter of an honest lover, and
the scheme seemed feasible. But when he summoned Le-
fdvre to convey the epistle to the young lady, the valet told
him he had received orders to deliver to the ambassador any
letters his master might charge him with. Away with pru-
dence ! He would see his mistress, despite the vigilance of
his chief, one of the most experienced diplomatists in Eu-
rope. Favored by an unavoidable delay in setting out, he
engaged in a series of manoeuvres, precisely such as we laugh
at at the theatre, when an imaginary Figaro exerts his tal-
ents to help or baffle a fictitious Count. He wrote a letter
• to Pimpette, which he meant the marquis to read, and told
his valet to deliver it to him, as ordered. He corresponded
HEAD OVER EARS IN LOVE. 63
with her continually, and had several interviews with her.
One night, at the rising of the moon, he left the embassy
in disguise, placed a carriage near the adored one's abode,
made the usual comedy signal under her window, received
her to his arms, and away they rode, five miles into the
country to the sea-side village of Scheveningen ; and there,
with the ink and paper which he had provided, she wrote
the three letters that he desired for use in Paris. This cer-
tainly'- was the entertainment to which he invited her, and which
appears to have been carried out.
She was as mad as he ; or at least she fooled him to the
top of his bent. The shoemaker's family, who lived near her
abode, were in their interests ; the lovers sometimes met at
their house, and when he visited Pimpette in the evening, it
it was the wife of the shoemaker who mounted guard and
signalized the approach of an enemy. One evening, it ap-
pears, the woman was mistaken, and gave a false alarm, which
caused the page to take flight with needless precipitation. The
woman thought she saw approaching the secretary of legation,
but it was no such matter. The only letter of the young
lady which has been preserved is one which explains this error
of judgment on the part of the sentinel, and urges him to come
again. This eager and ill-spelt letter he appears to have car-
ried about his person for years after, and it bears a formal
attestation, still legible, that it was found upon him when he
arrived at the Bastille, in 1717.
*' Do all you can," she concluded, " that I may see you this even-
ing. You will only have to go down into the shoemaker's kitchen,
and I answer for it that you have nothing to fear, for my mother
believes you half-way to Paris. So, if you please, I shall have the
pleasure of seeing you this evening. And if that cannot be, let me
attend the mass at the embassy ; I will ask M. de la Bruyere [secre-
tary of legation] to show me the chapel. To women curiosity is
permitted. And then, without any disguise, I shall ask him if they
have received any news from you yet, and when you started. Do
not refuse me this favor, my dear Arouet ; I ask it of you in the
name of the tenderest of all things, — the love I bear you. Adieu,
my amiable child. I adore you, and I swear that my love will last as
long as my life." ^
1 Jeunesse de Voltaire, page 67.
64 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
This note was signed " Dunoyer," and had a postscript,
begging him, if they failed to meet that evening, to send her
some dear news of himself.
An experienced ambassador had an eye upon this uncon-
trollable page of his, and was not long ignorant of any of
his escapades. He gave the young man formal orders, in the
king's name, not to leave the embassy ; which only caused
tlie love-stricken youth to declare to Pimpette that he would
visit her, though it should bring his head to the block.
And he did see her again and again. Closely watched by
day, he would drop from a window at midnight, and go to
her house, near which she would join him, if she could man-
age to steal unperceived from her mother's bed. The ambas-
sador came to the point with him at last, and gave him his
choice, — either to leave Holland instantly, or wait a week for
the next official opportunity, and, in the mean time, engage
not to go out of the hotel.
The distracted lover chose to remain a prisoner. Then he
dispatched Lef^vre with his maddest note to Pimpette, ex-
plaining the new situation, and begging her to come to him,
since he could not go to her. " Send Lisbette about three,"
he wrote ; " I will give her a parcel for you containing a suit
of man's clothes. You can put them on in her room ; and if
you have regard enough for a poor prisoner who adores you,
you will take the trouble to come to the embassy about dusk.
To what a cruel extremity are we reduced, my dear ! Is it
your part to come to -me? But it is our only way of seeing
one another. You love me, and so I hope to see you this day
in my rooms."
It was his own clothes that he sent ; but, fearing they might
be recognized, he hired a cloak and doublet, with which she was
to conceal them. Pimpette actually assumed the disguise and
visited him, to his great content, but not without being sus-
pected. The ambassador summoned Lefdvre to his presence,
and questioned him closely; but the cunning Norman con-
trived, as he thought, to throw dust in the eyes of the chief,
and even found out that a trap was to be set to catch Pim-
pette if she should repeat the visit. The page at once sent his
valet to bring back his clothes, and that night he got out of
his window once more, and met her at their usual rendezvous.
HEAD OVEK EARS IN LOVE. 65
The old diplomatist discovered this also, and wrote in a rage
to Maitre Arouet, giving him such an account of his son's
conduct as an angry ambassador might, who saw the success
of his mission hazarded by a comedy of love between a rash
boy of nineteen and an experienced virgin of twenty-one.
December 18th, the lover left the Hague, and began his
journey to Paris, sending her long letters to the last day of his
stay, and continuing to write from the cabin of the yacht that
bore him away from the enchanted shore. A very long and
tumultuous epistle, indeed, was the one which he sent back to
her from the frontier, swearing eternal constancy and unfolding
his plan for her deliverance. Her mother, as it appears, had
assailed the incomparable Pimpette with something more ter-
rible than words, and he entreats her to burn his letters, lest
her mother should find them and again " maltreat " her. " Do
not expose yourself to the fury of your mother : you know
what she is capable of — alas ! you have experienced it but too
well. Dissemble with her ; it is your only chance. Tell her
(which I hope you never will do) that you have foi'gotten me ;
tell her that you hate me ; and then love me all the more for
it."
He told her what he meant to do as soon as he should reach
Paris. Already he had taken measures ; he had written a
letter to the friend and patron of his college days. Father
Tournemine, Jesuit, and asked his aid in bringing back a
stray lamb to the fold. " The first thing I shall do, on my
arrival at Paris, will be to enlist Father Tournemine on your
behalf. Next, I shall deliver your letters. I shall be obliged
to explain to my father the cause of my return, and I flatter
myself that he will not be entirely displeased with me, pro-
vided they have not prejudiced him against us beforehand.
But even if I should have to face his anger, I shall always
consider myself too happy, when I think that you are the
most lovely being in the world, and that you love me. In my
short life I have passed no moments so sweet as those in
which you have sworn to me that you returned my tender
love."
He was a week in performing the journey from the Hague
to Paris, — from eight A. M. on Monday, December 18th, to
the evening of Sunday, the 24th ; the distance being about
VOL. I. 5 .
66 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
three hundred miles. Only couriers, diplomatists, and lovers
averaged forty miles a day in 1713. It was Christmas Eve
when he arrived, and he went promply to Father Tournemine
at his old quarters in the College Louis-le-Grand. Joyful
tidings greeted him. Tournemine had received, approved,
and answered his letter; he had communicated with the
Bishop of Evreux, cousin of Pimpette ; he was zealous in the
cause of the stray lamb. The lover, finding the priest so apt,
intrusted him with the three letters that Pimpette had written
to her relations in Paris ; and he agreed to use all his influ-
ence to induce her father to receive her. This was, indeed, a
most hopeful beginning.
f But he had a father according to the flesh, who might not
find the return of stray lambs of twenty-one so interesting.
The young diplomatist deemed it best to reconnoitre the
ground a little before coming within range of an irascible
parent ; and he soon discovered that he had better not think
of joining the family at their Christmas dinner that year.
The ambassador had not only written to his father a " bloody
letter," giving a full account of his proceedings in Holland,
but had sent also the infuriate letters of Madame Dunoyer to
himself, in which those proceedings were related with an en-
raged mother's emphasis and fluency.
:-i>The notary's patience gave way ; he had borne from this
young man all that he could. He formally disinherited him.
He went to the minister and procured a lettre de cachet, with
which to get him arrested and confined ; and when the friends
of the family, at the young man's request, remonstrated with
him, all that they could obtain was a change of sentence from
imprisonment to exile beyond the seas, in the French West
Indies. Fran9ois might well write to his adored one, "I dare
not show myself."
His consolation was to write long letters, telling her, over
and over again, that his heart was wholly and unalterably hers,
and that nothing was of any consequence to him so long as
she loved him. Fathers might do their worst; he was un
shaken ; but if she held back, if she determined to remain in
Holland, if she abandoned him, he assured her that the mo-
ment he heard the news he would kill himself. "Never love
equaled mine," he wrote ; "for never was there a person bet-
HEAD OVER EARS IN LOVE. 67
ter worthy of love than you. . . . Sorrow, fear, love, agitate
me violently; but I always return to bear myself the secret
testimony that I have done nothing unbecoming an honest
man ; and that enables me to support my miseries. . . .
My dear Pimpette, my lovely mistress, my dear heart, write
to me very soon ; nay, at once. As soon as I receive your let-
ter I shall know my fate. What will become of me I know
not. I am in frightful uncertainty about everything; I only
know that I love you. Ah, when shall I embrace you, my
dear heart ? "
The sage maiden, versed in love, who had drawn on this
susceptible page to such a point, was naturally the first to re-
cover her self-possession. She still wrote kindly to him, but,
gave him good advice, telling him he must make it up wi_th ,
h is fath er at any sacrifice, even if he had to take seriously to
the study of the law. The young man obeyed her, and wrote
to his father from his hiding-place the most submissive letters
every day, in one of which he said, " I consent, O father, to go
to America, and even to live there on bread and water, if only,
before I go, you will let me embrace your knees." Fathers
generally relent in such cases ; but Maitre Arouet exacted a
hard condition, that must have seemed most reasonable and
generous to all except this unfledged Voltaire : he must set-
tle to his work of preparing to practice law, and, to that end,
reside with a solicitor, attend his office regularly, and apply
himself to the business of drawing and copying documents.
He did not shrink from giving his Pimpette even this proof of
his affection. January 20, 1714, he had the melanclioly pleas-
ure of informing her that he had obeyed her command, and
had already been a week at work in the oflice of a solicitor,
" learning the trade of pettifogger, to which my father des-
tines me, and hoping in that way to regain his good-will."
Meanwhile, he pushed on his scheme for the recovery of the
stray lamb, and with such effect that Father Tellier, the
king'^ confessor, was interested in it, and urged the Marquis
de Chateauneuf to lend his aid. But that accomplished di-
plomatist knew why and for whom the lamb was wanted in
France. The lover had forborne to mention to Father Tour-
nemine that he had ever so much as seen Mademoiselle Olimpe
Dunoyer, and probably the ambassador supplied this omission.
68 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
, The young lady wrote with less frequency, said less and less
about love, and lent a willing ear to the addresses of others.
L T A year or two later her mother, after desperate exertions, saw
^^ the fascinating Olimpe a countess, — Madame la Comtesse de
^ Winterfield. The young lover consoled himself as best he
could, and, years after, when he had become a celebrated per-
son, he had the pleasure of seeing fourteen of his letters to
Pimpette printed as an appendix to a new edition of her moth-
er's " Lettres Historiques et Gallantes." But to the end of
his life he preserved a tender recollection of the woman he
had passionately loved at this spring-time of his life, and found
i opportunities of testifying his good- will toward her.
CHAPTER IX.
SOLICITOR'S CLERK.
At present, then, the bird is caged. Love has done for
him what authority had failed to do, and we see him, in Jan-
uary, 1714, junior clerk in the office of Maitre Alain, a Paris
solicitor in extensive practice, who had at least two clerks be-
sides this new acquisitionjl He had to board in the house of
the solicitor, over which Madame Alain presided, a lady who
scarcely knew there was such a thing in the world as poetiy.
One of his fellow-clerks was Thieriot, a gay lad like himself,
fond of verses, of the drama, of pleasure generally, learned
in actors and actresses. These two young men were illustra-
tions of the Goethean maxim, not then promulgated : In faults
men are much alike ; in good qualities they differ. This Thi-
eriot, his intimate friend for sixty years, was an Arouet in
everything but genius and constancy ; an Arouet in everything
except that energy of soul which enables some men to rise su-
perior to an imperfect education and misleading companions,
and rescue a portion of themselves and a part of their lives
for something nobler than pleasure. Thieriot became exces-
sively fond of his new comrade, and trumpeted him with such
ardor and frequency that he was long known in Paris, King
Frederic tells us,^ as Voltaire's hawker. Another clerk of
Maitre Alain was one Bainast, who seems also to have been a
companionable person, with a taste for literature.
It needs but a slight acquaintance with the manners of the
time to know that our young poet's life with the solicitor was
a form of penal servitude, including hard work, unsavory fare,
homely lodgings, assiduous deference to Maitre and Madame
Alain, with but occasional surreptitious glimpses of that brill-
iant world of which, till lately, he had been a shining atom.
1 Correspondence of Frederic II., of Prussia, Letter to D'Alenibert, October
27, 1772.
"^
70 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
He could have borne it all, if Olimpe had been h
him, for he was constancy's own self ; he could nt
constant. He was not long in discovering that his
Pimpette was bestowing suiiles upon another, and
his situation in the solicitor's office intolerable. E
had cut down his allowance of money, and he beca
quent borrower, putting his name to bills which he fo
cult to meet. For some years of this part of his liie ne was
in straits for money, and thus acquired a sense of its value
which poets do not always possess. A note promising to pay
live hundred francs upon his coming of age was given by
him soon after he heard of the Ninon legacy, and the doc-
ument graces at the present moment a collection of autographs
in Orleans. Traces of similar transactions of his have been
discovered in old court records, and some of them appear to
have given him trouble many years after their date.^ It is
probable that the chief advantage which he derived from the
Ninon legacy was its providing a basis, small but solid, for his
credit with money lenders.
To complete his discontent, he suffered humiliation this
year even in his character of poet. The Academy had offered,
a year or two before, a prize of a group in bronze for the best
poem upon the king's magnificent generosity in fulfilling a
vow of his father, Louis XHL, by completing a new choir in
the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Arouet had not only sent in
a poem to compete, but had read it to friends, and forwarded
a copy to the exiled Rousseau, who returned generous praise
to the young poet. August 25, 1714, the award of the Acad-
emy was published, and it was not Frangois-Marie Arouet who
received the bronze. By a favoritism so obvious that every
person of taste in Paris remarked it, the prize was given to a
garrulous old Abbe du Jarri, author of two volumes of " Pane-
gyrics of the Saints," and another upon the " Eloquence of the
Pulpit, or the Best Way of preaching the Word of God," —
works which I find advertised in booksellers' catalogues of that
period. Du Jarri was so unlucky as to declare in his poem
that the glory of the king was known throughout the whole
earth, at the burning poles as well as at the frozen, which
gave the wits of the Temple a fair opportunity of jesting at
1 Voltaire, Sa Vie et ses (Euvres, par Abbe' Maynard, vol. i. p. 103.
SOLICITOR'S CLERK. 71
his expense. It was the poet La Motte who had decided the
award, — the La Motte who had taken the lead of the liter-
ary faction that objected to the ascendency of the ancients
over the moderns, and were disposed to underrate Homer, Vir-
gil, and Horace. Du Jarri, it appears, belonged to this fac-
tion, a circumstance which was supposed to have influenced the
decision. When the unfortunate allusion to the burning poles
was pointed out to La Motte, he said that no one knew for
certain whether there was or was not a burning pole, and the
question was, in any case, an affair of the Academy of Sci-
ences, not of the French Academy. The wits of the city
laughed at the successful poet, and the disappointed compet-
itor relieved his mind by epigrams and satirical verses, in
which the aged abb^, his poem, the bronze group, the Acad-
emy, and La Motte were all ridiculed. But he could not rail
the seal of the Academy off the award. He remained un-
known to the great public, while Du Jarri, elated and ridicu-
lous, hastened to press with a volume of " Poems, Christian,
Heroic, and Moral."
Arouet and some of his roystering friends had a ludicrous
interview with the abb^, perhaps in one of the booksellers'
shops of Paris, which were numerous and important even then.^
Du Jarri, not aware that one of the young men was his com-
petitor, showed them some of the proofs of his new volume, the
first page of which bore the device, " To Immortality." Not
supposing that they recognized him as the author, he proceeded
to explain these words in a style that seemed highly absurd to
the young men : —
Du Jauri. — " This is the device of the French Academy. The
piece, however, is not of the Academy, though the Academy has adopted
it ; and if those gentlemen had actually composed the poem they would
not have treated the subject otherwise. You must know that every
other year the Academy offers a prize for poetry, and in that way
every other year immortalizes somebody. You see in my hands the
work which has won the prize this year. Oh, how fortunate is the
author of this poem ! For forty years he has been composing without
1 In the eighteenth century, publishing and printing formed one of the most im-
portant industries of Paris. A list published in 1701 gives the names of one hun-
dred and seventy-eight master booksellers iu business, thirty-five out of business,
twenty-seven widows still keeping shop, thirty-six master printers, and nineteen
widows carrying on printing-offices." (5 Journal De Barbier, 4.)
72 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
becoming known to the public ; and now, for a little poem, we see
him a sharer in all the reputation of the Academy."
Arouet. — " But does it never happen that an author who is de-
clared immortal by the Forty is consigned to the rank of the Cotins
by the public, the judge in the last resort ? "
Du Jarri. — " That cannot be ; for the Academy was instituted
for the purpose of fixing the taste of France, and there is no appeal
from its decisions."
A Comrade of Arouet. — "I have some good proofs that an
assembly of forty persons is not infallible. Among others, there is
the Cid and Furetiere's Dictionary, which sustained themselves against
the Academy ; and, since it has censured good books, it might happen
to approve some very bad ones."
Du Jarri (reading in a loud voice by way of triumphant answer to
this remark). — " Christian prize poem, by Monsieur the Abbe du
Jarri."
Arouet. — " Before you begin we ought to know who Monsieur
the Abbe du Jarri is ; also the subject of his poem and the nature of
the prize."
Du Jarri. — " Formerly, Monsieur the Abbe Jarri published sev- -
eral funeral orations and some sermons. At present he is getting
through the press a volume of his poems, and there is reason to be-
lieve he is as good a poet as great orator. The subject of his poem
is the praise of the king upon the occasion of the new choir of Notre
Dame, erected by Louis XIV., and promised by Louis XIII. The
prize is a beautiful group in bronze, in which there is a wonderful
blending of the fabulous and the sacred ; Renown appearing in it near
Religion, and Piety supported by a Genius. For the rest, the rivals
of Monsieur the Abbe du Jarri were young people, nineteen or twenty
years old, while Monsieur the Abbe is sixty-five, and it is very just
that honor should be paid to his age."
Having delivered this modest explanation to the mischiev-
ous youngsters before him, the abbe coughed, and read with
all an author's fond, discriminating emphasis his Christian
poem in honor of the king. Such, at least, is the report of the
scene given by the young rival of nineteen or twenty, in a let-
ter to a friend.^
This was harmless fun ; but among the verses which the so-
licitor's clerk wrote on this occasion was a short and extremely
disagreeable satire called "Mud" (^Le Boiirhier'), — a word
which describes as well as names the piece. It was aimed at
1 67 OEuvres de Voltaire, 39.
SOLICITOR'S CLERK. 73
La Motte, whose fables are still reckoned among the excellent
things produced in that age, and it was in every sense and to
the uttermost degree unbecoming and improper, as the author
of it afterwards admitted. But the writing of this piece led to
his deliverance from the thraldom of the solicitor's office, and
from the meagre housekeeping of Madame Alain. His father,
who had seen Rousseau ruined and banished for couplets not
worse than the " Mud " hurled by his son at La Motte, was
alarmed anew on his account, berated him soundly, and threat-
ened to exclude him from his house unless he changed his way of
life and attended more punctually to the business of the office.
No doubt he gave his father abundant cause of uneasiness.
Forty years after, in writing to a man of science, he had occa-
sion to discuss the prevalent opinion of the poisonous nature of
powdered diamond, and he was able to draw an illustration of
his point from this wild period of his youth. Powdered glass,
he then learned, could be swallowed with impunity ; and if
glass, why not diamond ? He told his learned friend that he
remembered seeing young men, in their revels, after emptying
their glasses in honor of some eminent toast of the day, chew
those wine-glasses to pieces and swallow them. " I had the
misfortune," he adds, " to sup sometimes, in my youth, with
gentlemen of that kind. They broke their glasses with their
teeth, and neither the wine nor the glass did them any harm.^
He could not have done much of such revelry as this ; his
constitution did not admit of it, and we know that he had al-
ways serious compositions in course of execution, upon which
he founded confident hopes of a career which should justify
his aversion to the profession of his father's choice.
Meanwhile, his father remained unconvinced, and strongly ^-—
disapproved of his son's conduct. He was right and he was
wrong, as parents are apt to be whose offspring prove to be
soaring falcons instead of respectable chickens. This irasci-
ble father stood indignant and alarmed to see his fledgeling
resolved upon attempting the airy heights, Avithout being yet
strong enough upon the wing to keep out of le bourbier. The
young man, on his part, loathed the work of Maitre Alain's
office, and believed he had a right to loathe it, as being in
itself absurd and not his vocation.
1 75 CEuvres de Voltaire, 63.
74 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Among his fine friends of the Temple was a young gen-
tleman named Caumartin, nephew of Louis-Urbain de Cau-
martin, Marquis de Saint-Ange, a magistrate of honorable
and old renown. The marquis was just such a personage as
Maitre Arouet desired his younger son to become ; for he had
made his career in the law, and now, after filling high places
with honor, had retired to a chateau and estate which he pos-
sessed, nine miles from the royal palace of Fontainebleau.
The younger Caumartin, it seems, conveyed to Maitre Arouet
an invitation for his reprobate son to take up his abode at
Saint-Ange, and there pursue legal studies in a larger and
more agreeable way than was possible in the office of a Paris
solicitor. The reprobate, as Duvernet intimates, made those
profuse and emphatic promises which reprobates usually do
in such cases, and the notary gave his consent. Behold vir-
tue again rewarded ! In the lovely autumn days of 1714 we
see the solicitor's clerk turning his back upon involved and
tedious copying, and riding out through a beautiful country
to an ancient and singularly interesting chlteau, where he was
installed the permanent guest of the man in France who was
fullest of what he wanted most !
CHAPTER X.
AT THE CHATEAU OF SAINT-ANGE.
No memory is so likely to be stored "with tilings curious
and interesting as that of an old lawyer and magistrate. M.
de Caumartin was one of those old lawyers and magistrates
who have a particular curiosity with regard to contemporary
events and persons, and a memory from which no detail es-
capes. The Duke de St. Simon, not a lenient judge, describes
him as a man of large person, handsome and well formed,
very capable in law and finance, honest, obliging, and polite,
though a little given to play the great lord in a harmless way.
1 " He knew everything," continues the diarist, " in history, in
genealogy, in court anecdotes ; and remembered everything
that he had ever heard or read, even to repeating in conversa-
tion whole pages." iHis father also had been a public man, in
the confidence of the government of his time ; so that the
present lord of Saint-Arige knew familiarly the men, the
events, the gossip, the scandal, the " inside truth " of the last
three reigns, from the stirring days of Henry IV. and the
League to these sad closing weeks of Louis XIV. A library,
rich in the works of the great age of French literature, was
one of the special treasures of the chateau, and the walls of
the edifice were covered with portraits of the men of whom
the old counselor most loved to converse and the young poet
most loved to hear.
Imagine an American youth of twenty, educated in the lit-
eratures of Greece, Rome, and Judea, but knowing scarcely
anything of the history of his own country, established as an
inmate of one of our few historic houses, and listening day
by day to some fluent, enthusiastic grandson of a Lee, an
Adams, a Jefferson, a Madison, a Jay, a Schuyler, — one who
had seen the heroes of the Revolution and taken part in the
administrations of the earlier presidents. Imagine the joy
76 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
and pride with which the young man would discover that he,
too, had a countr}', and that there had been heroes, statesmen,
orators, and patriots on his native soil as well as in the lands
of old. M. de Caumartin loved most to dwell upon Henry
IV., that bold Henry of Navarre, whose career had so much
in it that all men admire, and so little that Frenchmen cannot
easily forgive. How varied, how strange, how fascinating,
how long, the tale ! What incident, what vicissitude, what
men, what interests ! Our young poet heai'd the old man re-
late it spell-bound, and fancied that here was the great theme
for an epic poem, — the Iliad of France ! Without knowing,
as he says, anything of the nature or laws of an epic, he be-
gan tumultuously to write passages of a " Henriade," and thus
entered upon a work which occupied him at intervals for the
next ten years, and upon which he expended more toil than
upon any other of his works.
It was, however, the long reign of Louis XIV. which M. de
Caumartin personally knew, and of which he could relate those
trivial, interesting details which make the life of conversation
and narrative. From him the young guest heard the anecdote
of Louis XIV. and the battle of Ramilies, which has been so
often repeated. Upon receiving the news of the defeat, the
king said, " Has God, then, forgotten all that I have done for
him ? " This, was a rare story for such ears ! Many such he
heard, and in this agreeable way he began to collect the stores
of material for a work which saw the light forty years later,
— " The Age of Louis XIV."
If he came to Saint- Ange to study law, he forgot his pur-
pose. With a manuscript tragedy in his trunk which critics
had praised ; with an epic poem begun ; with the history of
France, all unw'ritten, surging in his brain ; with short poems
in manuscript circulating in Paris drawing-rooms, and escap-
ing now and then into print ; with a sympathetic circle of ac-
complished persons urging him on toward the goal of his am-
bition ; living in an historic chateau furnished with an ample
library, and listening daily to one of the most interesting talk-
ers of his generation, he could not but yield to manifest des-
tiny, and embrace finally the literary career. He lived, as it
appears, several months at Saint-Ange, visiting Paris occasion-
ally, and always attentive to those last events of the reign of
AT THE CHATEAU OF SAINT-ANGE. 77
Louis XIV., which he was to relate by and by. Paris was
only forty miles distant, and could easily be reached in a day.
The king was approaching the close of his seventy-seventh
year in the summer of 1715, and there was scarcely an intelli-
gent individual in France who did not long for his death. As
the news of his decline reached Saint-Ange, from time to time,
what topics of discourse were furnished for the ancient master
of the chateau sitting at table with so receptive a person as
Francois Arouet ! No one could better explain than the old
financier why the king's treasury was a thousand million
francs behindhand, and why the king's paper was selling in
Paris at an average discount of seventy per cent. For four-
teen years there had been a large annual deficit, which had
been met by every kind of device which finance ministers had
been able to invent. The lord of Saint-Ange knew them all.
But it was not the empty treasury and the distressed king-
dom which then occupied men's minds. It was a theological
imbroglio, puerile and frivolous in its nature, but terrible and
devastating in its consequences. The Bull Unigenitus had re-
cently been let loose upon France, by Le Tellier, the keeper
of the old king's conscience ; and no wild beast breaking from
an Indian jungle ever carried into a defenseless village more
alarm. M. de Caumartin could relate the whole history of
this childish and tragic controversy ; and we can easily imag-
ine how such a tale would strike the mind of his young guest.
Maitre Arouet was the father of Francois- Marie, but the Bull
Unigenitus had much to do with engendering Voltaire. I
think I see this inquisitive, laughing youth, trained to mock-
ery, but most capable of compassion, listening to the old coun-
selor's story of the Bull: how, as long ago as 1552, the
learned Dr. Baius " took it into his head " to sustain a number
of propositions touching predestination, much to the prejudice
of the doctrine of free-will ; how some monks of the Cordelian
order, hostile to Baius, selected " seventy-six of these proposi-
tions," denounced them to the Pope as heretical, and obtained
a Bull condemning them ; how the Bull contained a doubtful
passage, the meaning of which depended upon the position of
a comma, and the friends of Baius sent to Rome to know
where the comma was to be placed; how Rome, busy with
other matters, sent as an answer a copy of the Bull in which
78 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the doubtful sentence had no comma at all ; how a learned
priest assured Dr. Baius that a papal Bull must be believed
and obeyed, even though it contained errors ; and how Dr.
Baius then peacefully retracted, — which was a much better
plan, remarks Voltaire, than reducing a hundred cities to
ashes in the cause.
Thus ended the first chapter of the history of the Bull.
The second included the Jansenist and Molinist controversy,
one result of which our young mocker had witnessed in his
own home, in the un pleasing, irrational demeanor of his brother
Armand. Molina was a Spanish Jesuit, who sustained the
old doctrine of free-will with a new subtlety all his own.
Man's will is free, said Molina, but God foresees how he will
exercise his will, and arranges all events in .accordance there-
with. Jansenius was a French bishop, who wrote a huge
book, in which the doctrine of predestination was carried to
the extreme of asserting that God commands some things
which are impossible, and that Christ did not die for all men.
The Jesuits obtained a Bull in 1641 condemning the five
leading propositions of Jansenius. But the Jansenists de-
nied that those five propositions were to be found in the
Latin folio of their author, and thus the controversy was re-
newed and embittered, until another Bull in explanation gave
a momentary peace to the church.
All this seems too silly to be recounted. But consider the
prize which ambitious men were playing for, who used this
monks' quarrel as a pretext. That prize was the king's ear,
the control of the benefices, the supreme authority of the na-
tion ! This it was which converted a theological controversy
into an engine of oppression, which filled prisons, ruined fam-
ilies, exiled virtuous men, and rendered hypocrisy one of the
necessaries of life. It is also a noteworthy circumstance, well
known to all the English-speaking world, that the Jansenist
theory of the universe, monstrous as it seems to men of the
world, had formerl}^ an attraction for educated persons, who
placed religion first, and everything else second. Theology,
indeed, never came so near the uglier truth of man's life and
duty as in the Jansenist creed, and no further advance toward
truth was possible, except by a change of method. Very much
that was worthiest, highest, strongest, noblest, in France was
AT THE CHATEAU OF SAINT-AXGE. 79
Jansenist, from valiant, self-denying Arnauld and gifted Pascal
to the frugal, industrious, and virtuous business men of French
cities and towns, the main-stay of the kingdom, who have kept
it solvent and strong in spite of so many wasteful kings and
conquerors. French catalogues contain the titles of seven
hundred and sixty works relating to this affair of Jansenism
and Molinism, which plagued France for two centuries.
The quarrel, in the life-time of young Arouet, had dwin-
dled to the miserable question whether the five propositions
were or were not contained in the work of Jansenius. The
Jesuits presented a formula to all the " suspect : " "I con-
demn from my heart and with my mouth the doctrine of
the five propositions contained in the book of Cornelius Jan-
senius, which doctrine is not that of St. Augustine, whom
Jansenius has ill explained." This sufficed to destroy the
Port Royalists, since those young ladies had never read the
Latin folio of Jansenius, nor any other Latin, and could
not conscientiously declare that the five propositions were
contained in the book. A miracle, as Voltaire assures us,
retarded their downfall by some years. He may have heard
the story at Saint-Ange. A niece of Pascal, who attended
the school of the contumacious sisters, had a diseased eye,
which Avas instantly cured by the application of a thorn from
Christ's crown, one of the venerated relics of the convent.
He adds, " Some persons who lived a long time with her
assured me that her cure was very slow, whicli is highly
probable. But it is not very probable that God, who per-
forms no miracles to lead to our religion nineteen twentieths
of our race to whom that religion is unknown or abhorrent,
should have interrupted the order of nature on behalf of
a little girl, in order to justify a dozen nuns in sustaining
that Cornelius Jansenius did not write a dozen lines attrib-
uted to him." The Jesuits attempted miracles on their side,
but Jesuit miracles had no weight with the people ; and,
later in the controversy, when a sister of Port Royal had a
swollen leg miraculously cured, the prodigy did not save their
convent from demolition. "The time was passed for such
things, and Sister Gertrude had no uncle Pascal." ^
At last, no man in France, from the Cardinal de Noailles
^ Siecle de Louis XIV., chaptiT xxxvii.
80 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
to the obscurest peasant in La Vendue, could live in safety,
or die in peace, or be sure of burial, unless he was prepared
to sign any absurd or self-contradictory form of words which
Le Tellier might choose to present to him. The confessor
made the ignorant old king believe that a refusal to sign
was flat rebellion, and he made the Pope sanction a refusal
of the sacraments to such rebels. The Bull Unigenitus, so
named from its first word, was the last of the anti-Jansen-
ist thunder-bolts, launched in 1713, — the device of Le Tel-
lier for bringing France completely under his authority. It
condemned one hundred and one propositions, several of
which seemed to good Catholics harmless and true. All the
prisons were full of Jansenists, and Le Tellier was about to
proceed to the extremity of calling a council to depose Car-
dinal de Noailles, the chief opponent of the Bull, when his
hand was arrested, at midsummer, 1715, by the serious ill-
ness of the kinsf. The cardinal had become the idol of the
nation, which was now divided into two impassioned parties,
Accepters and Refusers. The Accepters, as Voltaire remarks,
were a hundred bishops, the Jesuits, the Capuchins, and the
court; the Refusers were fifteen bishops and all the nation.
To such a point can a priest in power reduce a great and
intelligent nation when, in addition to the ordinary foibles
and faults of man, he labors under the infirmity of believ-
ing a narrow creed.
This dismal business of the Bull was the absorbing topic
in every circle during Arouet's stay at Saint-Ange. The con-
troversy presented to his consideration a baleful mSlange of
incongruities : ambition and disinterestedness, cowardice and
audacity, credulity and conviction, cruelty and tenderness, sin-
cerity and craft, — a combination of the worst and best in
man, which, in later years, this master of words could find
no adequate word for in any language, and was therefore
obliged to call it The Lifamous Thing.
In August, 1715, heaving of the king's danger, he left his
safe and advantageous retreat of Saint-Ange, and went to
Paris, to witness the change in all things which the coming
event was to effect. He should have gone to Versailles,
where the king and court then were, and seen how ruthlessly
the confessor used the king's dying agonies for his o^vn pur-
AT THE CHATEAU OF SAINT-ANGE. 81
poses. The memoirs of the Duke de Simon, which make this
reign an eternal admonition to mankind, were not published in
the lifetime of Voltaire, and he probably never knew precisely
what passed in the palace at Versailles during the last few
days of the king's life. The old man died with that peace
and dignity with which the most injurious members of our
race usually take leave of the world they have preyed upon.
Men who pined for his death were moved at the spectacle, —
all the court, perhaps, except one priest and one woman : his
confessor, Le Tellier, and his wife, Madame de Maintenon.
As the king grew weaker the priest pressed him all the more
to fill the vacant bishoprics and abbeys, several of which were
important. He had the list ready, and a partisan of his own
designated for each of the fat things. But the king persisted
in refusing. He said he had enough to answer for without
taking upon himself, in the last hours of his life, the respon-
sibility of making those appointments ; and so, as the plain-
spoken St. Simon expresses it, Le Tellier saw that rich prey
escape him.^
The poor old king, as the end drew near, had some misgiv-
ings as to his ecclesiastical policy. He began to doubt whether
the best mode of propitiating God is to force men to subscribe
formulas they loathe, and to drive from their homes and coun-
try a hundred thousand virtuous families. His heart relented,
too, toward the Cardinal de Noailles, his benevolent and gen-
tle Archbishop of Paris, who had been high in his favor un-
der the milder reign of his former confessor, Pere la Chaise.
Fixing his eyes upon Le Tellier and two cardinals who stood
by, the king said, four days before his death, •' I am sorry
to leave the affairs of the church in the condition in which
they are. In such matters I am perfectly ignorant. You
know, and I call you to witness, that I have done nothing in
relation thereto except what you wished, and I have done all
that you wished. It is you, then, who must answer before
God for what I have done, whether too much or too little.
Once more I declare it, and I charge you with it before God.
My conscience is clear; it is that of an ignorant man, who ab-
solutely abandoned himself to you during the whole of this
business."
1 11 St. Simon, 437, ed. of 1874.
VOL. I. 6
82 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
The cardinals replied only by new flatteries, and the king
resumed in a strain still more affecting : " In my ignorance
I thought I could not do better for the peace of my con-
science than to give myself up to you in full confidence. As
to the Cardinal de Noailles, God is my witness that I do not
bate him, and that I have always been sorry for what I felt it
my duty to do against him."
Two of the courtiers exchanged glances at these words, and
one of them said, in a low voice, " Ought we to let the king
die without seeing his archbishop, and assuring him of pardon
and reconciliation ? "
The king, overhearing them, declared that, so far from ob-
jecting, he desired it. Here was a thunder-bolt, indeed, fallen
into the midst of this group of serene and smiling priests and
the woman, their tool, who was packing her trunks to be off
before the breath was out of the king's body. They were
equal to the emergency. " Oh, yes," said they, in substance,
" let him come, by all means ; but first, for the honor and safety
of the good cause, he should obey the king by accepting the
Bull." The king, fatigued, gave his consent without argu-
ment, and Le Tellier enjoyed a few days more of supremacy.
For eight days the drawing-room of the Duke of Orleans,
who was to be regent during the minority, was so crowded
with courtiers in the afternoon that, " speaking literally, a pin
could not fall to the floor." But, August 29th, the king re-
vived, ate two biscuits and drank a little wine with some
relish. On that day, about two in the afternoon, the Duke de
St. Simon visited the Duke of Orleans, and found no one
there except the master, who, however, took this desertion in
good part. He laughed, and told his visitor that not another
human being had crossed his threshold all that day. " Such is
man," remarks St. Simon. Voild le monde / Two days after,
on Sunday morniug, September 1, 1715, the king's reign of
seventy-two years was at an end. Our diarist concludes his
narrative by an impressive statement: "The king's stomach
and intestines were found to be of at least twice the capacity
of men of his stature, — a very extraordinary circumstance,
and the cause of his being so large and equal an eater." '
^5
CHAPTER XI.
EXILED FOR AN EPIGRAM.
Our young poet is in Paris again, never a safe place for
him, from youth to hoary age. He has brought with him liis
play, — that "QEdipe" upon which he has been fitfully work
ing for the last two years, and upon which he has staked his
hopes of fame and fortune ; for, even then, a successful play
upon the Paris stage gave the author some standing and con-
siderable gain.
As yet he possesses nothing, and is nobody ; for, at twenty-
two, even a good poet was no longer a prodigy. Nothing short
of a striking and sustained success could justify his rejection
of the career offered him by his father. At present, great
lords, who laugh at his sallies, copy his verses, and make room
for him at their suppers, speak and think of him as " little
Arouet," and smile, perhaps, at the way he has of assuming
an equality with them, — an amusing little fellow, with a sur-
prising knack at hitting off verses. The old government of
France was well enough described as a despotism tempered by
epigrams ; but the epigram-makers were always liable to find
themselves in the condition of shorn lambs, without any one
to temper the wind to them. To get " CEdipe " played was
his object, a thing of vast difficulty to an untried author.
Meanwhile, in the early days of the regency, he came near
reaching fortune by a short cut, and he may well have been
attentive to passing events. It was not certain, when the
breath left the old king's body, who was to wield his author-
ity, and certain friends of the poet had hopes of having a voice
in the bestowal of good things.
Louis XIV., who was married at twenty-two to a princess
of Austria, reared but one legitimate child, — Louis, the D.ui-
phin, born in the second year of the marriage. The gossips
of the court, in speaking of this prince, used to apply to liim
j4 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
an old saying, which proved to be his history: "Son of a
king, father of a king, never a king." But he lived to the age
of fifty ; and as late as April, 1711, when his father was sev-
enty-three, he seemed likely to disappoint the prophets. He
I had then three sons : (1) Louis, Duke of Bourgoyne, twenty-
nine ; (2) Philippe, Duke of Anjou, King of Spain, twenty-
eight ; (3) Charles, Duke of Berri, twenty-five. The hope and
pride of France was the eldest of these sons, the Duke of Bour-
goyne, who was married to an amiable and popular princess,
' and was the father of two little boys, one six years of age and
the other fourteen months. This little family stood between
France and calamities which France had abundant reason to
dread, — a long minority and a disputed succession.
But it seemed sufficient. There were four males in the im-
mediate line of succession, to say nothing of the hale and
hearty old king, who could still tire out most of his court in
the hunting-field, and bring down a bird on the wing as surely
as the best of them. In April, 1711, Monseigneur the Dau-
phin died of the small-pox. In February following, of the
same or a similar disease, died, in quick succession, the new
dauphin, his wife, and their eldest son, leaving only their
youngest boy, then two years old, sick and sickly, who became
Louis XV. That feeble, flickering life was all that interposed
between France and complications threatening civil war. And,
finally, the Duke of Berri, as if to complete the ruin of this
house, was killed in 1714 by a fall from his horse. Knowing
what we know of the history of France, we cannot wonder
that the people of Paris should have rushed into the streets
and filled the churches whenever it was noised abroad that this
little boy had a bad cold.
The old king had a dozen or more illegitimate children,
most of whom he caused to be formally legitimated. He as-
sio-ned them magnificent chateaux and princely revenues, and
compelled their recognition as princes of the blood royaL His
favorite among them was Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke du
Maine, a man of forty, married to a profuse, ambitious princess,
who lived in reckless magnificence at Sceaux, six miles south
of Paris. For some years, the "court" of the Duchess du
Maine at Sceaux had presented an intentional contrast to that
of the old king, who, during the thirty years' ascendency of
EXILED FOR AN EPIGRAM. 85
Madame de Maintenon, had a smile for no courtier whom he
often missed at the daily mass. The Duchess du Maine loved
pleasure, loved literature as one of the forms of pleasure, culti-
vated literary persons, gave splendid fetes out-of-doors and in-
doors, and played a conspicuous part in the pageantry of life.
The duke, her husband, was a well-disposed, weak man, who
stood in awe of his father, and was also very submissive to his
wife.
The people of France were far from approving the lawless,
enforced ascendency of these hdtards over the whole nobility
of the kingdom. France was still — nay, had been always,
and is now — a virtuous nation. In spite of the bad example
of her kings and priests, in spite of her agreeable Ninons and
her repulsive saints, her sour Jansenists and her gay abbes,
the mass of the people of Fiance and the best of her educated
class have believed in virtue, have practiced self-control, have
observed those fundamental moralities from which all happi-
ness comes. They could not, therefore, be brought to regard
this Duke du Maine as a prince of their royal line, — a soldier
who had not behaved well in the presence of the enemy, when
a doting Xerxes of a father had intrusted him with the lives
and honor of Frenchmen better than himself.
The dying king was persuaded to impose this favorite son
upon France as the guardian of the heir to the crown, the com-
mander of the royal guards during the minority, and King of
France if the little Louis should die before maturity.
Louis XIV. had lived seventy-seven years, reigned seventy-
two, and governed fifty-four, without ever meeting one human
being who could stand before him and oppose his will. The
spirit of mastery, a thing essentially barbarous, had been
nourished in him to such a point that he will remain for this
alone an interesting study to all time. His tutors began early
to instill it into him. Among the curiosities shown in the im-
perial library at Petersburgh is a leaf of a copy-book used by
Louis XIV. when he was a dull little boy, learning to write.
His writing-master set him as a copy, at the top of the page,
French words signifying, —
Homage is due to kings; they do whatever they
LIKE.
The child wrote these words six times upon the leaf, in a
86 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
large, unstead}' liand,^ and it was nearly all lie ever learned of
the kingly state. When he came, late in life, to write instruc-
tions for the guidance of his son, he did little more than enlarge
ujDon this copy-book text. Thus he wrote : " He who has
given kings to men walls that they should be respected as his
lieutenants, reserving to himself alone the right to inquire into
their conduct. His will is that whosoever is born a subject
should obey without question. Everything there is, in the
whole extent of our dominions, belongs to us. The money in
our treasui-y, the money remaining in the hands of our collect-
ors, and the money which we leave as currency in the business
of our people ought to be equally under our control." Again,
" As the lives of subjects are the king's own property, he ought
to have all the more care to preserve them." ^ Holding such
opinions as these, he was induced by the Duke du Maine and
Madame de Maintenon, a week before his death, to sign a codi-
cil, which gave the duke the substance of power during the
minority, and left to the Duke of Orleans little more than the
title of regent. Then the usual mass was performed, and the
king communed; after which he sent for his nephew of Or-
leans, and, as the terror-stricken St. Simon records, " With
Jesus Christ still upon his lips, he assured the duke that he
would find nothing in his will with which he would not be con-
tent."
There is a great deal of difference between a living and a
dead lion. The old king had not been dead two days before
the codicil had been set aside, the Duke du Maine reduced sev-
eral degrees toward his native nullity, and the Duke of Orleans
confirmed Regent of France, with power all but absolute. The
brilliant court of the Duchess du Maine at Sceaux suffered an
eclipse. It remained the haunt of " the pleasures," but did not
become the seat of power. No woman, as Voltaire once re-
marked, ever ruined a husband with more grace than she ; but
she did not enjoy the opportunity, which women have since
done, of ruining France. The duchess set seriously at work
intriguing to undo what had been done, and thus Sceaux be-
came a sort of rendezvous of disaffection, veiled by an apparent
devotion to pleasure.
' Histoire de France, par Henri Martin, tome xiv. page 616.
2 2 CEuvres de Louis XIV., 336, etc., edition of 1806.
EXILED FOR AN EPIGRAM. 87
The literary circle of the Temple were also disappointed Ut
the beginning of the regency. The Grand Prior, Philippe
de Vendome, returned to his palace in the Temple after long
exile, and his ancient comrade, the Duke of Orleans, desired to
appoint him a member of his council. The virtuous St. Simon
rose indignant at the I'umor, and roused all his bi'other dukes.
Finally, he told the regent that if that debauched scoundrel
entered the council, and thus took precedence of the nobility,
the dukes would resign their places and leave the court. The
Grand Prior was not appointed, and had nothing to give little
Arouet except verses, suppers, too much wine, and a bad ex-
ample of getting drunk every evening.
That young man (a moth amid these flaming candles), not
aware how fate was playing with him, resumed his old way
of life in Paris, always busy and inquisitive. Old things
were passing away, and he was observant of the change. On
the day of the king's funeral, he was out on the road to St.
Denis, near Paris^ where for eleven hundred years kings of
France had been buried. It was more like a festival than a
funeral. " I saw little tents," he records, " set up along the
road, in which people drank, sang, laughed. The sentiments
of the citizens of Paris had passed into the minds of the popu-
lace. The Jesuit, Le Tellier, was the principal cause of this
miiversal joy. I heard several spectators say that the torches
which lighted the procession ought to be used for setting fire
to the houses of the Jesuits." France, as he says elsewhere,
forgave the king his mistresses, but not his confessor. He
may have contributed to the merriment of the crowd by a bur-
lesque invitation to the funeral of the Bull Unigenitus, which
was circulating in these days of gayety and relief. He Avas
getting a kind of reputation that led knowing people to point
to Jiim when anything particularly impudent appeared. The
burlesque spoke of the deceased Constitution as the natural
daughter of Clement XL, and she was said to have died of
grief at the loss of seventy-seven per cent. Le Tellier was to
head the mourners, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, who
bad profited much by the dame's decease, had been named to
the Abbey of Notre Dame des Victoires. And, indeed, it was
through the aid of the Cardinal de Noailles that the regent
quieted that ridiculous and deadly dispute. A sinner with a
88 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
little sense and good nature found it easy to heal a wound
which the pious old king had only touched to inflame.^
What a joyful opening of prison doors the young poet wit-
nessed in those days ! The first time the regent sat in his
official seat in his cabinet, he called for a list of all the persons
then in prison through lettres de cachet, — the mere order of
the king. Upon inquiring into the causes of their detention,
he discovered that in the case of many prisoners no living
creature knew any cause, nor was there any record of a cause.
They had been simply forgotten ! A large number of pris-
oners did not themselves know, and could not guess, why they
had been arrested. The worst case, out of a number of ex-
tremely bad ones, was that of an Italian, who had been in the
Bastille thirty-three years without knowing why. Thirty-
three years before, on the day of his arrival in Paris, he had
been arrested and conveyed to the Bastille, and there he had
lived and grown old, surviving all his family and friends.
When the regent set free all these forgotten victims of priestly
arrogance and ministerial intrigue, this poor Italian asked to
be allowed to remain in the Bastille ; and he lived there, by
the regent's allowance, all the rest of his days. But the
Duke of Orleans did not abolish lettres de cachet, which made
these appalling abuses of the royal authority possible, — nay,
easy and unavoidable.
The autumn and winter following the king's death, our
young poet frequented more than ever the society of the Tem-
ple, working zealously also to perfect his play and procure its
acceptance at the theatre. It was through his zeal to improve
his " CEdipe " and make friends for it that the moth came too
near the flame, and had its flight suddenly arrested. He read
" QEdipe," one evening, at the abode of a literary and fes-
tive member of the Temple coterie, Abb^ de Bussi, where,
among the guests, were the Abbe Chaulieu and the Grand
Prior, then in full intrigue to be reckoned among the princes
of the blood royal. Supper over, the young poet read his
play, a wonderful work, indeed, for a lad of nineteen to con-
1 Le Tellier, appointed by the will of the late king confessor to Louis XV.,
and having nothing to do, owing to the tender age of that monarch, asked the re-
gent what was to be his present distinction. " That is no affair of mine," answered
the regent ; " address yourself to your superiors." (Me'moires de Duclos.)
EXILED FOR AN EPIGRAM. 89
ceive, — a poem full of spirit and fire, cast in the ancient
mould, but containing passages, and even scenes, only sur-
passed by Racine and Corneille. The old critics favored the
young dramatist with their remarks. " That supper," he wrote
to Chaulieu soon after, " did great good to my tragedy, and I
believe it would be only necessary to drink four or five times
with you to produce an excellent work. Socrates gave lessons
in bed, and you at table ; hence your lessons are doubtless
more agreeable than his were." This reading was the more
delightful to the Abb(i de Chaulieu because he was then sev-
enty-seven years of age, and, from the failure of his eyesight,
could scarcely read himself.
Old as the abb^ was, his continent and temperate ancestors
had put such vigorous life into him that he was in love this
winter with a young lady in the service of the Duchess du
Maine in the capacity of reader ; and when the duchess re-
moved from Sceaux to the Tuileries he had convenient op-
portunity of pajdng court to his beloved. The lady (Baron-
ess de Staal) gives us in her Memoirs extensive love poems
which the amorous old abb^ sent her, as well as several anec-
dotes showing unusual ardor in a lover of seventy-seven. He
lent her his carriage every day when she would accept it. He
wrote every morning and came every evening. He assailed
her with costly presents; and when he reproached her for
refusing them, and alluded to the extreme plainness of her
attire, she made him the celebrated answer, " I am adorned
with all that my costume lacks." The abbe's little lackey,
who usually conveyed his tender epistles, came to her one day
in sorrow, and told her his master had dismissed him. " Go
home," said she, " and tell him you are going to stay, for
such is my pleasure." The abbe submitted ; the tiger was re-
tained. ^
The abbd could not omit to pay homage to the duchess, who
was more than ever disposed to favor literary men, of whom
she made use in her struggle to keep her rank. Every kind
of writing appeared on behalf of the " legitimated princes,"
— poems, satires, couplets, memoirs, — the duchess herself
lending a hand, and all her court rummaging for precedents
in former reigns. " She employed most of her nights in this
1 Memoires de Madame de Staal.
90 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
work," records tlie Baroness de Staal. " The immense vol-
umes heaped upon her bed, like mountains overwhelming her,
made her look, as she said, like the giant buried under Mount
^tna." Never was she in better mood to listen to the Abbe
de Chaulieu's praises of the wondrous Arouet, and the fine
tragedy he was trying to get accepted at the theatre. The
poet was presented to her most serene highness ; he joined in
her moonlight festivals — her "white nights" — at Sceaux ;
he had the honor of reading " Qidipe " to her ; and he became
one of the frequenters of her " court."
He knew how to adapt himself to such scenes as these, and
even at this age he had the art of assuming an equality with
these artificial magnates of the world without offending them.
No man ever equaled him in this art, and no man ever had so
much occasion for it. The Grand Prior, for example, who
was of princely rank, was desirous of being styled Royal High-
ness, instead of plain Highness. It was a stroke of art, as
well as wit, in this youth to address him as his Warbling
Highness (^so7i Alt esse Chansoniere^. The Marquis d'Argen-
son, a school-fellow of Arouet, relates this anecdote in his
Memoirs, as an instance of " the tone of ease which he al-
ways took with great lords ; " and it was to the same marquis
that Voltaire once explained the secret of his ability to hold
this tone.
" Souls," said Voltaire, " communicate with souls, and can
measure one another without need of an intermediate body.
It is only the greatness or the worth of a soul that ought to
frighten or intimidate us. To fear or to respect the body and
its accessories — force, beauty, royalty, rank, office — is pure
imbecility. Men are born equal and die equal. Let us re-
spect the virtue, the merit of their souls, and despise the im-
perfections of those souls."
This principle, he said, he had early adopted and practiced.
But there was another lesson which he learned later, though
he needed it now.
" Doubtless," he continued, " we should by prudence avoid
the evil which that physical force can do us, as we should
guard ourselves against a crowned bull, an enthroned monkey,
a savage dog let loose upon us. Let us beware of such. Let
us even endeavor, if possible, to moderate them, to soften
BAI^ISHED FOR AN EPIGRAM. 91
them ; but this sentiment is very different from the esteem
and respect which we owe to souls."
Elsewhere he gives this maxim : " By having it well at
heart that men are equal, and clearly in the head that exter-
nals distinguish them, one can get on very well in the world."
Time passed, and he made no progress with the actors.
During the winter he read his play and parts of it to other
friends, never weary of retouching it. In the Lent of 1816 he
was again a guest at Saint- Ange ; " living upon pheasants and
partridges," as he wrote in verse to the Grand Prior, "in-
stead of red herring and water-cress, which, in these days,
blessed of God, every monk and bigot eats." Again he
listened to M. de Caumartin, who " carried in his brain the
living history of his time, — all the deeds and all the words of
the great men and of the wits, a thousand charming trifles,
songs new and old, and the exhaustless annals of the fools of
aris.
In May, 1716, he was in Paris swelling those annals. The
press still teemed with writings, in prose and verse, against
the regent, most of which, as the regent well knew, were in-
spired by the Duchess du Maine. He was a good-natured
prince, but we know from St. Simon that verses accusing him
of monstrous crimes against nature and natural affection cut
him to the heart sometimes. One innocent epigram Arouet
composed about this time, and how many more we know not.
Among other reforms the regent reduced the horses in the
royal stables one half. Arouet's epigram intimated that His
Royal Highness would do better to dismiss one half the asses
that had surrounded his late majesty. There were also coup-
lets and other verses afloat which reflected upon the young
widow of the late Duke of Berri, the regent's own daughter.
This lady was a conspicuous defier of the conventionalities.
Maflame de Genlis reports that she herself saw a portrait of
the Duchess of Berri as Europa riding upon the bull, painted
from life. Be that as it may, there were satirical verses in
every hand assuming that she was a woman capable of every
excess and every indecorum.
Nothing is more probable than that Arouet gratified the
Duchess du Maine by writing satirical poems. " The duch-
ess," says the biographer of the regent (M. Capefigue), " die-
92 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
tated ideas to the poets, and young Arouet was not tlie last to
throw himself into the struggle against the Duke of Orleans."
He did not struggle long. Early in May, 1716, the old Mar-
quis of Dangeau made the following entr}'^ in his diary : " Lit-
tle Arouet, a ver}^ satirical and a very imprudent poet, has
been exiled. He has been sent to Tulle, and is already out of
Paris."
The order of exile, dated May 5, 1716, vouchsafed no ex-
planation of the cause : " The intention of His Royal Highness
is that the Sieur Arouet, the son, should be sent to Tulle."
No more. Tulle was then, as it is now, a manufacturing town,
nearly three hundred miles south of Paris, — three hundred
miles from the theatre, from the Temple, from Sceaux, from
Saint-Ange, from everything to which this imprudent poet
looked for a career. Tulle ! What a cutting retort from a
regent unable to meet epigram with epigram ! Tulle had not
yet given its name to a delicate and beautiful fabric which
ladies love. In 1716 it was a town of many tan-yards, the
savor of which was familiar to the ancestors of our poet, but
not on that account the less offensive to him. Candles were
made there, and nails, and coarse woolen cloths, and other
commodities, of little interest to the author of " (Edipe " and
the guest of Saint-Ange.
Even Arouet, pere^ deemed Tulle too severe, and it was at
his solicitation that the regent changed the place of exile
from Tulle to Sully-upon-the-Loire, less than a hundred miles
from the theatre of his hopes. Why Sully ? Because, said
Maitre Arouet, the young man has relations there who, " he
hoped, would be able by their good advice to correct his impru-
dence and moderate his vivacity." The youth may have had
relations in that region, but he lived during the whole of his
exile in a fine old chateau belonging to the Duke of Sully,
which Henry IV. had given to the family when the voice of a
Sully was second only to his own in the councils of the state.
This young man had remarkable luck in falling upon his feet.
What better could the Duke of Sully himself do than repair
to his chateau on the Loire during the delightful days of May ?
" I write to you," the poet said to the Abb^ de Chaulieu,
after two months' stay at the chateau, " from an abode that
would be the most agreeable in the world if I had not been
BANISHED FOR AN EPIGRAM. 93
exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting to ray perfect
happiness except the liberty of leaving."
To the Marquise de Mimeure, a lady to whom he had read
" CEdipe," he wrote some time after : " It would be delicious
for me to remain at Sully if I were only allowed to go away.
The duke is the most amiable of men, and the one to whom I
am under the greatest obligations. His chateau is in the most
beautiful situation in the world, with a magnificent wood near*
by. ... It is quite just that they should give me an agreea-f
ble exile, for I am absolutely innocent of the unworthy songs
attributed to me. You would be astonished, perhaps, if I should'
tell you that in this beautiful wood we have some tvhite nights^
as at Sceaux, in a grand saloon of elms lighted by an infinite
number of lanterns, where was served, the other evening, a
magnificent supper to the music of a band, followed by a ball
of more than a hundred masks superbly attired."
The hunting season filled the chateau with sportsmen,
" who," as he wrote, " spend the lovely days in assassinating
partridges." For his own part, he had " some interest with
Apollo, but not much with Diana." " I hunt little, and
rhyme a great deal." He told his correspondent not to make
known his happiness in Paris, for they might let him stay at
Sully long enough for him to become unhappy there.
But all this time he was scheming to get back to Paris.
As it was his pen that exiled him, it was his pen that brought'
about his return. He wrote a poem, addressed to the regent,
in that mingled tone of familiarity and homage which marked
his dealings with " the great." He concluded by an adroit
allusion to his own case : " Beneficent toward all, to me
alone severe, you doom me to a rigorous exile. But I dare
appeal from yourself to yourself. Before you I wish no sup-
port but innocence. I implore your justice, not your clem-
ency. Do but read these lines, and judge of their worth.
See what verses are imputed to me, and see what I write."
He sent copies of this poem to favorites of the regent, ask-
ing them to " cast an eye over it," and tell him frankly if it
was worthy of such a prince. He begged them to send crit-
ical comments upon the poem, that he might improve it to the
uttermost of his powers. To one, " It shall not see the light
until you judge it worthy of publication." To another, " If
94 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
I had the honor to be better known to you than I am, you
would see that in this composition I speak as I think." These
tactics were rewarded with success ; and about the time when
great lords, tired of assassinating partridges, came to Paris
to pursue fair and featherless bipeds, Arouet also arrived, to
resume his efforts to get his tragedy accepted at the theatre.
fit was time he had something to show in reply to his father's
remonstrances ; for he was approaching twenty-three, and was
still a hanger-on at the houses of other men, dependent upon
his father for all except his lodging. A Duchess du Maine
may have given him some golden louis; princes and prin-
cesses did such things then, and poets submitted to accept the
bounty, though they usually refrained from recording it.
As a specimen of the songs of which he was accused in
these green days, take this upon Madame de Maintenon,
which has waited a hundred and sixty years to see the light
of print: —
" Que I'Eternel est grand ! Que sa boute puissante
A comble mes desirs, a pave' mes travaux !
Je naquis demoiselle et je devins servante :
Je lavai la vaisselle et frottai les bureaux.
" J'eus bientot des amants : je ne fus point ingrate;
De Villarceaux longtemps j'amusai les transports ;
II me fit epouser ce fameux cul-de-jatte
Qui vivait de ses vers, comme moi de mon corps.
" II mourut. Je fus pauvre, et vieille devenue,
Mes amants, de'goute's, me laissaient toute nue,
Lorsqu'un tyran me crut propre encore au plaisir.
" Je lui plus, il m'aima : je fis la Madeleine,
Par des refus adroits j'irritai ses desirs;
Je lui parlai du diable, il eut peur . . . . Je suis reine."i
The Duke of Orleans did not love Madame de Maintenon,
but the regent of France could not allow such verses, aimed
at the wife of the late king.
1 Le Sottisier de Voltaire, Paris, 1880.
CHAPTER XII.
IN THE BASTILLE.
The Duke of Orleans, regent during the minority of the
young king, was forty-one years of age at the death of Louis
XIV. He was of medium stature, inclining to stoutness, of
open, engaging countenance, rosy-cheeked and black-haired.
We may say of him that he deserved to be virtuous, so well
disposed was he, so amiable in his demeanor, so affectionate
in his family, so attentive to all the ameliorating etiquettes of
his rank. In his public capacity he did several wise and lib-
eral actions. He promptly suppressed the odious Le Tellier,
and stopped the ravages of tlie Bull Unigenitus. He refused
even to entertain the proposition of expunging the vast op-
pressive debt of France by a formal bankruptcy. He lessened
the expenses of the court, dismissing, as our Arouet saucily
advised, a portion of the late king's asses, as well as selling
half his majesty's horses.
But one condition of all genuine and lasting success in this
world is habitual obedience to the physical laws. Bad men
are as much subject to this condition as good men, because
violation of those laws is a waste of power. This rosy
Bacchus of a prince did not comply with the indispensable
preliminary. He was a child of his period, — of our period, —
when so many young men, on discovering that there are er-
rors in the accepted scheme of the universe, assume also that
ginger will not burn in the mouth. Add to this his absurd
" rank," his pernicious wealth, his perverse education, the ex-
ample of his ancestors, living and dead, and the force of habit.
After living twenty years of mature life with no object but
pleasure, suddenly, by a series of deaths which no one could
have thought remotely probable, this round and ruddy Bour-
bon finds himself master of France. And of such a France !
A fair and fertile land exhausted by the long reign of the
9G LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
most expensive and incompetent of kings, and required to
confront, all at once, a cruel accumulation of evils. The old
king was dead and forgotten. The new king was a little boy,
shooting sparrows for his amusement. The regent had the
honor of serving his countrymen in the character of scape-
goat, and in that character his success was complete.
At first he attended to public business with some steadi-
ness and assiduity; but he soon fell into that routine of self-
indulgence which gave so much plausibility to the worst cal-
umnies. He began the labors of the day, as his friend, the
Duke of St. Simon, sorrowfully records, about two or half-
past two in the afternoon, when he entered his dressing-room,
took his chocolate, and received " all the world,'' that is,
all the coui't and nobility who had the entree at the king's
lever. He chatted familiarly with them for half an hour or
more, and then gave formal audience to individuals having
business with him. He usually paid, next, a brief visit to the
duchess, his wife ; and, invariably, once during the day, he
went to see the little king in his wing of the palace. The
court remarked with pleasure that the regent, both on enter-
ing and on leaving the presence of the child, then seven
years old, bowed as low and as " reverently " as if the king had
been of full age. Frequently he visited his mother, that
plain-spoken princess whose wondrous Memoirs complete our
knowledge of the later court of the old king; and her also he
treated with due respect. He next presided at a short ses-
sion of the council, and transacted with ministers the indis-
pensable routine of business.
This brought him to five or six o'clock, after which he
gave himself wholly up to pleasure. On returning from the
opera or the theatre he liked to have a gay and free supper
with his familiars, of which the virtuous St. Simon gives
us a sorry account. The company at these suppers he justly
describes as " strange." The regent's mistress of the hour
was sure to be present ; sometimes, a number of opera girls ;
often.) the Duchess of Berri, the regent's daughter ; usually,
a dozen men noted for their debauchery or their talents, —
dukes, ministers, lords, and poets ; also, some ladies of " mid-
dling virtue" (moyenne vertu). The fare at these repasts was
" exquisite." It was cooked in kitchens made on purpose,
IN THE BASTILLE. 97
adjoining the supper-room, in silver vessels ; and often the
guests lent a hand to the cooks in preparing some of the
dishes. The conversation was the freest possible, and spared
no one, living or dead, present or absent, man or Avoman.
Such a supper, at which the best wine in the world flows free,
cannot but become at last a noisy, vulgar debauch ; and,
doubtless, our Polonius, St. Simon, uttered only the literal
truth when he wrote, " They drank deeply and of the best
wine ; they grew warm ; they talked shamelessly with un-
covered bosom, and strove which could utter the grossest
impieties ; and when they had made some noise, and were
very drunk, they went to bed, to recommence on the morrow."
From the moment of the regent's sitting down to supper
until the next morning, he was " barricaded " against all
approach of business. He would see no one, and receive no
message, upon the most pressing affair of state, even though
it concerned his own immediate safety.
To increase the ill effect of this example, he trampled upon
the most cherished decorums of his country, having some-
times a wilder orgy than usual on such a day as Good Fri-
day, — a thing which even bad Catholics usually avoid. Ro-
bust and capable of enduring great excesses, he had a particu-
lar admiration for men who could go farther than himself
in debauchery. "I have heard him," says St. Simon, "ex-
press ceaseless admiration, carried to the point of esteem, for
the Grand Prior, because he had gone to bed drunk for forty
years, had always kept mistresses openly, and spoken contin-
ually against piety and religion." The old king, indeed, once
said of him : " Do you know what my nephew is ? He is a
braggart of crimes which he does not commit."
A prince who lives so in the sight of a distressed and
anxious people will be taken seriously, and will be accused of
offenses far worse than those he commits. The old king
brought the kingdom to the verge of ruin ; he drove from it
the most valuable citizens it possessed; he suspended the
growth of its intellect ; he prepared the way for evils from
which France has not yet ceased to suffer ; he was to France
all the harm and hindrance an individual could be. But he
observed the decorums ; he was studious of appearances.
Every day he went to mass; his mistresses were ladies of
VOL. I. 7
98 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
rank; he never passed any woman of any degree without
a courteous salutation ; he exacted and observed every eti-
quette. He never appeared except to dazzle or impress; he
was the histrionic king to perfection ; and to this day he
stalks across the historic scene in his favorite character of the
" Grand Monarque," much to the satisfaction of many spec-
tators.
The regent, on the contrary, was most harshly judged.
Even his doting fondness for his daughter, the Duchess of
Berri, received from the lying scribblers of the time the
worst conceivable interpretation, and a hundred epigrams
insinuated that he had destroyed by poison the many lives
that had till lately interposed between himself and the su-
preme power. There never lived a man less capable than
he of such enormities ; but accusations of that nature were
the inevitable penalty of a disregard of appearances in so
conspicuous a personage, and there were powerful individuals
interested in making the regent odious.
Among the scurrilous things circulating from hand to hand
in Paris, in the spring of 1717, was an inscription, in school-
boy Latin, of the following purport : —
A BOY REIGNING ,'
A MAN NOTORIOUS FOR POISONING3
AND INCESTS ADMINISTERING ;
COUNCILS IGNORANT AND UNSTABLE ;
RELIGION MORE UNSTABLE ;
THE TREASURY EMPTY ;
PUBLIC FAITH VIOLATED;
INFURIATE WRONG TRIUMPHANT ;
DANGER OF GENERAL SEDITION IMMINENT ;
THE COUNTRY SACRIFICED
TO THE HOPE OF A CROWN;
AN INHERITANCE BASELY ANTICIPATED;
FRANCE ABOUT TO PERISH.
This inscription was probably appended to a dravring of
some kind, — a weeping figure of France, perhaps, or of a
monumental structure. Under a paternal government nothing
of this nature can be too trifling for official notice, and, accord-
ingly, the " Puero Regnante," as the inscription was called from
its opening words, was considered by the ministry, as well as
eagerly scanned and circulated in society.
IN THE BASTILLE. 99
Anotlier piece had a much wider circulation, and made its
way even into the provinces. The French know better than
any other people how to catch the attention of readers languid
from a satiety of sweets; and, among their other devices, there
is one of beginning every verse or stanza of a poem with the
same word or words. This piece was so arranged, nearly
every line beginning with J'ai vu, " I have seen ; " and hence
the poem was commonly called the " I-have-seens." These
are specimen sentences, from which the reader will perceive
that the poem was written by a Jansenist : —
" I have seen the Bastille and a thousand other prisous filled with
brave citizens, faithful subjects.
^^ I have seen the people wretched under a rigorous servitude.
" 1 have seen the soldiery perishing of hunger, thirst, indignation,
and rage.
^^ I have seen a devil in the guise of a woman [Maintenon] ruling
the kingdom, sacrificing her God, her faith, her soul, to seduce the
spirit of a too credulous king.
" I have seen the altar polluted.
" I have seen Port Royal demolished.
^^ I have seen the blackest of all possible acts, which the waters of
the entire ocean could not purge, and which remote posterity will
scarcely be able to believe, — bodies stamped with the seal of im-
mortality removed by profane and sacrilegious hands from that sojourn
of gracious men. Port Royal.
'■^ I have seen the prelacy sold or made the reward of imposture.
'■'■ I have seen nonentities raised to the highest rank.
" I have seen — and this includes all — the Jesuit adored.
" I have seen these evils during the fatal reign of a prince whom
formerly the wrath of Heaven accorded to our ardent desires.
" I have seen these evils, and I am not twenty years old."
This poem was written by A. L. le Brun, the author of the
words of a long-forgotten opera and other hack work of that
day. It had been circulating for some months, and as yet
the detectives of the police had not discovered the writer.
They were equally at fault in their chase after the author of
the " Puero Regnante." But every knowing finger in Paris
pointed to Arouet as the probable author of both these effu-
sions, and certainly of the " I-have-seens." Had he not been
exiled last year for something of the kind ? Was he not liv-
ing, after his return from exile, in furnished lodgings, and not
100 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
at his father's house ? Did he not frequent the apartments
and the chateaux of the disaffected ? And was he not notori-
ous for satire? True, he was nearly twenty-three years old,
instead of not twenty; but few people knew his age, and ho
was supposed to be imprudent enough for much less than
twenty.
In vain he denied being the author of the " I-have-seens,"
which was running: in his name before he had so much as
heard of it. As he was passing through a small country town,
— probably on his return from a visit to Saint-Ange, in the
spring of 1717, — the literary people of the place insisted on
his reciting to them this poem, which they said was a master-
piece. " It was useless," he records, " for me to assert that I
was not the author, and that the piece was miserable. They
would not believe me, but admired my reticence ; and I thus
gained among them, without thinking of it, the reputation of
a great poet and a very modest man."
Pursuing his journey, he reached his abode in Paris, where
business of the utmost importance awaited him. His " GEdipe "
had been accepted at the theatre ! It was about to be put into
rehearsal ; the coffee-houses were expecting it ; great lords and
ladies were interested in its production. Soon after his arrival
he had a visit from one of those gentlemen, much employed
by the regent, who were then called spies, but to whom we
now apply the politer word, detectives. This individual, Beau-
regard by name, a captain in the French army, was a coffee-
house acquaintance of the poet. Those were the halcyon days
of the coffee-house on both sides of the Channel, — the days
when Mr. Addison held court at Button's, and Fontenelle was
the oracle at Laurent's. The regent kept spies frequenting
those haunts, and so Captain Beauregard obtained the right to
drop in upon Arouet, at the Green Basket, on the Island, Rue
de la Calandre, near Notre Dame. Beauregard's official re-
port of the conversation has been preserved, but it does not
read like truth : —
Arouet (lounging on a sofa). — " Anything new ? "
Beauregard. — "A number of things have appeared against the
Duke of Orleans and the Duchess of Berri."
Arouet. — " Are any of them considered good ? "
Beauregard. — " There is thought to be much wit in them, and
IN THE BASTILLE. 101
they are all laid to you. For my part, I do not believe it ; it is im-
possible to write such things at your age."
Akouet. — " You are mistaken in supposing that I am not the au-
thor of the works that have appeared during my absence. I sent all
my things to M. le Blanc ; and, to put the Duke of Orleans off the
scent, I went into the countiy during the carnival, and stayed two
months with M. de Caumartin, who saw those writings first ; and after-
wards I sent them to Paris. Since I cannot get my revenge upon
the Duke of Orleans in a certain way, I will not spare him in my
satires."
Beauregard. — " Why, what has the Duke of Orleans done to
you?"
Arouet (springing to his feet in a rage). — " What ! You don't
know what that b did to me ? He exiled me because I let the
public know that that Messalina of a daughter of his was — no better
than she should be."
Tlie interview here ended ; but, the next day, the spy called
again at the Green Basket, and found, sitting with the poet,
the Count d'Argental, who was to remain his devoted friend
for sixty years. The spy took from his pocket-book a copy of
the " Puero Regnante."
Arouet. — "What have you got that 's curious ?" (Recognizing
the inscription.) " As to tliat, I wrote it at M. de Caumartin's, but
a good while before I left."
Two days after, the assiduous spy called once more, and
again found M. d'Argental with the poet.
Beauregard. — " How is this, my dear friend ? You boast of
having written the ' Puero Regnante,' and yet 1 have just heard, from
very good authority, that it was written by a Jesuit professor."
Arouet. — " It is of no consequence to me whether you believe
me or not. Those Jesuits are like the jay in the fable : they borrow
the peacock's feathers with which to decorate themselves."
The spy further reported him as saying everywhere in Paris
that the Duchess of Berri was gone to a hunting lodge in the
Bois de Boulogne to be confined, and as uttering a " quantity
of other things unfit to be recorded." ^
If the young man made these avowals, which is doubtful,
he must have done so by way of burlesque. He probably
did not write the " Puero Regnante." If he wrote it, it is
1 La Jeunesse de Voltaire, page 129.
102 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the only composition in the hundred volumes of his works in
which no trace of the Voltairian quality can be discerned.
But the spy's report of the conversations served as a basis to
the subsequent proceedings. Scurrilous compositions fluttered
in every drawing-room. The regent knew that the "court" of
the Duchess du Maine was the source of much of this hostile
literature, and it was believed that Arouet was " the soul of
that society." The duchess herself was the soul of it, and
there is no reason to think that Arouet was trusted or em-
ployed by her in her political schemes. We know, however,
that those who administer paternal governments are content
with slight evidence when a victim is very much wanted and
their spies are off the true scent.
There is a tradition that he had a warning of what was in
store for him. On an afternoon in May he was strolling in
the gardens of the Palais-Rojal, when some one summoned
him to the presence of the regent, who was also walking there.
"Monsieur Arouet," said the regent, "I bet I will make
you see something you have never seen ! "
"Indeed, and what is it, Monseigneur? "
" The Bastille," replied the regent.
" Ah, Monseigneur," said the poet, " I consider it seen ! "
It may have been on this very Friday, May 14th, that he
saw the Czar Peter of Russia, then on one of his tours for im-
provement. The Czar had been a week in Paris, hurrying
from shop to shop, from lion to lion, himself the lion of the
year to the people of Paris. This was one of his busiest days :
at six in the morning in the grand gallery of the Tuileries,
examining plans and maps ; then to the Louvre ; next to the
garden of the Tuileries, from which all other visitors were ex-
pelled, and where he lingered to admire a swinging bridge ;
dinner at eleven ; after dinner a visit to Madame at the Palais-
Royal ; then to the opera with the regent, where he sat in
the grand box and called for beer, and the regent gave him
the beverage with his own hands ; finally, to supper with the
Duke de Villars and other military men. Our poet saw the
Czar as he was going the rounds of the shops ; "neither of
us," as he wrote forty years later, "then thinking that I
Bhould one day be his historian."
The next morning, Saturday, May 16th, Arouet, not so early
I
IN THE BASTILLE. 103
a riser as the Czar, was roused from sleep at his lodgings,
at the sign of the Green Basket, by a strange noise on the
stairs. Arrests upon lettres de cachet were made with the
utmost suavity of manner, but with a considerable show of
force ; and half a dozen men cannot ascend a staircase with-
out waking a sleeping poet. Upon opening his eyes he saw
the crowd at the foot of his bed, one of whom drew near,
touched him upon the shoulder with a white wand, and with
all possible politeness explained their business ; perhaps hand-
ing him a slip of paper, on which it was briefly stated : —
" The intention of His Royal Highness is that the Sieur
Arouet be arrested and conducted to the Bastille."
He was allowed, it seems, to go to his dressing-room, and,
while he and his valet were getting on their clothes, one of
the officers sealed up his papers, and another took an inven-
tory of his effects. It so chanced that the spy Beauregard,
who had given the information upon which the arrest was
made, " found himself present " on this occasion, also, and had
further conversation with the unsuspecting victim.
" Why are you arrested?" he asked.
" I know nothing about it," the prisoner replied.
" My opinion is," said the spy, " that your writings are the
cause."
" There are no proofs that I have written anything, for I
have never confided my writings to any but true friends."
" Is there nothing in these papers to convict you ? "
"No; for, luckily, the exempt did not get hold of the pair
of breeches in which there were some verses and sonars. I
seized an opportunity, while I was dressing, to throw them
where — it won't be easy to find them."
So reports the spy, and it is possible some conversation re-
sembling this occurred. The place indicated was searched, to
the extreme discomfiture of the inmates of the Green Basket,
and to the spoiling of several barrels of beer in its cellar ; but
no scrap of offensive writing was found. He was permitted
to take with him no article whatever except the clothes he
wore ; but before leaving he managed to dash upon paper and
send (probably by his valet) a short note to the Duke of Sully,
who had so happily alleviated his late exile : —
" M. de Basin, lieutenant of the short robe, is here to arrest
104 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
me tliis morning. I can tell you nothing more about it. 1
know not wluit I am accused of. My innocence assures me of
your protection. I shall be too happy if you do me the honor
to accord it to me."
That done, he was conducted down-stairs to the street,
assisted into a close carriage, the lieutenant following, and
driven slowly away, a file of men walking on each side of the
vehicle, and the passers-by looking on with serious counte-
nances. By the tortuous streets of old Paris the cortege must
have gone a mile and a half before it reached the Bastille, and
the prisoner could see through the blinds of the coach the an-
cient fortress rising gloomy and vast from the banks of the
Seine.
" Who goes there ?" cries the neai'est sentinel.
" Command of the king," replies the sergeant of the escort.
An officer of the guard appears, to whom the lettre de cachet
is shown ; upon seeing which he strikes a bell to summon
the officials of the chateau, and permits the whole cortege to
enter the first inclosure. The guard turns out ; the officials
stand reacl}^ ; the coach comes to a stand. The lieutenant of
the king opens the door of the carriage. Ever}' soldier covers
his face w'ith his hat, so as not to see the prisoner, and if by
chance there is some one in the court who has no hat on he
turns his back, or instantly withdraws. The prisoner alights.
He is the king's guest ; this is one of the royal chateaux ; and
he is conducted with the utmost respect to the office of the
governor, who gives a receipt to the commander of the escort,
and presents him to officers of his own. They conduct the
prisoner into the next room, where he is respectfully but thor-
oughly searched, deprived of every article he possesses which
does not strictly belong to his apparel, and an inventory is
taken.
He was obliged, as we haA^e seen, to surrender at least one
letter from his Olimpe, then an unhappy Baroness de Win-
terfield ; he a less unhappy prisoner of state. A good pocket-
ful of money was found upon him: "six louis of gold" and
a dozen or more of other coins, besides " an eye-glass, a pair
of scissors, a bunch of keys, tablets, and some papers." After
he has signed the inventory, he is taken back to the governor's
room, where he is formally handed over to the officers of the
Bastille.
IN THE BASTILLE. 105
The draw-bridge falls ; he is led aci'oss it ; he enters the
grand inclosure ; the gate closes ; he is in the Bastille. Un-
der-officers show him to an eight-sided room in one of the
towers, shut the door upon him, turn the huge key, drive
home the bolts, and leave him to his reflections, with ten feet
of solid and ancient masonry between him and the bright
May-day w^orld of Paris. ^
They gave him a pretty good room ; not one of the suites
reserved for princes and favorites, but a room of fair size, in
the lower story of one of the towers, which had been tenanted
by a Duke of Montmorenci, by a Biron, by a Bassompierre,
and in which De Saci had translated the Bible. From this
time onward, as long as the Bastille stood, it was shown to
visitors as Voltaire's room. It had a fire-place, and the occu-
pant could add anything to the scanty furniture that he
chose. He was the king's guest ; the king maintained him,
but if a guest had a fancy for particular articles of furniture,
there was a dealer who had bought at a high price the privi-
lege of supplying them at a high price.
The king gave his guests an excellent table ; nay, a lux-
urious one. Marmontel's treatment, so amusingly described
in his Memoirs, was that of many prisoners during the last
century of the Bastille's reign. It was cold when Marmontel
entered: the valets of the chateau made him a blazing fire and
brought him plenty of wood. He objected to the mattresses :
they were changed. A very good Friday dinner was served,
with a bottle of tolerable wine, and, after he had eaten it, he
was informed that it was meant for his servant. His own din-
ner followed : " Pyramids of new dishes, fine linen, beautiful
porcelain, silver spoon and fork, an excellent soup, a slice of
juicy beef, the leg of a broiled capon swimming in its gravy,
a little dish of fried artichokes, one of spinach, a very fine
pear, some grapes, a bottle of old Burgund}^ and some of
the best Mocha coffee." His servant, on seeing this banquet,
said, " Monsieur, as you have just eaten my dinner, allow me
in my turn to eat yours." "It is but just," replied his master,
and the valet entered upon the work.
We may conclude, therefore, that Ai'ouet did not have to
1 Archives de la Bastille. Par Fran9ois Ravaissou, Introduction, page xv.
Paris, 18G6.
106 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
wait long for bis breakfast on tbe morning of bis arrest, and
that he liad on that day, and every day, whatever was requi-
site for his bodily comfort. Indeed, we know that he dined
sometimes with the governor. Almost every literary man of
note who lived in the reign of Louis XV. was at least once a
prisoner in the Bastille, and they agree in describing it as the
least painful of prisons. There were but forty-two rooms in
the structure, and many of them were usually vacant. There
was much familiar intercourse between the prisoners and the
ofl&cers of the chateau, and most of the prisoners, as it seems,
received visitors in their rooms, and were allowed to keep a
private store of wine and dainties for the entertainment of
guests. They could send out for books, published with per-
mission. There was a billiard-room, a bowling-alley, and a
large court-yard for exercise and conversation, to all of which
most of the prisoners had some daily access. Persons accused
of serious crime, or who had given offense to a favorite or a
mistress, were treated with more severity ; were compelled to
take their exercise alone, under the eye of a sentinel ; were
confined to their rooms, and could not receive visitors. For
contumacious or disorderly inmates there were dungeons, damp
and dark, at the bottom of each of the eight towers; but
these were seldom used, and never except for short periods.
The form of a lettre de cachet was in harmony with the mild
regimen of the chateau. A person of rank was invited thus
to the king's hospitality :
"My Cousin: As I am by no means satisfied with your
conduct, I send you this letter to inform you of my intention,
which is that, as soon as you receive this, you shall proceed
to my chateau of the Bastille, there to remain till you have
my further orders. On which, my cousin, I pray God to have
you in his holy keeping."
M. Delort, among the papers discovered by him in "grocers*
shops and second-hand bookstores," found what appears to be
the original entry on the secret books of the Bastille of Arouet's
arrest and its cause : —
" FranQois-Marie Arouet, without profession, son of the Sieur Ar-
ouet, payer of the Chamber of Accounts, entered the Bastille May
17, 1717, accused of having composed some pieces of poetry and inso-
lent verses agamst Monsieur the Regent and ]\Iadame the Duchess of
J
IN THE BASTILLE. 107
Berri ; among others a piece which has for inscription ' Puero Reg-
nante.' Accused also of having said that, since he could not revenge
himself upon Monsieur the Duke of Orleans in a certain vr&j, he
would not spare him in his satires ; upon which, some one having
asked him what His Royal Highness had done to him, he rose in a
rage, and replied, ' What ! You do not know what that B. has done
to me? He exiled me because I made the public see that his Mes-
salina of a daughter was no better than she should be.' Signed,
M. d'Argenson ; Deschamps, clerk; Ysabeau, commissioner; Basin,
exempt of the short robe." ^
The bird is literally caged at last. His cage is of eight
stone sides and a vaulted roof, furnished with a plain table,
two rush-bottomed chairs, and a narrow bed. Plis family, as |
we are told by Duvernet, was in desolation.
" I foresaw clearly enough," cried his much-enduring father,
" that his idleness would lead to some disgrace. Why did he
not go into a profession ? "
His Jansenist of a brother probably added a hearty served-
him-riglit to his father's I-told-you-so. The old Marquis de
Dangeau made another entry in his diary concerning this
young man : " Arouet has been put into the Bastille. He is a
young poet accused of writing very imprudent verses. He was
exiled some months ago. He seems incorrigible." St. Simon
apologizes to himself for recording so trivial a circumstance :
" I should not mention here that Arouet was put into tlie Bas-
tille for writins: some most audacious verses, but for the celeb-
rity which his poems, his adventures, and the caprice of the
public have given him since. He is the son of my father's
notary, whom I have often seen bringing papers to sign. He
could never do anything with that libertine son of bis, whose
very libertinage made his fortune at last under the name of
Voltaire, which he assumed to hide his own." Thus Polo-
nius upon this plebeian Laertes.
Meanwhile, Laertes, as usual with him in all circumstances,
was making himself as comfortable as possible. He was ar-
rested on Saturday morning. On Thursday following we find
him signing a receipt for certain articles needful to complete
the equipment of a young gentleman and scholar, namely, " two
volumes of Homer, Latin-Greek, two Lidia handkerchiefs, a
1 2 Histoire de la Detention des Philosophes, 24.
^
108 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
little cap, t-wo cravats, a night-cap, a small bottle of essence of
cloves." Other effects had doubtless preceded this small con-
voy, and lie could send for more if the articles were not pro-
hibited. It is not certain that he was the sole occupant of his
room, for others of the Duchess du Maine's partisans were ar-
rested about the same time, and the chateau may have been
overfull. Be that as it may, there he was, with his Homer, his
night-cap, and his small bottle of essence of cloves, a prisoner
in one of the massive towers of the old Bastille, with a deep
slit for a window, througb which neither earth nor sky could
be seen.
CHAPTER XITI.
ELEVEN MONTHS A PRISONER.
Was he, as tradition reports, denied pen, ink, and paper in
the Bastille ? We have no letter of his written in that royal
chateau, nor any other composition certainly known to have been
put on paper there. At first, and perhaps for some weeks,
he may have had no writing materials, the improper use of
which was the offense charged against him. Diderot was
refused them in later years; but he made a passable ink by
scraping slate into wine, using a broken wine-glass as an
inkstand, cutting his quill tooth-picks into pens, and writing
on blank pages, as well as between the lines of wide-printed
books. What a Diderot did an Arouet could do. He
probably wrote in the Bastille ; and probably enjoyed, during
the latter part of his time, tolerable facilities both for study
and composition.
When first he found himself immured in his eight-sided
room, all the brightness of the world shut out, he threw
himself (as Duvernet reports from the lips of Thieriot) upon
his epic poem, " La Henriade," tumultuously planned at the
more agreeable chateau of Saint-Ange. He began to com-
pose in his mind, without waiting for pen and paper, and soon
became, as usual with him, wholly possessed by his subject.
Duvernet declares that the second canto, in which Henry of
Navarre relates to Queen Elizabeth of England the Massa-
cres of St. Bartholomew, came to the captive in a dream,
perfect and entire, just as it now stands in the work, — the
only canto which he never altered nor corrected. Honest
Wagnicre, his last amanuensis, asserts the same thing : " He
told me that he composed the second canto of 'La Henriade'
in his sleep, that he retained it in his memory, and never found
anything to change in it." ^
1 1 Me'moires sur Voltaire, par Longchamp et "Wagnicre, page 22.
110 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Frederic of Prussia probably heard the poet relate some-
thing similar, but in the funeral oration which he pronounced
upon Voltaire he does not repeat the marvel. " Could you,
gentlemen," said the king, " have imagined that it was at the
Bastille that our young bard composed the first two books of
his ' Henriade ' ? Though strange, this is true. His prison
became his Parnassus, to which the Muses resorted. It is
equally true that the second book is now what it appeared iu
this first copy. Not having paper or ink, he learned the
verses by rote, and retained them in his memory." ^
Many writers have had similar experiences, and will there-
fore be able to believe a portion of this prodigy. In the
early days of his incarceration, intensely absorbed in the at-
tempt to go on with his poem without the means of writing,
his health at low tide and his rest imperfect, he may have
really dreamed out the narrative of St. Bartholomew, — a
story, as he well says, which makes " the pen drop from the
hand."
f Some substitute for pen and ink coming, then, to alleviate
the tedium of his days, the eleven months that he passed.
' within the walls of this old fortress were not the least happy
tof his life, and were among the most profitable. How incom-
plete and misleading his education hitherto ! This long seclu-
sion gave him time to reflect, as well as labor. He discerned,
as he afterwards said, that in France a man is born either
hammer or anvil. Basking in the smiles of a Duchess du
Maine, or sitting down to a supper of princes, he may have
been weak lenough to fancy himself hammer ; but, pacing his
stone octagonal in the Bastille, it was but too evident that he
was nothing but anvil. If he hardened himself to bear in-
evitable blows, it was not his intention to remain anvil any
longer than he must. " I patiently endured," he wrote, a
year or two later, " the rigor of an unjust imprisonment ; but
I knew how to draw from my misfortune some advantage : I
learned to harden myself against adversity, and I found in
myself a fortitude not to be expected from the lightness and
the errors of my youth." ^
1 13 Posthumous "Works of Frederic II., King of Prussia, page 492. London,
1789.
2 Epitre a M. de Genonville. 17 CEuvres de Voltaire, 49.
\j ELEA^EN MONTHS A PRISOXER. Ill
His chief gain was intellectual. Besides working upon the
poem with all his own fiery ardor, he appears to have read and
considered some important books, and he may have met in
the chateau men of more mature character than himself. In
his burlesque romance, " Llng^nu," he consigns the hero to
the Bastille, and gives him an experience there which may
have been drawn in part from his own recollections. L'Ingenu
is a voung Frenchman reared among the Hurons of Lake
Ontario, who comes to France at maturity, ignorant of the
usao-es of civilization, and wholly " unformed." In the Bas-
O ** ••11
tille he meets a thoughtful and learned Jansenist, with whom
he daily converses upon the highest themes. " The old man
knew much, and the young man wished to learn much." He
studied geometry with passion, read works upon physical
science, such as there were then in France, and took up Male-
branche's treatise upon the " Search after Truth," a work
which suggested much that Voltaire applied. " What ! "
exclaims the Huron, " we are deceived to such a point by
our imagination and our senses ! " But when the young man
had finished the work, he concluded that it was easier to
destroy than to construct, and that Malebranche had torn
down with his reason, and built up with his imagination
and his prejudices. At last, the aged Jansenist asks him
what he thinks of the soul, and of the great question of
grace and free-will which had tormented France so long.
The young man from Lake Ontario answered this question
precisely as Voltaire always answered it : —
'' I think nothing. If I have a thought upon it, it is that
we are under the power of the Eternal Being, as the stars are,
and the elements ; and that he works by general laws, and
not by particular views."
Then they read history together, which saddened him ; for
it was but a record of mingled crime and misery. And yet
the spectacle of mighty Rome, " conqueror and lawgiver for
seven hundred years, through her enthusiasm for liberty and
glory," absorbed and fired his soul. They ran through the
dark and bloody history of the church, not failing to note the
words of Justinian: "Truth shines by its own light; human
minds are not enlightened by the flames of the fagot." The
young man becomes the teacher, and the old Jansenist, in the
112 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
presence of the sublime truths of science and the sorrowful
facts of history, discerns, at length, the puerility of all sec-
tarian controversies. Literature, poetry, drama, art, — all
passed in review before them ; and as the days, the weeks, the
months, rolled on, the young man found the Bastille almost a
happy abode.
Something of this happened to our captive. He increased
his knowledge ; he exercised his powers ; he gathered himself
for new attempts ; and during many long days and silent
nights he repeated his canto of St. Bartholomew. Nothing,
it seems, could occur to this young man which did not, in
some way, deepen his sense of the baleful effect of intoler-
ance.
" Religion, raging with inhuman zeal,
Arms every hand, and points the fatal steel.
To me, however, it will least belong
To prove the Roman or Genevan wrong.
Whatever names divine the parties claim.
In craft and fury they are both the same." ^
He was, nevertheless, in the Bastille, with a fine tragedy
ready for presentation, and a literary career dependent upon
its success. His friends outside were not idle. Le Brun, the
author of the "I-have-seens," was found, and he, in the pres-
ence of a cabinet minister, and " with tears of contrition in his
eyes," confessed himself the author of that harmless work.
The captive himself lent a helping hand by composing a comic
poem upon his arrest, which was Avell calculated to propitiate
a regent who made light of the usages of the church. The
Saturday of his arrest happened to be the day of Pentecost,
on which the Roman Catholic church celebrates the " descent
of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles." He used this cir-
cumstance with an audacity that was calculated to make the
regent, the grand prior, and both their supper-tables shake
with laughter, and Jansenists shiver with affright. He makes
his valet, who had come home drunk the evening before, cry
out, on hearing the noise on the stairs of the approaching
band, —
" Master ! The Holy Ghost is out there ! It is he, and no
mistake, for I have read in my book that he comes into peo-
ple's houses with a thundering racket ! "
1 La Henriade, cauto ij.
ELEVEN MONTHS A PRISONER. 113
Roused from sleep, the master sees at the foot of his bed,
"not a pigeon nor a dove, the Holy Spirit's tender and faith-
ful bird, but twenty crows, ravenous for their prey." The
whole poem is in this taste. It calls to mind the light audaci-
ties by which Byron, a century later, rescued cakes and ale
from the ban of virtuous Southey.
These measures, in the spri ng of 1718, promised to be suc-
cessful, and the captive poet had hopes of looking again upon
the sky and the gardens of the Palais-Royal. It was at this
time that he determined to make an alteration in his name,
by appending to it, after the fashion of his country, a name
appertaining to the family of his mother. He had not suc-
ceeded well with plain Arouet, and he would henceforth court
fortune as Arouet de Voltaire. Arouet was then, apparently,
pronounced as though it were written Arroi, an anomaly which
caused him to be confounded sometimes with a poet named
Roi, now forgotten, but then notorious and odious for low, sa-
tirical verse. Much ingenuity has been expended upon the
derivation of the word Voltaire. A writer in " Le Derby," a
French sporting paper, has the honor of settling this unim-
portant controversy. While investigating, in 1869, the pedi-
gree of a French horse, he came upon the records of a family
named Voltaire, and the family proved to be ancestors of our
prisoner's mother.^ The gentle parent, therefore, who gave
him his talent, supplied him also with the name by which that
talent became known.
Nothing is less unusual in France than such changes as
these. Moliere himself dropped the paternal name of Poque-
lin ; and really it is much to be desired that when a man en-
ters upon the work of immortalizing his name he would be
considerate enough to provide himself with a name fit to be
immortalized, one which posterity will take pleasure in pro-
nouncing. Our poet did not formally drop the name of his
family. He entered the Bastille, May 16, 1717, Francois-
Marie Arouet; he came out of the Bastille, April 11, 1718,
Arouet de Voltaire. The Arouet, however, soon wore off, and
it finally appeared only in legal documents.
Prisoners released from the Bastille were ordered into exile.
This prisoner was " relegated to the village of Chatenay, near
1 Pall MaU Budget, February 26, 1869.
VOL. 1. 8
114 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Sceaux, where his father, who has a country-house in the vil-
lage, offers to retain him." To Chatenay, accordingly, he was
driven on leaving the chateau of the Bastille, and there he
remained. It was not his intention to take up his abode at
that agreeable sojourn. When he had been at his father's
house four days, he wrote to the lieutenant of police, thanking
him for having procured his release, adding, " I think I have
profited by my misfortunes, and I venture to assure you that
I am as much indebted to His Royal Highness for my impris-
onment as for my liberation. I have committed many faults :
but I beg you, sir, to assure His Royal Highness that I am
neither such a knave nor such a fool as ever to have used my
pen against him. I have never spoken of that prince but to
express my admiration for his genius."
To the Count de Maurepas, minister of the regent, May 2d,
two weeks later : " I do not ask you to shorten the period of
my exile, nor for permission to pass one hour in Paris. The
only favor I solicit is that you will be so good as to assure His
Royal Highness that I am as much obliged to hira for my im-
prisonment as for my liberty, and that, as I have profited by
the one, I shall never abuse the other. All appearances being
against me, I have had no reason to complain of the regent's
justice, and all my life I shall praise his clemency. I can as-
sure you, as if I had to answer for it with my head, that . . .
I have never even seen the abominable inscription attributed
to me, and had not the least share in composing any of the
songs against the court."
To Count de Maurepas he wrote again, after an interval of
only four days, but in a very different strain. He seems to
have discovered, meanwhile, the "perfidy" of the spies who
had denounced him, and to have obtained proofs of the same.
He now implores, with all the fervor of passionate desire, per-
mission to go to Paris for two hours, that he might speak to
the count for a moment, and " throw himself at the feet of
His Royal Highness." Permission was granted, and he came.
He had an interview with the regent, and, as it appears, made
a very favorable impression upon him.
" Be prudent," the prince is reported to have said to him,
" and I will take care of you."
The reply of the poet is one of his famous sallies : " I
ELEVEN MONTHS A PRISONER. 115
should find it very good if his majesty should be pleased hence-
forth to charge himself with my board, but I beg your Royal
Highness not to trouble yourself farther with my lodging."
This reply ought to have made a livelier impression than it
did upon a good-natured regent. But this prince, self-indul-
gent Bourbon as he was, kept business and pleasure distinct.
He never told a state secret to a mistress, and he did not allow
his witty exile to live in Paris until six months after his re-
lease from the Bastille. There was, indeed, little obstacle to
his occasional visits, but^jt^was not untilthe 12th of October,
1718, that permission was formally accorded to " le Sieur
Arouet de Voltaire to come to Paris whenever he pleases."
CHAPTER XIV.
"CEDIPE" PERFORMED.
His tragedy is at last in rehearsal at the Theatre-Francais.
That " CEdipe," which he had begun five years before, and
read so often to princesses, comrades, and critics, is announced
for production in November, and the poet is established at
Paris none too soon.
He had written this play in the spirit of an artist formed
and necessitated to succeed. It was at one of the noble and
beautiful fetes of the period, given to the Duchess du Maine,
that he conceived the idea of writing a tragedy upon this oft-
used theme. The duchess on that occasion assisted at a rep-
resentation of the " Iphigeuia '.' of Euripides, translated into
French at her request by M. de Malezieu, herself playing the
part of Iphigenia. The young poet was deeply moved by the
austere majesty of the play.
"At that time [as he afterwards told the duchess] I had no fa-
miliarity with our French drama, and it did not enter my mind that
an affair of love could be mingled with that tragic subject. I yielded
myself to the manners and customs of Greece so much the more
easily from scarcely knowing any others, and I admired the antique
in all its noble simplicity. This performance it was which gave me
the first idea of composing my tragedy, before I had even read the
' CEdipe ' of Corneille. I began with translating, by way of experi-
ment, the famous scene of Sophocles, which contains the mutual confi-
dence of Jocaste and Q^dipe. I read it to some of my friends who
went often to the theatre, and to some actors. They assured me that
the scene could never succeed in France ; they urged me to read Cor-
neille, who had carefully avoided it ; and they all agreed that if I did
not follow his example, and put a love affair into ' CEdipe,' the act-
ors themselves would not accept my work. I then read the ' CEdipe '
of Corneille, which, without being regarded as equal in merit to his
' Cinna ' and ' Polyeucte,' had then much reputation. I confess
that the play revolted me from one end to the other ; but it was nee-
"CEDIPE" PERFORMED. 117
essary to yield to precedent and to bad usage. In the midst of the
terror of that masterpiece of antiquity I introduced, not an affair of
love, — that idea appeared to me too shocking, — but at least the rec-
ollection of an extinct passion." ^
And when he bad written his play his troubles were far
from being at an end. Among the papers of Father Poree,
his Latin master at the College Louis-le-Grand, was found
after his death a letter of 1729, in which the young dramatist
mentioned some of the other obstacles he had been obliged to
encounter.
"Young as I was [wrote the pupil to the master], I composed
' OEdipe ' very nearly as you see it to-day. I was full of the read-
ing of the ancients and of your lessons, and, knowing very imper-
fectly the Paris stage, I worked almost as if I had been at Athens.
I consulted M. Dacier,^ who was of that country. He advised me to
put a chorus into all the scenes, after the manner of the Greeks ;
which was like advising me to walk in Paris wearing Plato's robe.
It was all I could do to induce the actors of Paris to perform the
chorus that appeared only three or four times in the play ; and I had
even more trouble to get them to accept a piece devoid of love. The
actresses laughed at me when they saw that there was no part for the
amorous lady, and they found the scene of the twofold confidence be-
tween OEdipe and Jocaste (drawn in part from Sophocles) entirely
insipid. In a word, the actors, who were then coxcombs and great
lords, refused to play the piece. I was extremely young. I be-
lieved they were right. To please them I spoiled my tragedy by
mingling sentiments of tenderness with a legend to which they were
so unsuited. When they saw a little love in the play they were less
dissatisfied with me, but they would not tolerate in the least that
grand scene between Jocaste and CEdipe ; they ridiculed, at once,
Sophocles and his imitator. I held my ground ; I gave my reasons ;
I set some of my friends at work ; and, after all, it was only through
the influence of important persons that I induced them to play
' OEdipe.' Thei-e was an actor named Quinault who said openly that,
to punish me for my obstinacy, the piece ought to be played just as it
was, including that bad fourth act taken from the Greek. Besides,
they regarded me as a j^resumptuous person to dare treat a subject
with which Pierre Corneille had succeeded so well. Corneille's
* CEdipe ' was at that time considered an excellent work. I deemed
1 6 CEuvres de Voltaire, 156.
2 The celebrated translator.
118 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
it a very poor work, and I dared not say so. I did not say it till ten
years had passed, when the public was of my opinion." ^
But now, owing to the good word of the Prince de Conti
and other appreciators of the poet, all difficulties were over-
come, and the polite world of Paris was expectant of the sen-
sation of a new play by a new poet : a poet just out of the
Bastille ; a play of which great things were said and mis-
chievous things were whispered in high circles.
Voltaire himself tells us what a first night then was to the
graceful idlers of Paris, — thirty thousand persons, as he com-
puted, in a population of half a million. Cabals became ac-
tive for and against the new play. There were intrigues for
the possession of a box, and by noon of the great day the the-
atre was filled with valets keeping seats for their masters.
The piece was judged before the curtain rose on the first act.
Women argued with women : dandies with dandies ; cliques
with cliques. The cafds filled early in the day with people
disputing the merits of a production which none of them had
seen. Crowds gathered in the street waiting for admission to
the parquette. Bets were made, and the fate of the piece was
foretold by a throw of the dice. The actors trembled, the
author also ; and all his friends were anxious and astir.^
On some occasions, when partisans were unusually excited,
each spectator was asked, as he entered the parquette, " Do
you come to hiss?" "Yes." "Then sit over there." But
if he answered, " I come to applaud," he was directed to the
other side. Thus the two beUigerent bodies were massed for
more effective action.^
The hour has come. It is Friday, November 18, 1718.
The house is crowded ; the candles are snujffed ; the ladies
glitter with jewelry. At that time, and as late as 1759, spec-
tators were allowed both to stand and sit upon the stage ;
nay, to lounge about, converse, and even smoke. The same
dread of the audience which makes our performers nightly
submit to the imposition of encores, and destroy illusion by
acknowledging applause, preserved this abuse for a century,
against the rebuke and ridicule of every lover of the dramatic
1 Voltaire to Pere Poree. January 7, 1729.
2 Voltaire to his niece, Madame Denis. March 3, 1752.
3 16 (Euvres de Voltaire, 268.
"(EDEPE" PERFOKMED. 119
art. Four rows of benches on each side, one behind and
above the other, had now replaced the primeval stools, and
formed upon the stage a kind of amphitheatre, which was en-
closed by a gilded railing. On important nights like this
there would also be a row of seats outside the railing, as
well as a solid mass of spectators standing at the back of the
stage, through which the actors forced their way to the front. ^
Garrick in England, Voltaire in France, forty years later,
cleared the stage of this absurd incumbrance, to the great re-
lief and joy of all concerned.
Imagine, then, an interior not very large, not too brilliantly
lighted, crowded with people, all dressed in the showy colors
and picturesque garments of the time, with a narrow strip of
stage in the midst thereof, upon which the terrible legend
of CEdipus is to be presented, set to the music of French
rhyme. The audience was homogeneous, at least. There
were no " groundlings " to be conciliated, nor " gods " to be
kept quiet ; for, at that period, the industrial people of Paris
only went to the theatre on certain festive days, when the
king paid for all. Dealers in lemonade moved about among
the spectators. The rosy regent may have been there with
a mistress conspicuous at his side, and the duchess, his wife,
may have also been present in her own box, not far off. A
chronicler of the time mentions seeing at this very theatre, in
the Palais Royal, in 1720, the regent, with one of his mis-
tresses seated next to him, and on the other side of the house,
" Monsieur le Due," the prince next in rank to the regent,
also with his mistress sitting beside him.^
A more pleasing tradition is that Maitre Arouet, the much-
enduring father of the poet, was among the spectators. The
young man himself was behind the scenes, suffering the pangs
which all authors know, and, as it seems, affecting the gayety
that young authors sometimes affect on such occasions.
The bell rings to notify the audience that the curtain is
about to rise, and that all must leave the theatre who do not
intend to witness the performance. To those who go out,
if any do, their money is returned. This strange custom ac-
commodated people who only came to see the assembly and
1 7 Jourual de Barbier, 160.
2 1 Journal de Marais, 495.
120
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
converse with acquaintances. On first nights, however, there
were few such visitors, or none. The curtain rises. The
Prince of Euboea enters, followed by his convenient friend,
Dimas, both dressed in the mode of Paris, mmo 1718, with
swords at their sides, precisely similar to those worn by every
gentleman in the audience. The first couplet gives the key-
note : —
" Philoctete, est-ce vous ? Quel coup affreux du sort
Dans ces lieux empestes vous fait chercher la mort ? "
Among the last things reached by a student of the beauti-
ful language and noble literature of France is an appreci-
ation of the rhymed tragedies of the elder dramatists, Cor-
neille, Racine, Voltaire. We have, first of all, to forget
Shakespeare, and all Shakespearean methods. We have also
to pass through a process similar to that by which a country
youth learns first to endure, then forgive, and, finally, love
the Italian opera ; or that process by which a performer of
the " Battle of Prague " on the piano comes to dote upon a
Wagnerian opera, — a beautiful legend, gliding slowly by to
the sound of heavenly music.
A French tragedy of the old style is a spoken opera, a
series of stately, rhymed dialogue, relieved by little action,
burdened with much narration ; the decisive events being us-
ually told, not exhibited. There is scarcely any attempt at
naturalness or verisimilitude ; there are commonly no forms
of salutation or farewell ; and there is nothing approaching
a jest. The first words are fraught with the agony of the
theme ; the story moves on with little interruption ; and there
are few passages of an independent beauty, such as " Mercy is
twice blessed," and the suicide soliloquy in " Hamlet." The
villains are conscious villains, and expatiate upon their vil-
lainy with a simplicity that amuses ; but the good are wholly
and romantically good. In Shakespeare there is always the
powerful legend, but there is also a varied exhibition of
human character. In the old French tragedy the legend
dominates, fate is supreme, and the characters are little indi-
vidualized. Such, however, is the charm of literary art, that
these tragedies retain a place in the world's literature, and
will perhaps be read, performed, and loved after most of t)ie
subsequent drama of France has faded forever from the mem-
ories of men.
" CEDIPE " PERFORMED. 121
This " Qildipe " of Voltaire's held and thrilled the audience.
With much of the excellence of his two great predecessors, he
possessed an effectiveness all his own, and he provided his
actors with an extraordinary number of " points," which gave
them easy opportunities of winning applause.
All plays that play well, from " Hamlet " to " The Hunch-
back," have one quality in common, and only one, — they
afford the actors good chances to display their talents. Peo-
ple go to the theatre to see acting, and the dramatist's part
in the enterprise is to provide opportunity for acting. Vol-
taire performed this duty, and did not disdam to insert some
passages of the kind which are now styled local hits. Since
the play turned upon incest and_ pajricide, the enemies of the
regent came to the theatre expecting allusion to the infernal
imaginings of base minds then current in Paris. They pre-
tended to find what they sought ; and the play contained
allusion enough of other kinds, intended by the author.
Thunders of applause followed the delivery of a powerful
passage in the first scene, which reminded auditors of their
beloved little king, eight years old, and of the fine example
set him by his elders : " The friendship of a great man is a
boon from the gods. What had I been without him? Nothing
but a king's son ! Nothing but a common prince ! I should
have been, perhaps, the slave of ray senses, of which he has
rendered me the master ! "
The friends and the enemies of the regent, the friends
and the enemies of the Duchess du Maine, the friends and
the enemies of the king's tutor, Fleury, were all equally
obliged to applaud this passage. In the same act there were
some lines that appealed to the people who were relenting
toward the memory of the late king, and remembered with
shame how his funeral rites had been slighted : " Kings while
they live are obeyed, even in things belonging to the other
world. Adored by their subjects, they are gods themselves.
But after their death, what are they in your eyes ? You
extinguish the incense that you burned to them ; and, as the
human soul is controlled by interest, the virtue which is no
more is instantly forgotten. The blood of your king rises
up against you ! "
And again, when Jocaste exclaims, " Incest and parri-
122 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
cide ! " the ill-disposed could not but think of a prince pop-
ularly accused of both. For the sect of the unbelievers,
already numerous and zealous, there were two titbits, one of
which was vehemently applauded : " Our priests are not what
the foolish people think them ; our credulity makes all their
science."
There was a point, too, in the fourth act, which recalled
the parade adopted during the last two reigns whenever the
king appeared to the public, — "a hedge of soldiers " lining
both sides of the street. The reduction of the twelve thousand
royal guards was a topic of the day.
CEdipe. — " When Laius undertook that fatal journey, had he any
guards, any soldiers, with him ? "
JocASTE. — "I have told you already that one man alone went
with him."
CEdipe. — " Only one man ? "
JoCASTE. — " That king, greater than his rank, disdained, like you,
a wearisome pomp. Before his chariot the gorgeous rampart of a
numerous battalion was never seen marching. In the midst of sub-
jects submissive to his authority, as he was without fear, he went his
way without defense. By the love of his people he believed himself
guarded."
Such passages as these, though they could not have saved
a dull play, added greatly to the success of this truly powerful
one. The fourth act profoundly moved the audience, and
the interest was well sustained to the end. The chorus, spar-
ingly used, had a happy effect, and gave variety as well as dig-
nity to the performance.
Tradition reports that in the last scene, when the high
priest and the chorus have the stage almost to themselves,
the author, hilarious with his triumph, seized the pontiff's
train, and came in view of the spectators still bearing it.
Madame de Villars, who saw this extravagance, asked, " Who
is that young man trying to damn the play? " Upon learn-
ing that it was the author, she conceived a high opinion of
his magnanimity, and had him presented to her. The ac-
quaintance thus formed lasted long, and had important con-
sequences.
pMaitre Arouet, so runs the tale, did not listen in silent
{rapture to the fervid verse of his troublesome offspring. " Ah,
"CEDIPE" PERFOEMED. 123
the rogue ! Ah, the rogue ! " he is said to have muttered from
time to time during the performance, and ended by crying out-
right at the fourth act.
One brilliant anecdote of this great night the author him-
self recorded, fifty-five years after, in a letter to La Harpe.
His grand lady friends kept telling him, during the evening,
how superior his piece was to that of Corneille on the same
subject. The young poet, always loyal to his great forerun-
ners, always a modest author, contrived, by a happy quota-
tion from Corneille himself, to accept the compliment, and, at
the same time, pay becoming homage to the father of French
tragedy. He quoted the lines from Corneille's "Pompey"
which the victorious Caesar pronounces over Pompey's dead
body : " Remains of a demi-god, never can I equal thy great
name, thy conqueror though I am ! "
" Restes d'un demi-dieu, dont jamais je ne puis
Egaler le giaud nom, tout vauqueur que j'en suis."
(Acte v., Scene 1.)
It was a pretty story to run from box to box, from drawing-
room to drawing-room, from chateau to chateau, in those first
weeks of a new-born fame. Subsequent representations con-
firmed and enhanced the triumph of the opening night. Both
the partisans of the regent and those of the Duke du Maine
had an equal interest in promoting the run of the play. Ac-
cording to the biographer of the regent, every point was " ap-
plied and applauded " by both parties alike, while the author
affected not to perceive the existence of the strife, and in-
duced the regent to attend a performance with his daughter,
the Duchess of Berri. That princess, he adds, came " five
nights in succession to see the play, as if to brave public
opinion." People spoke of the Regent-CEdipe, and of his
daughter as Berri-Jocaste.^
The good-natured prince held his ground, and heaped hon-
ors upon the fortunate author. He presented him, in the
king's name, with a massive gold medal. The original record
of this transaction exists in the great Librai-y of Paris: "De-
cember 6, 1718. Given to the Sieur Arouet a gold medal, rep-
resenting on one side the King, and on the other Monseigneur
the Due d' Orleans, Regent, amounting to the sum of six huu-
1 Philippe d'Orlcans, par M. Capefigue, page 394.
124 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
dred and sovent3'-five livres ten sous." ^ The duke publicly
conversed with the author at the next opera ball. The sub-
ject of their conversation was Rabelais, whose works the re-
gent extravagantly praised, which caused the young man to
think ill of the prince's taste. " I had then," Voltaire says,
" a sovereign contempt for Rabelais," from which he long
afterwards recovered, on learning more of the times and cir-
cumstances in which Rabelais wrote.^ More than all this,
the regent permitted the tragedy to be performed in the Tui-
leries for the amusement of the boy-king. This last was the
crowning triumph of the poet. The Marquis de Daugeau, who
disposes of great affairs of state in four lines, devotes to this
event a considerable pai'agraph : —
" Saturday, January 11, 1719, the drama of ' CEdipe ' was
played at the king's palace, when Madame de Berri sat beside
him in gi-and toilette, and all the ladies who were in the king's
view were in grand toilette also. But those who were upon
the steps behind the king, and in the galleries, were in their
usual clothes. The piece was much applauded. The ambas-
sadors of the emperor, those of the king of Portugal and the
king of Sardinia, were present. Although the room was small,
there was a large company, and very great order was ob-
served."
- The play was performed fortj'^-five successive nights, — a run
not previously equaled on the French stage ; and it remains to
this day a stock piece, played whenever there is an actress
capable of personating the ill-starred heroine. The author, as
he tells us, was present every night, watching both the per-
formance and the audience, and learning something of his art
from both. " Each representation of my ' Qj^dipe ' was for me
a severe study, in which I gathered the approval and the cen-
sures of the public, and studied the public taste to form my
own." Yet he would not always admit the correctness of the
public verdict ; he remahied dissatisfied with the first scene of
the fourth act, though it was the one that nightly produced
the greatest effect.
The poet pushed and utilized this first success in every
possible way and to the uttermost degree. In a few days
1 Jeunesse de Voltaire, page 158.
2 Voltaire to Madame du Deffand, October 13, 1759.
"CEDIPE" PERFORMED. 125
after the opening niglit he was ready with an edition of the
tragedy, which bore a most flattering " approbation " from the
ofiicial censor, the poet La Motte. " The public, at the rep-
resentation of this piece," said La Motte, " promised itself a
worthy successor of Corneille and Racine ; and I believe that
at the reading of it it will abate nothing of its hopes." With
audacious tact, the author dedicated the play to the Duchess
of Orleans, the regent's mother, telling her in his epistle that,
if the usage of dedicating literary works to the best judges of
them were not already established, it would begin with Her
Royal Highness, the protectress of the fine arts, the example
and the delight of France. He prefixed to the play several
letters, gossipy and critical, in which he discoursed upon his
late mishap in being suspected of having written a parcel of
stuff eutitled " I Have Seen ; " and he let the public know
that His Royal Highness had deigned to acknowledge his in-
nocence and to compensate him for his detention. He des-
canted at some length upon the " CEdipe " of Sophocles, upon
that of Corneille, and upon his own, comparing their faults
and merits with interesting candor; conceding the general su-
periority of his two predecessors, but not concealing his just
opinion that, in the matter of " CEdipe," it was M. Arouet de
Voltaire who had treated the legend most suitably to modern
tastes. A swarm of pamphlets fluttered from the press in re-
sponse, some defending the Greek poet, others the French.
The Prince de Conti wrote a poem in honor of the new play
and poet, in which he said that the new treatment of the old
theme was such as to make people think either that Racine
had come back from Hades, or else that Corneille in Hades
had corrected his style. " Monseigneur," said Voltaire to the
prince, '• you will be a great poet ; I must get the king to give
you a pension," — a good example of the "tone of ease" which
he took with the lords of the earth. He also addressed a
poem to the prince, which contains something more and bet-
ter than the usual eulogium. He sent a copy of his play to
George I. of England, with a sweUing sonnet addressed to the
monarch, and another copy to the Duke and Duchess of Lor-
raine (the lady being a sister of the regent), with a modest
stanza.
The author's share of the profits of the performance appears
V
126 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
to have been about four thousand francs, to which must per-
haps be ackled a thousand crowns, said to have been given him
by the Duke of Orleans, and part of the proceeds of the sale
of copies. He was a capitalist! We begin to find intima-
tions in his correspondence that he possessed bonds and shares.
fo " A good part of my property is in the India Company," he
writes in these weeks to a lady. All the world was buying
shares in one or the other of the schemes of John Law. Mak-
ing money was coming into fashion, and it was a very good
time for a notary's son to go upon the street with a few thou-
sand francs of good money in his pocket. He had something
better even than money, namely, a permit, a privilege or mo-
nopoly of some kind from the regent, upon which a money-
making enterprise was founded, and in speaking of which he
takes the tone of the director.^
1 1 Lettres Inedites de Voltaire, 2, 3.
CHAPTER XV.
FROM CHATEAU TO CHATEAU.
Those were happy days. There are few keener delights
enjoyed by mortals than a genuine literary success, whether
the motive of the author be public or personal. I have heard
a poet of our own time say, apropos of Dante's " Paradise,"
that he could imagine no bliss of disembodied spirits greater
than that of publishing, every three or four years, a little vol-
ume which should pervade the civilized world, and cause that
world to give back to the author a glance of sympathetic rec-
ognition. A dramatic triumph is, perhaps, the most thrilling
of all the forms of literary glory, since it is one which the au-
thor can himself nightly witness and vividly feel.
Voltaire at this time had two comrades to share and in-
crease his happiness, with whom he had many a gay ride into
the country, and many a merry supper in town after the play.
One of these was a young man named De G^nonville, to
whose " manes " he afterwards addressed the well-known Epis-
tle. The other was JMademoiselle de Livri, whom he had met
at the chateau of the Duke of Sully, where she served asfemme
de chamhre to the duchess, and played comedy parts in the
little theatre of the chateau. Voltaire, struck with her talent,
and perhaps attracted by her personal charms, gave her lessons
in the dramatic art, and promised to use his interest in pro-
curing her a debut upon the stage of Paris. The success of
"GEdipe" now gave his recommendation so much weight that
the young lady was in Paris in the spring of 1719, rehearsing
the important part of Jocaste in the new tragedy, which was
to be revived after Lent. Hence the gay rides and the merry
suppers of the three inseparables — Voltaire, De Genonville,
and '• Egcrie."
"You remember the time," Voltaire sings to the " manes"
of his old friend, " when the amiable Egcrie, in the beautiful
128 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
days of our life, heard our songs and shared our enthusiasms.
We three loved one another. Reason, folly, love, the enchant-
ment of the most tender errors, — all bound together our three
hearts. How happy we were ! Even that poverty of ours,
sad companion of bright days, could not poison the current
of our joy. Young, gay, content, without care, w^ithout fore-
thought, limiting all our desires to the cielights of the present
moment, what need had we of a vain abundance ? We had
richer possessions : we had the pleasures." ^
Such was his remembrance of those months, after ten years
had rolled over his head, [For a time, it seems, the poet was
in love with his engaging pupil, and gave her his portrait,
jvhich has been preserved to this day. She came at last to
prefer De Genonville ; Voltaire also was drawn away by a more
potent attraction ; and these are, as we may conjecture, the
" tender errors " of which the poet speaks. One of his own
tender errors of that too brief period of joy was intrusting a
leading part in high tragedy to a young girl from the country
before she had learned to pronounce her native tongue in the
Parisian manner. When "Q^dipe"was revived after Lent,
Mademoiselle de Livri appeared in the part of the Queen, and
with the greater prestige from being represented by the scan-
dal of the day as the maitresse of the author. Her failure was
complete and hopeless. Some provincial peculiarities of pro-
nunciation provoked laughter, and she was so manifestly un-
equal to the part that, on the third night, it was resumed by
the excellent actress who had originally performed it.
The author of the play was not long in discovering "the jus-
tice" of the public verdict ; but on the fatal evening he was
extremely indignant. Observing one of the actors, Poisson,
joining in the general laughter, he assailed him with a volley
of abusive words. At the end of the performance (so the
gossip of the day reports), Poisson waited for him at the door
of the theatre, and challenged him. The author declining
the combat " against an actor," Poisson threatened to assault
him with his cane, and the poet is said to have complained to
the police, and caused the actor to be thrown into prison, from
which he was released through Voltaire's own intercession.
Malign gossip asserts that this intercession was itself a piece
V.-^ ^ Epitre aux Manes de M. de Genonville, 1729 ; 17 CEuvres de Voltaire, 82.
FROM CHATEAU TO CHATEAU. 129
of histrionic performance. Mademoiselle de Livri resumed
her corned}' parts, and was heard of on the Paris stage no
more. Her subsequent career in the world surpassed in start- '^
ling surprises and splendid transformation scenes any comedy
in which she ever performed. Meanwhile, exit Egerie, and
the gay trio is dispersed, never to be merry together again.
Who has ever tasted dramatic success without courting the
muse a second time? The poet had already fixed upon a
theme for another tragedy, — Artemire, queen to Cassander,
a king of the time of Alexander the Great. In the composi-
tion of " Q^dipe," he had been aided by previous versions
of the awful legend, and owed the supreme effect of the play
in the fourth act to the genius of Sophocles. His purpose
now was to produce a work which should be wholly his
own, including the story, — a feat which a dramatist of his
rank has rarely attempted. It was a tale of an innocent
queen and an absent husband made jealous by false accusa-
tions, which he discovers to be false just after he has received
his death wound. He began to compose this piece with his
usual ardor, when he was once more exiled from Paris.
The rejjent continued to live in the self-indulcjent manner
described above, and the hostile faction continued, also, to in-
trigue and calumniate. Three short poems, called " The Phi-
lippics " (the regent's name was Philip), appeared in Paris
in the spring of 1719, in which the worst scandals concerning
the regent and his court were recounted in verse so melodious
and effective that to this day " Les Philippiques " rank as
part of the classic literature of France. They had such an
immediate circulation all over the country that it seemed
the effect of systematic exertion. The French are curiously
susceptible to the charm of versification, and, in the dawn of
freedom, there is a propensity to exaggerate the faults of -H
rulers. These Philippics repeated the hackneyed insinuations
with regard to the regent and his daughter, the Duchess of
Berri, and distinctl}' accused him of a design to poison the
boy-king, his nephew. This regent committed grievous
faults ; his daily life was shameful ; but he was a fond father
and uncle, and as incapable of the crimes imputed to him as
any gentleman in Europe. A moralist might aver that he
had done worse things than those of which he was accused,
VOL. I. 9
130 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
but he had not done those. It was, perhaps, more injurious
to France for him to live as he lived, and prepare for that
boy the moral atmosphere which his example and policy did
prepare for him, than to slay him outright, and seize his crown.
But, in his own way, he loved the little king, and performed
punctiliously every duty towards him which the moral feeling
of that court demanded. These scandalous poems cut him to
the heart. He heard of them some time before he saw them,
and often asked to see them ; but, as St. Simon records, no
one dared show him compositions " which contained all that
hell can vomit, both of false and true, expressed in the most
beautiful verse." At length he demanded them with such
urgency that St. Simon was obliged to obey, declaring, as he
handed the sheet to the regent, that as for reading the poems
he would never do it. The passage in which the Duke of St.
Simon describes the scene that followed is one of the most
famous in the memoirs of that age, and it may serve to show
us what misery anonymous cowards often inflict when they
assail with poniard pen the defenseless chief of a nation : —
" The regent then took the leaf and read it to himself, standing in
the window of his litde winter cabinet, where we were. He found
it, as he read along, to be such as it was, for he stopped now and then
to speak to me about it, without seeming to be much moved. But,
all at once, I saw him change countenance, and turn toward me,
tears in his eyes, and almost overcome. ' Ah,' he said, ' this is too
much ; this horror is stronger than I.' He was at the place where
the scoundrel showed the Duke of Orleans designing to poison the
king, and near accomplishing his crime. It is the passage in which
the author redoubles his energy, his poetic fire, his invocations, the
frightful and terrific beauties of his verse, hideous pictures, touching
portraiture of youth, the king's innocence, the hopes he gave, his ap-
peals to the nation to save a victim* so precious from the murderer's
barbarity : in a word, all that the literary art has of most delicate and
most tender, of most powerful and most black, of most stately and
most moving. I wished to avail myself of the mournful silence of
the duke to take away that execrable paper, but could not succeed.
He poured forth just complaints of a calumny so abominable ; he ut-
tered expressions of tenderness for the king ; then he wished to finish
the reading, which he again, and more than once, interrupted to speak
of it to me. Never have I seen a man so penetrated, so deeply
moved, so overwhelmed with an injustice so enormous and sustained.
FROM CHATEAU TO CHATEAU. 131
For my part, I was beside myself. The most prejudiced persons,
provided they were disinterested in their prejudice, if they had seen
him then, would have yielded to the obvious certainty of his inno-
cence and the horror of the crime in which he was plunged. I could
scarcely recover from the shock, and I had all the trouble in the
world to restore him a little." ^
The author of those poems, La Grange-Chancel, a noted
dramatist of the day, wrote them, as it seems, merely to
avenge a private literary wrong, committed not by the re-
gent, but by one of the regent's favorites. As he had pre-
viously published nothing equal to them in force or malignity,
suspicion passed him over, and fell upon Voltaire, recently
from the Bastille, and still a frequenter of disaffected circles.
He had been much with Baron de Goertz, minister and emis-
sary of Charles XII., intriguer, sham financier, adventurer,
whose schemes included the restoration of Stanislas to the
throne of Poland, James II.'s return to England, and, perhaps,
a change in the dynastic arrangements of Spain and France.
In his " History of Charles XII.," Voltaire explains these de-
signs in many pages, and gives the baron's character in one
line : " What his master was at the head of an army, Goertz
was in the cabinet." Among his other bold projects, he had
formed the design to capture the author of the new " CEdipe,"
and bear him off to grace the court of the king of Sweden,
who, it was said at the time, " did not know what a poet was."
The bullet that pierced the brain of the Swedish king, Decem-
ber 11, 1718, put an end to the projects of his minister; and,
a few months after, the Swedes brought him to trial and cut
off his head for the double crime of inflating their paper and
debasing their coin. It was from the Baron Henri de Goertz
that Voltaire derived part of the information which enabled
him, by and by, to write his " History of Charles XII." All
was fish that came to the net of this young man, ever curious
to know the more hidden causes of public events.
He was "suspect." The bullet just mentioned had the
most surprising and remote effects. It shut up the Duchess
du Maine and her court in the Bastille, and it was among the
causes of Voltaire's receiving a polite official intimation in
May, 1719, that he had better pass the fine season in the
1 16 St. Simon, 259, Paris, 1877.
132 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
country. The public, not the regent, believed him to be the
author of the " Philippiques ; " he had been an open fre-
quenter of the society of intriguers who surrounded the bed
of the Duchess du Maine ; he had been a comrade of the
beheaded Goertz. It was enough. A storm was heard one
djiy crashing along the horizon, filling Paris with dust and
noise. " The kingdom of heaven, too" said he, " must have
fallen into regency ; " and, with this light word to amuse the
saloons he left behind him, he took his unfinished play and his
unfinished poem with him, and spent the rest of the year in
the provinces. " At present," he writes to the Marquise de
Mimeure, "I am at Villars. I pass- my life from chateau to
chateau."
Villars was the country-house of the veteran marshal of
Louis XIV. 's Liter wars, the Duke of Villars, a personage of
great note and splendor during the regency. The new play of
" Artemire " did not advance rapidly under the roof of this
old soldier. Again our inquisitive author had daily access to
one of the sources of history, and again a public man found in
him a listener untiring and sympathetic. j\Iany of the most
effective anecdotes in Voltaire's " History of the Age of Louis
XIV." are preceded b}', "I have often heard the Marshal de
Villars say," or, " The Marshal de Villars assured me ; " and
it was during this and subsequent summers, while going about
among the chateaux of France, that he obtained and recorded
those anecdotes. The veteran loved to fight his campaigns
over again, quite as well as his guest loved to hear him do so.
- But it was not this that retarded the new play. The Duch-
ess de Villars, much younger than her husband, a handsome,
luxurious woman, had accepted it as her vocation to disarm
the jealousy arising from her husband's too rapid promotion,
by being agreeable to all the world. It was she who had sum-
moned Voltaire to her box on the opening night of his
'• Q^^dipe," and been gracious to him in the susceptible hour
of his triumph. She was too agreeable to him. He was fas-
cinated. He conceived for her "a grand passion," which for
some months, as it appears, absorbed and confused his life,
suspending even the power to labor, his usual resource in all
times of trouble. She played with him, tradition reports ;
never returning his love, but permitting him to hope and Ian-
FROM CHATEAU TO CHATEAU. 133
guisli. It cost him a long and severe struggle to conquer this
passion, but be did conquer it, and found relief at last in re-
suming bis work. He was accustomed to express contrition
for bis weakness on tbis occasion ; not, indeed, for baving
made love to an old soldier's wife under that old soldier's own
roof, but because a fruitless passion bad caused bim to lose so
mucb time ! He wrote to bis friend, Madame de Mimeure, in
tbe true tone of tbe disappointed and bopeless lover : —
" You make me feel tbat friendsbip is a thousand times
more precious than love. It seems to me that I am not at all
made for the passions. |l find something ridiculous in w.y be-
ingf in love, and I should find it more ridiculous in those who
should be in love with me. It is all over. I renounce it for
life."
He wrote, also, a very pretty, but very saucy epistle, in
verse, to the object of bis passion, complaining of her insensi-
bility to his devotion. He concludes thus : " The Future, in
reading this work, since it is made for you, will cherish its
delineations. This author, readers will say, who painted so
many charms, had for his share only some little suppers, where
the guests drank very freely ; but be deserved more." All of
which was in accord with Ninon de Lenclos's maxim, tbat
" love is a pastime, involving no moral obligation," — the falsest
thing, perhaps, which words ever uttered.
From chateau to chateau. This expression describes his
way of life for many years, — nay, for tbe greater part of his
existence ; for be was near sixty years of age before he was
settled in a chateau of his own. From Villars he went to
his old quarters at the house of the Duke of Sully ; thence
to Villars again ; often to the magnificent abode of the Duke
of Richelieu, filled with evidences of the profusion and taste
of the great cardinal ; going tbe round of the great houses ;
always, however, keeping rooms in Paris for himself and his
old comrade, Thieriot ; often writing to bis Paris friends,
both in prose and verse.
His enforced absence from Paris during the latter half of
1719 saved him from the danger of being drawn into the
vortex of ruin resulting from the schemes of John Law,
inventor of money-making, who brought upon frugal France
tbe catastrophe of an inflated currency, one of the greatest
A
134 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
a nation can suffer. Law had been four years at work upon
the finances of the country, and the result was eight months
?* > of delirium, — June, 1719, to February, 1720, — followed by a
collapse more woful and lasting than any other country has
since suffered from the practice of Law's methods.
"^^ Louis XIV. died in 1715, leaving behind him an empty
treasury, a vast debt, and more than a thousand millions of
depreciated paper, worth about twenty-seven per cent, of its
nominal value. Law sold shares in his various schemes on
these terms : one quarter of the price in coin ; three quarters
in the king's paper, at its nominal value. Frugal, cautious
France hesitated ; but Law was an advertiser of genius, fer-
tile in expedients, unscrupulous ; and, at last, the shares sold,
and that great flabby volume of paper, held by princes,
lackeys, servants, merchants, clerks, everybody, began to
swell, and went on swelling, until it reached par, and, still
rising, brought a premium, and people sold solid family plate
to get the means of buying paper. Our poet knew not what
to make of the reports that reached him from Paris. He had
seen, as he tells us, this Scotchman become French by natu-
ralization, from Protestant become Catholic, from adventurer
to be lord of fine estates, from banker to be minister; he had
seen him arrive at the Palais-Royal, " followed by dukes and
peers, marshals of France and bishops ; " and, now that he
was absent from Paris, every post brought tidings more mar-
velous still.
" It is a fine thing, my dear friend [he wrote to his little De
Genonville, from the chateau of Villars], to come into the country,
while Plutus is turning every head in town. Have you really be-
come all lunatics at Paris ? I hear nothing but millions spoken of.
They say that all who were well off are in misery, and that all
the beggars swim in riches. Is it a reality? Is it a chimera?
Has half the nation found the philosopher's stone in paper-mills ? Is
Law a god, a scoundrel, or a quack who poisons with the drug
which he distributes to all the world ? Are people content with
imaginary wealth? It is a chaos which I cannot see through, and
of which, I imagine, you understand nothing. For my part, I give
myself up to no other chimeras than those of poetry."
A few months later, when the mania to "realize " had sup-
planted the mania to speculate, the true character of these
TROM CHATEAU TO CHATEAU. 135
operations was revealed. One hundred thousand persons, it
was computed, were ruined ; business in France lay paralyzed ;
and moral harm was done, from which the world has suffered
ever since. A new disease was generated by John Law, which
occasionally rages in every land like an epidemic, the accursed
itch of getting wealth by a rise in values, by "corners," and
other similar devices. A memorial of that time is the city
of New Orleans, founded in 1718 by Law's company, and
named by him in honor of the regent. The Pitt diamond,
that still glistens among the national jewels of France, where
it is called "the Regent," is also a memento of John Law,
who persuaded the virtuous Duke of St. Simon to recom-
mend the regent to buy it for two millions of francs. With
how little wisdom great kingdoms were governed ! The re-
gent, strange to say, objected to make this purchase, on the
ground that the country was deep in debt and could scarcely
pay its troops. Stranger to say, St. Simon, one of the few
disinterested and irreproachable gentlemen about the court,
was vehement for the purchase. He admitted that a large
number of persons to whom the government was indebted
were suffering for want of their money, and he praised the
Duke of Orleans for sympathizing with them ; but he main-
tained that the finances of "the greatest king in Europe"
ought not to be managed like those of a private person. The
honor of the crown must be considered, and an opportunity,
which could not return, of acquii'ing a priceless gem that
would " efface " the diamonds of all Europe ought not to be
let slip. It would be a glory for the regency that would
endure forever. The regent yielded ; and, to his surprise,
as well as oui's, the public applauded the acquisition. The
patriotic Duke of St. Simon, to his dying da}^ cherished it
among his dearest recollections that it was he, and no other
man, who had persuaded the Regent of France to buy (on
credit) a diamond as large as a Queen Claude plum, nearly
round, colorless, flawless, spotless, weighing nearly five hun-
dred grains. He styles it " an illustrious purchase " {une em-
plette illustre)}
The Law mania was at an end in February, 1720, when
"Voltaire was allowed to remain at Paris to superintend the
1 14 St. Simon, 13. Paris, 1877.
136 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
rehearsals of his new play, " Artemire." He pronounced the
epitaph of " the System," as Law's finance was called, when
he remarked that " paper was now reduced to its intrinsic
value." 1
The curtain rose upon " Artemire " for the first time Feb-
ruary 13, 1720, at the worst moment of the collapse, to a
house yielding five thousand one hundred and sixty-seven
francs. The play had been read at Sully, at Villars, and else-
where, with the applause invariably bestowed by friendly cir-
cles upon works submitted to their judgment. The Abbe de
Bussi attended a reading of the play by the first actress of the
time, Madame Lecouvreur, and cried to such an extent that
he caught a cold from his own tears. The friends of the author
were present in force. Happily for art, the public, just mas-
ter of us all, has no friends ; but pays its money, and lets the
author know, to an ■ absolute certainty, whether it has or has
not received an equivalent in jjleasure. " I told the author,"
says a letter of the day (Brossette to J. B. Rousseau), " that
this tragedy, in which he had nothing to depend on but his
0"wii genius, would not have the destiny of his ' Q^dipe.' It is
too much work at once, especially for a young man, to have
to invent the plot, the characters, the sentiments, and the ar-
rangement, to say nothing of the versification." And so it
proved. The opening lines, melodious and strong, were ap-
plauded : —
" Oui, tons ces conquerants rassembles sur ce bord,
Soldats sous Alexandre et rois apres sa mo it,
Fatigues de forfaits, et lasses de la guerre,
Oat rendu le repos qu'ils otaient a la terre." ^
The passage opened the play happily, and seemed to prom-
ise a worthy presentation of a great period. But the story
was fatally defective, and could not interest. The action was
slow, the characters were hateful, the heroine unattractive, the
hero absent. Powerful passages and epigrammatic lines can-
not retain attention, nor long disarm censure. Before the end
of the first act, ominous hisses were heard ; and during one of
the later scenes the noise and contention were so violent that
1 Duvernet, chapter iv.
^ " Yes, all these conquerors assembled on this shore, soldiers under Alexander
and kings after his death, sated with crimes and tired of war, have given back
the repose of which they deprived the earth."
FROM CHATEAU TO CHATEAU. 137
the author — so tradition reports — sprang from his box to the
stage, and addressed the spectators. As soon as he was recog-
nized, we are told, the confusion subsided, and the rest of the
play was listened to without interruption. He perceived,
however, as soon as he saw his play through the eyes of an
audience, that the story was weak beyond remedy, and he re-
solved to withdraw the piece from the stage. The mother of
the Duke of Orleans, who was well disposed towards him, and
to whom he had dedicated his first play, desired to see it per-
formed again. He employed ten days in altering it. The
piece was better received than before, and was repeated eight
times, with some applause, to diminishing audiences ; until, on
the 8th of March, 1720, it was presented for the last time to a
house of two thousand three hundred and fifty-three francs.
The stringency of the times may have had something to do
with the failure. The author, however, refrained from pub-
lishing his piece, used some of its lines in other plays, and left
nothing of " Artemire " but fragments and scenes.
The regent had discovered, meanwhile, the true author of
" Les Philippiques," and was inclined, as it seems, to atone for
exiling the wrong poet. Voltaire caused some cantos of " La
Henriade " to be copied for him in Thieriot's best handwrit-
ing ; and, besides accepting these, the regent heard the poet
himself read some passages of the poem. The partial failure
of his play may have abated his self-confidence a little, and
made him over-sensitive to criticism ; for it was at this period
that, on hearing some friends criticise with unusual freedom
his " Henriade," he suddenly cried out, " It is only fit to be
burned, then," and tossed it into the fire. The President Hd-
nault, who was one of the critics on this occasion, relates what
followed : —
" I ran after him, and drew the manuscript from the midst
of the flames, saying that I had done more than the heirs of
Virgil when they refrained from burning the J^neid, as Vir-
gil had recommended, since I had snatched from the fire ' La
Henriade,' which Voltaire was going to burn with his own
hands. If I wished, I might glorify this action by recalling
to mind that beautiful picture by Raphael, in the Vatican,
which represents Augustus preventing Virgil from burning the
J^neid. But I am not Augustus, and Raphael is no more."
138 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
H^nault handed the manuscript back to the author, saying,
" Do not think the poem better than the hero whom you cele-
brate. Despite his faults, he was a great king and the best of
men." So " La Henriade " was saved. " Do you remember,"
the president wrote, years after, " that your poem cost me a
pair of lace ruffles ? "
Voltaire's friend and comrade, De Gdnonville, whom he had
known in the days when both were copying law papers in the
office of the solicitor Alain, died suddenly this spring, to Vol-
taire's lasting sorrow. The Duchess of Villars, to distract his
mind from sombre thoughts, took him away with her to her
country-house, which was always full of company in the fine
season, and thus he resumed his life of wandering from chateau
to chateau. From Villars he wrote in June to Fontenelle, an
amusing letter, — half in prose, half in verse, — in which he
tells the veteran author that his work on the " Plurality of
Worlds " was keeping the ladies out-of-doors a great part of
the night observing the stars, much to the displeasure of the
gentlemen, who were obliged to humor and accompany them.
" As we pass the night," he added, " in observing the stars, we
greatly neglect the sun, not returning his visit until he has run
two thirds of his course." He did not forget the interest ex-
cited in the gay company of the chateau by Fontenelle's pop-
ularization of astronomical science.
CHAPTER XVI.
BEGINNINGS OF HIS FORTUNE. '^
Feom tLe gay and brilliant life of the chateau he was sum-|
moned, in December, 1721, to the bedside of his father, dying |
of dropsy in Paris. The incongruous family of the Arouets
was once more assembled in their old home, — Armand, Fran-
9ois-Marie, their sister Marguerite, and her husband, M. Mig-
not, of the Chamber of Accounts. The family letters of Vol-
taire have not been preserved, and, consequently, we know
little of the terms upon which these ill-assorted relations lived.
Armand, the elder son, a bachelor thirty-eight years of age,
had developed into a_xdigionistof the most credulous and ab-
ject type. He was one of the~Revots of lEaTage, who wore
hair shirts, fasted in Lent to a perilous extreme, believed in the
" miracles " of the day, and gave money profusely to any Tar- ^
tuffe who knew how to play his part. Francois, on the con- S''^
trary, had become the man-of-the-world of the period, sobered
a little by his twenty-eight years, as well as by his arduous,
though desultory, pursuit of his vocation. Their sister was a
married woman with children, always dear to her younger
brother.
What the old man thought at this time of his fool in prose
and his fool in verse we can infer from the manner in which
he disposed of his property. December 29, 1721, two daysX,
before his death, he resigned his office in the Chamber of Ac-
counts, then yielding thiiteen thousand francs a year, to Ar-
mand, his eldest child ; charging him, however, as it seems,
with part of the portions of his other children. To Voltaire
he bequeathed property yielding an annual revenue of four
thousand two hundred and fifty francs. Both these sons had
reached the years of discretion, but, as their father thought,
only the years, — not the discretion. He feared that his fool
in prose would waste his substance upon Jansenist devotees,
140 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
and that his fool in verse would waste his life among the
grandees whom he amused. He accordingly confided his
estate to a trustee, M. de Nicolai, president of the Chamber
of Accounts, and gave him unusual powers. He made him,
in fact, guardian of his sons, as well as trustee of his prop-
erty ; and M. de Nicolai, we are told, " adopted both the
brothers, and continued to regard Voltaire as his son " long
I af ter his duty as trustee was performed.^
These arrangements made, the old man, on the first day of
the year, 1722, breathed his last, and on the next day, as the
parish record shows, he was followed to the grave in Paris by
his two sons and his son-in-law.
C There was, as Voltaire intimates, a brief revival of tender-
ness among the members of the family on this occasion, fol-
lowed by increased estrangement of the brothers. M. de Ni-
eolai, their guardian, was a personage of old descent and high
rank, one of tlie noblesse de robe, not accustomed to be in
haste, and he was four years in giving each his share of the
paternal estate. Voltaire, as his letters show, fretted under
this delay, threatened an appeal to the law, seems actually to
have brought a suit of some kind ; and, although he came to
his inheritance at last, his circumstances for the time were not
improved by his father's death. He had even lost the possible
asylum of his father's house, and, as yet, possessed no secure
status of his own. The regent, probably, had this view of the
case presented to his consideration. A few days after the
funeral of the poet's father, " Le Mercure," a Paris gazette of
the time, published the following notice : —
" M. Arouet de Voltaire, the death of whose father was re-
cently announced, has obtained from the king, through the
recommendation of the Duke of Orleans, a pension of two
thousand francs. His poem of Henry IV. will appear very
soon, and it is confidently expected that the work when printed
will sustain the reputation which it has acquired from perusals
of the manuscript."
Here was something at last which the deceased notary him-
self would have confessed to be solid, if insvifficient. The re-
cipient of the royal bounty was aware of its insufficiency, and
was much employed, from this time onward, in improving his
1 1 Maynard, 102.
BEGINNINGS OF HIS FORTUNE. 141
circumstances. JThe father, indeed, as fathers often do, mis-
interpreted both his sons ; for Arinand acquired a very good
estate, a share of which his brother inherited, and Francois, as
all the world knows, became the richest man of letters that
ever lived. He had discovered at twenty-eight that (to use
the language of the late Lord Lytton) " the man who would
raise himself to be a power must begin by securing a pecun-
iary independence."
" I am often asked [Voltaire writes in his " Memoires "] by what
art I have come to live hke a farmer-general, and it is good to tell
it, in order that my example may be of service. I saw so many men
of letters poor and despised that I made up my mind a long time
ago that I would not increase their number. In France a man must
be anvil or hammer : T was born anvil. A slender patrimony be-
comes smaller every day, because in the long run everything increases
in price, and government often taxes both income and money. It is
necessary to watch the operations which the ministry, ever in arrears
and ever on the change, makes in the finances of the state. There is
always some one of these by which a private person can profit without
incurring obligation to any one ; and nothing is so agreeable as to be
the author of your own fortune. The first step costs some pains ; the
others are easy. You must be economical in your youth, and you
find yourself in your old age in possession of a capital that surprises
you ; and that is the time of life when fortune is most necessary to
us." 1
Particulars of the transactions by which he profited so well
will meet us from time to time. For a bachelor who lived in
other people's chateaux, he was already in tolerable circum-
stances, and probably never spent, after his father's death, his
whole income. He generally had capital at command with
which to avail himself of any chance which the exigencies of
a ministry or the needs of an individual might throw in his
way. He liked to lend money to a lord of good estate upon
interest at ten per cent., and had no objection to buying an
annuity at a rate favorable to himself, from the apparent fra-
giUty of his constitution. The list of his debtors included at
length a considerable number of the dukes, princes, and other
grand seigneurs, at whose houses he was frequently a guest,
and where he seemed to be nothing but the entertaining " lit-
tle Arouet," a poet of promise, who arranged moonV\g\\i fetes
for the ladies, and supplied original verses for the same.
1 2 CEuvres, 80,
142 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
The owners of the world are they who strongly desire to
own ; and this is the only trait common to them all. Voltaire
possessed this qualification, and was able to gratify it without
Po '^f , a loss of time fatal to his proper pursuits. He usually spent
c4. ^*- Wery little money, and always carefully invested his surplus,
j — a process which, as he remarks, yields surprising results
Im a long life.
He pushed his fortune at this time in evei-y way open to
him. Cardinal Dubois, notorious for his debauchery and pro-
fusion, who held benefices and civil posts that yielded him a
million and a half of francs per annum, was the regent's first
minister and confidant. A bad minister and worse man, he
was not as pernicious to France as the austerely moral priests
who made Louis XIV. expel the Huguenots and loose the
Bull Unigenitus. He had some taste in the arts, and was not
inclined to make the interests of France quite subordinate to
those of the church. Voltaire paid diligent court to him, and
offered him his services ; having then, as always, a taste for
public employment. The cardinal gave him a piece of work
to do, the relation of which presents neither of them in an
heroic light. It was to unearth (^deterrer is Voltaire's OAvn
word) a French Jew, Levi Salomon by name, who was sup-
posed to be a spy of the emperor, and, perhaps, charged with
designs hostile to France. Our tragic poet got upon his
track, drew up a "M^moire" concerning him, giving an ac-
count of his past career and present condition, but not un-
earthing any very valuable information.
" Monseigneur [he writes to the cardinal, May 28, 1722], I send
your Eminence a little memorandum of what I have heen able to dis-
cover touching the Jew of whom I had the honor to speak to you. If
your Eminence judges the thing important, shall I presume to suggest
that a Jew, being of no country except the one in which he makes
money, can as well betray the king to the emperor as the emperor
to the king ?....! can, more easily than any one else in the
world, pass into Germany under the pretext of visiting J. B. Rous-
seau, to whom I wrote two montlis ago that I wished to show my
poem to Prince Eugene and to himself [the poet Rousseau being still
in exile, with asylum at the court of Prince Eugene]. I have even
received some letters from the prince, in one of which he does me the
honor to say that he should be very glad to see me. If these consid-
erations could induce your Eminence to employ me in something, I
BEGINNINGS OF HIS FORTUNE. 143
entreat you to believe that you would not be dissatisfied with me, and
that 1 should be eternally grateful for being allowed to serve your
Eminence."
This was followed by the memorandum referred to, from
which we learn that Levi Salomon had been employed by
many ministers as a spy ; that he had been a spy upon the
Duke of Marlborough, and probably had a good many secrets
worth knowing. The cardinal appears to have given the poet
a roving commission to visit Germany, taking the old French
city of Cambrai on the way, of which Cardinal Dubois was
archbishop. There was to be a great meeting of diplomatists
at Cambrai this year, for the settlement of affairs in Europe
which had been left unsettled by the last peace. Voltaire was
to attend this important congress, holding apparently some
commission or license from the cardinal archbishop of Cam-
brai, either general or special, private or public. Cambrai is
a hundred and fifty miles northeast of Paris, near to what is
now Belgium, and on the high road to Brussels.
All the continental governments appear then to have placed
much dependence upon the spy system, and under Dubois
Paris swarmed with spies. In his later works Voltaire men-
tions the fact with reprobation ; as well he might, for he was
indebted to the spy Beauregard for his eleven months in the
Bastille. That very Beauregard, spy as he was, held a captain's
commission in a noted regiment of the royal army, which im-
plied noble lineage ; and Voltaire, as we have seen, did not
disdain to act as a spy upon a spy. While he was at Ver-
sailles this summer, going about among the cabinets preparing
for his journey and making interest for his poem, he had a
startling insight into the spy system, which led to conse-
quences far more painful than a polite detention at the king's
chateau of the Bastille. He was in the rooms of M. Claude
Leblanc, the minister of war, one of the most distinguished
members of the regent's administration, a statesman of long
experience and wide renown, who is remembered to this day
for some improvements introduced by him into tlie military
system of France. Who should enter but Captain Beaure-
gard, as if he were a guest invited to dinner ! The minister
received the spy with more than distinction, — with familiar-
ity. The irascible poet, at this astounding spectacle, lost bis
self-control, and said, among other things, —
14i LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
" I was well aware that spies were paid for their services,
but I did not know that their recompense was to eat at the
minister's own table ! "
He withdrew, leaving Beauregard furious, who at once
declared his purpose to be avenged. " Then manage it so,"
said the minister, " that no one will see anything of it." ^
Shortly after, as Voltaire was crossmg one of the bridges
in a sedan chair, Beauregard met him and assaulted him
with a cane, inflicting many blows, and leaving a mark
upon his face. The assailant immediately after rejoined his
regiment in the country. Voltaire entered a complaint in a
criminal court, and pursued his criminal with a sustained vi-
vacity all his own, and never rested till he had him in prison.
The minister Leblanc, falling into discredit in the nick of
time, the spy remained in confinement for several months,
and we see Voltaire directing the prosecution against him
from remote places, " ruining himself in expense," until, as
we conjecture, Leblanc, returning to favor, was able to rescue
his agent so far as to change his prison into exile. The
poet speaks of Beauregard as " the man of the handcuffs,"
which is probably a figure of speech. The important fact is,
that he sought redress from the laws, and sought it with un-
flagging energy till he obtained it in some degree. Redress is
of course im^^ossibM for an injury so gross, and Voltaire,
during his long life of battle with the powers of this world,
was never allowed long to forget that he had been beaten by
a spy on the bridge of Sevres.
Once, as we learn from himself, he was taken for a spy by
some soldiers of the regiment of the Prince de Conti. " The
prince, their colonel," he adds, " happened to pass by, and
invited me to supper, instead of having me hanged." If it
had been Levi Salomon who had pointed him out to the
soldiers as a spy, and had showed them his letter and memo-
randum to Cardinal Dubois, the Prince de Conti would not
the less have invited him to supper, but it is not clear how
the accused poet could have explained away the charge to the
soldiers.
1 2 Memoires de M. Marais, 302.
CHAPTER XVII.
JOURNEY TO HOLLAND.
He did not set out alone upon this long and interesting
journey. One of the grand ladies whom he had met in coun-
try chateaux, the Marquise de Rupelmonde, chanced to be
going to Holland this summer, and he accepted her invitation
to take a seat in her post-chaise. She was the daughter of a
marshal of France, an old soldier of the wars of the late
king, now governor of Metz. She was also the widow of a
Flemish nobleman, who had fallen in battle, after a display
of valor that gave his name wide celebrity. Young, rich,
agreeable, and thus doubly distinguished, she was appointed,
in 1725, one of the dames de palais to the coming queen of
France. At present slie had interests in the Low Countries,
and appears to have still kept an establishment at La_Hagiie.
Cambrai was on the high-road to Holland, and there our poet
may have had something to do for Cardinal Dubois. Brussels
could be reached by a slight detour^ where he desired to meet
" our master," Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, as he styled the exiled
poet, and to read to him some cantos of the new poem. At
the Hague, which had not yet ceased to be a type-foundry
and book mart of Europe, he had important business of his
own. It was a piece of his usual good luck to find traveling
his road a grande dame who loved his poetry, relished his
conversation, and paid all expenses.
We know one of the chief subjects of conversation between
the young widow and the young bachelor, as they traveled
northward in the pleasant days of July, 1722. The lady had Ni>
asked him what she ought to think concerning the vexed sub-
ject of religion. It was on this journey that he put the sub-
stance of his answer in the form- of an Epistle in verse, ad-
dressed to her under the name of the "beautiful Uranie."
This poem is noted as being the first of his works in which
VOL. I. 10
146 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
he gives with any fullness his opinions upon religion. It is
simply an elegant and very spirited statement of the deism of
that century, the chief position of which was that the prodi-
gies related in the sacred books of all religions are to be taken
as legends, not as history. As legends, they possess value and
beauty ; regarded as histoiy, they become pernicious and in-
finitely absurd. This Epistle is very much in the style of
that " Moisade " taught him in childhood by the Abbd de
Ch^teauneuf. He dwelt upon the folly of supposing that the
Creator of men had " drowned the fathers and died for the
children," without having reclaimed the race from wickedness
by either method. Upon this theme he enlarged in more than
a hundred melodious lines, and, doubtless, added many effect-
ive points in conversation on the road. One of his topics
was the account given in the Gospels of the life and death of
Jesus ; and this he treated with a freedom which, in 1722,
niust have been startling to a lady whose mind, he intimates,
was not yet made up : —
" He sprang from a people obscure, imbecile, unstable, in-
sensate lovers of superstition, conquered by their neighbors,
crouching in slavery and the eternal contempt of other na-
tions. The Son of God, God himself, makes himself the
countryman of this odious people. Born of a Jewess, he
creeps under his mother ; he suffers under her eyes the infirm-
ities of infancy. Long a low workman, plane in hand, his
early days are lost in this base employment."
The narrative is continued in this spirit, and then the poet
descants upon the vast absurdity of supposing the Americiin
tribes and other remote nations to be consigned to eternal an-
guish for not being acquainted with these events. He con-
cludes his poem by telling the " uncertain Uranie " what to
believe : —
"Believe that the eternal wisdom of the Most High has,
with his own hand, engraved at the bottom of thy heart nat-
/ ural religion. Believe that the native candor of thy soul will
not be the object of God's eternal hate. Believe that before
his throne, in all times and in all places, the heart of the just
person is precious. Believe that a modest bonze, a charitable
dervish, finds favor in his eyes sooner than a pitiless Jansenist
or an ambitious pontiff. . . . God judges us according to our
virtues, not our sacrifices."
JOURNEY TO HOLLAND. 147
Doubtless the inexhaustible theme was amply discussed on
the way to Carabrai, and probably he found iu the lady a
pupil willing to learn from his philosophy " to despise the
horrors of the tomb and tlie terrors of another life."
They reached, in due time, the archiepiscopal city of Cara-
brai, noted then for a magnificent cathedral destroyed in the
Revolution, but known to us as having given a word to the
English language, — cambric, — because the fabric of that
name was first made there. The town was full of distin-
guished company, with nothing to do, awaiting the opening of
the congress, and they received Madame de Ilupelraonde and
her poet with enthusiasm. Parties were given in their honor,
and ladies disputed with one another the privilege of enter-
taining them. At one grand supper, given by the wife of the
French ambassador, the cry arose that they must have the
pleasure of seeing "Q^dipe" performed the very next day, in
the presence of the author. There was a difficulty : the
Spanish ambassador had already ordered " Les Plaideurs " of
Racine, and no diplomatist was willing to risk offending so
weighty a personage. Voltaire undertook the task of in-
ducing the Spaniard to allow the change desired, and pro-
duced upon the spot a rhymed petition in " the name of Ru-
pelmonde." The petition being instantly granted, he brought
back to the company a reply in rhyme, also of his own com-
position, in which he informed them that on the next day the
actors Avould play both " O^dipe " and its author ; that is,
" ffidipe," and, afterwards, the travesty of the same, as per-
formed in the minor theatres of Paris. It marks the manners
of that age that this response, made as if to Madame de Ru-
pelmonde, mentioning her by name, and read to the finest
company in Europe, both ladies and gentlemen, should have
opened with as palpable a double entendre as language could
convey.
Even more remarkable was the letter that he wrote from
Cambrai to Cardinal Dubois ; a melange of prose and verse,
of banter and homage, which the cardinal allowed to be
handed about in Paris drawing-rooms, as something too good
to be kept to himself. On tnking leave of the cardinal at
Versailles, Voltaire is reported to have said, "I pray you,
Monseigueur, not to forget that formerly the Voitures were
/r
148 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
protected by the Richelieus." To which the minister is said to
have made the rude reply, " It is easier to find Voitures than
Richelieus." Nothing abashed, this young dramatist of one
success wrote thus to the cardinal prime minister, from Cam-
brai : —
" A beauty whom they name Rupelmonde, with whom the Loves
and I run about the world of late, and who gives law to us all, wishes
that on the instant I write you. My muse, as attentive to please her
as you, accepts with transport so charming an employ.
" We arrive, Monseigneur, in your metropolis, where, I believe, all
the ambassadors and all the cooks of Europe have given one another
rendezvous. It seems that all the ministers of Germany are at Cam-
brai for no other purpose than to drink the health of the emperor.
As for the ambassadors of Spain, one of them hears two masses a
day, and the other directs the troop of actors. The English ministers
send many couriers to Champagne, but few to London. For the rest,
no one expects your Eminence here. It is not thought likely that
you will leave the Palais Royal to come to visit your flock. You
would be too much annoyed, and we also, if you had to leave the min-
istry for the apostolate.
" May the gentlemen of the congress, in drinking at this retreat,
assure the peace of Europe ! May you love your city, my lord, and
never come to it ! I know that you can make homilies, can walk
with a cross-bearer, and can mumble litanies. Give, give rather ex-
amples to kings ; unite always spirit with prudence ; let your great
deeds be published everywhere ; make yourself blessed of France,
without giving at Cambrai any benedictions.
" Remember sometimes, Monseigneur, a man who has, in truth, no
other regret than not to be able to converse with your Eminence as
often as he could desire, and who, of all the favors you can do him,
regards the honor of your conversation as the most flattering."
This is the letter which a prince of the church permitted
to " run " in Paris in 1722. " How could it have got out ? "
writes Voltaire to his trumpeter, Thieriot; and, three months
later, he asks whether Thieriot still hears his letter to Cardi-
nal Dubois spoken of, and what is said of it.^ Part of the
joke was that the Archbishop of Cambrai had never seen Cam-
brai ; and he never did see it. The congress, too, during the
four years of its continuance, accomplished nothing but num-
berless fetes and suppers ; and it may be that the design of
1 Lettres Ine'dites de Voltaire, page 15.
JOURNEY TO HOLLAND. 149
the cardinal in letting the letter escape was to accustom the
public to regard it as a brilliant nullity.
After five or six weeks of gayety and glory among the am-
bassadors and ladies at Cambrai, we find him at Brussels,
seventy miles beyond, where he was to meet " our master,"
Rousseau, and submit an epic poem to his judgment. J. B.
Rousseau, then fifty-two years of age, was no longer the sa-
tiric and scoffing Rousseau of other days. He had returned
to the bosom of the church ; he was writing those fine psalms
that figure in his later works ; he was conspicuously and, as
his enemies thought, ostentatiously religious. It is not nec-
essary to suppose him insincere, as French writers usually do.
Men who discard religion because they dislike the restraints
which it imposes hold their unbelief by a very uncertain ten-
ure, and are liable in the decline of life to relapse into su-
perstition. It was common then to see persons who were
thoughtless unbelievers at twenty become thoughtless devo-
tees at fifty. Voltaire, on the contrary, had developed the
merry license of his youth into a clear, intelligent, and posi-
tive rejection of all the theological dogmas, except that of a
Supreme Being.
He was now in a country that swarmed with rosy and jovial
priests, and he regarded them with no more reverence than
the people of our prairies regard locusts and grasshoppers.
The brave old Duchess of Marlborough had been at Aix and
Brussels since the peace, and she was good enough to record
her impressions of what she saw there. She thought she dis-
covered in Flanders the cause of atheism. It was the priests'
owning three quarters of all the land, and still " squeezing "
the half-starved people for money. " In one church where I
was lately," she wrote, " there were twenty-seven jolly -face
priests that had nothing in the world to do but to say mass
for the living and take the dead souls the sooner out of purga-
tory by their prayers." ^ Voltaire had an opportunity ere-
1 The duchess writes from Flanders, 1712 : " Since I have Room I can't end
without giving you some Account how I pass my Time in this Place, which is ia
visiting Nunnerys and Churches, where I have heard of such Marvells and seen
such ridiculous Things as would appear to you incredible if I should set ahout to
describe them, tis so much beyond all that I ever saw or heard of in England of
that Religion which I am apt to think has made those Atheists that are in the
"World, for tis impossible to see the Abuses of the Priests without raising strange
150 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
long of talking over these matters with the duchess, and, we
may be sure, agreed with her. Indeed, on the first day of his
arrival at Brussels, he behaved so irreverently at mass that the
peo)3le were on the point of turning him out of the church.
So Rousseau records, and the culprit himself admits that his
behavior was a little disorderly.
The two poets met, neither being aware of the change that
had taken place in the other. At first all was cordiality be-
tween them, and they were inseparable. Voltaire, as I think,
knew Rousseau's innocence of the charge that had exiled him,
and must have been sensible to the charm of his verse. He
called him by no other name than Master ; and, besides read-
ing him portions of " La Henriade," he intrusted the precious
manuscript to his keeping for several daj'S. Rousseau praised
the poem, only objecting to a few passages wherein the Pope
and the priests were not treated quite in the manner of a good
Catholic, — passages which the autlior himself was striving to
tone down to the pitch demanded by the official censor. All
was well between them until one fatal day, when the two poets,
in the presence of Madame de Rupelmonde, read to one an-
other some of their recent minor poems; Rousseau, his " Juge-
ment de Pluton," which ouglit to have been excellent, for no
man has ever employed the Greek legends more happily than
he. But the poet had a grievance of ten years' standing, — his
exile, — and this grievance was the real subject of the poem.
Who can treat with effective grace and dignity an ancient,
rankling grievance of his own ? Voltaire, being asked his
opinion of the satire, answered truly, " It is not in the style
Thoughts in one's Mind, which one checks as soon as one can, and I think tls un-
naturall for any Body to have so monstrous a Notion as that there is no God, if
the Priests (to get all the Power and Mony themselves) did not act in the Man-
ner that they doe in these Parts, where they liave three Parts or four of all the
Land in the Country, and yet they are not contented, but squeeze the poor de-
luded People to get more, wlio are really half-starved by the vast number of
Holydays in which they can't work, and the Mony they must pay when they have
it for the Forgivenesse of their Sins. I believe tis from the Charm of Power and
Mony that has made many of our Clergymen act as they have don ; but my Com-
fort is, tho a very small one, that if by their Assistance all are quit undon they
will not bee the better for it, there is such a vast Number of Priests that must
take Place of them, for in one Church where I was lately there were 27 jolly-face
Priests that had Nothing in the World to doe but to say Mass for the living and
to take the dead Souls the sooner out of Purgatory by their Prayers." (Letters
from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. London, 1875.)
JOURNEY TO HOLLAND. 151
of our master, the good and great Rousseau." The elder poet,
of course, was doubly enamored of this production, and did not
conceal his chagrin. He read on the same occasion another
poem on the same unfortunate subject, — his own wrongs and
the sublime manner in which he had borne them. It was en-
titled, " To Posterity." The single step between the subUme
and the ridiculous was taken by Rousseau in this vainglorious
ode, and it drew from Voltaire the well-known comment,
" That is an ode, master, which, in my opinion, will never
reach its address." He was mistaken, it is true, for the ode
is printed every year or two in new editions of Rousseau's
poems ; but such witticisms sting and are not forgotten.
" Take your revenge ! " cried Voltaire. " Here is a little
poem which I submit to the judgment of the father of Numa."
It was the " Epistle to La Belle Uranie " mentioned above.
Rousseau listened to the reading of the audacious work as far
as the passage where Jesus Christ is introduced as exercising
the low (Idche) trade of carpenter. Rousseau broke in upon
the reading at this point, saying, " Spare yourself, sir, the
trouble of reading more ; it is a horrible impiety ! " Voltaire
replaced his poem in the portfolio, and is reported to have
said, " Let us go to the theatre. I am sorry the author of the
' Moisade ' did not notify the public that he had turned
devotee." Something resembling this he may have said.
They went to the theatre, but not with happy effect upon
their minds, and the estrangement thus begun was aggravated
iuto hostility, which time only embittered.
At Brussels, where, as at Cambrai, he seemed to be im-
mersed in pleasure, he did not lose sight of the main ob-
ject, the publication of his poem ; and he sent to Thieriot de-
signs for nine engravings, one for each canto, to be executed
at Paris.
Early in October he was at the Hague, the scene of his
early love and folly. At Brussels he had his letters ad-
dressed to the French ambassador's ; at the Hague he lived
at the hotel of Madame de Rupelmonde. His business in the
Dutch capital w^as to make arrangements for getting his
poem printed and published there simultaneously with the
Paris edition, for which he confidently hoped to get the
** privilege." In case the censoi's should refuse the privilege
/
152 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
for France, the Holland edition might perhaps serve for both
countries. He found a willing publisher, and we see liira
busy enough prej^aring to print, and still softening the pas-
^ sages in which a Paris censor might find heresy, political or
theological. He was much matured since his last visit, and
he had time now to observe and consider the wondrous spec,
tacle that gi'eeted him on every side in a city where the
human mind was not in suppression. In glorious HoUaud
valiant men had conquered a part of their heritage of freedom,
<^N ^"f and had reduced the priest to something like safe dimen-
X sions. In those beautiful days of October he found the
jf country a paradise of meadows, canals, and foliage ; Amster-
dam the storehouse of the world, with a thousand vessels in
port, and half a million people, among whom he discovered
not one idler, not one pauper, not one dandy, not one inso-
lent. He met the prime minister on foot in Amsterdam,
without lackeys, in the midst of the people. In the absence
of personal government, no one in Holland had any court to
make, and people did not " put themselves in hedge " to see
a prince go by. At the Hague, the crowd of ambassadors
made more magnificence and more society. " I pass my life
there," he writes, " between labor and pleasure, and thus
live Holland fashion and French fashion. We have here a
-/' detestable opera, but, by way of compensation, I see Calvinist
ministers, Arminians, Socinians, Rabbis, Anabaptists, who
discourse to admiration, and who, in truth, are all in the
right."
He passed the time very agreeably in Holland, floating on
the canal between Amsterdam and the Hague, riding daily
on horseback, playing at tennis, drinking tokay, composing
circulars and proposals, dining out, and declaiming portions
of his poem to admiring circles. As the fine season drew to
an end, he was obliged to turn his thoughts toward Paris,
where Thieriot was getting subscriptions to " La Henriade,"
and making interest in its behalf in all possible ways. No
grande dame or ambassador happening to be going to Paris,
with a seat to spare in a vehicle, he was to perform the
journey, as he remarked, on his own ill-covered bones (^mes
maigres f esses) ; that is, on horseback, taking his own sad-
dle, and getting a fresh horse at each post-house. " Pray
JOUENEY TO HOLLAND. 153
to God," he -writes to his comrade, " that I may have good
horses on the journey." He asks him, also, to buy an excel-
lent horse for him at Paris for two hundred or two hun-
dred and fifty francs. " You have only to charge with this
commission," he adds, " the same people who sold my horses."
The cost of this mode of traveling was moderate, but the
thrifty poet probably got home for nothing, even if he did
not profit a little by the journey. He writes to Thieriot to
send him the exact price paid in France for an escalin, a
florin, a pantagon, a ducat, and a Spanish- pistole, coins cur-
rent in Holland, and perhaps a little cheaper there than
in France. The exchange upon a bagful of pistoles and
ducats might well pay for the cost of traveling with his
own saddle on hired horses.^ On the last day of October,
1722, he was as far on his return as Cambrai, where he dis-
tributed circulars announcing his poem as about to apjDear,
and inviting subscriptions.
Never was an enterprise more vigorously " pushed " than
this one of publishing an epic poem upon Henry of Navarre.
While Thieriot at Paris was receiving subscriptions, and
endeavoring to remove the scruples of the censor, the author
of the work was riding from post to post, from chateau to
chateau, all the way from Holland, down through Brabant,
skirting Germany, and so working his way by the end of
the year to the city of Orleans, a hundred miles south of
Paris, exciting everywhere an interest in the forthcoming
work. Near Orleans was the abode of Lord Bolingbroke,
La Source, a bewitching estate, bought with money gained
by speculation in the schemes of John Law, and brought to
high perfection by English taste and liberality. The exiled
statesman was living there with his French wife, the Marquise
de Villette, — himself a Frenchman in his literary tastes, as
well as in his easy morals. Voltaire was his guest at La
Source in the early days of the year 1723, and the poet ^^
wrote a letter there to Thieriot, which was perhaps meant to
be handed about in Paris. At least, we know it ivas handed
about, and with effect. He assured Thieriot that, in the
illustrious Englishman he found all the learning of his own
country and all the politeness of theirs, a master of the
1 Voltaire a Ferney, page 304.
154 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
French language, and a discriminating appreciator of the excel-
lent literature of all lands.
" After such a portraiture of Lord Bohugbroke, it is hardly becom-
ing in me to say that madame and himself have been infinitely satis-
fied with toy poem. In the enthusiasm of their approbation, they
place it above all the poetical works which have appeared in France,
but I know how much I ought to abate of such extravagant eu-
logium. I am going to pass three months in meriting a part of
it. It seems to me that, by dint_of correcting, the work is taking
at length a suitable form."
" The diarizing Mathieu Marais, advocate to the parliament
of Paris, no friend to notaries' sons who visited lordly cha-
teaux, read this letter, and was almost persuaded by it to
think better of "the little Arouet " for a moment.
" He has been charmed [wrote the advocate in his journal]
with the mind of that Englishman, and has written to Paris a
marvelous letter about him. So highly did miloi'd praise his poem,
which he read to him, that they are printing it in Plolland by sub-
scription, with beautiful illustrations. If it is as fine as that of
Racine £son of the great dramatist, and author of " La Grace,"
a religious poem in four cantos, published in 1720], we shall have
two great poets who are petty men : for this Racine, whom I have
seen two or three times, has but a frivolous mind, and is without
tact in conversation ; and the other is a fool, who despises the Sopho-
cles and the Corneilles, who has thought to be a man of the court,
who has got himself caned, and who will never know anything be-
cause he thinks he knows everything." -^
An amusing specimen of contemporary judgment. The
Duke of St. Simon alludes to Voltaire in the same lofty man-
ner, as a person who had gained " a kind of standing in the
world " through his follies and the general decline of morals
and manners.
We must own that these puffs preliminary and the general
system of " pushing " carried on for some years by Voltaire
and Thieriot do not present a poet in a romantic light. We
are accustomed, in these happier days, to think of our poets as
living in pleasant suburban places, in houses of their own,
picturesque or venerable, maturing their works in peaceful se-
clusion, and having them spread abroad over the earth without
1 2 Journal of Mathieu Marais, page 377,
JOURNEY TO HOLLAND. 155
any interference on the part of the author. It was far other-
wise in the France of 1722, when Voltaire submitted his poem
to the censure. The system of publishing, as we find it now,
did not exist ; nor did the laws exist by which an author holds
proj)erty in the products of his own mind. The measures
taken by Voltaire to create an interest in his work before its
publication were all necessary in a country governed by caprice.
Such expedients were as necessary in 1722 as they were in
1789, when Beaumarchais, by similar arts and equal persist-
ence, forced his " Figaro " upon the Paris stage against the
king himself.
The literary sensation of this very year, 1722, well illus-
trates the precarious tenure by which literary men then held
their subsistence. A stroke of a minister's pen suspended the
labors of Le Sage, the author of " Gil Bias," as well as of the
whole coterie of authors and composers who sustained the
comic opera. The comic opera had become too popular. It was
drawing away the fashionable world of Paris from the Theatre
Fran^ais, in which the works of the classic dramatists were
performed, and the actors had interest eno.ugh to procure an
order designed to suppress the comic opera, and to reduce the
minor theatres to their former repertoire of songs, music, reci-
tations, Punch, and the ballet. Instead of expressing this in-
tention in plain language, the order set forth that on the
minor stage thei'e should be only one speaking character at a
time. Le Sage and his colleagues, refusing to work under this
hard condition, resorted in despair to a certain Alexis Piron, an
untried hanger-on of the theatre, the only man in Europe, per-
haps, capable of producing an effective three-act comedy, and
keep within the iron limits of the new decree. The order of
1722 brought the manager of the comic opera a suppliant to his
garret, and in forty-eight hours Alexis produced a play which
filled the void. Nothing gave the Parisians of that generation
keener delight than to see an arbitrary decree like this at once
obeyed and evaded. But, in truth, the comedy which the
merry Alexis produced on this occasion would have amused
even a hostile audience, so full was it of those broad, strong
comic effects which audiences cannot resist. He had but one
speaker on the stage at a time, but he enabled an anxious
manager to exhibit every night, to the utmost advantage, his
156 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
whole company of actors, singers, dancers, and gymnasts.
" Harlequin-Deucalion " was the name of the play. It opens
while the storm is still raging which has drowned all the world
except Deucalion, who has saved himself by getting astride of
a barrel. In the midst of the tempest, this sole survivor of
the human family comes bounding upon the stage, barrel and
all, with a huge knapsack on his back. The first scene con-
sists of a long soliloquy, in which he makes several humorous
local allusions, and spouts passages parodied from plays that
were running at the time, and were perfectly familiar to the
audience. Every sentence in this soliloquy was a distinct hit,
and would make a French audience laugh. As he sits down
to dinner, talking to himself, he notices that his language has
a sort of mad propensity to rhyme, which puzzles him, and
causes him to look around to see where he is. He discovers
that he and his barrel have landed upon Mount Parnassus,
which accounts for his poetizing. The reader, who knows
what a curious creature an audience is, can easily imagine
what boisterous fun this rhyming trick would create, partic-
ularly when it manifested itself in burlesque parodies of plays
as well known to Frenchmen then as Hamlet is to us now.
And so the play goes on, until every folly of the day is hit,
and every member of the company appears. The failure of
Voltaire's play " Artemire " does not escape. In the second
act, Deucalion appears mounted upon Pegasus, He spurs and
lashes the noble animal until he has roused himself to a high
pitch of exaltation, when he declaims those opening verses of
Voltaire's play that promised such great things : —
" Oui, tous ces conquerants rassembles sar ce bord,
Soldats sous Alexandre, et rois apres sa mort."
Having delivered these famous lines in a tragedian's most
swelling manner, he falls headlong from Pegasus upon his
back, and gets up dolefully rubbing himself, and saying, as if
he had lost the word, " Apres sa mort, apres sa mort ; I am
gone all lame. By Jove, it is a pity; I was getting on so
well."
The play was a prodigious success, and the government tac-
itly permitted so audacious and brilliant a defiance of its de-
cree. Voltaire was present at one of the performances of the
piece, and he may have learned from it how safe it was to evade
JOURNEY TO HOLLAND. 157
the strong measures of a government that was itself not strong.
According to the jolly Alexis, the author of " Artemire "
was not displeased at the allusions to himself in " Deucalion,"
saying to the author at the close, "I felicitate myself, sir,
I upon having had a part in your success ; " whereupon Piron
protested he did not know whose the lines were that he had
caused to be spouted from the back of Pegasus.
To this day, French people love to relate encounters of wit
between Voltaire and Piron. Piron himself records many of
them, in which the author of " Harlequin-Deucalion " inva-
riably comes off victorious. " Eo rus," wrote Voltaire, one
day, to notify Piron that he was "going into the country."
Piron, to surpass this epistle in brevity, replied by one letter,
" /," which is Latin for " Go." But then this anecdote is
related of other men. For fifty years, Piron and Voltaire,
known generators of anecdotes, were accustomed to have spu-
rious offspring laid at their doors.
CHAPTER XVIII.
"LA HENRIADE" PUBLISHED.
It is May, 1723. Voltaire and his friend Thieriot are estab-
lished at Paris, in the town-house of the Marquis de Bernieres,
a distinguished magistrate of Rouen (jjvesident d mortier),
whose wife had long been one of Voltaire's most familiar cor-
respondents. M. de Bernieres was good enough to let part of
his house to the author of " CEdipe " at six hundred francs per
annum, and to permit him to pay a further sum of about
twelve hundred francs per annum for other expenses of Thie-
riot and himself when they were in Paris, — an arrangement
creditable to the good sense of both parties. The compact
was drawn in proper form by a notarj'^, — Armand Arouet,
mon frere, — who also gave legal receipts for the rent, and
seems always at this period to have had money of Francois's
in his hands. During: Voltaire's long absences from Paris, he
occasionally sends Thieriot to mon frere for money, and often
urges him not to forget to " dine a little " now and then with
his sister.
The house of M. de Bernieres was situated on that part of
the bank of the Seine which was then called Quai des Thda-
tins, now Quai Voltaire, and it was nearly opposite the gar-
dens of the Tuileries. It ouglit to have been an agreeable
site ; but Voltaire complains of " this noisy quai,''' and ex-
plains the cause of the noise. Paris in 1723 was very far from
being either the elegant or the commodious city which it is
now. Servants and others came down in great numbers to the
river to draw water, and one of the places convenient for the
purpose was this Quai des Theatins, under the windows of a
laborious and susceptible author, correcting an ej^ic and com-
posing a new play. He writes to Madame de Bernieres, who
was about to return from Rouen to Paris, telling her that her
rooms were making ready, and urging her to come sooner than
she had intended.
"LA HENRIADE" PUBLISHED. 159
"At least [he adds], grant me another favor, which I solicit
with the utmost urgency. I find myself, I know not how, burdened
with three servants, whom I cannot afford to keep, and have not the
resolution to discharge. One of these three messieurs is poor La Brie,
whom you saw long ago in my service. He is too old to be a lackey,
incapable of being, a valet, and just the man for a door-keeper. You
have a Swiss who is not in your service to please you, but to sell at your
door bad wine to all the water-carriers, who come here every day and
make your house a nasty wine-shop. If the desire of having at your
door an animal with a shoulder-knot, whom you pay dearly every year
to serve you ill three months and sell bad wine twelve ; if, I say, the
desire of having your door decorated with such an ornament is not
very near your heart, I ask it of you as a favor to give the place to
my poor La Brie. You will oblige me sensibly. I have almost as
strong a wish to see him at your door as to see you arrive at your
house. The place will be the making of him ; he will cost you much
less than a Swiss, and will serve you much better. If, besides that,
the pleasure of obliging me counts for something in the arrangements
of your house, I flatter myself that you will not refuse me this favor,
which I ask with importunity. I await your answer to reform my
little establishment."
A- moving epistle, but it did not suffice. Next year there
was a robbery in the house, and the poet wrote to his com-
rade, " This comes of having an imbecile and interested Swiss
at your door, keeping a wine-shop, instead of an attached por-
tiere Poor La Brie remained upon his hands, and he was
obliged to reform his household otherwise. Behold him, then,
settled in his new quarters with his factotum Thieriot. " La
Henriade " was substantially finished, including notes, remarks,
pictures, an outline of the history of Henry IV., and a dedica-
tion to the king, then a rude, robust boy of thirteen, delight-
ing in the slaughter of small birds. Subscription papers had
been accessible to the public for some months, with results far
from flattering. " You have undertaken a work," said M. de
Malezieu to the author, one day, " which is not suited to our
nation. The French have not the epic head. Thougli you
should write as well as Racine and Boileau, it will be much if
they read you." ^ The comparative failure of the subscrip-
tions was broadly burlesqued at the theatre which had been
the recent scene of Piron's triumph, and the poet did not rel-
1 Essai sur la Poesie flpique par Voltaire, 13 CEiivres, 542.
<:
160 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
ish the jest, for he was not in the best humor. Beauregard
was still in jail, and a cause of expense to him ; he was kept
out of his share of his father's estate ; the subscriptions were
not as productive of cash as he had hoped ; expense followed
upon expense, with dim prospect of reimbursement. Worst of
all, it now began to be agonizingly doubtful Whether the poem
Avould be allowed to appear in France, and he dared not use
V the proceeds of the subscriptions, for fear of having to return
them. Once he ventured to take two hundred francs from
that " sacred fund," but made haste to restore it. We cannot
-A— wonder, then, to find him writing to Thieriot this j-ear that
the burlesque at the theatre had not sharpened the bitterness
of his cup, and that he willingly /or^awe those scoundrels of
authors the buffooneries which were their trade.
How could he, at the age of twenty-nine, have been so little
acquainted with the court as to expect the " privilege " of pub-
lishing in France such a work as " La Henriade"? He did
expect it most confidently. He had softened or removed, as
he supposed, every passage that the most limited priest or
T the most arrogant prelate could seize upon as objectionable.
He had read large portions of it to the regent, and had
changed certain passages with a particular view to conciliate
Cardinal Dubois. But, heavens ! there was a tone in the very
dedication to the king which must have startled the censor of
a goveimment like this, which, at the best, could only hand the
reins of power from a dissolute Dubois to a virtuous Fleury,
both priests and both cardinals, — a government destined for
the next sixty-six years to invest with the attraction of for-
bidden fruit every bright and free utterance of the human
mind.
" Sire : Every work in which the great deeds of Henry TV. are
spoken of ought to be offered to your majesty. It is the blood of that
hero which flows in your veins. You are king only because he was
a great man ; and France, that wishes you as much virtue as he pos-
sessed, and more happiness, flatters itself that the life and the throne
which you owe to him will engage you to imitate him.
" Fortunate in having known adversity, he felt for the miseries of
men, and softened the rigors of a rule from which he had suffered
himself. Other kinsfs have courtiers ; he had friends. His heart was
full of tenderness for his true servants.
"LA HENRIADE" PUBLISHED. 161
" Tliat king, who truly loved his subjects, never regarded their
complaints as sedition, nor the remonstrances of magistrates as en-
croachment upon the sovereign authority. Shall I say it, sire ? Yes ;
truth commands me so to do. It is a thing very shameful to kings,
this astonishment we experience when they sincerely love the happi-
ness of their people. May you one day accustom us to regard that
virtue as something appertaining to your crown ! It was the true
love of Henry IV. for France which made him adored by his sub-
jects."
There is something in this dedication that savors of the free
air of Holland which the author had Litely inhaled. It was
the utterance of a citizen, not of a courtier, and it did not con-
ciliate. The poem itself related the bloodiest triumph of in-
tolerance Europe has known, — the massacres of St. Bartholo-
mew, one hundred andiifty years before. The natural effect
of the poem upon every intelligent mind was to excite a hor-
ror of intolerant religion, as the one baleful and hideous thing
of modern history, attesting its hellish character in every age
by fire and massacre ; the direct cause of the worst things man
has ever done against man. The poem exhibited brave and
humane men turned into monsters by intolerant religion ; "in- ^
voking the Lord while slaughtering their brothers, and, their ^v^
arms wet with the blood of innocent children, daring to offer
to God that execrable incense." It showed French rivers
flowing red with French blood, and bearing to the sea the
bodies of Frenchmen slain by Frenchmen, set on to the fell
work by crafty priests. It showed Elizabeth, queen of the
" proud, indomitable English," saying to Henry of Navarre,
" A great man ought not to dread the futile thunders of
Rome," — a power *' inflexible to the conquered, complaisant -/,
to conquerors, ready, as interest dictates, either to absolve or
condemn." It gave in harmonious and powerful verse a cata-
logue of the unspeakable things done by fanatics in every
age : mothers offering to Moloch the smoking entrails of their
own children ; Iphigenia led by her father a sacrifice to the
altar ; the early Christians hurled from the summit of the
capitol ; Jews burned every year (twenty were burned in 1717
by Portuguese) for "not abandoning the faith of their fore-
fathers." It showed religion used by ambitious chiefs as a
pretext, but accepted by ignorant followers as the most real
VOL. I. 11
162 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
of all possible causes of hostility. " To him who avenges the
church all becomes legitimate : murder is just ; it is author-
ized ; na}', it is commanded b}'^ Heaven ! " The poem dwells
upon the doctors of divinity whose fierce and bloody lessons
drive weak men mad, and make them the assassins of good
kings ; and upon " those priests whose fatal eloquence kindled
the fires that had consumed France."
Apart from such passages as these, the spirit of the poem
was secular, and its morale was that of the deism then in
vogue, a system that had no room in it for priests. The very
passages inserted to conciliate the censorship had offense in
them ; for if the author spoke of the Protestant doctrines as
" erroi'," he must needs add that " error, too, had its heroes."
Enough ; after some weeks of suspense the poet learned that
the " privilege " would not be granted; and, consequently, all
the arrangements hitherto made, in Holland and in France,
were of no effect. He could not supply copies to his sub-
scribers, nor " copy " to his Dutch printer ; for it seems that
his bargain with the publisher at the Hague was conditional
upon his obtaining the privilege in France.
A French commentator upon these events judiciously re-
marks that Voltaire did not write a poem in nine or ten cantos
for the purpose of keeping it in a portfolio. He resolved to
print his poem and supply copies in Paris without a " privi-
lege." As Alexis Piron had evaded with impunity a positive
prohibition, so he, with the help of Thieriot, now set about
eluding a negative one. Sixty eight miles from Paris, on the
banks of the river Seine, is the city of Rouen, the chief abode
of his landlord, M. de Bernieres, where also lived M. de Cide-
ville, another magistrate, a fellow- student at the College Louis-
le-Grand, and ever since a faithful friend. There was much
going to and fro this year between the Quai des Theatins at
Paris and a certain printing-house at Rouen. Voltaire was at
Rouen for a while ; then Thieriot ; then Voltaire again ; then
both. Such was the slowness of the old printers that it re-
quired five months to put the two hundred and thirty pages
of the first edition in type ; and, meanwhile, Thieriot in Paris
was settinsi; two thousand bindings readv against the arrival
of the printed sheets. All was done with the utmost secrecy.
The poem was spoken of in Voltaire's letters as mon Jils, mon
"LA HENEIADE" PUBLISHED. 163
hdtard, mon petit bdtard, and the bindings as "my two thou-
sand jackets." Doubtless, Madame de Bernicres, as well as
M. de Cideville, assisted in the scheme ; for it was at her
house that Voltaire and Thieriot lived while they remained
near Rouen. The dates are all in confusion here ; but, hap-
pily, it is of no great consequence. We can discover, by long
groping in the dim cross-lights, that, during a great part of
1723, this business of getting two thousand copies of " La
Henriade " manufactured was a grand object with our impetu-
ous and irresistible poet.
It was a business that left him many vacant hours, part of
which he employed in writing a new tragedy, " JMariamne."
The scene of this drama was laid in Palestine. Herod, the
king, was the chief personage ; and his young wife, Mariamne,
was the innocent, suspected heroine. He toiled at this play
with even more than his usual assiduity, in the hope of oblit-
erating by it the memory of his dramatic failure in Arte-
mire, some passages and incidents of which he employed in
the new tragedy. In November he was to have an opportu-
nity of hearing it read by Madame Lecouvreur, the first act-
ress of her generation, before a company of great note and
splendor at the Chateau de Maisons, in the forest of St. Ger-
main, nine miles from Paris.
At this chateau he had been a frequent guest for consid-
erable periods. The rooms in which he lived and wrote used
to be shown to visitors long after his death. The remains
of the chateau, one of the first built by Mansard, and occu-
pied by a number of famous persons, show how capable it
must have been of entertaining fine company in the early
years of Louis XV. M. de Maisons, the young lord of the
mansion, was accustomed to bring together those who prac-
ticed and those who enjoyed the arts; or, as the chronicles
of the period have it, " all the arts, all the talents, and all
the agreeablenesses." Voltaire was doubly welcome, as poet
and as friend of Madame de Villars, who was a near relation
of Madame de Maisons.
A grand three-days fete was announced for the early days
of November, 1723, at the Chateau de Maisons, to which
sixty lords and ladies were invited. The' Abbe de Fleury,
preceptor and favorite of the king, who was soon to be car-
164 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
dinal and minister, was expected. Plays were to be per-
formed and concerts given ; all the usual round of diversions
and divertisements were to be presented ; and, as a special
entertainment, there was to be a formal reading of the new
tragedy by Madame Lecouvreur, in the presence of the au-
thor. The 4th of the month had arrived. Madame Lecou-
vreur, the first lady of her profession, it is said, who ever
associated on apparently equal terms with her sister artists,
the grand ladies of the old regime^ had reached the chateau.
Voltaire arrived, and preparations for the festival were going
forward. On that very day, November 4th, the lord of the
castle and himself were indisposed. According to the usage,
of the time, they had themselves bled ; which relieved the host,
but not the guest.
After two days of fever, a slight eruption revealed, late at
night, the dread malady of that century, the small-pox ! The
consternation was such that guests, roused from sleep, set off
in the middle of the night for their homes. Couriers were
dispatched to the Abbe de Fleury and other invited persons,
warning them not to come. Madame Lecouvreur, with
the proverbial kindness of her profession, sent an express to
Rouen to call Thieriot from the printing of the poem to
the bedside of the poet. M. de Maisons summoned Gervasi,
the physician of Paris most noted for his successful treat-
ment of this disease. We possess, from the pen of Voltaire,
a curiously minute account of the treatment to which he was
subjected on this occasion, as well as of the system in vogue,
written in January, 1724, at the request of the aged Baron
de Breteuil, father of that Marquise du Chatelet, with whom
he was to be so intimately and so long connected. This
epistle, one of the longest he ever wrote, is a valuable chap-
ter for the historian of the healing art, though much too exten-
sive for insertion here.
"The malady [wrote Voltaire] appeared after two days of fever,
and revealed itself by a slight eruption. I had myself bled a second
time, on my own responsibility, despite the popular prejudice. M.
de Maisons had the goodness to send me the next day M. de Ger-
vasi, physician to the Cardinal de Rohan, who visited me with re-
luctance. He feared to be engaged in treating uselessly, in a deli-
cate and feeble constitution, the small-pox already at the second day
"LA HENRIADE" TUBLISHED. 165
of the eruption, and the development of which had been hindered only
by two insutlicient bleedings, without any medicine.
" He came, nevertheless, and found me with a malignant fever.
From the first, he had a bad opinion of my case ; the servants who
attended me perceived it, and did not permit me to remain in igno-
rance of it. They announced to me, at the same time, that the
priest of the parish, who took an interest in my health, and who
was not afraid of the small- pox, had inquired if he could see me
without giving me inconvenience. I admitted him at once; I con-
fessed ; and I. made my will, which, as you may well believe, was
not very long. After that, I awaited death with sutHcient tranquil-
lity ; regretting, however, to go without having put the last hand
to my poem and to ' INIariamne,' and sorry to leave my friends so
soon. Nevertheless, M. de Gervasi did not abandon me for a mo-
ment. He studied with attention all the movements of nature ; he
gave me nothing to take without telling me the reason of it ; he
let me partly see the danger, and showed me clearly the remedy.^
His reasonings carried conviction and confidence to my mind, — a
method very necessary with a sick person, because the hope of cure
is itself half a cure. Eight times he was obliged to make me take
an emetic ; and, instead of the cordials usually given in this disease,
he made me drink two hundred pints of lemonade. This treatment,
which will seem to you extraordinary, was the only one that could
have saved my life, every other road conducting me to certain death ;
and I am persuaded that most of those who have died of this dread-
ful malady would be still alive if they had been treated as I was.
"Popular prejudice abhors, in cases .of small-pox, bleeding and
medicine. People wish nothing but cordials given ; wine is admin-
istered to the sick man, and even broth. Error triumphs, fi'om the
fact that many persons recover under this regimen. People do not
consider that the only cases of small-pox successfully treated in this
manner are those which no fatal accident accompanies, and which are
in no degree dangerous."
He continues to defend the bridge which had carried him
over, and to pour forth expressions of gratitude to ]\I. and
Madame de iNlaisons, as well as to his devoted Thierot, who
flew to him, post haste, as soon as he received INIadame Le-
couvreur's message, and remained with him till he recovered.
On the eleventh day from his seizure he was out of danger; on
the twelfth he wrote verses ; on the twenty-sixth he was well
enough to be removed to Paris, and thus relieve his generous
friends from a presence which had cost them and their circle
166
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
/r^
n
^J
f.'
j>V
so much inconvenience. His carnage had scarcely gone two
hundred paces from the chateau when the floor of the room
which he had occupied burst into flames from a charred beam
under the fire-place; and before the fire was subdued damage
was done to the extent of one hundred thousand francs. The
chateau itself, one of the finest in Europe, was only saved by
the help of engines brought from Paris.
The invalid did not hear of this calamity until the next
morning. " I had the same grief," he wrote to the Baron,
" as if I had been the guilty cause of it : the fever seized me
again, and I assure you that at that moment I vras' not grate-
ful to M. Gervasi for having saved my life.'' M. and Madame
de Maisons, anticijoating his feelings, wrote consoling letters
to him, as if they had burned a chateau of his instead of his
having occasioned damage to one of theirs.
Many months passed before he recovered his health ; and,
indeed, from this time to the end of his life, he was more lia-
ble than before to those indispositions and that feeling of
bodily insufficiency to which literary men are liable.
A great joy was in store for him at the beginning of the
new year, 1724, one of the keenest known to mortals. After
a year of intrigue and suspense, after nine years of fitful, im-
passioned toil, copies of his poem were in existence ! It only
remained to get them from Rouen to Paris, — a difficult task
under paternal government. Madame de Bernieres, who had
wagons and barges frequently going between the two cities,
gave the conspirators her assistance ; and so, at last, as if " by
miracle," the great packages were got past the barriers, and
safely housed somewhere in Paris. The public curiosity, the
author's tact, Thieriot's zeal, and the cooperation of the elect
did the rest ; and early in the year 1724 copies began to cir-
culate. The poem becoming a topic of conversation, it was a
distinction to have seen a copy ; then a merit to have read
the work ; until, at length, nobody's secret drawer was com-
plete without it. Its success with the " reading public " of
the day was immediate, immense, and universal ; that is, it
reached at once and strongly moved the few hundred persons,
here and there in Europe, who shared the intellectual life of
their generation. The very defects and faults of the work,
which exclude it from the rank of the three or four immortal
"LA HENEIADE" PUBLISHED. 167
epics, enhanced its effect upon French readers of that day.
Hear the verdict of Mathieu Marais, old lawyer, a man prej- ^
udiced against this high-aspiring son of a notary. Marais ' ■ .
did but give utterance to the general feeling when he wrote /C ' r
in his diary for February, 1724, the well known entry : — i^ „ ^;
" The poem of ' The League,' [so it was called in the first edition]
by Arouet, of which so much has been said, is selling secretly. I
have read it. It is a wonderful work, a masterpiece of the mind, as
beautiful as Virgil ; and behold our language in possession of an epic
poem, as of other poetical works ! I know not how to speak of it.
There is everything in the poem. I cannot think where Arouet, so
young, could have learned so much. It is like inspiration. What an
abyss is the human mind ! The surprising thing is that every part of
the poem is temperate, well ordered, urbane ; we find in it no crude
vivacity, no merely brilliant passages, but everywhere elegance, cor-
rectness, happy turns, an eloquence simple and grand, — qualities be-
longing to mature genius, and nowise characteristic of the young man.
Fly, La Motte, Fontenelle, and all of you, poets of the new style !
From this marvelous poem, at once the glory and the shame of our
nation, learn to think and to write ! " ^
From such contemporary notices as these it is evident that
the similarity in form of "La Henriade" to the "jEneid,"
which sometimes makes the modern reader smile and the ir-
reverent school-boy laugh, was part of its charm and an ele-
ment of its power in 1724. These two poems frequently fill
a corner of the same school-desk, and usually we come to the
study of the French epic when we are somewhat familiar
with the Latin one. The resemblances, merely external, but
needlessly obvious, and very numerous, strike the unformed
mind most forcibly, and are fatal to the effect of " La Henri-
ade," as a whole, upon mature readers. Voltaire's second
book, for example, is as different as possible in spirit from ^
Virgil's second book, but in form it resembles it. In Virgil,
^neas recounts to Queen Dido the fall of Troy; in Voltaire,
Henry of Navarre relates to Queen Elizabeth of England the
civil wars of France. Voltaire himself assures us that he
purposely modeled his sixth canto upon Virgil's sixth. The
large ingredient of the supernatural in the " JEneid " we ac-
cept as readily as we do the ghost in " Hamlet ; " but it re-
1 3 Memoirs de M. Marais, 89. ^ , \.^
168 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
pels in " La Henriade." We do not so much enjoy the long
interview between the English queen and the French prince
when Ave know that Henry of Navarre never crossed the
Channel, nor looked upon Elizabeth's face. To the French
reader of 1724 devices of that nature seemed legitimate, and,
such was the ignorance of educated Frenchmen then of their
own history, that most readers could accept the narrative as
substantially true. " In my childhood,"' says Voltaire, " no
one knew anything of Henry IV." Most readers of that
generation brought to the perusal of this poem minds less ac-
quainted with the great contest between Protestants and Cath-
olics in France than with the condemnation of Socrates or the
wars of Ca3sar and Pompey.
The best office that literature renders a nation is to keep it
vividly acquainted with its history, and to give that history its
true interpretation. In publishing this poem, Voltaire did not
add to the treasures of the human mind one more immortal
epic ; but he began the arduous work, not yet complete, of
'"making France understand how it was that in the sixteenth
century, when the nations came, one after another, to the
parting of the ways, and had to choose between the upward
and the downward road, France was prevented from making
the right choice. There was more heat than liglit in the
. poem. The author of it had more heat than light. He felt,
Strange to say, all these resounding events touched and
nearly concerned our invalid poet. An intellectualized per-
son of his temperament and constitution cannot undergo two
bleedings, a course of medicine, two hundred pints of lemon-
ade, and the small-pox without languishing a long time
afterwards in ill health. In the summer of 1724, be fled
from the noise of the Quai des Th^atins and the hootings
of the loarterre^ and accompanied the young Duke of Riche-
lieu to Forges, twenty miles beyond Rouen, the waters of which
were brought into repute by Cardinal de Richelieu in the
reign of Louis XIII. To this day one of its springs is called
" La Cardinale." Voltaire was much caressed at this time
by the nobleman who bore the name rendered illustrious by
the great statesman. We find him employed, in 1724, in
selecting a "governor for the duke's pages," and choosing a
young man of intelligence, noble birth, good appearance, a
geometer, and " one every way suitable to pages." But the
duke wanted a draughtsman, not a geometer, and thought the
post beneath the merits of the candidate.
He improved in health at Forges, but not, as he thought,
by drinking its acrid waters. " There is more viti'iol," he
wrote, " in a bottle of Forges water than in a bottle of ink ;
and, candidly, I do not believe that ink is so very good for the
health." It was not indeed in his case, his passion for using it
filwavs making it ditficult for him to regain lost vigor. Even
here he was busy recasting " Mariamne," retouching " La
Henriade," and writing, for one of his duke's fetes^ a one-
1
VOLTAIRE A COUIITIER. 173
act comedy in verse, the agreeable and sprightly trifle called
"• L'Indiscret," read at Forges with drawuig-room success. " Ex-
act regimen," however, had its effect, and he was soon able,
as he said, to think of something besides his bodily pains. " I
am ashamed," lie wrote to Madame de Bernieres, " to present
mysell: to my friends with a weak digestion and a downcast
mind. I wish to give you only my beautiful days, and to suffer
incognito^
A tragic event, which brought the royal festivities of Chan-
tilly to an abrupt conclusion, detained him at Forges. The
Duke of Richelieu and the Duke of Melun, while hunting one
Saturday of this July in the great park of Chantilly, brought
to bay a huge stag in a narrow defile, and the animal, in a
blind fury, charged upon them. The Duke of Melun's horse,
at the moment when he was trying to cross the stag, received
in his side the full force of the blow, when horse, stag, and
rider all fell together. The two sportsmen were alone.
Richelieu rescued his friend from the struggling animals,
staunched his bleeding wounds, and sustained him three quar-
ters of an hour, until, the huntsmen coming up, the injured
man was conveyed to the chateau. He lingered from Sat-
urday afternoon until Monday morning at half past six, when
lie died in the Duke of Bourbon's arms, in the presence of
all the court. The king instantly departed for Versailles,
leaving death and desolation at this magnificent abode, where,
until the accident, all had been adjusted and attuned to
profuse and splendid hospitality. Richelieu, idle profligate as
he was, was overwhelmed with sorrow. " I cannot abandon
him in his grief," wrote Voltaire. He remained at Foi'ges
with the duke fifteen days longer, returning to Paris _m
September, where he lived at the Hotel de Bernieres " in
solitude and suffering, relieving both by moderate labor."
A pleasing prospect of a long journey to new scenes rose
before him in the month of his return to Paris. The Duke
of Bourbon consoled the surviving Richelieu by appointing
him ambassador to Vienna, and Voltaire hastened to get the
place of ambassador's secretary for his comrade Thieriot,
promising to follow him to Vienna as soon as he could work
himself free of immediate literary engagements. " I told the
duke," he wrote to Thieriot, " that, since I could not go so
174 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
soon to Vienna, I would send half of myself, and the other
half would quickly follow ; " adding that he cared little for the
" titled minxes of the court," which he renounced forever,
" through the weakness of his stomach and the force of his
reason." Great was his disappointment when he received in
reply to his exultant letter a note from Thieriot, dryly and dis-
dainfully refusing the post, saying that he was not made to be
the domestic of a great lord. Voltaire, upon whom the idle
young duke had devolved the business of finding a secretary,
offered the place to another, who accepted it. Then he wrote
to Thieriot, patiently explaining and apologizing, upon which
Thieriot accepted also.
Here was an embarrassment. But Voltaire, irascible, sus-
ceptible, impetuous, was patience itself whenever the matter
in hand was to serve a friend. He exhibited Thieriot to the
ambassadoi" in a light so pleasing that, finally, rather than
lose such a treasure, Richelieu agreed to take two secretaries.
Then Thieriot, to his friend's extreme mortification, declined
the post again. Voltaire, with wonderful moderation, wrote
to him, " You have caused me a little trouble by your irreso-
lution. You have made me give two or three different replies
to M. de Richelieu, who believed that I was trifling with him.
I heartily forgive you since you remain with us. I did too
much violence to my feelings when I wished to tear myself
from you in order to make your fortune. If the same princi-
ple of friendship which forced me to send you to Vienna hin-
ders you from going thither, and if, besides, you are content
with your destiny, I am sufficiently happy, and have nothing
more to desire except better health." And so ended the first
of a long series of attempts, on the part of Voltaire, to get
some better footing in the world for this thriftless, agreeable
companion of his youth. Thieriot objected mortally to steady
toil and leaving Paris, and he passed a long life in ingen-
iously avoiding both.
The year 1725 brought various good fortune to Voltaire.
His " Mariamne," recast, was played in April with respectable
success, having eighteen successive representations, besides
many occasional repetitions and short runs, during the year.
His little comedy of court life, " LTndiscret," was playe^ with
the tragedy as an afterpiece, with applause, and both were
fi
VOLTAIRE A COURTIER. 175
printed and pirated in the usual way. He was obliged to
print both plays at his own expense, because, as he wrote,
" the pirate editions cut the publisher's throat." He was
gaining with the public in many ways, and doubtless other
Frenchmen said in conversation what Matliieu Marais entered
in his diary in April, 1725, " Voltaire is the greatest poet we
possess."
If the court had been as sensitive as the church to satire,
the censor would not have given him the privilege of printing
" L'Indiscret," which exhibits court life and character very
much in the spirit of Beaumarchais's " Figaro." The hero is
a court puppy, who loses his " adorable widow " by blabbing
boastfully of his conquest. " Colonel at thirteen," remarks
the indiscreet lover, " I think it but reasonable to expect a
marshal's baton at thirty." Many other Figai^o strokes mark
this comedy ; but the regime felt itself invincible and invul-
nerable, and therefore the little comedy got afloat upon the
current, to amuse and assist to form unborn Beaumarchais.
The boxes, as Marais reports, were not too well pleased to find
themselves so accurately delineated ; but the play succeeded,
notwithstanding. Voltaire was winning credit and celebrity,
which, as he remarked, are agreeable, but not nourishing. It
does not improve an author's fortune, nor his temper, to print
his works at his own expense against pirated editions at home -rr^
and abroad, — two of the " Henriade," three of " Mariamne,"
and one of " L'Indiscret."
But a great event was impending in the summer of 17257?
full of hope to poets and artists in that age of patronage audi
pensions: nothing less than the marriage of the rude boy- ,
king, whom the " titled minxes of the court " had tried in vain ,
to seduce, so well had the Abbe de Fleury made him learn his [ X;,
catechism. Whom should he marry ? A friend of our poet, )
and of all poets, pointed out the lady. ' »
This regime of personal government in France could not
have long maintained itself if it had been tempered by epi-
grams only. It was tempered and saved by solid merit and
genuine ability, won from the uncorrupt classes. The incom-
petent young man styled the Duke of Bourbon, prime minis-
ter of the king, had for secretary and man of confidence one of
the best business heads in Europe, Paris-Duverney, one of four
X-
y
176 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
able brothers, sons of an innkeeper. He was antidote in
France to the inflating adventurer, John Law, and saved his
country more than once from the imbeciles who patronized
such adventurers. Paris-Duverney it was who suggested the
policy which gave to the French court for forty years the
presence of the virtuous woman just alluded to. Voltaire,
Avho records this fact, was connected with Paris-Duverney in
various ways for half a century, and owed to him, ten years
later, a vast increase of fortune. "It was Paris-Duverney,"
says Voltaii'e, " who conceived the idea of marrying the king
to the daughter of Stanislas Leczinski." ^
Both Stanislas and his daughter are characters in Voltaire's
eventful story : the daughter at this period, the father at a
later day.
JVIarie Leczinski, Queen of France from 1725 to 1768,
makes her first appearance in history as an infant, twelve
months old, lying at the bottom of a horse-trough in front of
a village inn in Poland. She was the daughter of that young
Stanislas whom Charles XII. placed upon the throne of Po-
land, after having driven from it its rightful occupant, Augus-
tus the Strong. The reign of this young gentleman was short
and troubled. Only a few days after his coronation, learning
that he was about to be attacked by the dethroned king, he
suddenly sent his family to a place of safety, under the guard
of a faithful troop of soldiers. It was during this flight that
the nurse of his daughter Marie, either from fatigue or terror,
laid the child in the horse-trough and abandoned it to its fate.
It was fovmd the next morning by accident, and conveyed to
its mother.
After reigning four years. King Stanislas, sharing in the
misfortunes of the Swedish king, lost his crown, and became
a wanderer over Europe. First he took refuge in Germany ;
then fled to Sweden ; next he sought safety in Turkey ; and
finally established himself in one of the small German states,
where he lived upon a small annuity which was irregularly
paid. During these wanderings, which lasted many years, his
daughter Marie grew to womanhood. She was a young lady
of small stature and pleasing appearance, though not of strik-
ing beauty. Her education, conducted in part by her parents,
1 Histoire du Parleraent de Paris, chapter Ixviii.
VOLTAIRE A COURTIEE. 177
embraced several languages, as well as drawing and music, and
she was reared in the pious habits inculcated by the Catholic
religion. At the age of twenty she had as little prospect of
being Queen of France as any young lady in Europe. One
morning her father, entering the room where she was seated
at work with her mother, said, in a joyful tone, —
" Let us kneel and thank God ! "
" Father," said Marie, " are you recalled to the throne of
Poland?"
" Ah, my daughter," was the reply, " Heaven is far more
favorable to us than that. You are Queen of France ! "
As he said these words he showed her the letter in which
the prime minister of France asked her hand in marriage for
the young king, Louis XV.
This remarkable change of fortune was as much a surprise
to France and to Europe as it was to herself. When Louis
XV. inherited the throne of France he was, as we have seen,
a sickly boy, five years of age. This poor little life was all
there was between France and the danger of civil war; since,
if he died, the Bourbon King of Spain had claims to the
throne, and those claims would have been resisted by other
princes of the reigning house. It is difficult for an American
citizen to realize the fond anxiety with which the French peo-
ple watched the growth and listened to bulletins of the health
of this little boy. When he was sick the churches filled with
people, who, prostrate upon their knees, implored his restora-
tion ; and when he appeared in Paris, in improved health and
vigor, the whole city rejoiced, and blazed into an illumination
in the evening. The Duke of Orleans had made a match for
him with a daughter of the King of Spain, when she was but
three years of age and Louis eight. To make assurance doubly
sure, the little princess was brought to Paris, where she was
to reside until of suitable age for marriage ; and there, indeed,
she lived for several years. In the mean time, the boy-king
had been growing up into a vigorous and muscular youth.
When he was but fifteen years of age, one of his courtiers said
to him, " Sire, your majesty is old enough to give a dauphin
to France."
Upon this hint the ministry acted, and it was certainly a
matter of the greatest importance to the kingdom that another
VOL. I. 12
178 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
life sliovild be interposed between Fi-ance and civil war. But
the Spanish princess, to whom the young king was solemnly
pledged, was not yet eleven years of age, and Louis, from the
moment of his first interview with her, had exhibited an aver-
sion to her person. It was resolved, therefore, at the risk of
mortally offending Spain, to send her home to Madrid, and
look about Europe for another princess for the king's hand.
By means of the French ministers resident at foreign courts,
and by more private agents, a catalogue was drawn tip of all
the marriageable princesses in Europe, seventeen in number,
with a description of the person, character, expectations, and
religion of each. None of them, it appears, would quite an-
swer the purpose. One came of a family in which madness
was hereditary ; another was a Protestant, and would object
to be converted ; another was already engaged ; another was
ill-looking ; another was too young ; another was of too little
importance in the politics of Europe ; another was said to be
humpbacked; and another was suspected of being scrofulous.
~n These objections being fatal to the pretensions of the seven-
teen, it occurred to the Duke of Bourbon's astute secretary
that it would be a master stroke of policy to select a princess
who would owe the throne entirely to that prince, and who
would feel herself bound in common gratitude to exert all her
influence in his favor.
It was this idea which led to the choice of Marie. "When
the news of the strange selection was buzzed about the court,
one of the anti-Bourbon party spread the report that the
Polish princess was subject to fits, which so terrified the min-
istry that they sent in haste a secret agent to the village in
which Stanislas lived to inquire into the truth of the report.
He sent home word that the lady had never had a fit, and was
in all respects in sound condition for marriage. She was next
accused of having something the matter with one of her hands,
and this calumny was refuted by no less a person than the
Cardinal de Rohan. All obstacles to the marriage being thus
removed, the letter was written to which reference has already
been made. Neither the father nor tlie daughter made the
slightest objection to the match, although the prhicess was
twenty-one and the king fifteen. Preparations for the mar-
riage were made in the greatest haste. One of the secret
VOLTAIRE A COURTIER. 179
agents of the ministry sent a petticoat of the princess to Paris
for the guidance of her dressmakers ; also one of her gloves,
and an old slipper for the benefit of her shoemaker. She was
conveyed to Paris with all possible pomp and splendor, and
the marriage was performed with the customary magnificence.
The father of the bride took up his abode in one of the French
provinces, where he lived to a great old age upon a munificent
pension from the French government. Queen Marie appears
to have been a truly estimable lady. Some sayings of hers
which have come down to us do honor to her memory. The
following, for example : " If there were no little people in the
world, we should not be great, and we ought not to be great
except for their sakes." " To boast of one's rank is to show
that we are beneath our rank." " Good kings are slaves, and
their people are free." " The treasures of the state are not
ours ; we have no right to spend in arbitrary gifts the money
earned by the artisan and the laborer." " It is better to listen
to those who cry to us from afar, ' Solace our misery,' than to
those who whisper in our ears, ' Increase our fortunes.' "
It is pleasing to know that the object of the Duke of Bour-
bon in promoting this marriage was not accomplished. The
Abbe de Fleury, preceptor to the king, had obtained that
ascendency over the dull boy that belonged to his place and
character. Whatever virtue and purity this king ever pos-
sessed he owed to his governess, Madame de Ventadour, and to
this priest, a man at least free from the lower vices of the
court and time. It is not saying much for the tutor, but so
much may be said. For ten years Louis XV. lived decently
with his wife ; and, at a later period, when he was the most
licentious king in Europe, he was never quite at ease in his
conscience. He was liable to fits of alarm, if not of contrition.
It is recorded of him — oh, wondrous fact ! — that he could
not, with a good conscience, in his most debauched period go
to bed without first kneeling down and saying his pi-ayers I
Such is the power and such is the impotence of early drill in
pious observances ! The coming of the good queen was fol-
lowed within a few months by the abrupt dismissal of the
Duke of Bourbon and his scandalous, extravagant De Prie.
The virtuous, frugal, cautious Cardinal de Fleury ruled France
for twenty years. The reign of mistresses was suspended for
L
180 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
a while ; the court was comparatively decent ; expenditure waa
curtailed ; a policy of peace was maintained ; and France had
M another chance of escaping revolution by reform. Cardinal de
Fleury was not a Richelieu ; but, in the circumstances, he
was, perhaps, as good and as great a minister as could have
kept the place.
( In the festivities of this royal marriage Voltaire took part,
and it was the Mai'quise de Prie who gave him the opportu-
nity. During the summer of 1724 he had paid court to her,
as all the world in that century paid court to the woman who
governed the man who governed the state. He sent her a
copy of " L'Indiscret," with an epistle in verse, in which he
assured her that if the adorable widow of his comedv had
possessed Tier beauty the hero's blabbing would have been
pardonable ; for what lover would not have been tempted to
speak of such a mistress, either by excess of vanity or excess
of tenderness ! He had his reward. Madame de Prie, before
leaving Paris, gave him an order upon the door-keeper of her
house at Fontainebleau, whei'e the honeymoon was to be
passed, assigning him rooms therein. " I shall see the mar-
riage of the queen," he wrote to Madame de Bernidres. " I
shall compose verses for her, if she is worth the trouble. I
would rather write verses for you, if you loved me." In Sep-
tember, therefore, with all the gay and splendid world of
France, he was first at Versailles, then at Fontainebleau,
bearing his part in the marriage festival, sometimes as po_et,
sometimes as spectator, always as expectant.
One incident, interesting to Americans, made such an im-
pression on his mind that he mentions it three or four times
in his works : " In 1725 I saw four savages who had been
brought from the Mississippi to Fontainebleau. Among them
was a woman, ash-colored like her companions, whom I
asked, through their interpreter, whether she had ever eaten
human flesh. 'Yes,' she replied, very coolly, as to an ordi-
nary question." Writing thirty years after, he adds : " I ap-
peared a little scandalized, when she excused herself by say-
ing that it was better to eat a dead enemy than to let the
wild beasts eat him ; the conquerors ought to have the pref-
erence." ^ It was a spectacle of extreme curiosity to the
' Essai sur les Ma-urs, chap, cxlvi., aud Diet. Pliilos., article Antliropophages.
i
VOLTAIEE A COURTIER. 181
French of 1725, the Indian lodge in the park of Fontaine-
bleau ; and to no one more interesting than to this bored
poet. .
He passed three tedious, laborious months at court ; and ! /,
his letters of the period show that, courtier as he was, and ^ (^
suitor of court favor, he felt all the ridicule of the situation, | 0^
the unspeakable absurdity of the regime of which he desired
to make part. I select a few sentences : —
[A.t Versailles, just before the marriage.] "Every one here pays
court to Madame de Beseuval, who is a distant relation of the (jueen.
This lady, who has some esprit, receives with much modesty the
marks of baseness which are given her. I saw her yesterday at the
house of Marshal de Villars. Some one asked her what relation she
was to the queen. She replied that queens have no relations. These
nuptials of Louis XV. are an injury to poor Voltaire. They talk of
not paying the pensions, and even of not preserving them ; but in
recompense a new tax is to be imposed, to buy laces and fabrics for
Mademoiselle Leczinska. This is like the marriage of the sun, which
made the frogs murmur. I have been but three days at Versailles,
and already I wish myself out of it."
[Fontainebleau, September 17th, after the marriage.] "Two no-
blemen died to-night. Assuredly, both of them took their time ill ; for
in the midst of all the hullabaloo of the king's marriage, their deaths
made not the least sensation Every one here is enchanted
with the queen's goodness and politeness. The first thing she did
after her marriage was to distribute among the princesses and ladies
of the palace all the magnificent trifles which they call her casket,
consisting of jewels of every kind except diamonds. When she saw
the casket wherein they were placed she said, ' This is the first time
in my life that I have been able to make presents.' She had on a
little rouge on her wedding-day, — as much as was necessary to keep
her from looking pale. She fainted a moment in the chapel, but only
for form's sake. There was comedy the same day. I had prepared
a little divertisement, which M. de Mortemart [first gentleman] was
not willing to have executed. They gave in its place 'Amphytryon '
and Moliere's ' Le Medecin Malgre Lui,' which did not seem too
suitable. After supper there were fire-works of very little ingenuity
or variety For the rest, there is a confusion here, a pressure, a
tumult, that are frightful. During these first days of hubbub I shall
avoid having myself presented to the queen. 1 shall wait until the
crowd has subsided, and her majesty has recovered a little from the
bewilderment caused by all this sahhat. Then I shall try to have
-.i"
182 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE. -
' Q^dipe ' and ' Mariamne ' played before her. I shall dedicate
both to her ; and she has already sent me word that she would be
very willing I should take that liberty. The king and queen of Po-
land (for here we no more recognize King Augustus) have sent to
ask me for the poem of Henry IV., which the queen has already
heard spoken of with eulogium. But nothing must be pressed."
[To Madame de Bernieres, October 8th.] " I have not a moment
to myself. We have had to perform ' Qi^dipe,' ' Mariamne,' and
' LTudiscret.' I have been some time at Belebat with Madame de
Prie. Besides that, I have been almost always in agitation, cursing
the life of a courtier, vainly chasing a little good fortune which
seemed to present itself to me, and which fled as soon as I thought
I had it ; in ill humor, and not daring to show it ; seeing many ridic-
ulous things, and not daring to speak of them ; not ill with the queen ;
much in favor with Madame de Prie, — and all that doing nothing
for me, except making me lose my time and keeping me from you.
.... Oh, madame, I am not in my element here. Have pity upon
a poor man who has abandoned his country for a foreign land.
Insensate that I am ! In two days I set out to see King Stanislas ;
for there is no folly of which I am incapable."
[To Thieriot, October 17th.] "I have had the folly to abandon
my talents and my friends for the illusions of the court, for expecta-
tions purely imaginary. ... I have been very well received here by
the queen. She has shed tears at the performance of ' Mariamne,'
and she has laughed at ' LTndiscret.' She speaks to me frequently ;
she calls me 'My poor Voltaire.' A fool would be content with all
that; but unfortunately I have sense enough to feel that praise is of
small account, that the rule of a poet at court has always something iiL
it a little ridiculous, and that it is not permitted to any one lo_be_in
this country of ours without some kind of status. Every day they
give me hopes, which yield me little nourishment. You would hardly
believe, my dear Thieriot, how tired I am of my court life. Henry
IV. is very foolishly sacrificed to the court of Louis XV. I mourn
the moments which I take away from him. yThe poor child ^lready
ought to have appeared in quarto, on fine paper, with a fair margin
and handsome type. That will surely be done this winter, whatever
happens. Epic poetry is my forte, or I am much deceived
All the poets in the world, I believe, have come together at Fontaine-
bleau. The queen is every day assassinated with Pindaric odes,
sonnets, epistles, and marriage songs. I imagine she takes the poets
for the court fools ; and if so she is very right, for it is a great folly
for a man of letters to be here, where he neither gives nor receives
pleasure."
VOLTAIRE A COURTIER. 183
But at length, November 13tli, he wrote in a more cheerful
strain, and had an item of good news to communicate to liis
friends : " The queen has just given me from her privy purse
a pension of fifteen hundred livres, which I did not solicit.
This is a first step toward obtaining the things which I do
ask. I am in good credit with the second prime minister,
M. Paris-Duverney. I count upon the friendship of Madame
de Prie. I begin to have a reasonable hope of being able
sometimes to be useful to my friends."
He was now past thirty years of age. He had published a
poem which the intelligent mind of his country had sealed
with its warm approval. He had written three tragedies,
two of which had succeeded upon the stage, had been read
all over Europe with pleasure, and remain at this day part
of the classic literature of his country. He had composed a
hundred agreeable poems : some a little free, as the manner
of that age was, many of them both pleasing and meritorious.
He had written a graceful comedy, which, trifling as it was,
had given innocent pleasure to more persons than one of
the grand seigneurs of the period could rationally expect to
please in a life-time of fourscore years. He had within
him undeveloped capacities from which good works were to
be hoped. All these things he had done ; all this and more
he was, in December, 1725, when he returned from court to
Paris with his little pension in his pocket, and hope in his
heart of greater things to follow. Besides his personal merits
and his solid claims, he possessed artificial advantages, such
as the favor of the queen, of her father, of the prime minis-
ter's mistress and secretary, as well as a wide acquaintance}
with the grandees of the kingdom. What was he, then?*v .^ —
What human rights had he in his native land ? Was he anvil ■
at thirty, or was he hammer ? If, on this subject, he had cher-
ished any vainglorious doubts, he was now to be rudely and
finally undeceived. He was to discover that he was nobody :
in France ; or, as Alexis Piron expressed it, " nothing, not
even an Academician."
CHAPTER XX.
m THE BASTILLE AGAIN.
i; :. At the opera in Paris, one evening in December, 1725,
Voltaire was conversing with acquaintances in the lobby
between the acts ; perhaps " laying down the law " with some
positiveness, as was his right. Who should lay down the law
of the drama if not he ? Among the by-standers was the
Chevalier de Rohan, a member of historic families whicli
had given to France cardinals, generals, dukes, princes, and
ministers in every century since the kingdom was consoli-
dated. A Cardinal de Rohan was a personage of weight and
splendor at that time, predecessor of the Cardinal de Rohan
who figured sixty years later in the affair of the diamond
necklace. This chevalier, forty-three years of age, a dissolute
man-about-town, broke into the conversation in an insolent tone,
saying, —
" Monsieur de Voltaire, Monsieur Arouet, what is your
name ? "
(^ The answer which the poet made on this occasion is not
^ recorded, nor whether he made any. Two days after, he was
at the theatre, and there again he met the Chevalier de Ro-
han, — either in the warming-room Qe chauffoir) or in the
box of the actress Madame Lecouvreur, who was present.
The chevalier repeated the offensive question, when Voltaire
replied, —
" I do not trail after me a great name, but I know how to
honor the name I bear."
Another version is, " I begin my name ; the Chevalier de
Rohan finishes his."
Rohan raised his cane as if to strike ; Voltaire placed
his hand upon his sword ; the actress fainted ; and thus the
scene was brought to an end, Voltaire the victor. Two or
three days after, the poet was dining with his old patron and
IN THE BASTILLE AGAIN. 185
protector, the Duke of Sully, when a servant came to his ^ /
chair, and informed him that some one wished to speak to o /
him at the door of the mansion. The Hotel de Sully, where ^-
these events occurred still stands, and bears the number 143
Rue Saint-Antoine. Upon reaching the street, he saw two
hackney-coaches standing near. Two men came up to him,
and asked him to stand upon the steps of the nearest carriage,
which he was proceeding to do, supposing that the person who
desired to speak to him was in that vehicle. At the mo-
ment when his foot touched the step, he was seized by the
coat, and a shower of blows fell upon his shoulders. A voice
from the other coach was heard, crying out, —
" Don't hit him upon the head! Something good may come
out of that."
Voltaire recognized the voice as that of the Chevalier de
Rohan, whom he saw sitting in the coach, watching and di-
recting the proceedings. Indeed, the brave knight, m relating
the exploit to his intimates, would say, " I was in command
of the laborers " Qe8 travailleurs), using the military term for
the men detailed to throw up intrenchments. Voltaire at
length tore himself from the clutch of the hired ruffians, and
made his way back to the dining-room, where he related
what had occurred. He asked the Duke of Sully to make
common cause with him in obtaining legal redress for an out-
rage done upon his guest, at his own door, and therefore an
affront to the master of the house. He besought the duke,
at least, to go with him to a commissary of police, and de- ^
pose to the facts within his knowledge. Rohan was cousin
to the duke, and it now appeared that the Duke of Sully
was neither aristocrat enough nor man enough to seize this
chance of honoring his order and himself. He refused to
stand by his guest. Voltaire rushed from the hotel, never
again to enter an abode where, for nearly ten years, he had
been on the footing almost of a younger brother.
He hurried away to the opera, where he found Madame de
Prie, the mistress of the Duke of Bourbon, not yet deposed
from the ministry, though soon to be. To her he related the
unspeakable wrong he had suffered. She sympathized with
him, took his part with the minister, and, for a few days, they
hoped the Duke of Bourbon would do him some kind of jus-
186 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
tice. But, it seems, a friend of the Rohans neutralized the
influence of the mistress by showing the one-eyed duke an
epigram, addressed to INIadame de Prie, and falsely attributed
to Voltaire, which ran thus: "lo, without seeming to feign,
knew how to deceive all the hundred eyes of Argus. We
have only one eye to fear ; why not be happy ? " Nor was
the minister so firm in his seat at that moment that he could
safely offend so powerful a family as the Rohans. It was soon
manifest that the injured man had nothing to expect from the
court, and if ever his wrong was avenged it must be by his
own hand or arm. Meanw^hile, the secret police received
orders to keep an eye upon both knight and poet, and to take
measures for preventing a renewal of strife between them.
The language of these orders shows what the great world
thought of the affair.
The lieutenant of police to the commissary of detectives,
March 23, 1726 : " Sir, His Royal Highness is informed that
Monsieur the Chevalier de Rohan sets out this day ; and, as
he may have some new procedure \^procSde^ with the Sieur
de Voltaire, or the latter commit some madcap act (^coup
d'etourdi), he desires you to have them observed in such a
way that nothing of the kind may happen." ^
The lieutenant of police uses the polite word procede when
anticipating the conduct of a Rohan, and the contemptuous
phrase coup d^etourdi when describing the probable behavior
of Voltaire. He was not far wrong. For a private person
without powerful protection to attempt, in 1726, to get justice
against an adversary closely allied to princes in church and
state was indeed the act of an etourdi. This valiant chev-
alier never received the slightest reprimand for his conduct
in this affair, nor was his promotion in the arm}'- retarded
by it. At this time he held a rank equivalent to brigadier-
general, and, within ten years, without having performed or
witnessed any warlike exploit but this battle with a poet, he
rose to the rank of lieutenant-general. Nor is there reason to
think that the outrage excited indignation in the public mind.
Epigi'ams and other versified satire then played the part which
scurrilous newspapers have since occasionally filled in our large
cities. We do not at present get into a passion of noble wrath
^ Jeunesse de Voltaire, page 353.
IN THE BASTILE AGAIN. 187
when the irrepressible editor of such a newspaper is assailed
either in his pocket or in his person. Voltaire, in all his lit-
erary career of sixty years, rarely wrote ill-natured verse, and
never except under strong provocation ; but, unfortunately,
he had the credit of half the stinging satire that circulated in
his early time. " We should be unhappy, indeed," said the
Bishop of Blois, when he heard of this affair, " if poets had
no shoulders." There is a lurking baseness in many minds
which compels them to side always with the man who is at
the comfortable end of the stick. Six weeks after the out-
rage, Advocate Marais wrote to a correspondent : —
" I send you a piece of verse all fresh against M. de Fon-
tenelle. It is very malign, — worse than blows with a cane.
Those of Voltaire are spoken of no more. He keeps them.
People remember the reply of the late Duke of Orleans when
Voltaire asked for justice on a similar occasion : '■You have had
it.'' .... The poor Beaten shows himself as often as he can
at court, in the city ; but no one pities him, and those whom
he thought to be his friends have turned their backs upon him.
The rumor runs that the poet Roy has also had his basting
(hastonnade) for an epigram. And so, at last, behold our
poets, through fear of the stick, reduced to their legitimate
work of learning and pleasing." ^ ^
Thus the commonplace man interprets an affair of this nat-
ure ; and, doubtless, all that was ordinary and all that was
mean in the idle Paris of that day commented so upon the
enormous, the inexpiable wrong done upon the man destined
to give his name to his era. Doubtless, too, the gift of witty
utterance was abused, and epigrams themselves sometimes
needed " tempering." " What is the common price of an
oak stick, sir?" said Dr. Johnson to Davies. "Sixpence."
" Why, then, sir, give me leave to send your servant for a shil-
ling one. I 'II have a double quantity, for I am told Foote
means to take me off, as he calls it, and I am determined he
shall not do it with impunity." Foote was notified, and for-
bore to take off Dr. Johnson.
Paris was very familiar at that time with the appeal to the ip
stick in disputes between the owners and the movers of the
world. Marais alludes to the poet Roy's mishap. The Count
1 3 Marais, 393.
188 LIFE or VOLTAIRE.
de Clermont having been elected one of the forty members of
^; the French Academy, Roy had taken the liberty of saying
that thirty-nine plus zero had never yet made forty. This
< harmless joke subjected him to blows. The illustrious Mo-
< Here, after the production of his Misanthrope, passed several
days in expectation of similar treatment from a person sup-
posed to have been represented in the play. He knew well
that he had no protection, and could obtain no redress, from
the law. Moncrif, for some jests in his " History of Cats," was
assailed by blows in the streets. Advocate Barbier relates an
incident of 1721, to this effect: The Duke de Meilleraie, a fool
and an etourdi, while driving his phaeton over one of the nar-
row bridges of Paris, was in danger of running down a horse
carrying in a panzer several little children. A priest who
was passing remonstrated ; whereupon the duke sprang to the
ground and " gave him twenty strokes with his whip." The
priest, through his superior, complained. The Prince de Ro-
han, the duke's father-in-law, tried to pacify him ; but he de-
manded reparation, and, being a priest, obtained it. The of-
fending nobleman was obliged to apologize in the presence of
all the priests of the convent, to settle upon the injured man
an annuit}^ of two hundred francs, and to pass a year in the
chateau of Vincennes. No man of letters, unconnected with
the privileged orders, could have had such redress. So many
men of letters were subjected to outrage of this nature in that
age that the records have furnished M. Victor Fournel with
the material for a volume upon the " R61e of the Stick in Lit-
erary History." Literature had to make its way in France
between the cudgel and the Bastille, after it had outUved the
period of the wheel and the fagot.
In such a time, in such a country, what ought Voltaire to
r* have done ? He must have read the song circulated in March,
1726, in which he was said to have been brevetted batonnier,
staff-bearer to his regiment. He probably heard of the verb
newly added to the French language, voUairiser, to voltaire^
to heat. What should he have done? I cannot answer the
question. To have submitted in silence to such an infamy he
must have been either more or less than man. He was
neither. To have taken " wild justice," as Lord Bacon ex-
presses it, by putting to death the poor creature who had
1
IN THE BASTILLE AGAIN. 189
wronged him, would have involved the spoiling, if not the loss,
of his own life. He could have taken a frightful vengeance
by his pen, as he often did when the injury was less ; but on
this occasion he felt the outrage too keenly to give his feelings
effective expression. Effective expression is art, and the artist
must have a tranquil mind. Othello was the man in the
world who was farthest from being able either to write or to
play the Moor of Venice. As to the courts of justice, had he
not tried them in the case of Captain Beauregard, and in-
volved himself in endless expense and trouble, only to remain
in the thoughtless mind " the man who had got himself
caned " ? ^
He resolved to challenge Rohan to mortal combat with the <<;
sword, a weapon which he had worn for many years, and
knew how to use about as well as a poet of the present time
knows how to box. The equalizing pistol was not then em-
ployed on "the field of honor." He now abstained from his
usual haunts, took lessons in fencing, and sought the advice of
men learned in the art of polite combat, not suspecting that
he was under surveillance of the police. He was determined
not to throw away his life by going to the field too soon, and,
accordingly, he spent nearly four months in acquiring skill X
with his weapon.
April 16, 1726, the lieutenant of police sent important in-
formation to his chief : —
" The Sieur de Voltaire intends to insult the Chevalier de Rohan
immediately, and with eclat. Several times during the last six weeks '"^
he has changed both his residence and his quarter. We have informa-
tion that he is now at the house of one Leynault, a fencing-master,
Rue St. Martin, where he lives in very bad company. It is said that
he is in relations with some soldiers of the guards, and that several bul-
lies [hretteurs] frequent his lodgings. Whatever truth there may be in
these last reports, it is certain that he has very bad designs, and it is
su^e also that he has had one of his relations [Daumart] come from
the country, who is to accompany him in the combat. This relation
is a more moderate man than M. de Voltaire, and desires to calm him,
but it is impossible. He is more irritated and more furious than ever
in his conduct and in his conversation. All this intelligence deter-
mines the lieutenant to put the king's orders into execution, if possible,
this very night, judging it to be his duty to prevent the disorder of
which he has been distinctly notified."
190 LIEE OF VOLTAIRE.
That evening, or the next, Voltaire and Thieriot were at
L- the Theatre Fran^ais, and observed that the Chevalier de Ro-
han was, as usual, in the box of Madame Lecouvreur. During
the evening, they went to the door of the box, which Voltaire
o~"^ entered, leaving Thieriot outside, within hearing. As Thieriot
used to tell the story in old age, Voltaire addressed Rohan
thus : —
" Monsieur, if some affair of interest has not made you for-
get the outrage of which I have to complain, I hope that you
will give me satisfaction for it/'
The chevalier accepted the challenge, naming time and
place, — St. Martin's Gate, the next morning at nine. But
the next morning at nine Voltaire was in the Bastille. He
was arrested, as it appears, after the scene in the box, either
near the theatre or at his lodgings. It is certain that he
^-?^ 1- awoke on the morning of April 18, 1726, within the chateau
of the Bastille, a guest of the king, and so missed his appoint-
ment. He was provided, according to the ofl&cial report, with
pocket pistols at the time of his arrest ; evidently an etourdi
of desperate character. Two respectable families were relieved
by the lettre de cachet which deprived Voltaire of his weapons
and his liberty, the Rohans and the Arouets. The lieuten-
ant of police remarked, in his report of the arrest, that " the
family of the prisoner applauded unanimously and universally
the wisdom of an order which kept the young man from com-
mitting some new folly, and the worthy persons of whom that
family was composed from the mortification of sharing the
confusion of it."
Considering all the circumstances, the arrest was, perhaps,
the kindest thing such a government could have done, and it
probably gratified every person who really wished well to the
prisoner. The measure, among other effects, brought about
a reaction of public feeling in his favor. The veteran sol-
dier, the Duke of Villars, so often in later years the host and
familiar correspondent of Voltaire, records in his Memoires
that the public now censured, and, as he thought, justly cen-
sured, all parties : Voltaire, for having offended the Chevalier
de Rohan ; the chevalier, for having committed a crime wor-
thy of death, in causing a citizen to be beaten ; the govern-
ment, for not punishing a notoriously bad action, and for
IN THE BASTILLE AGAIN. 191
having the beaten man put into the Bastille to tranquilize the
beater." ^
This was probably the general feeling at the moment. The
chevalier was evidently held in odium, and the belief was gen- r
eral, though mistaken, that Voltaire had been arrested at the
solicitation of the Rohans, who gave out that the chevalier,
being lame from a fall, was not in lighting trim. A report was
also circulated that the poet, in the violence of his rage, had
gone to Versailles and asked for the chevalier at the very door
of the Cardinal de Rohan's august abode ! The captive, upon
being established once more at the grim chateau, wrote to the
minister in charge of the Department of Paris a spirited and ^ci.
notunbecoming note : —
" The Sieur de Voltaire very humbly represents that he was
assaulted by the brave Chevalier de Rohan, assisted by six
hamstringers, behind whom he was boldly posted ; that ever
since he has constantly sought to repair, not his own honor,
but that of the chevalier, which has proved too difficult. If
he went to Versailles, it is most untrue that it was for the pur-
pose of asking for the Chevalier de Rohan at the house of the
Cardinal de Rohan. It is very easy for the Sieur de Voltaire
to prove the contrary, and he consents to remain in the Bas-
tille the rest of his life, if he deceives on this point. He asks
permission to take his meals at the table of the governor of
the Bastille, and to be allowed to receive visitors. With still
more earnestness he requests permission to go at once to Eng-
land. If there is any doubt of his desire to depart thither, an
officer can go with him as far as Calais." ^
The minister was complaisant. An order was at once sent
to the Bastille, in the king's name, to the effect that the pris-
oner should have every liberty and privilege consistent with
his safe-keeping. He dined at the governor's table, with other
favored guests of the king. His friends, roused by his cap-
tivity, flocked in to see him in such numbers that the minis-
ter was alarmed, and sent a new order, limitincr his visitors to
six, to be designated by the prisoner. Thieriot dined with
him almost every day, and brought him English books, which
he studied diligently. An old clerk of his father was much
with him, arranging affairs of business. Madame de Berni-
1 23 Memoires. 323.
192 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
dres and other ladies of liis circle shone in upon him, now
( and then. Among the prisoners, also, were agreeable per-
H. ^ \ sons, male and female. And so the days passed in business, in
,^r \conversation, in eager study of the English language ; not
'c without occasional passionate outbursts against the injustice
, of which he was a victim. He asked the lieutenant of police,
one day, —
" What is done with people who forge lettres de cachet^''
" They arc hanged," was the reply.
" It is always well done," said Voltaire, " in anticipation of
the time when those who sign genuine ones shall be served
in the same way." ^
His captivity on this occasion lasted fifteen days. Arrested
April 17th, he was released May 2d, on condition of binding
himself to go at once to England. But the minister did not
rely upon his promise ; for Conde, the chief turnkey of the
Bastille, was ordered " to accompany him as far as Calais, and
to see him embark and set sail from that port." The prisoner
sent this news to jNIadame de Bernieres, and asked her to lend
him her traveling carriage for the journey, and to come at
once to see him, for the last time, with Madame du Deffand
and Thieriot. "To-morrow, Wednesday," he wrote to her, "all
who wish to see me can enter freely. I flatter myself that I
shall have the opportunity of assuring you once more in my
life of my true and respectful attachment." May 3d he en-
tered the chaise at the Bastille gate, with Conde, and was
driven, in two days, to Calais, where good friends entertained
him four days, while he was waiting for the sailing of the
packet. He embarked, at length, and saw his native land re-
cede from view.
His powerful friends at Paris did not forget him. Some
weeks after his departure from the Bastille, the Count de
Morville, minister for foreign affairs, who had been much his
' friend for several years, interposed in his behalf. The Wal-
poles were then supreme in England : Sir Robert being prime
minister, his eldest son a new peer, his brother Horace am-
bassador at the French court, and as noted in the diplomacy
of that generation as his nephew and namesake of Straw-
berry Hill was in the society of the next. " Old Horace
1 4 CEuvres dc Voltaire, 122.
M
IN THE BASTILLE AGAIN. 193
Walpole," at the instance of Count de Morville, wrote, May
29, 1726, a letter, commending the exile to Bubb Doding-
ton, a gentlemen of great estate, fond of gathering men of
letters under his roof : —
" Dear Sir, — Mr. Voltaire, a French poet, who has wrote sev-
eral pieces with great success here, being gone for England in order
to print by subscription an excellent poem, called Henry IV., which,
on account of some bold strokes in it against persecution and the
priests, cannot be printed here ; M. de Morville, the Maecenas, or, I
may truly say, the Dodington here, for the encouragement of wit and
learning, has earnestly recommended it to me to use my credit and in-
terest for promoting this subscription among my friends ; on which
account, as well as for the sake of merit, I thought I could apply my-
self nowhere more properly than to you ; and I hope this will an-
swer the particular view and interest which I have in it myself, which
is to renew a correspondence so agreeable to me ; who am, with the
greatest truth and affection, sir, your most obedient and most humble
servant, H. Walpole."
There were circumstances in the politics of the moment
which made the Walpoles particularly desirous of obliging
Count de Morville. This letter therefore opened to the poet
the great whig houses of the kingdom, while his acquaintance
with Bolingbroke gave him favorable access to tory circles.
He knew, as yet, very little English ; but at that time, George
I. being King of England, French was the language of the
court, and during a part of every season a company of
French comedians performed in London, — " the French ver-
min," Aaron Hill called them in 1721.
Voltaire was going to a very foreign land, farther then from /
France than Australia is now from the United States ; a land |
less known to Frenchmen of that day than any land on earth
now is to us. It was the time, too, when French and English
accepted the theory that, being neighbors, only twenty-one
miles apart, and having more reasons to be friends than any
other two nations on the globe, they were " natural enemies."
At least, such was the conviction of the average English mind.
" We can do without the English coming among us," wrote
Advocate Marais, in 1725, " for they do not love us, and are
very haughty with us, notwithstanding our politeness and our
civility." Happily, the educated classes of every land have
VOL. I. 13
194 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
many dear interests in common, and some of them get above
the grosser provincial prejudices. J. B. Rousseau had been in
England in 1721, and found there subscribers enough to a
quarto edition of his poems to put into his pocket a profit of
five hundred pounds sterling. ^
Voltaire, as his letters show, carried with him across the
channel a heart filled wnth bitterness and rage. The indig-
nity he had received was one of those which even common-
place men bear with equanimity only when they are suffered
by others. He could not get over it. The wrong was too
recent, and it came upon him with the force of accumulation ;
for this was the second time that he had been obliged to en-
dure it. Satiric poets of the day insisted that it was the third
time, and they did not neglect to repeat the statement when-
ever opportunity invited. Could he ever live in France on the
principle that, as often as he suffered gross indignity, it was to
be himself who should receive the stigma of public punish-
ment, while the man who had committed the outrage showed
himself nightly, in agreeable and distinguished boxes at the
theatre, complacent and boastful ? Could he ever frequent
the haunts of men, bearing upon his person a label, legible to
every passer-by, This is the Man who may be Beaten !
1 42 Nouvelle Biographic Generale, 734.
CHAPTER XXI.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND.
England gave the exile a smiling welcome. The ac-
count which he afterwards wi'ote of his arrival and of his
first impressions of the country must not be taken quite
literally. There is evidently that mingling in it of fact,
fancy, and banter which he was often obliged to employ in
treating ticklish subjects in the land of the Bastille, and
which became at length habitual with him. Instead of land-
ing at Dover, as travelers usually did, he sailed, as it ap-
pears, up the Thames as far as Greenwich, five miles below
London, and there he first set foot on British soil.
It was one of the most beautiful days of May. The sky,
he records, was without a cloud, and a soft breeze from the
west tempered the sun's heat, and disposed all hearts to joy.
It chanced also to be the day of the great Greenwich Fair,
which was then a day of festivity to Londoners, who came
in crowds to witness games, races, and regattas. The river
was covered, he says, with two rows of merchant-ships for
the space of six miles, with their sails all spread to do honor
to the king and queen, who were upon the river in a gilded
barge, preceded by boats with bands of music, and followed
by a tliousand wherries, each rowed by two men in breeches
' and doublet, with large silver plates upon their shoulders.
" Tliere was not one of these oarsmen," remarks the stranger,
" who did not assure me, by his face, his dress, and his excel-
lent condition [embonpoint] that he was a freeman, and lived
in plenty."
Near the river, in Greenwich Park, four miles in circum-
ference, he observed a prodigious number of well-formed
young people on horseback, cantering around a race-course
marked with white posts. Among them were women, who
galloped up and down with much grace. But he was es-
196 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
pecially pleased with the girls on foot, most of whom were
clad in Indian stuffs. Many of them were beautiful ; all
were well made ; and there was a neatness in their dress, a
vivacity in their movements, and an air of satisfaction in
their faces that made them all pleasing. Roaming about
the Park, he came to a smaller race-course, not more than
five hundred feet long. " What is this for ? " he asked.
He was told that this was for a foot-race, while the larger
course was for horses. Near one of the posts of the large circle
was a man on horseback holding in his hand a silver pitcher,
and at the end of the smaller course were two poles, with a
large hat at the top of one, and a chemise floating like a flag
from the other. Between the two poles stood a stout man
bearing a purse. The pitcher, he learned, was the prize for
the horse-race, and the purse for the foot-race. But what of
the hat and the chemise ? He was " agreeably surprised " to
be told that there was to be a race by the girls, and that
the winner was to receive, besides the purse, the chemise,
" as a mark of honor," while the winning man was to have
the hat.
Continuing his rambles, he had the good fortune to fall
in with some English merchants to whom he had letters of
introduction. These gentlemen, he saj'S, did the honors of
the festival with the eagerness and the cordiality of men who
are happy themselves, and wish to make others sharers in
their joy. They had a horse brought for him ; they sent for
refreshments ; and took care to get him a place whence he
could comfortably view the races, the river, and vast Lon-
don in the distance. At first he thought himself transported
to the Olympic Games ; but when he beheld the beauty of
the Thames, the fleets of ships, the immensity of London,
he "blushed to have compared Greece with England." Some
one told him that at that very moment there was a " com-
bat of gladiators " in progress at London ; and then he
thouofht he was with the ancient Romans. Near him on the
stand was a Danish courier, who had only arrived that morn-
ing, and was to set. out on his return in the evening. " He
appeared to me," says Voltaire, " overcome with joy and
wonder. He believed that this nation was always gay, that
the women were all beautiful and animated, that the sky of
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 197
Encrland was always clear and serene, that people there
thought only of pleasure, aiKl that every day in the year was
like this. He went away without being undeceived. For my
part, I was more enchanted even than my Dane."
Such were his first hours in England. Ben Franklin was a
journeyman printer in London then. What more likely than
that he was at Greenwich that day ? He may have brushed
past the eager Frenchman, whom he was to meet in such sin-
gular circumstances fifty-two years after. He may have been
one of the stout, well-dressed, fresh-complexioned youths whom
Voltaire admired galloping about in the Park ; for at Green-
wich Fair many young fellows rode who trudged the rest of
the year on foot. *=»
Voltaire was not long in learning that England was not j
always clad in smiles. He was in London the same evening, i
probably at the house of Lord Bolingbroke, which was usually ;
the place of his abode in London, and to which his letters from
France w^ere addressed.
In the course of his first evening, as he relates, he met
some ladies of fashion. He spoke to them of the " ravishing
spectacle " which he had witnessed at Greenwich, not doubt-
ing that they also had witnessed it, and had formed part of the
gay assemblage of ladies galloping round the course. He was
a little surprised, however, to observe that they had not that
air of vivacity which people usually exhibit who have just
returned from a day's pleasure. On the contrary, they were
constrained and reserved, sipped their tea, made a great noise,
with their fans, talked scandal, played cards, or read the news-
paper. At length, one of these fine ladies, "more charitable
than the rest," informed the puzzled foreigner that people
of fashion never abased themselves so far as to attend mis-
cellaneous gatherings like the one which had given him so
much delight ; that all those pretty girls, clad in the fabrics
of India, were only servants and vilUigers ; that those hand-
some young men, so well mounted, and cantering so gayly
in the Park, were nothing but scholars and apprentices on
hired horses. These unexpected statements he could not be-
lieve, and he felt himself moved to anger against the lady
who made them.
Bent on pursuing his investigations into the character of
198 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
this strange people, he went, the next day, into the city, to
find the merchants and aldermen who had been so cordial to
him at his "supposed Olympic Games." In a coffee-house,
which was dirty, ill furnished, badly served, and dimly lighted,
he found most of those gentlemen who, on the afternoon
before, had been so affable and good-humored. Not a man
of them recognized him. He ventured to address a remark to
some of them. They either made no reply at all, or else merely
answered yes or no. He imagined he must have offended
them. He tried to remember if he had rated the fabrics of
Lyons above theirs, if he had said that the French cooks
were better than the English, if he had intimated that Paris
was a more agreeable city th;m London, if he had hinted
that time passed more pleasantly at Versailles than at St.
James's, or if he had been guilty of any other enormity of
that kind. No, his conscience acquitted him of all guilt.
-^At length, " with an air of vivacity that appeared very strange
to them," he took the liberty of asking one of them why
they were all so melancholy. The prospect of being able to
" chaff " a Frenchman appears to have put a little animation
into this group of silent Britons. One of them replied, with
a scowl, " The wind is east." At this moment one of their
friends came up, who said, with an unmoved countenance,
" Molly has cut her throat this morning. Her lover found
her dead in her bedroom, with a bloody razor at her side."
The company, " who all were Molly's friends," received this
horrid intelligence without so much as lifting their eyebrows.
One of them merely asked what had become of the lover. " He
has bought the razor," quietly remarked one of the company.
The stranger, who seemed to take all this seriously and
affects to relate it seriously, could not refrain from inquir-
ing further into such a terrible tragedy. Appalled at once at
the event and at tlie indifference of the company, he asked
what could have induced a gii'l, apparently fortunate, to
put an end to her existence in so revolting a manner. They
only replied that the wind was east. Not being able to per-
ceive anything in common between an east wind and the
suicide of a young girl or the melancholy humor of the mer-
chants, he abruptly left the coffee-house, and sought again
his fashionable friends at court. There, too, all was sad ;
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 199
and nobody could talk about anything but the east wind.
He thought of the Dane whom he had met on the stand at
Greenwich Fair, and was inclined to laugh at the false idea
he was carrying home with him of the English climate; but,
to his amazement, he found that the climate was haviup"
its effect upon himself, — he could not laugh ! Expressing
his surprise to one of the court physicians, the doctor told
him not to be astonished so soon, for in the months of No-
vember and Mai'ch he would have cause indeed to wonder.
Tlien people hanged themselves by dozens, everybody was
sick with low spirits, and a black melancholy overspread
the whole nation ; for in those months the wind blew most
frequently from the east. " This wind," continued the doc-
tor, " is the bane of our island. The very animals suffer
from it, and wear a dejected look. Men robust enough to
stand this cursed wind lose at least their good humor. Every
one shows a severe countenance and has a mind disposed to
desperate resolutions. It was an east wind that cut off the
head of Charles I. and dethroned James II." Then, whisper-
ing in the ear of the Frenchman, he added, " If you have a favor
to ask at court, never ask it unless the wind is west or south."
It was not alone the courtiers and the merchants who
were disposed to amuse themselves with this inquisitive for-
eigner. He was in a boat one day upon the Thames. One of
the oarsmen, seeing that he had a Frenchman for a passenger,
began to boast of the superior liberty of his country, and
declared, with an oath, tluit he would rather be a Thames
boatman than a French archbishop. The next day, Voltaire
relates, he saw this very man at the window of a prison,
stretching his hand through the bars. " What do you think
now of a French archbishop?" cried Voltaire. "Ah, sir,"
replied the man, "the abominable government we have!
They have forced me away from my wife and children to
serve in a king's ship, and have put me in prison and chained
my feet, for fear I should run away before the ship sails."
A Frenchman who was with Voltaire at the time confessed
that he felt a malicious pleasure in seeing that the English,
who reproached the French with tlieir servitude, were as much
slaves as they. " I had a sentiment more humane," remarks
Voltaire. "I was grieved that there was no more liberty
200 LIFE OF VOLTATRE.
on earth." He consoled himself, also, with observing that, if
the king impressed sailors, everybody in Evigland could speak
and write with sufficient freedom. " I have seen four very
learned treatises against the reality of the miracles of Jesus
Christ printed here with impunity, at a time when a poor
bookseller was put into the pillory for publishing a transla-
tion of " La Religieuse en Chemise." He thought it a strange
British inconsistency that the government should permit the
printing of heresy and punish the publication of indecency.
A few days after, he observed another oddity at Newmarket.
He was told that there he would see the true Olympic
Games. He saw, indeed, a concourse of noblemen, the king
and royal famil3% and a " prodigious number of the swiftest
horses in Europe flying around the course, ridden by little pos-
tilions in silk jackets ; " but he also saw " jockeys of quality bet-
ting ngainst one another, who put into this solemnity more of
swindling than magnificence." ^ He preferred Greenwich Fair
to Newmarket races.
These may be taken as his first impressions of England ;
and probably the strange things he saw on every side distracted
and amused him for a few days or weeks. But he had not
come to England to stay. He had promised the minister to
go to England; but he had entered, so far as we know, into
N no engagement as to the length of his stay. A few weeks
after his arrival, he returned secretly to France, in quest of
Rohan. He concealed himself there, and, as it seems, wore
some disguise. He saw no member of his family : not his
sister, whom he loved ; still less his brother, whom he did
not love. He did not let his comrade, Thieriot, know that
he had been in Paris until he was safe out of it, perhaps
at Rouen, more than once his hiding-place. Fi'om his retreat
in France he wrote, August 12, 1726, to Thieriot a long
and melancholy letter. He remained during many months of
this year in the depths of gloom.
" I will confess to you, my dear Thieriot [he wrote], that I made
a little joiirney to Paris lately. Since I did not see you, you will
easily conclude that I saw no one. I sought but a single man, whom
the instinct of his poltroonery concealed from me, as if he had di-
"' vined that I was on his track. At last, the fear of being discovered
1 35 CEuvrcs de Voltaire, 7.
FIEST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND.
201
made me leave more precipitately than I carae. I am still uncertain
whether I shall return to London. England is a country, I know,
where all the arts are honored and recompensed ; where there is a dif-
ference in conditions, but none between man and man except that of
merit. It is a country where men think freely and nobly, unrestrained
by servile fear. If I should follow my inclination, it is there that I
should fix myself, if only to learn how to think. But I know not if
my limited fortune, much disordered by my frequent journeys, my bad
health, now worse than ever, and my preference for the most profound
seclusion, will permit me to encounter the clatter and bustle of White-
hall and London. I am well introduced in that country, and I am
expected there with cordiality enough ; but I cannot assure you that
I shall make the voyage. I have but two things to do in my life :
one, to risk it with honor as soon as I can ; and the other, to pass
what shall remain of it in the obscurity of a retreat suited to my Way
iJ
of thinking, to my misfortunes, and to my knowledge of men.
" I abandon with good heart my pensions from the king and queen ;
regretting only not to have been able to secure you a share of them.
It would be a consolation to me in my solitude to think that I had
been able, once in my life, to be of some use to you ; but I am fated
to be unfortunate in all ways. The greatest pleasure an honest man
can feel, that of giving pleasure to his friends, is denied to me
If I have still some friends who pronounce my name in your hearing,
speak to them of me with moderation, and cherish the remembrance
which they are willing to preserve of me."
He remained in concealment for about two months ; then
crossed the Channel once more, and prepared to settle in Eng-
land. A budget of letters awaited him, the first he had re-
ceived since leaving the Bastille. Among them was one from
a Mademoiselle Bessieres, who had been an inmate of his fa-
ther's house, and was in some way closely allied to the family.
She may have been his governess. From her he now received
the intelligence of his only sister's death. The letter whicb
he wrote in reply was all tenderness and contrition. Weaned
from the great world which had flattered, deluded, and aban-
doned him, his heart softened toward his kindred and the
friends of his childhood, even toward that Jansenist of a
brother of his, who, as he thought, had behaved less like a
brother than ever to him since his father's estate had been in
litigation. Thus he wrote to Mademoiselle Bessieres, October
15, 1726 : —
<
Q^.
\
202 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
" What can I say to you, mademoiselle, about the death of my sis-
ter, if not that it would have been far better for our family and for
me if I had been taken away in her stead ? It is not for me to speak
to you of the little imijortance I attach to this passage, so short and
so difficult, which is called life. Upon that subject you have ideas
more enlightened than I, and drawn from purer sources. I am ac-
('^ quainted only with the sorrows of life, but you know their remedies ;
and the difference between us is that between patient and doctor.
" I pray you, mademoiselle, to have the goodness to fulfill even to
the end the charitable zeal which you deign to have for me on this
mournful occasion. Either prevail upon my brother to give me, with-
out a single moment's delay, some news of his health, or else give me
some yourself. He alone remains to you of all my father's family,
which you regarded as your own. As for me, you must no more
count me. Not that I do not still live, so far as regards the respect
and affection that I owe to you ; but I am dead for all else. You are
gi-eatly mistaken — permit me to say it to you with tenderness and
grief — in supposing that I have forgotten you. I have committed
"many faults in the course of my life. The chagrins and sufferings
which have marked almost all my days have often been my own work.
I feel how little worthy I am. My weaknesses seem pitiful to me,
and my faults strike me with horror. But God is my witness that I
love virtue, and that therefore I am tenderly attached to you for my
jwhole life. Adieu ; I embrace you. Allow me to use this expression
With all the respect and all the gratitude which I owe to Mademoiselle
essieres."
In a similar strain he wrote the next day to Madame de
Bernieres, telling her that he was more dead to the world even
than his dead sister, and entreating her to forget everything
about him except the moments when she had assured him she
would always be his friend. " Reckon the moments when I
may have displeased you among the number of my misfort-
unes, and love me from generosity, if you cannot any longer
from inclination."
To complete his unhappiness, he suffered a considerable loss
of money soon after his arrival in England. He brought with
him a letter of credit upon Acosta, a Jewish banker, upon
presenting wdiich he received a reply which Wagniere thus
reports : " Sir, I am very sorry ; I cannot pay you ; for, in the
name of the Lord, I went into bankruptcy three days ago." ^
1 1 Mdmoires sur Voltaire, par Longchamp and Wagniere, 23.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 203
Voltaire, thirty years after, used to tell this story in his ban-
tering manner, and state the amount of his loss at twenty thou-
sand francs. The banker, he used to say, had " the generos-
ity" to pay him some guineas, which a bankrupt could not
have been compelled to do ; and secretary Wagniere adds that
" the king of England, having heard of the stranger's embar-
rassment, sent him a hundred guineas." His pensions from
the French court were not paid during his stay abroad. He
was not present to call for the money, and under the regime
of the period the claims of a pensioner in disgrace were not
likely to receive attention at the treasury. Thus, at the age"''
of thirty-two, for a proper and becoming retort to a black-
guard's insult, he saw himself obliged to begin the world anew
in a foreign land, the very language of which he knew scarcely
anything of. To an ordinary traveler ignorance of the lan-
guage of a foreign country is merely an inconvenience ; but to
this stranger language was the tool of his vocation, and he had
deliberately forborne to acquire skill in the use of any other.
But he rose to the occasion. He put forth that peculiar
energy, intense, well-directed, good-humored, sustained, which
men exert who conquer the world, and remain victorious to
the end. And, first of all, to get possession of the language
of his new country. He_ studied English as though he ex-
pected to pass the rest of his days in England, and meant to
try a career as an English author. His introduction to the
Walpoles and his acquaintance with the Bolingbrokes opened
to him the most interesting houses, political and literary ; but
it was not among the lords of the isle that he found the one
helpful friend a stranger needs while he is struggling with a
new language. Among the men of business whom he may
have met at Greenwich Fair was Everard Falkener, silk and
cloth merchant, afterwards Sir Everard Falkener, English am-
bassador at Constantinople. This gentleman, who was well
versed in the classic languages, a collector of ancient coins and
medals, and possessor of a good library, lived at Wandsworth,
a pleasant village on the Thames, four or five miles above
London, and not far from Richmond. In the hospitable man-
ner of the time he took the stranger home, and kept him there
a favored guest whenever he was not invited elsewhere. Ever-
ard Falkener's house at Wandsworth was, in fact, the home
204 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
of the exile during his stay in England ; and these two re-
mained friends and correspondents for thirty-five years after,
or as long as both lived. The friendship was continued even
to the next generation ; for Voltaire lived to welcome under
his own roof at Ferney two grown sons of Sir Everard Falk-
ener, to sit between them at his own table, and tell them
stories of the time when their father was a father to him in
England. Curiously enough, he foretold the ambassadorship
of Falkener. " I was a prophet once in my life," he wrote, in
1738, to Thieriot, " although not in my own country. It was
in London, at our dear Falkener's house. He was only a mer-
chant, and I predicted that he would be ambassador at the
Forte. He laughed ; but, behold, he is ambassador! "
The merchant, we may infer, was a contented, cheerful soul,
without desire to be ambassador or baronet. Voltaire quotes,
in his " Remarks upon Pascal," a few pleasant lines of a letter
which he received from Falkener in 1728 : " I am here just
as you left me : neither merrier, nor sadder, nor richer, nor
poorer ; enjoying perfect health, having everything that ren-
ders life agreeable ; without love, without avarice, without am-
bition, and without envy, — and as long as all that lasts I shall
call myself a very happy man.'' This is a good kind of per-
soii for a stranger in a strange land to fall in with.
An inmate now of an English home, and a frequent guest
at others, he was much surprised, it appears, at their plain fur-
niture and meagre decoration. London, he afterwards wrote,
was very far, in 1726, from being equal to Paris, either in
splendor, in taste, in sumptuosity, in costly objects, in agree-
ableness, in the fine arts, or in the art of society. He declared
that there were " five hundred times more silver plate in the
houses of Paris bourgeois than in those of London." A Paris
notary, solicitor, or draper, he said, was better lodged, better
furnished, better served, than a magistrate of the first city of
England ; and Paris consumed in one day more poultry and
game than London in a week. Paris, he thought, burned a
thousand times more wax candles than London ; for, except at
the court end, London was lighted only with tallow.^
Under Falkener's hospitable roof, with inmates eager to as-
sist him, he improved rapidly in his English. We all under-
1 61 CEuvres de Voltaire, 403.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 205
rate the obstacles in the way of making a conquest of another
language, a feat so difficult as to approach impossibility, and
few men have ever really done it since our race began to artic-
ulate. It is probably true, as a writer has recently asserted,
that not more than three educated men are ever alive at the
same time who know a foreign tongue as well as they know
their own. Voltaire evidently meant to be one. English, he
would say, was " a learned language," and deserved to be
studied as such. The reader shall see for himself what prog-
ress he made. He landed on English soil in May, 1726 ; and
we have three English letters of his written within the first
nine months of his stay. Unfortunately, the least correct one
comes to us without date, but we may suppose it written in
the summer of 1726. It was copied from the original manu-
script without change. The John Brinsden, to whom it was
addressed, appears to have been a wine merchant, and to have
had relations with Lord Bolingbroke.
" Sir, — j wish you good health, a quick sale of y'' burgundy, much
latin, and greeke to one of y" children, much Law, much of cooke and
littleton, to the other, quiet and joy to mistress brinsden, money to
all. when you'll drink y'' burgundy with mr furneze, pray tell him
j'll never forget his favours.
" But dear John be so kind as to let me know how does my lady Bol-
lingbroke, as to my lord j left him so well j dont doubt he is so still,
but j am very uneasie about my lady. If she might have as much
health as she has spirit & witt, Sure she would be the Strongest body
in england. Pray dear s'' write me Something of her, of my lord,
and of you. direct y"" letter by the penny post at m'' Cavalier, Beli-
tery square by the li Exchange, j am sincerely & hearlily y'' most
humble most obedient rambling friend Voltaire.
" John Brinsden, esq.
durham's yard
by charhig cross." ^
This being about such a letter as he would be equal to after
two or three months of English study, we may presume that it
was written before he returned to France in search of his chev-
alier. Our next specimen is dated in November ; but probably
its mere verbal correctness is due to the English editor who
1 Notes and Queries, 1868. "I transcribe [says a correspondent of Notes and
Queries] the following letter from the Bazar, or Literary and Scientific Reposi-
tory, 4to, 1824, an obscure and forgotten periodical published in Birmingham."
206 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE. ^
first gave it to the public. It is a note addressed to Alexander
Pope, after his overturn in Lord Bolingbroke's great six-horse
coach, near Dawly, in Shropshire. The accident happened in
crossing a bridge, and Pope was thrown into the stream.
" Sir : — I hear this moment of your sad adventure : the water you
fell into was not HipjDOCi-ene's water ; otherwise it would have sup-
ported you : indeed, I am concerned beyond expression for the danger
you have been in, and more for your wounds. Is it possible, that
those fingers which have written ' The Rape of the Lock,' the ' Criti-
cism,' and which have so becomingly dressed Homer in an English
coat, should have been so barbarously treated ? Let the hand of Den-
nis or of your poetasters be cut off, — yours is sacred. I hope, sir,
you are now perfectly recovered. Really, your accident concerns me
as much as all the disasters of a master ought to affect his scholar. I
am sincerely, sir, with the admiration which you deserve,
" Your most humble servant,
" Voltaire.
" In my Lord Bolingbroke's House,
Friday, at noon, Nov. 16, 1726.'
Our third specimen is a familiar letter, written in March,
1727, to Thieriot, who had asked him to find some books in
London ; as Thieriot, too, was deep in English studies, and de-
sired to get a popular English book to translate into French.
Voltaire began his letter in French, telling him that the parcel
of books was on its way to Calais, whence it would be con-
veyed by coach to Paris. Then he broke into English in the
manner following : —
^&
" It was indeed a very hard task formed to find that damned book
which, under the title of ' Improvement of Human Reason ' [a trans-
lation from the Arabic], is an example of nonsense from one end to
the other, and which besides is a tedious nonsense, and consequently
very distasteful to the French nation, that detests madness itself, when
madness is languishing and flat. The book is scarce, because it is bad,
it being the fate of all wretched books never to be printed again. So
I spent almost a fortnight in the search of it, till at last I had the mis-
fortune to find it.
" I hope you will not read it throughout, that spiritless nonsense
romance, though indeed you deserve to read it, to do penance for the
trouble you gave me to inquire after it, for the tiresome perusal I
made of some parts of this whimsical, stupid performance, and for
riEST IMFRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 207
your credulity iu believiug those who gave you so great an idea. of so
mean a thing.
'" You will find in the same parcel the second volume of M. Gulli-
ver, which (by the by I don't advise you to translate) strikes at the
first ; the other is overstrained. The reader's imagination is pleased
and charmingly entertained by the new prospect of the lands which
Gulliver discovers to him ; but that continued series of new fane-les.
of follies, of fairy tales, of wild inventions, pall at last upon our taste.
Nothing unnatural may please long : it is for this reason that com-
monly the second parts of romances are so insipid. Farewell ; my
services to those who remember me ; but I hope I am quite forgot
here [there ?]." ^
Tliere are sentences in this letter whicli show the beginnino-
of facility in English. " The book is scarce because it is
bad, it being the fate of all wretched books never to be
printed again," is a good English sentence, besides containing
a valuable hint for the collectors of antiquated trash. The
remark, however, did not apply to the work in question, which
was printed several times, — once in Latin, and twice at least
in English. Later in 1727, when, perhaps, he had studied
English a little more than a year, he wrote a few lines of
English verse, which show considerable command of the lan-
guage : —
TO LAURA HARLEY.
Laura, would you know the passion
You have kindled iu my breast ?
Trifling is the inclination
That by words can be expressed.
In my silence see the lover ;
True love is by silence known ;
In my eyes you '11 best discover
All the power of your own.
This Laura Harley was the wife of an English merchant,
who obtained a divorce from her, and mentioned these lines
in his petition as one of the evidences of his right to a divorce.
They were, probably, on the part of Voltaire, a mere exer-
cise in English, the husband's complaint being against "two
other seducers of his wife." ^
From these examples we may conclude that, early in his
1 Lettres Inedites de Voltaire, page 35.
2 Les Divorces Anglais, par Chiteauueuf, Paris, 1821. Quoted in 18 CEuvres
de Voltaire, 240.
208 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
residence in England, be was able to take part in conversa-
tion and to read the autbors witb whom be associated. He
continued to work bard in tbe language, and began to write
in it for tbe public eye before be bad been eigbteen months in
England. We have about thirty letters of bis written in Eng-
lish, many of them to Falkener, and some after be bad been
absent twenty years from England. These letters show that
be was one of those foreigners who could have made English
entirely bis own, and that be did actually make great prog-
ress towards it. All bis life be was fond of throwing bits of
English into bis conversation and letters, and took pleasure
in speaking tbe language wben be was a very old man, past
eigbty. To that very Franklin who was then setting type in
a London printing-bouse, a journeyman of nineteen, be spoke
Englisb, when tbey met in Paris, fifty-two years after.
CHAPTER XXII.
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND.
He appears to have known almost every person of note
in England. " Old Horace Walpole's " letter of recommen-
dation made him free of the great whig houses and circles.
Writing, forty-one years later, to Horace Walpole, of Straw-
berry Hill, nephew to " Old Horace," and son of Sir Rob-
ert, he said, " Perhaps I am unknown to you, although I was
once honored with the friendship of the Two Brothers." ^
So the Walpoles were often styled at the time when one
of them was supreme in home politics, and the other well
skilled in those of Continental courts. The conspicuous
whig house then was the new seat of Bubb Dodington in
Dorsetshire, where authors and artists were among the frequent
and most welcome guests, and where also the Two Broth-
ers or their colleagues were occasionally t6 be met. Voltaire
was soon a familiar guest at this magnificent abode.
Edward Young, who had not yet written the " Night
Thoughts," nor even taken orders, though forty-six years of
age, was often there in those years. He was at this period
a poet and dramatist of great celebrity, known to the London
public chiefly as the author of the hideous and popular trag-
edy of "The Revenge," a play that afforded fine howling to
the tragedians of two generations. Oddly enough, Voltaire,
future author of " La Pucelle," and Young, of the " Night
Thoughts," became and long remained very good friends,
discoursing much together at Dodington's on matters lit-
erary. On one occasion, as Spence records, the conversa-
tion turned upon the dialogue in " Paradise Lost " (Book X.)
between Sin and Death, beginning, —
" Within the gates of hell sat Sin and Death,
In counterview within the gates, that now
1 Voltaire a Ferney, page 410.
VOL. I. 14
" VOLTAIRE.
Idling outrageous flame
xar iruo v^naos, smce the fiend passed through, ,
Sin opening ; who thus now to Death began :
' O son, why sit we here each other viewing ? ' "
Voltaire, with vehemence, objected to the personification of
Sin and Death. The reader has only to glance at the passage
in Milton, and then think of Voltaire's reading it before he
was at all equal to such English as that, and he will feel how
absurd it must have seemed to him. Young replied by the
well-known epigram, of which the best version is given by
Dr. Johnson : —
" ' You are so witty, profligate, and thin.
At once we think you Milton, Death, and Sin."i
This happy stroke, it appears, softened the severity of the
French critic. Young remembered the incident when, many
years later, he dedicated his " Sea Piece " "to Mr. Voltaire."
" ' Tell me,' say'st thou, ' who courts my smile 1
What stranger strayed from yonder isle ? '
Ko stranger, sir, though born in foreign climes ;
On Dorset Downs, where Milton's page
With Sin and Death provoked thy rage,
Thy rage provoked, who soothed with gentle rhymes ;
Who kindly couched thy censure's eye.
And gave thee clearly to descry
Sound judgment giving law to fancy strong;
Who half inclined thee to confess,
Nor could thy modesty do less.
That Milton's blindness lay not in his song.
But such debates long since are flown,
Forever set the suns that shone
On airy pastimes ere our brows were gray ;
How shortly shall we both forget,
To thee, my patron, I my debt,
And thou to thine, for Prussia's golden key."
These lines, written not less than a quarter of a century
after the conversation upon Milton, show us, at least, that it
made a lively impression upon the mind of the English poet.
Another poet, often a guest of Dodington's, may have taken
part in it, — Thomson, whose " Winter " was then in its first
popularity. He sold the manuscript for three guineas in 1726,
saw the third edition before the year was out, and was now
brina^ing: forward the other "Seasons." Voltaire mentions"
having known him in England, and speaks slightingly of his
poetry.
1 2 Lives of the Poets, 529. N. Y. edition, 1861.
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 211
Swift was then at the summit of his career ; for in 1724
he gave Ireland the " Drapier Letters," and in 172G he pub-
lished the first part of " Gulliver's Travels." He was much
in England during Voltaire's stay, and the French poet be-
came familiar with him. When Swift visited France, in 1727,
he carried a letter of introduction from Voltaire to Count de
Morville, the French minister for foreign affairs. " I be-
lieve," wrote Voltaire in this epistle, " that you will not be
sorry to dine with M. Swift and President H6nault ; and I
flatter myself that you will regard as a proof of my sincere
attachment to your person the liberty I take in presenting to
you one of the most extraordinary men that England has pro-
duced, and the most capable of feeling all the extent of your
great qualities."
The dramatist Congreve, long retired from active life on
munificent pensions and sinecures, was another of Voltaire's
English acquaintances. " He was infirm and almost dying,"
the exile records, " when I knew him. He had one fault, —
that of not sufficiently esteeming his first trade of author,
which had made his fame and fortune. He spoke to me of
his works as trifles beneath him, and told me, at our first con-
versation, to visit him only on the footing of a gentleman who
lived very simply. I replied that if he had had the misfort-
une to be only a gentleman like another, I should never have
come to see him; and I was shocked at a vanity so ill placed."
It may have been through Congreve that Voltaire became
so intimate with the valiant old Duchess of Marlborough^
to whom, rich as she was, Congreve left his fortune. The
duchess gave him several choice morsels of information, which
he used with effect in later historical works. Slie even told
him the amount of her revenue as widow, namely, seventy
thousand pounds sterling. The duchess, he says, was con-
vinced that Queen Anne, late in her reign, had had a secret
interview in England with her brother, James II., and assured
him that if he would renounce the Roman religion, " which
the English regard as the mother of tyranny," she would des-
igu-ate him as her successor.^ Several of the old officers of
the Duke of jNIarlborough supplied him with information re-
lating to the long contest with Louis XIV., which he kept
1 Si^cle de Louis XIV., chapter xxiv.
212 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
safe in Lis memory or note-book for many a year, until the
moment came for them to fall into their places.
He speaks also of having known Bishop Berkeley, the
Bishop of Rochester, John Byng, afterwards admiral, and
Gay, the author of the " Beggars' Opera." He may have wit-
nessed the first performance of Gay's work in 1727, the great
hit of that year, — a success that drew the town away from
Handel's operas, and spoiled his season. He knew Sir Hans
Sloane, president, after Newton's death, of the Royal Society.
Sir Isaac Newton he just missed ; for Sir Isaac died in March,
1727, before Voltaire had been a year in the country.
\ ' Of all the events that occurred in England during his resi-
>A \ dence there, the one that appears to have made the deepest
\ impression upon his mind was the burial of Sir Isaac Newton.
\ He was in London on the 28th of March, when the remains
' of the philosopher lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and
statesmen, nobles, and philosophers gathered there to pay the
last homage to a man whose sole claim to distinction was that
he had enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge. When
the body was carried to its last resting-place in Westminster
Abbey, the pall was borne by the lord chancellor, the highest
official in the kingdom, by the Duke of Montrose and the
Duke of Roxburgh, by the Earls of Pembroke, Sussex, and
Macclesfield, — members of the Royal Society, of which New-
ton had been president for nearly a quarter of a century. The
funeral was attended by a concourse of the men highest in
rank and greatest in name in England, and its solemn pag-
eantry was witnessed by a multitude of citizens who under-
stood little, it is true, of what Newton had done for them and
their posterity, but who felt, in some degree, how becoming it
was in men great by accident to pay such honors to a man
great by nature.
There were two poets upon whom this scene, so honorable
to England and to human nature, made a profound impression.
One of these was Thomson. In his poem upon the death of
Newton, he expresses the feeling that in honoring him Eng-
land redeemed herself : —
" For, though depraved and sunk, she brought thee forth.
And glories in thy name ; she points thee out
To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star,
While, in expectance of the second life,
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 213
When time sh:ill be no more, thy sacred dust
Sleeps with htr kings, and dignifies the scene."
What a lasting impression was made upon Voltaire's suscep-
tible mind by Newton's stately funeral the numerous allu-
sions to it in Lis letters attest. In extreme old age, his eye
would kindle and his countenance light up when he spoke of
his once having lived in a land where a professor of mathe-
matics, only because he was great in his vocation, could be
buried in a temple where the ashes of kings reposed, and the
highest subjects in the kingdom felt it an honor to assist in
bearing thither his body.
He was curious to know something more of Newton than
he could learn from the ordinary sources of information. In
his later writings he alhides several times to his having known
in England INIrs. Conduit, Sir Isaac's niece. From her lips he
heard the apple story, and to him, as it seems, the world owes
the preservation of that most interesting of anecdotes. " One
day in the year 1666, Newton, then retired to the country,
seeing some fruit fall from a tree, as I was told by his niece,
Madame Conduit, fell into a profound meditation upon the
cause which draws all bodies in a line which, if prolonged,
would pass very nearly through the centre of the earth." ^
He preserves on the same page another anecdote of Newton,
perhaps derived from the same source: " A stranger asked
Newton, one day, how he had discovered the laws of the uni-
verse. ' By thinking of them without ceasing,' was the phi-
losopher's reply." I wonder if he heard from Madame Con-
duit the Newton anecdote related in the " Philosophical Dic-
tionary : " " In my youth I believed that Newton had made his
fortune by his extreme merit. I imagined that the court and
city of London had named him by acclamation Master of the
Mint. Not at all. Isaac Newton had a niece, sufficiently
amiable, named Madame Conduit, who was very pleasing to
the chancellor of tho exchequer, Halifax. Infinitesimal cal-
culus and gravitation would have availed nothing without a
pretty niece."
Newton's study of the prophecies amazed, puzzled, and even
saddened this studious exile. How such mighty powers of mind
could accommodate themselves to the mere consideration of
1 Philosophic do Newton, par Voltaire, chapter iii.
214 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
such a subject was a baffling enigma to him. " What a poor
species the human race," he exchiims, " if the great Newton
believed he had found in the Apocalypse the present history
of Europe ! " Elsewhere he adds the famous sentence, " Ap-
parently, Newton wished by that commentary uj^on the Apoc-
alypse to console the human race for the superiority he had
over it."i
"' Of the authors whom Voltaire met and studied in England,
the one who influenced his own writings most w^as, beyond
/ question, Alexander Pope. The friendship of Bolingbroke
' brought him at once into cordial relations with the circle of
which that nobleman was the idol and Pope the ornament.
The affection entertained for Bolingbroke by literary men was
as remarkable as the detestation in which he was held by some
of his political associates. Pope paid him the most stupen-
dous compliment, perhaps, that one mortal ever bestowed upon
another. " I really think," said Pope, " that there is some-
thing in that great man which looks as if he were placed here
by mistake. When the comet appeared to us, a month or two
ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possibly
have come to our world to carry him away, as a coach comes
to one's door for other visitors." And when Pope was dying
Bolingbroke hang sobbing over his chair, and said, " I have
known him these thirty years, and value myself more upon
that man's love than " — His voice failed him, and he could
utter no more. Voltaire was fond of both these brilliant men.
In one of his poetical epistles, published in 1726, he speaks of
Bolingbroke as one who possessed the eloquence of Cicero, the
intrepidity of Cato, the wit of Maecenas, and the agreeable-
ness of Petronius. He loved him living, and he defended him
dead. He relates, however, but one trifling anecdote of his
inteucourse with Lord Bolingbroke. The conversation turning
one day upon the alleged avarice of the Duke of Marlborough,
some one appealed to Bolingbroke to confirm the allegation,
and with the more confidence because Bolingbroke had been
of the party opposed to Marlborough. His reply was, " He
was so great a man that I have forgotten his faults."
y Pope*s mastery of the art of rhyming would have sufficed to
attract the regard of a man who had written only in rhyme,
1 7 Dictionnaire Philosophique, 172.
V
\
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 215
and who thought that there was no true poetry without rhyme. '
It appears that upon this vexed question of rhyme Pope and
Voltaire were of the same opinioiij He tells us that he asked
Pope, one day, why Milton had not written " Paradise Lost " in
rhyme. " Because he could not," answered Pope. This does
not accord with the experience of Pope's successor in Homeric
translation. Cowper says that to rhyme in English demands
"no great exercise of ingenuity ; " and that he has frequently
written more lines in a day " with tags to them " than he ever
could without. Voltaire and Pope were in accord upon sub-
jects of more importance than the construction of poems. The
vein of moralizing that runs through many of Pope's produc-
tions was peculiarly pleasing to Voltaire, who constantly in-
sists that a poem should do something more than amuse.
Pope had not yet written the " Essay on Man," nor the " Uni-
versal Prayer ; " but his conversation was much in the spirit
of those works, which Voltaire regarded as among the choicest
master-pieces of English literature, and which by and by he
caused to be translated into French.
'^_^.L^'.^ilsi-9}l^ ^^^^ ^^^^* prevailed in the circles of Pope and
Bolingbroke could^ot have differed materially from that to
which the stranger was accustomed in France. Educatedjnen
of the world in both countries were very likely to he deists.
BiiTm Jb'rance no man then dared print deism in the vulgar
tongue, and no moral teaching was allowed which did not ap-
pear to concede the claims of the church. The great diction-
ary, or cyclopcedia, of Pierre Bayle, published originally in
1696, and enlarged to four volumes in 1720, is indeed full of
that which makes men doubt and deny. Voltaire was familiar
with the work from boyhood, as were all the reading men and
thinking men of that generation in France. But not only
was Bayle obliged to publish his work at distant Rotterdam,
but in treating all the delicate topics he was compelled to use
the utmost caution and management, veiling his obvious in-
credulity under forms and professions of respect. Glance over
the article upon Spinoza, for example. Including the notes,
which are much more voluminous than the text, we may say
of this article that it suggests and indicates the whole strug-
gle of the human mind with the problem of the universe.
The opinions and conjectures of the ancients, the beliefs, de-
21G LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
nials, and differences of the moderns, are all sketched or
stated ; pantheism, atheism, and deism are described or de-
fined ; and the reader is assisted, nay, compelled, to survey
the stupendous and ever-fascinating theme from a height above
the belfry of the parish church. But the parish church is, as
the French say, "managed" from first to last. No pretext is
given to the censor or the inquisitor. Take one specimen :
*' People who associated "with Spinoza, and the peasants of the
villages where he lived for some time in seclusion, agree in
saying that he was a man of good habits, affable, honest, oblig-
ing, and of strict morality. That is strange ; but, really, it
is not more astonishing than to see people living very badly,
though they have a full persuasion of the gospel." To this
passage profuse notes are appended, exalting still higher the
pure and noble character of Spinoza. There is scarcely an
important article in all the four ponderous volumes of Bayle
that does not hint or insinuate similar dissent from the en-
forced way of thinking.
But in England, as the exile observed, the deists were not
obliged to insinuate. Deism, long in vogue in the "great
world," was now becoming popular among portions of the peo-
ple, and printed its thought with very little reserve or " man-
agement." And yet the movement had begun at Paris. One
hundred and two years before Voltaire saw England, Lord
Herbert, English ambassador at Paris, after getting, as he sup-
posed, a revelation from Heaven, published his treatise against
revelation, " De Veritate," copies of which he sent to the
learned of all Europe, and thus began deism. His five points
were : (1.) There is a God. (2.) Man should worship him.
(3.) The practice of virtue is the chief part of worship. (4.)
Faults are expiated by repentance. (5.) There must be a
future of reward and punishment. The ambassador covered
his heresies with the safe and decent mantle of the Latin lan-
guage ; and so did some of his successors.
But deism was now getting into language which could be
called vulgar in more senses than one. After Herbert, Hobbes,
and Sbaftsbury, came Toland, Collins, Tindal, and others, each
bolder than the last, until, in 1727, under the eyes of this
French exile, all former audacities were eclipsed by Woolston
in his " Six Discourses on the Miracles." This writer, a Cam-
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 217
bridge master of arts, j)ut into coarse, uncompromising English
what many deists were accustomed to utter in conversation
every time two or three of them found themselves together.
He affected to believe that the miracles must be interpreted
as allegories, because, if taken literally, they were too absurd
for serious consideration. He proceeded to comment upon each
miracle in turn with a freedom never before seen in print,
but also with the crude and boisterous humor that pleased
Londoners when Hogarth was an apprentice. He said, for ex-
ample, that the wine miraculously made at the wedding feast
for guests already drunk must have been punch, and that the
whole story was so monstrous that no one not brutalized
by superstition could believe it. This specimen will suffice.
Since that day, the reading world has been familiarized with
this mode of treating such subjects, and has discovered how
inoperative it is when both writers and writing are let alone.
It was a startling novelty in 1727. Woolston advertised that
he would sell his discourses at his own house, and buyers came
thither in great numbers. Voltaire states that thirty thousand
copies were sold during the last two years of his stay in Eng-
land ; and no one then molested the author. The Bishop of
London wrote live pastoral letters warning his flock against
these essays, and at length caused Woolston to be prosecuted.
He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and to a fine of a
hundred pounds. Refusing to give bonds not to repeat his
offense, he was obliged to pass the brief remainder of his life
within " the bounds " of King's Bench prison.
The lightness of AVoolston's sentence and the length of
time that elapsed before he was prosecuted indicate the hold
which deism had upon the public. Voltaire saw it j)reva-
lent in the houses of noblemen and poets, and Woolston 's
career showed him that it had made ita way among the
multitude in the shop and the street. There were clubs of
deists in London, which held weekly meetings in ale-houses,
and reconstructed the universe over pots of beer. Young
Franklin composed his pamphlet in 1725 upon " Liberty
and Necessity," designed to refute Wollaston's " Religion
of Nature," which he had assisted to set in type. He car-
ried negation in this work far beyond deism. — even beyond
atheism, if that is possible ; denying equally the existence of
218 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
good and the existence of evil, and asserting that in every
state and stage of conceivable existence pleasure and pain gire
and must be equal in quantity. ^ His companions were not
shocked, it appears, at these bold speculations ; and, so far as
we can discern, such entire freedom from the traditional and
the legendary was held in esteem among the workingmen of
London.
None of these things escaped the observation of the exile,
abundant in labors as he was. To him England was a univer-
sity. Few strangers have ever extracted more in two years
and a half from a foreign country than he from England ;
although, during his residence there, he performed much work
that remains readable, and is constantly read, to the present
hour. Note the catalogue of his studies and labors. First,
the partial acquisition of the " learned language," which in-
volved a wide survey of its literature, and a study of many
authors, — Newton, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke, Ba-
con, Swift, Pope, Addison, the later dramatists, and many
others. It was no easy task for a Frenchman of that age to
so much as forgive Shakespeare for not being Racine, and
Voltaire could never quite succeed in it. We can trace his
struggles with the author of " Macbeth " and " Hamlet."
" Shakespeare [he remarks], the first tragic poet of the English,
is rarely spoken of in England except as divine. In Loudon I
never saw the theatre as full to witness ' L'Andromaque ' of Racine,
well translated as it is by Philips, or Addison's ' Cato,' as when the
ancient pieces of Shakespeare were performed. These pieces are
monsters in tragedy. There are some plays the action of which
lasts several years ; the hero, baptized in the first act, dies of old
age in the fifth. You see upon the stage wizards, peasants, drunk-
ards, buffoons, grave-diggers digging a grave, who sing drinking songs
while playing with skulls. In a word, imagine what you can of
most monstrous and most absurd, you will find it in Shakespeare.
When I began to learn the English language, I could not under-
stand how so enlightened a nation as the English could admire so
extravagant an author ; but when I knew the language better, I
perceived that the English were right, and that it is impossible for
a whole nation to be deceived in a matter of sentiment, and mis-
taken as to their being pleased. They saw, as I saw, the crudi-
ties of their favorite author, but they felt his beauties better than
1 For a copy of this pamphlet see Parton's Life of Franklin, vol. i. p. 607.
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 219
I could, — beauties so much the more remarkable from their having
flashed out in the midst of profoundest night. He has enjoyed his
reputation for a hundred and fifty years. The authors who came
after him have served to augment rather than diminish it. The
great understanding of the author of ' Cato,' and his talents, which
made him a secretary of state, did not give him a place by the
side of Shakespeare. Such is the privilege of genius : it makes for
itself a path where no one went before ; it pursues its course with-
out guide, without art, without rule ; it goes astray in its career,
but it leaves far behind all excellence that is merely reasonable and
correct. Such was Homer : he created his art and left it imper-
fect ; his works a chaos, where on all sides the light shines." ^
Shakespeare, by turns, enraptured and repelled liira. Re-
turning from the theatre, one evening, after seeing with a
delight he never forgot the " Julius Csesar " of Shakespeare,
he began to write a tragedy of Brutus in English prose. He
continued the exercise until he had composed the first act
very nearly as he afterwards executed it in French rhyme.
Lord Bolingbroke, who, he says, gave him lessons in French^
as well as in English, approved the plan, and the work was
published before he left England.
Durmg the whole year 1727 he was full of business, his !
most immediate scheme being the issue of the London edi-
tion of "La Henriade" by subscription. He was preparing,
also, to write a book upon England, and was already at work
upon his "History of Charles XIL," the material for which
had been accumulating for some years, and had gained im-
portant accessions in London. To promote all these objects
he now appeared as an English author. In a London monthly
for December, 1727, I read the announcement of his work: —
" An Essay upon the Civil Wars of France, extracted
from Curious M. S. And also upon the Epick Poetry of
the European nations, from Homer down to Milton. By
Arouet de Voltaire. London. Printed by Samuel Fallason
in Prujean's Court, Old Bailey, and sold by the Booksellers
of London and Westminster. 1727. In 8vo. pagg. 130."
The editor of the magazine merely adds a line of comment :
" These two essays deserve to be read by all the curious."
Among the literary curiosities in the British Museum is Sir
^ Essai sur la Poesie Epique, chapter iL
' 1
220 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Hans Sloane's copy of the first edition of this work, kept in a
glass case under lock and key. It is printed in large, clear,
open type, a handsome book, and bears upon the upper part
of the title-page, in the right-hand corner, the following words
in Voltaire's own hand : —
To S" hanslone
from his most
humble servant
Voltaire.
The volume opens with an " Advertisement to the Reader,"
printed in italics, which reads thus : —
"It has the appearance of too great presumption in a Traveller
who hath been but eighteen months in England, to attempt to write
in a Language which he cannot pronounce at all, and which he hardly
understands in Conversation. But I have done what we do every
Day at School, where we write Latin and Greek, tho' surely we pro-
nounce both very pitifully, and should understand neither of them if
they were uttered to us with the right Roman or Greek pronuncia-
tion.
" I look upon the English Language as a learned one, which de-
serves to be the object of our Application in France, as the French
tongue is thought a kind of Accomplishment in England.
" Besides I did not learn English for my private satisfaction and
improvement only, but out of a kind of Duty.
'' I am ordered to give an Account of my Journey into England.
Such an Undertaking can no more be attempted without understand-
ing the Language than a Scheme of Astronomy could be laid without
the help of Mathematicks. And I have not a mind to imitate the
late Mr Sorbieres, who having stayed three months in this Country, ■
without knowing anything either of its manners or of its language,
thought fit to print a relation which proved but a dull, scurrilous Sat-
ire upon a Nation he knew nothing of.
" Our European travellers, for the most part, are satirical upon their
neighbouring Countries, and bestow large Praises upon the Persians
and Chinese ; it being too natural to revile those who stand in Com-
petition with us ; and to extol those, who being far remote from us,
are out of the reach of Envy.
" The true aim of a Relation is to instruct Men, not to gratify their
Malice. We should be busied chiefly in giving faithful Accounts of
all the useful Tilings, and of the extraordinary Persons ; whom to
know, and to imitate would be a Benefit to our Countrymen. A
Traveller who writes in that Spirit is a Merchant of a nobler kind,
i
RESIDEXCE IN ENGLAND. 221
who Imports into his native Country the Arts and Virtues of other
Nations.
" I will leave to others the Care of describing with Accuracy Paul's
Church, the Monument, Westminster, Stonehenge, etc. I consider
England in another view ; it strikes my Eyes, as it is the Land which
hath produced a Newton, a Locke, a Tillotson, a IMilton, a Boyle ;
and many great Men, either dead or alive, whose Glory in War, in
State-Affairs, or in Letters, will not be confined to the Bounds of tliis
Island.
'* Whoever had the Honour and Happiness to be acquainted with
any of them, and will do me the favour to let me know some notable
(tho' perhaps not enough known) Passages of their Lives, will confer
ail Obligation, not only upon me, but upon the Publick.
" Likewise if there are any new Inventions or Undertakings which
have obtained or deserved Success, I shall be obliged to those who
will be so kind as to give me any Information of that Nature : and
shall either quote my Authors or observe a religious Silence, accord-
ing as they think proper.
"As to this present Essay, it is intended as a kind of Preface or
Introduction to the Henriade ; the Octavo P^dition whereof is sold by
N. Prevost ; as also the French Tragedy of Brutus."
The volume attracted much attention, and reached a fourth
edition. The " Essay upon Epic Poetry " is agreeable and sug-
gestive reading even at this day. The passage upon Shake-
speare, quoted above from the French translation, gives an idea
of its manner. The library of the British Museum contains a
copy of the fourth edition of the work, published in 1731, cor-
rected by the author : " to which is prefixed ' a discourse on
tragedy, with reflections on the English and French drama.'
Bound with this copy is a critical pamphlet of eighty-one
pages, entitled, ' Remarks on j\L Voltaire's Essay upon Epick
Poetry, by Paul Rolli. London, 1728,' " in which Milton is
defended against Voltaire's censure. In the " Discourse on
Tragedy," Voltaire addresses Lord Bolingbroke : —
" Your Lordship knows that the tragedy of Brutus was struck off
in Great Britain. You may remember that whilst I was in Wands-
worth, with my excellent friend, Mr. Faulkner, I amused myself with
writing the first act of the following tragedy in English prose, which
I have since worked up in French verse, with little alteration. I
used to mention it to you sometimes, and we both wondered that no
English poet had yet attempted to raise a tragedy upon this subject,
222 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
which, of all others, is perhaps adapted to the English stage. Your
Lordship prompted me to finish a dramatic piece susceptible of such
exalted sentiments.
" Permit me, therefore, to present you with Brutus, though written
in French.
" At my return from England, when I had closely studied the Eng-
lish language for two years put together, 't was with some diffidence
that I attempted to write a tragedy in French. I had almost accus-
tomed myself to think in English, and I found that the expressions of
my own tongue were not now so familiar to me ; 't was like a river
whose course having been diverted, both time and pains were re-
quired to bring it back to its own bed."
The Essays promoted, doubtless, the subscriptions to " La
Henriade." What, indeed, could have advertised it better?
The English quarto edition of that poem, announced in 1726,
price one guinea, was not ready till 1728, and dui'ing the in-
terval the author lent his personal energy and tact to the
work of getting subscriptions, not disdaining to solicit liter-
ary friends to hand the proposals about their circle. The
copperplates engraved in Paris, and used in the Rouen edi-
tion, were made to do duty a second time. The volume was
a handsome, gilt-edged quarto, of 202 pages, in large type,
with ample margin, and but twenty-two lines on a page. It
was announced as " the first edition published with the
author's sanction." Queen Caroline, who came to the throne
in June, 1727, with her husband, George II., was then one of
the most popular princesses in Europe, and to her Voltaire re-
dedicated his poem. As Princess of Wales, she had been
much the friend of Sir Isaac Newton, a fact of which the
author of the dedication was doubtless aware.
"To THE Qdeen.
" Madam : — It was the fate of Henry the Fourth to be protected
by an English queen. He was assisted by the great Elizabeth, who
was in her age the glory of her sex. By whom can his memory be
80 well protected as by her who resembles so much Elizabeth in her
personal virtues ?
" Your Majesty wUl find in this book bold, impartial truths ; mo-
rality unstained with superstition ; a spirit of liberty, equally abhor-
rent of rebellion and of tyranny ; the rights of kings always asserted,
and those of mankind never laid aside.
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 223
"The same spirit in which it is written gave me the confidence
to offer it to the virtuous consort of a king who, among so many
crowned heads, enjoys almost the inestimable honor of ruling a free
nation ; a king who makes his power consist in being beloved, and his
glory in being just.
" Our Descartes, who was the greatest philosopher in Europe be-
fore Sir Isaac Newton appeared, dedicated his ' Principles ' to the
celebrated Princess Palatine Elizabeth ; not, said he, because she was
a princess (for true philosophers respect princes, and never flatter
them) ; but because of all his readers she understood him the best,
and loved truth the most.
" I beg leave, Madam (without comparing myself to Descartes)
to dedicate ' The Henriade ' to your Majesty upon the like account,
not only as the protectress of all arts and sciences, but as the best
judge of them.
" I am, with that profound respect which is due to the greatest vir-
tue as well as the highest rank, may it please your Majesty, your
Majesty's most humble, most dutiful, and most obliged servant,
" Voltaire."
The volume had all the success possible to a work written
in a foreign language. The number of guinea subscribers was
probably about fifteen hundred, and three octavo editions of
the poem were also sold by booksellers about as fast as the
books could be made. Eighty copies were subscribed for in
France, where, it is to be hoped, the degenerate Sully perceived
that the name of his great ancestor was taken out of the jDoem.
The queen courteously acknowledged the honor j^aid her in the
dedication, and King George II., as the custom was, sent the
author a present of two thousand crowns. Voltaire himself
mentions this pleasing event, but without telling us the value
of the coins {Scuts), so named. If he meant English crowns,
the present was the liberal one of five hundi'ed pounds sterling.
The fibbing Goldsmith declares that Queen Caroline sent the
French poet two hundred pounds and her portrait. The
Queen of Prussia, then in full intrigue to marry her daugliter
to the Prince of Wales, and her son, Frederic, to an English
pi'incess, sent Voltaire a medal bearing, as it seems, the Queen
of England's portrait. In his letter of acknowledgment to
the Prussian minister, he says he shall keep the medal all his
life, because it came to him from so great a queen, and be-
cause it represented the Queen of England, who, by her vir-
' r^
224 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
tues and great qualities called to mind the Queen of Prussia.
Prince Frederic of Prussia was then a lad of sixteen, and
in favor with his mother. Probably he read this letter,, as
well as the volume that went with it. He may have noticed
the concludinfif sentence of the letter : " The noblest recom-
pense of my labor is to find favor with such queens as yours,
and to be valued by such readers as you ; for, in matters of
taste and science, it is not necessary to make any distinction
between crowned heads and private persons." ^
The pecuniary result of this London " Henriade " has been
usually overstated. M. Nicolardot, who has minutely investi-
gated the subject, goes, perhaps, too far the other way, in
estimating the Avliole profit of the two London editions of
the poem at ten thousand francs." I think it probable that
the proceeds of the quarto edition, the octavo edition, the
Essays preliminary, and " Brutus," with the gifts of king and
queen, may have reached two thousand pounds sterling. It
was a large sum for a man who spent little, and was well
skilled in the art of investing mone3\ During his stay in
England Pope gained six thousand pounds by his translation
of Homer, and Gay three thousand by his " Beggars' Opera; "
but Dryden only received, as Pope said, twelve hundred
pounds for his " Virgil," sixpence a line for his " Fables," ten
" broad pieces " for a play, and fifty more for the acting.
Thomson's " Spring " brought the author fifty guineas ;
Young's "Night Thoughts," two hundred and fifty; and
Akenside's " Pleasures of the Imagination," one hundred and
twenty. This stranger, therefore, may be considered to have
done very well to get so much for the reprint of a poem in a
foreign language. And during his residence of nearly three
years, how much did he spend ? Perhaps a hundred and fifty
pounds, in all, while his revenues from France, without reck-
oning his suspended pensions, could not have been less than
two hundred and fifty pounds a year.
,f He labored without pause. His " Charles XII." grew under
1 his hands. His work upon England was in preparation, for
it was never the way of this indefatigable spirit to finish one
piece of work before beginning another. Of all his writings
1 Voltaire k Ferney, page 312.
2 Menage et Finances de Voltaire, page 40.
^
RESIDENCE IN ENOLAND. 225
the one most influential upon French minds was his Letters
upo n Enn^la nd ; for they revealed to France the bewitching
spectacle of a free country, and renewed the fascinating
tradition of republican Rome learned at school. Lafayette
records that it was reading these " Lettres Philosophiques,"
as they were entitled, that made him a republican at nine ;
and J. J. Rousseau attributes in great part to them the
awakening of his late-maturing intelligence. It was a little
book, almost forgotten now, merely a traveler's brief and
pleasant chat respecting things and men of a foreign land.
But the world is governed by a few little books. It is
retarded and borne onward by little books. When the
French Revolution shall be at length interpreted, in the
first chapter of the work will be an account of this brio-ht. in-
cisive, saucy, artle ss, artful little book, which revealed free_
England to bound France. It led straight to '89. It was
not necessar}^ as the wicked Heine remarks, for the censor
to condemn this book ; it would have been read without that.
Voltaire may have heard at Lord Bolingbroke's house the
anecdote recorded by Spence of Robert Hooke, who said
there were three reasons for preferring to live in Eno-land :
The first was liberty, the second was liberty, and the third
was liberty. Above all things else in England, this exile
loved the freedom and toleration that prevailed there, " the
noble liberty of thinking," to which he attributed whatever
he found most excellent in English politics, science, and lit-
erature. To this freedom, also, he attributed the compara- . c '
tive exemption of England fi-om religious antipathies. It . • ^t
was freedom, he thought, that enabled the numerous sects ., ^^^.-^ '*^.
to live together in harmony. " Enter the London Exchange,"
he remarks, "a place more respectable than many courts.
There you see the representatives of all nations assembled
for a useful purpose. There the Jew, the Mahometan,
and the Christian treat one another as if they were of the
same religion, and give the name of infidel only to bank-
rupts. There the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist, and
the Church-of-England man takes the word of a Quaker.
On leaving this peaceful and free assembly, some go to the
synagogue, others go to drink ; this man proceeds to be bap-
tized in a great tub in the name of the Father, the Son, and
VOL. I. 15
^
226 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the Holy Ghost ; that man circumcises his son, and causes to
be muttered over the child Hebrew words which are quite
unintelligible to him ; others go to their churches to await the
insjDiration of God with their hats on ; all are content. If
there was in England but one religion, its despotic sway were
to be feared ; if there were but two, they would cut one an-
other's throats ; but as there are thirty, they live in peace and
are happy."
The Quakers, who were still a novelty in England to
foreigners, attracted the particular attention of this most un-
quakerlike of men. He knew his public, being himself a
member of it, and he therefore gave four letters upon the
Quakers. Believing, as he says, that the doctrines and his-
tory of so extraordinary a 'peojDle merited the study of an
intelligent man, he sought the society of one of the most fa-
mous Quakers in England, a retired merchant, who lived in a
cottage near London, " well built, and adorned only with its
own neatness." The curious stranger visited him in his re-
treat.
*• The Quaker was an old man of ;fresh complexion, who had
never been sick, because he always had been continent and tem-
perate. In my life I have never seen a presence more noble nor
more engaging than his. He was dressed, like all those of his per-
suasion, in a coat without plaits at the sides, or buttons on the pock-
ets and sleeves, and wore a broad-brimmed hat like those of our
ecclesiastics. He received me with his hat on, and advanced to-
wards me without making the least inclination of his body ; but
there was more politeness in the open and humane expression of
his countenance than there is in the custom of drawing one leg
behind the other, and in that of carrying in the hand what was
made to cover the head. ' Friend,' said he to me, * I see that thou
art a stranger ; if I can be of any use to thee, thou hast only to
speak.' ' Sir,' said I to him, with a bow and a step forward, accord-
ing to our custom, ' I flatter myself that my reasonable curiosity
wUl not displease you, and that you will be willing to do me the
honor to instruct me in your religion.' ' The people of thy coun-
try,' he replied, ' make too many compliments and bows, but I have
never before seen one of them who had the same curiosity as thou.
Come in and take dinner with me.' I still kept paying him bad
compliments, because a man cannot all at once lay aside his habits ;
and, after a wholesome and frugal repast, which began and ended
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 227
with a prayer to God, I began to question my host. I began with
the question which good Catholics have put more than once to the
Huguenots : ' My dear sir,' said I, ' have you been baptized ? ' ' No,'
replied the Quaker, ' nor my brethren either.' ' How ! Morhleu !
You are not Christians, then?' 'My friend,' he mildly rejoined.
' swear not ; we do not think that Christianity consists in sprinkling
water upon the head with a little salt.' ' Heh, hon Dieu ! ' said I,
shocked at this impiety ; ' have you forgotten, then, that Jesus
Christ was baptized by John ? ' ' Friend, once more, no oaths,' re-
plied the benign Quaker. ' Christ received baptism from John ;
but he baptized no one; we are not John's disciples, but Christ's.'
' Ah,' cried I, ' how you would be burned by the Holy Inquisition.
In the name of God, my dear man, let me have you baptized!'
. . . . ' Art thou circumcised .'' ' he asked. I replied that I had
not that honor. ' Very well, friend,' said he, ' thou art a Christian
without being circumcised, and I without being baptized.'"
The conversation was continued to great length. In his
report of it, Voltaire affects throughout the tone of the
good Catholic, — Louis XV. being then King of France, and
Cardinal de Fleury his prime minister. He adds that the
benign Quaker conducted him, on the following Sunday, to a
Quaker meeting, where he heard one of the brethren utter a
long, nonsensical harangue, " half with his mouth, half with
his nose," of which no one understood anything. He asked
his friend why they permitted such silliness (sottises). The
Quaker answered that they were obliged to endure it, because
they could not know, when a man got up to speak, whether he
was moved by the Spirit or by folly. The Quaker meeting
appears to have effaced the good impressions of the sect which
he had derived from his conversations with the retired mer-
chant. Nevertheless, he proceeds to relate the history of the
Quakers, and of William Penn. He concludes by remarking
that the denomination, though flourishing in Pennsylvania,
was on the decline in England, because the young Quakers,
enriched by their fathers' industry, desired to enjoy the hon-
ors of public office, and to wear fashionable clothes, and to
escape the reproach of belonging to a sect ridiculed by the
world.
In his remarks upon the Church of England, Voltaire gives
us a taste of his veritable self : " One can have no public em-
228 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
ployment in England, or Ireland, without being of the number
of the faithful Anglicans ; this reason, which is an excellent
proof, has converted so many dissenters that to-day not a
twentieth part of the nation is out of the pale of the Estab-
lished Church." " The lower house of convocation formerly
enjoyed some credit; at least, it had the privilege of meeting,
of debating controverted points of doctrine, and of burning,
now and then, some impious books, that is, books against them-
selves. The whig ministry, however, does not even permit
those gentlemen to assemble, and they are reduced, in the ob-
scurity of their parishes, to the mournful business of praying
to God for a government which they would not be sorry to dis-
turb." " The priests are almost all married. The awkward-
ness which they acquire at the universities, and the little ac-
quaintance they have here with women, usually has the effect
of obliging a bishop to be contented with his own wife. The
priests go to the taverns sometimes, because custom permits
it ; and if they get drunk, it is in a serious way, and without
scandal When they are told that in France young
men, known by their debaucheries and raised to the rank of
bishop by female intrigues, openly make love, amuse them-
selves by composing love songs, give every day costly and
elaborate suppers, and go from those suppers to implore the
illumination of the Holy Spirit, and boldly call themselves the
successors of the Apostles, then they thank God that they are
Protestants. Nevertheless, they are abominable heretics, fit to
be burned by all the devils, as Rabelais says ; and that is the
reason M'hy I do not meddle with their affairs."
Upon tiie government of England Voltaire descants in a
graver strain. He failed not to inform his countrymen that
in Eno-land no tax could be laid except with the consent of the
king, lords, and commons, and that every man was assessed,
not as in France according to his rank, or rather according to
his want of rank, but according to his income. Nor did he
omit to remark that in England the peasant's feet were not
blistered by wooden shoes. " He eats white bread ; he is well
clad ; he fears not to increase the number of his beasts, nor to
cover his roof with tiles, lest he should have to pay a higher
tax the next year. You see many peasants who have five or six
hundred pounds sterling a year, and yet do not disdain to con-
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 229
tinue to cultivate the lands that have enriched them, and upon
which they live as freemen." He observed with pleasure that
the younger sons of noble families frequently entered into
commerce, — a thing unheard of then in France. "I know
not, however," he slyly remarks, " which is the more useful to
a state, a well-powdered lord, who knows precisely at what
hour the king gets up and goes to bed, and who gives himself
airs upon playing the part of slave in a minister's ante-cham-
ber, or a merchant who enriches his country, who from his
counting-room sends orders to Surat and Cairo, and contrib-
utes to the happiness of mankind." —
Of the philosophers of England, Locke and Newton were
those whom he studied longest and admired most. He was one
of the first of his countrymen who understood the discoveries
of Newton, and it was he who made them popularly known
to France. Locke he frequently styles the wisest of human
beings, and the only man who had ever Avritten worthily upon
metaphysics. Lord Bacon, he thought, "knew not Nature,
but he knew and pointed out all the paths that lead to a
knowledge of her." "He despised, early in his career, that
which fools in square caps taught under the name of philoso-
phy, in those mad-houses called colleges ; and he did all that
he could to keep them from continuing to confuse the mind by
their nature ahliorring a vacuum, their substantial forins, and
all those words which not only ignorance rendered respectable^
but which a ridiculous blending with religion rendered sacred.
He is the father of experimental philosophy." All of Vol-
taire's remarks upon Bacon, Locke, and Newton show that he
felt the peculiar importance of each of them.
Shakespeare, as we have seen, he could not judge aright.
He never could. Duels, the first author who " adapted " Shake-
speare to the French stage, was misled by Voltaire's estimate,
as given in the Letters; and, indeed, it is only in our own
time that France has come to the full possession and enjoy-
ment of Shakespeare. For a century. Frenchmen generally
accepted Voltaire's judgment. " Shakespeare," he told his
countrymen, " created the English theatre. He had a genius
full of force and fecundity, of nature and sublimity ; but with-
out the least spark of good taste, and without the slightest
knowdedge of the rules. I am going to say something bold,
230 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
but true : it is, that the merit of this author has ruined the
English drama. There are such beautifid scenes, there are
passages so grand and so terrible in those monstrous farces
which they call tragedies, that his pieces have always been
played with great success. Time, which alone gives reputa-
tion to men, renders at length their faults respectable. Most
of the odd and gigantesque notions of this author have ac-
quired, at the end of two hundred years, the right to pass for
sublime. Modern authors have almost all copied them ; but
that which succeeded m Shakespeare is hissed in them." He
proceeds to remark that England has produced but one trag-
edy worthy to be ranked with the master-pieces of the French
stage, and that was Addison's " Cato." The writings of Vol-
taire contain, perhaps, a hundred allusions to^^hak espeare ,
but most of them in this tone ; and in almost the last piece he
ever wrote, he still speaks of him as an inspired barbarian.
In one of his essays, in 1761, after giving a ludicrous outline
of " Hamlet," he enters into an inquiry how it could be that a
nation which had produced the "Cato" of Addison could en-
dure such crudities. This is his reason : " The chairmen, the
sailors, the hackney-coachmen, the shopmen, the butchers, and
even the clergy, in England, are passionately fond of shows.
Give them coek-fights, bull-fights, gladiatorial combats, funer-
als, witchcraft, duels, hangings, ghosts, and they run in throngs
to see them ; and there is more than one lord as curious in
these things as the populace. The people of London find in
the tragedies of Shakes^jeare all that can please such a taste
as this. The courtiers were obliged to follow the torrent."
Two or three considerations may lessen our astonishment at
Voltaire's blindness to Shakespeare. One is that he spoke of
Shakespeare very much as the great lights of English litei-a-
ture, from Dryden to Goldsmith, were accustomed to speak of
him. Dryden styled "Troilus and Cressida" " a heap of rub-
bish." Dryden thought he had converted the " Tempest "
into a tolerable play when he had spoiled it. Pope spoke of
a forgotten play of the Earl of Dorset's as " written in a much
purer style than Shakespeare's in his first plays." Boling-
broke, as Voltaire mentions, agreed with him upon the irregu-
larities of .Shakespeare. Goldsmith speaks of the " amazing,
irregular beauties of Shakespeare." When George III. said
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 231
to Miss Burney that most of Shakespeare was "sad stuff,"
he probably expressed an opinion that prevailed in the higher
circles of his time. There is reason to conclude that, when
Voltaire's Letters upon the English appeared in London, his
remarks upon Shakespeare were approved by the frequent-
ers of such houses as those of Bolingbroke, Dodington, and
Pope.
The customs of the French stage, in Voltaire's day, furnish
some furtlier explanation of his insensibility to Shakespeare.
The tragic drama in France was a kind of drawing-room pas-
time, — decorous, artificial, high-flown. The common people
attended the theatre only on festive days, when free admissions
were given. To have introduced into a play the name of a
prince of the reigning family would have been deemed a very
great audacity. No author presumed to do it till Voltaire,
emboldened, as he says, by Shakespeare's example, brought
upon the scene characters famous in the history of France.
At the same time, it was against the " rules " to present to
the courtly audiences of that day peasants, mechanics, or any
plebeian except a soldier, a valet de chambre^ or a waiting-
maid. No one could kill another on the stage. The only
killing permitted was decorous and classical suicide. The en-
tire action of the play was required to be exhibited in the
same apartment, and in the space of time occupied in its rep-
resentation. Subject to these rules, — subject, also, to the
restraints of rhyme, — what could a French tragedy be but a
series of stately dialogues? Accustomed to such a drama as
this, Voltaire was shocked at scenes like those of the grave-
diggers in " Hamlet," the fool in " Lear," the cobblers in " Ju-
lius Csesar." When his " Tancrede " was performed, in 1760,
the leading actress implored his consent to the erection of a scaf-
fold upon the stage, draped in black. " My friend," he replied,
" we must fight the English, not imitate their barbarous thea-
tre. Let us study their philosophy ; let us trample under our
feet, as they do, infamous prejudices ; let us drive out the
Jesuits and wolves ; let us no longer stupidly oppose inocula-
tion and the attraction of gravitation ; let us learn from them
how to cultivate land; but let us beware of copying their sav-
age drama." Moreover, his self-love was interested. If Shake-
speare was right, Voltaire was wrong. If "Hamlet" was a
good tragedy, what was " Q^dipe "?
232 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
He succeeded little better with Milton. In many passages
of bis works be ridicules tbe " odd and extravagant concep-
tions " of tbat poet, to whose merit, however, be was not
wholly insensible. " Paradise Lost," he concludes, " is a work
more peculiar than natural, fuller of imagination than of grace,
and of boldness than judgment ; of which the subject is wholly
ideal, and which seems not made for man." He admired the
" majestic strokes with which Milton dared to depict God, and
the character still more brilliant which he gives the Devil."
The description of the Garden of Eden pleased him, as well as
the "innocent loves of Adam and Eve." But w^hen he comes
to speak of the combats between the angels and the fallen
sj)irits, of the mountains hurled upon each other, and of the
great gathering of the devils in a hall, he can see in those pas-
sages only something barbaric and ludicrous. Milton, he re-
marks, was a bad prose-writer, and combated the apologists
of King Charles as a ferocious beast fights a savage. In all
that he says of Milton, we perceive the influence of the Eng-
lish circle which he frequented. So Bolingbroke spoke of the
author of " Paradise Lost."
It was during Voltaire's stay in England that news was
brought to the literary circle that a daughter of Milton was
living in London, old, infirm, and very poor. " In a quarter
of an hour," he tells us, "she was rich." He thought of this
incident, tliirty-five years later, when he was soliciting sub-
scriptions for the edition of Corneille which he published for
the benefit of the granddaughter of that poet, whom he had
adopted and was educating. He used it as a spur to the zeal
of those who were aiding him. ]\Iilton's daughter died soon
after, but not before she had related many particulars of her
father's life and habits, which Voltaire eagerly gathered and
afterwards recorded.
The English comedy of that time appears to have afforded
the stranger much enjoyment. He complains, however, of the
indecency of the pojjular comedies. But he appears to have
been shocked only at the indecency of the words employed,
not at all at the enormous and hideous indecency of the events
exhibited. " We are bound to consider," he remarks, "that,
if the Romans permitted gross expressions in the satires which
only a few people read, they allowed no improper words upon
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 233
the stage. For, as La Fontaine says, ' Chaste are the ears,
though the eyes be loose.' In a word, no one should pro-
nounce in public a word which a modest woman may not re-
peat." Here we have the explanation of the fact that an Eng-
lishman in Paris and a Frenchman in London are equally
astounded at the indecency of the plays which they attend.
The Frenchman brings to the theatre fastidious ears, and the
Englishman chaste eyes. The third and fourth acts of " Tar-
tuffe " contain nothing offensive to a French audience, though
it would be shocked at some of the words in the first act of
Othello. An Englishwoman can endure a gross word or two
in the midst of a scene otherwise proper, but would be in-
clined to run out of the theatre upon the performance of a
whole act of decorous seduction which threatens at every mo-
ment to be successful ; the husband of the lady being hidden
under the table, and appearing only when the author has ex-
hausted every other resource.
Apropos of " Tartuffe," Voltaire gives an unexpected rea-
son for the failure in England of a comedy which has given to
the English stage so many of its religious hypocrites, and to '
Dickens perhaps his Uriah Heep. He says that before there
can be false devotees there must be true ones ; and one of the
great advantages of the English nation is that it has no Tar-
tuffes. " The English scarcely know the name of devotee ;
but thev know well that of honest man. You do not see there
any imbeciles who put their souls into the keeping of others,
nor any of those petty ambitious men who establish in a neigh-
borhood a despotic sway over silly women formerly wanton
and always weak, and over men weaker and more contempti-
ble than they."
Voltaire concludes his review of English literature by re-
marking, that, as the English had profited much from works
in tlie French language, so the French, in their turn, ought to
borrow from them. " We have both," he adds, " we and the
English, followed the Italians, who are in everything our mas-
ters, and whom we have surpassed in some things. I know
not to which of the three nations we ought to give the prefer-
ence ; but happy he who knows how to enjoy tlieir different
merits." In one particular, however, he awards the palm to
England : England honored literature and learning most. In
234 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
France, lie says, Addison might have been member of the
Academy, and might have obtained a pension by the influence
of a woman ; or he might have been brought into trouble
under the pretext that there might be found m his " Cato "
some reflections upon the porter of a man in power. In Eng-
land, he was secretary of state ; Newton was master of the
Mint ; Congreve held an important office ; Prior was plenipo-
tentiary ; Swift was dean in Ireland, and much more consid-
ered there than the primate ; and if Pope's religion kept him
out of office, it did not prevent his gaining two hundred thou-
sand francs by his translation of Homer. " What encourages
most the men of letters in England is the consideration in
which they are held. The portrait of the prime minister is
to be found hanging above the mantel-piece of his own study;
but I have seen that of Mr. Pope in twenty houses."
Pope's position in the world of letters in 1728, the year
of the "Dunciad," was indeed most brilliant; and I may
almost add, terrible ; for the man who can destroy a career
or brand a name by a couplet, wields a terrible power. Vol-
taire marked the " Dunciad " well, and treasured up the hint it
gave him. He could not issue lettres de cachet^ but he saw
Pope wreak a deadlier revenge upon his foes than ministers
and mistresses did when they consigned men to the Bastille.
He watched the career of Pope after he left England, and
kept his notice of him in the Letters written up to the date
of later editions.
" Pope [he wrote] is, I believe, the most elegant, the most correct,
the most harmonious poet whom the English have possessed. He
has reduced the sharp notes of the English trumpet to the soft tones
of the flute. It is possible to translate him because he is extremely
clear, and because his subjects for the most part are such as interest
all mankind Pope's ' Essay ou Man ' appears to me to be
the most beautiful didactic poem, the most useful, the most sublime,
that has ever been written in any language. It is true, the basis of
the work is found entire in the ' Characteristics of Lord Shaftes-
bury,' and 1 do not know why M. Pope gives credit only to M. de
Bolingbroke, without sajdng a word of the celebrated Shaftesbury,
pupil of Locke. As everything appertaining to metaphysics has
been thought in all the ages and by every people who have culti-
vated their minds, this system much resembles that of Leibnitz, who
I
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. 235
maintains that of all possible worlds God was bound to choose the
best, and that in this best it was very necessary that the irregularities
of our globe and the follies of its inhabitants should have their place.
It resembles also the idea of Plato, that, in the endless chain of
beings, our earth, our body, our soul, are in the number of necessary
links. But neither Leibnitz nor Pope admits the changes which
Plato imagines to have happened to those links — to our souls and
to our bodies. Plato spoke like a poet in his scarcely intellio-ible
prose, and Pope speaks like a philosopher in his admirable verses.
He says that from the beginning everything was as it ought to be.
" I was flattered, I confess it, that he coincides with me in some-
thing which I wrote several years ago : ' You are astonished that
God has made man so limited, so ignorant, so little happy. Why
are you not astonished that he did not make him more limited,
more ignorant, more unhappy ? ' When a Frenchman and an English-
man think the same thing, they certainly must be right."
He mentions in this connection that Pope could not con-
verse with him in the French language, though Racine the
younger had published a French letter horn Pope. " I
know," he saj's, "and all the men of letters in England
know, that Pope, with whom I lived a good deal in England,
could scarcely read French, that he spoke not one word of
our tongue, that he never wrote a letter in French, that he
was incapable of doing it, and that, if he wrote that letter
to the son of our Racine, God, toward the end of his life,
must suddenly have bestowed upon him the gift of tongues,
to reward him for having composed so admirable a work as
the 'Essay on Man.' "
So passed his exile in England. So our student used his
university. The rSgime had better kept him at home ; but,
since it did not, he made the best and the most of the oppor-
tunit3\
During his residence abroad he did not lose his hold upon
France. The French ambassador, we perceive, was well
disposed toward him. There was already a considerable
French colony in London, with head-quarters at the Rainbow
coffee-house in Mary-Ie-bone. His old master, the Abbd
d'Olivet, and his future enemy, Maupertuis, were both in
London during his stay. The frequenters of the Rainbow
had not done talking, in 1728, of Mademoiselle de Livri's
236 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
romantic marriage with the Marquis de Gouvernet. Stranded
in London, a member of a bankrupt company of French
actors, living on charity at a tavern, perhaps at the Rain-
bow itself, this young lady, whom Voltaire had introduced
to the stage years before, had captivated a French marquis,
and in 1727 was married to him, and was then living in
Paris as a grande dame. Voltaire could have heard full par-
ticulars at the Rainbow, and he used them by and by as
material for his comedy of " L'Ecossaise." With old French
friends, too, he kept relations, writing once, and in the old
familiar manner, to the Duchess du Maine.
In July, 1727, as the royal archives show, he received per-
mission to visit Paris for three months on business, but did
not go. Perhaps the business was arranged without him.
If so, it was not with his brother Arraand's good will. He
could not be friends with Armand, though the Channel rolled
between them. In June, 1727, a few weeks before he ob-
tained permission to go to Paris, he wrote to Thieriot:
" You need not suspect me of having set foot in your coun-
try, nor even of having thought of doing so. My brother,
especially, is the last man to whom such a secret could be .
confided, as much from his indiscreet character as from the
ugly (yilaine) manner in which he has treated me since I
have been in England. By all sorts of methods I have
tried to soften the pedantic clownishness and insolent ego-
tism with which he has overwhelmed me during these two
years past. I confess to you, in the bitterness of my heart,
that his insupportable conduct toward me has been one of my
keenest afflictions."
Armand has left us no means of knowing his side of the
story. Deacon Paris had just died of self-torture in France,
and the first miracle wrought at his bier bears date May 3,
1727 ; a miracle in which Armand Arouet believed with
besotted and adoring faith. Strange spectacle ! One brother
in Paris gloating over tales of Convulsionirft miracles, and the
other brother in London writing " Charles XII.," " Brutus,"
and " Lettres Philosopliiques," acting powerfully upon the
intelligence of Europe, and holding up free England for
France to see ! What Darwin will explain to us so myste-
rious a fact in the natural history of our race ?
i
CHAPTER XXIII.
RETURN TO FRANCE.
His exile was long for such an offense as he had committed.
When the spring of 1729 opened, more than three years had
passed since he had challenged the Chevalier de Rohan in the
box of Madame Lecouvreur. He was doing very well in Eng-
land, his richly endowed university, getting knowledge and
winning prizes. But students are not apt to settle at their
university, and no Frenchman so French as he was could be
at home out of France. He did not like beer, nor the prac-
tice of drinking healths, nor London fogs ; and on one occa-
sion, it seems, some rough Londoners hustled him, and showed
him how rude Britons in Hogarth's time felt toward the frog-
eating French, their " natural enemies." He mounted a stone
and harangued the mob : " Brave Englishmen, am I not al-
ready unhappy enough in not having been born among you ? "
He addressed them so eloquently, Wagniere records, that they
" wished, at last, to carry him home on their shoulders ! " ^
His portfolio, too, as we have seen, was getting full of
things, printed and manuscript, that he yearned to give to a
susceptible French public: a better " Henriade," a printed
" Brutus," an outlined " Julius Caesar," " English Letters "
in a state of forwardness, and, above all, a " History of Charles
XH.," gathered from eye-witnesses, compact with every ele-
ment of interest, a fresher subject to that generation than
Bonaparte was to Sir Walter Scott's, a work which he felt
would pervade Europe as fast as printers could print copies.
Other schemes were in his mind, for which he had made prep-
arations : a something that should commemorate the pictur-
esque and eventful reign of Louis XIV., and certain plays in
which he would try Shakespearean innovations upon a French
audience.
1 1 Memoires sur Voltaire, 23.
238 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Knowledge is the food of genius. His university of Eng-
land had n(juiished him with new and fascinating knowledge
\ of many kinds, and we see in his letters that he had a pa-
triot's desire, as well as an author's amhition, to make his
native land a sharer in his newly found treasures. Why,
then, so long in England ? Was the court implacable? The
queen, Paris-Duveruey, Richelieu, De Prie, Bourbon, all of
whom had smiled upon him and done him substantial ser-
vice, could not their influence avail in his behalf? No more
than that of the lackeys who served them ! The serene and
astute old Cardinal de Fleury had driven them from court,
and put the ablest of them, Paris-Duverney, into the Bastille,
where he had been in rigorous confinement almost as long as
Voltaire had been in exile.
Under personal government, as in the game of chess, the
object of intrigue is to capture the king ; and, as a means to
that end, it is an important point to get the queen. But the
taking of the queen is not always decisive, because the queen
is not always on convenient terms with her husband. Paris-
Duverney as financier may be almost said to have saved the
monarchy ; his and his three brothers' hard-headed sense be-
ing the antidote to the bane of John Law's inflation. But,
as court intriguer, he was not successful ; for in that vocation
a knowledge of human nature is essential, which financiers do
not usually possess. He gave France a queen, but that queen
was not able to give him the king.
An intrigue of Louis XIV.'s cabinet drew those four re-
markable brothers Paris from the obscurity of an Alpine
hamlet, near Geneva, where their father kept an inn and cul-
tivated land ; a man of repute in his neigliborhood ; his four
sons, all large, handsome men, intelligent, energetic, and
punctiliously honest. Antoine Paris, Claude Paris, Josej^h
Paris, and Jean Paris were their real names ; but the French
indulge their own fancy in naming themselves, and the most
eminent of these four, Joseph Paris, is only known in books
as Pavis-Duvemey. Literary men should deal tenderly with
his name and memory, for he it was who helped make the
fortune of two of their fraternity, Voltaire and Beaumarchais.
It is doubtful if the world had ever known its "Figaro" if
Paris-Duverney had not sent Beaumarchais to Spain with a
pocket full of money to speculate with.
RETURN TO FRANCE. 239
It was a cabinet intrigue, I say, that gave the Alpine inn-
keeper and his four fine boys an opportunity to show the
great world the metal they were made of. Minister-of-Finanee
Pontchartrain had an interest in frustrating Miiiister-of-VVar
Louvois, both being in the service of Lquis XIV., and France
being at war with Savoy. Pontchartrain had induced the
king to give the contract for supplying the army to a new
company offering to do the business cheaper. Louvois, of-
fended at this interference, caused the army to move in such
a way and at such a time that the contractors could not sup-
ply it. Remonstrance was unavailing. " Have thirty tliou-
sand sacks of flour on the frontier in depot, on a certain day,
or your head shall answer it," was all the concession that
could be wrung from the minister of war. The contractors'
agent, in despair, opened his heart to his landlord, the Sieur
Paris, known to be a man of resources, whose inn lay near the
route by which provisions must pass. " Wait," said the land-
lord, in substance, " till the boys come in from the fields." A
family consultation was held ; the sons agreed that the thing
could be done, and that they could do it. In this operation,
as in all subsequent ones, the brothers acted together, with
common purse, plan, and interest, each doing the part which
nature and experience had best fitted him for. One brother
scoured the country for mules ; another borrowed the grain
at Lyons ; another arranged the lines of the laden beasts, and
had them conducted to the frontier by paths known only to
Alpine peasants. The business, in short, was accomplished,
and the contractors gave these vigorous mountaineers such
rewards and chances that before many years were past, they,
too, became contractors and capitalists. It was chiefly they
who supplied the armies of Louis XIV. while Marlborough
was defeating them year after year, and on two or three or
four occasions it was their amazing energy and disinterested
patriotism that saved defeated armies from annihilation; freely
expending all their own capital, and, what is much harder to
such men, putting at hazard the millions borrowed on the sole
security of their name and honor. When France issued from
that long contest, in 1714, with her finances in chaos incon-
ceivable, it was still these brothers who began to reduce them
to order. Inflator Law drove them into brief exile, and ex-
240 LIFE OF VOLTAITIE.
aggerated the financial evil tenfold. The universal collapse of
Februar}', 1720, brought them back; and then, by five years of
constant, well directed, well concerted toil, the proofs of which
exist to this day, they put the finances of the kingdom into
tolerable ordei", and so enabled the frugal, industrious French
people to utilize the twenty years of peace which Cardinal de
Fleury was about to give them. And thus it was that Faris-
Duverney, the innkeeper's son, came to be, in 1725, the confi-
dential secretary of the Duke of Bourbon, prime minister, as
well as the trusted counselor of his mistress, the Marquise de
Prie.
But in placing the daughter of a king-out-of-place upon the
throne of France, he ventured beyond his depth. The in-
trigue both succeeded and failed. Their candidate, indeed,
married the boy king, and Paris-Duverney induced her to
give her " poor Voltaire " a pension of three hundred dollars
a year ; but when the moment came for her to deliver the
young king into the hands of the Duke of Bourbon and his
mistress, she was grieved to discover that she, young wife as
she was, was no match for the old priest. The king liked his
tutor, who was a singularly agreeable and placid old gentle-
man, and never asked one favor for himself or for a relation.
The Duke of Bourbon was neither pleasing in his appearance
nor winning in his demeanor. The king felt at home with
the preceptor, felt safe with him, relished his company, and
had perfect confidence in his fidelity.
The explosion occurred a few days after the departure of
Voltaire for England in 1726. There were two parties at
court playing for the possession of the king : one, headed by
this quiet and good-tempered old priest ; the other, by the
Duke of Bourbon, aided conspicuously and actively by Ma-
dame de Prie, who in turn was directed by Paris-Duverney.
The mistress was too aggressive, and too hungry for money.
She was ill-spoken of out-of-doors ; and, within the palace, she
had many enemies. Fleury at length spoke to the prime
minister, and advised him to end the scandal by sending the
Marquise de Prie from court. The mistress, who was also
dame du palais to the queen, resolved, " according to the rules
of court warfare," to send away the preceptor.^ The contest,
^ Siecle de Louis XV., par Voltaire, chapter iii
RETURN TO FRANCE. 241
short and decisive, had these results : the Duke of Bourbon
was dismissed and " exiled " to liis own chateau at Chantilly ;
Madame de Prie was exiled to her province, where she soon
died in "the convulsions of despair;" Paris-Duverney was
consigned to an insalubrious apartment in the Bastille ; his
chief clerk to a dungeon in the same chateau ; his biothers
were exiled ; the Cardinal de Fleury became prime minister,
drove many harpies from court, and for twenty years gov-
erned France with the minimum of waste possible under that
regime. He was as avaricious for the king, St. Simon re-
marks, as he was i-egardless of personal emolument. Inci-
dentall}^, our exile was affected ; for his friends were in dis-
grace and could not help him.
The queen herself was formally placed under the control of
the cardinal whom she had tried to displace. " I pray you,
madame," wrote the king of sixteen to the queen of twenty-
three, " and if necessary I command you, to do all that the
bishop [De Fleury] may tell you to do from me, as if I had
said it myself." For some time she was under a manifest
cloud. During Voltaire's secret visit to Paris in the summer
of 1726, he ventured, it seems, to go in some disguise to the
theatre when the king and queen were to attend ; the play be-
ing Racine's " Britannicus." " The king and queen," he wrote
forty years after, " arrived an hour later than usual. The
whole audience perceived that the queen had been crying;
and I remember that when Narcisse pronounced this verse,
' Why delay, my lord, to repudiate her ? ' almost every one
present looked toward the queen to observe the effect." This
was at the crisis of the intrigue, and a few days after, as
Voltaire adds, " Paris-Duverney was no longer master of the
state."
The queen's persistence in presenting France with girls,
when a boy was so intensely desired, did not help her friends
in their time of trouble. The pair of girls with which she
began in 1726 might have been pardoned, since their youth-
ful sire was so proud of them ; but a third princess in 1728
was resented as an impertinence, and not a gun saluted her
arrival. While there is life there is hope. The saddened
queen, as soon as she was well enough to go out, went in mag-
nificent and solemn state to Notre Dame, attended by all her
VOL. I. 16
242 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
ladies in four eight-horse carriages, and escorted by twenty
guards, several pages and twelve footmen, to pray the Virgin
to bestow upon her the honor of giving a dauphin to France.
An immense concourse of people gathered in the streets to see
her pass upon this errand. As she approached the church,
a cardinal in his splendid robes, attended by a multitude of
priests, advanced to the door to receive her. Advancing along
the nave, she ascended a platform, and kneeling upon a cush-
ion said her prayer, while thousands of spectators, upon their
knees, joined in the entreaty. She rose, and took a seat pre-
pared for her ; after which a grand mass was said, accom-
panied with new and beautiful music composed for the occa-
sion. At the conclusion of the ceremony she retired to an
apartment adjacent, where, we are informed, she refreshed her-
self with a bowl of broth, and then returned to the palace with
the same pomp, followed by the blessings of a countless multi-
tude of people. Thirteen months after, to the inconceivable
joy of France, the wdshed-for prince was born ! Every bell
in Paris rang a merry peal. Cannons were fired. For three
eveninofs in succession Paris was ablaze with fire-works and
illuminations, and on the following Sunday huge bonfires were
lighted in every part of the city. The boy whose birth gave
such delight did not live to reign over France ; but he was the
father of that Louis XVI. who perished during the French
Revolution.
The cardinal minister was slow to forgive the man who had
come near consigning him to the obscurity of a country bish-
opric. Paris-Duverney remained a prisoner nearly two years,
and it was not till near the close of 1728, that the four bi'oth-
ers Paris were restored to liberty, so far as to be allowed to
live together fifty miles from the capital. Other circumstances
were favorable to the exile, and he resolved, early in 1729,
without seeking a formal permission, which might have been
refused, to venture to approach Paris as near as St. Germain-
en-Laye, fifteen miles from the capital. " Write no more to
your wandering friend," he wrote to Thieriot, March 10, 1729,
" for at an early moment you will see him appear. Prepare
to come at the first summons."
Rich booty as he brought with him from a foreign land, he
did not return as a conqueror. About the middle of March,
RETURN TO FRANCE. 243
a solitary traveler reached St. Germain-en-Laye, who called
himself Monsieur Sansons, and took lodgings at the house of
one Chatillon, wig-maker, Rue des R^collets, opposite to the
monastery of the fathers so named. The new-comer dispatched
a note to Thieriot : " You must ask for Sansons. He inhabits
a hole in this barrack, and there is another for you," as well
as " a bad bed and short commons." The friends were quickly
reunited, and M. Sansons remained for several days in his hole
hidden from mankind. The Richelieu chateau was not far off.
That of the Duchess du Maine was within easy reach. Ver-
sailles was near. Obscure allusions in the letters indicate
that a few individuals of his old circle were aware of his re-
turn, and took an interest in his safety. Near the end of
March he ventured to take up his abode in Paris, at the house
of one of his father's old clerks, where he saw no one but the
"few indispensables." Every few days he changed his abode.
Richelieu, Thieriot, and other friends, all joined in advising
him to apply for a royal warrant annulling the order of exile.
April 7tli he writes to Thieriot a sprightly letter, half in
French, half in English, telling him that he will yield to their
solicitations. He liked to mix his languages ; this very note
containing three. It is dated thus : ^^ Die Jovis, quern barhari
Gain nuncupant Jeudi (7 AvrW), 1729." He often makes
similar reflections upon the French names of the days and
months. The most material sentence of this note runs thus :
" Puis done que vous voulez tons que je sois ici avec un war-
rant sign^ Louis, go to Saint-Germain ; I write to the Vizier
Maurepas, in order to get leave to drag my chain in Paris."
The minister gave him the warrant, and he was again a recog-
nized inhabitant of his native city.
Already he had resumed work upon his " Charles XII." As
soon as he had a room to work in, he must have begun ; for
with this note of April 7th, written eight days after he had
reached Paris, he returns two great volumes (the " Diets of
Poland," and a " History of Alexander the Great "), and asks
Thieriot to find him an account of the topography of Ukrame
and Little-Tartary. Assiduous Thieriot sends him maps of
those I'egions, and is rewarded by being asked to find " a very
detailed and very correct map of the world ; " also a " Life of
Peter the Great." So busy was he with this interesting work
^.
>
244 LIFE OF VOLTAIKE.
that he could not find time to dine Avith Thieriot eyen on a
Sunday afternoon, though engaged to do so. "Voltaire," he
writes May 15th, " is a man of honor and of his word, if he is
not a man of pleasure. He will not be able to take his place
at table, but will drop in at the end of your oi'gie, along with
that fool of a Charles XII." The orgie probably concluded
with a reading of the chapter finished in the mox-ning. On
another occasion he tells Thieriot that he will dine with liini
" dead or alive."
After a short period, then, of apprehension and of wander-
ing from one obscure lodging to another, we find him settled,
restored to his rights and to his friends, hard at work upon his
book, and sharing in the social life of Paris. He soon set
Thieriot at work getting his pensions restored, and his arrears
paid up ; in which they succeeded, minus the deductions im-
posed on all pensioners by a cardinal avaricious for his king.
Nor did he delay to put to good use those two or three thou-
sand solid guineas that he brought from England. Accident
helped him to a capital speculation. Supping one evening
this spring with a lady of his circle, the conversation turned
upon a lottery recently announced by the controller-general,
Desforts, for liquidating certain onerous city annuities. La
Condamine, the mathematician, who was one of the guests,
remarked that any one who should buy all the tickets of this
lottery would gain a round million. Voltaire silently reflected
upon this statement. At the close of the feast he hurried
away to moneyed friends, — doubtless to the brothers Paris,
now restored to their career in Paris, who were closely allied
to the richest banker of the day, Samuel Bernard. A company
was formed ; the tickets were all bought, and the pinzes de-
manded. The controller-general, overwhelmed with confusion
at this exposure of his blunder, refused to pay. The company
appealed to the council, who decided in their favor. Voltaire
gained a large sum by this happy stroke, exaggerated by one
chronicler to half a million francs. He made, it is true, an
enemy of the minister, who was devot ; and he deemed it best
to disappear from Paris, and spend some weeks with the Duke
of Richelieu at the waters of Plombieres ; as lucky men with
as go from Wall Street to Saratoga. But Desforts was soon
after displaced, and the poet could safely return. Paris-Du-
^.
RETURN TO FRANCE. 245
verney did not forget the favor done him on this occasion, and
before many years had rolled away he was able to make a sub-
stantial return in kind,
Voltaire never wanted money again, and never missed a
good opportunity to increase his store. Later in the year
1729 we see him dropping work, starting in a post-chaise at
midnight for Nancy, a hundred and fifty miles distant, — a ride
of two nights and a day, — for the purpose of buying shares
in public funds of the Duke of Lorraine. Arriving more dead
than alive, he was informed that, by order of the duke, no
shares were to be sold to strangers. But, as he related to
President Renault, " after pressing solicitations, they let me
subscribe for fifty shares (which were delivered to me eight
days after), by reason of the happy resemblance of my name
to that of one of his Royal Highness's gentlemen. I profited
by the demand for this paper promptly enough. I have trebled
my gold, and trust soon to enjoy my doubloons with people
like you." Ever after, as long as he lived, he was in the habit \
of performing feats of this kind ; as attentive to business as \ w^
though he had no literature ; as devoted to literature as though
he had no business. His life was to be henceforth, as it had ,
been hitherto, a continuous warfare with powers that wielded
the resources of a kingdom. He had need to provide himself
with the sinews of war.
Full of his English ideas, it was inevitable that he should
speak freely and warmly among his friends of the charms, the
power, the safety of freedom ; and it appears, too, that he now
saw more clearly than before that there could be no freedom
in a country in which existed an order of men clothed with
authority to define what men must believe. The citadel of
despotism, he discerned, was held by the hierarchy, whose
power was founded upon human credulity. The lieutenant of
police, we are told, sent for him soon after his return from
England, and admonished him concerning the freedoms of his
conversation. " I do not believe," replied Voltaire, " that it
is designed to liinder me from speaking freely in the houses of
my friends. I write nothing, I print nothing, which can ren-
der me liable to censure or pursuit on the part of the govern-
ment." The lieutenant is said to have interrupted him here.
" Whatever you may write," said that officer, " you will never
246 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
succeed in destroying tlie Christian religion." To which Vol-
taire replied, "We shall see."
In resuming his social habits, he cftlled upon the Marquise
de Gouvernet, once Mademoiselle de Livri, the companion of
his merry days, his protSgee and pupil in the dramatic art.
Her Swiss refusing to admit him, he sent her an epistle in the
airiest, gayest, sauciest verse, recalling the time when, in an
old hackney coach, without lackeys or ornaments, adorned
only with her own charms, content with a bad soup, she had
given herself to the lover who had consecrated to her his life.
AH the pomps and elegancies of her rank, he tells her, — " that
large, white-haired Swiss who lies at your door without ceas-
ing," " those brilliants hanging from your ears, those fragile
marvels of your abode, — all, all are not worth one kiss that
you gave in your youth." " The tender Loves and Laughs
tremble to appear under your magnificent canopies. Alas ! I
have seen them get in by the window and play in your shabby
lodgings." She did not resent his witty impudence. She kept
the portrait he had given her in their foolish, happy days, for
nearly sixty years. They were destined to meet again.
And so passed the first year of his return. He enjoyed
comparative peace, because, as he said to the lieutenant of po-
lice, he printed nothing, published nothing. Let us see now
how it fared with him when he resumed his vocation.
CHAPTER XXIV.
PURSUIT OF LITERATURE UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
( " La Henriade " was at length allowed to be sold in
France. The applause of Europe, the patronage of friendly
courts, the popularity of the work at home, had their effect
upon a ministry every member of which, except one, seems
to have enjoyed and admired the poem. There is reason to
think that the Cardinal de Fleury himself did so. ) This won-
drous regime often affords us the spectacle of an administration
suppressing a book which nearly every member delighted in,
and suppressing it, perhaps, with the more energy because
they delighted in it. " La Henriade " was, however, only
tolerated. "Tins new edition," the autlior wrote, in 1731,
" of the poem of ' La Henriade,' has been issued at Paris by
the tacit permission of M. Chauvelin, Master of Requests,
and of M. H^rault, Lieutenant of Police, without the Keeper
of the Seals yet knowing the least thing about it." There is
another sentence in the same letter which the reader will do
well to bear in mind : " All M. de Chauvelin desires is to give
no pretext to complaints against himself ;" and M. de Chau-
velin was the protege and confidant of the Cardinal de Fleu-
ry. Of all the cabinet he stood nearest to the prime minis-
ter. Henceforth, then, " La Henriade " was a tolerated book
in France.
The tragedy of " Brutus," printed in England in 1727,
and since revised, was offered to the manager in December,
1729. The author invited the actors to dinner, with Thieriot
and one or two other friends. After dinner, he read the
play ; which was accepted, put in rehearsal, and announced
for presentation. Some places were sold for the opening
night, when suddenly the author withdrew the piece, giving
two reasons for so doing. " I am assured on all sides," he
wrote to Thieriot, " that M. de Crebillon [dramatic author]
248 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
has gone to seek M. de Cliabot [Chevalier de Rohan], and
has formed a plot to damn ' Brutus,' which I am unwilling to
give them the pleasure of doing. Besides, I do not think
the piece worthy of the public. So, my friend, if you have
engaged seats, send and get your money back." The second
reason French writers think was the controlling one, since
Cr^billon was not given to intrigue, and the author of
" Brutus" fell to revising the play again.
In March, 1730, occurred the sudden death of the ac-
tress, Adrienne Lecouvreur, aged twenty-eight. She played
for the last time, March 15th, in Voltaire's " Qj^dipe," and
played, despite her disorder, with much of her accustomed
force and brilliancy. In accordance with the barbarous cus-
tom of the time there was an afterpiece, in which she also
appeared ; and she w^ent home from the scene of her triumphs
to die after four days of anguish. Voltaire hastened to her
bedside, and watched near her during her last struggle for
life ; and when she was seized with the convulsions that pre-
ceded her death, he held her in his arms and received her last
breath. Being an actress, and dying without absolution, she
was denied " Christian burial," and the gates of every recog-
nized burial place in France were closed against her wasted
body, the poor relics of a gifted and bewitching woman, whom
all that was distinguished and splendid in the society of her
native land had loved to look upon. At night her body
was carried in an old coach (^fiacre') a little way out of town,
just beyond the paved streets, to a spot near the Seine now
covered by the house No. 109 Rue de Bourgogne. The
fiacre was followed by one friend, two street-porters, and a
squad of the city watch. There her remains were buried,
the grave was filled up, and the spot remained unenclosed
and unmarked until the city grew over it and concealed it
from view.
The brilliant world of which she had been a part heard
of this unseemly burial with such horror, such disgust, such
rage, such "stupor," as we can with difficulty imagine, be-
cause all those ties of tenderness and pride that bind families
and communities together are more sensitive, if not stronger,
in France than with our ruder, robuster race. The idea of
not having friendly and decorous burial, of not lymg down
PURSUIT OF LITERATURE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 249
at last with kindred and fellow citizens in a place appointed
for tlie dead, of being taken out at night and buried at a
corner of a road like a dead cat, was and is utterly desolat-
ing to the French people. Voltaire, for example, could never
face it; he lived and died dreading it.
And the effect of the great actress's surreptitious burial
was increased by various circumstances. That gifted woman
possessed all the virtues except virtue; and, unhappily, vir-
tue the gay world of Paris did not care for. Nature and
history pronounce virtue, whether in man or woman, the
indispensable preliminary to well-being, and the church was
right in so regarding it. But Paris loved rather to repeat
that she had pledged all her jewels to help her lover (on«
of her lovers), Maurice de Saxe, son of Augustus, king of
Poland. Paris remarked that, if she had not partaken of
the sacraments, she had at least left a thousand francs to
the poor of her parish. The gay world dwelt much upon
her noble disinterestedness in refusing to receive the ad-
dresses of Count dArgental, though that infatuated young
man loved her to the point of being willing to sacrifice his
career to her. That she had borne two children to two
lovers, that she had expended the precious treasure of her
life and genius in a very few years of joyless excitement, that
she had lived in utter disregard of the unchangeable condi-
tions of human welfare, as well as those of the highest artistic
excellence, — who thought of that? Who could think of
that in connection with such an outrage upon her wasted
remains?
Voltaire, who owed so much to this brilliant woman who
owed so much to him, was profoundly moved. To the assem-
bled company of actors, her companions in glory and in
shame, he said : " Announce to the world that you will not
exercise your profession, until you, the paid servants of the
king, are treated like other citizens in the king's service."
They promised him ; but who was to maintain them in the
interval ? The chiefs of the company only received from a
thousand to two thousand francs a year. " They promised,"
he wrote thirty years after, " but did nothing further in the
matter. They preferred dishonor with a little money, to
honor, which would have been worth more to them." ^
1 Voltaire to Mademoiselle Clairon, August 17, 1761.
250 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
It SO chanced that a few months hiter, in the same year, died
Anne Oldfield, for many years the glory of the London stage ;
■who also left two children to two of her lovers. She was buried
witli public ceremonial in Westminster Abbey, her remains
followed b}^ persons eminent in rank and in gifts. It was when
Voltaire heard of Mrs. Oldfield's honorable obsequies that his
feelings found expression in his well-known poem on the
death of Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, which expressed the feel-
ings of the public also. In Greece, he cried, such a woman
would have had an altar! Living, France hung in rapture
upon her lips ; dead, she is a criminal ! " Ah, shall I always
see my feeble nation blasting what it admires, sleeping under
the dominance of superstition ? O London, happy land,
where no art is despised, where every kind of success has its
glory, where the conqueror of Tallard, son of Victory, the sub-
lime Dryden, the wise Addison, the charming Ophils (Old-
field), and the immortal Newton, all have their place in the
Temple of Glory ! "
This poem, handed about in the drawing-rooms for many
weeks in manuscript, attracted the notice of the ministry at
length, and endangered the safety of the author for a while.
Fortunately, he was absent from Paris at the time, and could
take measures to avert the peril. His indignation, he con-
fessed, may have carried him too far, but he thought it " par-
donable in a man who had been her admirer, her friend, her
lover, and who, besides, was a poet." So, perhaps, thought
the ministry, and the storm blew over.
It was during this year, 1730, that he began that burlesque
poem upon Jeanne Dare, "La Fucelle," which for thirty
years disturbed his repose, very much as a packet of gunpow-
der might disturb the repose of a man who was obliged to
keep it in his wi'iting desk. The work was suggested at tlie
supper-table of the Duke of Richelieu ; where, the conversa-
tion turning upon the exploits of the Maid of Orleans, some
one mentioned Chapelain's heroic poem on the subject, which
was satirized so severely by Boileau, and the guests began
to quote absurd bits from it, greatly to the general amuse-
ment. After this had gone on for some time, the following
conversation occurred between the giver of the feast and
Voltaire : —
PURSUIT OF LITERATURE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 251
Richelieu. — "I bet that if you had treated this subject, you would
have produced a better work, and you would not have found it nec-
essary, in order to magnify your principal character, to make a saint
of her."
Voltaire. — "I doubt much if I should have been able to make
a good serious work of it. In the history of Jeanne Dare there
are too many trivial circumstances bordering upon the burlesque,
and others altogether too atrocious. How to inspire a great inter-
est in the minds of people of taste for a girl in man's dress, who
begins by leaving a tap-room and ends by being burnt alive ? Boi-
leau himself could not have succeeded in it. My belief is that,
under more than one aspect, this subject, drawn from our own
annals, would lend itself better to jocular than heroic treatment."
Richelieu. — "I think so too, and no one would be more capa-
ble than you of doing it well, if you would undertake it. You ought
to give us something upon it." ^
The guests applauding, as guests usually applaud a duke's
suggestions at bis own table, tbe poet mentioned various ob-
jections. They pressed the subject upon him, and he at last
promised to take it into consideration. He had been reading
Italian a good deal during late years ; and now, casting aside
his serious work, he dashed into a poem upon the " Pucelle "
in the manner of Ariosto, and in a few weeks he had four
cantos done. The company reassembled at the Hotel de Riche-
lieu, to whom these four cantos were read, eliciting boister-
ous applause.
From this time the author worked occasionally upon the
poem, relieving thereby the severity of other labors, until he
had produced the work in twenty-one cantos as we have it
now. He boasted that his burlesque was not as long as that
of Ariosto. " I should have been ashamed," he once wrote,
" to have employed thirty cantos in those fooleries and de-
baucheries of the imasjination. These amusements are the
interludes to my occupations. I find that' one has time for
everything if one wishes to employ it."
This mock-heroic poem of nearly ten thousand lines, the
longest of his poetical works, is strictly in the line of Vol-
taire's accepted vocation, which was to terminate the domina-
tion of legends over the human mind. Unfortunately, it was
not in his "power at that time to know how much truth there
1 Meinoires sur Voltaire, par S. G. Longchump, Article XIV.
252 LIFE or VOLTAIRE.
was in the legend of the patriotic and devoted girl who bled
for her country and began the expulsion of the invader from
French soil. Among the manuscripts in the royal archives,
not then accessible, was the report of the trial of Jeanne
Dare, wbich was published some years ago in five octavo vol-
umes by the Historical Society of France. From this valu-
able publication, one of the most interesting memorials of that
ao-e, we are now able to understand her and her work; and,
though we cannot deny that there was an ingredient of im-
posture in her career, and even conscious imposture, it becomes
plain that the impulse which sent her forth and sustained her
to the end was noble and disinterested. The Maid possessed
some intelligence, great courage, and great fortitude. Unlike
ordinary religious impostors, she bore her banner in the front
of the battle, where wounds and death were in the air ; she
used religion in such a way as to change the French army
from a crowd of roystering thieves, ravishers, and drunkards
into moral, resolute, disciplined, victorious soldiers ; and, at
last, after baffling for five months the sixty priests who tried
her, she couited the stake rather than endure degrading and
hopeless imprisonment.
But Voltaire could have known scarcely anything of all this,
and he employed the old legend of the Maid as a vehicle for
twenty-one cantos of uproarious burlesque, in which he found
opportunity, from time to time, to ridicule all the objects
of his aversion, animate and inanimate, tossing in the same
blanket saints, poets, critics, bishops, beliefs, rites, usages, hu-
man foibles, private enemies, public grievances, — all with the
same buoyant, inexhaustible vivacity. Open the poem any-
where, and you alight upon something that would bring a
grin to the cast-iron visage of a Calvin — if he was alone. It
was written for a generation that had no more notion of what .
we mean by the word "decency" than the ladies had who told
and heard the stories of the " Decameron." For twenty-five
years one of the greatest proofs of devotion which one woman
of " taste " could give another was to procure for her the pe-
rusal of a new canto of " La Pucelle." The Queen of Prussia
not only read it, but permitted her young daughter to hear
it read. The author's old professor, Abb^ d' Olivet, bantered
him upon it, as upon a jest, a little free perhaps, but quite
PUESUIT OF LITERATURE UNDER DIEFICULTIES. 253
allowable. Ladies were particularly fond of such literature
then, and I notice that when an author in that age wrote
something for a lady's forfeit, he usually accommodated him-
self to the ruling taste of the sex by producing a tale like
those in the " Decameron." Voltaire invariably did so. Our
conception of decency, in short, is a thing of yesterday ; not
on that account the less to be approved and upheld ; but not
to be applied as a moral test to the literature of past ages.
Henceforth, then, we are to imagine a mass of blotted manu-
script in the poet's desk, or carelessly left lying about on his
table, liable to be copied by curious visitors and by unfaithful
secretaries ; a manuscript sure to be called for by guests " of
taste," which the owner thereof was only too willing to read
aloud for their entertainment ; a manuscript of which vague
rumors soon got afloat in the drawing-rooms, and reached the
ears of ministers ; a manuscrijjt with exile and the Bastille in
it, if not the wheel and the stake. In that immoral age,
when living virgins were merchandise which the king himself
bought, a light song about the Virgin could bring a man to
the fire.
His English Letters were ready for publication. What
trouble it cost him to get that little book before the public of
France ! In the autumn of 1730 he sent Thieriot to England
with letters to his old friends in that country, to arrange for
its translation into English and its publication in London.
That was not difficult, and in due time Thieriot accomplished
his errand, and gained, as it is said, four hundred pounds ster-
ling by it. In France, meanwhile, Voltaire strove to conciliate
the powers in favor of the book, and endeavored to reduce the
ofi"ense in it to the minimum. "I have been obliged," he wrote
to a friend, " to change all that I had written upon M. Locke,
because, after all, I wish to live in France, and it is not per-
mitted to me to be as philosophic as an Englishman. At
Paris I have to disguise what I could not say too strongly
in London. This circumspection, unfortunate but necessary,
obliges me to erase more than one passage, sufficiently amus-
ing, upon the Quakers and Presbyterians. My heart bleeds
for it ; Thiei'iot will suffer by it ; you will regret those places,
and I also. I have read to Cardinal de Fleury two letters
upon the Quakers, from which I had taken great pains to cut
254 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
out all tliat could alarm liis devout and sage Eminence. He
found the residue pleasant enougl> ; but the poor man does not
know what he lost."
His " History of Charles XH." was nearly ready for the press
early in 1730, and, having submitted it to tlie appointed cen-
sor, he received a royal " privilege " to publish it in France.
For once, as lie fondly thought, he had produced a work in
which no offense could be found, and which must be agreeable
to the administration, since it paid abundant honor to King
Stanislas, father of the Queen of France. Fortune, indeed,
had favored this history from its conception by giving the
author familiar access to a great number of individuals who
had personal knowledge of the strange events to be related.
Nearly every page of it was composed from information de-
rived from eye-witnesses. He had lived familiarly with Baron
de Goertz, favorite minister of Charles XH., distinguished in
history as the only man who ever suffered death for the per-
nicious error of inflating a country's currency. King Stanislas
himself had given and continued to give him important aid.
Maurice de Saxe, son of Augustus of Poland and an actor in
the scenes delineated, he had met constantly in the society of
Madame Lecouvreur. Bolingbroke, who was in power during
part of Charles's wild career, threw light upon the diplomacy
and politics of his subject. In England the Duchess of Marl-
borough imparted to him much which she remembered of her
husband's dealings with the Swedish king. Curious details
of the king's life in Turkey he derived from Fonseca, a Portu-
guese physician established then at Constantinople, and in
practice among the viziers and pachas. A relation of Vol-
taire's, INT. Bru, "first dragoman to the Porte," aided him also.
Baron Fabrice, long the reader and secretary of the Swedish
king, gave him anecdotes and details in great number. The
work was made up of " interviews ; " but those interviews
were not presented in crude, enormous masses, but digested
into a narrative, bright, clear, and serene, that could be read
in two evenings. Voltaire told this wild and wondrous tale
as Sallust tells the story of Jugurtha ; and there is revealed
to the observant reader the author's contempt for the hero, as
well as his compassion for a human i-ace so imperfectly devel-
oped as to permit a silly and ignorant young man to work
PmiSUIT OF LITEKATURE UNDEU DIFFICULTIES. 255
such causeless havoc among innocent populations. The book
is a satire upon personal government of unequaled force, and ,'
the more effective from being so brief and so easily read. ^
Superstition, the chief stay of personal government in mod-
ern times, is so quietly satirized that the censor did not perceive ■
the satire. The Muscovites, said the sly author, have scruples
about drinking milk on fast days, but fathers, priests, wives, and
maidens get drunk upon brandy on days of festival. " In
that country, as elsewhere, there are disputes upon religion ;
the greatest quarrel being upon the question whether the laity
ought to make the sign of the cross with two fingers or with
three." The passage, too, upon the establishment of the
printing-press in Russia was amusing : " The monk objected,
and used the printing-press to prove the Czar Antichrist.
Another monk, with an eye to preferment, refuted the book,
and demonstrated that Peter was not Antichrist, because the
number 6QQ was not in his name. The author of the libel
was broken upon the wheel ; the author of the refutation was
made Bishop of Rezan."
Happy in his " privilege," Voltaire put the work to press in
Paris, and in the autumn of 1730 had an edition of twenty-
six hundred copies of the first volume ready for distribution.
Suddenly, without cause assigned, by a mere fiat of authority,
the privilege was withdrawn and the whole edition seized, ex- j
cept one copy which the author chanced to hafe in his own
possession.
What could be the matter? Voltaii-e sought information
from the Keeper of the Seals, and obtained it. • A turn in the
politics of Europe obliged the French ministry to avoid dis-
pleasing Augustus, King of Poland, who was not treated very
tenderly in the work ! " In this country," the author wrote
to a friend, " it seems to me that Stanislas ought to be consid-
ered rather than Augustus, and I flatter myself that Stanislas'
daughter, Marie, would not take in ill part the good things I
have said of her father." The minister admitted that he saw
no harm in the work, and the minister's son declared, soon
after, in a moment of enthusiasm, that if Voltaire did not
publish it, he would. But the minister was firm in his resolve
not to permit the book to appear cum privilegio, alleging al-
ways the necessity the King of France was under to menager
256 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the actual King of Poland instead of his father-in-law, the
late king.
Here was a dead lock, — two works ready to appear, with
little chance of their appearing ; both being productions which,
for various reasons, an author would naturally be in a fever to
see in print. The foaming rage of desire which makes the buf-
falo toss the sods of the prairie in the summer day, regardless
of the shrieking train, is not stronger than an author's pas-
sion to communicate to the public a book in which he has put
his convictions, his patriotism, and his ambition. Privilege or
no privilege, these two little books must see the light ! Such
was the resolve of their author in the late weeks of 1730.
He recalled the time when Thieriot and himself had had " La
Henriade " printed at Rouen, and had smuggled copies to
Paris by barge and wagon. He wrote to his old friend and
schoolfellow, M. de Cideville, now settled in the magistracy at
Rouen, explaining his dilemma, and asking him if he could
find there a place where he could live for some months in strict
incognito, and a printer who could do the work required. Yes,
replied his friend, Jore, printer and bookseller of Rouen, will
be glad to provide lodgings for an anonymous author, and
print for him as well.
Two things detained him at Paris a few weeks. He had an
interest in a vessel named The Brutus, coming from Barbary
to Marseilles 4aden with grain ; and his tragedy of " Brutus,"
revised and altered, was again in rehearsal, and announced
for presentation December 11, 1730. An immense audience
filled the theatre on the opening night, and the piece was re-
ceived with that kind of applause which denotes a house
packed with friends of the author. But the next night's re-
ceipts revealed the truth. First night, 5065 francs ; second
night, 2540 francs ; fifteenth and last night, 660 francs. The
fable of a father dooming his sons to death may be endured in
the reading, but we cannot see him do it, either with pleasure
or approval ; and it had been found impossible by dramatists,
hitherto, to fill up five acts with interesting pretexts for such
atrocious virtue. Voltaire expresses surprise that Shakespeare
did not treat a subject that seemed so suitable to the English
stage, and lay so obviously in Shakespeare's path. That such
a master deliberately forbore to attempt it might well have
II
PURSUIT OF LITERATURE UlSTDER DIFFICULTIES. 257
been a warning to after-comers. Voltaire's piece, however,
contains three scenes of commanding effect, as well as a great
number of striking verses, and when the play used to be given
during the delirium of the Revolution, in 1792, it excited tu-
multuous enthusiasm.
On his way home from one of the representations of this
play, the author learned that the ship Brutus, reported lost, had
arrived safely at her port. "Well," said the poet to his factor,
" since the Brutus of Barbary has come in, let us console our-
selves a little for the sorry welcome given to the Brutus of
ancient Rome. Perhaps a time will come when they will do
lis justice." ^
The part of Tullie in the new tragedy was performed by a
girl of fifteen, who appeared on the stage for the first time.
She was terribly frightened on the opening night, and could
not play the part as she had played it during the rehearsals.
The next morning the author reassured her by a letter which
was all tact and goodness.
" Prodigy [he wrote], I present you a ' Henriade,' a very serious
work for your age ; but she who plays Tullie is capable of reading ;
and it is quite right that I should offer my works to one who em-
bellishes them. I thought to die last night, and am in a wretched
state this morning ; but for which I should be at your feet to thank
you for the honor you are doing me. The piece is unworthy of
you ; but, rely upon it, you are going to win great *glory in invest-
ing my role of Tullie with your own charms Do not be
discouraged. Think how marvelously well you played at the re-
hearsals, and that nothing was wanting to you yesterday but con-
fidence. Your timidity even did you honor. To-morrow you must
take your revenge In God's name, be tranquil ! Though
you should not make a decided hit, what does it matter ? You are
but fifteen, and people could only say that you are not yet what you
will be one day. For my part, I have nothing but thanks for you.
.... Begin by having some friendly regard for me, who love you
like a father, and you will play my role in an interesting manner."
He was too sick to go to the theatre on the second night,
but toward the close of the evening his valet brought him
the good news that Tullie had "played like an angel ! "
In distributing the new edition of "La Henriade," he
t Duvernet, chapter vii.
VOL. I. 17
258 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
sent a copy also to his ancient master, Father Porde, of
the College Louis-le-Grand, asking him to receive it with
some indulgence, and to think of him as a son who came,
after the lapse of many years, to present to his father the
fruit of his labors in an art which that father had origi-
nally taught him. He asked him also to point out any places
in the poem where he had not spoken of religion as he
ought, that he might correct them in the next edition.
" I desire your esteem, not only as author, but also as a
Christian."
About the middle of March, 1731, giving out on all sides
that he was about to return to England, he disappeared from
Paris, and took up his abode in obscure lodgings at the ancient
city of Rouen, in the character of an English lord exiled for
political offenses and obliged to live in strict seclusion. A
valet, hired for the occasion at twenty sous per diem, added
to the usual duties of a valet that of conveying proof-sheets
between author and printer ; M. Jore, also, was ever attentive
to the pleasure of milord. In the summer, he removed to
a farm-house near by, and then a servant-girl was his mes-
seno-er, going to the printing-house three times a week. In
the intervals of proof-reading, he worked, with even more
than his usual assiduity, upon his tragedy of " Julius Caesar,"
upon " Eriphyle," a tragedy sketched before leaving Paris,
and upon the closing part of "Charles XII." He could write
in June to Thieriot that, in spite of a slow fever that kept him
miserable for some weeks, he had written two tragedies and
finished " Charles XII." in three months. "In Paris, I could
not have done that in three years. But you know well what
H prodigious difference there is between a mind in the calm
of solitude and one dissipated in the world." After a residence
in and near Rouen of six months or more, he returned to
Paris, without having yet seen a copy of his history. Great
bundles of copies, however, soon arrived. We find him writ-
ing to a Rouen friend in October : " If it will cost only sixty
livres by land, send the packages by the carrier to the address
of the Duke of Richelieu, at Versailles, and I, being informed
of day and hour of arrival, will not fail to send a man in the
Richelieu livery, who will deliver the whole safely. If the
land carriage is too expensive, I pray you to forward them by
PURSUIT OF LITERATURE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 259
:1
water to St. Cloud, whither I will send a wagon for them."
These ballots, probably, contained copies for the queen and
court.
" Charles XII." was received with heartiest welcome in all
countries which contained an educated class. Translations and
new editions followed one another quickly, until it reached
the whole reading public of Europe and America. When a
writer takes all the trouble and leaves the reader nothing
but pleasure, it is usual for critics to surmise that the author
invented romantic or convenient circumstances. This work,
written during the lifetime of thousands of men who had
taken part in the events described, was subjected to severe
and repeated scrutiny. The author, sedulous to profit by this,
incorporated new facts from time to time, and corrected errorsy
until it was, perhaps, as true a narrative as written language
could present of a career involving so many extraordinary and
distant scenes. It remains to this day the only work of the
author which has universal and unimpeded currency, being
used as a school-book in all countries where French is a part ' '^ ^''
of polite education. At the time it gave him a perceptible
increase of reputation, as well as a certain weight with the
public which he had not before possessed. It widened his
celebrity, since there are ten persons who can enjoy an
easy, limpid narrative in prose, for one who finds pleasure in
classic poetry.
The English Letters were not yet seen in France. The
author was still modifying the audacities, and veiling the
heresies, and cutting away the inadmissibles, ever hoping to
render the work such as a not ungenial cardinal might tacitly
allow to circulate. It surprises us that he could have indulged
such an expectation ; but we perceive from his familiar corre-
spondence with comrades that he did so.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CONVULSIONIST MIRACLES.
On the return of Voltaire to Paris, late in the summer of
1731, he found his fellow-citizens again agitated by the ancient
Jansenist and Molinist controversy. From being the sport
of theologians, it had now come to be the scoff of the polite
world and the scourge of the people. At that time France
may have contained a population of twenty millions, of
whom, perhaps, two millions could read, and half a million
may have had mental culture enough to follow with pleasure
an easy narrative like Voltaire's " Charles XII." When Tal-
leyrand visited Yale College, as late as 1794, he told the pres-
ident that he thought eighteen millions of the French people
could neither read nor write.
An ignorant people take instinctively to the severer modes
of religion, as they do to the severer schools of law and
physic. They like their medicine, whether for mind or body,
exceedingly nauseous and painful. They love the terrors of
the law. Jansenism, too, had the advantage, which Voltaire
enjoyed, of being constantly denounced and prosecuted by the
government, — the most effective mode of advertising then
invented. Hence the " philosophers " and the Jansenists
shared the sovereignty over the French mind between them:
the philosophers swaying the few thousands who partook of
the intellectual life of the age, and the Jansenists controlling
many hundreds of thousands who sought welfare through re-
ligion. As late as 1731, Voltaire could still say, with an ap-
proach to truth, that all France was Jansenist, except the
Jesuits, the bishops, and the court.
It may have been on the very day of his reappearance in
Paris, in 1731, that he witnessed the solemn and elaborate
burning (August 29th) of a small Jansenist book by the pub-
lic executioner. The book was the "Life of Deacon Paris," or,
THE CONVULSIONIST MIRACLES. 261
as the Jansenists loved to style him, Saint Paris ; a name of
renown at tliat day among millions of Frenchmen who lived
and died in ignorance of the name of Voltaire. The college
of cardinals and the chiefs of the inquisition united in de-
nouncing this little book, in menacing with "the excommuni-
cation major " all who should even read it, and in condemn-
ing it to be publicly burned. In the open space, opposite
the convent of Minerva, a very large platform was built, and
in front of it, at a distance of thirty paces, a stake was set
up, as though Deacon Paris himself was to be burned. The
cardinals ascended the platform, to the eldest of whom the
clerk of their court presented the unhappy Book, with thin
chains twisted about it and fastened with care. The car-
dinal in chief handed the book thus bound to the grand in-
quisitor, who gave it back to the clerk. That officer then
handed it to the provost, who gave it to a bailiff, who passed
it on to a watchman, who placed it in the hands of the execu-
tioner, who raised it high above his head, slowly and gravely
turning round to the four points of the compass. He then
took off the chains from the book, tore out the leaves, one at a
time, dipped each leaf in boiling pitch, and, finally, the whole
mass of leaves being placed at the stake, he set fire to it, and
regaled the people with a fine blaze. ^
Why this childish scene ? And who was Deacon Paris ?
The reader who would understand Voltaire and his time
must know what that thing was which called itself " religion "
in his day, and how it presented itself to his eyes, I will
therefore briefly answer these questions, reminding the reader,
once more, that of these two brothers Arouet, one looked
upon the scenes about to be described with contemptuous pity,
and the other with rapturous approval.
Francis Paris, born 1G90, son of an eminent and wealthy
Paris lawyer, imbibed the notion in childhood from his Jan-
senist teachers that the great interest of man is to propitiate
an almost implacable deity by self-inflicted torture. He
abandoned the profession of the law, to which his father des-
tined him, refused the rank and inheritance of eldest son, and
accepted from his father's large estate only a small pension,
one fourth of his legal right. His father's death setting him
1 Histoire du Parlement de Paris, par Voltaire, chapter Ixiv.
262 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
free from restraint, liis first care was to disengage himself
from all worldly affairs and ties. Part of his inheritance was
a mass of silver plate, weighing two hundred pounds. This
he sold, and divided the proceeds among the poor. He in-
herited also a quantity of linen and other household stuffs,
which his mother, according to the provident custom of the
age, had accumulated. The linen he gave to a number of
poor priests for surplices, and the other fabrics he divided
among the poor families of his parish. Some barrels of salt
had come to him, salt being then a very expensive article ;
this he distributed among the poor. Having thus disposed of
his superfluous effects, and having remained at home long
enough to see his younger brother married and settled, he
went forth to begin his long-desired life of entire consecration
to propitiatory religion.
He retired to a village near Chartres, hired secluded apart-
ments, and gave himself up to prayers, study, fasting, and
self-torture. All day he remained alone in his room, studying
Hebrew, reading theology, and praying. He wore a hair shirt
next his skin, and fasted on all the appointed days most rigor-
ously, not eating a morsel of food till sunset. On Sundays
he performed, at the request of the parish priest, the duty of
catechizing the children. In winter he would have no fire in
his room, and when the cold was too severe to be borne he
merely covered his feet with a hair cloth.
He often changed his place of abode, but never his habits,
except that he constantly increased the severity of his self-in-
flicted torments. Being intrusted by his parish priest with
the charge of the young candidates for the priesthood, he
led them to practice such extreme self-denial that he was
complained of to the archbishop, who was thus made ac-
quainted with his character. Instead of his reproving his ex-
cessive and ill-directed zeal, the archbishop desired to reward
it by bestowing upon him the dignity of deacon, and held out
to him the promise of still further advancement. The zealot
deemed himself unworthy of the honor, and long refused it.
His scruples being at length overcome, he was ordained, and
thus acquired the title by which he is now known. Other
ecclesiastical honors, though they were often pressed upon
him, he declined.
THE CONVULSIONIST MIRACLES. 263
As he advanced in life his austerities still increased, and he
resolved, at last, to retire wholly from the haunts of men.
First he traveled on foot over France, seeking some monas-
tery congenial to him. From this journey he ingeniously ex-
tracted all the misery it could be made to yield, pursuing his
weary way through all kinds of weather, ill clad, half starved,
and lodging in the stables of the poorest inns. But in all his
wanderings he found no retreat that promised sufficient sever-
ity, and he returned to Paris to contrive one for himself.
There he withdrew to a mean and secluded abode, and set
about the work of torturing himself to death with renewed
vigor.
It was his habit now to fast during the whole forty days
of Lent as rigorously as he had been used to fast on single
days, never eating until sunset, and then only bread and water,
nor much of them. Toward the close of the forty days he
really suffered as much as his heart could wish. He would
sometimes fall into convulsions, and endured awful pangs
and spasms, which he attributed to the efforts of the devil to
shake his purpose. He slept upon a straw mattress, except
in seasons of penitence, when he preferred the floor. He had
in his little room a table, one chair, no fire-place, and he ate
nothing but bread, water-cress, and other raw herbs, with the
occasional luxury of a hard-boiled egg or a plate of thin soup
sent in to Uim by his landlord, a poor lace-maker. To still
further mortify himself, he bought a stocking-frame, and
earned his livelihood by making stockings, concealing from his
fellow-lodgers that he possessed an independent income. His
landlord, for a considerable time, thought he was a poor stock-
ing-weaver, and it was in compassion for his supposed poverty
that he sent him in the soup.
Having exhausted, at length, all the usual modes of self-sac-
rifice, he hit u.pon a new one : he resolved to deny himself the
consQlatio7is of religion itself! For two years he abstained
from taking the communion, alleging that he was unworthy ;
and it was only at the express command of his ecclesiastical
superiors that he again partook of it. Frustrated thus in this
design of tormenting his soul, he aggravated the tortures of
his body, saying that, as every part of his body within and
without was sinful, it was necessary that every part of it
264 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
should suffer, and suffer severely. Now it was that he added
to his shirt of coarsest hair a girdle of iron, and to that a
breastplate of iron wire in the form of a heart, with points
of wire on the side next his flesh ; so that when, in his pen-
itential frenzies, he beat his breast with his hands the blood
flowed.
The poor misguided man persevered in this suicidal course
till he brought himself to death's door. When he lay help-
less upon his straw his friends gathered round him and strove
to alleviate his condition. He steadfastly refused their offers,
and turned a deaf ear to all remonstrance, blaming himself
only for not having concealed his sufferings, and saying that
if he recovered his health he must "serve God" more
faithfully than he had done before. He died aged thirty-
seven, and was buried in a cemetery of his native city. He
died of self-mortification at about the age when many young
men (Byron and Burns, for example) die of self-indulgence,
— a meaner and madder kind of suicide than his.
It was not till after his death that the events occurred
which have caused this poor man to be so long remembered.
The more ignorant Jansenists of Paris, hearing of the man-
ner of his life and death, regarded him as a saint, and looked
upon his burial-place as holy ground.
I once asked a distinguished judge of New York what he
had learned by sitting thirty years upon the bench. He an-
swered promptly, " The difficulty of arriving at truth through
human testimony.'"
A catalogue of the miracles wrought at the tomb of Deacon
Paris, in three volumes folio, was published by a respectable
priest, each miracle being supported by sworn testimony, taken
before notaries, and certified in proper form. This testimony,
upon many of the cases, is of such a nature and is so abundant
in quantity that it would command a verdict, as the learned
judge himself would charge. To illustrate the fallibility of
human evidence, I will give a few examples drawn from this
ponderous work.
Deacon Paris died on the 1st of May, 1727. A woman, aged
sixty-two, had met and exchanged civilities with the holy man.
For many years she had had a withered arm, which was so
useless that she was accustomed to hang it in a sling, while
THE CONVULSIONIST MIRACLES. 265
she exercised her vocation of silk-winder. Hearing of the
death of the venerated deacon, she determined to attend his
funeral, and to pray at his grave for the restoration of her
arm. Entering the apartment where lay the emaciated body
prepared for the tomb, she fell upon her knees, lifted the cloth
which covered the feet, and kissed them, saying, " Blessed
saint, pray the Lord to cure me, if it is his will that I re-
main upon earth. Your prayers will be heard ; mine are
not." When the body was placed upon the bier, she leaned
forward, and rubbed her arm with the pall. Having seen the
corpse deposited in the tomb, she returned to her house and
resumed her usual employment. What was her astonishment
to discover that she had no longer any need of her sling, and
could use one arm witli the same facility as the other. The
withered member had regained its former roundness and
vigor, and she could lift with it as much as ever she could ;
nor had she ever after any return of the malady. The narra-
tive of her cure, which she made on oath before a notary, is
full and particular.
The fame of this miracle being spread abroad, other
afflicted persons resorted to the tomb to avail themselves of
its mysterious virtues. A Spanish nobleman, member of the
Royal Council of Spain, had sent his son to Paris to complete
his education. This young man, by a succession of accidents,
lost the use of one of his eyes, and finally the eye itself oozed
away. The doctors having abandoned his case in despair, he
repaired to the tomb of Deacon Paris, and there prayed most
fervently for the restoration of his eye. His cure, though not
sudden, was complete. He placed upon his eye a small piece
of the shirt in which the deacon had died, and instantly felt
some relief. That evening, upon going to sleep, he again
placed the relic over his eye. " In the silence and secrecy of
the night," says our chronicler, " the cure began, and when
the young man woke, at three in the morning, his eye was
perfectly restored, for he could see through the window of
liis room the houses on the opposite side of the street ! " He
rose joyful from his bed, threw off his bandages, and hastened
to the tomb to return thanks.
Not only is this miraculous cure supported by an abun-
dance of sworn testimony, but I have before me a letter, writ-
266 LIFE OF VOLTAIHE.
ten by Charles Rollin, the celebrated historian, in which he
expresses his entire belief in the miracle. Dr. Rollin says :
" I saw the sad condition to which Don Alpbonse was reduced
by the loss of one eye and the malady of the other, and I was
agreeably surprised to see the sudden and perfect change which
occurred in it, when every one despaired of its cure. This
testimony I render with joy to the singular grace which God
has shown to a young man whom I loved the more tenderly
because Providence himself seemed to have consigned him to
my care."
Several volumes could be filled with similar narratives, some
of which are more wonderful and incredible even than this.
There was, for example, an old lady of sixty-nine, swollen to a
monstrous size by dropsy, covered with ulcers, an object of
horror to every beholder. There are one hundred pages of
testimony, much of it given by surgeons of reputation, to the
effect that this woman was instantly and completely cured by
praying uj)on the tomb of Deacon Paris. Many persons, born
humpbacked and otherwise distorted, left the tomb walking
erect, and with vivacity more than usual.
As the celebrity of the tomb increased, the concourse of the
sick, the lame, the halt, the blind, and the dumb became such
as to incommode the neighborhood. The whole cemetery and
the neighboring streets wei*e crowded with women and men of
all ages, afHicted with all maladies. Here were seen men writh-
ing upon the ground in epileptic fits ; there were others in a
kind of convulsive ecstasy, swallowing pebbles, earth, pieces
of glass, and even burning coals ! Yonder were women beside
themselves, standing upon their heads, while other women,
prostrate upon the earth, called upon the by-standers to relieve
their agony by striking them heavy blows upon the body.
Some women danced, others leaped into the air, others twisted
their bodies in a thousand extravagant ways, others assumed
postures designed to represent scenes of the Passion. Some
of them sang ; others groaned, grunted, barked, mewed, hissed,
declaimed, prophesied. The dancing, conducted by a priest,
was the favorite exercise, and many of the lame, it is said,
who had not stood upon their feet for years, found themselves
able to join in it with great activity.
Scenes of this nature were daily exhibited in the cemetery
THE CONVULSIONIST MIKACLES. 267
for the space of five years. At the end of that period the
extravagance had risen to such a height that both the church
and the kingdom were scandalized by it. The king then in-
terfered, and published an edict, which ordered the cemetery
to be closed, and forbade assemblages of people in the neigh-
borhood. The morning after this edict appeared, one of the
wits of Paris wrote upon the gate of the cemetery the well-
known epigram, " By order of the king : God is forbidden
to perform miracles in this place."
But the madness continued. The earth of the cemetery
and the water of a well near by were conveyed to private
apartments, and there the miracles were renewed. In all the
history of human folly there is nothing so extravagant as the
scenes which now occurred. It became the mode for the sick
to fall into the most violent convulsions, during which they
were subjected to treatment still more violent. One or two
examples out of a thousand will sufiice. A young girl of sev-
enteen, afflicted with a chronic disease, was laid upon the floor.
Twenty-three grown persons placed one of their feet upon her
body, and pressed with all their force upon it, — an operation
which, as she said, gave her the most exquisite delight, and
effected a total cure. Other women, stretched upon the floor
in convulsions, were beaten with an oaken club on every part
of the body, and with aU the force of a strong man, to their
great joy and lasting relief. A witness swears that he saw
one poor woman receive, without harm, two thousand blows,
any one of which would have felled an ox. Other witnesses
testify that five strong men endeavored to thrust a sword into
the body of one of the convulsed, but could not. Sometimes
swords were thrust into the body, but the wound immediately
healed without leaving a scar. One woman received, in one
night, thirty thousand blows of the fist from relays of strong
men ; another was beaten for fifty-five minutes with a huge
oaken club, at the rate of thirty blows a minute, without in-
curring the slightest harm. All of which is supported by a
superabundance of sworn, positive, and detailed testimony from
persons of repute.
The climax of this impious and wonderful folly was reached
when they began to parody the crucifixion. The following ac-
count of one of these scenes rests upon an amount of evidence
268 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
which would convict a man of murder before any of our courts.
If the jury believed one half of the witnesses, they would be
compelled to convict. A woman called Sister Frances, aged
fifty-five, who had been subject to convulsions for twenty-seven
years, was crucified three times. On the last occasion, the
ceremony began at seven o'clock in the morning by stretching
her upon a cross in the ordinary form, laid upon the floor. A
priest drove a nail through the palm of her left hand into the
wood of the cross, and then let her alone for two minutes.
Then, pouring a little water upon the right hand, he nailed
that to the cross. The woman, who was in a convulsion,
appeared to suffer severely, though she neither sighed nor
groaned ; her flushed face alone indicating anguish. Thus she
remained for twenty-eight minutes (these chroniclers are very
exact), at the end of which time they nailed her two feet to a
shelf upon the cross. The nails, we are informed, were square
in shape, and six inches long. No blood flowed from any of
these wounds, excej^t a very little from one of her feet.
Having thus completed the nailing, they let her remain fif-
teen minutes longer, and then gradually raised one end of the
cross, supporting it first upon a chair, and finally leaning it
against the wall. Here it was allowed to remain for half an
hour, during which tbey read a chapter from the Gospel of St.
John, which the woman appeared to understand and enjoy.
Next they placed upon her head a crown of sharp iron wires,
to represent the crown of thorns. She was nailed to the cross
for three houis, and then the nails were gradually drawn out,
which appeared to cause much suffering. " One of the nails,"
saj's the narrator, '•'' I put in my "pockety and I have it now.''''
The hands of the woman bled profusely, but when tbey had
been washed with a little water, she rose, warmly embraced
one of her friends, and appeared to have undergone little in-
jury. The wounds were rubbed with a small cross, which had
been sanctified at the tomb of Deacon Paris, and they imme-
diately closed. This story is related at such length, and is
supported by such a number of affidavits, that it occupies
nearly one hundred folio pages. ^
r Both the brothers Arouet, I repeat, witnessed these events.
^ Histoire des Miracules et des Convulsionaires de Saint-Mcdard, par P. F. Ma-
thieu. Paris, 1864.
J
THE CONVULSIONIST MIRACLES. 269
The impression they made upon the mind bf Voltaire is re-
vealed to us in several of his works. He burlesques them in
" La Pucelle ; " he gravely describes them in his histories ; he
alludes to them in his letters ; and in all he regards them with
as much respect as we do the hideous and fantastic tricks by
which the Indian and the African medicine men impose upon
the credulity of their tribes. Armand, on the contrary, beheld
them with abject faith. I He compiled a collection of the mira-
cles, which his brother inherited and kept all his life, and
which is said still to exist at Petersburg, Avith the rest of
the Voltaire manuscripts bought by Catherine II. He de-
lighted to attest the miracles both as notar}' and as man.
Among the great number of affidavits appended to the case of
Madeleine Durand, a young girl miraculously cured of a
"frightful cancer in the mouth," is one by Armand Arouet.
This dreadful cancer, we are assured by the historian of the
miracles, Carre de Montgeron, only began in the mouth, and
gradually infected all the blood, wasted the body to a skele-
ton, distorted the face out of all knowledge, and corrupted the
air to a distance of ten paces. Armand Arouet swore to the
effect following : —
" I have seen her often fall iu convulsions ; and then she seemed to
be quite out of her senses, conscious of nothing that passed in her
presence. Possessed by various sentiments that sprung up in her
mind, she gave expression to them in short and most fervent prayers.
In those same convulsions I have seen her throw herself down, and
strike the floor again and again with her cancer very Jiard, and rub it
against the tiles with all her might. Sometimes she begged one of the
persons present to put his hands upon her left cheek and lean upon it
with all his weight, the cancer being in contact with the floor. I have
seen her cut off a piece of her cancer with a pair of scissors. Her
blood then flowed abundantly, but as soon as she poured some water
from the well near the tomb of M. Paris upon the wound, at that very
instant the blood was stanched. I saw that but once, but I know that
a great number of persons will render the same testimony, who have
also seen it. Having learned that the most skillful surgeons of Or-
leans, where tliis convulsionist was born, had pronounced her malady
incurable, and as tlieir opinion was confirmed by that of the most cele-
brated surgeons of Paris, I ceased to visit her assiduously, and awaited
the event. At the beginning of 1735 I saw her perfectly cured, and
have seen her several times since ; to-day, also (this June 8, 1736), she
270 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
has been presented to me. The convulsions following immediately
upon the invocation of the Blessed One \_le Blenheureux, meaning
Paris], as I have myself vpitnessed ; her cancer having disappeared
totally, without leaving upon her cheek, inside or outside, any mark
of iron or fire ; the perfect health which she now enjoys, — all con-
vinces me that we can assign a cure so miraculous to no other agent
than God."
Thus Armand Arouet, brother of Voltaire !
The brothers probably conversed together upon the con-
vulsionist miracles ; and perhaps Voltaire had Armand in his
mind when he wrote, many years after, in the " Philosoph-
ical Dictionary," article " Fanaticism : " " When once fanati-
cism has gangrened a brain, the malady is almost incurable.
I have seen convulsionists who, in speaking of the miracles
of Saint Paris, grew warm by degrees ; their eyes flashed
fire ; their whole body trembled ; their fury distorted their
countenances ; and they would have killed any one who had
contradicted them. Yes ; I have seen those convulsionists.
I have seen them twist their limbs and foam at the mouth.
They cried, ' We must have blood I ' "
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE TENDER " ZAiRE."
It was from a mansion near the Palais-Royal that Voltaire
surveyed life at this period. Not his own mansion, of com-se.
Since his return from England, in March, 1729, until near
the close of 1731, he had had no fixed abode ; but soon after
coming from his hiding-place near Rouen he found luxurious
quarters in the hotel of the Countess de Fontaine-Martel, a
merry old widow, with a well appointed house, forty thousand
francs a year, and the easy morals of a Ninon de Lenclos.
Being at this time " past love, through age and erysipelas,"
she gave a nightly supper to the amusing people of the day,
among whom, if we may judge of the specimens of her talk
reported by Voltaire, she surpassed Ninon herself in the license
which she allowed her tongue. It would be hard to decide
which were farther from the right way, — this witty and auda-
cious old countess, or the serious women who groveled at the
tomb of Deacon Paris.
From being a frequent guest at her suppers, Voltaire at
length yielded to her desire that he should occupy rooms in
her house ; and there, during the brief remainder of her life,
he lived and reigned, as though he had been the natural lord
of the mansion. As he himself remarked, it was precisely as
if he had been the master of a magnificent hotel and forty thou-
sand francs a year. He presided at her suppers ; he conducted
her private theatricals ; he tried his plays upon her stage ; he
enjoyed her box at the opera ; he used her coach ; he rode
upon her horses, — and paid for all by an epistle or two in
verse, which fill two or three pages of a volume, and preserve
her name. A lucky old reprobate she was to have such an
inmate. From one of these epistles posterity learns that
" Martel " was the exact opposite of a saint of the kind then in
vogue ; since she preferred long, merry, and tranquil suppers
272 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE,
to pious vigils, and chose Voltaire for the director of her con-
science instead of a Jansenist priest. " In her abode reigned
Liberty, decent, tolerant, and serene, conjointly with her sis-
ter Gayety, never bitter in her satire, neither prudish nor
dissolute."
The epistle does not quite accord with prosaic accounts of the
lady's character or manners. In a letter written in 1767,
Voltaire himself gives a taste of her : " No more tragedies from
me I console myself in forming young people. Ma-
dame de Fontaine-Martel used to say that when one had the
misfortune to be no longer .... it was necessary to be
procuress." The lady, however, used the simpler language of
the tap-room.
In her hotel was first performed his new tragedy of " Eri-
phile," where it received the applause bestowed upon drawing-
room theatricals. Fourteen years had now elapsed since the pro-
duction of " Q^dipe," and never since had the author tasted
the sweet delirium of an unequivocal dramatic triumph. Total
failures had alternated with successes of esteem, which tanta-
lize, not satisfy; and the growing popularity of "Charles
XII." seems but to have pi'ovoked his desire to prove him-
self equal to works more difficult. Unfriendly critics, too,
began to taunt and disparage ; the modern reviewer was
developing ; literary periodicals were acquiring vogue and
power ; and this author began now to experience the bondage
of a great and dazzling celebrity. What could be esteemed
literary glory in Paris compared with dramatic success ? A
truly excellent acting-play will perhaps forever remain the
supreme product of human genius, as it is also the one
which gives the greatest rapture to the greatest number.
In France, a genuine dramatic success was then very much
what it now is ; and our susceptible poet evidently felt that
his other glories only made this supreme glory the more
necessai'y to him. His letters show how ardenth' he strove to
perfect his " Eriphile, Queen of Ai-gos;" correcting, chang-
ing, rewriting, reading it to friends, and, finally, trying it
upon a private stage. The play slightly resembles " Hamlet "
in its plot, and he ventured to introduce the ghost of a mur-
dered king upon the stage, who appears in a temple, and there
calls solemnly upon his son to avenge his death. The queen,
THE TENDER "ZAIRE." 273
too, was a party consenting to the murder, and in a few
other particulars we are reminded of " Hamlet." Voltaire had
high Lopes of his ghost, remembering, doubtless, the thrill
and awful hush which the appearance of Hamlet's ghost never
failed to cause in London, even when not well played. He
dared not attempt a long scene of the kind, but showed his
ghost only for a few moments, in the fourth act, just as the
guilty pair were about to enter the temple to be married. The
temple opens ; the ghost is revealed in a menacing posture.
The guilty mother, her paramour, and the innocent son stand
appalled.
Ghost. — " Hold, wretch ! "
Queen. — " My husband's self ! Where am I ? "
Sox. — " Dread spirit, what god causes thee to leave the infernal
shades? What is the blood that flows from thee.'' And what art
thou ? "
Ghost. — " Thy king ! If thou aspirest to reign, stop, obey me."
Son. — "I will. My arm is readj^ What must 1 do? "
Ghost. — " Avenge me upon my tomb."
Son. — " Upon whom ? "
Ghost. — " Upon thy mother."
Son. — "My mother? AVhat dost thou say ? O uncertain oracle !
But hell withdraws him from my distracted gaze. The gods shut their
temple."
The edifice then closes, and the ghost is no more seen.
" Eriphile " was not successful. The poor ghost had to be
exhibited upon a stage half filled with Paris dandies, and
could not succeed in appalling either them or the more distant
spectators. The piece was not absolutely damned, but it did
not interest, and it was soon withdrawn. The author rewrote
three acts, and prefixed a very taking prologue. The prologue
was a hit, but the play still going heavily he withdrew it
from the theatre and, finally, even from the printer ; and, years
after, as his manner was, used some of the material and some
of the verses in his tragedy of " Semiramis."
Friends interposed their advice on this occasion. The baf-
fled author in old age used to speak of a certain supper at
Madame de Tencin's, where Fontenelle and other persons of
note in literature joined in friendly remonstrance against hia
persisting further in a career for which he was evidently not
VOL. I. 18
N
274 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
made. One success, two failures, two escapes ! Thus the ac-
count stood so far ; and who could say how mucli of the brill-
iant success of " ffidipe " was due to Sophocles, how much to
accident, how much to Voltaire ? La Harpe once asked him
what reply he made to the remarks of his friends at Ma-
dame de Tencin's. " None," said he ; " but I brought out
' Zaire.' " i
" Zaire " was a new arid captivating subject, suggested per-
haps by Shakespeare's " Othello," as " Eriphile " seems a faint
reminiscence of " Hamlet." He dashed at it with amazing im-
petuosity, as if inspired by failure. During his late residence
at Rouen he had renewed his school-boy intimacy with Cide-
ville and Formont, who retained in maturity the love of liter-
ature which they had imbibed at the College Louis-le-Grand.
He made them now his literary confidants, and they in return
gave him plenty of advice, and sometimes came from Rouen
to Paris to witness the performance of his plays. He wrote
tumultuous letters to these sympathizing friends this summer ;
sometimes to one, sometimes to both at once. It is in such
letters as these that we see both the mode and the motive of
his labors. Here is the history of the new tragedy in a few
sentences from them : —
[To Cideville, May 29th.] "I have corrected in ' i^riphile' all the
faults which we remarked. Scarcely was this task finished, when, in
order to be able to review my work with less self-love, and to give
myself time to forget it, I began another, and I have taken a firm
resolution not to cast my eyes upon ' firiphile ' until the new tragedy
is done. This play will be made for the heart, as much as ' Eriphile '
was for the imagination. The scene is to be laid in a very singular
place, and the action will pass between Turks and Christians. I shall
depict their manners to the utmost of my ability, and I shall try to
throw into the work all that the Christian religion has of most pa-
thetic and most interesting, and all that love knows of most tender
and cruel. Here is work for six months."
[To Formont, on the same day.] " Every one here reproaches me
that I do not put more love into my pieces. There shall he love
enough this time I swear to you, and not gallantry either. My de-
sire is that there may be nothing so Turkish, so Christian, so amorous,
so tender, so infuriate, as that which I am now putting into verse for
the pleasure of the public. I have the honor already to have done an
1 9 Cours de Litterature, 139.
1
THE TENDER "ZAIRE." 275
act of it. Either I am much deceived, or this will be the most pe-
culiar piece we have upon our stage. The names of Montmorenci, of
Saint Louis, of Saladin, of Jesus, of Mahomet, will be in it. There
will be mention of the Seine and of Jordan, of Paris and of Jerusa-
lem. We shall love, we shall baptize, we shall kill, and I will send
you the outline as soon as it is done Don't ask me for news of
the parliament. I know, and wish to know, only les belles-lettres."
[To Formont, June 2oth.] " Hearty thanks, mv dear friend, for the
good advice you give me upon the plan of a tragedy ; but it came too
late. The tragedy was done. It c ost me but twenty-two days.
Never have I worked with such_swiftness. The subject drew me on,
and the piece made itself At present I am having it copied ;
as soon as I have a copy ready, it shall start for Rouen, and go to
Messieurs de Formont and Cideville. Scarcely had I written the last
verse of my Turco-Christian j^iece than I took up ' Eriphile ' again."
[To Cideville, June 27th.] " A man just finishing a new tragedy has
not time to write long letters, my amiable Cideville ; but every scene
of the piece was a letter which I wrote to you, and I said to myself
continually, ' Will my tender and susceptible friend Cideville approve
this situation or this sentiment ? Shall I make him shed tears ? ' At
length, after having rajiidiy written my work, in order the sooner to
send it to you, I read it to the actors."
[August 25th. To both.] " My dear and amiable critics, I wish that
you could be witnesses of the success of ' Zaire ; ' you would see that
your advice was not useless, and that there was very little of it which
I did not profit by. Permit me, my dear Cideville, to express to you
freely the pleasure I enjoy in seeing the success of a work which you
approved. My satisfaction augments in communicating it to you.
Never piece was so well played as ' Zaire ' at the fourth representation.
I wished you there ; you would have seen that the public did not hate
your friend. I appeared in a box, and the whole pit clapped me. I
blushed, I hid myself ; but I should be a hypocrite if I did not con-
fess to you that I was sensibly touched. It is sweet not to be without
honor in one's own country : I am sure you will love me the more for
the avowal. But, messieurs, send me back ' Eriphile,' which I can-
not do without, and which is going to be played at Fontainebleau.
Moil Dieu ! what a thing it is to choose an interesting subject ! ' Eri-
phile ' is far better written than ' Zaire ; ' but all the ornaments, all
the spirit and all the force of poetry are not worth (so people say)
one touch of sentiment."
/^ The new tragedy had indeed all the success wliich a play
can have with the play-going public. On the first night,
276 LIFE OF VOLTAIKE.
August 13, 1732, the pit, it is true, was a little refractory at
times : now tittering at a hasty verse ; now half inclined to
rebel against innovation ; now almost laughing at an effect
that missed fire. Colley Gibber records an anecdote of this
stormy first night, related to him by an English barrister Avho
was present. During the delivery of a soliloquy by Mademoi-
selle Gaussin, the Englishman was seized with such a violent fit
of coughing as to compel the lady to pause for several seconds,
which drew upon him the eyes of the whole audience. A
French gentleman, sitting near, leaned over and asked him
if Mademoiselle Gaussin had given him any particular of-
fense, since he took so public an occasion to resent it. The
cougher protested that he admired the actress too much to
disoblige her in any way, and would rather leave the theatre
than disturb her again. ^
I Audiences then, according to Gibber, were inclined to be
/ despotic, and were most prompt to resent the slightest de-
' parture from usage, whether before or behind the foot-lights.
He says that he saw a play at the Theatre Francais inter-
rupted for several minutes by the audience crying Place a
la dame ! to a gentleman in the second tier, who was sitting in
front of the box, so as to obscure the view of a lady behind
him.
For a short time the fate of the tender " Zaire " was in doubt
before that turbulent and tyrannical tribunal, the parto-re.
But the pathos of the chief scenes subdued all hearts at
length. The author on the following days removed the
more obvious blemishes, and "Zaire " took its place as a public
favorite, which it retains to this day. After a first run of
nine nights, the summer season closed ; but, being resumed
in the autumn, it had twenty-one representations, and con-
tinued to be reproduced from time to time. It was j^erformed
before the king and queen at Fontainebleau ; it was trans-
lated into English, and given wdth applause in London ; and,
finally, being published " with privilege," was spread abroad
over Europe. He dedicated the printed edition to his English
friend, Falkener, thus : " To M. Falkener, English merchant ;
since ambassador at Gonstantinople." He added, as was his
wont, a dedicatory epistle, in mingled prose and verse, in
1 Gibber's Apology, London, 1740, page 482.
"THE TENDER ZAIRE." 277
which he said various things that he wished his own country-
men to consider : —
" You are an Englishman, my dear friend, and I was born in
France ; but those who love the arts are all fellow-citizens. Honest
people who think have very much the same principles, and compose
but one republic I offer, then, this tragedy to you as my
countryman in literature and as my intimate friend. At the same
time, I take pleasure in being able to say to my own nation in what
estimation merchants are held among you ; how much respect is felt
for a profession which makes the greatness of the state, and with what
superiority some of you represent their country in parliament. I
know well that this profession is despised by our petits-maitres ; but
you know also that our petits-mailres and yours are the most ridicu-
lous species that creep with pride upon the surface of the earth."
He extols again, above all things else, the happy liberty of
thought enjoyed in England, which, he says, communicated
itself to his own mind whenever he associated with English-
men. " My ideas are bolder when I am with you."
This was truly the case, as was shown by the two plays,
*'Eriphile" and "Zaire," both of which were written with a
certain new audacity and spirit, derived, in part, from Shake-
speare. Zaire was a Christian captive in Jerusalem, reared
in ignorance of her faith and country, and beloved by the
Soudan, the Mahometan ruler of the region. She warmly
returned his passion ; and the play opens near the hour fixed
for their union. But on that fatal day she discovers her
origin, meets her aged father just released from long im-
prisonment, meets her brother coming to ransom Christian
captives, and thus finds herself in the clutch of passions as
irreconcilable as tigers in presence of one stray white lamb.
On one side, religion, loyalty, natural affection, and pride of
race ; on the other, a deep and tender love at the hour of
fruition, and a lover all fire and jealousy. The tender lamb,
of course, is torn in pieces. The Soudan, mistaking the
brother for a lover, and a baptismal rendezvous for a rendez-
vous of love, kills her ; and then, discovering his error, kills
himself.
Forget " Othello ; " come to " Zaire " by the road of the an-
cient classic drama of France, and you find it a powerful and
affecting work, with many a passage of genuine force and
278 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
beauty ; the whole performance announcing the deliverance of
the French stage from the bondage of its ancient rules and
unities. The subject was a happy one for an author born to
exhibit tlie nothingness of those theological differences which
made men willing to tear out one another's vitals. " On the
banks of the Ganges," says the innocent, bewildered Zaire, "I
had been a devotee of false gods ; in Paris, a Christian ; here,
a Mahometan. Instructiun does all ; the hand of our fathers
engraves upon our feeble hearts those first characters which
time and example retrace." And again, speaking of her lover:
"Can God hate a heart so magnanimous? Generous, benefi-
cent, just, full of excellent cjualities, if he had been born a
Christian, what would he have been more ? " The Mahom-
etan chief speaks, in his turn, of the wonder and indignation
he had felt on finding himself equaled in virtue by a Chris-
tian !
Tragedy, comedy, farce, poem, history, romance, — what-
ever might be the name and plumage of the pigeon which
Voltaire loosed in his autho-r's life of sixty years, the message
under its wings was sure to be such as these words convey.
But, in " Zaire," he was fortunate, as an author competing
for public favor, in having opportunities to give eloquent ex-
pression also to the feeling which inspired the crusades ; and
thus he gave pleasure in the same plaj^ and sometimes in
the same passage, to the philosophers and to the Christians.
" Great by his valor, greater by his faith,^' is a sentiment
which a French girls' boarding-school would, perhaps, still ap-
plaud. There is also a magnificent burst of religious feeling
in the second act, where the aged father of Zaire appeals to
the sacred objects and places near Jerusalem, to rouse in his
daughter the dormant Christian sentiment. " Thy God whom
thou betray est, thy God whom thou blasphemest, died for
thee, died for the universe, amid these scenes. Turn thine
eyes ; his tomb is near this palace. Here is the JNIount
whereon, to wash away our sins, he was willing to die under
the wounds of impious men. Yonder is the place where he
returned to life from the gx-ave. In this august region thou
canst not take one step without finding thy God ! "
The success of " Zaire " gave its impetuous author no rest,
no pause ; for it was his habit not only to correct ceaselessly
THE TENDER "ZAIRE." 279
his past works, but to have several new ones in pnngress at the
same time. In the interval of the summer holidays we see
him " reworking * Zaire ' as though it had been a failui'-e," re-
casting " Julius Csesar " and " Eriphile," correcting " Charles
XII." for a new Holland edition, replying at much lengt,h to si
pamphlet calling in question some of its statements, adding im-
poitant things to his English Letters, meditating a new play,
accumulating material for his " Histoi-y of Louis XIV.," and
Avriting long letters, Avith sprightly and graceful verses in-
terspersed. "How much toil and trouble," he writes to For-
mont in September, 1732, " for this smoke of vainglory !
Nevertheless, what should w^e do without that chimera ? It
is as necessary to the soul as food is to the body. I have
made ' Eriphile ' and ' Csesar ' all over again ; and all for that
smoke."
In October he was at Fontainebleau, where he spent six
weeks, superintending the performance before the court of old
plays and new, — " Zaire " and " Mariamne " among them, —
and in rewriting his chapter upon Newton and Gravitation for
the English Letters, getting important aid from his friend
and mathematician, Maupertuis. In the midst of his court life
we discover him corresponding with Maupertuis upon the New-
tonian philosophy ; which was so little known in France, and
so lightly regarded, that he began to doubt whether it could
be all that the English claimed for it. " A frightful scruple
comes to me," he writes, "and all my faith is shaken." But
Maupertuis completely reassured him. " Burn my ridiculous
objections," Voltaire rejoins ; and he goes on with his New-
tonian chapter without fear. Who that saw him about the
palace at this time could have suspected such a correspond-
ence ! " The whole court," he writes to a young lady, while
he w^as puzzling over Newton, "has been in combustion for
three or four days with regard to a bad comedy which I kept
from being played Two parties were formed : one, in-
cluding the queen and her ladies ; the other, the princesses
and their adherents. The queen was victorious, and I made
peace with the princesses. This important affair cost me but a
few trifling, mediocre verses, which, however, were deemed
very good by those to whom they were addressed ; for there is
no goddess whose nose the odor of incense does not regale."
280 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
We have a glimpse of him during this residence at court
from a s:''cirical letter of Alexis Piron, who was also a courtier
for the moment. Piron had not yet recovered from the delu-
sion wliicli comic writers, as well as comic actors, frequently
r.berish, that nature meant him for the tragic drama. One of
his tragedies, entitled " Gnstave," he had offered to the actors,
and may have had it with him at Fontainebleau. He could
not, in early life, contemplate Volt;iire's tragic triumphs with
unalloyed satisfaction. This too brief description of court
scenes is in his good comedy vein : —
" I should be much bored at court [he writes to the Abbe Legen-
dre], but for a window corner in the gallery, where, opera-glass in
hand, I post myself for some hours ; and God knows the pleasure I
have in seeing the goers and comers. Ah, the masks ! If you should
see what an edifying aspect people of your garb have ! what an im-
portant air the courtiers ! how the rest are changed by fear and hope !
and, especially, how false those airs, for the most part, are to discern-
ing eyes ! It is a marvel. I see nothing genuine here but the faces
of the Swiss guards, the only philosophers of the court. With their
halberds upon their shoulders, their big mustaches, and their tranquil
air, one would say that they regarded all these hungry fortune-hunters
as people who are running after what they, poor Swiss as they are,
obtained long ago. Speaking of that, it was with a sufficiently Swiss
expression that I watched, very much at my ease, yesterday, Voltaire,
bustling about like a little green pea among the crowds of foolish peo-
ple who amused me. When he saw me, —
" ' Ah, good day, my dear Piron. What are you at court for ? I
have been here these three weeks. They played my " Mariamne " the
other day, and they are going to play " Zaire." When " Gustave " ?
How are you ? Ah, Monsieur Duke, one word. I was looking for
you.'
" He said that all in a breath ; I was unable to get in a word. So,
this morning, having met him again, I said at once, —
" * Very well, thank you, sir.'
*' He did not know what I meant until I told him he had left me
the evening before asking me how I was, and I had not been able to
answer him sooner."
The sage Piron does not tell us how Voltaire extricated him-
self on this occasion. Late in the year the author of " Zaire "
returned to Paris, and spent the winter at the hotel of his aged
countess, in that tumult of work and pleasure, of literature
THE TENDER "ZAIRE." 281
and speculation, which made up his life at the capital. Early
in January, 1733, there was a memorable evening at Madame
de Fontaine-Martel's, when " Zaire " was performed in the
salon, the author himself playing the part of Lusignan, the
aged and dying father of the heroine. " I drew tears from
beautiful eyes," he wrote to Formont. Almost every day
there was a festival of some kind at this hotel, — a festival,
too, tlie chief design of which was to amuse Voltaire. There
were charades, games, forfeits, feats of rhyming, cards, music,
comedy, tragedy, divei'tusement, — all the gayeties in vogue.
High play, too, sometimes ; for this thriving poet mentions
losing there twelve thousand francs in one evening.
Suddenly, in January, 1733, the gay, distracting life came to
an end. Death knocked at the door. The aged countess fell
dangerously sick, suffered a few days, and died. Her death, it
must be confessed, was not " edifying," and Voltaire's account
of it not more so. " What o'clock is it ? " asked the dying
woman. Without waiting to be told, she added, " Blessed be
God, whatever the hour may be, there is somewhere a ren-
dezvous ! " 1
He gave other particulars, not less astounding, in a letter to
Formont, just after the funeral : —
" I owe an answer to your charming epistle [in prose aijd verse],
but the illness of our baroness suspended all our double rhymes. I
did not believe, eight days ago, that the first verses I should have
to compose for her would be her epitaph. I cannot conceive how
I bore all the burdens that have overwhelmed me these fifteen days
past. On the one hand, they seized an edition of ' Zaire ; ' on the
other, the baroness was dying. I had to go and solicit the Keeper
of the Seals, and, at the same time, to seek the viatica. At night
I was in attendance upon the patient, and all day I was occupied
with the details of the house. Imagine it : it was I who announced
to the poor woman that she had to set out \_partir'\. She was
unwilling to hear the last ceremonies spoken of ; but I was obliged
in honor to make her die in the rules. I brought her a priest, half
Jansenist, half politician, who made believe confess her, and after-
wards gave her the rest. When this comedian of St. ICustache asked
her aloud if she was not firmly persuaded th-at her God, her Creator,
was in the Eucharist, she answered. Ah, yes ! in a tone that would
have made me burst out laughing, in circumstances less doleful."
1 Voltaire to Richelieu, July 19, 1769.
282 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
And this countess had a daughter who was a Jansenist,
and doubtless believed in the miracles of the blessed Paris !
Such was the dislocation of society then ! Voltaire speaks of
writing madame's epitaph. He did so, with perfect sincerity,
in the first sentence of a letter to Cideville, written on the
same day : " I have lost, as perhaps you know, Madame de
Fontaine-Martel. That is to say, I have lost a good house
of which I was the master, and forty thousand francs of
revenue which was spent in diverting me."
It was necessary to dislodge, though he lingered three
months longer in the " good house " of the departed. His
next abode was a change of scene such as we see in a pan-
tomime. From the airy and brilliant neighborhood of the
Palais-Royal, he went to live, in May, 1733, at the house of his
man of business, Demoulin, in a dingy and obscure lane, called
then Rue de Longpont, now Rue Jacques-de-Brosse. Opposite
the house was the fine portico of the church of St. Gervail,
the bells of which, it appears, disturbed his repose. He told
his friend Cideville that his new home was in the ugliest
house of the ugliest quarter of Paris, and that he was more
deafened in it by the noise of the bells than a sexton.
"But," he added, " I shall make so much noise with my lyre
that the sound of the bells will be nothing for me." Madame
Demoulin served as housekeeper to all the inmates, and the
merchant-poet was attended by a valet and an amanuensis.
He usually had with him a fledgeling poet or two, whose
talents he encouraged, — with the usual result of total disap-
pointment. The talents that move the world are apt to be
discouraged, until they no longer need encouragement. Two
poets, Lefevre and Linant, were with him at this period.
Lefevre died in the flower of his days ; but Linant, who pos-
sessed, as Voltaire remarks, all the virtues becoming a man of
fortune, but not those that help a man to win fortune, clung
to him long, and plagued him much by his unconquerable
indolence. By the middle of May, 1733, Voltaire was settled
in his new quarters, with his retainers, his proteges^ and his
projects, literary and commercial. " I come here," he wrote
to Cideville, while he was moving, " to lead a philosophic life,
the plan of which I have long had in my head, and never car-
ried out."
THE TENDER "ZAIRE." 283
He and his man of business Avere deeper than ever in com-
merce now, importing grain from Mediterranean ports, and
bringing into France the rich products of Spain and Portu-
gal. He was greatly interested, in 1733, in a project for
making straw paper, an invention reserved for a later day.
Many of liis letters on this subject exist in manuscript, not
yet accessible. 1 A more profitable enterprise than any of
these was looming up this spring. The war to replace Stan-
islas upon the throne of Poland began this year, and Paris-
Duverney returned with his brothers to their old trade of feed-
ing the troops. He invited and advised Voltaire to take
a share in the contract ; and who could do the work better
than one accustomed to import grain from the chief sources
of supply ? The contractors agreed to place provisions wher-
ever needed at a fixed sum per ration (say, sixty sous) ; and
hence, in an easy, languid, political war like this, an inordi-
nate profit might be realized. In the course of two or three
mild campaigns, Voltaire's share of the proceeds of the con-
tract amounted to six hundred thousand francs ;2 and this
without interrupting his career, and while he seemed wholly
the man of letters.
It is not often that the same hand supplies an army with
biscuit and with laurel. Among the minor poems of our con-
tractor is one, in the poet-laureate style, celebrating the Ital-
ian campaign of 1734, for which campaign he assisted to
furnish supplies. If the biscuit and the beef which he sent
to the army of Italy were no better than the poem with
which he regaled it, his soldiers would have given the con-
tractor a sorry welcome if he had ventured into camp. Yet
he put his own name to his sham poem, while using that of
Demoulin for his honest business.
1 Jeunesse de Voltaire, page 480.
2 Memoires, par S. G. Lougchamp, article 34.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PUBLISHED.
But lie could not live in Paris. He never could, long at a
time. One would have thought that now his position was
something more than merely secure in his native city ; since,
to a great and growing celebrity, he had taken the precaution
to add a great and growing fortune.
He was forty years of age ; fifteen years had passed since
the production of " CEdipe," and he had a widening circle of
" admirers," as well among the few who seek knowledge from
the books they read as among the many who seek pleasure.
The Marquise du Chatelet speaks of having known " La Hen-
riade " by heart before she saw the author's face in 1733. In
distant lands, men open to liberal ideas were reading his works
with that silent gratitude with which we have hailed the suc-
cession of free spirits who have made our own generation mem-
orable. We have been blessed with many such ; but, in 1733
and later, Voltaire was the only conspicuous author on the Con-
tinent who wi'ote in the new spirit. Frederic, Prince Royal of
Prussia, who came of age in 1733, was, we may be sure, not
the only young man in Germany who scanned the horizon for
the first sign of something new from Voltaire, and counted
the days till he received his copy. In England he was, at
least, a bookseller's favorite, for there was " money in him."
Rival editions of " Charles XII.," a Henriade in English verse,
two in French verse, three thousand copies of the English Let-
ters printed for the first edition, a "Za'ire" in French for
readers, a " Za'ire " in English on the stage, and all these run-
ning in 1732 and 1733, attest tlie commercial value of his
reputation in England. Amsterdam had given Europe two
editions of his collected works : one, a small duodecimo, in
1728 ; another, in two volumes octavo, in 1732.^
^ Bibliographic Voltairienne, page 92.
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PUBLISHED. 285
But he could not live in Paris, notwithstanding.
There was a vacancy in the French Academy, in December,
1731, by the death of Lamotte, one of the Forty ; that Acad-
emy v/hich, as Voltaire himself tells us, was — as it now is —
the darling object of desire to men of letters in France. The
great Richelieu, who founded the Academy, would have given
the vacant chair to the author of " Charles XII.," " Q^dipe,"
" Zaire," and " La Henriade." Voltaire may have been of
that opinion, and appears to have had a momentary expecta-
tion of receiving the king's nomination. But, early in 1732,
by some unknown chance or treachery was published that
deistical poem, the " Epistle to Uranie," written by him ten
years before for Madame de Rupelmonde, his traveling com-
panion on the journey to Holland. It was published, too,
with the name of the author. " What do you think of it ? "
asked the austere chancellor of France, D'Aguesseau, of his
secretary, Langlois. "• Monseigneiir," replied the secretary,
" Voltaire ought to be shut up in a place where he could have
neither pen, ink, nor paper. That man, by the bent of his
mind, can destroy a stale." ^ The Archbishop of Paris com-
plained formally to the lieutenant of police, Herault, so often
obliged to concern himself with a troublesome poet. The lieu-
tenant summoned the culprit to his cabinet. Voltaire parried
this grave danger by the expedient employed by Sir Walter
Scott, whenever he was cornered touching the authorship of
" Waverley." Pie plumi)ly denied having written it. It was
the w^ork, he added, of the late Abbe de Chaulieu ; he had
heard the abbd recite it ; and, indeed, in the volume of Chau-
lieu's works, collected by Thieriot, there are several poems ex-
pressing similar sentiments. The lieutenant, who may have
seen " Zaire " the evening before, was polite enough to pre-
tend to believe this, and the poet retained his liberty. Dur-
ing Lent several orthodox poets tried their skill in replying to
the obnoxious epistle in the " Mercure," but without eliciting
response from the abb^.
The tender " Zaire " was the innocent occasion of a more
noisy and lasting, if less perilous commotion. J. B. Rousseau,
still in unjust, dependent exile at sixty-three, had lost much of
1 Paroles Memorables, par G. Brottier, page 303. Quoted in Jeunesse de Vol-
taire, page 459.
286 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
his poetic power, without gaining in good temper. He heard
of Voltaire's successes with the jealousy of a narrow mind
soured b}^ age aud misfortune. He had written of Voltaire,
in 1731, in a letter designed to be handed about Paris, in a
style of affected contempt, as " a young man who imposed
upon others by his effrontery, but produced nothing that pos-
terity would take as true metal," — a too obvious reminiscence
of Voltaire's jest upon Rousseau's " Ode to Posterity." He
spoke contemptuously of his plays as a string of fragments
devoid of connection and of sense, improbable and unnatural,
with here and there a few verses not wanting in spirit, but
very irregular and inharmonious. " Add to that," wrote Rous-
seau, " a proud ignorance which disdains to be informed, a
vanity that revolts, and an audacity in setting up rules intol-
erable in an author who neither recognizes nor knows any
rule." All of which was ill-natured and unjust; but there
was no savor of the Bastille in it, and no scent of the fagot.
" Zaire " was produced, and gave Voltaire rank as the tragic
poet of the time. Rousseau received from his correspondent
in Paris a copy of the tragedy, and with it some rumor of a
composition by Voltaire called the " Temple du Gout," — a
piece of fun then in manuscript, in which Rousseau, among
other poets, was burlesqued. The exile wrote in reply a long
letter, which also was meant to circulate where it could do
most harm : —
" The piece [Zaire] which you sent me has arrived at last. Those
who told me, four montlis ago, that the subtle design of the work
was to prove Saracens better people than Christians gave me an er-
roneous idea of it ; for it does not appear that the author had tliat de-
sign in view. The sentiment which reigns in it tends simply to
show that all the efforts of Grace have no power over the passions.
This impious dogma, not less hostile to good sense than to religion,
is the sole basis of his plot He must have a bad opinion
of his auditory to suppose that the picture of frenzied concupiscence
in a Christian piece, wherein a crucified God is spoken of, and the
ineffable mysteries of the faitli, would appear more touching than
the miraculous effects of divine mercy."
He continues to denounce the play at inordinate length,
styling it "an odious melange of piety and libertinage," a
"monstrous tragedy," "trivial and flat," which would revolt
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PUBLISHED. 287
all honest readers^ He contrasts with "Za'ire" the pious trage-
dies of Racine and Corneille, so much admired at boarding-
school exhibitions and convent festivals. He concludes his
letter thus : —
" As to what you tell me of Voltaire's recriminations, I foresaw that
your complaisance in permitting a copy to be taken of what I wrote
to you upon this little author would call out something of the kind
from him. But it gives me very little concern. He is a man of no
consequence, who can build all the Temples he pleases without fear
of my taking the hammer to work at their demolition. I esteem his
architecture no more than I do his poetry. Nevertheless, although
I have no desire to measure myself with such an adversary, I am
not sorry that the public is informed of the reasons for his attacking
me ; and to that end the extracts can serve which you allowed to
be taken of what I wrote to you on this subject."
Voltaire was transported with fury by this unprovoked and
perilous attack. A man of his constitution, worn always by
intense mental toil, and regulating his system more by medi-
cine than by regimen, may become irritable to an inconceiv-
able degree. But there were two peculiarities in his case :
he could retain his anger a long time ; and, the moment he
took pen in hand, he could perfectly control it. Poor Rous-
seau exhibited his malevolence in every line ; but Voltaire
never seems more light of heart, more at peace with all the
world, more free from everything like rancor, than in this
''Temple of Taste," written chiefly, perhaps, to "get even
with " J. B. Rousseau. No cat was ever more playful while
a mouse was fluttering away its little life between her velvet
paws. It was a piece of twenty-five or thirty printed pages,
of verse and prose intermingled : chatty, critical, satirical, eu-
logistic, — everything by turns, and nothing long. It was
such free and easy discourse upon men, things, and books, liv-
ing and dead, ancient and recent, as might be supposed to fall
from the poet's lips after supper, while surrounded only by
friends. Fancy such talk printed in the life-time of three
fourths of the people mentioned by name ! Fancy it so
spirited, so elegant, so witty, so brief, and, worst of all, so
true^ that all the reading world must possess it, must re-read
it, must send it to their friends in the country, with fierce
censure or chuckling eulogiura ! Sainte-Beuve truly remarks
288 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
that posterity lias ratified its judgments ; but there was the
sting of it.
In a few verses of that graceful, complimentary, audacious
badinage of which Voltaire is the sole master, he informs the
reader that the Cardinal de Fleury had asked to go with him
to the Temple of Taste. They set out together; and this
piece is the record of their journey. Every folly of the hour
is gayly and good-humoredly hit : " the cloud of commenta-
tors who restore passages, and compile big volumes apropos
of a word they don't understand;" thoughtless expositors of
thought ; " connoisseurs of pictures who go into raptures at
God the Father in his eternal glory, genteelly painted in the
taste of Watteau ; " the rage for Italian music ; the excessive
tasteless ornamentation of the new edifices ; editors and re-
viewers who, " like insects, are only perceived when they
sting ; " old authors overrated and living authors miscon-
ceived. The cardinal and the poet, in the course of their
joui-ney, arrive near the entrance of the Temple, where, of
course, they meet a throng of candidates for admission ; among
others, the austere and orthodox Rousseau.
" Another versifier arrives, supported by two little satyrs, and
crowned with laurels and with thistles. ' I come,' says he, ' to laugh
and have a good time, and to go it like the devil ; and I won't go
home till morning ! ' ' Why, what 's this I hear ? ' asks la Critique.
' It is I,' said the rhymer. ' I come from Germany to see you. I
have taken the spring-time for it, since the young Zejihyrs with
their warm breath have melted the hark of the waters ' [parody of a
Rousseau couplet]. The more he spoke this language, the less the
door opened. ' What do they take me for, then ?' said he. * For a
frog that goes about singing, from the bottom of his little throat,
Brekeke, kake, koax, koax, koax ? ' ' Ah, hon Dieu I what horrible
jargon ! ' cried la Critique. She could not at first recognize him who
expressed himself in this manner. She was informed that it was
Rousseau, whose voice the Muses had changed to that of a frog, as
a punishment for his spiteful tricks. She opened the door, however,
in consideration of his early verses, saying, ' Poets, compose your
verses at Paris, and don't go to Germany.' Then, approaching me,
she said in a low tone, ' You know him ; he was your enemy ; and
you do him justice. You see his Muse, between the altar and the
fagot, handle indifferently the harp of David and the flageolet of
Marot. Don't imitate his weakness in rhyming too long. The fruits
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PUBLISHED. 289
of tlie Permessus are produced only in the spring. Cold and mel-
ancholy old age is only made for good sense.' "
Admitted to the Temple, Rousseau turns pale with wrath
at meeting there Fontenelle, against whom he had launched so
many epigrams. He goes aside to make another epigram,
while the aged and beloved Fontenelle " looks upon him with
that philosophic compassion which a broad and enlightened
spirit cannot help feeling for a man who only knows how to
rhyme ; and lie goes away tranquilly to take his place between
Lucretius and Leibnitz."
Among other applicants for admission to the Temple is a
black monk, who announces himself thus : " I am the Rever-
end Father Albertus Garassus. I preach better than Bourda-
loue [court preacher to Louis XIV.], for Bourdaloue never
caused any books to be burned ; whereas I declaimed with
such eloquence against Pierre Bayle, in a little province over-
flowing with intellect, I so touched my hearers, that six of
tliem burned their Bayles. Never before did eloquence obtain
so beautiful a triumph." To whom la Critique replies, " Be-
gone, Brother Garassus ! Begone, barbarian ! Out of the
Temple of Taste ! Out of my sight, modern Visigoth, who
hast traduced the man of myself inspired ! "
The " Temple du Gout " being ready for publication, the
author read it to the Keeper of the Seals, who thought it might
receive, not merely a tacit permission, but even a royal privi-
lege, since he found nothing in it hostile to the state, to relig-
ion, or to morals. But while it was in the hands of the ap-
pointed censor, M. Crebillon, lo, it appeared from the press !
Such accidents could happen at a time when it was so usual to
take copies of poems circulating in drawing-rooms. Once in
print, it ran like a prairie fire, and raised a buzzing and sting-
ing storm about the author's ears of unexampled fury. On
this occasion he was probably astonished to discover what a
terrible weapon he wielded when he used his pen in his ban-
tering manner, of which no translation can give an adequate
idea. He had the art of cutting several ways at once, making
sentences that had in them various currents of allusion, all ex-
asperating to the victims, all diverting to the reader. It was
like fighting with one of those hundred-bladed knives that boys
admire in the shop-windows. At a moment when he had just
VOL. I. 19
290 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
finished a new tragedy, " Adelaide," and was full of zeal in
collecting material for his opus magnum., his " Louis XIV. ; "
at a time when, as he wrote to Thieriot, he was " exhaust-
ing and killing himself in order to amuse his fool of a coun-
try," he was in the midst of enemies, persecutions, and mis-
fortunes.
Those whom he had not praised enough and those whom
he had not praised at all were equally envenomed again&t him.
" Join to that the crime of having printed this bagatelle with-
out a permit sealed with yellow wax, and the wrath of the min-
istry against such treason ; add to that the outcries of the
court and the threat of a lettre de cachet., and you will have
only a faint idea of the pleasant situation I am in, and of the
protection given here to the belles-lettres.^^
There was danger in the air. He knew the insecurity of
his position, and that his only safety was in getting upon his
side a certain public opinion, — a public pride, — which would
make the government ashamed to molest an ornament of the
country. Hence his rage at such letters as those of Rousseau,
which gave countenance and courage to the natural enemies of
the human mind, — those who appealed to the dungeon and
the fire when their interpretation of the universe was called in
question. He was one against a host ; he could depend on no
effective support except his own tact and talent.
Among his minor writings, published during the last year or
two of his attempt to continue his career in Paris, were three
pieces in prose which attest his forethought and skill in this
unequal combat. One of these was a long letter to the editors
of the " Nouvelliste du Parnasse," politely remonstrating with
them upon their harshness in dealing with the authors noticed
by them. He said that, for his own part, he never permitted
himself the liberty of saying or writing plain Fontenelle or
Ciiaulieu, but always M. de Fontenelle and M. I'Abb^ de
Chaulieu, and he had corrected several persons of the habit of
using such indecent familiarity towards men who shed lustre
upon France. He might say " the great Corneille," since that
poet was one of the ancients ; but he always said M. Racine
and M. Boileau, as those great men had been almost his con-
temporaries. The purport of tlie piece was that, because a
man had failed to write a perfect work, he had not thereby
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PUBLISIffiD. 291
forfeited Lis claim to decent civility, and that men who as-
sumed to criticise others should set an example, not only of
just thinking, but of good breeding also.
Another of these pieces was in the form of a letter to his
secretary and nascent poet, Lefevre, upon the " Inconven-
iences attached to Literature." He tells this young man
what he might expect if he should ever be so unfortunate as
to write a good book in France: first, a year of suspense and
solicitation while the censor held the manuscript ; next, to be
torn to pieces by the gazettes, which sell in proportion as they
are malignant and abusive. It would be worse if he wrote for
the stage : the actors, justly indignant at the abasement to
which the law condemns them, lavish upon an author all the
contempt with which they are covered ; and the piece being
at last performed, one bad joke from the pit gives it its quie-
tus. You succeed ? Then you are burlesqued at the minor
theatres, twenty pamphlets prove that you ought not to have
succeeded, and the learned affect to despise you because you
write in French. Trembling, you carry your work to a lady
of the court : she gives it to her maid to make into curl-pa-
pers ; and the laced lackey who wears the livery of luxury
derides your coat, which is the livery of indigence. After
forty years of toil, you intrigue a place in the Academy, and
go to pronounce with broken voice an oration which will be
forgotten the next day forever. " One regrets to see the de-
vice of immortality at the head of so many declamations, which
announce nothing of eternal except the oblivion to which they
are condemned." All this in the lightest manner, sown thick
with those happy touches and allusions which make a piece
readable. *
The third of these defensive, propitiatory pieces was in the
guise of a " Letter to a Chief Clerk," a personage to whom a
minister might be supposed to consign a new book for exam-
ination, and who therefore had a certain power over literature.
He asks this imaginary clerk to remember, when he is exam-
ining a work, that if there had been a literary inquisition at
Rome we should not possess Horace or Juvenal, nor the philo-
sophical works of Cicero ; and if in England, not Milton, Dry-
den, Pope, or Locke. " Repress libels, repress obscene tales,
but let honest thought be free ; let not Bayle be contraband."
292 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
He called attention to the commercial aspects of the case :
"The thonglits of men have become an important article of
commerce ; Dutch booksellers gain a million a year because
Frenchmen have had intellect. The genius of Moliere, Cor-
neille, Racine, and the dramatists formed by them lure to
Paris great numbers of people from remote provinces and
states, who come to enjoy pleasures nobler than those of sense.
Foreigners who hate France bow in grateful homage to French
genius. A magistrate who presumes to think that, because
he has bought a seat on the bench, it is beneath his dignity to
see ' Cinna ' performed shows much gravity and little taste."
The Romans built prodigies of architecture in which to wit-
ness the combats of beasts, and Paris had not one passable
theatre for the presentation of the masterpieces of the human
mind. " What man in Paris is animated by a regard for the
public welfare ? We gamble, we sup, we slander, we make
bad songs, and go to sleep in stupidity, only to begin again on
the morrow our round of lightness and indifference. Try,
monsieur, to rouse us from this barbarous lethargy, and, if you
can, do something for letters, which do so much for France! " ^
Thus he strove to make a party in France for the rights of
the human mind. Shakespeare, during the dismalest period
of Puritanism, found a public in London capable of draw-
ing from him, and generously rewarding, the sublimest of his
tragedies, the most exquisite of his comedies. But Shake-
speare confined himself to his vocation, and did not write
" Temples of Taste." As dramatist, Voltaire, too, could have
lived at the capital of his country ; but the drama, much as he
loved it, was really, at times, little more than the price he was
willing to pay for the opportunity to act directly upon the in-
tellect of France. It was a custom with him, all his life, when-
ever the storm howled menacingly about him, to divert public
attention and disarm prejudiced authority by producing a new
play. Twice lately he had declared his firm resolve never to
write another play : once in the preface to " Zaire," and again
in the " Temple du Gout." He laughed when the revised
" Temple du Gout " was brought to him on the day of publi-
cation, for he was just beginning a new tragedy.
That ingenious composition proved to be more than the sen-
1 62 CEuvres de Voltaire, 26 to 51,
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PUBLISHED. 293
sation of a week. "It is detested and read by all the world,"
wrote the author in 1733. It was burlesqued at the Marion-
nettes. Sick Punchinello applies to a doctor, who advises
blows with a stick, to make the patient sweat. " I have al-
ready tried that remedy," says Punchinello, " and it did me
no good." Another doctor advises purgation and lavements^
our poet's well-known remedies ; and so he finally reaches the
Temple du Gout, where he is enthroned upon a chaise pereee.
This exhibition was stopped by the police. In July, 1733, a
dramatic burlesque of the piece was given at one of the minor
theatres, wherein Voltaire himself was personated, dressed as
a Frenchman, but in an English fabric of large pattern. He
was made to talk, as an indignant spectator records, " like a
fool, a perfect ninny, full of himself, who pokes his nose into
everything, devoid of taste and judgment, finding nothing good
except his own works." The burlesque was vehemently ap-
plauded, and ran many nights. " For my part," says the spec-
tator just quoted, " my heart is pierced ; I cannot bear to see
one of the brightest spirits of France treated so." ^
The ministry, he adds, were besought to suppress this play
also, but refused, " being not unwilling to mortify a too bold
spirit, and to punish him for certain truths scattered here and
there in his works." Jordan may refer here to the new edi-
tion of his " works " published in Holland, which excited in
the author's own mind lively apprehensions. The editors, he
remarked to Cideville, have taken care, whenever there were
two readings of a passage, " to print the most dangerous and
the most hurnahle. I shall keep it out of France."
The tide still running strongly against him, he tried his de-
vice of bringing out the new play, that " Ad^ilaide du Gaes-
clin," in which once more he used a romantic French subject
of the Middle Ages, and introduced French historic names.
The very first act did not escape hissing. During the second,
when a Duke de Nemours came upon the stage wounded, his
arm in a sling, the audacity of such an approach to natural-
ness called down a storm of disapproval. In the last act,
when the Duke de Vendome said to the Sire de Couci, " Are
you content, Couci ? " a person in the pit cried out, Couci-
Couci! which is a French familiar equivalent of omt So-So.
1 Voyage Litteraire, par C. E. Jordan, page 64.
294 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
The joke gave a convenient opportunity to an audience that
was ah-eady in a very damning humor. The theatre resounded
with Couci- Couci ; the curtain went down to the hissing thun-
der of Couci- Couci ; and the piece, after one more perform-
ance, was shelved for thirty-one years. In 1765 the actors
revived it from the self-same copy, and it had a success only
less pronounced than that of " Za'ire." For the present, how-
ever, this attempt to present the France of 1387 in a romantic
light to the France of 1734 only weakened the hold of the
author upon his best protector, the public of Paris.
He was in frequent alarm during the rest of the year, for
he had now gone so far with his English Letters that at any
moment a copy might escape. The little book was published
in London, and was printing at Rouen. His letters to Thieriot,
Cideville, Jore, and Formont teem with warnings not to let
loose a sheet of the work until he gave the signal. There
were times, he explained to them, when almost anything could
be published with impunity, and there were times when the
censorship scented heresy in every doubtful word. Such a
time, he said, was then passing over them. " Tell Jore," he
kept writing to his Rouen friends, " that if one copy gets out
he will find himself in the Bastille, his Kcense forfeited, his
family ruined." Several copies, however, reached Paris early
in 1734 ; sent, perhaps, as " feelers." The author wrote to
Formont in x4pril, "The Letters philosophical, political, poet-
ical, critical, heretical, and diabolical are going off in London,
in English, with great success. But, then, the English are
Pope-scorners, cursed of God. The Galilean church, I fear,
will be a little harder to please. Jore has promised me a
fidelity proof against every temptation. I do not yet know
if there has not been some little breach in his virtue. He is
strongly suspected in Paris of having sold some copies. He
has had upon that subject a little conversation with M. He-
rault, lieutenant of police, and, by a miracle greater than all
those of Saint Paris and the Apostles, he is not in the Bas-
tille. He must, however, make up his mind to go thither some
day. It appears to me that he has a fixed vocation for that
pleasant retreat. I shall ti-y not to have the honor of accom-
panying him."
For the time the danger seemed averted, and the author
4
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PLT3LISHED. 295
was balked of his purpose to exhibit to France the spectacle
of a country governed by law. The marriage of the Duke de
Richelieu to the Princess de Guise was about to be celebrated
at Monjeu, near Autun, a hundred and fifty miles to the south-
east of Paris. This was a marriage of Voltaire's own mak-
ing, as he tells Cideville. " I conducted the affair like an in-
trigue of comedy." He also drew up the contract, notary's
son as he was, and traveled fifty leagues " to see the happy
pair put to bed," in the style of the period. With him went
the Marquise du Chatelet, a near relation of the bridegroom,
and, probably, other persons invited to the wedding.
This lady, who shared the poet's anxieties with regard to
the dreadful book, having even seen some of the proof sheets
at the author's abode in the Rue de Longpont, left a servant
in Paris with orders to mount at the first rumor of danger,
and ride with all speed to give him warning. Friends likely
to get earlier news were notified and put on the alert, particu-
larly D'Argental, for fifty years the poet's " guardian angel."
"I have a mortal aversion to a prison," wrote Voltaire to him
this spring. " I am sick, and close air would kill me."
In May, 1734, while the author was still at Monjeu, the
storm burst. All at once, no one knew whence, copies of
the book began to circulate everywhere in Paris, — a pirated
edition, with the full name of the author on the title-page !
Voltaire had sent three copies to be bound, some time before,
and at the binder's shop the work was read by a printer, who
perceived its salable nature. Penmen sat up all night ; the
whole book was copied; and, during the Richelieu honey-
moon, a large edition was printed. Appended to the work,
and designed to be bound with it, the pirate printer found a
hundred pages or more of another composition, entitled "Re-
marks upon the Thoughts of Pascal." The two works had
little in common, but they now appeared in the same volume,
a mass of heresy and good sense, of solid truth and amusing
satire. Pascal was a fascinating subject to Voltaire ; as,
indeed, he must ever be to susceptible readers, whether they
agi-ee or disagree with him. He was an example of a noble
nature perverted and prostrated by panic fear. _ As our
Pascal, Jonathan Edwards, was terrified into Calvinism by a
fever that caused him to be shaken over the pit of hell, so
296 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
this brilliant and lovely Blaise Pascal, the Edwards of France,
was made a craven Jansenist by a narrow escape from de-
struction. As he was i-iding, one day, in Paris, in a carriage
drawn by four horses, the leaders took fright, and, dashing
upon a bridge without railings, plunged into the water, and
drew the vehicle to the very edge of the bridge. The traces
broke, and no one was injured. Pascal, worn by excessive
study, nervous and weak, was paralyzed by terror, and, for
months after, he fancied that he saw an abyss yawning at
his side. Finally, all other fear was merged into one supreme
affright : Another inch^ and his soul had been eternally
damned ! No more geometry, nor Greek, nor natural science,
nor anything else profitable or pleasant. Hair shirt instead ;
an iron breastplate, with points to pierce his flesh ; cruel
fasting; abject, incessant prayers. At thirty-nine this gifted
man, a noble mind in ruins, had completed his slow suicide,
and left behind him those Thoughts of his, to assist in
giving another lease of life to the most pernicious theory of
man's duty that has ever saddened and demoralized human
nature.
Voltaire's comments were moderate and respectful in tone.
With his usual adroitness he calls his readers' attention to
the difficulties arising from accepting legends as history, rhap-
sody as prophecy, self-annihilation as virtue. Pascal says, for
example, that since there is a God we should love only Aiw,
not his creatures. Voltaire replies, " We must love his creat-
ures, and very tenderly, too, — country, wife, father, children ;
we must love them so well that God will make them love us,
whether we wish it or not." Pascal exalts the Christian re-
ligion as holy beyond comjoarison, and true beyond question.
" Think," says Voltaire, " that it was on the way to mass
that men committed the massacres of Ireland and St. Barthol-
omew ; and that it was after mass and on account of the mass
that so many innocent people, so many mothers, so many
children, were murdered in the crusade against the heretics
of the south of France. O Pascal ! Such are the results
of the endless quarrels upon the dogmas, upon the mysteries
that could have no results except quarrels. There is not an
article of faith which has not given birth to a civil war ! "
The volume containing the English Letters and the Re-
THE ENGLISH LETTERS PUBLISHED. 297
marks upon Pascal was denounced early in May, 1734. Every
copy that could be found was seized. Jore was arrested and
consigned to the Bastille ; his edition was confiscated. A
lettre de cachet was launched against Voltaire. The parlia-
ment of Paris condemned the book to be publicly burned by
the executioner; which was performed in Paris, June 10,
1734, in the manner before described. The residence of the
author was searched, its contents were thrown into confusion,
and some money was stolen from it.
May 11th, M. de la Briffe, charged with the duty of arrest-
ing the author of the offensive volume, arrived at Monjeu.
He was informed that the Duke de Richelieu was gone to the
army to join his regiment, — the regiment Richelieu, of which
the duke was colonel. As to M. de Voltaire, he had left the
chateau on Thursday last, five days before. He was gone to
Lorraine, so the officer was told, to drink the waters ; and
Lorraine was not yet part of the dominions of the King of
France. It is extremely probable that this easy opportunity
to get out of the way was intentionally afforded him. M.
de la Briffe, it is thought, was neither surprised nor sorry to
find the bird flown.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MADAME DU ChItELET AND HER CHATEAU.
An amusing page of the St. Simon Memoirs presents to
us the Baron de Breteuil, reader to Louis XIV., and after-
wards " introducer of ambassadors." This baron, though not
wanting in intellect nor in scholarship, was very much the
courtier and man of fashion ; ill informed on subjects out of
the range of the antechamber, but not the less positive on
that account in expressing his opinions. In our rough way we
should call him a conceited old bore. The Duke de St. Simon
more politely says that he was " endured and laughed at."
At the table of the minister, M. de Pontchartrain, the baron
was discoursing one day in his most fluent and confident man-
ner before a numerous company, when Madame de Pontchar-
train said to him, " With all your knowledge, I '11 bet you
don't know who composed the Lord's Prayer." The baron
laughed, and tried hard to pooh-pooh the question as too tri-
fling to be answered. Madame perceived his embarrassment,
and mercilessly pushed her advantage. He contrived to parry
her attacks until the company rose to return to the drawing-
room. On the way, M. de Caumartin, his relation, whispered
in his ear, " Moses ! " The baron at once recovered his self-
confidence, and, when the guests were seated, renewed the
topic, again insisting that he was ashamed to answer a ques-
tion so trivial. IMadame still defying him to name the author,
he said 9,t length, " There is no one who does not know that
Moses wrote the Lord's Prayer." A roar of laughter followed,
and the poor baron, as St. Simon remarks, "could no longer
find a door to get out b}^" ^ It was long before he could for-
give Caumartin, and longer before the story ceased to be one
of the standard jests of the court.
This Baron de Breteuil was the father of Madame du Chite-
1 2 Memoires de St. Simon, 145. Paris, 1873.
i
MADAME DU CHATELET AND HER CHATEAU. 209
let, wliom Voltaire accompanied to the wedding at Monjeu.
He had seen her when she was a child ; perhaps at the house
of M. de Caumartin, when he was a young fugitive from
Maitre Alain's dusty solicitor's office. She had forgotten
him, for they did not meet again until 1733, when she was a
married woman, twenty-seven years of age, the mother of
three children, namely, Pauline, seven years old, Louis, five,
and Victor, an infant, born in April of that very year, 1733.^
This lady concerned herself with the paternoster as little
as her father, and she was probably neither less fluent nor less
positive than the hero of St. Simon's anecdote. At fifteen she
began to write a translation of Virgil's " ^neid " in verse, some
jDortions of which Voltaire afterwards read, and often extolled.
From childhood she was a student and a reader. It is not-
necessary to deduct too much from the eulogium of Voltaire,
who was her lover for many years and her friend always. Her
writings show that she was a woman of some ability, and we
know from several well-authenticated anecdotes that her math-
ematical talent was extraordinary. Born in a better time and
reared amid better influences, she might have won the respect
of Europe by such work as Mrs. Somerville, Miss Herschel,
and Miss INIitchell have since performed, and left a reputation
as cheering as theirs.
Her discourse on the " Existence of God " is as good an
argument as we can ever expect from a lady who does not
perceive the graver and newer difficulties of the question.
Her opening remark has been frequently used by theologians
since her day, to the effect that God is, if possible, more neces-
sary to physical science than to moral, and ought to be the
foundation and conclusion of all scientific research. From this
she proceeds in the usual way : " Something exists, since I ex-
ist ; and since something exists, something must always have
existed." In treating the question of the origin of evil she
uses the metaphysical phrases of the century very neatly, and
the composition is one that would do credit to a New England
preceptress of a later day.
Not so madame's " Reflections upon Happiness." In order
to be happy, she tells us, we must be free from prejudices,
virtuous, in good health, capable of illusions, and have tastes
1 Lettres de la Marquise du ChStelet, Paris, 1878, pag< 8.
300 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
and passions. Rational self-indulgence is her idea of happi-
ness, which is not that of a New England preceptress. In this
treatise she breaks occasionally into autobiograj^hy : "I have
a very good constitution, but I am not robust. There are cer-
tain things which surely destroy my health, such as wine, for
example, and all sorts of liquors ; and so from my earliest
youth I have refrained from them. I have a temperament of
fire ; hence I pass the morning in drowning myself with liq-
uids. Finally, I often give myself up to the pleasures of the
table, which God has given me a capacity for ; but I make up
for those excesses by a severe regimen, which I begin the mo-
ment I feel any inconvenience, and thus I always avoid dis-
ease."
Beautiful she was not, nor well-formed. She was tall, rather
bony, with flat chest and large limbs ; but, on the other hand,
she had fine eyes and a spacious, noble forehead, abundant fine
black hair, and a pleasing cast of countenance. At twenty-
seven, when Voltaire renewed his acquaintance with her, she
was far from wanting personal charms. So Maupertuis re-
cords, who was giving her lessons in geometry at the time ; so
testifies Madame Denis, Voltaire's niece ; and so Latour, the
painter of her portrait, which still exists. They all record,
too, and the marquise herself mentions the fact, that she was
disposed to heighten the effect of her good points by all the
means which art and nature have placed within woman's reach.
She was fond of dress and decoration, fond of gaming, addicted
to all the pleasures of her time and sphere. She played very
well on the spinet, and could converse on all the topics, from
bricabrac to Newton's " Principia."
At nineteen she was married to the Marquis du Chatelet,
an officer of ancient house and dilapidated fortune, a tractable
young man, without conversation, with not the least tincture
of literature, and extremely complaisant to his wife. The gos-
sip of the day assigned her various lovers, the Duke de Riche-
lieu among the rest ; and we have many letters of hers to the
duke, written in her later life, and they certainly read like the
letters of a woman to a former lover. Neither husband nor
wife had any scruples of principle or feeling with regard to
miscellaneous amours. Like the society around them, they
had resumed the morals of primitive man.
MADAME DU CHATELET AND HER CHATEAU. 801
It was early in the summer of 1733, not later than June,
that Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet met in Paris : she, a
woman of fashion studying mathematics under Maupertuis |
and he immersed as usual in poetry and business. They soon
became warmly attached to one another. In July he ad-
dressed to her a poetical epistle upon Calumny, styling her
in the first line respectable Emilie. Then we see the lady and
her friend, the Duchess de Saint Pierre, surprising the poet
in his "hole," as he liked to call his lodgings in the Rue de
Longpont. He did his best to entertain them, extemporized
a repast of fricasseed chickens, and sent them a poetical invi-
tation to supper. She was Emilie to him henceforth as long
as she lived. " Who is Emilie ? " asks Cideville, on reading
the epistle upon Calumny. Voltaire replies, " You are Emilie
in the form of man, and she is Cideville in that of woman."
In November she was taking lessons in English. " She learned
it," wrote Voltaire, " in fifteen days. Already she translates
at sight ; she has had but five lessons of an Irish teacher. In-
deed, Madame du Chatelet is a prodigy." He began to think
that women could do whatever, men could do, and that the
only difference between them was that women were more ami-
able. "My little system," he styled this novel opinion.
What of the Marquis du Chatelet? Nothing at all. He
viewed this enthusiastic friendship with an equanimity that
was never disturbed. During their liaison of sixteen years,
this docile and tolerant soldier frequented his abode quite as
usual, and remained on the most cordial terms with a poet
who lent him money, and drew the fire of a wife perhaps op-
pressively superior. All this, I repeat, being simply incon-
ceivable to persons of our race, it were useless to expend words
upon it. These people had amended one of the ancient com-
mandments by striking out the word not, and adding, " but
thou shalt commit no indecorum." Voltaire obeyed this lat-
ter amendment with ingenious consistency as long as he lived.
It is a wonder how children were brought up under this
new dispensation. Many of them were reared by good and
faithful servants who adhered to the old dispensation. Some
had the ill luck of Talleyrand, whose mother scarcely saw him
during his infancy, and who came back to her from his nurse
lamed for life. Not a few, doubtless, had the fat^ which be-
802 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
fell the infant of tlie Marquise da Cliatelet. We have a note
of hers, written on a Sunday evening in January, 1734, to
Maupertuis, her professor of mathematics, which explains what
that fate was : " My son died to-night, monsieur. I avow to
you that I am extremely afflicted at it, and I shall not go out,
as you may well believe. If you wish to come to console me,
YOU will find me alone. I refuse to admit company, but I feel
that there is no time when it will not give me extreme pleas-
ure to see you."
In April, 1734, as we have seen, she accompanied Voltaire
to the Chateau de Saint-Blaise, near Autun, the abode of
the Prince de Guise, where she witnessed the marriage of a
princess of the house to the Duke de Richelieu. It was a
honeymoon to two pairs of lovers, those weeks spent at the
magnificent chateau of the Guises. She wrote to Maupertuis
that, between Voltaire and the amiable Duchess de Richelieu,
she was passing blissful da3S, and that nothing was wanting
to her happiness but her daily lesson in geometry. The sol-
diers departed at length for the army, leaving to the ladies
the full enjoyment of their poet. Dread rumors from Paris
arrived to trouble the peace of this Arcadia, and soon a hint
came direct from the cabinet of a minister that the author of
the English Letters would do well to leave the Chateau de
Saint-Blaise, and " absent himself." He acted upon this hint,
and left two ladies inconsolable. The marquise and himself
had intended to return to Paris in three weeks, and now, in a
moment, they were separated, perhaps never again to meet in
France. For some days she thought that probably the lattre
de cachet had overtaken him, and that he was actually con-
fined in the fortress of Auxonne, to which it consigned him.
"If he was in England," she wrote to a friend, May 12th, "I
should be less to be pitied. I love my friends with some dis-
interestedness. His companionship would make the happi-
ness of my life ; his safety would make its tranquillity. But
to know that he, with such health and imagination as he has,
is in a prison, I assure you, I do not find in myself constancy
enough to support the idea. Madame de Richelieu is my |j
only consolation, — a charming woman, with a heart capable
of friendship and gratitude. She is, if possible, more afflicted
than I am ; for she owes to him her marriage, the happiness
of her life."
MADAME DU CHATELET AND HER CHATEAU. 303
News from the fugitive reassured her ; at least he was not
in a fortress. But the minister was adamant ; the parliament
of Paris was burning the terrible little book ; there was small
hope of the author ever being permitted to live again in
France. " I shall retire at once to my chateau," wrote the
marquise. " Men have become insupportable ; so false are
they, so unjust, so full of prejudices, so tyrannical."
Meanwhile she used her knowledge of court and cabinet in
his behalf. Born and reared at court, she knew what woman
governed each powerful man, what man controlled each influ-
ential woman, and how all these were to be reached. She
brought to bear her connection, the Duchess d'Aiguillon, upon
the Princess de Conti, who had great weight with an adaman-
tine Keeper of the Seals ; and, in consequence, better news
came from Paris. Hope revived. If Voltaire would disavow
the offensive book, the lettre de cachet might be canceled, and
the storm blow over. It never cost Voltaire the most mo-
mentary scruple to disavow anything that had a savor of the
Bastille in it. His disavowals never deceived one human be-
ing, least of all the ministry that demanded them. They were
not intended nor expected to deceive. On this occasion he
disavowed, as Madame du Chatelet remarked, " with affecting
docility." If she refers to his letter of May, 1734, to the
interceding Duchess d'Aiguillon, she uses undescriptive lan-
guage.
" They say I must retract," he wrote to the amiable duchess.
" Very willingly. I will declare that Pascal is always right ;
that if St. Luke and St. Mark contradict one another it is a
proof of the truth of religion to those who know well how to
take things ; that another lovely proof of religion is that it is
unintelligible. I will avow that all priests are gentle and dis-
interested ; that Jesuits are honest people ; that monks are
neither proud, nor given to intrigue, nor stinking; that the
holy inquisition is the triumph of humanity and tolerance.
In a word, I will say all that may be desired of me, provided
they will leave me in repose, and not indulge the mania to
persecute a man who has never done harm to any one, who
lives in retirement, and who knows no other ambition but that
of paying court to you. It is certain, besides, that the edition
was published in spite of me, that many things lave been
304 LIFE OF VOLTAIEE.
added to it, and that I have done all that was humanly possi-
ble to discover the publisher. Permit me, madame, to renew
my thanks and prayers. The favor I ask of the minister is
that he will not deprive me of the honor of seeing you. It is
a favor for which I should not know how to importune him too
much."
Other friends joined their efforts. Madame du Deffand
wrought upon M. de Maurepas. The Princess de Conti, the
Duchess du Maine, the Duchess de Villars, the Duchess de
Richelieu, and other ladies plied their arts and employed
their influence, the poet himself ever writing as he flew. The
pursuit was relaxed, and Madame du Chatelet was so far re-
assured as to be able to resume her geometry. She told her
Maupertuis that he would find her just where he had left
her, having forgotten nothing and learned nothing, but cher-
ishing the same desire to make a progress in geometry worthy
of such a master. She had taken up a treatise by Guisnee
upon the application of algebra to geometry, but could make
nothing of it, and was impatient for his assistance. " You
sow flowers upon a road where others find only ruts. Your
imagination knows how to embellish the driest subjects with-
out taking from them their accuracy and precision. I feel
how much I should lose if I did not profit by your goodness
in condescending to my weakness, and in teaching me truths
so sublime almost in jesting. I feel that I shall always have
over you the advantage of having studied under the most
amiable and, at the same time, the most profound mathema-
tician in the world."' In many letters of this period she pours
forth the warmest expressions of gratitude and affection for
her instructor ; scolding him also, now and then, for not
Avriting to her oftener than once a week, and failing some-
times to comiC to her suppers in Paris. In June, she went to
Versailles to continue her efforts on behalf of the wanderer,
and passed the summer near the court. She was one of the
ladies whose rank gave them the right of tambour with the
queen ; that is, the right of sitting on a stool in the queen's
presence, a tremendous privilege, to get which women schemed
for a life-time, and " jumped the life to come."
The fugitive, where was he ? The nobility of a French
province were a family party, inhabiting various chateaux, but
MADAME DU ChItELET AND HER CHATEAU. 305
connected by all the ties of blood, usage, and interest. During
the pleasant weeks of May and June, the poet moved about
from chateau to chateau once more, always near the border,
constantly advised of possible danger by madame la marquise,
and obeying her injunctions with " affecting docility." He
spent some days at Cirey, in Champagne, where the Du
Chatelets had an old chateau ; and while there he heard news
that drew his attention from his own affairs, and changed the
direction of his thoughts. The Duke de Richelieu, on re-
joining his regiment before Philipsburgh (now Udenheim)
in Baden, met some of his new relatives of the house of
Guise, two of whom, the Prince de Lixin and the Prince de
Pons, had refused to sign the marriage contract. They ob-
jected to a marriage negotiated by a poet as he would have
arranged a marriage in the last act of a comedy. An alter-
cation occurred, ending in a duel between the bridegroom and
M. de Lixin. The rumor reached Voltaire that the Prince
de Lixin had died upon the field, and that the Duke de Riche-
lieu was severely wounded, perhaps mortally. He hastened
to the camp, appalled at such a tragic ending of his comedy.
He found both combatants in \evy good condition ; at least,
not seriously damaged, and able to bear the hardships of wiar.
Colonel the Duke de Richelieu was" making war in the true
Xerxes manner, with a personal train of seventy mules, thirty
horses, and a proportionate number of servants. Other great
lords were similarly equipped. The author, proscribed at
Paris, was received with enthusiasm at the camp, where he
was feted by princes and marshals, and where, perhaps, he
tasted the provisions supplied by Duverney and Voltaire,
contractors. The ministry, supposing that his visit to the
army was of the nature of a bravado, hardened towards him
again, and Madame du Ch^telet advised him to cut his visit
short. The siege, moreover, was becoming more active than
was convenient to visitors.
" The troops show great ardor [he wrote to a lady of Cirey, July
1st]. It is astonishing. We swear we will beat the Prince Eugene ;
we are not afraid of him ; but, notwithstanding, we intrench to the
teeth ; we have lines, a ditch, pits, and another ditch in advance, —
a new invention, which looks very pretty and very well contrived to
break the necks of people who come to attack our lines. All the
VOL. I. 20 , ■''
306 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
indications are that the Prince Eugene is going to attempt the pas-
sage of the pits and the ditches about four in the morning, to-morrow,
Friday, the day of the Virgin. He is said to be much devoted to
Mary, and she is likely to side with him against our general, who is
a Jansenist. You are aware, madame, that you Jansenists are sus-
pected not to be sufficiently devoted to the Virgin ; you ridicule the
society of Jesuits, and Paradise opened to Philagie hy one hundred
and one Devotions to the Mother of God. We shall see to-morrow
for whom victory will declare itself. Meanwhile, we cannonade one
another powerfully. The lines of our camp are fringed by eighty
pieces of cannon, which are beginning to play. Yesterday we finished
carrying a certain horn-work, half of which M. de Belle-Isle had
already taken. Twelve officers of the guards were wounded at that
cursed work. Behold, madame, human folly in all its glory and all
its horror ! I intend to leave forthwith the sojourn of bombs and
bullets."
Toward the end of July, after a merry visit of two or three
weeks, he left the camp, and returned to his " hiding-place ;"
for so he called the dilapidated old castle belonging to the
Marquis du Chatelet, in Champagne, — " my chateau," to which
madame la marquise threatened to retire from contact with
prejudiced, proud, and tyrannical men. The lady had rarely,
if ever, lived in this sequestered relic of the thirteenth cent-
ury. It "was, indeed, scarcely inhabitable without extensive
repairs, which the family could not afford. The marquis had
IK) great income for his rank ; and he had a wife fond of play
and pleasure ; he had two children ; he had a lawsuit of eighty
years' standing ; he belonged to an army of which a colonel
could take to the field a retinue of one hundred animals and
thirty servants. At the best, the chateau of Cirey would not
naturally have been an inviting abode to a lady accustomed
from infancy to the magnificences of Versailles and the charms
of Fontainebleau. Suddenly, however, the old castle near the
border (and because it was near the border) became an object
of extreme interest to madame, to her poet, and to a complai-
sant husband.
A dream of a place in the country, a lodge in some accessi-
ble, well-kept, pleasant wilderness, where glorious things could
be composed in peace and love, far from the distractions
of the world, floats ever before the minds of the toil-worn
votaries of literature. " I have a passion for retirement,"
MADAME DU CHItELET AND HER CHiXEAU. 307
Voltaire repeats many times. " I am a fawn, out of place
except in sylvan scenes," he writes more than once. He truly
loved the country, as actors love it, as many other men love it
whose occupations are extremely remote from country'- things
and ways. The idea now occurred to convert this ancient
abode of the Du Chatelets into such a retreat as he had loncred
for, to which all of them could remove, the marquis, madame,
the children, and the poet, making it their chief abode ; where
a persecuted author could write immortal works, and a lady
of great intellect could study mathematics and compose trea-
tises on the Existence of a Supreme Being. So thought, so
done. Voltaire had the honor of lending the marquis forty
thousand francs for repairs, at an interest of five per cent.,
not paid, and the work of reparation was begun at once.^
Cirey-sur-Blaise (there are six Cireys in France) is a hard
place to find, whether you look for it on the map or in the
department of Haute-Marne, as that part of the old province
of Champagne is now called. A part of the old chateau still
stands, and belongs to the estate of a descendant of the Du
Chatelets, the late Marquis de Damas. In 1863, the historian,
George Grote, gave up the project of a pilgrimage to it.
" We next," records Mrs. Grote, " made a detour for the ex-
press purpose of visiting the Chateau de Cirey, dear to us
both as the residence, a century ago, of Voltaire and Madame
du Chatelet. But in this pious pilgrimage we were defeated
by the difficulty of obtaining any manner of conveyance to
Cirey. We got within sixteen English miles of it at Joinville ;
from which pleasant village we could find neither cart nor
carriage for love or money during our stay." ^ They should
have gone to Chaumont-sur-Marne, the chief town of the de-
partment, a city of seven thousand inhabitants, the centre of
the iron trade and of the iron manufacture of that iron-
yielding region. The landlord of the " Ecu de France " would
probably have been only too happy to provide a vehicle for
illustrious English travelers.
It Avas already a land of forges and iron mines when Voltaire
went into hiding there in the summer of 1734, the famous
wine country lying a little to the north of it, and showing such
1 Voltaire to Comtesse de Montrcvel, November 15, 1749. 72 (Euvres, 92.
2 Personal Life of George Grote, by Mrs. Grote, page 270.
308 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
names as Sillery, Epernay, Verzenay, and others that now
figure on the labels of wine bottles. Around Cirey the coun-
try is generally hard and uninteresting, as beseems a region
that supplies France with iron, charcoal, marble, grindstones,
glass, building stone, and a thousand articles of cutlery and
iron ware. The chi,teau had only its great antiquity, its
romantic aspect, and its great size to recommend it; an
extensive edifice, with a chapel and all the other appurte-
nances of a feudal residence of the time of the Crusades, but
with scarcely a window or door capable of keeping out wind
and rain. A few thousand francs, expended by a man who
knows how to get a franc's worth for every franc, will make
some corners of an old chateau inhabitable, and this was done
at Cirey. He began the work in August, 1734, while Ma-
dame du Chatelet was still at court ameliorating ministers.
In the absence of the lord and lady of the chateau he was
very much the grand seigneur ; at least, he played the part
with grace and effect. " I take the liberty of sending you
a boar's head," he writes to a neighbor, the Countess de
la Neuville, " This monsieur has just been assassinated, in
order to give me an opportunity of paying my court to you."
I sent for a buck, but none could be found. This boar was
destined to give you his head. I swear to you that I think
very little of the head of a wild pig, and I believe it is only
eaten from vanity. If I had taken nothing but a lark, I
should have offered it to you, all the same." In return, the
countess sends the lord ^:)ro tern, a basket of peaches. He is
occupied, meanwhile, with leads for the roof, with fire-places,
carriage-ways, chimney-pots, surrounded by masons and heaps
of old plaster. New workmen arrive. " I write their names
every day in a large account-book ; I cannot leave the chateau
until some one comes to relieve me." But he could write
verses for the ladies and retouch his opera of " Samson" for
Rameau in the midst of chaos. If the warning comes from
Paris, he can skip over the border. He did so in October,
and went as far as Brussels, returning, after a few weeks'
absence, to welcome Madame du Chatelet, who was coming to
join him.
Chaos itself was now confused. On a certain day in Novem-
ber arrived from Paris " two hundred packages," harbingers
MADAME DU CH^TELET AND HER ChItEAU. 309
of the lady of the chateau. Next came a letter from her,
saying that she had been detained, and could not come as
soon as she had appointed. Lastly, at the close of the day,
in the midst of all this litter, madame herself arrived, "in a
kind of two-horse cart," bruised, shaken, tired, but very well.
She found that, if much had been done, more remained to do :
beds without curtains, rooms without windows, closets full of
old china, but no easy-chairs, beautiful vehicles and no horses
to draw them, an abundance of ancient tapestry hanging in
tatters. She entered upon the work of restoration with zest,
and speedily undid much that her poet had done. " She has
windows put," he wrote to Madame de la Neuville, " where I
had made doors. She changes stairs into chimneys, and
chimneys into stairs. She has lindens planted where I had
proposed elms, and if I had laid out a vegetable garden she
turns it into flower beds. Besides this, she does fairy work
in her house. She converts rags into tapestry, and finds the
secret of furnishing Cirey out of nothing." Several weeks
were spent in work of this kind, and gradually portions of
" the most dilapidated chateau on earth," as Voltaire called it,
became inhabitable and presentable. He had bought a valua-
ble picture, now and then, of late years as opportunity offered,
and thus he was able to hang a considerable number of fine
works upon these ancient walls. Horses were procured ; and
soon madame had, among other carriages, " a little phaeton as
light as a feather, drawn by horses as big as elephants."
At Christmas she was at Paris again, attending " the mid-
night mass " with Maupertuis, and taking him home with her
to supper, after that festivity. She was there to be near
Madame de Richelieu in her confinement, and to effect the
canceling of the lettre de cachet. She passed the first weeks
of 1735 between the bedside of the duchess and the cabinet
of M. de Maurepas, with happy results both to the lady and
the poet. March 2, 1735, the lieutenant of police wrote to
"Voltaire a letter worthy of a " paternal government " : —
" His Eminence and Monsieur the Keeper of the Seals have
charged me, monsieur, to inform you that you are at liberty
to return to Paris whenever you think proper. This permis-
sion is given on condition that you will occupy yourself here
with objects which shall afford no grounds of complaint against
310 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
you, like those of the past. The more talent you have, mon-
sieur, the more you ought to feel that you have enemies and
jealous competitors. Shut their mouths, then, forever, by a
course of conduct worthy of a wise man and of a man who
has now reached a certain age."
This epistle, which found him still immersed in the details
of reparation, had no effect upon the scheme of retirement.
He showed himself in Paris for a few weeks in the spring, to
notify friends and enemies that he was free to come and go
like other men. He knew that Paris could not then be a safe
place of I'esidence for him ; and even during this short stay
rumors reached him of the currency of portions of his " Pu-
celle.'" There were lines in that burlesque which, under De
Fleury and Maurepas, might have doomed the author to one
of the wet dungeons of the Bastille. He withdrew in haste,
and, after spending some time in Lorraine, returned to Cirey
to continue the battle with chaos. He did not enjoy it. " I
am worried with details. So afraid am I of making bad bar-
gains, and so tired of urging on the workmen, that I have
asked for a man to help me." But no day passed without its
verse. In December, 1734, he could tell Cideville that, during
the eight months of his " retreat," he had written " three or
four thousand verses," and he sent to D'Argental a portion of
the same in the form of a new traged}-, " Alzire."
Cirey was his home henceforth as long as Madame du Cha-
telet lived. He often fled from it at the rumor of danger. He
sometimes remained for considerable periods at Paris and else-
where ; but Cirey was his home, to which he removed the
works of art and curiosity, the books and memoranda, that he
had accumulated in a life of forty years. He lived there, as far
as visitors could usually discern, very much as an uncle might,
— one of those good uncles who, having missed a happiness of
their own, share by enhancing that of a brother or a sister; an
uncle who has plenty of money, and gives watches to his neph-
ews and nieces on their sixteenth birthday, and suddenly ap-
pears on the lawn, of a May morning, leading rapture in the
guise of a pony. In the absence of visitors, the marquise
and himself spent laborious days in study and composition,
each remaining alone for seven and eight hours of the day, and
meeting in the evening at the French sacrament of supper.
MADAME DU CHATELET AND HER CHATEAU. 811
When a poet settled in the country, he was expected to dig-
nify his abode with inscriptions, and he usually fulfilled this
expectation. Voltaire's first attempt — a Latin couplet, as
written in a letter to a friend — contained errors that have
since given much consolation to clerical critics. It was de-
signed for a small addition to the chateau which he had caused
to be built, and which in this couplet he called casa^ making
both its syllables long. In the ancient republic of letters this
was a capital offense. If Mr. Grote had pushed on to Cirey,
he might have discovered that, before having the inscription
engraved, Voltaire corrected the error. It reads thus upon
one of the doors of the old chateau : —
" H«c ingens incoepta domus fit parva ; sed sevum
Degitur hie felix et bene, magna sat est."i
Two other inscriptions, one in Latin and one in French,
were until recently to be seen upon the door of a gallery which
he built for philosophical apparatus. The Latin inscription,
witty in itself, is also amusing for its observance of the estab-
lished decorum of the chateau. The masculine gender is as-
signed to the " lover of virtue, the despiser of the vulgar and
the court, the cultivator of friendship, who, withdrawn to his
estate, was hiding a poet." The world was invited to take
note that it was a marquis who hid the poet, not Madame la
Marquise.
" Hic virtutis amans, vulgi contemptor et aulse,
Cultor amicitice vates liitet abditus aaro."
A French inscription was placed under this, and may have
been engraved there a little later : —
"Asile des beaux-arts, solitude ou mon coeur
Est toujours occiipe daus une paix profonde,
C'est vous qui donnez le bonheur
Que promettiait en vain le monde."^
He had an unequaled facility in the trifles of poetry, many
of which are so happy that, even in a prose translation, they
are not devoid of interest. During the first year or two of
his settlement at Cirey he composed a great number of inscrip-
^ 1 This house, begun on a vast scale, becomes small ; but time passes here hap-
pily and well ; it is large enough.
2 Asylum of the fine arts, solitude in which my heart is always occupied in
profound peace, it is you that give the happiness which the world would promise
in vain. f
312 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
tions, impromptus, epigrams, snatches of verse in letters, com-
pliments to ladies at table, satirical couplets, and rhymed invi-
tations. I select two or three, not usually accessible except
to inhabitants of cities. He winds up an invitation thus : —
" Certain vin frais, dont la mousse pressee
De la bouteille avec force elancee,
Avec eclat fait Yoler le bouchon ;
II part, on rit, il frappe le plafond.
De ce nectar I'e'cume petillante
De nos Fran9ais est I'image briilante." ^
The following is upon the chateau of Cirey : —
" Un voyageur, qui ne mentit jamais,
Passe a Cirei, I'admire, le contemple ;
II croit d'abord que ce n'est qu'un palais ;
Mais il voit Emilie. Ah ! dit-il, c'est un temple." ^
This was addressed to Madame du Chatelet upon his seeing
her deep in algebra : —
" Sans doute voiis serez celebre
Par les grands calculs de I'algebre
Oil votre esprit est absorbe :
J'oserais m'y livrer moi-merae :
Mais, helas ! A + D — B
N'est pas == a je vous aime." ^
One addressed to an officer who had some of his hair cut off
by a cannon ball at a siege, and was not promoted for it, was
much celebrated at the time : —
" Des boulets allemands la pesante tempete
A, dit-on, coupe' vos cheveux :
Les gens d'esprit sont fort heureux
Qu'elle ait respecte votre tete.
On pretend que Cesar, le phenix des guerriers,
N'ayant plus de cheveux, se coiffa de lauriers :
Cet ornement est beau, mais n'est plus de ce monde.
Si Cesar nous etait rendu,
Et qu'en servant Louis il eut ete tondu,
II n'y gagnerait rien qu'une perruque blonde." *
1 A certain cool wine, the confined froth of which shot from the bottle with
force, makes the cork fly ; it starts, we laugh, it hits the ceiling. The sparkling
foam of this nectar is the brilliant image of our Frenchmen.
2 A traveler, who never lies, passes by Cirey, admires it, contemplates it. At
first he believes it is only a palace ; but he sees Emilie. " Ah," he says, " it is a
temple."
8 Doubtless you will become famous through the grand calculations of algebra
in which your mind is absorbed. I should dare to devote myself to them ; but,
alas ! A plus D minus B is not equal to / love you.
* The weighty tempest of German bullets has, they say, cut your hair. Men
of letters are very glad it respected your head. It is said that Caesar, the phoenix
MADAME DU CIiItELET AND HER ChItEAU. 313
It were easy to fill ten pages of this volume from the light
and sparkling verses of this period, if not from those addressed
to Madame du Chatelet alone. I yield to the temptation of
copying one more, upon Idleness, which was written to rouse
the idle Linant to exertion, but written in vain : —
" Connaissez mieux I'oisivete :
EUe est ou folie ou sagesse ;
Elle est vertu dans la richcsse,
Et vice dans la pauvrete.
On peut jouir en paix, dans I'hiver de sa yie,
De ces fruits qu'au printemps sema notre Industrie :
Courtisans de la gloire, e'crivains ou guerriers,
Le sommeil est permis, mais c'est sur des lauriers." i
of warriors, having lost his hair, covered his head with laurels. That ornament
is beautiful, but no longer in fashion. If Caasar were restored to us, and if, while
serving Louis, he had been shorn, he would gain nothing by it but a blonde
peruke.
1 Understand idleness better. It is either folly or wisdom; it is virtue in
wealth and vice in poverty. In the winter of our life, we can enjoy in peace the
fruits which in its spring our industry planted. Courtiers of glory, writers or
warriors, slumber is permitted you, but only upon laurels.
CHAPTER XXIX.
MAN OF BUSINESS.
To almost any man of letters it would have been a disad-
vantage to live a hundred and forty miles from the capital.
With such roads and vehicles as they had then in France, it
was usually a journey of three or four days from Cirey to
Paris, and might be one of five or six. The chateau was lit-
erally " twelve miles from a lemon ; " but a coach from Paris
appears to have passed near it two or three times a week, and
there were villages four or five miles distant. Chaumont and
Joinville, either of which might have sometimes furnished a
lemon, were from twelve to sixteen miles away. Another dif-
ficulty was that all letters intrusted to the mail were liable to
be opened, and the letters of Voltaire were sure to be. He
was more than an author: he was importer, merchant, con-
tractor, speculator, capitalist, money-lender ; and he was now
buried alive in the depths of Champagne, reputed to be the
most provincial province of France ! " Ninety -nine sheep and
one Champagne man make a hundred beasts," says the old
French proverb.
To his other labors were to be added those of a student and
experimenter in science, a fashion then in Europe, and he
cultivated this new field with his own ardor and tenacity.
Every week he wanted something from Paris ; every day some
interest of his required intelligent attention. The literary
news was necessary to him. Frequently he needed informa-
tion from brother chemists and philosophers upon some point
not yet elucidated in books. Often he wanted books hard to
find, materials little known, apparatus not kept for sale. All
this business he managed with that ease, tact, and success
which usually marked his direction of mundane things.
Among his acquaintances at the capital there was a certain
Abbd Moussinot, a kind of clerical notary, who conducted the
MAN OF BUSINESS. 315
business affairs of his chapter, who knew how to "place" and
how to collect money, and who speculated a little on his own
account in pictures and rare objects. For eight years or more
Voltaire had had dealings with him, had bought pictures of
him, had employed him in transactions and negotiations, and
had found him intelligent, prompt, faithful, secret. It was
through this shrewd, obliging, and silent abb^ that he kept
open lines of communication with his base of supplies dur-
ing the first years of his residence at Cirey. There is nothing
in the vast range of his correspondence more characteristic than
his familiar letters to the Abbe Moussinot, of which we possess
about one hundred and fifty. Before entering upon his intel-
lectual life in Champagne, his most brilliant, fertile, and effect-
ive period, I will seize the opportunity of presenting him to
the reader as man of business. The most agreeable way of
doing this will be simply to translate a few of these letters,
and leave the reader to make his own comments and deduc-
tions. It is only necessary to bear in mind that, while he was
writing these letters and managing an estate of sixty thou-
sand francs a year, he was the most diligent and absorbed lit-
erary man in Europe, the dramatist of his age, the most pro-
ductive of living authors, who was making wide and peculiar
researches in history, ancient and modern, and was full of the
new zeal for scientific experiment. He was also a correspond-
ent punctual and profuse; and when a visitor arrived at the
chateau he could appear wholly the man of pleasure, and ar-
range a series of entertainments that made life pass like a
dream of festivity.
LETTERS FROM VOLTAIRE TO THE ABBiE MOUSSINOT.
[March 21, 1736.] " My dear Abbe, — I love your strong-box a
thousand times better than that of a notary ; there is no one in the
world whom I trust as I do you ; you are as intehigent as you are
virtuous. You were made to be the soHcitor-general of the order of
the Jansenists, for you know that they call their union the Order ; it
is their cant; every community, every society, has its cant. Consider,
then, if you are willing to take charge of the funds of a man who is
not devout, and to do from friendship for that undevout man what
you do for your chapter as a duty. You will be able in this way to
make some good bargains in buying pictures ; yon will borrow from
me some of the money in your strong-box. My affairs, as you know,
316 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
are very easy and very simple ; you will be my superintendent wher-
ever I may be myself; you will speak for me, and in your own name,
to the Villars, to the Richelieus, to the D'Estaings, to the Guises, to
the Guebriants, to the D'Auneuils, to the Lezeaux, and to other illus-
trious debtors of your friend. When a man speaks for his friend he
asks justice ; when it is I who solicit that justice, I have the air of
asking a favor, and it is this that I wish to avoid. This is not all :
you will act as my plenipotentiary, whether for my pensions payable
by M. Paris-Duverney, by INI. Tannevot, first clerk of the finances,
or for the interest due me from the H6tel-de-Ville, from Arouet, my
brother, as well as for the bonds and money which I have at differ-
ent notaries. You will have, my dear abbe, carte-hlanche for all that
which concerns me, and everything will be conducted in the greatest
secrecy. Write me word if this charge is agreeable to you. Mean-
while, I pray you to send your frotteur to find a young man named
Baculard d' Arnaud : ^ he is a student in philosophy at the College
of Harcourt ; he lives in the Rue Mouffetard. Give him, I beg you,
this little manuscript [the "Epistle upon Calumny"], and make him
from me a little present of twelve francs. I entreat you not to neg-
lect this small favor which I ask you ; this manuscript will be sold
for his advantage. I embrace you with all my heart ; love me al-
ways, and, especially, let us bind the bonds of our friendship closer
by mutual confidence and reciprocal services."
[May 22, 1736.] " To punish you, my dear friend, for not having
sent to find the young Baculard d' Arnaud, student in philosophy at
the College of Harcourt, and living with M. Delacroix, Rue Mouffe-
tard, — to punish you, I say, for not having given him the ' Epistle
upon Calumny ' and twelve francs, I condemn you to give him a louis
d'or, and to exhort him from me to learn to write, which will con-
tribute to his fortune. This is a little work of charity which, whether
Christian or mundane, must not be neglected I expect news
from you with impatience, and I embrace you with all my heart. I
write to this young D' Arnaud. Instead of twenty-four francs, give
him thirty livres when he comes to see you. I am going to seal my
letter quick for fear that I augment the sum. Received thirty livres.
Signed, Bacidard d" Arnaud." ^
[September, 1736.] " Thirty-five thousand francs for tapestries of
the ' Henriade ' ! That is much, my dear treasurer. It would be
necessary, before all, to know how much the tapestry of Don Quixote
sold for ; it would be necessary, especially before commencing, that
M. de Richelieu should pay me my fifty thousand francs. Let us sus-
1 Voltaire's literary correspondent at Paris.
2 Lettres de Voltaire a I'Abbe JMoussinot. Paris, 1875, page 6.
IMAN OF BUSINESS. 317
pend, then, every project of tapestry, and let M. Oudri do nothing
without more ample information. Buy for me, my dear abbe, a little
table which may serve at once as screen and writing-desk, and send it
in my name to the house of Madame de Winterfield,^ Rue Platriere.
Still another pleasure. There is a Chevalier de Mouhi, who lives at
the Hotel Dauphin, Rue des Orties ; this chevalier wishes to borrow
of me a hundred pistoles, and I am very willing to lend them to him.
Whether he comes to your house, or whether you go to his, I pray
you to say to him that I take pleasure in obliging literary men when I
can, but that I am actually very much embarrassed in my affairs ; that
nevertheless you will do all you can to find this money, and that you
hope the reimbursement will be secured in such a way that there will
be nothing to risk ; after which you will have the goodness to inform
me who this chevalier is, as well as the result of these preliminaries.
Eifrhteen francs to the little D'Arnaud. Tell him I am sick and can-
not write. Pardon all these trifles. I am a very tedious dabbler, but
I love you with all my heart." ,
[July 30, 1736.] "The little table with a screen, which I asked
you to buy for Madame de Winterfield, Rue Platriere, near Saint-
Jacques, is a trifle. It must be very simple and a very good bar-
gain."
[Summer, 1736.] " Oudri, my dear abbe, appears to me expen-
sive ; but if he makes two sets of hangings, can we not have them a
little cheaper ? I might be able even to have three of them made.
If M. de Richelieu pays me, it will be well for me to invest my money
in that way. The countenance of Henry IV. and that of Gabrielle
d'Estrees in tapestry will succeed very well. Good Frenchmen will
wish to have some Gabrielles and Henrys, especially if the good
Frenchmen are rich. "VVe are not very rich ourselves, just now ; but
the holy time of Christmas will give us, I hope, some consolation.
Cannot Chevalier come to Cirey to execute under my own eyes de-
signs from the ' Henriade ' ? Does he know enough of his art for
that ? They speak well of him, but he has not yet sufficient reputa-
tion to be unteachable. It is said there is at Paris a man who draws
portraits to be worn in rings in a perfect manner. I have seen a face
of Louis XV. of his doing, which was an excellent likeness. Have
the goodness, my dear abbe, to disinter this man. You will find it
impertinent that the same hand should paint the king and poor me;
but friendship wishes it, and I obey friendship.^ The Chevalier de
1 This was Oliinpe Duiioycr, the young lady with whom Voltaire was in love
during his first residence in Holland, in 1713.
2 The artist in question was Barrier, an engraver of precious stones, who made
a ring portrait of Voltaire for Madame du Chatelet soon/'^ter the date of this
letter.
318 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Mouhi, then, will send twice a week to Cirey the gossip of Paris. En-
join it upon him to be infinitely secret ; give him a hundred crowns,
and promise him a payment once a month, or every three months, as
he prefers. I treat you, my dear friend, as I beg you will treat me.
I should be glad to be so happy as to receive some orders from you."
[October 27, 1736.] " I could wish, my dear and faithful treasurer,
to have, under the greatest secrecy, some ready money deposited with
a discreet and faithful notary, which he could place at interest for a
time, and which, if necessary, I could get back without delay. The
sum would be fifty thousand francs, and perhaps more. Are you not
acquainted with a notary in whom you could confide ? The whole
would be in your name. I am very much discontented with M. Fer-
ret ; he has two excellent qualities for a public man, he is brutal and
indiscreet Have the goodness to give another louis d'or to
D'Arnaud. Tell him then to have himself called simply D'Arnaud ;
that is a fine Jansenist name ; Baculard is ridiculous."
[February, 1737.] " I find myself, my dear treasurer, in the situa-
tion of always having before me a large sum of money to dispose
of. Your letters will be henceforth addressed to Madame d'Azilli, at
Cirey. Put nothing in them too clearly which might reveal that it is
I to whom you write. I find my obscurity convenient. I wish to
have no correspondence with any one ; I pretend to be ignored of all
the world except you, whom I love with all my heart, and whom I
beg very earnestly to find me a literary correspondent who will give
me news with exactness, and whom you will leave in ignorance of my
retreat."
[March 18, 1737.] " The principal of the debt of M. de Riche-
lieu is 46,417 livres ; date. May 5, 1735."^
[March, 1737.] " I am very glad, my dear correspondent, that
M. Berger thinks I am in England. I am there for all the world ex-
cept you. Send, I pray you, a hundred louis d'or to M. the Marquis
du Chatelet, who will bring them to me. Now, my dear abbe, are
you willing that I should speak to you frankly ? It is necessary for
you to do me the favor of accepting every year a little honorarium,
merely as a mark of my friendship. Let us not beat about the bush.
You have a small salary from your canons ; treat me as a chapter ;
take twice as much every year from your friend, the poet-philosopher,
as your cloister gives you ; this without prejudice to the gratitude
which I shall always cherish. Arrange this and love me."
[April, 1737.] "I repeat to you, my tender friend, my urgent
request not to speak of my affairs to any one, and especially to say
that I am in England. I have the very strongest reasons for that.
1 Lettres de Voltaire a I'Abbd Moussinot. Paris, 1775, page 26.
MAN OF BUSINESS. 319
In the present critical situation of my affairs, it would be very im-
prudent for me to embark in the commerce with Piiiega a large sum,
which would be too long in yielding returns. Therefore, let us not
invest in that commerce more than four or five thousand francs for
our amusement ; a like sum in pictures, which will amuse you still
more. The paper of the farmers-general brings in six per cent, a
year ; it is the surest investment of money. Amuse yourself again
in that. Buy some bonds. That merchandise will fall in a short
time ; at least, I think so ; that is another honest recreation for a
canon ; and I leave to your intelligence everything that relates to
those amusements. Besides, let us put into the hands of M. Michel,
whose probity and fortune you know, one half of our ready money at
five per cent., and not more ; were it only for six months, that would
produce something. In the matter of interest nothing must be neg-
lected, and in investing our money we must always conform to the
law of the prince. Let all that, like my other affairs, be a profound
secret. Still eighteen francs to D'Arnaud, and two ' Henriades.'
I see that I give you more trouble than all your chapter, but I shall
not be so ungrateful."
[April 14, 1737.] " M. the Abbe de Breteuil has come here. He
is in quest of some engravings for his rooms ; if I have still half a
dozen pretty enough, you will do me, my dear friend, the favor to
send them. You will have the goodness to send with them a word
or two, in the way of a note, to the effect that, having recommended
that the engravings of mine which are left should be presented to him,
you have but these, and he is requested to accept them. Besides the
two thousand four hundred francs which you are to give to the Mar-
quis du Chatelet, it is necessary to give him fifty livres. It is nec-
essary also, my dear abbe, to find a man who will give us at Cirey
twice a week a letter of news. I ask a thousand pardons, my gener-
ous correspondent, for the tiresome details of my commissions, but
you must have pity upon country people, by whom you are tenderly
loved."
[May, 1737.] "You are going, then, to Rouen, my dear treasurer?
See, I pray you, the Marquis de Lezeau. Speak to him of the pov-
erty of our cash-box. I am confident that you will induce him to
pay ; you have the gift of persuasion. It is, my dear abbe, of abso-
lute necessity that I should know how it is that I have forgotten
having given a receipt to M. the President d'Auneuil. It must be
some one else who has given this receipt, and who has received the
money for me ; it is from the mouth of Demoulin that y ni can know
whether this money has been received or not. Mesnil, the notary,
delivered it; Demoulin ought to have received it. This man, who
320 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
robbed me of twenty thousand francs, and who is an ingrate, could
he have pilfered also that half year's payment ? It is necessary to
address ourselves to those two individuals in order to know the truth ;
and if neither of them remember the facts it will be well that M.
d'Auneuil should be informed that I know no more of the matter than
the}-. In matters of interest and money we cannot be too careful
and exact ; we should foresee everything and guard against every-
thing. M. de Richelieu owes only for one year ; it is not proper
to demand that year's interest at a time when he is paying me
forty-three thousand two hundred francs. I would not hinder him,
however, from giving me some ready money, if he wishes to do so ;
but I shall be very content with a good assignment, as well for the
two thousand nine hundred livres of arrears which I am still to receive
from him as for the annuity of four thousand francs which he pays
me every year. In that case he would be importuned no more, and
our affairs would be more according to rule and easier to manage.
You can, my dear abbe, send by the coach, in perfect safety, three
hundred louis well packed, without saying what they are and without
expense, provided the box be well and duly registered as containing
valuables ; that will suffice. Besides these three hundred louis, I must
have a draft for two thousand four hundred francs ; the receiver-
general of Champagne will give you this draft for your money. Any
banker will tell you the name and residence of the receiver-general.
I am ashamed of all the trouble I give you, and I am obliged to avow,
my dear friend, that you were made to manage greater affairs than the
treasury of a chapter of Saint Merri and the revenue of a philoso-
pher who embraces you with all his heart. In this world one is rarely
what he ought to be."
[May, 1737.] "The man who has the secret of spinning brass is
not the only one ; but I believe that only a little of it can be spun,
and that it easily breaks. Sound this man of brass ; we might be
able to have him here, and give him a chamber, a laboratory, his
board, and a salary of a hundred crowns. It would be in his power
to make some experiments, and to try and make steel, which as-
suredly is much easier than to make gold. If he has the misfortune
to seek the philosopher's stone, I am not surprised that from six thou-
sand francs a year he is reduced to nothing. A philosopher who has
six thousand francs a year has the philosopher's stone. That stone
brings us, very naturally, to speak of affairs of interest. Here is the
certificate which you ask for. I repeat to you my prayers that M.
de Guise, INI. de Lezeau, and others may be written to without delay ;
that you see M. Paris-Duverney, and let him know that he will
give me great pleasure if he permits me to enjoy the pension from
{ I
■,{i
MAN OF BUSINESS. 321
the queen and from the royal treasury, of which I am in very great
need, and for which I shall be much obliged. Be willing also, my
dear abbe, to arrange, in some amiable way, my annuity, my capital
overdue, and the arrears, with the steward of M. de Richelieu ; the
whole without betraying an unbecoming distrust. That ought to
have been done more than a month ago. An assurance of regular
payment would spare the duke disagreeable details, would deliver
his steward from great embarrassment, would spare you, my dear
friend, many useless steps, many fatiguing and unfruitful labors.
We shall say more of this another time, for I am afraid of forgetting
to ask you for a very good air-pump, which is hard to find ; a good
reflecting telescope, which is at least as rare ; the volumes of pieces
which have been crowned at the Academy. Such are the learned
things which my little learned mind has very urgent need of. I
have, my dear abbe, neither the time nor the strength to continue,
nor even to thank you for the chemist whom you sent me. As yet,
I have scarcely seen him, except at mass ; he loves solitude ; he
ought to be content. I shall not be able to work with him in chem-
ical matters until an apartment which I am building is finished ; till
then, we must each of us study apart, and you must love me always."
[May, 1737.] " It is necessary, my dear friend, to ask, to ask again,
to press, to see, to importune, and not jjersecute my debtors for my
annuities and arrears. A letter costs nothing; two are only a very
trifling embarrassment, and serve the purpose that a debtor cannot
complain if I am obliged to avail myself of legal means of redress.
After two letters to the farmers at an interval of a mouth, and a little
word of excuse to the masters, it will be necessary to issue formal
demands to the farmers of the lands upon which my annuities are se-
cured. I will send you the list of them. For the rest of my life it
will be with the farmers that I shall have to do. That will be a much
better plan. Pinga says everywhere that he is selling my effects, and
that has a much worse effect than all I sell. I flatter myself, my dear
friend, that you will keep much better the secret of all my affairs.
You have, God be thanked, all the good qualities."
[May, 1737.] "Great thanks, my dear abbe, for the present given
to La Mare, and the more because it is the last whicli my affairs per-
mit me to accord him. If ever he comes to importune you, do not let
him take up your time. Reply that you have nothing to do with my
business ; that cuts the matter short. Ascertain if it is *rue that this
little gentleman, whom I have overwhelmed with benefits, rails also
against me. Speak to Demoulin gently. He ought indeed to blush
at his conduct towards me ; he has deprived me of twenty thousand
francs, and wishes to dishonor me. In losing twenty thousand francs
VOL. I, 21
822 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
I need not acquire an enemy. Another request, my dear ahh^. A
friend, who asks of me an inviolable secrecy, charges me to ascertain
what is the subject of the prize essay announced this year by the
Academy of Sciences. I know no man more secret than you : it will
be you, then, my dear friend, who will render us this service. If I
were to write to some member of the Academy, he would think, per-
haps, that I wished to compete for the prize ; that would suit neither
my age nor my defective knowledge."
[June, 1737.] "Arm yourself with courage, my dear and amiable
agent, for to-day I am going to be exceedingly troublesome. Here is
a learned negotiation, in which it is necessary, if you please, that you
succeed, and that I be not found out. A visit to, M. de Fontenelle,
and a long explanation upon what is understood by the propagation of
fire. Disputants, among whom I sometimes take a fancy to thrust
myself, discuss the question whether fire has or has not weight. M.
Lemeri, whose ' Chemistry ' you sent me, asserts (chapter v.) that,
after having calcined twenty pounds of lead, he found it increased in
weight five pounds ; he does not say whether he weighed the earthen
vessel in which the calcination was made, to ascertain if any carbon
had joined itself to the lead ; he supposes simply, or rather boldly,
that the lead has absorbed some particles of fire, which have augmented
its weight. Five pounds of fire ! Five pounds of light ! That is
admirable, and so admirable that I do not believe it. Other scientific
men have made experiments with a view to ascertain the weight of
fire. They have put filings of copper and filings of tin into glass re-
torts hermetically sealed ; they have calcined these filings, and they
have found them increased in weight : an ounce of copper has acquired
forty-nine grains, and an ounce of tin four grains. Antimony calcined
by the rays of the sun, by means of the burning glass, has also in-
creased in weight in the hands of the chemist, Romberg. I wish that
all those statements may be true ; I wish that the matter in which the
metals were held during calcination may not have contributed to in-
crease the weight of those metals ; but I who speak to you have
weighed more than a thousand pounds of red-hot iron, and I have
afterwards weighed it cold. I have not found a grain of difference.
Now it would be very curious that twenty pounds of lead, calcined,
should gain five pounds in weight, and that a thousand pounds of red-
hot iron should not weigh one grain the heavier. Such, my dear abbe,
are the difiiculties which for a month past have wearied the head of
your friend, little accustomed to physical investigations, and rendered
him uncertain in chemistry, just as other difficulties of a different order
render him shaky upon some points little important of scholastic the-
ology. In every science we seek the truth in good faith, and, when
31
MAN OF BUSINESS. 323
we think we have found it, we are often embracing only an error.
Now for the favor which I ask of you. Go to your neighbor, M.
GeofFroy, apothecary to the Academy of Sciences ; get into conversa-
tion with him by means of half a pound of quinquina, which you will
buy and send to me. Ask him respecting the experiments of Lemeri,
of Homberg, and mine. You are a very skillful negotiator ; you will
easily find out what M. Geoffroy thinks of all that, and you will tell
me what he says, — the whole without committing me. I am, as you
see, my dear friend, much occupied with physical matters ; but I do
not forget that superfluity which they name the necessary.-^ I hope
that Hebert will not delay to finish it, and that he will spare nothing
in rendering it elegant and magnificent."
[June 29, 1737.] " Are you willing, my dear friend, to pay a visit,
long or short as you like, to M. Boulduc, a learned chemist ? I am
informed that he has made some experiments which tend to prove that
fire does not augment the weight of bodies ! The point is to have
upon that subject a conversation with him. There is also a M.
Grosse, who lives in the same building. He is also a chemist, very
intelligent and very laborious. I pray you to ask both of these gen-
tlemen what they think of the experiments of the lead calcined by or-
dinary fire, and of the metals calcined by the rays of the sun concen-
trated through the burning glass. They will feel it a pleasure to
speak to you, to instruct you, and you will send me a statement of
their philosophic instructions. This, my dear correspondent, is a com-
mission much more amusing than to arrange a composition with the
creditors of the Prince de Guise. That prince has always concealed
from me the appointment of a commission for the liquidation of his
debts. A life annuity ought to be sacred ; he owes me three years'
income. A commission established by the king is not established for
the purpose of frustrating the creditors. Life annuities ought cer-
tainly to be excepted from the operation of the laws most favorable
to debtors of dishonest intentions. Speak of this, I pray you, to M.
de Machault ; and after having represented to him my right and the
injury which I suffer, you will act as he will direct. It is essential
for us to avail ourselves of legal methods, and it is proper to do so
with all the consideration possible. Do not trust the positive promise
of the Prince de Guise. The positive promises of princes are trifles,
and his are worse."
[June 30, 1737.] "Another little visit, my dear friend, to M.
Geoffroy. Send him back, by means of some ounces of quinquina, or
of senna, or of manna, or of anything else which you may be pleased
to buy for your own health or for mine, — send him back, I tell you, to
^ An allusion to Voltaire's poem, the Mondain, verse 22.
324
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the chapter of lead and the regukis of antimony increased in weight
by calcination. He has told yon, and it is true, that those substances
lose the increase of weight after becoming cold again ; but that is not
enough. It is necessary to know if that weight is lost when the cal-
cined body becomes simply cold again, or if it is lost when the calcined
body has been afterwards melted. Lemeri, who reports that twenty
pounds of calcined lead weigh twenty-five pounds, adds that this lead
remelted only weighs nineteen pounds. MM. Duclos and Romberg
report that the regulus of iron and that of antimony calcined by the
burning glass increased in weight ; but that upon being melted after-
wards by the same glass they lost both the weight which they had ac-
quired and a little of their own. It is then not after having become
cold that these bodies lose the weight added to their substance by the
action of the fire. It would be necessary also to know if M. Geoffrey
thinks that the igneous matter alone has caused this increase of
weight ; if the iron ladle with which they stirred during the operation,
or if the vessel which contained the metal, did not increase the weight
of that metal by transfusing into it some of its own substance. Ascer-
tain, my dear friend, the opinion of the apothecary upon all these
points, and send it to me quick. You are very capable of making tliis
chemist talk, and all the chemists of the Academy, and of understand-
ing them well. I count upon your friendship and discretion."
[July 6, 1737.] ''It is a pleasure, my dear friend, to give you
learned commissions, so well do you acquit yourself of them. No
one could render service better or more promptly. I have just per-
formed the experiment upon iron which the learned charcoal-burner,
M. Grosse, advises. I weighed a piece of two pounds, which I made
red-hot upon a tile in the open air. I weighed it red, I weighed it
cold ; it always weighed the same. I have been weighing every day
lately iron and melted iron, flaming hot : I have weighed from two
pounds to a thousand. So far from finding the weight of red-hot iron
greater, I have found it much smaller, which I attribute to the fur-
nace, prodigiously hot, which consumed some particles of iron. It is
this which I pray you to communicate to M. Grosse when you see
him ; visit, then, promptly this gnome, and, with your usual precaution,
consult him anew. He is a man well informed upon these subjects.
Ascertain, then, 1st, if he believes that fire has weight ; 2d, if the ex-
periments made by M. Homberg and others ought to prevail over that
of the iron red and iron cooled, which always weigh the same. We
are surrounded, my dear abbe, with uncertainties of all possible kinds.
The least truth gives us infinite pains to discover. 3d. Ask him if the
burning glass of the Palais-Royal has the same effect upon matter ex-
posed to the air as in the vacuum of the air-pumj). Upon this point
MAN OF BUSINESS. 325
you must make him talk a long time. Ask him the effects of the rays
of the sun in that vacuum upon gunpowder, upon iron, upon liquors,
upon metals, and make a little note of all the answers of this learned
man. 4th. Ask him if the phosphorus of Boyle, the burning phos-
phorus, takes fire in a vacuum. Finally, ask if he has seen any good
Persian naphtha, and if it is true that this naphtha burns in water.
There you are, my dear abbe, a finished natural philosopher. I pester
you terribly, for I still add that I am in a hurry for this informatiini.
I abuse your complaisance excessively, but in atonement I love you
excessively."
[August, 1737.] " Every day, my dear friend, brings you, then,
new importunity from me. Tell me, will it not be abusing your pa-
tience to pray you to see M. Grosse again, and to have with that cel-
ebrated chemist a new scientific conversation ? See him, then, and
have the goodness to ask that learned charcoal-burner if he has ever
performed the experiment of plunging his thermometer in spirits of
wine, in spirits of nitre, to see if the mercury rises in those liquors.
I am, my dear abbe, always ashamed of my importunities ; but spare
neither cariiages nor messengers, and always transact the affairs of
your friend entirely at your ease."
[October, 1737.] " Ts M. de Breze quite solid? What do you
think of it, my prudent friend ? This article of interest having been
maturely examined, take twenty thousand francs from M. Michel and
give them to M. Breze, at ten per cent. This investment will be the
more agreeable, as we shall be paid easily and regularly upon the pro-
ceeds of his houses in Paris. Arrange this affair for the best ; and,
once arranged, if the estate of Spoix can be bought for fifty thousand
francs, we shall find the money towards the month of April. We
shall sell some bonds. We shall borrow at five per cent., which will
not be difficult either to you or to me. Life is short ; Solomon tells
us we must enjoy it ; I think to enjoy, and for that reason I feel
within me a grand vocation to be gardener, plowman, and vine-
dresser. Perhaps even I shall succeed better in planting trees, in dig-
ging the earth, and in making it fruitful than in composing tragedies,
experimenting in chemistry, writing epic poems, and othc_ sublime fol-
lies which make implacable foes. Give ' L'Enfant Prodigue'^ to
Prault for fifty louis d'or, — six hundred francs down, and a note for
the other six hundred francs, payable when this unhappy Enfant shall
see the light. This money will be employed in some good work. I
do not rebel against my destiny, which is to have a little glory and
some hisses."
[November, 1737.] "Your patience, my dear abbe, is going to
1 Comedy by Voltaire.
326 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
be put to a severe proof ; I tremble lest you may be unable to sustain
it. I hope everything from your friendship. Affairs temporal, affairs
spiritual, these are the two great subjects of the long babble with
which I am about to trouble you. M. de Lezeau owes me three
years ; it is necessary to press him without too much importunity.
A letter to the Prince de Guise ; that costs nothing, and advances
matters. The Villars and the D'Auneuils owe two years ; it is neces-
sary politely and nicely to remonstrate with those gentlemen touch-
ing their duties to their creditors. It is necessary also to finish with
M. de Richelieu, and to consent to what he wishes. I should have
some great objections to make upon what he proposes ; but 1 love better
a conclusion than an objection. Conclude, then, my dear friend; I
trust myself blindly to your discretion, which is always very useful
to me. Prault ought to give fifty francs to monsieur your brother.
I wish him to do so. It is a trifling bonus, a bagatelle, which is
part of my bargain ; and when that bagatelle shall be paid, monsieur
your brother will scold for me the negligent Prault, who in the
parcels of books which I order always makes delays that try my
patience cruelly ; nothing that he sends me arrives at the time
appointed. Monsieur your brother will then inquire of that book-
seller, or of any other that he wishes, for a Puffendorf; for the
chemistry of Boerhaave, the most complete edition ; for a * Letter
upon the Divisibility of Matter,' published by Jomvert ; for the ' In-
dex of the Thirty-First Volume of the History of the Academy of
Sciences ; ' for Marriotte upon the ' Nature of the Air ; ' the same
author upon ' Cold and Heat ; ' for Boyle ' De Ratione inter Ignem
et Flammam,' difficult to find : that is the affair of monsieur your
brother. Other commissions : two reams of foolscap, the same of
letter paper, — the whole of Holland ; twelve sticks of Spanish sealing-
wax for spirits of wine ; a Copernican sphere ; a burning glass of
the largest size ; my engravings of the Luxembourg ; two globes
mounted ; two thermometers ; two barometers (the longest are the
best) ; two scales, well graduated ; some crucibles ; some retorts. In
making purchases, my friend, always prefer the handsome and excel-
lent, if a little dear, to a common article less costly.
" So much for the literary man who seeks to instruct himself
after the Fontenelles, the Boyles, the Boerhaaves, and other learned
men. What follows is for the material man, who digests very ill ;
who has need to take, as they tell him, plenty of exercise ; and who,
beside this need, of necessity has also some other needs of society. I
pray you, in consequence, to buy for him a good fowling-piece ; a
pretty game-bag with appurtenances ; a gun-hammer ; a draw-charge;
large diamond shoe-buckles ; other diamond garter-buckles ; twenty
I
MA2? OF BUSINESS. 327
pounds of hair powder ; ten pounds of smelling powder ; a bottle of
essence of jasmin ; two enormous pots of orange pomatum ; two
powder puffs ; a very good knife ; three fine sponges ; three dusters ;
four bundles of quills* two pairs of toilet pincers, very nice ; a pair
of very good pocket scissors ; two floor brushes ; finally, three pairs
of slippers, well furred ; and, besides — I remember nothing more.
Of all these make a parcel ; two, if necessary ; three, even, if neces-
sary : your packer is excellent. Send the whole by way of Joinville ;
not to my address, for I am in England (I beg you to remember
that), but to the address of Madame de Champbouin. All that costs
money, you will tell me ; and where to get the money ? Where you
wish, my dear abbe. We have some bonds ; we can convert them.
We ought never to neglect anything for our pleasure, since life is
short. I shall be entirely yours during that short life."
[December, 1737.] " Instead of money which Prault owes me, my
dear abbe, I have ordered some books of him. You tell me he is
dissatisfied ; I am surprised at it ; he ought to know that an author
never deprives himself of the right of foreign editions. As soon
as a book is printed at Paris with privilege, the publishers of Hol-
land seize it, and the first who prints it has the exclusive privilege
in that country ; and to have this right of printing it first it suffices
to announce the work in the gazettes. It is an established usage,
which holds the place of law. Now, when I wish to favor a pub-
lisher in Holland, I advertise him of the work which I am printing in
France, and I endeavor to let him have the first copy, in order that
he may get beforehand with the trade. I have then promised a
Holland publisher that I will immediately send him a copy of the
work in question, and I have promised him this little favor to in-
demnify him for the delay in finishing the elements of the philos-
ophy of Newton, which he began to print nearly a year ago. The
point is to hurry on Prault, in order at the same time to hasten the
little advantage which will indemnify the Holland publisher, for
whom I have an affection, and who is a very honest man. M. Prault
knows very well that this is the point. His privilege is for France,
and not for Holland. He has never done business except upon this
footing, and on condition that the work should be printed at Paris
and at Amsterdam simultaneously. To prevent all difficulty, send him
this note, and let him put in it his reply. These are the facts, and
I ask your pardon for this verbiage. Prault still owes fifty francs
to monsieur your brother ; I wish him to pay them. This is a new
bonus which I beg your brother to accept. I pray him also to send
me the old tragedy of ' Cresphonte,' and all the old books which I
have noted upon the catalogue which he sent me."
328
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
[Cambridge, December, 1737.] "I am very glad, my dear natural
philosopher, that M. de Foutenelle has explained himself touching the
propagation of fire. As the light of the sun is the most powerful fire
which we know, it was natural to have some ideas a little clear upon
that elementary fire. It was the affair of a philosopher; the rest is a
blacksmith's business. I am in the midst of forges, and the subject
suits me well enough. I hope that Bronod will explain himself as
clearly respecting the fifty louis of which you speak as M. de Foute-
nelle upon light. If Bronod does not pay this money, I believe it will
be necessary to sell a bond. I see no great harm in that; one never
loses his dividend. It is true that the price varies towards the time of
their payment, that is to say, every six mouths; but that amounts to
little ; and, besides, it is better to sacrifice some pistoles that give you
the trouble of calling again upon M. Bronod. The three louis which
you gave finally to M. Robert were doubtless for the advances he has
made. I cannot imagine that a solicitor has taken it into his head to
incur expense for me, since I have had no law business, unless I have
had a suit without knowing it. M. Michel wishes, then, to keep my
money until the first of March ? Be it so. Let him have it ; it will
be always two months' interest gained. Let us not disdain such pick-
ings. Make, I pray you, if you think it necessary, a little present to
the steward of M. de Richelieu ; but before doing so we must have
good security for my arrears, and security that henceforth I receive
regularly four thousand francs a year. A louis d'or to D'Arnaud,
without telling him either where I am or what I am doing ; neither
him nor any one else. I am at Cirey for you alone, and in Cochin
China for all the Parisians; or, which wiU be more probable, confined
in some province of England."
[December, 1737.] "The picture of myself drawn in jiastel, my
dear abbe, is horrible and wretched, whatever the engraver thinks ;
little do I care. I shall not take the part of my countenance, which I
do not know too well ; but, my dear friend, can they not make me less
ugly ? I leave that to your care ; especially, do not speak of it to
Madame du Chatelet. Let us come to the affair of this lady. See, as
soon as possible, Hebert, and recommend to him the greatest diligence.
You have given him fifty louis ; give him fifty more if he demands
them, and assure him that at the instant of delivery the whole shall be
exactly paid. If, in accordance with my last letter, you have sold a
bond, you have done well ; if you have not sold one, still you have
done well. I approve you in everything, because all that you do is
always well doue, and you deserve that I thank you and that I em-
brace you heartily."
[July 12, 1740.] " I received your letter of the 9th, in which you
MAN OF BUSINESS. 329
inform me ol the general bankruptcy of the receiver-general named
Michel. A sufficiently large portion of my property is involved
(40,000 francs). The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed
be the name of the Lord. To suffer my ills in patience has been my
lot for forty years ; and one can submit to Providence without being
a devotee. I confess that I did not expect this failure, and I do not
understand how a receiver-general of the finances of his Most Chris-
tian Majesty, a very rich man, too, could fail so awkwardly, unless it
is because he wished to be richer. In that case, M. IVIichel is doubly
wrong. I could find it in my heart to cry, —
Michel, au nora de I'Eternel,
Met jadis le diable en de'route ;
Mais apres cette banqueroute.
Que le diable emporte Michel. ^
" But this would be a poor jest, and I do not wish to make light
either of M. Michel's losses or of my own. Nevertheless, my dear
abbd, you will find the result to be that M. Michel's children will re-
main very rich, very well placed Have the goodness to speak
to Michel's cashier ; endeavor to get from him how we should pro-
ceed so as not to lose all Good-night ; I embrace you with
all my soul. Console yourself for the rout of Michel ; your friend-
ship consoles me for my loss." ^
[December, 1737.] "You speak to me, my dear abbe, of a good-
man chemist, and I hear you with pleasure. Then you propose that
I should take him into my service ; I ask nothing better. He will
enjoy here complete liberty, be not ill lodged, be well nourished, have
great convenience for cultivating at his ease his talent as a chemist;
but it is indispensable that he should know how to say mass on Sun-
days and festivals in the chapel of the chateau. This mass is a con-
dition without which I could not engage him. I will give him a hun-
dred crowns \_ecus] a year, but I can do nothing more. He must also
be informed that we take our meals very rarely with the Marquise
du Chatelet, whose meal-times are not very regular ; but there is a
table for the Count du Chatelet, her son, and his tuto>', a man of
understanding, served regularly at noon and at eight in the evening.
M. du Chatelet, the elder, often eats at that table, and occasionally
we all sup together. Besides, we enjoy here perfect liberty. For
the present we can only give him a chamber with an ante-chamber.
If he accepts my propositions, he can come and bring all his appa-
ratus with him. If he is in need of money you can advance him
1 Michael, in the name of the Eternal, formerly put the devil to rout; but,
after this bankruptcy, may the devil fly away with Michael 1
2 Lettres de Voltaire a I'Abbe Moussiuot, page 213.
330 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
a quarter, on conditiou that he starts at once. If he delays his de-
parture, do not delay, my dear treasurer, to send me some money
by the coach. Instead of two hundred and fifty louis, send boldly
three hundred of them, with the books and the bagatelles I have
asked for. For the rest, my dear friend, I take it for granted that
your chemist is a man of sense, since you propose him. Tell me his
name, for, really, I must know how he calls himself. If he makes
Fahrenheit thermometers, he will make some here, and render service
to natural philosophy. Are those thermometers of the same scale as
Reaumur's ? These instruments do not accord unless they sound the
same octave."
[May, 1738.] '* I would like, my dear abbe, a pretty little watch,
good or bad, simple, of silver merely, with a cord of silk and gold.
Three louis ought to pay for that. You will send it to me suMto,^
subito, by the coach. It is a little present which I wish to make to
the son of M. the Marquis du Chatelet, a child ten years old. He
will break it, but he wishes one, and I am afraid of being anticipated.
I embrace you."
[June, 1738.] " The watch was just the thing. It was received
with transport, and I thank you, my dear abbe, for taking so much
pains."
1 Quickly.
CHAPTER XXX.
LITERARY WORK AT CIREY.
And now for the realization of the dream of peaceful, glo-
rious toil, far from the distractions of the world, solaced every
hour by love.
His first labors at Cirey, which were begun and continued
amid crowds of workmen and heaps of litter, were of an ab-
stract and thoughtful nature, inspired by Pope's " Essay on
Man," then in the splendor of its first celebrity. Voltaire
had received the early cantos in 1732, in time to insert a pas-
sage concerning them in his English Letters, and in 1734
came the completed work, in a quarto volume, with dedication
to Lord Bolingbroke. It so moved and roused him that, while
he had a princely wedding on his hands and a new love in his
heart, while a lettre de cachet was on his track, while he was
finishing a tragedy and writing a comedy, while he was restor-
ing and furnishing a chateau, while he was in hiding at Brus-
sels, his graver thoughts revolved the mighty themes touched
in Pope's Essay. His seven " Discourses on Man," in verse,
and his " Treatise on Metaphysics," in prose, contain the sub-
stance of those thoughts. Three of the Discourses were writ-
ten in 1734, and the others in the three years following, as
mood and opportunity favored.
The first of the Discourses turns upon the equality of hu-
man conditions : " Mortals are equal ; their mask differs ; "
wealth has its drawbacks, and poverty its compensations. The
second, upon Liberty, maintains that man mak.3s or mars his
own happiness. " Love truth, but pardon error. The mortal
who goes astray is still a man and thy brother. Be wise for
thyself alone, compassionate for him. Achieve thine own wel-
fare by blessing others." The third Discourse declares that
the chief obstacle to human happiness is envy. " Take re-
venge upon a rival by surpassing him." The fourth inculcates
332 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the truth that excess is fatal to enjoyment, and moderation one
of the inflexible conditions of happiness. " To desii'e all is
the mark of a fool ; excess is his portion. Moderation is the
treasure of the mse ; he knows how to control his tastes, his
labors, his pleasures." " Work is often the father of pleas-
ure ; I pity the man overwhelmed with the weight of his
own leisure. Happiness is a good that nature sells us." The
fifth Discourse is upon the Nature of Pleasure, and shows that
pleasure is the lure that God uses to make us execute his
purposes, and is therefore not to be placed under the ban of
religion. "Calvin, — that fool, sombre and severe." "It is
necessary to be a man before being a Christian." "Without
tlie attraction of pleasure, who would submit to the laws of
Hymen ? " The sixth Discourse, upon the Nature of Man, is
a confession that man knows very little of his nature, but must
make the best of it, and bear in mind that perfect felicity can
never be the lot of mortal. " One day some mice said to one
another, ' How charming is this world ! What an empire is
ours ! This palace so superb was built for us ; from all eter-
nity God made for us these large holes. Do you see those fat
hams under that dim ceiling ? They were created there for us
by Nature's hands ; those mountains of lard, eternal aliment,
will be oui'S to the end of time. Yes, we are, great God, if our
sages tell us the truth, the masterpiece, the end, the aim, of all
thy works. Cats are dangerous and prompt to devour, but it
is to instruct and correct us.' " The seventh and last of these
Discourses is upon True Virtue. " The miracles are good ;
but to relieve a brother, to draw a friend from the depths
of misery, to pardon the virtues of our enemies, — these are
greater miracles." " The true virtue, then, is ' beneficence ; '
a new word in the French language, but the whole universe
ought to cherish the idea."
The seven poems — fluent, light, witty, brief, often wise and
salutary — are surcharged with the Voltairean essence ; not
anti-Christian, but anti-Pascal. They are such as Horace
micrht have written if he had had seventeen Christian centu-
ries behind him, instead of before him. Their airy liglitness
and grace made them universally read, and they will doubt-
less retain their power when Voltaire and Pascal at last meet
in a religion that will include and honor both.
LITERARY WORK AT CIREY. 333
A line of the Discourse upon the Nature of Man gives us
one of Voltaire's maxims of the art of writing : " The secret
of wearying your reader is to tell him all."
During the first years of his residence at the chateau, the
reading of one of these Discourses was frequently part of the
evening entertainment provided for a guest, followed, perhaps,
by a new canto of the " Pucelle ; " and nothing is more cer-
tain than that, in polite circles, the two readings were consid-
ered equally legitimate and proper. Such were the chateau
manners of the time.
A graver and longer work, in prose, the " Treatise upon
Metaphysics," was also written amid the confusion of settling
at Cirey. This Treatise is a simple and clear statement of the
author's convictions concerning man, God, immortality, the
freedom of the will, the nature of the soul, man's duty, and
the sources of his welfare. When Madame de Rupelmonde,
many years before, asked him what she ought to think on
such subjects, he replied by a sprightly deistical poem. Prob-
ably the Marquise du Chatelet had asked him a similar ques-
tion, and this seventy-five-page pamphlet was such a reply
as he would have made to a lady fond of mathematics and ac-
customed to read Locke. There is only one dull or repellent
word in the piece, and that is its title, which has doubtless
kept many persons from looking farther. In his own chatty,
irresistible manner, he draws the idlest reader on, while he
gives his reasons for thinking that men cannot be descended
from a single pair, and must have been created by a God.
The watch proves the tvatchnaker was his constant argument
for the existence of God, at every period of his life, and he de-
veloped it in this Treatise some years before Paley was born.
While admitting God, he denies providence. The universe is
governed by laws which nothing can change, — laws as invaria-
ble as those of mathematics. Revelation, other tl^an that of sci-
ence, he rejects with his usual gayety and scorn, —a revelation
that " tells the Jews how they shall go to the garde-robe, but is
silent upon the soul and immortality ! " "I do not assert," he
says, " that I have demonstrations against the spirituality and
immortality of the soul ; but all the probabilities are against
those doctrines." In treating of the nature of virtue, he lays
down this simple proposition : Virtue is conduct which benefits
the community ; vice is conduct which injures the community.
334 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Lying, for example, is generally a vice, because it is of the
greatest importance that men should be able to believe and
trust one another. " But how often does lying become an
heroic virtue?" To shrink from a lie when it would save a
friend from deadly peril would be, he says, shameful dereliction.
As to religion, he plainly reveals his conviction that, as then
established in Europe, it was a system of spoliation and oppres-
sion, the despot's main support and defense. Every desolater
of the earth began his work of massacre and ruin by solemn
acts of religion, and, while the ground still smoked with car-
nage, hastened to the temple to i-epeat those solemn acts. Nor
was religion necessary as an ally of virtue, since men conspic-
uous for unbelief, like Bayle, Locke, Spinoza, Shaftesbury, Col-
lins, and others, were men of rigid virtue. " Much to be pitied
are they who need the help of religion to be honest men."
Such was the famous " Treatise upon Metaphysics." Its
chief merit was its tone of candor, moderation, and modesty.
He stated, and evidently felt, tlie difficulties attending every
solution of the vast enigma, and how inadequate were the fac-
ulties of man to penetrate the mysteries of life, growth, and
death. He wrote it in 1734, when science was not yet grop-
ing toward the central secret, and when few men could offer a
conjectural, or state an hereditary, solution without some mixt-
ure of passion or bias fatal to the development of truth. He
uttered his real thoughts. He wrote without cant, without
arrogance, without passion, and without fear.
It is interesting to notice how he returned in this work to
the point where the Roman poet, Lucretius, left off, about the
year 50 B. C. As Lucretius surveyed the Roman Empire and
interpreted human life in it, so did Voltaire survey and in-
terpret the Roman Catholic empire, of which he was a part.
Lucretius spoke of " the life of man lying abject and foully
groveling, crushed beneath the weight of a Religion that low-
ered over mortals with terrible aspect, until Epicurus rose to
make a stand against her." " Him neither tales of gods, nor
thunder-bolts, nor heaven itself with its threatening roar, re-
pressed, but roused all the more the active energy of his soul,
so that he should desire to be the first to break the close bars
of nature's portals." ^
^ Lucretius on the Nature of Things. Rome, about 50 B. c. Bohn's edition.
Loudon, 1872. Book I., page 6.
LITERARY WORK AT CIREY. 335
Voltaire's Treatise could not, of course, be published just
then. The manuscript lay among his papers at this period,
with other perilous material, to keep Madame du Chatelet in
alarm. We are too familiar with such opinions now to be
able to feel how frightfully explosive the little book was. We
have learned, and Europe is learning, that the most prodig-
ious bombshell can explode harmlessly out-of-doors, with red
flags duly placed. We have learned that publicity, like the
winds of heaven, is a perfect disinfectant, as well as a good
seed-sower. But in 1735 there was terror in a manuscript
like this, as in a loaded shell on a centre-table, or a bottle of
phosphorus in a medicine chest.
While occupied thus with works and thoughts traceable in
some degree to his residence in England, he was delighted to
learn that his hospitable friend Falkener, now Sir Everard
Falkener, had been appointed English ambassador to Constan-
tinople. He wrote to congratulate him, using such English as
he had left after seven years of disuse : —
[September 18, 1735.] " My dear Friend ! Your new title will
change neither my sentiments, nor my expressions. My dear Falk-
ener ! friendship is full of talk, but it must be discreet. In the hurry
of business you are in, remember only I talk'd to you, about seven
years ago, of that very same ambassy. Remember I am the first man
who did foretell the honour you enjoy. Believe then no man is more
pleased with it than I am. I have my share in your happiness. If
you pass through France in your way to Constantinople, I advise you
I am but twenty leagues from Calais, almost in the road to Paris.
The castle is called Cirey, four miles from Vassy en Champagne
on Saint-Dizier's road, and eight miles from Saint-Dizier. The post
goes thither. There lives a young lady called the marquise Du Chate-
let, whom I have taught english to, and who longs to see you. You
will lie here, if you remember your friend." ^
The ambassador went to Constantinople by s^n, and so
missed the delights of Cirey. Soon after he was settled at
Constantinople, Voltaire wrote to him again, and in better
English : —
[February 22, 1736.] " Now the honest, the good and plain phi-
losopher of Wandsworth, represents his king and country, and is equal
1 1 Lettres Inedites de Voltaire, 75 and 84.
336
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
to the Grand-Seignior. Certainly England is the only country where
commerce and virtue are to be rewarded with such an honour. If
any grief [concern] rests still upon my mind, my dear friend (for
friend you are, tho' a minister), it is that I am unable to be a witness
of your new sort of glory and felicity. Had I not regulated my life
after a way which makes me a kind of solitaire, I would fly to that
nation of savage slaves, whom I hate, to see the man I love. What
would my entertainment be ! and how full the overflowings of my
heart, in contemplating my dear Falkener, amidst so many Infidels of
all hues, smiling with his humane philosophy at the superstitious
follies that reign on the one side at Stamboul, and on the other at
Galata ! I would not admire, as mylady Mary Worthley Montagu
says,
The vizir prond, distinguished from the rest ;
Six slaves in gay attire, his bridle hold,
His bridle rich with gems, his stirrups gold !
" For, how the devil ! should I admire a slave upon a horse ? My
friend Falkener I should admire !
" But I must bid adieu ! to the great town of Constantin, and stay
in my little corner of the world, in that very same castle where you
were invited to come in your way to Paris, in case you should have
taken the road of Calais to Marseille. Your taking an other way,
was certainly a sad disappointment for me, and especially to that lady
who makes use of your Locke and of more of your other books.
Upon my word ! a French lady who reads Newton, Locke, Addison,
and Pope, and who retires from the bubbles and the stunning noise
of Paris, to cultivate in the country the great and amiable genius she
is born with, is more valuable than your Constantinople and all the
Turkish empire !
" You may confidently write to me, by the way of Marseille, chez
madame la marquise Du Chdtelet, a Girey, en Champagne. Be sure
I shall not stir from that spot of ground, before the favour of your
letter comes to me. .... What I long to be informed of is, whether
you are as happy as you seem to be. Have you got a little private
seraglio ? or, are you to be married ? Are you over-stoked with busi-
ness ? Does your indolence or laziness comply with your affairs ? Do
you drink much of that good Cyprus wine ? For my part, I am here
too happy, though my health is ever very weak :
Excepto quod non simul esses, csetera Isetus.
" Addio ! mio carissimo ambasciadore ! Addio ! le baccio umilmente
le maui ! L'amo, e la reversico ! " ^
1 Adieu, my dearest ambassador ; adieu, I kiss very humbly the handa of your
lordship. I love and honor you.
LITERAIIY WORK AT CIREY. 337
He continued to correspond with the ambassador, always
in the same tone.
Another dramatic success, and one of great splendor, fell
to his lot in January, 1736, while he was absent from the
scene. " Alzire, or the Americans," was the name of the new
tragedy, the scene of which was laid in that land so exceed-
ingly remote then from the knowledge of Europeans, — Peru,
The attention of Europe had been just drawn to that country
by the expedition sent thither by the French Academy of Sci-
ences to measure an arc of the meridian, with a view to as-
certain the precise form of the earth. Voltaire's old friend,
Condamine, v/as one of the party. " Alzire," moreover, was
similar to " Zaire " in contrasting two civilizations and two
religions, and in affording opportunity for striking costume
and barbaric magnificence. During the turbulent period, when
the poet was battling with ministers at Paris and masons at
Cirey, Thieriot, as it seems, talked of the new play in an
exulting strain, in the hearing of Le Franc, a young author,
who had recently made a dramatic success of much promise
with his tragedy of " Didon." Le Franc at once wrote a Pe-
ruvian tragedy, and read it to the actors, who accepted it
with joy. Voltaire was not the person to allow poaching on
any manor of his. He wrote a witheringly polite, ingenious
letter to the comedians, stating his case, and modestly claiming
to have his play, such as it was, produced first, since he had
originated the subject, and since no play of his could have the
least chance of success if performed after that of M. Le Franc»
who was in all the vigor and brilliancy of youth.
M. Le Franc was obliged to stand aside and wait. " Al-
zire " was performed January 27, 1736,- with perfect success,
the first of a long line of Peruvian plays. For twenty suc-
cessive nights — a great run then — it was repeated to houses
averaging 2682 francs ; it was performed twice at court ; it
remained a popular piece during the rest of the century, and,
indeed, until the later development of the French drama ren-
dered that mode of dramatic presentation obsolete. It need
not be said that this play teemed with the Voltairean mes-
sage from end to end. That message was repeated in notes,
in prefaces, and in the elaborate dedication to Madame du
Chatelet. "- The religion of a barbarian," says the Discourse
VOL. I. 22
338 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Preliminary, " consists in offering to his gods the blood of his
enemies. An ill-instructed Christian is often little more rea-
sonable. To be faithful to some useless observances, and un-
faithful to the true duties of man; to offer certain prayers,
and retain bis vices ; to fast, but hate ; to cabal, to persecute,
— such is his relis^ion. That of the true Christian is to re-
gard all men as his brothers ; to do them good, and pardon
their ill-doing."
It is noticeable that, in his public dedication of the work,
he makes no secret that it was written in ]\Iadame du Chate-
let's house, and that he hopes to live there, " near her, for
the rest of his life," in the cultivation of literature and the
search for truth, " to which she has sacrificed in her youth
the false biit enchanting pleasures of the world."
" Alzire " was still fresh in the recollection of play-goers
when an event occurred at the Th^atre-Francais that kept
all the cafds talking for a week, and has made a good cafd
and green-room tradition ever since. It was the 10th of Oc-
tober, 1736. The play advertised for that evening was Ra-
cine's " Britannicus." The audience was assembled, and the
time for beginning had come. A member of the company
appeared before the curtain, and addressed the audience. An
actress, he said, who was cast in a leading part of "Britanni-
cus " had become suddenly indisposed, and the play could not
be presented. But, most fortunately^ a new five-act comedy,
in verse, by an anonymous author, was in readiness, though
not yet announced ; and, if the audience pleased, it would be
given instead of the traged5\ The comedy was called " The
Prodigal Son" (L'Enfant Prodigue). What audience could
object to such unexpected good fortune? The piece was
played. It was received with the warmest applause, an-
nounced for repetition, continued to be given, with an inter-
ruption, for thirty nights, and thus thrust upon the cafes of
Paris an agitating problem. Who could have written it ?
Not Piron, surely. Perhaps Destouches. Probably Gresset.
Gresset, no doubt, was the rumor for some days. Voltaire ?
Out of the question !
The astute reader knows, of course, that the author was
managing this comedy within a comedy from the castle of
Cirey, in "St. Dizier's road," in Champagne. When that
LITERARY WORK AT CIREY- 339
author was showing himself in Paris, in the spring of 1735,
he supped one evening with Mademoiselle Quinault, a leading
actress of the Theatre-Franc^ais. She chanced to mention
that she had seen lately a dramatic sketch at a Fair theatre,
which, coarse and crude as it was, had in it the germ of a
good comedy, and that she was going to suggest it as a subject
to Destouches. She gave an account of the plot : Two sons :
one of them merry and wild, but noble, the other a steady-
going, miserly dastard ; both attracted to the same lovely
gh-1, one by true love, the other by her large dowry ; at the
end, the true lover winning the prize. Voltaire listened in
silence, thinking, perhaps, that he knew two such brothers
in Paris. The next morning, early, he was at Mademoiselle
Quinault's door. " Have you spoken to Destouches of ' The
Prodigal Son ' ? " She had not. He drew from his pocket
the plan of a comedy upon the subject, which she approved,
and urged him to complete. Mindful, it may be, of his Pe-
ruvian adventure, he imposed absolute secrecy as to the au-
thorship, and afterwards devised the little scheme of substi-
tuting the comedy for the tragedy.
We see by his letters of this time that he was more intent
upon the success of his scheme of concealment than he was
upon the success of the play. Two passages from these let-
ters have been frequently quoted against him, and they are
in truth characteristic, and could not be fairly omitted. To
one intimate friend, M. Berger, who was in the secret, he
wrote thus : " You can assure MM. La Roque and Prevost
[editors] that I am not the author of the play. Get them
to publish a statement to this effect in their periodicals, in
case it should be necessary If by chance the secret
of ' The Prodigal Son ' escapes, swear always that I am not
the author. To lie for a friend is friendship's first duty."
Three days after he wrote thus to Thieriot : " Lying is a
vice only when it does harm ; it is a very great virtue when
it does good. Be, then, more virtuous than ever. It is nec-
essary to lie like a devil ; not timidly, not for a time, but
boldly and always. What does it matter that this censorious
public should know whom to punish for having put upon
the stage a Croupillac ? Let it hiss her if she has no merit,
but let the author remain unknown, I conjure you, in the
340 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
name of the tender friendship which has united us for twenty
years." This we might accept, if he had only hiid down an
infallible rule, adapted to average human capacity, for distin-
guishing between lies that do good and lies that do hai'm.
These plays, these poems, these treatises upon the problems
of life and destiny, were not all the literary work done by
him in these years. His favorite scheme was still the history
of the reign of Louis XlV., which he meant to write on a
system unattempted yet in prose or verse : that of dwelling
upon things of j-eal and lasting importance, and passing as
lightly as possible over wars, quarrels, controversies, and con-
quests. His letters on this subject show him in a different
light from that cast by those just quoted. Here he is the
faithful servant of truth. To the same Thieriot, as to many
others, he writes thus on the plan and spirit of this long-pro-
jected work : —
" When I asked you for anecdotes upon the age of Louis
XIV., it was less upon the king himself than the arts which
flourished in his reign. I should prefer details relating to Ra-
cine and Boileau, to Quinault, Sully, Moliere, Lebrun, Bos-
suet, Poussin, Descartes, and others, than to the battle of
Steinkerque. Nothing but a name remains of those who com-
manded battalions and fleets ; nothing results to the human race
from a hundred battles gained; but the great men of whom
I have spoken prepared pure and durable delights for genera-
tions unborn. A canal that connects two seas, a picture by
Poussin, a beautiful tragedy, a discovered truth, are things
a thousand times more precious than all the annals of the
court, than all the narratives of war. You know that with
me great men rank first ; heroes last. I call great men all
those who have excelled in the useful or the agreeable. The
ravagers of provinces are mere heroes."
The true Voltaire speaks in these lines ; it was so that he
felt all the days of his life.
Two of the forty arm-chairs of the French Academy fell
vacant this year. The author of " Alzire " was not thought
of as a candidate for either of them. He did not even regard
himself as an available candidate ; and the reason was plain
enough to the literary caf^s of the capital. The same cafes
soon knew why the author of " The Prodigal Son " had so
LITERARY WORK AT CIREY. 341
sedulously concealed himself ; or, as Madame du Chatelet
expressed it, why that Prodigal was an orplian. In March,
1736, he received a letter from Jore, bookseller of Rouen,
bastilled and ruined by the English Letters, telling him that
the ministry was disposed to relent toward, him and restore
his license, provided he would state the whole truth respecting
that publication. He asked for particulars, which Voltaire
gave with simplicity and truth ; going over the whole history
of the work, from Thieriot's taking it to England to the
pirated Paris edition, published daring the author's absence,
which caused the arrest and ruin of Jore and his own flight
from France. This letter, in which he frankly owned himself
the author of the book, placed him m the power of Jore, who
answered it by demanding to be paid the cost of the confis-
cated edition, fourteen hundred francs. The author, indignant,
but alarmed, hastened to Paris, saw the bookseller, and denied
the justice of his claim, but offered half the sum demanded.
Jore refused ; brought suit ; threw himself into the arms of
Desfontaines, editor of a literary journal hostile to Voltaire;
and published a factum^ probably written by Desfontaines,
in which he gave a history of his connection with the poet,
related with highly effective perversity. The scandal was
immense. Injudicious friends advised compromise at any
cost ; and, finally, the lieutenant of police, with the approval
of the ministry, decided the matter thus : Jore's claim not
allowed ; Voltaire to give him five hundred francs as charity
(aumones). "It is to sign my shame," said Voltaire; "1
would rather go on with the suit than pay." But he signed
and paid, nevertheless. A year or two after, Jore confessed
that he had been used and misled by others ; he made profuse
apologies, and drew a small pension from Voltaire as long as
he lived. " The malice of your enemies," said he, " has only
served to make me know the goodness of your character." ^
The effect upon the public of this scandalous affair was
exceedingly bad. The author labored under peculiar disad-
vantages, since he had formally disavowed the work, and the
decree against him of the parliament of Paris was still in
force. He held his freedom on sufferance. He was in a
corner where effective battle was impossible, and a thought-
1 Jore to Voltaire, December 20, 1738. 1 CEuvres, 262.
842 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
less public, imperfectly informed, saw nothing in the matter
except a paltry squabble between a very rich and a very poor
man about a sum of money, of no importance to the one,
and of great importance to the other. The history of this
single case suffices to refute the light passage upon lying given
above. It is not in mortal ken to discern what falsehood is
harmless and what falsehood is destructive.
After wasting ten weeks in Paris upon this sorry business,
he returned, in July, 1736, to Cirey, not in the best spirits,
and well aware that it would be unwise in him to give his
" Prodigal Son " a father of so dubious a reputation as his
own. He saw the two chairs of the Academy assigned to his
inferiors, and he was all too conscious that the Rousseaus
and the Desfontaines, the Jansenists and the bigots of his
world, did not repine at the national slight put upon him.
i
CHAPTER XXXI.
FREDERIC, PRINCE ROYAL OF PRUSSIA.
Consolation brief but keenly felt awaited liim at Cirey.
In August, 1736, soon after his return from Paris, a long let-
ter reached the chateau, addressed to himself, and signed,
Frederic, Prince Royal of Prussia. A year or two before,
when he was settling at Cirey, he had received from the Duke
ofJHolstein, heir presumptive of the throne of Russia, husband
of Catherine II., an invitation to reside at the Russian capital
upon a revenue of ten thousand francs a year. He had just
then come under the spell of Madame du Chatelet. " Per-
secuted as I was," he wrote to Thieriot, " I would not have
left Cirey for the throne of Russia itself." He politely de-
clined the offer ; hoping, as he said, that " the Keeper of the
Seals would less persecute a man who refused such establish-
ments in foreign countries." Doubtless, he found means to
convey both the information and the hint to that minister.
The letter of Frederic was the warm outpouring of a young
and generous heart toward the poet who had given it its
noblest pleasures, toward the instructor who had nourished
its best aspirations. The prince, then twenty-four, had lived
through his storm and stress period. The miseries and shames
brought upon his sister and himself by the collision between
their willful, obstinate mother and their father's arbitrary
disposition, j)redisposed to frenzy by alcohol and tobacco,
were at an end. The Prince Royal was then a married man,
living in peace and dignity at a spacious and suitable house in
the country, where he exercised his regiment, played the flute,
worked his air-pump, read Voltaire, and tried — how hard he
tried ! — to write such French verses as Voltaire wrote. He
was in the habit of sending letters to the French authors, to
whom he had owed much of the alleviation of his hard lot ;
and now he wrote to Voltaire, to whom he felt that he owed
344 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
most. Here is the first of his letters, entire, — the first of a
correspondence that inckides about five hundred letters, and
lasted, with occasional interruptions, for forty-two years, even
to the last weeks of Voltaire's life : —
[August 8, 1736.] " Monsieur, although I have not the satisfaction
of knowing you personally, you are not the less known to me by your
works. They are treasures of the mind, if one may so express him-
self, composed of pieces wrought with so much taste, delicacy, and
art that their beauties appear new every time they are read. I be-
lieve I have discerned in them the character of their gifted author,
who does honor to our age and to the human intellect. Great mod-
erns will one day owe it to you, and to you alone, in case the dispute
whether the preference is due to them or the ancients is ever renewed,
that the balance will incline to their side.
" You add to the quality of excellent poet an infinitude of other
kinds of knowledge, which, in truth, have some affinity with poetry,
but which have not been treated poetically, except by your pen.
Never did poet before set to music metaphysical thoughts ; the honor
of having done so first was reserved for you. It is the taste you
show in your writings for philosophy that induces me to seud you
the translation I have made of the indictment and defense of J. M.
Wolf, the most celebrated philosopher of our day, who, for having
carried the light into the darkest places cf metaphysics, and for hav-
ing treated those difficult matters in a style as lofty as it is precise
and clear, is cruelly accused of irreligion and atheism. Such is the
destiny of great men ; their superior genius always exposes them to
the envenomed darts of calumny and euvy.
" I am at present having translated the ' Treatise upon God, the
Soul, and the World,' from the same author. I shall send the work
to you, monsieur, as soon as it is finished ; and I am sure that the
force of the reasoning will strike you in all his propositions, which
follow one another geometrically, and are joined like the links of a
chain.
" The kindness and support you bestow upon all who devote them-
selves to the arts and sciences make me hope that you will not ex-
clude me from the number of those whom you find worthy of your
instruction ; for thus I name your correspondence, which cannot but
be profitable to every thinking being. I dare even to go so far as to
say, without derogating from the merits of others, that in the entire
universe there are no individuals of whom you could not be the in-
structor. Without lavishing upon you incense unworthy to be offered
you, I can say that I find beauties without number in your works.
FREDEEIC, PRINCE ROYAL OF PRUSSIA. 345
Your ' Henriade ' charms me, and triumphs happily over the ill-judo-ed
criticism wliich has been made upon it. The tragedy of ' Caesar' ex-
hibits to us characters well sustained ; the sentiments of the play are
all magnificent and grand ; and we feel that Brutus is either Roman
or English. ' Alzire' adds to the charm of novelty a happy contrast
between the manners of savages and Europeans. You show by the
character of Gasman that Christianity, ill understood and guided by
false zeal, renders men more barbarous and more cruel than paganism
itself.
" Corneille, the great Corneille, he who drew to himself the ad-
miration of his whole period, if he were to return to life in our
days, would see with astonishment, and perhaps with envy, that the
tragic Muse lavishes upon you the favors of which she was miserly
towards him. What may we not expect from the author of so many
masterpieces ! What new marvels may not come from the pen
wliich once delineated, with so much spirit and elegance, the ' Tem-
ple of Taste ' !
" This it is which makes me desire so ardently to possess all your
works. I pray you, monsieur, to send them to me, and to communi-
cate them without reserve. If among your manuscripts there is one
which, from necessary prudence, you deem it best to conceal from the
eyes of the public, I promise to keep it inviolably secret, and to be
content with applauding it myself. I know, unhappily, that the faith
of princes is a thing little respectable in our time ; but I hope, nev-
ertheless, that you will not allow yourself to be possessed by a gen-
eral prejudice, and that you will make an exception in my favor.
" I shall believe myself richer in having your works than in the
possession of all the transient and contemptible gifts of fortune, which
the same chance gives and takes away. One can render your works
his own by the aid of memory, and they will last as long as memory
itself. Knowing the imperfection of mine, I hesitate long before
making choice of the things which I judge worthy to place in it.
" If ijoetry were still upon its old footing, — that is to say, if poets
knew only how to trill tedious idyls, eclogues cast in the same moulds,
insipid stanzas, or, at their highest flight, to chant an elegy, I should
renounce it forever ; but you ennoble that art ; you show us new
paths and routes unknown to the Lefrancs and the Rousseaus.
" Your poems have qualities which render them respectable, and
worthy the admiration and study of honest people. They form a
course of morals wherein one can learn to think and to act. Virtue
is painted therein in the most beautiful colors. The idea of true
glory is clearly defined in them ; and you insiimate a taste for the
sciences in a manner so fine and so delicate that whoever has read
346 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
your works cherishes the ambition to follow your footsteps. How
many times have I not said to myself, ' Unhappy man, lay down a
burden the weight of which is beyond your strength ; no one can
imitate Voltaire unless it be Voltaire himself ' !
" At such moments I have felt that the advantages of birth, and
the halo of grandeur so flattering to our vanity, are things of very
small account, or, in truth, of no account at all. They are distinc-
tions foreign to ourselves, which adorn only the exterior. How far
preferable to them are mental gifts ! What do we not owe to per-
sons whom Nature herself has distinguished by merely making them
what they are ! She pleases herself in forming some men whom she
endows with all the capacity necessary for carrying forward the arts
and sciences ; and it is for princes to recompense their toils. Ah,
would that it might fall to my lot to crown your triumphs with the
glory they merit ! I should only fear that this country, not fertile in
laurel, would not furnish as much as your works deserve.
" If my destiny does not favor me so far as to enable me to pos-
sess you, I can at least hope some day to see one whom I have ad-
mired so long and from so great a distance, and to assure you with
the living voice that I am, with all the esteem and the considera-
tion due to those who, following the torch of truth, consecrate their
labors to the public weal, monsieur, your affectionate friend,
" Frederic, Prince Royal of Prussia."
The arrival of this letter was well timed to enhance its ef-
fect. Eulogium of this kind had been familiar to him from
his youth, and even eulogium from princes ; but this prince
was about to reign ! He was to reign over a country in close
proximity to France, and no Keeper of the Seals could choose
to disregard him. His " ogre of a father," as Madame du
Chatelet was pleased to style the Prussian king, was not a
" good life," with his deep drinking, his tobacco parliament,
and his explosions of drunken fury. The time was obviously
not distant when the guard of four thousand giants would be
disbanded, and a prince ascend the throne who would at once
begin a millennium in Prussia that might spread over Europe.
So thought Voltaire, in the enthusiasm of the hour. What
princes he had seen in his own country ! How insensible to
the true glory of rulers ! A regent of France had shut him up
in the Bastille for eleven months upon a groundless charge ; a
Duke of Bourbon had seen him imprisoned and exiled for a
happy and just repartee ; the present king had not recognized
FREDEEIC, PRINCE ROYAL OF PRUSSLA.. 347
his existence, and allowed his best works to be put under ban.
At the very moment when this letter was placed in his hands
he was not, as we shall see in a moment, safe in his bed, and
he owed his late impunity, not to any merit of his own, but,
as a minister had recently said, "to the respect felt by the ad-
ministration for " the family that gave him an asylum^ Vol-
taire re]3lied thus to the Prince Royal : —
[August 26, 1736.] " Monseigneur, I should be wanting in sensi-
bility not to be infinitely touched by the letter with which your Royal
Highness has deigned to honor me. My self-love was too much flat-
tered by it ; but my love for the human race, whicli I have always
had at heart, and which I venture to say makes my character, gave
me a pleasure a thousand times purer when I discovered that there is
in the world a prince who thinks like a man, a prince philosopher,
who will render men happy.
" Permit me to say to you that there is not a man on earth who
does not owe you grateful homage for the care you take to cultivate
by sound philosophy a soul born to command. Be sure that there
have been no truly good kings except those who have begun, like you,
by instructing themseh^es, by knowing men, by loving the truth, by
detesting persecution and superstition. There is no prince who, being
thus formed, could not bring back the age of gold to his states. Why
do so few kings seek this advantage ? You know, Monseigneur : it is
because almost all of them think more of royalty than of humanity.
You do precisely the contrary. Rely upon it, if one day the tumult
of business and the wickedness of men do not alter so divine a charac-
ter, you will be adored by your jieople and beloved by the whole
world. Philosophers worthy of the name will fly to your dominions ;
and, as celebrated artisans go in crowds to the country where their art
is most esteemed, men who think will go to gather about your
throne.
"The illustrious Queen Christina left her kingdom to go in quest of
the arts ; reign, Monseigneur, and the arts will go in quest of you.
" May you never be disgusted with the sciences by the quarrels of
the learned ! You see, Monseigneur, by the very things you deign to
send me, that they are men, for the most part, like courtiers them-
selves. They are sometimes as selfish, as intriguing, as false, as cruel ;
and all the difference between the pests of the court and the pests of
the schools is that the latter are the more ridiculous.
" It is very sad for humanity that those who claim to declare the
commands of Heaven, to be the interpreters of the Divinity, — in one
word, the theologians, — are sometimes the most dangerous of all ; that
348 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
there should be some among them who are as pernicious to society as
they are obscure in their ideas ; and that their souls should be swollen
with bitterness and pride in proportion as they are empty of truth.
They would be willing to disturb the peace of the earth for a sophism,
and would interest all kings to avenge by sword and fire the honor of
an argument in ferio or in barbara.
" Every thinking being who is not of their opinion is an atheist ;
and every king who does not favor them will be damned. You know,
Monseigneur, that the best course one can take is to abandon to them-
selves those pretended preceptors and real enemies of the human race.
Their words, when they are disregarded, are lost in the air like the
wind ; but if the weight of authority is enlisted in their support, that
wind acquires a force which sometimes overturns the throne.
" I see, Monseigneur, with the natural joy of a heart filled with love
for the public good, the immense distance which you put between men
who peacefully seek the truth and those who wish to go to war for
words which they do not understand. I see that the Newtons, the
Leibnitz, the Bayles, the Lockes, souls so elevated, so enlightened,
and so gentle, are those who nourish your spirit, and that you reject
other sham aliment which you find poisoned or without substance.
" I do not know how to thank your Eoyal Highness enough for
your goodness in sending me the little book concerning M. Wolf. I
regard his metaphysical ideas as doing honor to the human intellect.
They are flashes in the midst of profound night, which, I believe, is
all we can hope from metaphysics. There is no appearance that the
first principles of things will ever be well understood. The mice
which inhabit some little holes of an immense building know not if
that building is eternal, nor who was its architect, nor why that ar-
chitect built. They try to preserve their lives, to people their holes,
and to escape the destructive animals that pursue them. We are
mice, and the divine architect who has built this universe has not yet,
as far as I know, told his secret to any of us. If any one might pre-
tend to divine the truth, it is M. Wolf. He may be combated, but
he must be esteemed. His philosophy is very far from being perni-
cious ; there is nothing in it more beautiful or more true than his re-
mark that men ought to be just, though even they should have the mis-
fortune to be atheists.
" The protection which, it seems, you give, Monseigneur, to that
learned man is a proof at once of your justice and your humanity.
" You have the goodness, Monseigneur, to promise to send me the
' Treatise upon God, the Soul, and the World.' What a present,
Monseigneur, and what a transaction ! The heir of a monarchy deigns,
from the recesses of his palace, to send instruction to a hermit I
FREDERIC, PRINCE ROYAL OF PRUSSIA. 849
Deign to make me this present, Mouseigneur ; my extreme love for the
truth is the only thing which renders me worthy of it. Most princes
dread to hear the truth, and you will teach it.
" With regard to the verses of which you speak to me, you think
upon that art as sensibly as upon all the rest. Verses which do not
teach men new and affecting truths little deserve to be read. You
feel that there would be nothing more contemptible than to pass one's
life in putting into rhyme stale commonplaces which do not merit the
name of thoughts. If there is anything lower than that, it is to be
nothing but a satirical poet, and write only to decry others. Such
poets are to Parnassus what those doctors are to the schools who are
acquainted only with words, and cabal against men who write things.
" If the ' Henriade ' has not displeased your Royal Highness, I
ought to thank for it the love of truth my poem inspires, and the
horror for the factious, for persecutors, for the superstitious, for ty-
rants, and for rebels. It is the work of an honest man ; it ought to
find favor with a prince philosopher.
" You order me to send you my other works. I shall obey you,
Monseigneiir ; you shall be my judge, and you shall stand to me in
lieu of the public. I shall submit to you what I have hazarded in
philosophy ; your luminous comments will be my recompense; it is a
reward that few sovereigns can give. I am sure of your secrecy ;
your virtue, I do not doubt, equals your knowledge.
" I should regard it as a very great good fortune to be able to pay
my court to your Royal Highness. We go to Rome to see churches,
pictures, ruins, and bas-reliefs. A prince like you deserves a journey
much better ; it is a rarity more marvelous. But friendship, which
retains me in the retreat where I am, does not permit me to leave it.
You think, without doubt, like Julian, that great man so calumniated,
who said that friends ought always to be preferred to kings.
" In whatever corner of the world I finish my life, be sure, Mon-
seigneur, that I shall continue to make vows for you ; that is to say,
for the happiness of a whole people. My heart will be ranked among
your subjects ; your glory always will be dear to me. Bly wish will
be that you may always resemble yourself, and that the other kings
may resemble you. I am, with profound respect, of your Royal High-
ness, the very humble Voltaire."
The prince replied with a promptitude and at a length that
might have alarmed a less busy man than Voltaire. This sec-
ond letter would fill about ten of these pages. Voltaire re-
sponded by dedicating to Frederic a poem on the " Use of
Science by Princes," of which he sent him a copy. The
350 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Prince Royal, in return, gave his beloved poet a cane, the head
of which was a golden bust of Socrates, and, ere the year was
out, plucked up courage to send a specimen of his French
verse, addressed to Voltaire ; receiving in return manuscripts
of great pith and moment, one a " Dissertation on the Soul,"
afterwards amplified for the " Philosophical Dictionary." The
correspondents grew ever fonder. Voltaire " sheds tears of
joy " on receiving the long letter mentioned above. Frederic,
on his part, is thrown into such an agitation by the arrival of
a letter from Cirey that hours pass before he is calm enough
to gather its full meaning.
" Towards the hour [he wrote in 1737] when the post usu-
ally arrives, all my servants are out on the road to bring me
my packet. Impatience immediately seizes me, also ; I run to
the window, and then, tired of seeing nothing come, I return
to my usual occupations. If I hear a noise in the antecham-
ber, I am there ! ' Ah, what is it ? Give me my letters ! No
neivs?^ My imagination far outstrips the courier. At last,
after such proceedings have continued some hours, behold, my
letters arrive ! I break the seals. I look for your writing
(often in yain), and, when I perceive it, my agitation hinders
me from breaking the seal. I read, but so fast that I am
obliged sometimes to read the letter three times over before
my mind is calm enough to understand what I have read ; and
it happens, even, that I do not succeed until the next day."
He might well make the last statement, for one of Voltaire's
letters, to which the above was a reply, fills twenty-seven large
printed pages, and contained a metaphysical discourse upon
the question of Liberty and Necessity. Soon there was an in-
terchange of civilities and letters between Madame du Chate-
let and the prince, which continued as long as she lived. Soon
Thieriot was appointed to write for the prince an occasional
letter of literary news from Paris, a duty ill performed by that
idle and luxurious parasite. During 1737 the prince's letters
came pretty regularly to the chateau once a month ; in 1738
he wrote seventeen times ; in 1740, the year of his accession,
twenty-seven times.
Such a correspondence could not remain a secret. Thieriot
was before long enabled to show to the illustrious suppei'-tables
of Paris a copy of " a very curious letter " which the Prince
TREDEEIC, PRINCE ROYAL OF PRUSSIA. 851
Royal of Prussia (the prince, you know, who came near hav-
ing his head cut off by his ogre of a father, a few years since)
had lately written to Voltaire. All Europe soon heard of it.
The gazettes, even, presumed to mention it. A Holland paper
stated that the golden head of the cane sent to the poet was
" a portrait of the prince." " Was it, indeed ? " asks Vol-
taire. "No," replied Frederic; " my portrait is neither good-
looking enough nor rare enough for me to give you. It is of
Socrates, who was to Greece less than you are to Fi-ance."
Voltaire, we must own, meant to get from this correspond-
ence all the sup^^ort it could furnish against the powers that
kept the key of the Bastille and could drive him from his
home and country without a moment's warning. At the same
time, he fulfilled, to the very best of his ability and light,
the duty, the opportunity, which had fallen in his way, of
influencing a mind destined to rule a country. He spared
no toil to give this young man the best he had. Both were
under ilkision. Frederic had seen beautiful works in a gal-
lery, and seen them with the adoring rapture of ingenuous
youth ; but the artist — with a smudge of clay upon his nose,
with his indigestions, irritabilities, servilities, vanities, and all
the cat;ilogue of his human foibles and frailties — he had not
seen. Nor did Voltaire yet know how much more a kingdom
governs a king than a king governs a kingdom. Hence both
were destined to some disenchantment.
Voltaire was beginning to have his corps of young disciples,
— known to him and unknown, — who were, by and by, to ex-
tend liis influence. Many young men in Europe, and, here
and there, one or two in Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts,
and Pennsylvania, felt towards him very much as Frederic of
Prussia felt. Never was there such an untiring and dexterous
sower of seed ; and now the seed was sprouting in many parts
of the field. He berated his young friends soundly when he
thought they deserved it, especially the idle and neglectful.
His patience with such was amazing in so impatient a man ;
and even when he had exhausted every means of rousing
them to exertion he could not cast them off ; or, if he did,
was swift to welcome them again on the least sign of im-
provement. Note these few sentences from his letters of this
period : —
852 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
[To Thieriot.] " Yes ; I will scold you till I have cured you of
your indolence. You live as if man had been created only to sup ;
and you exist only between ten p. M. and two a. m. When you are
old and abandoned, will it be a consolation to you to say, ' Formerly
I drank champagne in good company ' ? "
[To Cideville.] " Tell Linant to be modest, humble, and service-
able. Your applause and friendship have been a sweet poison that
has turned his head. Me he hates, because I have spoken frankly to
him. Deserve his hatred in your turn, or he is lost."
[To Helvetius, young author.] " It costs you nothing to think, but
it costs infinitely to write. I therefore preach to you eternally that
art of writing which Boileau has so well known and so well taught:
that respect for the language, that connection and sequence of ideas,
that air of ease with which he conducts his readers, tliat naturalness
which is the fruit of art, and that appearance of facility which is
due to toil alone. A word out of place spoils the most beautiful
thought."
[To Helvetius.] " Do you wish an infallible little rule for verse ?
Here it is : See if your thought, as you have written it in verse, is
beautiful in prose also."
[To a young poet without fortune.] " Think first to improve your
.circumstances. First live ; then compose."
[To Thieriot.] " I envy the beasts two things, — their ignorance
of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said of them."
[To Frederic] " Learned men there will always be at Berlin ; but
men of genius, men who in communicating their soul render others
wise, these elder sons of Prometheus who go about distributing the
celestial fire among ill-organized masses, — of these there will always
be very few in any country."
[To Helvetius.] " The body of an athlete and the soul of a sage,
— these are what we require to be happy."
[To Maupertuis, invited to Prussia.] " It is a beautiful age, this,
when men of letters hesitate to repair to the courts of kings ; but if
they do not hesitate, the age will be much more beautiful."
[To Frederic] '' Those who say that the fiames of religious wars
are extinguished, pay, it seems to me, too much honor to human nat-
ure. The same poison still subsists, though less developed ; the plague
that seems stifled reproduces from time to time germs capable of in-
fecting the earth."
CHAPTER XXXII.
FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND.
The pleasant excitement caused by the prince's letter had
subsided, and life at Cirey was going its usual course. The
marquise was still restoring parts of the old chateau ; Vol-
taire was building an annex for his apparatus ; and they were
rivals for the possession of the workmen. " Madame has
taken all my men," he complains sometimes, impatient to get
his laboratory in working order. There were periods of such
peaceful, happy, and honorable labor during the early years of
their settlement at Cirey that it seemed as if their dream was
realized, and, unlike Faust, they could say to the gliding hour,
" Stay, thou art fair ! "
The children were occupied with their tutor, — good children,
Voltaire assures us; the boy, afterwards that Duke du Chate-
let who lost his head imder the reign of the guillotine, was
now a little scholar learning Latin fables, enraptured to receive
on his birthday a silver watch, good or bad, that had cost three
louis d'or. The marquis, his father, when not with his regi-
ment, was hunting, or visiting his foundries and iron mines,
or riding to the neighboring chateaux ; coming home with an
excellent appetite to eat, and, as soon as he had eaten, bestow-
ing upon an intellectual company the favor of his friendly
departure. He is " the worthiest gentleman I ever knew,"
says his wife in her correspondence. She invariably speaks
of him with respect, often with warm eulogiuni ; and he, as
we are assured, was gratified at his wife's celebrity.
Madame was almost as studious as her friend, when there
were no guests to entertain ; for, besides her geometry, she
was now^ learning English and Italian. She was translating
Mandeville's " Fable of the Bees ; " and she, too, as well as
Voltaire, was grappling with Pope's " Essay on Man." One
verse she remarks, delighted her very much : " An honest
VOL. I. 23
354 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
man 's the noblest worck of God." This she thought exceed-
ingly fine ; but there was a couplet in the same book which,
she says, shocked Voltaire : —
" All reason's pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, — health, peace, and competence."
These lines omitted love. " Pope is to be pitied," says Vol-
taire, in an epigram suggested by the passage ; " he is neither
happy nor wise." Madame was all enthusiasm for England
and the English. She intended to visit that home of freedom
as soon as she had devised a pretext ; for, as she remarks, the
marquis, one of the best of men, would not understand her
real reason for going, which was simply to instruct herself.
" You have seen the ' Julius Csesar ' of Shakespeare," she
writes to Algarotti, in England ; " you are going to see ' On-
fort ' and ' Blenkeim ; ' and, what is still better, you see men
worthy to associate with you." She quotes with approbation
two lines of Hervey : —
" freedom, benefactress fair,
How happy who thy blessings share ! "
For a year or more she was blessed in being able to render
Voltaire important aid in a work near his heart. In the au-
tumn of 1735, Algarotti, a young Italian who employed the
leisure that wealth gives in patriotic and intellectual labors,
spent six weeks at Cirey, where he talked frequently with its
inmates upon an amiable project he had partly executed of
putting Newton's " Principia " into a series of Italian dia-
logues for ladies. He read some of the dialogues at Cirey,
and Voltaire applauded the scheme, which was completed,
with happy results to Italy and to other countries ; for Alga-
rotti's work was translated into several languages. Its best
result was in suggesting to Voltaire the idea of doing for
France what his young friend was doing for Italy. In his
English Letters he had given Newton the place of honor,
and this at a time when Newton's philosophy was unknown
to the many and despised by the few. Out of England there
were not in the world, probably, thirty Newtonians when
Voltaire wrote upon Newton in his English Letters. He
determined, in 1735, to write a volume, giving in a clear,
exact, but popular form, the substance of Newton's work,
which, being in Latin, and algebra, was, is, and will always
FLIGHT INTO HOLLAm). 355
remain inaccessible except to the learned. It was a project
worthy of a patriot and a scholar thus to place the best intel-
lectual treasure of a foreign land within easy reach of the
whole educated class of his own ; and it was peculiarly Ms
work who felt that knowledge is the antidote to superstition,
and that superstition was poisoning the life of France.
From the middle of 1735 to the end of 1736, Newton was
his principal task. " Thalia, Thalia," he wrote from the
midst of it to Mademoiselle Quinault, who was playing in his
" Prodigal Son," " if I were at Paris, I would work only for
you. You would make me an amphibious animal, comic six
months of the year, and tragic the other six ; but there is in
the world a devil of a Newton, who has found out how much
the sun weighs, and of what color the rays are which compose
light. This strange man has turned my head." And to his
ancient professor, Abb6 d'Olivet, in October, 1736: "At pres-
ent I am occupied in learning how much the «un weighs ;
one folly the more. ' What does it matter,' you will ask,
' how much it weighs, provided we enjoy it ? ' Oh, it matters
much to us deep thinkers, for it relates to the grand principle
of gravitation. My dear friend, my dear master, Newton is
the greatest man that ever lived, — the greatest, I mean, as
the giants of old are compared with children who play with
cherry-stones. Nevertheless, let us not be discouraged ; let
us gather some flowers in this world which he measured, which
he weighed, which he alone knew. Let us sport under the
arms of this Atlas who carries the sky ; let us compose dramas,
odes, rubbish. Love me; console me for being so small.
Adieu, my dear friend, my dear master." In this light, fa-
miliar way he spoke of a piece of work that evidently tasked
the united powers of Madame du Chatelet and himself, and
which filled months with arduous, fascinating toil.
Thus they were employed at the beginning of Christmas
week in 1736. The long and honorable labor was substantially
done ; only the last two chapters being incomplete. The
weather was cold ; and Voltaire, a chilly mortal, from his
unceasing, inordinate industry, stirred seldom from the warmth
of the fire. He loved a fire. He was a rare heaper-on of
fuel, and visitors wondered at the number of cords of wood
daily consumed in the vain attempt to warm the old chateau.
356 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
But the poet's corner was warm and snug enough, and he
clung to it ; for the earth was covered with snow, and the air
was thick with wintry storm.
It was Saturday, December 21st, the longest night of the
year. A letter arrives from the " guardian angel " of the
house, D'Argental, — a letter of warning ! The peace of this
abode rested upon a promise which the Keeper of the Seals
had given again and again to the Duchess de Richelieu, that
he would begin no proceeding against Voltaire without giv-
ing her notice. Notice had been given ! D'Argental for-
warded it swiftly to Cirey. The pretext of the threatened
prosecution seems to have astounded the inmates of the chi,-
teau even more than the threat itself. It was a merry poem
of a hundred and twenty lines, called "The Worldling" (Le
Mondain), suggested by the " Fable of the Bees," and written
in the gay hours following the success of " Alzire," a few
months before. The poem was a jovial explosion of anti-
Pasealism ; harmless if taken as a joke, nor likely to be taken
otherwise except by a Tartuffe.
" Eegret who will the good old time,
And the age of gold, and Astrea's reign.
And the beautiful days of Saturn and of Rhea,
And the garden of our first parents."
" For my part," continued the poet, " I love luxury and
even softness [wo??essg], all the pleasures, all the arts, cleanli-
ness, taste, decoration ; and so does every honest man." One
of the lines of this poem has remained current coin in France
ever since : "Le superflu, chose tres necessaire."^
The offense of this poem was supposed to lie in a few
lines referring to the legend of Adam and Eve : " My dear
Adam, my gourmand, my good father, what did you do in the
garden of Eden ? Did you toil for this stupid human race of
ours? Did you caress Madame Eve, my mother ? Confess to
me that both of you had long nails, a little black and dirty,
your hair slightly out of order, j^our complexion dark, your
skin brown and tanned. Without decency, the most fortunate
love is love no more ; it is a shameful need. Immediately
tired of one another, they sup genteelly under an oak upon
water, millet, and acorns ; then sleep upon the ground. Such
1 The superfluous, a thing very necessary.
FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND. 357
is the condition of man in a state of pure nature." To this
he contrasts the daily life of a rich Frenchman of that period,
to whom all the arts ministered, and who enjoyed the re-
fined delights of mind, taste, and sense. The poem concludes
with a few lines which utter the feelings of millions of school-
boys, whose souls have wearied of Telemachus and never-
ending preach : ♦' Now, Monsieur Telemachus, vaunt as you
may your little Ithaca, where your Cretans, dismally vir-
tuous, poor in goods, rich in abstinence, go without every-
thing in order to have abundance, I consent willingly to be
whipped within your walls if ever I go to seek there my hap-
piness."
At the instigation of Boyer, preceptor of the dauphin, a
priest whose name comes down to us laden with Voltaire's con-
temptuous ridicule, the aged Cardinal de Fleury consented to
the prosecution of the author of the " Mondain." D'Aro-en-
tal's warning Avas emphatic and urgent. " But for the respect
felt for your Flouse," he said, " M. de Voltaire would long ago
have been arrested, and it is. now in contemplation to write to
M. du Clnitelet, requesting that he no longer give him an asy-
lum." It was this last menace that threw the lady into such
extreme apprehension, since it threatened to put an end to
their scheme of life. The marquis, true child of his period,
had no scruples with regard to the morality of the situation,
but he would have died for its decorums. Madame lauohed
at the idea of such extreme respect felt for their House, when
the chateau of a Prince de Guise had not sufficed to protect
her poet ; but all the more was she alarmed at a danger of
which she knew not the extent, nor the real cause.
At length, after agonizing conflicts of feeling, she consented
to his temporary departure. He should at least cross the
frontier, and await the development of events. If the storm
blew over, he could return. If not, he must seek an abode in
some country — England, Holland, Prussia — wliere a poet
and philosopher could not be turned out of his liome into the
snow by a dull theologian ambitious to wear a red hat. It was
nine in the evening when she was brought to consent to this
project, and they determined to leave that very night; she to
go with him as far as Vassy, four miles off, the nearest village
where he could get post-horses. We have the letter which he
358 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
wrote to D' Argental at Vassy early on Sunday morning, while,
perhaps, the horses were harnessmg : —
" Your friend cannot endure that I should remain longer in a coun-
try where I am treated so inhumanly. We have left Cirey ; at four
o'clock in the piorning we are at Vassy, where I am to take post-
horses. But, my true, my tender and honored friend, now that the
moment arrives when I must separate myself forever from one who has
done all for me, — who for me left Paris, left all her friends, and all the
agreeable things of life, — one whom I adore and ought to adore, you
know what I feel ; the situation is horrible. I should set out with joy
inexpressible ; I w^ould go to see the Prince of Prussia, who often in-
vites me ; I would put between envy and me a space so wide that I
should be troubled by it no more ; I would live in foreign countries
like a Frenchman who will always respect his own country ; I should
be free, and should not abuse my liberty ; I should be the happiest
man in the world ; but your friend is before me in a flood of tears.
My heart is pierced. Will it be necessary to let her return alone to a
chateau which she has rebuilt only for me, and deprive myself of the
charm of my life, because I have enemies at Paris ? It is, assuredly,
to unite the absurdity of the age of gold and the barbarity of the age
of iron to menace me for such a work. If you deem the storm too
violent, send us word to the usual address, and I shall continue my
journey ; if you believe it calmed, I shall come to a halt. But what
a frightful life ! I would rather die than be eternally tormented by
the dread of losing my liberty upon the most trifling complaint, with-
out form of law. I submit all to you ; see what I ought to do."
They separated at Vassy on Sunday morning ; he taking the
road to Lorraine, she returning to the void and desolate chS,-
teau at Cirey. She heard notliing of him until the Friday fol-
lowing, when good news came. He had reached the frontier
in safety, and had gone on toward Brussels, a hundred and
fifty miles distant, where he was to be addressed as Monsieur
Renol, merchant. Best of all, his health had not suffered.
"His unfortunate health," wrote the marquise to D'Argental,
" always supports journeys better than we should dare hope,
because then he works less. Still, when I look out upon the
earth covered with snow, and the weather so dismal and thick ;
when I think of the climate to which he is going, and his ex-
treme sensitiveness to cold, I am ready to die of grief. I would
endure his absence if I could be assured of his health."
Her long and almost daily letters to their guardian angel,
FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND. 859
D'Argental, show how her heart was torn with apprehension
and anxiety during the next two months. She brooded over
the situation. She imagined new explanations. She feared
a collision between Voltaire and Rousseau at Brussels. She
dreaded lest her poet should go to the Prince Royal of Prussia,
and never return to Cirey. That prince might be amiable,
but he was not king, and he had an ogre of a father, who might
even arrest a French poet and send him packing home to a
Keeper of the Seals. The ogre would have liked nothing bet-
ter. That metaphysical treatise, too, that thirty-page letter
to the prince upon Liberty and Necessity, — what insanity to
trust such a dreadful package of explosive matter out of their
own hands ! " A Treatise," wrote madame, " reasonable enough
to bring its author to the stake ; a book a thousand times more
dangerous, and, assuredly, more punishable, than the ' Pu-
celle.' " And the prince to have in his custody such a work as
that ! How likely it was to fall into the hands of the Prus-
sian ministry, and so reach his father, and thus the French
ambassador, and finally the French ministry ! To confide
such a work to a prince of twenty-four years, unformed, whom
a fit of sickness might render religious ! To make the happi-
ness of her life depend upon the discretion and fidelity of the
Prince Royal, merely to gratify a foolish vanity of showing the
work to a young man who could not appreciate it. Thus
she tormented herself with apprehensions of evil, shut up in
the dead of winter in an old country chateau, which only his
presence could for a day have made endurable. For some
time she indulged the fancy that one of her own relations had
taken this method of gratifying an enmity against her. So
she was wretched in the belief that she had been the cause of
his unhappiness. But she had one comfort : " Happily, I am
sure of M. du Chatelet. He is the most honorable and the
most estimable man I know, and I should be the basest of
creatures if I did not think so." Again, " It is a happiness
unique to live with a man so worthy."
The traveler was by no meaus so unhappy as she. At Brus-
sels he did not fall foul of Rousseau, and the actors there cele-
brated the arrival of M. Renol, merchant, by performing the
tragedy of " Alzire," written by M. de Voltaire, poet. The
same coincidence marked the arrival of M. Renol at Anvers,
860 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the next large city of Flanders. The gazettes informed the
public that M. de Voltaire was on his way to visit the Prince
Royal of Prussia ; and that prince, on learning the true cause
of his leaving Cirey, sent a messenger to offer him the use
of the Prussian ambassador's house in London. The prince
overwhelmed him with sympathy and attention. Voltaire
received four letters from him at the same time, besides a
copy of Wolf's " Metaphysics " and a cargo of French verses.
Continuing his journey, he reached Amsterdam, still as M.
Renol, merchant ; but there the transparent disguise was
laid aside. He had a world of business at the Dutch capital,
where a complete and authorized edition of his works was in
course of publication, and where he intended to have an edi-
tion of his "Elements of Newton" published simultaneously
with one at Paris. At Leyden, where he spent several days,
he improved the opportunity to submit knotty points in
Newton to the learned professors of the university, partic-
ularly^ to Professor s' Gravesande, a staunch Newtonian.
Twenty English gentlemen of the suite of George II. called
upon him at Leyden, and he received them, busy as he was.
His mind seemed absorbed in Newton during most of his stay
in Holland.
"I live here," he wrote to D'Argental, "quite like a phi-
losojaher. I study much ; I see little company ; I try to under-
stand Newton, and I try to make him understood. I console
myself by study for the absence of my friends. It is not pos-
sible at present for me to recast the ' Prodigal Son.' I could
well enough labor at a tragedy in the morning and at a comedy
in the evening; but to pass in the same day from Newton to
Thalia, I do not feel the force for it. Wait till the spring,
gentlemen ; la poesie will serve her quarter ; but just now it
is the turn of science. If I do not succeed with Newton, I
shall console myself very quii'kly with you."
The agonizing letters of Madame du Chatelet imploring his
return soon prevailed ; and in March, 1737, after an absence
of nearly three months, he gave out on all sides that he was
going to England, and slipped quietly back to Cirey. " Be
sure and not forget that I am in England," he writes to Abb^
Moussinot.
No act of arbitrary power of which he was himself the
1
FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND. 361
victim ever stirred within him so lasting indignation as this
proscription of " Le Mondain." He spoke of it twenty years
after with bitterness, and it was, perhaps, the chief motive
of his attempt to establish himself, at a later day, in another
country. He felt it the more acutely because the abhorred
Rousseau was the witness and harbinger of his discredit.
To Rousseau he attributed scandalous paragraphs which ap-
peared in the gazettes, informing Europe that the author of
the English Letters had been driven (^chasse') from France,
never to return, and had gone to Leyden for the purpose of de-
fending: atheism against Professor s' Gravesande. These re-
ports reached Paris, reached the government, and he asked the
professor to " write two words to the Cardinal de Fleury," to
set him right with that minister; for, said he, "all my prop,
erty is in France, and I am under a necessity of destroying an
imposture which in your country I should content myself with
despising, as you would."
Madame du Chatelet, and she alone, brought him back to
France. " A man of letters," he wrote to D'Argental, soon
after his return to Cirey, " ought to live in a free country, or
make up his mind to lead the life of a timorous slave, whom
other slaves, jealous of him, continually accuse to the master.
In France I have nothing to expect but such persecutions ;
they will be my only recompense. I feel that I shall always
be the victim of the first calumniator. In vain I hide in ob-
scurity ; in vain I write to no one ; it will be known where I
am, and my obstinate concealment will perhaps render my
retreat culpable. Thus, I live in continual alarm without
knowing how I can parry the blows dealt me every day.
There is no likelihood of my ever returning to Paris, to expose
myself again to the furies of superstition and envy. I shall live
at Cirey or in a free land. / have always said to you that
{/" ^y father^ my brother^ or my son ivere prime minister of
a despotic state, I would leave it to-morrou> ! Judge what
must be my repugnance on finding myself in such a state
to-day! But, after all, Madame du Chatelet is to me more
than a father, a brother, or a son."
He wrote, nevertheless, a conciliatory letter to one of the
mmisters, M. de Maurepas ; to whom, also, madame sent a
propitiatory present of two bucks, much fearing that they
362 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
would reach him the worse for their journey, — pourris, as she
plainly expressed it.
Was he going to be a good boy, then, and write no more
Mondains and essays upon Liberty and Necessity? That
was Madame du Chatelet's desire. She implored him to be
" prudent " (sage) ; she strove, as she said, to " save him from
himself ; " she begged him to leave out of his new edition the
passages that were most " burnable." That, however, was
not Voltaire's interpretation of the case. As soon as he was
well settled at Cirey again, in the spring of 1737, he amused
himself by writing a " Defense of the Mondain," a poem a
little longer than the " Mondain " itself, and, if possible, more
audacious, more comic, more gracefully effective and mur-
derous. " At table 3'esterday, by a sad chance, I found my-
self seated by a master hypocrite." The poem consists of
the conversation between tlie poet and the priest ; and this
device gave him an opportunity, which he made the most of,
to show that, whatever abstinence priests might preach, they
did not deny themselves mundane luxuries. His description
of this luxurious churchman guzzling perfumed and amber
colored canary, after consigning the author of " the Mondain
to perdition, is extremely diverting. Nor does he omit to
adduce the example of Solomon, held up as the wisest of
men ; who, however, carried luxurious indulgence to a point
which the Mondain would not presume to attempt. "A thou-
sand beauties ? That is much for a sage ! Give me one.
One is enough for me, who have not the honor to be either sage
or king."
He wrote yet another poem, entitled " The Use of Life : A
Reply to Criticism upon the Mondain," in which he inculcated
moderation and temperance. " The secret of happiness is to
moderate your desires." " To enjoy the pleasures, you must
know how to leave them." Prosperity, adversity, — these
are but names ; " our happiness is in ourselves alone."
)'
CHAPTER XXXIII.
VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE.
For about four years — 1735 to 1739 — science was the
chief pursuit of the inmates of the chateau of Cirey. The
new impulse toward science, originating in the Royal Society,
and stimulated by Sir Isaac Newton's sublime career, reached
France soon after Voltaire's return from England, and kept
on its way round the world. It set printer Franklin and his
leather- aproned junto rubbing electrical tubes in Philadel-
phia. It made farmer Bartram of Pennsylvania a botanist,
and Jefferson in Virginia a natural philosopher. It captivated
Voltaire in 1735, and held him long enthralled. Among his
friends and instructors at Leyden, the Leyden jar was soon
to be invented. As in all progressive times, so in that won-
derful century of seed-sowing, the boundaries of human knowl-
edge were greatly enlarged ; and it was inevitable that so sym-
pathetic a spirit as Voltaire should endeavor to lend a helping
hand.
He believed, too, in a varied culture. He was prone to un-
dervalue the man of one talent; the nature with only one cul-
tivated field ; the poet, like J. B. Rousseau, who could do
nothing but poetry ; the man of business who was only a busi-
ness man ; the philosopher who always and only philosophized.
He said, more than once, that he should have venerated New-
ton the more if Newton had written some vaudevilles for the
London stage. Friends remonstrated with him upon his ab-
sorption in pursuits that seemed to them foreign to his nature.
He had been a punctual and profuse correspondent until sci-
ence possessed him : then he often forgot or delayed to an-
swer his letters. " What shall you gain," asked Cideville,
" by knowing the pathway of light and the gravitation of
Saturn ? "
" We must give our souls," he replied, " all the forms possi-
364 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
ble to them. It is a fire -which God has confided to us ; we
ought to nourish it with whatever we find that is most precious.
We must have all imaginable modes of intellectual life, open
all the doors of our souls to all the sciences and all the senti-
ments ; and. provided that they do not enter pell-mell, there
is room within us for eveiy one of them."
And so for four or five years he was a natural philosopher.
He filled his gallery with costly apparatus, — air-pumps, ther-
mometers, furnaces, crucibles, retorts, telescopes, microscopes,
prisms, scales, and compasses. Failing to get a competent
chemist who could say mass on Sundays in the chapel of the
chateau, he endeavored to form and train a young man for the
work of the laboratory alone, which answered better. For a
year or two he had a chemical assistant at Cirey ; and, indeed,
many of his experiments must have required the aid of several
men, — Aveighing a ton of red-hot iron, for example. We per-
ceive that Prince Frederic caught the new taste, and followed
his example. The prince sowed radish-seed in an exhausted
receiver to see if seed would germinate without air. He
worked his air-pump diligently. It was "the mode" with the
intelligent portion of the public not to be content with their
ignorance of natural laws.
The chief results of Voltaire's studies and experiments in
science occupy two volumes of his works, and strengthen every
other volume produced in the latter half of his life. One of
these volumes is devoted to his " Elements of Newton's Phi-
losoph)''," — a work of great celebrity in its day, obsolete now
only because Newton's philosophy is part and parcel of human
thought in every civilized land.
It is interesting to notice throughout the wide range of Vol-
taire's works how Newton had fascinated him. In London, both
Franklin and Voltaire, almost at the same time, appear to us
as if haunting Newton's neighborhood; longing for a sight of
the aged discoverer, and longing in vain ; happy to converse
with those who had known him. When he was in England,
Voltaire tells us, he was denied the consolation of seeing the
great philosopher, who was then sinking to the tomb ; but he
frequently met Dr. Samuel Clarke, Newton's friend and disci-
ple, who continued the controversy with Leibnitz after the
master's death. From conversations with Dr. Clarke he de-
VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE. 365
rived that impulse towards metaphysics which influenced him
for some years. But, he tells us, he soon perceived the insuf-
ficiency of the metaphysical systems then in vogue. " One
day, full of those grand subjects which charm the mind by
their immensity, I said to a very enlightened member of the
company, ' Mr. Clarke is a much greater metaphysician than
Mr. Newton.' ' That may be,' was the cool reply. ' It is as
if you should say that one of them plays •with, balloons better
than the other.' This reply made me reenter into myself.
Since that time I have dared to pierce some of those balloons
of metaphysics, and have found that nothing came out of them
except wind. So, when I said to M. s' Gravesande, ' Vanity
of vanities, and metaphysics are vanity,' he replied, 'I am very
sorry that you are right.' "
Another English anecdote of Dr. Clarke he called to mind
on beginning to write his "Elements of Newton, ".and he
introduced it very happily, as if to disarm the prejudices of
those who regarded the philosophy of Descartes as part of
their orthodoxy. These are the opening sentences of his work
upon the " Principia : " —
" Newton was intimately persuaded of the existence of a God, and
he understood by that word not only an infinite being, all-powerful,
eternal and the Creator, but a Master who has established a relation
between himself and his creatures ; for, without that relation, the
knowledge of a God is only a sterile idea, which, by the hope of im-
punity, would seem to invite to crime every reasoner of perverse dis-
position. Thus that great philosopher makes a singular remark at
the end of his ' Principia.' It is that we do not say, My Eternal, my
Infinite, because those attributes have no relation to our nature ; but
we say, and ought to say, My God, by which we must understand
the Master and the Preserver of our lives and the object of our
thoughts. I remember that, in several conversations which I had in
1726 with Dr. Clarke, that pliilosopher never pronounced the name
of God except with an air of seriousness and respect very noticeable.
I mentioned to him the impression which that made upon me. He
told me it was from Newton that he had insensibly taken the habit,
— which, indeed, ought to be that of all men. The whole philosophy
of Newton conducts necessarily to the knowledge of the Supreme
Being, who has created everything, and arranged everything accord-
ing to his will."
With this prelude, so just to Newton, he enters upon the
366 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
first part of his task, which is to give an account of the con-
troversy between Newton and Leibnitz upon the metaphysics
of his theme. Newton's opinion was that God, infinitely free,
as infinitely powerful, had done all things without any other
reason than his own wnll ; the planets, for example, moving
from west to east, rather than from east to west, simply and
solely because such was God's will. Leibnitz, on the con-
trary, held that God's will was determined by reasons ade-
quate to control it. Then, said Newton, God is not free.
Then, replied Leibnitz, God is capricious. Newton and Leib-
nitz were also at variance upon the nature of the connection
between the soul and the body, and upon many other ques-
tions not then ripe even for serious consideration. " If any
one," says Voltaire, " wishes to know what Newton thought
upon the soul, and upon the manner in which it operates, I
shall reply that he followed none of the cnrrent opinions of
his time. Do you ask what that man knew upon this subject,
who had submitted the infinite to calculation, and had discov-
ered the laws of gravity ? He knew how to doubt."
The second part of Voltaire's work contains the exposition
of Newton's researches in optics. Here he was by no means
either a translator or a compiler. He tried all the experiments
described by Newton. He had in his gallery at Cirey a dark
chamber, arranged accord'ng to Newton's description, in which
he performed the experiments with prisms of various sizes
and kinds which are now so familiar. Every intelligent vis-
itor to the chateau was sure to be taken to this dark room to
see him break a ray c^f light into Sir Isaac's brilliant rainbow.
He invented some experiments of his own, and brought the
air-pump into requisition to see the effect of a vacuum upon
the prismatic colors. He was exceedingly pleased with his
prisms and his dark chamber; he reflected much upon the
Newtonian theory of light, but, like most other philosophers,
he left the subject where Newton left it in his last edition of
1726.
The difficult part of Voltaire's task was in explaining the
principle of gravitation. Sir Isaac himself gives a list of the
works necessary to be understood by a student before attempt-
mo- bis " Principia," — a somewhat formidable catalogue.
INIost mathematicians, however, recommend a much more ex-
VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE. 367
tensive preparation. Whatever was necessary for the clear
vmderstanding of this part of Newton's work, Voltaire ac-
quired. He wrestled mightily with his task ; for at college
he had had no mathematical training. With the assistance
of Maupertuis, of Madame du Chatelet, of the learned pro-
fessors of Leyden University, and his own unconquerable reso-
lution, he mastered the work, and gave an account of -it wliich
any educated person of good intelligence can follow and enjoy.
His essay is free from those sallies of wit and satire, those
side-blows at the various objects of his antipathy, which mark
almost every other production of his pen. Descartes, whose
philosophy Newton's displaced, and Leibnitz, Newton's chief
opponent, he treats with the respect due to their great quali-
ties, while dissenting with perfect candor from their positions.
Before dispatching the last chapters to his printers in Am-
sterdam, he sent a copy of the whole work to the Chancellor
of France, asking for a royal privilege to publish it. He ex-
pected to receive the privilege. " The most imbecile fanatic,
the most envenomed hypocrite," he wrote to a friend, " can
find nothing in it to object to." Six months passed away,
and he had received no answer to his application. By way
of showing, as he says, " a docility without reserve," he sus-
pended the publication in Holland ; and, to make the suspen-
sion sure, he withheld the manuscript of the last two chap-
ters. Other months passed, and no news from the censorship.
The Dutch printers, impatient, engaged a local mathematician
to complete the work ; which they jDublished, swarming with
errors, with a telittling title-page of their own concocting,
and the last pages added by another hand. Finally, to com-
plete the series of misfortunes, the Chancellor of France, M.
d'Aguesseau, refused the privilege of publication, and left the
author to struggle as he might with this complication of em-
barrassments.
The most bigoted reader would look through the work in
vain to find either cause or pretext for the ministerial ban.
The reason was the freedom with which he had handled the
theories of Descartes, who supposed that the earth and the
moon were whirled along from west to east by a vast number
of minute particles rushing eternally in the same direction.
Descartes ruled in science and in literature. Polite society
368 LIFE OF VOLTAIRK
was Cartesi:in. As M. Saigey remarks, " it savored of good
breeding " to profess a belief in the Cartesian whirlwinds.
Grandes dames, and the young ladies who composed their
courts, had upon their toilet-tables Fontenelle's " Conversa-
tions upon the Plurality of Worlds," in which the astronomy
of Descartes was adorned Avith all the gi-aces of his style.
Descartes was defended against Newton in the most elegant
circles. The Duchess du Maine and her court were Carte-
sian, and nearly all institutions of learning in France, which
took notice of astronomy at all, illustrated the wisdom and the
power of the Creator by describing the Cartesian whirlwinds
with whatever eloquence they possessed.
This was precisely the condition of things which a compe-
tent author would desire, if he were sure he had the truth on
his side. Voltaire's work, impatiently expected, and long de-
layed by the perversity of things and men, struggled into life
at last, and made a genuine sensation. The errors of the first
Holland edition published without his knowledge, the novelty
of a poet appearing in the character of a man of science, the
author's prompt, vehement explanations and remonstrances,
the publication at length of a correct and authorized version,
the opposition of the polite world, the flaming zeal of the few
Newtonians, all contributed to enhance the celebrity and in-
fluence of the book. The " Dutch corsairs," as he styled the
impatient printers of Amsterdam, had taken the liberty to
entitle the work " The Elements of the Philosophy of New-
ton Adapted to Every Capacity " (^mis a la portee de tout le
monde). The malign Desfontaines remarked, in his notice,
that there was one error of the Dutch edition which the au-
thor had not corrected. For portee, said he, read joo?-tg/ since
it was only at everybody's door that the new work was put.
The work made its way through a vast number of doors, and
in ten years there were scarcely ten Cartesians in France.
Before Newton was off his hands, he was immersed in origi-
nal researches. The Academy of Sciences proposed as the
subject for the prize essay of 1738 " The Nature of Fire and
its Propagation." Voltaire, who was living in a land of fire,
near forges and foundries vomiting flame by night and day,
resolved to compete for the prize, and entered upon a course
of laborious experiment. We have seen him, on previous
VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE. 369
pages, setting the Abb(5 Moussinot at work among the chem-
ists of Paris. At Chaumont he frequently visited a foundry,
where he had scales prepared for weighing huge masses of
iron, cold and hot, as well as great pots for weighing melted
iron. He weighed from two pounds to two thousand pounds,
first cold, and then hot. He worked thoroughly and deliber-
ately, beginning by having iron chains put to the scales in-
stead of ropes, and taking the precaution to be surrounded by
" ten ocular witnesses," of whom one, doubtless, was Madame
du Chatelet. What an unwonted scene in a Chaumont foun-
dry ! He had three cast-iron pots, very thick, hung upon
scales near the furnace, into one of which he caused a hun-
dred pounds of liquid iron to be poured ; into another, thiity-
five pounds ; into the third, twenty-five. After six hours'
cooling, he found that his hundred-pound mass weighed one
hundred and four pounds, and that the others had increased
in proportion. This experiment he repeated many times, al-
ways with the same results. Then he tried it with pots of
gray ore, " less metallic " than the cast-iron, and there was
neither increase nor diminution of weight in the contents of
the pots. Yet he was long in doubt whether heat possessed
the property of weight, because the results of his experiments
were not uniform, and he could not always determine whether
the occasional increase of weight was due to heat or to the
absorption of matter from the atmosphere or the vessel.
He performed a series of experiments with hot and cold
liquids, heating various liquids separately, mixing them hot,
mixing them cold, pouring a pint of boiling liquid upon a pint
of cold, and blending them in all conceivable ways; which led
him to the discovery that the temperature resulting from mix-
ing two liquids of different temperatures is not always the
mean temperature. " I have prepared," he says in his essay,
" some experiments upon the heat which liquids communicate
to liquids and solids to solids, and I will give a table of the
same, if the gentlemen of the Academy are of opinion that it
could be of any utility."
He experimented laboriously upon the second part of his
subject, the Propagation of Fire. He tried one experiment
which would not have been safe in the drier atmosphere of
America, where a spark from a cigar on a still day can set a
VOL. I. 24
370 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
mountain or a plain on fire. He had a piece of forest, eighty-
feet by twenty, partly cleared, but strewn with fallen trees
and cut wood ; to one end of which he applied fire by means
of straw. The day being serene and dry, the fire advanced
twenty feet in an hour, and then went out. But the next day
there was a high wind, and the whole eighty feet was burnt
over in an hour.
The science of one century is the ignorance of the next. It
was impossible that an essay upon Fire, written in 1737, should
have final scientific value, except to mark how far the subject
had then been developed ; as Pliny, in his " Natural His-
tory," gives us an imperishable and priceless cyclopaedia of
human ignorance in the first century. Voltaire's essay is all
acuteness and tact ; but it is not free from a little half-con-
scious attitudinizing. The doctors recommended him, about
this time, to take more exercise in the open air ; hunting, for
example. Why not hunt, in a hunting country ? Whereupon
he requests the Abbe Moussinot to send him from Paris the
complete apparatus and costume of a hunter. He wore it
once or twice, but he soon discovered that killing animals and
birds for pleasure was not very congenial. He adhered longer
to science than to shooting; but we catch glimpses of the trap-
pings of the investigator ; we observe a polite company gath-
ered round the iron pots of liquid iron, with a poet in the
midst of them amiably demonstrating that it is possible for a
poet to know something besides verse-making.
His essay was nearly done, and he was preparing to send it
to the Academy, the authorship being duly concealed accord-
ing to the rule. Madame du Chatelet, who had dissented from
some of his conclusions, suddenly resolved to send in a com-
peting essay. " I wished [as she explained to Maupertuis] to
try my powers under the shelter of the incognito ; for I ex-
pected never to be known. M. du Chatelet was the only one
in my confidence, and he kept the secret so well that he said
nothing of it even to you at Paris. I could perform no experi-
ment, because my project was unknown to M. de Voltaire,
and I could not have concealed experiments from him. I
made up my mind to compete only a month before the expira-
tion of the time set by the Academy for sending in the essays.
I could only work in the night, and I was all new in these sub-
VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE. 371
jects. M. de Voltaire's work, wliich was almost finished when
I began mine, suggested some ideas, as well as the desire to
compete. I set to work without knowing whether I should
ever see my essay again, and I said nothing about it to M. de
Voltaire, because I did not wish to blush before him for an
undertaking which I feared might displease him. Besides, I
combated almost all his ideas."
For eight successive nights she toiled at her essay, only
sleeping " an hour " each night ; and when nearly overcome
by sleep she would plunge her hands into ice-water, walk
rapidly up and down the room, and throw her arms about.
Thirty essays were received from the different countries of
Europe, of which five were pronounced worthy to compete.
Two of these select five were written at Cirey ; but the prize
was divided among the other three contestants : Professor Eu-
ler, of St. Petersburg, Father Lozeraude de Fiesc, of the Jes-
uits, and the Count de Crequi-Canai^les, a French nobleman.
The essay of the eminent mathematician, Euler, contained
some valuable and even memorable points ; it was the work of
a man of science. Those of his two associates in glory owed
their laurels, as French historians of science tell us, solely to
the fact that they adhered to the philosophy of Descartes,
which, in 1738, was clinging to life with the tenacity of death.
" It savored of good breeding to be Cartesian," — the last re-
source of error, that has received its death-wound. Condorcet
says boldly that Voltaire's essay deserved the prize, an opinion
from which M. Emile Saigey does not dissent.^ " Voltaire's
essay [says M. Saigey] is in advance of the science of that
age, and we find in it many passages the value of which could
not then have been appreciated."
When the news of the awards reached Cirey, the lady of
the chateau told her secret. " I felt [she says] that a rejec-
tion shared by him was an honor to me." He took the little
comedy in good part ; read her essay, extolled it warmly, pro-
cured its honorable publication by the Academy, and wrote an
anonymous review of it for the press, which carried the name
of the authoress to the ends of Europe. She was gratified by
the celebrity he gave her. He dedicated to her almost every-
thing he published at this period, and we perceive from her
1 La Physique de Voltaire, page 53. '
872 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
letters that she did not enjoy the omission of his compli-
mentary e^Mstles in some of tlie foreign editions of his works.
In tlie records of the Academy both essays were printed, pre-
ceded by a notice : " The authors of the two following pieces
having made known their desire that they should be printed,
we consent thereto with pleasure, although we cannot approve
the idea advanced in either of them of the nature of fire.
Both essays give evidence of great reading, great knowledge
of the best works upon science, and they are filled with facts
and views. Besides, the name alone of the authors can inter-
est the public curiosity. No. 6 is by a lady of high rank,
Madame du Chatelet, and the piece No. 7 is by one of our best
poets."
At the head of his essay Voltaire placed two Latin verses,
which have since done good service in similar ways : —
" Ignis ubique latet, nnturam amplectitur omnem,
Cuncta parit, renovat, dividit, unit, alit." ^
D'Alembert asked him who was the author of these lines.
*' My dear philosopher [he replied], those two verses are mine.
I am like the Bishop of Noyon, who used to say in his sermons,
' My brethren, I took none of these truths which I have just
uttered either from the Scripture or from the Fathers ; all
came out of the head of your bishop.' "
Continuing their scientific labors, niadame published, in
1740, a work entitled " Institutions Physiques," in which she
championed Leibnitz, as Voltaire had championed Newton.
He wrote an extensive review of it, in which he mingled gal-
lantry and criticism with his usual art, — not unwilling to let
his readers see under what a miserable bondage religion itself
struggled, when such giants as Leibnitz and Newton could
gravely accept the theologian's chronology, and their pupils
angrily discuss such frivolous questions as why God did not
create the world six thousand years sooner than he did, and
whether he could have done so if he had wished it.
In 1741, he sent to the Academy of Sciences an essay upon
the " Computation and Nature of Moving Forces," which shows
that, by dint of several years' study of science, mathematically
treated, he had become a respectable mathematician. He em-
^ Fire is hidden everywhere : fills all nature ; produces, renews, divides, unites,
nourishes, all things.
VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE. 373
ploys the language of mathematics in this essay with a readi-
ness and ease which prove familiar knowledge. He appears
to have had some intention of seeking admission to the Acad-
emy of Sciences, as " a bulwark " against the hostility of those
who were interested in keeping the human mind in bondage
to tradition.
A few years later he wrote scientific essays on subjects more
within the range of unlearned readers. The Academy of Bo-
logna having elected him a member of their body, he acknowl-
edged the compliment by composing an essay for them in the
Italian language, upon the Changes which have occurred in
our Globe. This essay shows us in an interesting manner
what man did not know in geology about the middle of the
last century. The spirit that pervades it, and which it incul-
cates, is the spirit to which we owe our better knowledge, —
the spirit of doubt. It is in this essay that his zeal to relieve
infant science from the incubus of sacred legend laid him
open to retort. It is said that, even at the present day, there
are provincials who believe in a literal deluge of the whole
earth ; but in 1746 all theologians assumed it ; and that one
legend, universally accepted as sacred history, would have
sufficed to clioke science in its cradle. In his zeal, I say, to
deliver the human mind from the ignominious bondage of the
deluge legend, he made light of the discovery of shells and
fossils which had been found upon mountains. Geology had
not then explained their presence a mile above the sea, and
theologians marked them for their own.
" A stone," said he, " was discovered in the mountains of
Hesse which appeared to bear the impression of a turbot, and
upon the Alps a petrified pike ; from which the inference has
been drawn that the sea and the rivers have flowed by turns
over the mountains. It were more natural to suppose that
these fish, carried by a traveler and becoming spoiled, were
thrown away, and, in the course of time, were petrified. But
that idea was too simple and too little systematic. An an-
chor, they say, was found upon a mountain of Switzerland ;
people do not reflect that heavy burdens, particularly cannon,
have often been transported in men's arms, and that an anchor
may have served to hang those burdens to a cleft in the
rocks. It is very probable that this anchor was taken from
374 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
one of the little ports of Lake Geneva. Finally, the story of
the anchor may be fabulous ; and men like better to declare
that it was the anchor of a vessel which was moored in Swit-
zerland before the deluge."
He discourses amusingly upon the question how a universal
flood was brought about which covered the highest mountains,
and required a quantity of water equal to twenty-four oceans.
" Science," he says, "has nothing in common with miracles.
Religion commands us to believe them, and reason forbids us
to explain them." Dr. Burnet, he adds, conjectured that the
ocean was swollen to that prodigious height by boiling ; but
no, that could not be; for water in boiling does not increase
more than a quarter in bulk. " To what a point we are
reduced when we attempt to fathom what we ought only to
respect ! " Twenty years later, when a great number of
marine deposits had been found far above the level of the
sea, he still demands proof that they were marine deposits.
Might they not be snail shells ? he asks. To such a point is
an author reduced who discusses a geological question before
geology exists !
During the rest of his life, though he gradually discontinued
his more laborious investigations in science, he was an atten-
tive student of nature. His essay of 1768, on " Some Singu-
larities of Nature," shows that the habit of his mind was to
observe and reflect upon the natural facts within his view.
If he had lived in our day, he would have subscribed to the
scientific periodicals, and kept them well supplied with the
shoi't articles their conductors love to receive, such as relate
something new about bees, coral, snails, toads, or oysters, or
give new conjectures concerning the formation of mountains,
seas, lakes, stone, and shells. His interest in nature was gen-
uine and lasting. When there were no visitors at the chateau,
natural science appears to have furnished Madame du ChS,telet
and himself wdth their most familiar topics of conversation,
and, particularly, the influence of natural causes upon the
character and history of nations. He had much of what we
may call the spirit of " Buckle's History of Civilization " in
him. We catch them star-gazing, also, in the memoirs of their
visitors and secretaries, who were frequently invited to survey
the heavens through the telescope. If any strange creature
VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE. 375
was exhibited in Paris during their visits to the city, they
were of the people who were likely to examine it. He went
to see an albino once, of whom he has left us a minute and
careful description. He calls it a " white Moor," and speaks of
it as belonging to "a race inhabiting the middle of Africa, near
the kingdom of Loango." After descanting, as usual, upon the
blind credulity and obstinate incredulity of men, he proceeds to
give a great number of particulars of the habits and character
of this non-existent race. He was credulous himself on this
occasion, because it lay near his heart to remove from pro-
gressive science the stumbling-block of the Adara-and-Eve
legend, and he was eager to seize every chance of showing
that our race could not have sprung from a single pair.
On another occasion his incredulity proved useful. A
German chemist of Alsace believed he had found the secret of
making saltpetre at one twentieth the ordinary price of the
article, and produced some gunpowder made of his saltpetre,
which proved to be excellent. He offered to sell the secret
for seventeen hundred thousand francs, and one fourth of
the profits of the manufacture for twenty years. The con-
tract was signed. The head of the powder company and a
chemist of repute came to Alsace, and the experiment was
performed before them with some appearance of success.
The gentlemen from Paris visited Voltaire, and explained
their errand. He said to the chief of the powder company,
" If you do not pay the seventeen hundred thousand francs
until after you have made saltpetre, you will keep your money
always." The chemist declared that saltpetre had been actu-
ally made. " I do not believe it," said Voltaire. " Why
not?" " Men " [was his reply] " make nothing. They unite
and disunite ; but it belongs only to nature to make." The
German tried for three months to produce saltpetre, without
success. He had found in the ruins of some ancient stables
and cellars a small quantity of saltpetre, which had misled
him into the belief that he could get any required quantity
from the earth of that region.^
1 Des Singalarites de la Nature, par Voltaire. Chapter xxii.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
VISITORS AT CIREY.
No other man m Europe was so attentive to what passed at
Cirey as the Prince Ro^'al of Prussia, whose passion for Vol-
taire did not diminish. In the spring of 1737 he announced
his purpose of sending as " ambassador " to Cirey his merry
and voluble young companion, Kaiserling, who would, as he
hoped, bring back to him a treasure of unpublished writings,
peihaps even some cantos of " La Pucelle." " In taking leave
of my little friend," wrote the prince, July 6, 1737, " I said
to him, ' Think that you are going to the terrestrial paradise,
— to a place a thousand times more delicious than the island
of Calypso ; that the goddess of those haunts yields in no de-
gree to the beaut}^ of the enchantress of Telemachus ; that you
will find in her all the charms of the mind, so preferable to
those of the person ; that this marvel occupies her leisure in
the search after truth. There it is that you will see the hu-
man spirit in its last degree of perfection, — wisdom without
austerity, enlivened by love and laughter. There you will
see on the one hand the sublime Voltaire, and on the other
the amiable author of " Le Mondain ; " him who now soars
above Newton, and now without abasement sings of Phyllis.
How, my dear Cesarion, shall we be able to tear j'ou away
from a retreat so full of charms? Against such attractions
bow weak will be the bonds of an old friendship ! ' "
He arrived at the chateau, bearing a portrait of the prince
for Voltaire, an elegant writing-desk of amber for madame,
an installment of M. Wolf's " Metaphysics " for both, a
glowing letter of twenty pages, a packet of verses, and some
German books. He had the warmest welcome, and such en-
tertainment as no palace in Europe could then have afforded,
— tragedies, comedies, burlesques, puppets, the magic-lantern,
music, fetes, the society of a woman skilled in the agree-
VISITORS AT CIREY. 377
able arts, and the conversation of the most amusing man
alive. " Madame," as Voltaire wrote to Thieriot, " received
him so well, gave him such agreeable fetes^ with such an easy-
grace, with so little of the fuss and fatigue of 2^ fete, forced him
to accept extremely pretty presents in a manner so noble and
so adroit, that he returned enchanted with everything he had
seen, heard, and received." He did, indeed. He told his
prince that when Madame du Chatelet talked he loved her
mind, and when she was silent he was enamored of her per-
son. Cesarion, too, made an agreeable impression, a fluent,
vivacious young man, who " spoke all languages, and some-
times spoke them all at once."
Prussians then looked to Frederic with longing and enthusi-
asm, weary of the arbitrary drunkard, his father ; and Cesa-
rion was of course full of the prince's praises, not unmindful
of his hope one day to " possess " Voltaire. " Our prince
[said he] at present is not rich, and he is unwilling to borrow,
because, as he says, he is mortal, and he is not sure that his
father would pay his debts." But nothing was more cer-
tain than that he would recompense with striking liberality
any one who should be in his service without being his sub-
ject. Upon hearing this, Voltaire extolled his friend Thie-
riot in terms which, it is to be feared, were not justified by
events.
Kaiserling took home with him a huge and rare bundle of
manuscript, — parts of "Louis XIV.," many short poems,
some tracts and treatises upon philosophy, besides new editions
of former works; but not a canto, not a line, of "La Pu-
celle " ! Madame la Marquise put down her foot; she would
not risk her poet again, so soon after the mishap of "Le
Mondain," for the best prince in Christendom ! She had the
poem in custody, locked in her desk, and she would not sur-
render it. " The friendship with which she honors me [wrote
Voltaire to Frederic] does not permit me to hazard a thing
which might separate me from her forever. She has re-
nounced all to live with me in the bosom of retreat and
study She knows that M. de Kaiserling was watched
at Strasbourg, that he will be again on his return, that spies
are after him, that he may be searched ; and, above all, she
knows that you would not willingly risk the happiness of
378 LIFE OF VOLTAIKE.
your true subjects at Cirey for a pleasantry in verse." After
an intoxicating visit of something less than a month, the
Baron de Kaiserling returned to Remusburg to inflame anew
his prince's admiration for the inhabitants of the enchanted
castle.
It was not every visitor who saw the interior of that abode
in so rosy a light.
M. Mignot, husband of Voltaire's sister, died in 1737, leav-
ing two marriageable daughters with insufficient portions.
Voltaire played the part of a good French uncle on this oc-
casion, and set Thieriot at work arranging for their honorable
marriage, undertaking to provide for the elder both husband
and dot. The husband whom Voltaire proposed for her was
a son of Madame Champbonin, a jovial dame who lived near
Cirey, and much enlivened the society of the neighborhood, —
a great favorite everywhere, and extremely beloved by him.
" God forbid [he wrote to Thieriot] that I should in the least
constrain her inclinations. To aim at the liberty of a fellow
creature appears to me a crime against humanity ; it is the
sin against nature." The young lady, a true child of Paris,
pupil of the composer Rameau, accustomed to the gayeties of
the metropolis, was not disposed to "bury herself " in a coun-
try chateau. He was disappointed, but yielded with the
better grace because he had taken the precaution to sound his
niece before taking any other step. " After all [he wrote to
Thieriot], I have really no family but them, and I should be
very glad to attach them to me. It is necessary to bear in
mind that we become old, infirm, and that then it is sweet
to find relatives attached to us by gratitude. If they marry
bourgeois of Paris, I am their very humble servant, but they
are lost to me. It is a sorry thing to be an old maid. The
princesses of the blood find it very troublesome to endure a
condition contrary to nature. We are born to have children.
It is only certain fools of philosophers, like ourselves, who can
decently avoid the general rule."
The result of much negotiation was that Mademoiselle
Mignot, aged twenty-seven, married, February 25, 1738, the
man of her choice, M. Denis, formerly a captain in a French
regiment, then holding an office in the commissariat. Uncle
Voltaire gave the pair his blessing, an invitation to pass the
VISITORS AT CIREY. 379
honeymoon at Cirey, and thirty thousand francs, all of which
they accepted. The younger lady, four months after, married
Nicholas-Joseph de Dompierre, seigneur of Fontaine-Hornoy,
chief of the finance bureau at Amiens. They were called sim-
ply M. and jNIadame de Fontaine, and the uncle of the bride
gave her twenty-five thousand francs.
These young ladies had another uncle, Voltaire's " Jansen-
ist of a brother," now styled by his friends tlie Abbe Arouet.
He, too, behaved liberally to them. Besides attending both
weddings, he gave the elder niece so handsome a present
(amount unknown) that Madame du Chatelet wished that all
her uncles and aunts had &iven her as much on her wedding--
day. Armand Arouet was still an assiduous convulsionist,
unmarried, wholly estranged from the author of the " Mon-
dain," who suspected his austere brother of a secret marriage,
and mentions that he chose his mistresses from amonor the
prettiest convulsionists. Voltaire could not be tempted to at-
tend either of the weddings, where, as he said, there would be
" crowds of relations, quibbling puns, flat jests, broad stories
to make the bride blush and the prudes purse their lips, a
great noise, all talking together, giggling without merriment,
heavy kisses heavily given, and little girls looking at every-
thing out of the corner of their eyes." No such wedding could
draw liim from an enchanted castle in the country to the street
of the Two Balls at Paris.
But Madame Denis and her husband visited a rich and lib-
eral uncle at Cirey, in March, 1738. The bride saw in the
chateau an enchanted castle indeed, but enchanted only as the
oak-tree was enchanted that held Ariel in its gnarled and
knotted embrace. The future mistress of Ferney was aghast
at her uncle's bondage.
"I am in despair [she wrote to match-maker Tliieriot]. I be-
lieve him lost to all his friends. He is bound in such a way that it
appears to me impossible that he can break his chains. They are in
a solitude that is frightful for humanity. Cirey is four leagues from
a habitation, in a region of mountains and wastes ; and they are aban-
doned by all their friends, having almost no one from Paris. Such is
the life led by the greatest genius of our age ; with a woman, it is
true, of much intellect, very pretty, who employs all the art imagina-
ble to beguile him. There is no kind of personal decoration which
380 LIFE OF VOLTAIKE.
she does not arrange, nor passages of the best philosophers which she
does not cite, to please him. To that end nothing is spared. He ap-
pears more enchanted with her than ever. He is building a handsome
addition to the chateau, in which there will be a dark room for experi-
ments in natural philosophy. The theatre is very pretty, but they do
not use it for want of actors. All the actors of the country for ten
miles round are under orders to come to the chateau. They did all
that was possible to have them there during our stay ; but they could
only exhibit to us some puppets, which were very good. We were
received in perfect style. My uncle tenderly loves M. Denis ; which
does not astonish me, for he is very amiable." ^
Madame Denis was not so far wrong. There was a flaw in
the bond between these two gifted and brilliant persons which
of necessity vitiated their union, making each a kind of slave
to the other. She was always in dread of his breaking away ;
and he was prevented from doing so by compassion and the
instinct of fidelity. He should have lived in bis own chateau,
and the family inhabiting that chateau should have been his
family, not another man's.
Another visitor of the year 1738 makes this plainer. Ma-
dame de Grafigny was a lady whom Voltaire and Madame du
Chatelet had met at the little court of King Stanislas in Lor-
raine, where she was an object of sj'^mpathy on account of the
violence and brutality of her husband, chamberlain to the
Duke of Lorraine. After years of misery she was divorced
from the chamberlain, who ended his days in prison. The in-
mates of Cirey offered her an asylum for a time, and in De-
cember, 1738, she came. She was then forty-three years of
age, unknown to fame ; for it was not till she was fifty-two
that the publication of her romance, " Lettres d'une P^ru-
vienne," gave her celebrity. Her portrait shows us a hand-
some, full-formed woman, " fair, fat, and forty," and her writ-
ings are, as Sainte-Beuve styles them, cailletage (gossip).
During her residence at Cirey she wrote quires of cailletage to
a gentleman at Luneville, where the fallen majesty of Poland
spent his French allowance. A volume of these letters was
published in 1820, in which we can see the routine of life at
the chateau almost as plainly as if we had been femme de
chambre to the writer ; since, in accordance with the custom
1 Voltaire, Pieces Inedites. Paris, 1820, page 289.
I
VISITORS AT CIREY. 381
of that age and land, she wrote as freely to a man as she could
have gossiped with a woman.^
Like Kaiserling, she was under the spell long before she
reached the enchanted abode. Besides the singular favor in
which the poet was held at the Polish court, the most extrav-
agant accounts had been brought thither of the splendors of
the chateau, the mysterious life led in it, the wizard appara-
tus, the dark chamber, the magician-like habits of the poet,
and the unearthly fascinations of the lady of the castle. A
burlesque in this taste had been published in Paris, and the
chateau was a theme at the burlesque theatres. Kaiserling
came enchanted, stayed three weeks, and went away en-
chanted. Madame de Grafigny came enchanted, stayed three
months, and left disenchanted.
She relates her arrival at Cirey to her corresj)ondent, who
was also under the spell : —
" Upon seeing the address of this letter, you leap with joy, and
you say : Ah ! Mon Dieu, she is at Cireij ! I started before day-
light ; I was present at the toilet of the sun. I had admirable
weather and roads as far as Joinville, just as in summer, even to the
dust, which one could do very well without. I reached Joinville
in a little chaise of Madame Royale [Duchess de Lorraine] but
there the coachman told me that it was impossible they could go
further. What was I to do ? I took a post-chaise. I arrived at
Cirey two hours after dark, dying of fright from the state of the
roads, which the devil had made horrible, expecting every moment to
be overturned ; paddling in the mud sometimes, for the postilions
told me that if I did not alight I should be overturned. Judjre of
my condition ! However, I arrived. The nymph received me very
well. I remained a moment in her chamber, then went up to my
own to rest. A moment after arrived, who ? Your idol, holding a
little candlestick in his hand, like a monk. He caressed me a thou-
sand times ; he appeared so glad to see me that his demonstrations
went even to transport ; he kissed my hands ten times, and questioned
me about myself with a very touching air of interest. At last he
went away in order to give me an opportunity to write to you
" I left my letter to dress, for fear the supper-bell should ring. I
hear nothing of it, and so I am going to add a word or two. You are
astonished, perhaps, that I say, simply, the nymph received me very
1 Vie Prive'e de Voltaire et Madame du Chatelct pendant un Sdjour de six
Mois a Cirey. Paris, 1820.
882 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
well ; it is all I have to tell you. No ; I forgot that she spoke to me
at once of her lawsuit, without any ceremony. Her clack [_cnquet]
is wonderful ; she speaks extremely fast, and just as I do when I play
the Frenchwoman. She talks like an angel ; so much I perceived.
She had on a robe of chintz and a large apron of black taffeta ; her
black hair is very long, and it is gathered up behind to the top of her
head, and curled like that of little children, which is very becoming
to her. As I have seen nothing yet except her dress, I can speak to
you of nothing but her dress. With regard to your idol, I know not
if he powdered himself for my sake, but all I can tell you is that he
was dressed as he would have beeu at Paris. The goudman [M.
du Chatelet] leaves to-morrow for Brussels, when we three shall be
alone ; and no one will shed any tears on account of it : that is a
secret which we have already imparted to one another."
The summons to supper here interrupted the epistle. To
understand the account she gives of the conversation at the
table, the reader needs to be informed that Voltaire's feud
■with the poet J. B. Rousseau was assuming more importance,
and was both complicated and embittered by a quarrel with
the journalist Desfontaines, editor of the " Observations," re-
ferred to in the course of the repast. As we shall be obliged
very soon to return to this affair, and show how authors and
critics loved one another a hundred and forty years ago, it is
only necessary here to say that Voltaire at this time was gun-
powder to any spark of allusion to Rousseau or Desfontaines.
Madame de Grafigny describes her first meal at the cha-
teau : —
" I was conducted to a suite of apartments which I recognized at
once to be Voltaire's. He came to receive me. No one else had
arrived, and yet I had not the time to cast a glance around the room.
The company placed themselves at the table, and well content was
I ; and all the more when I compared this supper with my evening
adventure on the road. What a thing is life ! said I to myself. A
little while asro in darkness and mire ; now in an enchanted place.
What is there that we did not speak of? Poetry, science, art; all m
the tone of badinage and good breeding. I should like to be able to
report to you that charming conversation, that enchanting conversa-
tion ; but it is not in me to do so. The supper was not abundant, but
it was rare, elegant, and delicate ; served, also, with a profusion of
silver plate. Opposite me I had five globes and all the philosophical
apparatus ; for it was in the little hall that we enjoyed this unique
VISITORS AT CIREY. 38
o
repast. Voltaire by my side, as polite, as attentive, as he is amiable
and learned ; the lord of the castle on the other side. This is to be
my place every evening : thus my left ear will be sweetly charmed,
while the other is very slightly bored ; for the marquis says little,
and goes away as soon as we leave the table. At the dessert comes
the perfume ; conversation as instructive as agreeable. They spoke
of books, as you may well believe, and J. B. Rousseau was a topic.
Oh, by our Lady ! then the man remained, and the hero vanished. He
would scarcely pardon any one who should praise Rousseau. At last
the conversation turned upon the various kinds of poetry. ' For my
part,' said the lady, ' odes [Rousseau wrote many] I cannot endure.'
'Ah, indeed!' said, your idol; 'what is an ode? It is the most
trifling merit to compose one. Fustian, rhapsodies, in the style of
Hudibras ; it is the most execrable thing in the world. I do not com-
prehend how honest people read such things.'
" Is not there the man ? I know not how he came to speak of the
' Observations ' of Desfontaines. I asked him if he had sent for them.
* Yes,' said he ; and all at once he launched invectives against the
author and against the work. He gave me a pamphlet to read, en-
titled ' A Preservative against the Observations ' (Voltaire's own),
which he pretends was written by one of his friends. I believe that
he could not speak of Rousseau and Desfontaines without a fermenta-
tion of the blood equivalent to fever. But as it seized him we retired
in order to let him go to bed.
" I have read that ' Preservative,' for it was very necessary that I
should be able to say that I had read it. In sending to ask how I was,
Voltaire j^resented to me a beautiful Newton, bound in morocco. As
I do not dine to-day, I began to read Newton, instead of writing to
you. Yes, my friend, instead of writing to yon, although I was dying
of desire to write ; but you will feel how necessary it is that I should
show a little eagerness in recognizing the polite and honorable atten-
tion of your idol, and to be able to speak to him of the work in the
evening."
Tlie next day Madame de Grafigny liad the pleasure of in-
specting Voltaire's rooms, and penned a glowing account of
them to her friend : —
" Voltaire made me a little visit. I drove him out, because my room
is very chilly, and he had a very bad cold. To diive out Voltaire !
Ah, Dieu! you find that a very strong expression, and so it is ; but it
is thus that we become familiar with great men when we live with them.
Then came in the lord of the castle (not yet gone to Brussels), who
bored me pitilessly for two hours and a half. At last, Voltaire, haK
884 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
an hour before supper, got me away by sending me a message that,
since I was unwilling he should remain in my chamber, I should take
the trouble of soingf down to his. I did not hold out asrainst this in-
vitation, and I descended at once. I had only seen his rooms in pass-
ing, but now he made me admire them, and I will give you a descrip-
tion of them.
" His little wing: is so close to the chateau that the door of it is
at the bottom of the grand staircase. There is, first, a small ante-
chamber, as large as your hand ; then comes his bedroom, which is
small, low, and hung with crimson velvet, with an alcove (for the bed)
of the same, set off with gold fringe. That is the furniture for winter.
There is little tapestry in his rooms, but a great deal of wainscoting,
in which are framed some charming pictures. There are mirrors,
brackets of admirable enamel, porcelains, a clock sustained by gro-
tesque figures ; a world of things of that nature, costly, rare, and, above
all, so spotlessly clean that you could kiss the floor. There is an open
case containing a service of silver ; there is everything which the su-
perjlu, chose si necessm're, has been able to devise. And what silver !
.what workmanship ! There is a casket containing twelve rings of cut
stone, besides two of diamonds. From this room we pass into the lit-
tle hall, which is not more than thirty or forty feet in length. Be-
tween the windows are two extremely beautiful statuettes upon pedes-
tals of Indian lacquer : one is the Venus Farnese, the other Hercules.
The other side of the windows is occupied by two cases : one for books,
and one for the apparatus. Between the two cases there is a stove
in the wall, which renders the air like that of spring. In front of I
the stove is a large pedestal, upon which there is a Cupid of some
magnitude who is discharging an arrow, — an unfinished work, for they ;
are making a sculjotured niche for that Cupid which will conceal the
stove entirely. The following is the inscription below this Cupid : — |.
' Whoe'er thou art, thy master he, U
He is, or was, or ought to be.'
" The gallery is wainscoted and varnished light yellow. Clocks,
tables, bureaus, — I need not say that nothing of that kind is want-
ing. Beyond is the dark chamber, which is not yet finished ; nor is
the one completed where he intends to put his apparatus ; and this is
the reason why it is all now in the hall. There is but a single sofa,
and no commodious arm-chairs ; I mean that the few which are there
are good, but there are no stuffed arm-chairs, — bodily ease not being
his luxury, as it seems. The panels of the wainscot are of India paper,
extremely beautiful ; the screens are of the same. There are writing-
tables, porcelains, and all in a taste extremely elegant. There is one
door which opens into the garden, and outside of the door is a very
VISITORS AT CIREY. 385
pretty grotto. You will be very glad, I think, to have an idea of the
temple of your idol, since you cannot see it."
On the following day the guest had an opportunity to ex-
amine the rooms of Madame du Chatelet, which astonished
her exceedingly.
" To-day I came down at eleven o'clock for coffee, which is taken
in the new hall. Voltaire was in his dressing-gown, but he has a very
bad cold. We did not go to mass, for it is not a fete day here. They
spoke of the eternal lawsuit during the whole breakfast, which lasted
an hour and a half. Voltaire began to write, and we — the lady of the
castle and myself — went into her part of the chateau to see it, because
I had not yet examined it. Voltaire's rooms are nothing in compari-
son with hers. Her bedroom is wainscoted in light yellow, and var-
nished with light blue mouldings ; an alcove for the bed of the same,
lined with charming paper of India. The bed is of watered blue silk,
and the whole is so assorted that, even to the basket for her dog, all is
yellow and blue ; the wood of the arm-chairs, also, the desk, bureau, and
brackets. The mirrors and their silver frames are of an admirable
brilliancy. A great door of plate-glass opens into the library, which is
not yet finished. The carving is as fine as that of a snuff-box ; nothing
can be prettier than the whole effect. There are to be mirrors in this
room, and pictures by Paul Veronese and others. On one side of the
alcove for the bed is a little boudoir, so exquisite that, on entering
it, one is ready to fall upon one's knees. The walls of this boudoir
are blue, and the ceiling was painted and varnished by a pupil of Mar-
tin, who has been here three years. All the small panels are filled
with pictures by Watteau : the Five. Senses, the Two Tales of La Fon-
taine, tlie Kiss Taken and Returned, of which I have the two engrav-
ings, and Brother Philip's Geese. Ah, what pictures ! The frames are
gilt and filigree. I saw there also the Three Graces, as beautiful and
lovely as the mother of the tender Cupids. There is a fire-place with
brackets by Martin, with some pretty things upon them, among others
an amber writing-desk, wliich the Prince of Prussia sent her with some
verses. The only furniture is a large arm-chair stuffed in white taffeta,
and two stools to match ; for, thanks be to God, I have not seen one
couch in all the house. This divine boudoir has a single window,
which looks out upon a charming terrace and an admirable view. On
the other side of the alcove is a garde robe, divine, paved with marble,
wainscoted in linen-gray, with the prettiest engravings. Indeed, the
very muslin curtains of the windows are bordered with exquisite taste.
No ; there is nothing in the world so pretty !
" After having examined the rooms we remained in her chamber.
VOL. I. 25
386 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
She then related to me the history of that lawsuit of hers, from its
origin, about eighty years ago, down to the present day. This little
conversation lasted more than an hour and a half, and, strange to say,
it did not fatigue me. That, however, was natural enough ; she talks
80 well that ennui has not time to get a hearing. She also showed me
her jewel-case, which is more beautiful than that of Madame de Riche-
lieu. I do not cease wondering at it, for when she was at Craon she
had only one shell snuff-box ; now she has fifteen or twenty of gold and
precious stones, as well as some of enamel and enameled gold, a new
mode, whicli must be of very high price ; as many navetles of the same
kind, each more magnificent than the rest ; watches of jasper adorned
with diamonds; some elegant boxes, immense things. She has also
rings of rare stones, and trinkets without end and of all kinds. In
fact, I still wonder at it, for her family has never been rich."
Madame de Grafigny's own room was in dismal contrast to
these splendors : —
" But you must know what sort of a chamber I have. In height
and size it is a hall, where all the winds disport, entering by a thou-
sand crevices around the window, which I will have stopped if God
gives me life. This immense room has but a single window, cut into
three, according to the ancient fashion, having no protection except six
shutters. The wainscoting, which is whitish, lessens a little the gloom
of the apartment, dim from the little light that enters it, and the nar-
rowness of the view ; for an arid mountain, which I could almost
touch with my hand, masks it completely. At the foot of this mount-
ain is a little meadow, perhaps fifty feet wide, upon which a little
stream is seen creeping with a thousand turns. The tapestry is of
grand personages unknown to me, and ugly enough. There is an al-
cove hung with very rich cloths, but unpleasing to the sight through
their ill-assorted colors. As to the fire-place, there is nothing to say
of it ; it is of such dimensions that all the snbat could be within range
at the same moment. We burn in it about half a cord of wood every
day, without in the least mollifying the air of the room In-
deed, except the apartments of the lady and Voltaire, the chateau is
dirty enough to disgust one. From the window, the gardens appear
to be beautiful."
The guest had not been long at Cirey before she witnessed
a tiff between the lovers : —
" About four in the afternoon, as I was reading, I was sent for to
come down-stairs. I found the lady, who was going to bed, as she
was not quite well. She said to me that, as she could not work. Vol-
VISITORS AT CIREY. 387
taire was going to read us his tragedy of ' M^rope.' Voltaire arrives.
The hidy takes a fancy to make hina put ou another coat. The one
he had on, it is true, was not very nice, but it was well powdered, arfd
had upon it fine lace. He gave her many good reasons for not chang-
ing it, as, that it would give him a chill, and that he would catch
cold for nothing. At last, he was obliging enough to send for his
valet de chambre, that he might get him another coat. The valet, at
the moment, could not be found, and Voltaire believed that the subject
would be dropped. Not at all ; the persecution recommenced. Vi-
vacity seizes Voltaire ; he speaks to her warmly in English, and leaves
the room. Madame sends, a moment after, to call him back. He
replies that he has the colic, and behold ' Merope ' at the devil. I
was furious. The lady begged me to read aloud the dialogues of
M. Algarotti. I read and laughed, as in the morning. At length, a
gentleman of the neighborhood came in, whereupon I rose, saying
that 1 was going to see Voltaire. The lady told me to try and bring
him back. I found him with the lady who is staying here [Madame
Champbonin], who, I may remark, seems to me to be in his confi-
dence. He was in the best humor, having forgotten that he had the
colic. We had already talked a little while, when the lady of the
chateau sent to call us. At length he went back to her ; and this man,
who had just been laughing with us, resumed his ill-humor on reen-
tering her chamber, under the pretext of the colic. He put himself
into a corner, and said not a woi'd. Some time after, the neighbor
went out, upon which the pouters spoke to one another in English,
and, a minute after, ' Merope ' appeared upon the scene. This is the
first sign of love that I have observed ; for they behave with an admi-
rable decency. But she renders his life a little hard \_uii peic dure'].^
" I send you this long detail in order that you may understand how
they are together. At last, he read two acts of 'Merope.' I shed
tears at the first After the reading we discussed the piece —
the lady and I — until supper-time. She does not like it, and turns it
into ridicule as much as she can ; which little pleases poor Voltaire,
who was like a patient, not daring to join in our discussion
The author was so afraid of another quarrel that the little which he
said was against me. The supper was like a supper of Luneville ; we
beat our sides for something to say, and no one said a word. After
supper we looked at the globe, — Voltaire, the fat lady, and myself;
for the lovely nymph spoke not, pretending to be asleep.
"Voltaire is always charming, and also always occupied with my
amusement. His attention is unwearying, and it is evident that he is
fearful of my becoming bored. He is nmch mistaken. To be bored
^ All the italics in these extracts are those of Madame de Grafigny.
388 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
near Voltaire ! Ah, Dieu! that is not possible ; I have not even the
leisure to think that there is such a thing as ennui in the world. I
have the health of a fish-woman, and wake as easily as a mouse. Is
it because I eat less, or because my mind is so vividly and agreeably
acted upon ? .... It is a pleasure for me to laugh inwardly at their
fanaticism for Newton, and to hear people of the best understanding
utter imbecilities [^des hetises] dictated by prejudice. I do not dispute,
as you may believe, but I get my profit from it in a knowledge of the
human mind."
Madame continued daily to record incidents and traits. I
add a few paragraphs : —
" After breakfast, the goddess of these haunts took it into her head
to have a ride in her caliche. I cared little to go, on account of her
horses, which are like ill-governed children. At length, I was so
much pressed that I consented to go. But, ma fox! when I saw the
gambols of those messieurs I could not muster the courage to get into
the carriage. Nevertheless, I should have been obliged to get in but
for the humane Voltaire, who said that it was ridiculous to force oblig-
ing people to take pleasures which for them were pains. Adorable
words, were they not ? So I remained at home with our lady guest,
who is as idle as I. We had a walk together, and then she took me
to see the bath-rooms. Ah, what an enchanting place ! The ante-
chamber is of the size of your bed ; the bath-room itself is entirely
lined with porcelain tiles, except the pavement, which is marble. Then
there is a dressing-room of the same size, the wainscoting of which is
enameled with a clear, brilliant sea-green, gay, divine, admirably carved
and gilt ; furniture to match, — a little sofa, charming little arm-chairs
in the same style, all carved and gilt ; brackets, porcelains, engravings,
pictures, and a toilet-table ; the ceiling painted ; the chamber rich, and
equal to the cabinet in all respects, with mirrors, and amusing books
upon enameled tables. Everything seemed to be made for the people
of Lillii^ut. No ; there is nothing there so pretty, so delicious, and so
enchanting as this place. If I had a suite of apartments like that, I
would have myself roused in the middle of the night to see it. The
fire-place is not larger than an ordinary arm-chair, but it is a jewel to
put in your pocket After supper Voltaire gave us the magic
lantern, accompanying the exhibition with words to make you die of
laughter. He exhibited all the circle of the Duke de Richelieu, the
history of the Abbe Desfontaines, and all sorts of tales, always in the
manner of a Savoyard. No ; there was never anything so funny ! "
"• Yesterday at supper Voltaire was of a charming gayety. He told
us some stories which are not good except from his mouth. He told
•I
VISITORS AT CIREY. 389
me some anecdotes of Boileau that are not in print. There were
some impromptu verses, also, which I will send you if he will dictate
them to me. I leave you to imagine the pleasure there is in living
with such people. But wait ; I still have something to say to you.
This morning the lady of the house read us a geometrical calcula-
tion of an English dreamer, who pretends to demonstrate that the in-
habitants of Jupiter are of the same height as King G., (sic) of whom
the Scripture speaks. The book was in Latin, and she read it to us
in French. She hesitated a moment at each period, and I supposed
that it was to understand the calculations, which are given at length
in the book. Ijut no ; she translated easily the mathematical terms ;
the numbers, the extravagances, nothing stopped her. Is not that
really astonishing.'' "
The Abbe de Breteuil, a brother of Madame du Chatelet,
passed nine days at the chateau, and during his stay there were
gay doings. This gentleman was a genuine abbe of the period,
having nothing of the ecclesiastic except his title and revenue.
Gay were the suppers now, for the abbd had a true churchman's
stock of stories of the untranslatable kind, which drew from
Voltaire his ample quota ; and, between them, they made Ma-
dame de Grafigny laugh "to split her spleen," as she remarked.
She gives some specimens of these comic tales, wliich serve to
show that neither sex, nor profession, nor rank, was a restraint
upon the license of the tongue in those good old times of the rS-
gime. They were such stories as a party of young fellows might
be supposed to tell in the last hour of a convivial party, in-
nocent enough, but not repeatable. Now, too, " La Pucelle "
was brought out from Madame du Chatelet's desk, and the
author read a canto or two ahnost every night to the abbe and
the ladies, much to the delight of Madame de Grafigny, who
wrote an outline of each canto for the amusement of her corre-
spondent ; and he, in his turn, was infinitely entertained by
them. " The canto of Jeanne [he wrote, in one of his replies]
is charming." Madame de Grafigny gives the routine of a day
during the abbe's stay at the chateau : —
"Between half past ten and half past one, they summon every
one to coffee, which is taken in Voltaire's hall. The meal usually
lasts an hour, more or less. Precisely at noon, the people who are
called here the coachmen go to dinner. These coachmen are the lord
of the castle, the fat lady, and her son ; the latter never appearing
390 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
except when there is something to be copied. After coffee, we —
that is to say, Voltaire, madame, and myself — remain half an hour.
Then he makes us a low bow, and tells us to go away ; upon which
we return to our rooms. Toward four o'clock, sometimes, we take
a slight repast. At nine we sup, and remain together till midnight.
Bien ! what suppers ! They are always the suppers of Damocles. All
the pleasures are in attendance ; but, alas, how short is the time !
Oh, vion Dieu! Nothing is wanting to them, not even the Dam-
ocles sword, which is represented by the swift flight of time. The
lord of the castle takes his place at the table, does not eat, falls
asleep, consequently says not a word, and goes out with the tray.
.... Yesterday, after supper, there was a charming scene. Vol-
taire had the pouts on account of a glass of Rhine wine which ma-
dame prevented his drinking ; he would not read Jeanne, as he had
promised, being in an extremely bad humor. The brother and my-
self, by force of pleasantries, succeeded at last in restoring him. The
lady, who was also pouting, was unable to keep it up. All this made
a scene of delicious jests, which lasted a long time, finishing with a
canto of Jeanne, which was no better than that scene."
More serious readings were given sometimes, such as Vol-
taire's " Epistles upon Man ; " but, as these poems contained
passages reflecting more or less openly upon Rousseau and Des-
fontaines, they were occasionally accompanied by explosions of
what the French politely call " vivacity." Madame du Chatelet
remarked, one morning at breakfast, that, in the Epistle upon
Envy, which the poet had just read, there was too much about
Rousseau. "If he \vere dead [said Voltaire], I would have
him dug up to hang him." Madame de Grafigny deplored his
" fanaticism " with regard to these two men. " I have just
come [she writes] from a terrible conversation upon them, in
which we tried to persuade him to despise them. Oh, human
weakness ! He has neither rhyme nor reason when he speaks
of them. It is he who has the engravings (caricatures of
them) made, and he who composes the verses underneath.
What weakness ! And what ridicule it will bring upon him I
Really my heart bleeds at it, for I love him ; yes, I love him ;
he has so many good qualities that it is a pity to see in him
such miserable foibles He never hears a good action
spoken of -without emotion."
Indeed, madame praises warmly the amiable qualities of
Voltaire, particularly his singular patience in sickness, his
VISITORS AT CIRET. 391
gratitude for attentions paid him when he was sick, his tender
sympathy with her when she told him the terrible details of
her miserable marriage, his frequent generosities, his thought-
ful and laborious care for the guests of the house. To enter-
tain the abbd the theatre was reopened, and such was Vol-
taire's zeal that in one day and night he made his company
of volunteers rehearse and perform thirty-three acts of tragedy,
opera, and comedy. The housekeeping was on a very liberal
scale ; thirty-six fires blazed in the chateau, requiring six cords
of wood every day. Madame de Grafigny relates a kitchen
anecdote : —
" Eight days ago, a female servant broke an earthen pot over the
head of a lackey of Voltaire, which kept him in bed till yesterday.
They dismissed the girl, and kept back a crown from her wages, which
they gave to the lackey. At breakfast, yesterday, your idol's valet
mentioned that the lackey had given back the crown to the servant.
' Bring him here,' said Voltaire. ' Why did you give back the
crown?' ' Eh-eh-eh, monsieur' (for he is a booby), 'it was be-
cause I am almost well, and the girl is sorry for having hurt me.'
* Cer'an (that is the valet's name), give a crown to this queer fellow
for the one he gave back ; and another one to teach him what good
actions deserve. Go, go, my lad ; you are very fortunate in knowing
how to behave. Always behave well.' "
After the departure of the abb^, the gayeties came to an
end, and the two personages of the chateau settled to their
work once more, laboring with ceaseless impetuosity; Voltaire
growing ever more restive under the envenomed attacks of his
enemies in Paris.
"Madame spends almost every night in work, even until five and
seven in the morning. She makes the stout lady's son, who is a good
Israelite, stay in her room copying her works, of which he does not
understand a word. You think, perhaps, that she must sleep until
three in the afternoon. Not at all ; she gets up at nine or ten in the
morning; and even rises at six when she goes to bed at four, which
she calls going to bed at cock-crow. In short, she sleeps but two
hours a day, and, in the course of the twenty-four hours, only leaves
^er desk for breakfast, which lasts an hour, and for supper, and an
hour after. Sometimes she cats a morsel at five o'clock in the after-
noon, but at her desk, and very rarely. On the other hand, when
Voltaire takes a fancy to leave his work for half a quarter of an hour,
to pay a visit to me and the stout lady, he does not sit down, and
892 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
says, ' It is frightful, the time we lose in talking ; we ought not to
lose a minute ; the greatest waste we can make is that of time.' This
is his daily remark. We come to supper while he is still at his desk ;
we have half done supper when he leaves it ; and we have to use force
to keep him from going back as soon as he leaves the table. He
beats his sides [z7 se bat les Jlancs] to tell us some stoiies during the
repast ; and we perceive that it is from pure politeness, for his spirit is
far away Voltaire is the unhappiest man in the world. He
knows his value, and approbation is almost indifferent to him ; but for
that very reason one word of his adversaries reduces him to what we
call despair. It is the only thing that occupies him, and it drowns
him in bitterness. I cannot give you an idea of this folly, except in
telling you that it is more powerful and more wretched than his mind
is great and broad He drugs himself without ceasing. He has
got it into his head that he must not eat. Judge of the happiness of
these people whom we supposed to have attained supreme felicity ! I
should like to be able to tell you all that I think of it, but between
the tree and the bark one must not put a finger."
Unhappily, Madame cle Grafigny, prudent as she meant to
be, did get her finger between the tree and the bark. In the
innocence of her heart, overflowing with admiration for the
genius of Voltaire, she was accustomed to copy portions of his
" Louis XIV." and give outlines of cantos of " La Pucelle," in
her letters to her friend, evidently thinking only to gratify a
warm lover of the author. Madame du Chatelet, following the
example of her king, opened the letters that came to and left
the chateau. Madame de Grafigny, discovering this, became
cautious as to what she said, and used feigned names for the
persons mentioned in her letters. But, one day, the lady of
the chateau read in a letter from Lundville to her guest the
fatal words given above, " The canto of Jeanne is charming.''^
She jumped to the conclusion that Madame de Grafigny had
copied a canto and sent it to her friend. Terrified and indig-
nant, slie flew to Voltaire, who was sick, sore, and exasperated
from his warfare with enemies in Paris. Awful scenes fol-
lowed. The tempest broke upon the poor lady after one of
those suppers which had usually been so merry and delicious.
" The 29th of December, on the arrival of the post, they told me
there were no letters for me. Supper passed as usual, without much
conversation, and without my observing anything which could give
me warning of the storm they were preparing for me. Supper over,
VISITORS AT CIREY. 393
I withdrew quietly to my room to seal a letter which I had written
to you. Half an hour after, I saw coming in you will easily guess
whom. I was extremely surprised, for he never came into my apart-
ment ; but much more astonished was I when he said to me : ' T
am lost ! My life is in your hands ! ' ' Oh, mon Dieu ! How is
that ? ' said I. ' How is that ? ' he cried. ' It is that a hundred copies
are in circulation of the canto of Jeanne. This instant I fly ! I seek
refuge in Holland, at the end of the world, — I don't know where.
M. du Chatelet starts for Luneville. You must write at once to Pan-
pan [M. Deveaux, her friend] to secure his assistance in getting back all
those copies. Is he honest man enough to do it ? ' I assured him, with
the utmost sincerity, that you would render all the services in your
power. ' Very well, then,' said he, ' write quick, and earnestly.' ' I
will do so I ' I exclaimed. ' I am delighted to seize this opportunity to
show you all my zeal.' Nevertheless, I told him how much it afflicted
me that such a thing should happen while I was here.
" At this he rose, furious, and said to me : ' No prevarication, ma-
dame ! It is you who sent the copy.' At these words I fell from the
clouds. I assured him that I had never read nor written a single verse
of it. He insisted, nevertheless, that it was you who distributed the
copies, and that you had said I had sent the canto to you. Upon
hearing this, I saw, like a flash, that some one of the hundred thou-
sand persons to whom he has shown this poem had kept a canto, and
that it was circulating, while I was here without my being able to clear
myself of suspicion. Alas ! a circumstance so distressing drove me to
despair. I repeated, with the accent of truth, but always with a
deafening vivacity, that it was not I. He declared, in his turn, that
you had read the canto to Desmarets, at a lady's house ; that you were
giving copies of it to everybody ; and that Madame du Chatelet had the
proof of it in her pocket.
• " What could I say ? Oh, my friend, I was in utter consternation.
You will perceive that I understood nothing of all this, and that it was
impossible I should ; but not the less frightened was I on that account.
At last, he said to me, ' Come, come, write and tell him to send you
back the original and the copies.' I began to write ; and as I could
not ask you to return what I had not sent you, I begged you to
inform yourself of what had happened, and to communicate to me
whatever you might learn. He read my letter, and, throwing it back
to me, he exclaimed, ' Oh, fie, madame ! You should be sincere when
the very life of a poor unfortunate like me is in danger.'
" The more I talked, the less I convinced him. I was silent. This
frightful scene lasted at least an hour ; but it was nothing to what
was coming ; it was reserved for the lady to put the climax to it. She
394 LIFE OF VOLTAIEE.
came into my room like a fury, screaming with passion and repeating
almost the same things, while I still kept silence. Then she drew a
letter from her pocket, and, almost thrusting it into my face, cried
out, ' See, see the proof of your infamy! You are the most unworthy
of creatures ! You are a monster, whom I took into my house, not
from friendship, for I had none for you, but because you knew not
where else to go ; and you have had the infamy to betray me, to as-
sassinate me, to steal from my desk a work for the purpose of copy-
ing it ! '
" Ah, my poor friend, where were you ? The thunder-bolt which
falls at the feet of the solitary traveler overwhelms him less than
these words overwhelmed me. This is all I can recollect of the tor-
rent of insults which she uttered ; for I was so distracted that I soon
ceased to hear and understand her. But she said much more, and un-
less Voltaire had restrained her she would have boxed my ears. To
all that she said I only replied, ' Oh, be silent, madame ; I am too un-
happy for you to treat me so unworthily ! '
" At these words Voltaire«seized her round the waist, and snatched
her away from me ; for she said all this right in my teeth, and with
such violent gestures that at every moment I expected she would
strike me. When she had been removed,' she strode up and down the
room, uttering loud exclamations upon my infamy. Observe, all this
was uttered in so loud a voice that Dubois [maid of Madame Gra-
figny], who was two rooms off, heard every word. For my part, I
was long without the power to pronounce a syllable ; I was neither
dead nor alive.
" At last, I asked to see the letter. She told me I should not have
it. ' At least,' said I, ' show me what there is in it so decisive against
me.' She did so, and I saw this unfortunate phrase : ' T7ie canto of
Jeanne is charming.' Instantly that gave me the secret of this scene,
which I had not before thought of. I at once gave them the ex-
planation, and told them what I had written to you of the impres-
sion which the canto had made upon me when I had heard it read.
To his credit I say it, Voltaire believed me at once, and immediately
asked my forgiveness.
" The affair was tlien explained to me as it had appeared to them.
He told me that you had read my letter to Desmarets in the hearing
of a man who had written an account of it to M. du Chatelet ; and
that, upon reading that letter, they had opened yours to me, which
had confirmed them in their error. This scene lasted until five o'clock
in the morning.
" Megara [madame] was slow to give in. Poor Voltaire talked to
her a long time in English without making any impression upon her ;
t
II
VISITORS AT CIREY. 395
then he teased her to make her say that she believed my story, and
that she was sorry for what she had said to me. They made me write
and ask you to send me back my letter, in order that I might justify
myself entirely. I wrote with extreme pain ; I gave them my letter,
and they went away ; but I did not cease to tremble until they had
been gone for a long time.
*' In the midst of the uproar, the stout lady (Madame de Champ-
boniii) entered, but immediately went out, and I did not see her attain,
until they had been gone an hour. She found me vomiting, and in
a frightful state ; for reflection only redoubled my grief. She went
down-stairs again, and, a moment after, brought me back the letter I
had written, saying tliat they believed me upon my word alone, and
that it was useless to write. Dieu! in what a condition I was ! Un-
til noon I was in perfect despair, and you will not be surprised at it if
you realize the situation in which I was, — without a home, without
money, and insulted in a house which I could not leave. Madame de
was at Commercy, and I had not a single sou to pay my ex-
penses to the next village, where I should have slept better upon
straw than in a chamber which I could not look upon again without
horror. What was to become of me, O my Panpan? The good
stout lady was the only one who had shown me any humanity ; but,
as she believed still that I had copied that cursed canto, and as she is
strongly attached to the family, she gave me but cold consolation.
"At last, about noon, the good Voltaire came in. He was moved
even to tears at my condition. He made me the most emphatic ex-
cuses. Many times he asked my forgiveness, and I had an opportu-
nity to see all the tenderness of his heart. He made me give him my
word of honor that I would not ask the return of the fatal letter, and
I gave it to him.
" At five o'clock in the evening M. du Chatelet came in with a con-
trite air, and said to me, gently, that he advised me to send for my
letter ; not that they did not believe my word, but just to confound
them. I objected that I had given my word not to do it, and that I
was afraid, since I did not doubt that my letters were opened, that
they would take it ill if I broke my promise. Nevertheless he in-
sisted so strongly, and so well persuaded me that my letter should not
be opened, that at last I promised him I would write. It required a
whole hour of reflection for me to see through the trick ; for I had no
more the faculty of thinking. I passed three days and three nights
in tears.
" Ah ! I forgot to say that the same evening, about eight o'clock,
Megara came with all her train, and, after a formal courtesy, said, in
a very dry tone, ' Madame, I am sorry for what passed last night.'
396 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
And then she spoke of other things with the fat lady and her hus-
band, as tranquilly as people speak when they rise in the morning."
For three weeks Madame de Grafigny was prostrate, or, as
she expressed it, " in hell," always sick, and not leaving her
room till nine in the evening. At length the letter arrived in
which she had described the canto, which made her innocence
manifest. Even then Madame du Chatelet was cold and for-
mal, not being able to forgive herself for her violence. Vol-
taire was all contrition and assiduity.
" More than once he shed tears on seeing me so ill, never
entering my chamber without making me the most humble
and pathetic excuses, and redoubling his care that I should
want nothing. Often he went so far as to say that madame
was a terrible woman, who had no flexibility in her heart,
although she had a good heart."
Gradually, life at the chateau resumed its usual train ; even
Megara relented, and there was an approach to the former
gayety and ease. The guest appears to have remained at
Cirey about three months, not six, as the title-page of her
letters imports. She contrived in the spring of 1739 to get
away to Paris, where she lived the rest of her life upon a
small pension from the Austrian court, increased at a later
day by the profits of her works. Voltaire remained to the
end of her life her affectionate friend and correspondent, con-
gratulating her upon her literary successes, and giving her the
aid which an established author can give to one beginning a
career.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE ABB6 DESFONTAINES.
Nothing that Madame de Grafigny observed at Cirey sur-
prised her so much as Voltaire's sensitiveness to the attacks of
a hostile press. The mere mention of the editor Desfontaines
or of the poet J. B. Rousseau was enough sometimes to put
him in a passion. One evening in February, 1739, as she re-
cords, they were going to play a comedy at the chateau ; the
guests were assembled and the actors were ready, when the
mail arrived, bringing him some disagreeable letters. " He
uttered frightful cries, and fell into a kind of convulsions.
Madame du Chatelet at length came into my room, with tears
in her eyes as big as her fist, and begged me not to perform.
The curtain did not rise. Yesterday he had some good inter-
vals, and we played. Man Dieu! what a donkey [hete] he
is, — he who has so mucli intellect ! "
Madame de Grafigny, like many other guests, did not pene-
trate the secret of the house she inhabited. She was very far
from knowing what was the matter with the inmates of the
chateau, and naturally surmised it to be some new offense
committed against a too susceptible author of weak digestion
by a robust, unscrupulous critic. This may well have seemed
to her a trifling cause of effects so dire ; for of all the ills we
see others suffer, there are few which we bear with more com-
posure than their abuse by the press. We are amazed that
they should take it seriously. Nevertheless, when it is our
turn to roast, we do not find the process agreeable ; and no
people feel so acutely the anguish inflicted by the pen as
those whose profession it is to use that instrument of torture.
Voltaire had particular reasons for resenting the Abb^
Desfontaines's faint praise and covert satire. It was not his
clerical garb and title ; for he had resigned a small country
benefice in order to devote himself to literature, and was now
398 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
only an abb^ m title. Piron, probably, had tbe true reason
in mind when he made his well-known retort. Desfontaines,
seeing Piron enter the Caf^ Procope, veiy handsomely dressed,
said to him, " M. Piron, does such a coat as this become a
poet?" To which Piron replied, "Does such a man as this
become such a coat ? "
In 1724, when Desfontaines was a writer for such literary
journals as there were then in Paris, he was introduced by
Thieriot to Voltaire, who was polite to him, and alluded to
him in a friendly tone in his letters. A few weeks after this
introduction, the abbe was arrested on an unnamable charge ; a
bo}^ chimney-sweep the alleged victim. The crime, in tbe
severe code of that age, was punishable by burning alive ; and
as several cases had lately been reported, it was thought that
an example was needed. The officers of the law were preparing
the indictment, when the abbd wrote to Voltaire informing
him of his dangei*. It was at the time of the poet's brief
favor with Madame de Prie, mistress of the Duke de Bourbon,
prime minister. He flew to Fontainebleau, and, using all that
zeal and tact which he was wont to use when a friend needed
his aid, he procured an order for the discharge of the prisoner
on the simple condition of his leaving Paris. The abbe left
Paris, and Voltaire ;ig;vin interposed in his behalf, endeavoring
to get permission for his return. He spoke to M. de Fleury
on the subject, found him prejudiced against the accused, but
succeeded, after farther efforts, in obtaining the remission of
his exile, and the abbd resumed his vocation in Paris.
The letter in which he poured forth his gratitude to Vol-
taire has been pr(^served. " I shall never forget, monsieur,"
it began, "the infinite obligations I am under to you. Your
good heart is far above even your genius ; and you are tlie
truest friend that ever existed. The zeal with which you have
served me does me, in some sort, more honor than the malice
and depravity of my enemies have given me of affront." ^
Whether Desfontaines was guilty or innocent of the of-
fense charged cannot be known, because his case was never
tried. Nor does his avoiding a trial imply guilt. Men who
could bring such an accusation against a writer in revenge for
satirical or abusive paragraphs would not stick at making or
1 I CEuvres de Voltaire, 255.
THE ABBE DESFONTAINES. 399
buying testimony, and the most innocent person in that age
and country might shrink from a trial involving such painful
possibilities. He told Voltaire, in the letter just quoted, that
he had a plan of a defense in his mind which he thought would
be " beautiful and curious," and which he was going to work
out in the country ; for it would not become him to be silent
" under so execrable an affront." This defense, however, never
appeared. One thing only is certain : Voltaire rendered Des-
fontaines a very great service.
Time passed. Voltaire spent his three years in England,
returned, and continued his brilliant career. Desfontaines,
after working upon and conducting various journals, estab-
lished, in 1735, a literary weekly, which he called " Observa-
tions sur tons les Ouvrages Nouveaux," in which he displayed
no more than the usual perversity of ancient critics. At
present a book sent to the critical periodicals for review is
usually assigned to reviewers specially qualified ; but in that
period the conductor was man-of-all-work, and felt himself
obliged to assume an editorial superiority on every subject
and in every kind of literature. Thus, Desfontaines, when
Newton became a topic of general interest in France, know-
ing nothing of Newton but what he had read in Voltaire's
English Letters, treated the new philosophy with contemptu-
ous freedom. " Newtonisra," said he, " is bad science, repro-
bated by all the good philosophers of Europe Newton
was no philosopher ; only a geometer, an observer, a calcu-
lator. Such terms as vacuum, absolute gravitation, attraction
of gravitation, are the contemptible jargon of peripateticism,
— a jargon long ago despised and proscribed in all the schools
of Europe." ^
Although this was the fashionable tone in France, in 1735,
upon the Newtonian philosophy, the sentences quoted were
doubtless aimed at the man who had plucked the writer of
them as a brand from the burning in 1724.
Desfontaines, in fact, soon forgot his obligations to his de-
liverer. He took offense, as it seems, from a trifling cause.
Having published a French translation of Voltaire's English
Essay upon Epic Poetry, the author of that work found it so
swarming with errors that he translated it anew himself, and
1 2 L'Esprit de I'Abbe Desfontaiues, 62.
400 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
published it, as it were, in opposition to Desfontaines's transla-
tion. One mistake of the abbe's made a good deal of sport
at the time. The English word cakes bafHed him, and he con-
cluded it to be an English form of Cacus, the Latin name of
Vulcan's robber son. Voltaire, it seems, wrote, " the cakes
eaten by the Trojans," which the learned abb^ translated, la
faim devorante de Cacus. Desfontaines, from this time, we
are told, held his obligations to Voltaire annulled, and treated
him in his journals with no particular consideration. He com-
mended some of his tragedies, damned his " Charles XII." with
the faintest praise and sly insinuation, criticised "La Henri-
ade " with freedom, and, in general, wrote of his works with-
out favor but with no very noticeable severity. Voltaire did
not enjoy the perusal of the " Observations." He thought
them arrogant, ignorant, and tasteless. He laughed when Des-
fontaines, who still plumed himself upon his English, styled
Bishop Berkeley's " Alciphron " a defense of atheism. " I re-
pent," he wrote to Cideville in 1735, " having saved Desfon-
taines. After all, it is better to burn a priest than to bore the
public. If I had left him to cook, I should have spared the
public many imbecilities."
Personal ill-will grew between them. Voltaire, with some
reason, suspected Desfontaines of writing bookseller .lore's
attack, — a piece done evidently by a practiced hand. He
thought, too, that the abbe was in league with detested Rous-
seau, traitor to the freedom of utterance, with whom Vol-
taire was at open war. Desfontaines knew no moderation
when Rousseau was to be extolled, and he praised him in
terms that seemed designed to meet Voltaire's censure. Vol-
taire, for example, liked to remind the public that Rousseau
was a mere poet, and a poet who excelled only in one or two
kinds. Desfontaines began an eulogium by remarking that
Rousseau was " a great master in all the kinds and in all
the styles ; " as admirable in his theory of the poetic art as
in the poems by which he illustrated it. Voltaire reflected
upon Rousseau's family, his father having been an excellent
shoemaker and a good citizen. Desfontaines wrote, "Every
man of letters who becomes distinguished, every celebrated au-
thor, is a nobleman." Rousseau, he added, was of illustrious ori-
gin, — a descendant of Homer, Virgil, Pindar, and Horace:
nay, a son of Apollo and Calliope.
THE abb6 desfontaines. 401
This was a good and fair retort. His notice of Voltaire's
Newton was extremely exasperating, and was obviously meant
to be so.
'* To have [said he] a sovereign contempt for the scientific system
that has dazzled M. de Voltaire, it is only necessary to recall one's
mind to the great principles of clear ideas \^aux grands principes des
idees claires.'] Happily, there are in liis book many other things
not connected with that bad system, to which we cannot refuse our
esteem, such as the observations of Newton and other scientific men
and astronomers upon light and color. These, however, were long ago
known and adopted in France, and they are taught in the scliools.
M. de Voltaire has, nevertheless, the glory of having compiled them
with care, and of having published them in French. If he has fallen
into some mistakes, persons who are versed in those elevated subjects
easily perceive his errors."
Every sentence of this was barbed and poisoned for a sus-
ceptible author living a hundred and fifty miles off, and la-
boring under the conviction that this perverse and ignorant
editor was " the oracle of the provinces," and whose journal
actually had a large circulation. Worse offenses increased
the ill-feeling between them. Desfontaines published a pri-
vate letter addressed to him by Voltaire, asking him to state,
" in two lines," that the edition of his " Julius Caesar," just
out, was not published with the author's consent, and
abounded in errors and alterations Desfontaines, who had
already written his review of the play, simply added to it this
letter, much to the writer's disgust. There was a partial rec-
onciliation between them, Voltaire being morbidly and exces-
sively desirous to propitiate a man who, as it seemed to him,
was lessening his hold upon the public, and giving courage
to the powers who issued lettres de cachet. The favor of the
public was his only safety. The most sensualized noble, the
narrowest ecclesiastic, the meanest informer, had some feel-
ing of the dangerous ridicule of molesting a man who was
"shedding glory upon the king's reign ; " for, under every form
of government, in every degree and kind of civilization, the
power that finally rules and sways, the king of kings and lord
of lords, is Public Opinion. Voltaire was fighting for freedom
of thought and utterance in Europe. He was fighting Rous-
seau's battle and Desfontaines's battle. His detestation of
VOL. I. 26
402 LIFE OF VOLTAIEE.
those men was therefore a blending of all the ingredients of
animosity, public and private, noble and personal.
The truce was broken by a foul blow on the part of the
editor. The young and generous Count Algarotti, before
starting upon his expedition to the polar seas, had spent a few
days at Cirey, where Voltaire had addressed to him, on his
departure, some pretty verses, which were, for many reasons,
unfit for publication.
" Go," said the poet, " and return bringing to the French
people news of the pole observed and measured. I, mean-
while, will await your coming under my meridian, in the fields
of Cirey, observing henceforth only the star of Emlly.
Warmed by the fire of her powerful genius, .... I call to
witness the heavens measured by your hands that I would
not abandon her divine charms for the equator and the arctic
pole."
This poem of a dozen lines having, by some chance, fallen
into the hands of Desfontaines, he wrote to the author, asking
permission to insert it in his journal ! We can imagine the
consternation of the inmates of the chateau at the thought of
such an indecorous promulgation of a secret known to Europe.
All three of the persons interested — Voltaire, the Marquis du
Chatelet, and madame — united in an earnest protest against
its publication. Nevertheless, he published it.
The reader cannot desire to follow this quarrel through all
its stages. Voltaire's minor poems of this period contain
bitter satire of " the hireling scribe " who sold his wrath and
adulation to the first comer ; and the " Observations " teem
with evidences of the editor's anger against his adversary.
It is one of the calamitous limitations of literature that a
battle, nay, a skirmish of outposts, that only lasts twenty
minutes, demands, for its complete elucidation, more space
than could usually be afforded to the most brilliant, the most
important, the most enduring, triumph of peaceful exertion.
About Waterloo there is a library ; but no historian, I think,
bestows two lines upon the publication, in 1624, of Lord
Herbert's " De Veritate," which began deism in Europe. I
have before me several hundred printed pages upon this qmir-
rel between Voltaire and Desfontaines. Let us come at once
to the crisis of the strife.
THE ABBfi DESFONTAINES. 403
In an evil hour for his own peace and dignity, Voltaire hit
upon the expedient of applying to his reviewer the reviewer's
most effective trick, that of gleaning the errors from a thou-
sand pages, and grouping them in one page. No work can
stand this treatment, if it is skillfully managed. Go carefully
over a book containing ten thousand things ; find some typo-
graphical errors, some lapses in style, some omissions, inten-
tional and unintentional, several unimportant and two or
three important mistakes, a few sentences which, severed from
their connection, can easily be made to seem absurd ; group
all that with the tact of " an old hand," and vou can make a
review of a very good book that will cause provincial readers
to pity the author, and wonder it should be considered safe to
let him go loose. Voltaire took two hundred numbers of Des-
fontaines's weeklj^, subjected them to this familiar process, and
published the result in a pamphlet, entitled " The Preserva-
tive " (Le Pr^servatif), a copy of which, as we have seen, he
handed to Madame de Grafigny to read. This pamphlet of
forty small pages bore the name in the title-page of the Cheva-
lier de Mouhi, one of several poor fellows who hung about the
office of the Abbe Moussinot to get an occasional louis d'or
from Voltaire's charity.
It was not a difficult task to compose an effective pamphlet
of this kind, for Desfontaines's ignorance of science was that
of a French abb^ of 1735, and, in literary matters, he made
frequent slips, as all men must who write continually and on
every topic. Thus, he wrote that Brutus was more a Quaker
than a Stoic. " It is," remarked Voltaire, " as if he had said
Brutus was more a Capuchin than a Stoic." A wonderful
statement of the editor was that Seneca was a more verbose
writer than Cicero. He had made, too, some ludicrous mis-
translations from Latin, Italian, and English ; he had dis-
played a singular and inveterate ignorance of Newton when-
ever he mentioned or alluded to him. Voltaire selected about
fifty of his mistakes and misconceptions, appending to each a
sentence or two of quiet satire ; all tending to show '' how
amusing it was that such a man should take it into his head to
sit in judgment upon others."
But this was not the sting of " Le Pr^servatif." Toward
the close of his pamphlet, Voltaire made his Chevalier de
Mouhi proceed thus : —
404 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
" Having read in these ' Observations ' several attacks upon M. de
Voltaire, as well as a letter which the editor boasted he had received
from M. de Voltaire, I took the liberty to write myself to M. de Vol-
taire, though not acquainted with him. Here is his reply : —
" ' I only know the Abbe Guyot Desfontaiues from M. Thieriot's
bringing him to my house in 1724 as a man who had formerly been
a Jesuit, and hence a student. I received him with friendship, as
I do all who cultivate literature. I was astonished at the end of
fifteen days to receive a letter fi'om him, written at Bicetre [prison
for criminals, near Paris], to which he had just been committed. I
learned that he had been put into the Chatelet [prison in Paris] three
months before for the same crime of which he was then accused, and
that they were preparing to try him. At that time I was so fortu-
nate as to have some very powerful friends, of whom death has since
deprived me. Sick as I was, I hurried to Fontainebleau to throw
myself at their feet. I pressed, I solicited, on all sides ; and, at last,
obtained his release, and the discontinuance of a trial that involved a
question of life or death. I also procured for him permission to re-
tire to the country house of M. le President de Bernieres, my friend,
and he went thither with M. Thieriot. Do you know what he did
there ? He wrote a libel against me. He even showed it to M.
Thieriot, who made him throw it into the fire. He asked my pardon,
saying that the libel was written a little before the time of his com-
mittal to Bicetre. I had the weakness to forgive him, and that weak-
ness has cost me a mortal enemy, who has written me anonymous let-
ters, and who has sent twenty libels to Holland against me. Such,
sir, are some of the things I can say concerning him.' "
This was a cutting stroke ; but, as the reader observes, there
is no indication in the letter of the nature of the offense for
which the abb^ was committed to prison. As if to supply the
deficiency, the author of " Le Preservatif," while that pam-
phlet was passing through the press, set flying about Paris an
epigram, in which the attacks of Desfontaines upon Newton
were coupled with the offense of which he was accused : " He
has taken everything a rehours, and his errors are always sins
asainst nature.'' Still worse, he caused a caricature to be
engraved and published, representing the abbe on his knees
receiving ignominious punishment for his alleged crime. Un-
der the picture was another epigram by Voltaire, not de-
scribable, ending with an assurance that " God recompenses
merit."
THE ABBfe DESFONTAINES. 405
When the matadore strikes between the horns with his slen-
der and glitterhig blade, he must kill his bull on the instant,
or look out for his horns. The bull will not refrain from ven-
p-eance because he is not skilled in the use of the matadore's
brilliant weapon; he employs the means of offense that nature
has given him, and the matadore expects nothing else. Des-
fontaines replied promptly to " Le Preservatif " in a pamphlet
which he entitled " The Voltaire Mania [La Voltairomanie],
or the Letter of a Young Advocate, in the Form of a Memo-
rial." It was the attack of a bull blinded by rage, and Vol-
taire was justly punished by it for stooping either to concili-
ate or to assail such an adversary. The young advocate began
by assuming that, in assaulting Voltaire, he was avenging out-
raged man.
" He has spared no one, and, like a mad dog, he has thrown
himself upon all the most distinguished authors. Theologians,
philosophers, poets, all the learned, have been the objects of
his contempt, raillery, and banter. He has turned into ridi-
cule religions, nations, and governments. There is no one
who does not know this ; and why should I not unmask the
persecutor of the human race, this enemy of the living and
the dead, and tear from him that assumption of infallibility
in litei-ature with which he arrogantly decorates himself? "
The " young adyocate " was also the defender of an outraged
individual. The Abbe Desfontaines, he remarks, is of an age
and character that cause him to forgive injuries too easily,
and therefore he, the young advocate, his friend, has imder-
taken to punish a man who has been accustomed to be paid
for his follies hi another way.
" Supposing, even, that the Abbe Desfontaines is such a person as
he is depicted in ' Le Preservatif;' does it follow that Voltaire is an
honest man and a orreat writer? Will all connoisseurs be the less
convinced that he is absolutely ignorant of the dramatic art, and that
he owes all the applause he has ever received at the theatre to the
empty harmony of his pompous tirades, and to his satiric or irreligious
audacity ? His ' Heuriade,' will it be the less a dazzling chaos, a bad
tissue of fictions, stale or out of place, in which there is as much jirose
as verse, and more verbal faults than pages ? Will not his ' Charles
XII.' always pass for the work of an ignorant fool, written in the
jocular taste of a common gossip retailing anecdotes ? Ilis Letters
406 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
(English), wherein he dares to carry his extravagances even to the
altar, will they the less oblige him to keep out of Paris all his life ?
The ' Elements of Newton,' will they ever be anything else than the
exercise of a school-boy who stumbles at every step, a work simply
ridiculous ? In a word, will Voltaire be the less a man dishonored
in civilized society for his low impostures, his rascalities, his shameful
basenesses, his thefts, public and private, and his presuming imperti-
nence, which have drawn upon him hitherto such withering disgraces?"
Of these withering disgraces the young advocate appends a
descriptive catalogue : " (1.) The deserved chastisement which
he received at Sevres during the regency, — a chastisement
for which he deemed himself well recompensed by the thou-
sand crowns which his avarice accepted to console his honor.
(2.) The celebrated treatment at the door of the Hotel de
Sully, in consequence of which he was driven from France for
the follies which that noble basting caused him to commit.
(3.) Basting again at London from the hand of an English
bookseller, — a grievous mishap, which made him earnestly so-
licit, and obtain, the favor of returning to France. Thus the
same scourge that caused him to leave France made him come
back, to experience several other affronts of another kind.
When will he be satiated with ignominy ? "
Then he came to the aifair of the abba's committal to Bi-
cetre : —
" Will it be believed that he who to-day brings against the
Abb^ Desfontaines so shameful a reproach is the self-same
man who, thirteen or fourteen years ago, defended him against
it, and who proved in a short memorial, drawn up by himself,
the falsity and absurdity of the accusation ? He did this at
the solicitation of the late President de Bernieres, who good-
naturedly lodged him in his house, and whom Voltaire pre-
sumed to call his friend! The President de Bernieres the
friend of Voltaire, grandson of a peasant ! The profession of
man of letters is advantageous indeed. This friend drove
him out of his house in 1726, after his insolent speech in
Madame Lecouvreur's box."
He repeats that the service rendered him by Voltaire in
1724 was done in mere deference to the wishes of " a ben-
efactor upon whom Voltaire depended," who " lodged and
fed him," and who was an " ally of the Abb^ Desfontaines."
THE abb6 desfontaines. 407
He added, in a parenthesis, '' A scoundrel, by his airs of pro-
tection, compels us to speak of this circumstance." He asks
whether a man standing in such a relation to the President de
Bernieres could have avoided doing as Voltaire had done.
This was the more audacious from the circumstance that
Madame de Bernieres was still alive. But Desfontaines's
masterpiece of effrontery was in his meeting the chai'ge of
having written a libel against his deliverer just after leaving
Bicetre, which libel Thieriot had seen and had made him
suppress. He attempted here to make a breach between the
accuser and the witness.
" M. Thieriot," continued the young advocate, " is a man as
much esteemed by worthy people as Voltaire is detested by
them. As if in spite of himself, he draws after him the dis-
graceful residue of an old tie which he has not yet had the
resolution to break entirely. Now M. Thieriot, who is cited
as a witness in this affair, has been asked if the statement was
true, and M. Thieriot has been obliged to say that he had no
knowledge of it. Here we defy Voltaire to the proof. The
sojourn at the country house of the late President de Bernieres
occurred in the vacation of 1725. If a libel printed in that
year exists, let it be produced. If it is replied that the abbd
threw it into the fire, let Voltaire name the witnesses ; for
assuredly he ought not to be believed upon his word. He
says that M. Thieriot obliged the abb^ to throw it into the
fire ; and here is M. Thieriot, who declares the falsity of the
statement. Voltaire, then, is the most audacious, the most
insensate, of liars."
The pamphlet concluded by a kind of apology for its vio-
lence : " I believe the Voltaire mania sufficiently demonstrated
by what I have said. Would to God that he was only a mad-
man ! Worse than that, he is false, impudent, slanderous.
Let him henceforth write what he pleases, whether prose or
verse, he has been deprived, or, rather, he has deprived him-
self, of the least credit in the world. For the rest, however
he may seem to have been maltreated here, we have been
but too indulgent And what is more likely to abase
that monstrous pride of his, the radical cause of all his vices
and all his infamy, than the contents of this salutary letter,
which your charity will not fail to communicate to him? "
408
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Having completed his pamphlet, the abbe was so well con-
tent with it that he read it, as an after-dinner treat, to a
company of literary men at the house of the Marquis de Loc-
Maria. The hearers pronounced it " a very gross libel ; " upon
which the author roared out " in the brutal tone that nature
had given him, and which education had not corrected," " Vol-
taire has no other part to take than to go and hang himself." ^
The pamphlet was published December 14, 1738, and it
had the swift currency which savage assaults upon conspicuous
individuals usually have. Its sale was rapid and large. An
edition of two thousand copies, printed in Holland, was sold in
fifteen days, and the affair was soon the talk of Europe. Life,
meanwhile, at the chateau of Cirey was going its usual train :
Voltaire hard at work upon his new tragedy of " Mei'ope," of
which he had the highest hopes ; madame absorbed by turns
in her lawsuit and her studies ; the marquis, anticipating a
successful result of the suit, in treaty for a new hQtel in Paris,
price two hundred thousand francs. From various causes,
Thieriot had been much in their thoucrhts of late. He had
spent two or three weeks at the chateau in October of this
year, and while he was there, Desfontaines being a topic at the
dinner table, one day, he had told the Bicetre anecdote, —
how the abbe, fresh from prison, had written a libel against his
benefactor. jSIadame was a little jealous of this comrade of
Voltaire's youth, but she gave him a cordial reception and
hospitable entertainment. On his departure, Voltaire, under
pretense of assisting him to pack his valise, had slipped into it
a rouleau of fifty golden louis, which Thieriot did not discover
until he had reached Paris.
Madame du Chatelet received a copy of " La Voltairomanie "
on Christmas Day, and read it with such feelings as we can
imagine. " I have just read that frightful libel," she wrote
to their "guardian angel," D'Argental. "I am in despair. I
am more afraid of the sensitiveness of vour friend than of the
public ; for I am persuaded that the cries of that mad dog can
do no harm. I have kept it from him ; his fever having only
left him to-day. He fainted yesterday twice ; he is extremely
debilitated, and I should fear tlie worst if, in his present con-
dition, his feelings should experience a violent shock. Upon
1 Letter quoted in Voltaire au Chateau de Cirey, par Desnoircsterres, page 175.
THE ABBfi DESFONTAINES. 409
such matters his sensitiveness is extreme. His Holland book-
sellers, the return of Rousseau to Paris, and this libel are
enouo;h to kill him. There is no fraud which I do not invent
to conceal from him news so afflicting." She continued to in-
vent her amiable frauds during the whole holiday week ; and,
thinking that some reply to the pamphlet was necessary, she
wrote one herself, which has been published among her works
in recent times.
But Voltaire had had the pamphlet all the time, and had
employed similar frauds to hide it from her. She appeal's to
have made this discovery on New Year's Day ; when, to her
great relief, he took the affair with perfect coolness, seeming
only to be concerned for its effect upon her mind. He told
her there was no occasion to make any formal reply to an at-
tack so absurdly violent. Their proper course, he thought,
was to treat it merely as a criminal libel, prepare refuting tes-
timony, and apply to the law for redress. He had already
begun proceedings ; had already sent to the Abbe Moussinot
to buy a copy of the pamphlet in the presence of two wit-
nesses, and to file the preliminary papers. Madame de Berni-
eres promptly gave her testimony that he had paid rent for
his rooms at her house ; and, fortunately, he was a man who
"never cast receipts away," and even his contract with the
late president was on file at his brother's office in Paris. As
to the evidence of Thieriot, that could not fail to be forthcom-
ing with equal promptitude. All the knowledge he had ever
possessed of the Bicetre libel was obtained from Thieriot's
spontaneous communications, and he could not doubt the lo}''-
alty of an old comrade, who owed all his importance in the
world to his connection with himself.
But Thieriot was silent! The " Voltairomanie " had been
circulating ten days, and still no word from Thieriot ! All the
inmates of the chateau were amazed and confounded. Voltaire
was cut to the heart. He was aware that Desfontaines had
felt his ground with Thieriot before publishing the pamphlet,
for Tiiieriot himself had told him so, and Voltaire had ad-
vised him to make no terms with the abbe. " You are trying,"
he wrote, " to conciliate a monster whom you detest and fear.
I have less prudence. I hate him ; I despise him ; I am not
afraid of him ; and I shall lose no opportunity to punish him. I
410 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
know how to hate, because I know how to love. His base in-
gratitude, the greatest of all the vices, has rendered me irrec-
oncilable."
In this passage we have the simple explanation of Thieriot's
silence. Like many better men than himself, and like many-
men worse than himself, he was afraid of the editorial pen ; he
dared not face the weekly abuse of a widely-circulated journal.
It was this conduct of his old friend, and not Desfontaines's
crude and lumbering abuse, that threw Voltaire into those con-
vulsions of which Madame de Grafigny was a witness, in the
early days of 1739. He wrote to Thieriot the most eloquent
and affectionate letters, remonstrating, pleading, arguing. Ma-
dame du Chatelet wrote to him. The marquis, who was no
letter writer, dispatched a long epistle to the cowai'dly parasite,
urging him to do his duty; " The extreme friendship," he
wrote, " which I have for M. de Voltaire, and the knowledge
which I possess of his friendship for you, and the essential proofs
of it which he has given you, induce me to write to persuade you
to do what you owe to friendship and to truth." The Prince
Royal of Prussia was enlisted in the cause, Thieriot being his
literary correspondent and Paris express agent.
Thieriot struggled hard to escape this dilemma. He wi'ote
thus to Madame du Chatelet with regard to the Bicetre libel :
" I have been much questioned concerning the truth of that
statement, and this has been my answer : that I simply remem-
bered the fact, but that, with regard to the circumstances, they
had so little remained in my memory that I could render no
account of them ; and that is not extraordinary, after so many
years. All the information, then, madame, which I can give
you is that, in those times, at M. de Bernieres's country-house,
there was conversation concerning a piece against M. de Vol-
taire, which, to the best of my recollection, filled a copy-book
of forty to fifty pages. The Abb^ Desfontaines showed it to
me, and I engaged him to suppress it. As to the date and title
of that writing (circumstances very important in this case), I
protest, on my honor, that I remember nothing of them."
This was terrible, and may well have throAvn a too suscepti-
ble friend into something like convulsions. Voltaire searched
among his letters of that time, and found three or four of
Thieriot's in which he had written of the libel. August 16,
THE ABBf: DESFONTAINES. 411
1726, he had written thus : " Desfontaines in the time of his
imprisonment [dans le temjJS de Bicetre] wrote against you a
satirical work, which I made him throw into the fire." In
conversation he had mentioned the title of the piece, " Apolo-
gie du Sieur de Voltaire," which was not thrown into the fire,
for it has since been printed, and is now accessible. Never
was such pressure brought to bear upon a reluctant witness as
upon Thieriot during the first weeks of the year 1739. The
"stout lady," Madame de Champbonin, made a journey to
Paris to add the weight of her personal influence. He made
some concessions, at length, and joined the friends and family
of Voltaire in demanding justice against the libeler.
It was customary then, it appears, for the friends and rela-
tions of a man bringing a libel suit to go in a body before the
magistrate when the complaint was presented. The reader
need scarcely be informed that Voltaire neglected no means
to enforce his demand.
" Fly, my dear friend," he writes to Moussinot; "give the
inclosed letter to my nephew I entreat him to stir up
some of my relations. Join yourself to them and to Madamfe
de Champbonin. Do your part : move the Procopes, the An-
dris, and even the indolent Pitaval, the Abb^ Seran de La
Tours, the Du Perrons de Castera ; make them sign a new req-
uisition. Offer them carriages, and, with your ordinary ad-
dress and tact, pay all the expenses. Add De Monhi to the
crowd ; promise him some money, but do not give him any.
You must, my dear friend, call yourself my relation, as ]Ma-
dame de Champbonin does. All of you go in a body to the
audience with the chancellor. Nothing produces so great an
effect upon the mind of a judge well disposed as the attendance
of a numerous family Spare neither money nor prom-
ises ; it is necessary to rouse men, to excite them powerfully, in
order to make them do right. I think it essential that my
friend Thieriot should join my relations and defenders
Let us neglect nothing ; let us push the scoundrel by all the
means in our power Justice is like the kingdom of
heaven, and the violent take it by force."
Nor did he neglect to circulate in Paris satirical reflections
upon his antagonist and the odious offense charged against him,
which no Frenchman of that day, nor Frenchwoman either,
412 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
could resist. One anonymous letter, written at Cirey, des-
canted upon Desfontaines's memorial in a strain like this : " He
calls himself a man of qualit}^ because he has a brother who
is auditor of accounts at Rouen. He entitles himself a man of
good morals, because he has been only a few days at the Cha-
telet and Bicetre. He says that he goes always with a lackey;
but he does not specify whether this bold lackey goes before or
behind ; and this is not a case to pretend that it is no matter
which. Finally, he pushes his effrontery so far as to say that
he has some friends. This is to attack cruelly the human race."
There were several pages of this letter, in mingled prose and
verse, each sentence a distinct and cutting epigram.
The friends of Voltaire rallied in great force, and displayed
extraordinary zeal. Besides Madame de Champbonin, the
Marquis du Chatelet came to Paris on this business, and lent
the weight of his ancient name to the support of the person
who occupied his place at home. The Prince Royal of Prus-
sia wrote to the French ambassador at .his father's court, ask-
ing him to make known to the Cardinal de Fleury his warm
interest in Voltaire's cause. ^ Desfontaines discovered, before
the spring months were over, that his antagonist had struck
down too many roots in his native soil to be overthrown by
one rude, unskillful blow. Voltaire tired out friend and foe,
masistrates and ministers. His letters of these three or four
months are wonderful for their number, length, intensity,
acuteness, and fertility of suggestion. It must have seemed to
all the parties and to the public that never again could there
be peace in Europe until that indefatigable and indomitable
spirit at the chateau of Cirey was appeased. Desfontaines
was finally notified that he had only the choice to retract or go
to prison again. Voltaire had always disavowed " Le Preser-
vatif ; " he must disavow " La Voltairomanie." The Marquis
d'Argenson, on the part of the administration of justice, pre-
pared the draft of such a disavowal and retraction as was re-
quired, which the a,hh6 copied and signed : —
" I declare that I am not the author of a printed libel en-
titled " La Voltairomanie," and that I disavow it in its en-
tirety, regarding as calumnious all the charges bi'ought against
M. de Voltaire in that libel ; and that I should have cousid-
1 Frederic to Voltaire, 1739.
THE ABBE DESFONTAINES. 413
ered myself dishonored if I had had the least share in that
writing, having for him all the sentiments of esteem due to
his talents, and which the public so justly accords him. Done
at Paris, this 4th April, 1739."
Voltaire was not satisfied, but gradually yielded to the en-
treaties of his friends to molest the abb^ no more. Three
weeks after, he wrote to his faithful Moussinot: " Let us speak
no more of Desfontaines ; I am ill avenged, but I am avenged.
Give two hundred francs to Madame de Champbonin, and that
with the best grace in the world ; another hundred to De
Mouhi, telling him you have no more." With surprising fa-
cility, he half forgave Thieriot, repeating one of his favorite
maxims : " When two old friends separate, it is discreditable
to both." He knew his man, and, perhaps, also suspected that
the date of the Bicetre libel was such as Desfontaines claimed ;
that is, before Voltaire had rendered him the service. What
is most surprising in this affair is the little regard for truth
shown by every individual involved in it. They all lied, like
ill-taught children, — not only the antagonists, but all their
friends ; and the final disavowal was known to be a falsehood
by the honorable magistrate who drew it, as well as by the
odious individual who signed it.
Desfontaines continued his editorial career, and occasionally
had a safe opportunity to indulge his rancor against Voltaire.
The Essays upon Fire, written at Cirey, were soon after pub-
lished. He criticised Voltaire's with severity, and extolled
Madame du Chatelet's to the skies. Her dissertation, he said,
was " full of spirit and erudition, of things curious and pleas-
ing." She was "' a phenomenon of literature, knowledge, and
grace ; " and " if any one was capable of giving France a com-
plete course of natural philosophy, it was the illustrious lady
whose genius and learning the Academy of Sciences had es-
teemed." 1
1 2 L'Esprit de I'Abbe Desfontaines, 201.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
FREDERIC BECOMES KING OF PRUSSIA.
Voltaire came out of this contest a victor, but sorely
wounded in body and mind; "his health," as Madame du
Chatelet wrote in April, 1739, was " in a state so deplorable
that I have no longer any hope of restoring it except through
the bustle of a journey and a change of air. It is sad to be
reduced to such a condition by a Desfontaines." An occasion
for a long journey occurred that spring. Through the death
of the aged Marquis de Trichateau, cousin of M. du Chatelet,
there was not only an increase of the family estate, but an ad-
ditional hold upon that lawsuit of eighty years' standing,
which was so frequent a topic at the chateau. The new ac-
quisitions of land lay in Flanders, a few miles from Brussels,
and the suit had to be tried in the courts of " the empire," to
which Flanders then belonged. The Prince Royal of Prussia,
too, while warning madame of the interminable delays of the
Austrian judges, had promised to do what he could to acceler-
ate her cause. " They say," he wrote in January, 1739, " that
if the imperial court owes a box on the ear to some one it is
necessary to solicit three years before getting payment." But
Frederic knew intimately the Prince of Orange and the Prince
d'Aremberg, all powerful in the Low Countries, and through
them he hoped to quicken the pace of the cause through the
courts.
On the 8th of ]\Iay, 1739, the Marquis du Chatelet, Ma-
dame la Marquise, Koenig, her new tutor in mathematics,
Voltaire, and a numerous retinue of servants left the chateau
at Cirey for a very leisurely journey to Brussels, a hundred
and fifty miles distant, which they accomplislied in twenty
days. Voltaire had lived thi-ee successive years at Cirey. A
long period was to elapse before he again remained three years
under one roof ; for his connection with this family, so far from
PEEDERIC BECOMES KING OF PRUSSIA. 415
affording him the peace and quiet he needed, only added their
perplexities and excitements to his own, which were numerous
enough without that large addition. He was an appendage
who should have been chief. This lawsuit was his lawsuit,
as his affair with Desfontaines had been theirs also. Upon
reaching Brussels, they rode out together to see the new es-
tate. Returning soon, madame, head of the family, hired a
large furnished house in a secluded quarter of Brussels, and
the whole party settled to their several occupations : she to
law papers, German, and mathematics, rising at six to study,
dreading to disgust Professor Koenig with her inaptitude ; the
marquis, who was soon to depart, to the calm digestion of his
daily rations ; Voltaire to his new tragedies and his " Louis
XIV.," not declining his share of the law business. Madame
was resolved to win her suit. She studied every document,
law precedent, and usage bearing upon it, and had that entire
confidence in the justice of her cause which is the aggravating
privilege of clients.
But these were not people to give themselves wholly up to
labor. Brussels had been for many years the abode of J. B.
Rousseau ; the Duke d'Aremberg having given the exiled poet
honorable asylum, for which the duke is now chiefly remem-
bered. Later, he withdrew his favor from Rousseau, and the
poet lived in obscurity in a city where the arts were held in
little esteem. Voltaire, still burning with wrath against him,
desired to show the people of Brussels that he was still a per-
sonage, in spite of the devout libels of Rousseau and the lum-
bering assaults of Desfontaines. He was willing, also, to let
them know that a French poet was not of necessity dependent
on a prince's bounty. He gave a fete, in the style of a " gar-
den party," to Madame du Chatelet, the Princess of Chimai,
and the Duke d'Aremberg, to which he invited the society of
Brussels. The invitations were given in the name of the
" Envoy from Utopia," though he confesses he had never read
Sir Thomas More's work upon that island, and discovered that
not one person in all Brussels had ever heard of it, or knew
what the word Utopia meant. The party was perfectly suc-
cessful, and made the house a social centre to the world of
Brussels. A deplorable incident, however, rendered the occa-
sion one of misery to himself. In the morning, as he was su-
416
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
perintending the preparations for the fireworks, two of his car-
penters fell from the height of the third story at his feet, and
covered him with their blood. He almost lost consciousness,
and was some days in recovering from the shock.
The Duke d'Aremberg invited the strangers, in return, to
his castle at Enghien twenty miles away, where Rousseau had
lived. There Madame du Chatelet and himself spent a week
or two, joining in the noble game of killing time, the chief
employment then of princes. " I play a good deal at brelan,^'
he wrote to Helvetius, " but our dear studies lose nothing by
it. It is necessary to ally labor and pleasure." He found Flan-
ders very much what Charlotte Bronte found it a hundred years
later : " It is not the land of belles-lettres I am in a cha-
teau wherein there were never any books except those brought
by Madame du Chatelet and myself ; but, by way of compen-
sation, there are gardens more beautiful than those of Chan-
tilly, and we lead here that luxurious and easy life which
makes the country so agreeable. The possessor of this beau-
tiful retreat is of more value than many books ; " particularly,
he might have added, to an anthor gathering historic material ;
for the Duke d'Aremberg had been wounded at Malplaquet,
had served under Prince Eugene, had been part of all the mil-
itary history of his time. These superb gardens exist at the
present day, and the chateau itself has been demolished only
a few years. Visitors are shown a Mount Parnassus there,
upon which Voltaire and Rousseau may have stood, as well as
some walks shaded by ancient, interlaced shrubbery, under
which they must often have walked, though not together.
After a round of splendid festivity at Enghien, to which the
visitors added the intellectual element of comedy, they re-
turned to Brussels.
But there was no resting-place there for a poet. The busi-
ness of the suit obliged madame, six weeks later, to go and
pass a month in Paris, where also Voltaire had business, two
tragedies at once being ready for submission to the actors. In
September they were in the metropolis. Paris was in festival,
for the king's eldest daughter was just mai-ried to the Prince
Royal of Spain, and the king was lavishing millions in tasteless
magnificences, which, Voltaire thought, would have been bet-
ter employed in permanent improvements.
I
FREDERIC BECOMES KING OF PRUSSIA. 417
" Paris [as he wrote to " the stout lady " of Cirey, Madame de
Champbonin, — "big tom-cat," as he loved to call her] is an abyss,
wherein we lose our repose and serenity of mind, without which life is
a weaiisome tumult. I do not live ; I am carried, drawn far from my-
self in whirlwinds. I go, I come ; I sup at the end of the city, to sup
the next day at the other end. From a society of three or four inti-
mate friends, I must fiy to the opera, to the theatre, to see some curi-
osities as a stranger, to embiace a hundred persons in a day, to make
and receive a hundred protestations ; not a moment to myself ; no
time to write, think, or sleep. I am like that personage of old who
died smothered under the flowers that were thrown to him
Such is our life, my dear gros chat ; and you, tranquil on your roof,
laugh at our escapades ; and, for myself, I regret those moments so full
of delight which we enjoyed at Cirey, with our friends and one an-
other. What is, then, that bundle of books which has reached Cirey ?
Is it a packet of works against me ? I will mention to you, in pass-
ing, that there is no more question here of the Desfontaines horrors than
if he and his monsters of children had never existed. That wretch can
no more thrust himself into good company at Paris than Rousseau can
at Brussels. They are spiders, which are not found in well-kept houses.
My dear gros chat, I kiss a thousand times your velvet paws."
This mode of existence, which did not prevent Madame du
Chatelet from continuing her studies, was fatal to the produc-
tion of dramatic poetry, which required, as Voltaire wrote to
Mademoiselle Quinault, " the whole soul of the poet, a serenity
the most profound, an enthusiasm the most intense, a patience
the most docile." In November, without having seen either
of his new plays in rehearsal, he set out with madame on his
return, taking Cirey on their way, and before Christmas they
were settled once more in Brussels, immersed in law, mathe-
matics, and literature.
The new year, 1740, was one of the most interesting of Vol-
taire's life. The King of Prussia was fast failing, and the
Prince Royal, his heir, was giving to Voltaire and to Europe
the most engaging promise of a reign peaceful and noble be-
yond example. Never before had their correspondence been
so frequent, so tender, so enthusiastic. The prince had set his
heart upon editing and publishing the most superb edition
of " La Henriade " that art and expense could produce. He
meant to have the poem printed from engraved plates, as
music was then printed, and he was in correspondence on the
VOL. I. 27
418
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
subject with persons in England, where the work was to be
done. Finding unexpected difficulties in the way, he imported
from England a font of silvei'-faced type, and set all the artists
and engravers of Berlin at work executing vignettes and other
illustrations. " Whatever the cost," he wrote to the author,
" we shall produce a masterpiece worthy of the poem which it
will present to the public." Frederic composed an elaborate
introduction, in which he extolled the poem in a manner so
extravagant that the poet begged him to moderate his eulo-
gium. The prince denied him this favor, and the introduc-
tion, as we now have it in the roval edition of Frederic's
works, ranks " La Henriade " above the " -iiEneid," above the
" Iliad," and, indeed, above all that man had produced of ex-
cellent and finished in epic poetry.^
Aside from this excess of praise, the preface was well cal-
culated to strengthen Voltaire's position in France. Fred-
eric, writing while the affair of Desfontaines was fresh in the
public mind, hurls anathemas at those " half-learned men,
those creatures amphibious of erudition and ignorance, those
wretches, themselves without talent, who persistently perse-
cute men whose brilliant genius throws them into eclipse ; "
and he endeavors to show France how unworthy it was of her
to menace and maltreat a man who was the wonder and glory
of his age and country. The prince quotes but three lines
from the poem, — the apostrophe to Friendship in the eighth
canto, in which kings are spoken of as " illustrious ingrates,
who are so unhappy as not to know friendship." Frederic
did not " stand by his order."
Voltaire, never weary of correcting his works, sent the
prince a number of. passages for insertion in the new edition,
one or two of which had in them so much of the Bastille flavor
that Frederic advised him not to print them in any. French
edition of the poem: " My dear Voltaire, avoid giving a pre-
text to the race of bigots, and fear your persecutors. There
is nothing more cruel than to be suspected of irreligion. In
vain one makes all imaginable efforts to escape the odium of
it ; the accusation lasts always. I speak from experience ;
and I perceive that extreme circumspection is necessary upon
a matter of which dotards [so^s] make a principal point.
1 8 CEuvres de Frederic le Grand, 49, 51. Berlin, 1847.
FREDEKIC BECOMES KING OF PRUSSIA. 419
Voltaire, in the course of his life, was favored with many
reams of advice of this kind. Frederic often joined Madame
du Chatelet in the well-meant endeavor to " save him from
himself," — which would have been to annihilate himself.
The passage which the prince had in his mind when he wrote
thus remains in the poem (canto vii. line 56) : " Soft Hy-
pocrisy, with eyes full of sweetness, — heaven in her eyes, hell
in her heart," — ending with the lines in which the church
is represented as having inspired and hallowed assassination
in the religious wars : " In Paris, cruel priests dared to soil
the holy altars with the portrait of Valois's assassin. The
League invoked him ; Rome extolled him ; here in torments
hell disavows him." Such a passage, the prince added, was
fit to be published only in a country like England, where " it
is permitted to a man not to be stupid, and to utter all his
thought."
The zeal of the prince in producing this sumptuous edition
was indefatigable. He had a world of trouble with it, as
men usually have who meddle with other trades than their
own ; but he was sustained by a heart-felt conviction that the
delineation given in the poem of the religious wars — " the
baleful work of wicked priests and false zeal " — was a lesson
to kings and people of unspeakable value, which could not
be too often repeated nor too strongly emphasized. " An idle
prince, in my opinion," he wrote, " is an animal of little use
to the world. At least it is my desire to serve my age in all
that depends upon me. I wish to contribute to the immor-
tality of a work useful to the universe ; I wish to spread
abroad a poem in which the author teaches the duty of nobles
and the duty of peoples, a mode of reigning little known
among princes, and a way of thinking that would have enno-
bled the gods of Homer."
Under the inspiration of Voltaire, he even determined to
become himself an author. At this time, the last year of his
liberty and leisure, he wrote his " Anti-Machiavelli," or crit-
ical examination of Machiavelli's " Prince," a work which he
regarded as one of the most mischievous that had ever ap-
peared. He told Voltaire that he meant his treatise as " a
sequel to ' La Henriade.' " " Upon the grand sentiments of
Henry IV. I forge the thunder-bolts that will crush Caesar
420 L[FE OF VOLTAIRE.
Borgia," he wrote in his first enthusiasm ; and the work con-
tinued for many months to be a leading topic in their cor-
respondence. The " Anti-Machiavelli " is a dissertation in
twenty-six chapters, wherein the maxims by which Machi-
avelli inculcates the art of despotism are demolished in the
best manner of a young man whose virtue has not yet been
brought to " the fatal touch-stone " of opportunity. Voltaire
might well anticipate, as he read the chapters sent him by
the prince, that Europe was about to see a powerful and ris-
ing state governed on Arcadian principles. How eloquently
did the prince descant upon the barbarous kings who pre-
ferred " the fatal glory of conquerors to that won by kindness,
justice, clemency, and all the virtues ! " He wondered — he
who was to invade and annex Silesia within the year — "what
could induce a man to aggrandize himself through the misery
and destruction of other men." " How monstrous, how ab-
surd, the attempt to render one's self ilkistrious through mak-
ing others miserable ! " " The new conquests of a sovereign
do not render the states more opulent which he already pos-
sesses ; his subjects gain nothing ; and he deludes himself if
he imagines he will be more happy." Again : " It is not the
magnitude of the country a prince governs which constitutes
his glory." ^ Twenty-six chapters of such virtue-in-words,
so easy, so delusive, make up the "Anti-Machiavelli " of Fred-
eric of Prussia. Those words were evidently sincere. They
were as sincere as the eloquent composition of a student upon
temperance, which he delivers to admiration at eleven A. M.,
and who is led home at eleven P. M. of the same day, some-
thing the worse for his supper.
It is given to Frenchmen, as to ladies, to shed tears easily.
These noble sentiments, uttered by a young man who was
about to ascend a throne and command an army of a hundred
thousand men, brought rapturous tears to Voltaire's eyes, and
he delighted to call the prince the modern Marcus Aurelius
and the Solomon of the North. He did more. He pointed out
the faults and defects of the work with considerable frankness,
wrote a preface for it, and undertook the charge of getting it
printed and published.
There is nothing in the lives of these two kings so amiable
1 9 CEuvres Frederic le Grand, 69, 70.
FKEDERIC BECOMES KING OF PRUSSIA. 421
and pleasing as this early romantic phase of their long friend-
ship, before either had seen anything of the other but his most
real self — the man as he would have been if his streuffth had
been equal to his disposition, or if he had been born in a much
less difficult world than the one he actually inhabited. The
prince's daily thought was to gratify and glorify a beloved
Master, who gave his pupil an ample return of such wit and
wisdom as he possessed. Frederic consulted his own physician
upon Voltaire's case ; sent him medicines and receipts ; sent
him casks of Hungarian wine, then much valued for weak
stomachs ; and gave him a ring that he was never, never^ to
take from his finger. He also supplied Madame du Chatelet
with an abundance of amber articles, addressed to her a long
poem, wrote her many letters, and claimed a place in the
poet's heart next to hers.
He made known to Voltaire some of his royal dreams of
good for Prussia : " Every chief of society," he wrote, a few
months before his accession, " ought, it seems to me, to think
seriously of rendering his people contented, if he cannot make
them rich ; for contentment can very well subsist without
being sustained by wealth." To this end, he thought, kings
should provide agreeable and cheering entertainments for their
people ; enjoying which, they could for a short time forget the
unhappinesses of their lot. He told Voltaire that if the affairs
of the world were really governed by an all-wise Providence,
as people imagined, the kings of Europe would not be the
extremely dull men many of them were. " The Newtons,
the Wolfs, the Lockes, the Voltaires, would be the masters of
this world." He described the tower he had built at his cha-
teau, in imitation of Voltaire's hall at Cirey : the first story
a grotto; the second a room for philosophical apparatus; the
third a printing-office ; the roof an observatory. A colon-
nade connected this structure with the wing of the castle in
which his library was placed ; and, thus bountifully provided,
he passed his days in study, experiment, music, and compo-
sition ; punctual at the daily parade of his regiment, not other-
wise taking part in public business.
He was, as heirs-apparent generally were, the darling of his
country ; his portrait in every house, his name a household
word. The few old heads who supposed they had Europe
422 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
in charge, at that period of personal government, regarded
this young prince with some attention and little respect. His
air-pumps, his tower, his verses, his flute, his raving enthu-
siasm for a French author, even his aversion to debauchery,
all conspired to give them the impression that he and Prussia
would be an easy prey. Plis regiment, however, was a model
to the whole army ; even his martinet of a father commended
it.
In February, 1740, the king was supposed to be dying, and
the Prince Royal was of necessity near his bedside. Frederic-
William was only fifty-two years of age, and he had inherited
a constitution that should have lasted eighty-five. Wine, to-
bacco, arbitrary power, and the infuriate temper resulting from
their inordinate use had burned him out at this early period,
and he was one mass of incurable disease. It is an evidence
of the essential soundness of the prince's character, as well as
of his discernment, that in all his correspondence and conver-
sation he was loyal to this dull, defective parent, whom a
physical cause maddened and destroyed. He gave Voltaire a
glowing narrative of the great things his father had done in
peopling a province devastated by the plague, and he never
dropped an allusion to the terrible scenes in the palace and the
prison which had embittered his own early years, and the
whole life of his sister of Baireuth.
The king lingered nearly half a year, during which his son
was severed from all that had made life interesting to him,
and he was prevented by etiquette from engaging in new em-
ployments. He could merely wait, and stay at home, and
look serious. In such circumstances, the only vent to his pent-
up vivacity was in composing French verses ; and this was his
usual resource all his life, even in the crisis of a campaign, or
while he was waiting for the development of a manceuvre.
•' As I cannot drink," he wrote once from the field to his
sister Amelia, "nothing relieves me but writing verses, and
while the distraction lasts I do not feel my griefs." So, now,
at Berlin, waiting till his father's death should call him
to new duties, he relieved his mind by writing long letters
to Voltaire, in nimgled verse and prose. Thus, February 26,
1740 : —
" My dear Voltaire, I can reply only in two words to the
FREDEKIC BECOxMES KING OF PRUSSIA. 423
letter, the most spirituelle in the world, which you wrote to
me. The situation in which I find myself holds the mind so
strongly that I almost lose the faculty of thinking.
" Oui, j'apprends, en dcvenant maitre,
Le f'ragilitc de mou etre ;
Recevant les grandeurs, j'en vois la vanite'." ^
There were twenty-nine lines of this poem, in some of
which he came as near poetry as he ever did in his life. He
said, in plain prose, that, in whatever situation destiny might
place him, Voltaire should see no other change in him than
something more efficacious added to the esteem and friend-
ship which he felt for him, and always should feel. " I
tliink," he added, " a thousand times of the place in ' La
Henriade ' where the courtiers of Valois are spoken of. '•His
courtiers in tears about him ranged.'' "
Many long letters in this manner followed, the prince often
deploring his coming elevation, as well he might, and declaring
that nothing consoled him but " the thought of serving his
fellow-citizens [coticitot/ens'], and being useful to his country."
He hoped, too, to possess Voltaire. " Can I hope to see you,
or do you wish cruelly to deprive me of that satisfaction?
.... If I change my condition, you will be informed of it
among the first. Pity me, for I assure you I am to be pitied."
Frederic- William died May 31, 1740. For a week the young
king was immersed in business that could not be deferred. A
monarch was to be buried ; Prussia was to be delivered from
the ridicule of his four thousand rickety giants ; and tan-
gled skeins of negotiation were to be unraveled. At the end
of his first week of royalty he found time to write to Vol-
taire a shurt letter, which showed how little even an absolute
monarch is master of his time and destiny. Frederic had
thought to be king of Prussia, but was already discovering that
Prussia was going to be king of Frederic.
" My dear friend [lie wrote June 6, 1740], my destiny is changed,
and T have witnessed the lust moments of a kinij, his death-strusfle,
and his death. In coming to royalty, I certainly had no need of this
lesson to be disgusted with the vanity of human grandeurs. I had
projected a little work of a metaphysical nature ; it is changed into
1 Yes, 1 appreluMid on becoming master the frailty of my being; receiving
grandeurs, I see the vanity of ilium.
424 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
a work of politics. I thought to joust with the amiable Voltaire, and
am obliged to fence with the old mitred Macliiavelli.^ In a word, my
dear Voltaire, we are not masters of our destiny. The tornado of
events draws us along, and we have to let ourselves be drawn. See
in me, T pray you, only a zealous citizen, a somewhat skeptical philos-
opher, but a truly faithful friend. For God's sake, write to me only
as man to man, and despise with me titles, names, and all external
show. I have scarcely yet had time to recognize myself ; my occu{)a-
tions are infinite, and still I give myself more of them ; but, despite
all this labor, there always remains to me time to admire your works,
and draw from them instruction and recreation. Assure the mar-
chioness of my esteem. I admire her as much as her vast informa-
tion and rare capacity merit. Adieu, my dear Voltaire. If I live, I
shall see you, and even this very year. Love me always, and be
always sincere with your friend."
Three letters the young king wrote to Voltaire in the first
month of his reign, in verse and prose, although, as he said,
he had to work with both hands, — with one at army busi-
ness, with the other at civil affairs and the fine arts ; having
twenty occupations at once, and finding every day twenty-
four hours too short. Voltaire was not backward in respond-
ing.
" Sire," he wrote in his first letter to the king, " if your
destiny has changed, your noble soul has not. I was a little
inclined to misanthropy, and the injustice of men afflicted me
too much. At present I abandon myself, with all the world,
to joy." Then he told the king what delight his accession
had given in France. " The French are all Prussians
The minister who governs the country where I am (Count de
Daun, of Brussels) said to me, ' We shall see if he will dis-
band all at once the useless giants who have caused so much
outcry.' My reply was, ' He will do nothing precipitately ;
he will not betray any marked design to condemn the errors
which his predecessor may have made ; he will content him-
self with repairing them gradually. Deign, then, to avow,
great king, that I have divined well. Your majesty orders
me, when writing to you, to think less of the monarch than
of the 7nan. It is an order much in accord with my own
heart. I do not know how to demean myself with a king ;
1 Cardinal de Fleury.
FKEDERIC BECOMES KING OF PRUSSIA. 425
but I am quite at my ease with a true man, — one who has in
his heart and his head the love of the human race. There is
one thing which I should never dare ask the king, but which
I should dare take the liberty of asking the man. It is, if
the late king, before his death, came to know and love all the
merit of my adorable prince."
He banters the king upon the question whether he would
submit to the ceremony of coronation and anointing; asks him
for the routine of his day ; warns him to put a festive supper
between the day's work and sleep ; declares that he is enrap-
tured, at the thought of seeing him so soon ; and protests that
the sight of him will be a beatific vision. " I am not the only
one who sighs for that happiness. The Queen of Sheba would
like to take measures for seeing Solomon in his glory."
Solomon wrote a long reply, touching upon many points,
but did not offer the least encouragement to the project of the
Queen of Sheba. It was not his iptention to invite a Queen
of Sheba, from whom he hoped to lure an illustrious vassal.
He informed Voltaire that his father had died in perfect
friendship with him.
" Here, then, is the Berhn Gazette, such as you ask it of
me : I reached Potsdam Friday evening, and found the kino-
in so sad a condition that I augured at once that his end was
near. He showed me a thousand marks of his regard ; he
talked to me more than a full hour upon public business, both
home and foreign, with all the justness and good sense imagi-
nable. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday he spoke in the same
way, appearing very tranquil, very resigned, and bearing his
pains with much firmness. He resigned the regency into my
hands Tuesday morning at five o'clock ; took leave tenderly of
my brothers, of all the officers of mark, and of me."
Frederic continued at much length to answer Voltaire's
questions. One piece of intelligence must have struck with
surprise a man who was reading the proofs of Frederic's
" Anti-Machiavelli : " "I began by augmenting the forces of
the state by sixteen battalions, five companies of hussars, and
one of body guards." But then he immediately added that
he had founded a new Academy, had made the acquisition of
Maupertuis, Wolf, and Algarotti, had invited to his service
Euler, S'Gravesend, and Vaucanson, had established a new col-
426 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
lege for commerce and manufactures, had engaged painters
and sculptors, and was not going to be either crowned or
anointed. He spoke of those ceremonies as "frivolous and
useless, which ignorance and superstition had established."
He was working, too, with wonderful assiduity : up at four ;
medical treatment till eight; at his desk till ten; parade till
noon ; at desk again till five ; in the evening, music, supper,
and society.
Voltaire was moved, amazed, and puzzled. " What do you
think of it ? " he asked his old friend Cideville. " Is not your
heart moved ? Are we not happy to be born in an age which
has produced a man so singular ? For all that, I remain in
Brussels, and the best king in the world, with all his merits
and favors, shall not take me away a moment from Emilie.
Kings, even this one, must ever yield the precedence to
friends."
Emilie, indeed, had a tight clutch upon him. Her obliging
husband had now gone to the army, and never lived long un-
der the same roof with her again. There was a period of five
years, from 1740 to 1745, during which they scarcely met,
though they were always on terms of friendship, and cordially
cooperated for objects of common concern. Voltaire was hus-
band, companion, lawyer, and illustrious friend to her, all in
one ; and she held him fast by making him believe that his
presence was infinitely necessary to her. He had, moreover,
vowed eternal fidelity, and he was a man to be faithful to such
a vow. Planting herself upon this vow, as some women do
upon their marriage certificate, she kept him in pitiful bond-
age through his sympathies, and of course dared not trust him
out of her sight. The vigilant instinct with which women
falsely allied to men are apt to be endowed causes them to
scent danger from afar, and thus Madame du Chatelet, from
the first, dreaded in the Prince Royal of Prussia a rival that
could rob her of her poet. For the next ten years it was in-
deed always a question which should possess him; and be-
tween the two contestants Voltaire seemed sometimes in dan-
ger of being torn to pieces.
The struggle began in the first month of Frederic's reign.
The refutation of Machiavelli was in the hands of a printer in
Holland at the moment of Frederic's accession to the throne;
FREDERIC BECOMES KING OF PRUSSIA. 427
and Voltaire, the editor of the work, so informed the king.
But Prussia was now lord of Frederic. Surveying his ami-
able treatise from the height of a throne, he perceived several
things in it that were proper enough for a prince to write, but
not politic for a king to publish. " For God's sake," he wrote
to Voltaire, " buy up the whole edition of the ' Anti-Machia-
velli' ! " ^ Here was a coil. The publisher lived at the Hague
a hundred miles away, and he was a publisher who knew how
much the commercial value of the work confided to him by
Voltaire had increased by its author's accession to a throne.
It was evidently necessary for the editor to go to the Hague.
He went. Experienced men will know what he meant when
he told the king that he " had had much trouble in getting
leave of abseuQe."
Rare scenes occurred at the Hague between editor and
publisher, which could have been amplified into an amusing
farce. Voltaire had sent a man in advance, post-haste, to try
and get possession, on some plausible pretext, of a few pages
of the manuscript not yet in type, so that he could enter upon
the negotiation at an advantage. Not a page could be be-
guiled from the astute possessor of the prize. Upon hearing
this report, Voltaii'e himself entered upon the scene.
" I sent for the rascal ; I sounded him ; I presented the thing in
every light. He gave me to understand that, being in possession of
the manuscript, he would not for any consideration whatever give it
up ; and that, having begun to print, he should finish. When I saw
that I had dealings with a Dutchman who abused the liberty of his
country, and with a publisher who pushed to excess his right of per-
secuting authors, not being able here to confide my secret to any one,
nor to implore the aid of authority, I remembered that your majesty
says, in one of the chapters of the ' Anti-Machiavelli,' that in nego-
tiation it is allowable to use a little honest finesse. I said then to
Jean Van Duren that I only came to correct some pages of the manu-
script. ' Very willingly, sir,' said he. ' If you will come to my house,
I will confide it to you generously, leaf by leaf ; you shall correct
whatever you please, shut up in my room, in the presence of my fam-
ily and my workmen.' I accepted his cordial offer ; I went to his
house ; and, in truth, I corrected some leaves, which he took from
me as I did them, and read them over to see if I was not deceiving
him. Having thus inspired in him a little less distrust, I returned
1 22 CEuvres de Frederic le Graud, 14.
428 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
to-day to the same prison, where he shut me up as before ; and having
obtained six chapters at once, in order to compare them together, I
scratched them in such a way, and interlined such horrible cock-and-
bull nonsense, that they no longer had the least resemblance to a
work. That is what may be called blowing up your ship in order
not to be taken by the enemy. I was in despair at sacrificing so fine
a work ; but I was obeying a king whom I idolize, and I assure you
I did it with hearty good-will. Who is now astonished and con-
founded ? My scoundrel. To-morrow I hope to make with him a
fair bargain, and to force him to give up all to me, both print and
manuscript."
But Jean was obdurate. Voltaire sought legal advice, and
found that, by Dutch law, a bargain was a bargain. He tried
all arts and devices, and still Van Duren's press continued to
strike off the printed sheets. Then he advised the king to
kill Van Duren's edition by issuing an authorized version,
which he, Voltaire, would superintend, and hurry into print.
The king replied, " Erase, alter, correct, and replace all the
passages you like. I submit the whole to your discernment."
Voltaire recast the work in a few days, and, in a few weeks,
had editions for London, Paris, and Holland ready for distri-
bution ; and thus, although he did not prevent Van Duren
from issuing his mutilated version, he prevented him from
gaining much by it. In the late Berlin edition of Frederic's
works, two versions of the " Anti-Machiavelli " are given, —
the one edited by Voltaire, and the one as originally written
in the king's own hand. Voltaire used his privilege of editor
with great freedom, and made many g;illant cuts in the man-
uscript, erasing in all thirty-two printed pages. When the
king saw his diminished bantling, his paternal pride was so
aggrieved that he resolved to disavow both editions and spend
the leisure of the following winter in preparing a third, which
should be printed at Berlin under his own eyes, and, perhaps,
publislied with his name in the title-page. Before the next
winter had reached its second month, the King of Prussia, as it
seemed to his assiduous editor, was refuting, sword in hand, not
Machiavelli's " Prince," but the prince's " Anti-Machiavelli."
For the present, the king was sorry he had written the book,
because " it had robbed the world of fifteen days of Voltaire's
time." Late in August, 1740, Voltaire returned to Brussels
and resumed his usual routine of labor and recreation.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
FIRST MEETING OF VOLTAIRE AND FREDERIC.
KiXG and author, after four years of correspondence, were
now to put their enthusiastic friendship to the test of personal
converse. The king, in making the tour of his states to re-
ceive homage, was to approach, in September, 1740, the bor-
ders of Flanders. He was on fire to meet Voltaire. Rather
than not see him, he would receive Madame du Chatelet also,
tliougb with great reluctance ; and he wrote to her, at Vol-
taire's request, to say that he hoped soon to meet them both.
He evidently had for her the repugnance of a rival. " To
speak frankly to you," he wrote to Voltaire, "it is you, it is
my friend, whom I desire to see ; and the divine Emilie, with
all her divinity, is only the accessory of the Newtonized
Apollo." Writing the next day, the king added, " If Emilie
viust accompany Apollo, I consent ; but if I can see you alone,
I should prefer it. I should be too much dazzled ; I could not
bear so much brilliancy at once. I should need the veil of
Moses to temper the blended rays of your divinities."
But, king as he was, he was obliged promptly to change
his note ; and he announced his intention, a few days after, of
visiting them, incognito, at Brussels. They were to meet
him at Anvers, a day's ride from their abode, and they would
all go to Brussels together, — Voltaire and madame, the king
and his three companions, Kaiserling, Maupertuis, and Alga-
rotti. Nothing could be more agreeable to Madame du Chate-
let ; for Algarotti and Maupertuis were among her most cher-
ished friends. Kaiserling had been her guest, and she was
not insensible to the social Sclat of entertaining a king. She
had had a brief estrangement from the difficult Maupertuis,
but Voltaire had healed the breach, telling the irritable phi-
losopher that " a man is always in the right when he makes
the first advance to an offended woman." Maupertuis, as it
430 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
seems, acted upon this maxim, and all was well between them.
A most congenial party would have surrounded the king at
her house in Brussels, where madarae had extemporized am-
ple preparation.
But there was, after all, a doubt whether the king could
come. He was afflicted with the four-days ague, for which he
was under treatment ; and the next day, as he wrote to Vol-
taire, would decide whether that treatment had been effectual.
If the next Hay passed without a fit of the ague, then he would
go on from Wessel to An vers, and meet them, and enjoy the
most exquisite experience of his life.
But the ague returned the next day, and the king could
only write a letter, not undertake a long journey. Could
Voltaire alone meet him at Cleves, eighty miles from Brus-
sels ? " Let us cheat the fever, my dear Voltaire, and let me
at least have the pleasure of embracing you. Make my ex-
cuses to the marchioness for my not having the satisfaction of
seeing her at Brussels. All who come near me know what
my intention was, and that it was the fever only that could
have made me change it. On Sunday I shall be at a little
place near Cleves, where I shall be able to possess you truly
at my ease. If the sight of you does not cure me, I shall con-
fess myself at once."
No French lady of that period could believe that this was
not contrived ; and we may also be perfectly sure that Ma-
dame du Chatelet did not allow royal letters to come into her
house which she did not take the precaution of reading. We
ought not to be surprised, therefore, to read in one of her
letters of December, 1740, " I defy the King of Prussia to
hate me more than I have hated him these two months past! "
Nevertheless, Voltaire managed to break away, and take the
road to Cleves in time for the rendezvous, carrying with him
a letter from madame to the king, in which she declared she
did not know which afflicted her most, — to know that he was
sick, or to miss the expected opportunity of paying him lier
court. She also hoped his majesty would not keep long the
person with whom she expected to pass her life, and whom
she had " only lent him for a very few days."
On a chilly Sunday evening, September 11, 1740, Voltaire
reached the castle of Moyland, six miles from Cleves, where
FIRST MEETING OF VOLTAIRE AND FREDERIC. 431
the King of Prussia lodged. At the gate of the court he
found one soldier on guard, and descried within the court
Privy Councilor Rambouet walking up and down, blowing
his fincrers. The visitor was conducted to the rooms of the
chateau occupied by the king, which were unfurnished ; and
he perceived by the light of one candle, in a small side-room,
a cot two feet and a half wide, upon which there was a little
man all muffled up in a dressing-gown of thick blue cloth,
and shaking with a violent fit of the ague. Voltaire, after
making his bow, went to the bedside of the shivering mon-
arch, and, as he tells us, " began their acquaintance by feeling
his pulse, as if he had been the king's first physician." The
fit passed, and the king was well enough to dress and join
his friends at supper. With Voltaire, Maupertuis, Algarotti,
Kaiserling, and one or two official persons at the table, Fred-
eric forgot his ague, and led the conversation to deep and
high matters. " We discussed to the bottom," Voltaire re-
corded long after, " the immortality of the soul, free-will, and
the men-Avomen of Plato." Doubtless it was a supper to be
remembered.
The three days' visit was all too short for the discussion of
the king's fondly cherished pi'ojects for the elevation of his
country and the entertainment of its capital. Frederic availed
himself of the pen of his guest in drawing up a manifesto, be-
sides advising with him in affairs dramatic, philosophical, ar-
tistic, and literar}^ The king anticipated some years of peace,
and with good reason. His whole soul seemed set upon em-
ploying those years in making Berlin a German Paris, with
academy, library, theatre, opera, galleries, society, all in the
ti'ue Parisian manner. What man so comj)etent to aid him as
Voltaire, who had lived but to promote and strengthen that
which made Paris illustrious in Frederic's eyes ? Three days
of familiar, earnest, delicious conversation, three suppers of the
gods, and the friends separated ; but soon, as they hoped, to
meet again, in circumstances more favorable, — perhaps at that
chateau of Remusburg, where Frederic had lived as Prince
Royal, and where he had built a tower and had gathered all
the means of self-improvement. Voltaire, on leaving the cha-
teau of Moyland, took the road to Holland, to complete the
publication of the " Anti-Machievelli " and to superintend its
432 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
distribution. Thus, the King of Prussia did not send back in
a few days the poet whom Madame du Chatelet had been so
obb'ging as to lend him.
The visit did not, in the least, disenchant either the king
or Voltaire. They were, if possible, more in love with each
other than before.
" I have seen that Voltaire whom I was so curious to know,"
wrote the king, September 24th, to his familiar Jordan; "but I
saw him with my ague upon me, and my mind as unstrung as
my body was weak He has the eloquence of Cicero,
the sweetness of Pliny, and the wisdom of Agrippa ; in a word,
Ke unites in himself the virtues and talents of the three greatest
men of antiquity. His mind works without ceasing ; every drop
of ink is a gleam of wit dai'ted from his pen. He declaimed
" Mahomet 1." to us, an admirable tragedy of his own, and he
transported us out of ourselves ; I could only admire and be
silent. The Du Chatelet is fortunate indeed to have him ; for
out of the good things he utters at random a person who had
no gift but memory might make a brilliant book."
Voltaire was not less satisfied with the king. He described
him soon after, in letters to Cideville, Maupertuis, H^nault,
andD'Argens, in glowing terms.
[To Cideville.] " I saw one of the most amiable men in the world, —
a man who would be the charm of society, sought everywhere, if he had
not been a king ; a philosopher without austerity, all goodness, com-
pliance, and accomplishments; forgetting that he is a king the mo-
ment he is among his friends, and so completely forgetting it that he
made me forget it also, so that I had to make an effort of memory to
recollect that 1 saw seated upon the foot of my bed a sovereign who
had an army of a hundred thousand men."
[To D'Argens.] " Why do you go to Switzerland ? "What! there
is a King of Prussia in the world ! "What! the most amiable of men
is upon a throne ! The Algarottis, the Wolfs, the Maupertuis, all the
arts, are running thither in a throng, and you would go to Switzer-
land 1 No, no ; take my advice : establish yourself at Berlin. Reason,
wit, virtue, are to be recreated there. It is the country for every man
who thinks To-day [at the Hague], I have seen a gentleman
of fifty thousand francs a year, who said to me, ' I shall have no
other country than Berlin. I renounce my own.' I know, too, a
very great lord of the empire who desires to leave his sacred majesty
for the Humanity of the King of Prussia. Go, my dear friend, into
1
FIRST MEETING OF VOLTAIRE AND FREDERIC. 433
that temple which he is elevating to the arts. Alas, that I cannot
follow you thither ! A sacred duty draws me elsewhere."
[To President Henault.] " It is a miracle of nature that the son of
a crowned ogre, reared with beasts, should have divined in his des-
erts that refinement and all those natural graces which, even at Paris,
are the possession of a very small number of persons, who neverthe-
less make the reputation of Paris. His ruling passions are to be
just and to please. He is formed for society as for the throne
As much as I detest the low and infamous superstition which dis-"
graces so many states, so much do I adore true virtue ; and I believe
I have found it in this prince and in his book. If he should ever be-
tray such grand professions, if he is not worthy of himself, if he is
not always a Marcus Aurelius, a Trojan, and a Titus, I shall lament
it, and love him no more."
[To Maupertuis.] " When we set out from Cleves, and you took to
the right and I to the left, I believed we had come to the last judg-
ment, and the good Lord was separating his elect from the damned.
The divine Frederic said to you, ' Sit at my right hand iu the para-
dise of Berlin ; and to me, ' Go, accursed one, into Holland.' I am,
then, in that phlegmatic hell, far from the divine fire that animates the
Frederics, the Maupertuis, the Algarottis."
He was detained several weeks at tlie Hague, during which
he lived, by the king's invitation, at an old palace belonging
to the crown of Prussia, and inhabited by the Prussian envoy.
He gave the king a poetical description of the dilapidated
condition of this palace : its magnificent rooms with rotten
floors and leaky roofs ; its garret full of the shields, armor,
and weapons of the king's heroic ancestors ; their rusty sa-
bres ranged along the walls, and the worm-eaten wood of their
lances couched upon the ground, — dust like the heroes who
had borne them. " There are also some books, which the rats
alone have read during the last fifty years, and whicli are
covered with the largest cobwebs in Europe, for fear the pro-
fane should approach them." In this musty old palace he
lived two months. Madame du Chatelet embraced the oppor-
tunity of his absence to visit Fontainebleau, where she busied
herself in preparing the way for his safe return to Paris.
She had bouglit a very large and handsome house at the
capital, which she hoped long to inhabit with her friend, when
she had gained her suit in Brussels. Finding the Cardinal
de Fleury not too well disposed toward him, she asked the
VOL. I. 28
434 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Kins: of Prussia to use his influence with the cardinal on Vol-
taire's behalf.
" There is nothing positive against him," she wrote to
Frederic, October 16, 1740; "but an infinitude of trifling
grievances can all together do as much harm as real wrongs.
It will depend upon your majesty alone to dissipate all those
clouds, and it would sufiice if only M. Camas [Prussian am-
bassador] would not conceal the favor with which your maj-
esty honors him and the interest which you deign to take in
him. I am very certain that would be enough to secure M.
de Voltaire a repose which he has a right to enjoy, and of
which his health has need." ^
The king did not neglect to comply with this request. He
had already more than once conveyed to the cardinal intima-
tions of his warm regard for Voltaire, and Voltaire himself had
taken pains to keep the French court advised of the same.
Usually, he was careless about the address and date of his
letters ; but now, at the head of all his letters for Paris, he
was careful to write, " At the Hague, at the Palace of the
King of Prussia." Nor did he fail to communicate to his cor-
respondents at court the more striking proofs of the king's
favor towards him. Thus, on the very day, June 18th, upon
which he answered the first letter written to him by King
Frederic, he wrote to the Marquis d'Argenson, telling him
what a tender and affectionate letter the young king had writ-
ten him, and how the king had enjoined it upon him to write
to him only as man to man. As soon as he had copies of the
" Anti-Machiavelli " ready, he sent one to Madame du Chsi-
telet for presentation to the Cardinal de Fleury, leaving the
cardinal to guess the secret of its authorship, which was known
to Europe. Thus the way was prepared for a closer connec-
tion with " the mitred Machiavelli " than either of them could
have anticipated.
1 Lettrea de la Marquise du Chatelet, page 396. Paris, 1878.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
VOLTAIRE AS AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST.
In the early autumn of 1740, the system of personal gov-
ernment, as then established in Europe, presented itself in its
fairest aspect. There was peace among the nations, and each
of the individuals upon whom its continuance most depended
had a personal reason of the most powerful nature to pre-
serve it. Frederic, as we know, was ardent to carry out his
project of engrafting French civilization. George II., of Eng-
land, was never so sure of his native, hereditary Hanover as
when Europe was at peace. The Emperor Charles VI. was a
bankrupt, struggling to restore his finances. The Cardinal
de Fleury, always devoted to a pacific policy, always more a
priest than a minister, was then eighty-seven years of age.
Science, art, literature, the amelioration of the common lot,
— all the dearest interests of man, that languish in war and
revive in peace, — seemed more than ever the objects sought
by governments, societies, and individuals. Three kings at
once invited Maupertuis in 1740. An advocate of the system
by which the interests and rights of two hundred millions of
human beings were annexed, bj'^ the accident of birth, to the
caprice of the dozen worst educated of them all might have
been pardoned if, on the 15th of October, 1740, he had pointed
to the condition of public affairs as an evidence that personal
government, however absurd in theory, was still well suited to
the imperfect development of man.
A trifling incident changed all. One day an elderly gentle-
man in Vienna, called Charles VI., Emperor of Germany, ate
too many mushrooms ! He died, and Maria Theresa, his
daughter, reigned in his stead. A young lady of twenty-three,
married to an ordinary man, was to hold together an exten-
sive, incoherent empire, parts of which were hers by titles
that could be called in question. All the powers were bound
436 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
by treaty to recognize her as the heir to the whole of her
father's dominions. But that father was gone from the scene,
— dead before his time, — a victim to his love of an expensive
vegetable. A spell was broken ! The political system of
Europe was at an end. Each power sat wondering what the
others would do, watching for the outthrust of an arm toward
the chestnuts left suddenly without protection. Thirteen years
of war and tribulation followed, involving Europe and Amer-
ica; causing more damage than arithmetic can compute, and
more misery than language can utter ; ending in salutary rec-
tifications of the maps of both hemispheres, — ending in the
United States of to-day and the Prussia of to-day.
Voltaire was still inhabiting the King of Prussia's palace at
the Hague when those historic mushrooms did their fatal work.
Besides his proof-reading and his copy-distributing, he was ne-
gotiating, on Frederic's behalf, with a troupe of Paris actors,
whom the king desired to engage permanently for the royal
theatre at Berlin, — a troupe complete in all the kinds : trag-
edy, comedy, opera, and ballet. He was writing, also, to his
literary and philosophic friends in France, as we have seen,
urging them to repair to Berlin, the new seat of the Muses,
the new home of philosophy and toleration. He was soon
himself to visit the king at his old abode at Remusburg, to dis-
cuss further all those fine schemes for making Berlin a more
solid and tolerant Paris. In the midst of this joyous and
hopeful activity occurred the disaster of the imperial indiges-
tion.
" My dear Voltaire," wrote Frederic, October 26, 1740, " an
event the least expected hinders me this time from opening
my soul to yours as usual, and gossiping with you as I should
like. The emperor is dead. This death disarranges all my
pacific ideas ; and my opinion is that, in the month of June
next, we shall be occupied with gunpowder, soldiers, and earth-
works, rather than with actresses, ballets, and theatres ; so
that I find myself obliged to suspend the contract we were
making [with the comedians]. My affair at Liege is all fin-
ished; but those of the present moment are of the greatest
consequence for Europe. This is the moment of the total
change of the ancient system of policy ; it is that detached
rock which rolled upon the image of four metals which Nebu-
VOLTAIRE AS AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST. 437
chadnezer saw, and which destroyed them all. I am a thou-
sand times obliged to you for the printing of the Alachiavelli.
I could not work upon it at present ; I am overwhelmed with
business."
But Voltaire was to visit the king, all the same ; and he un-
derstood the political situation sufficiently well to see that, at
such a moment, he might be of use to an aged, apprehensive
French minister. What did this young enthusiast of a king
mean to do ? That was a question upon which, perhaps, he
could get some precious information during his stay at Remus-
burg. He wrote to the cardinal, acknowledging the favorable
disposition towards himself which Madame du Chatelet had
made known to him, and denying that he had anything but
respect for true religion. " Formerly," he wrote, "the Cai-di-
na,l de Fleury loved me, when I used to see him at the chateau
of Madame de Villars." Two days after, he announced to the
cardinal his intention to visit Remusburg and pay his court to
" a monarch who took the Cardinal de Fleury's way of think-
ing as his model." He also reminded his Eminence that he
had lately sent him a copy of a certain " Anti-Machiavelli,"' a
work in which his Eminence's own sentiments were expressed,
and which had been inspired by his Eminence's own motive, a
desire to promote the happiness of mankind. " Whoever may
be the author of this work, if your Eminence will deign to in-
dicate to me that you approve it, I am sure that the author,
who is already full of esteem for you personally, will add his
friendship also, and cherish still more the nation of which you
make the felicity."
The aged minister, disturbed already by unexplained move-
ments of Prussian troops, poured forth two long, affectionate
letters to Voltaire on the same day, November 14, 1740. His
ancient love, such as it was, experienced a surprising revival.
He became a father to Frederic's friend, a wise, indulgent
sire, who knew how to allow for the vagaries of genius and
the escapades of youth.
" You did me wrong [he wrote] if you thought that I have ever
wished you the least ill ; and I have been sorry for that only which
you have done to yourself. I think I know you perfectly. You are
a good and honest man. That first quality certainly will not harm
you, and you are aware that Cicero gave it the first rank in the char-
438 LIFE OF VOLTAIEE.
acter of great orators. But you have been young ; and perhaps you
were young a little too long. You passed your youth in the company
which the thoughtless world regards as the best, because it is com-
posed of great lords. They applauded you, and with reason ; but they
yielded to you in everything, and they went too far. Very soon
they spoiled you ; and, at your age, that was natural. I trust that
you feel it yourself ; and that which gives me the most pleasure, in
your letter of the 2d of this month, is the passage in which you
speak of your respect for religion. It is a grand word, and let me, I
pray you, give to what you say all the extent which my friendship
for you makes me desire for it. Among the great number of duties
which an honest man is bound to fulfill, can that one be excepted which
regards our sovereign Master and our Creator ? Even the pagans do
not think so. Return, then, to your country with these sentiments, or,
at least, with a willingness to yield yourself to them. You do your
country honor by your talents ; give it also the consolation to see
those talents employed for the public good, the only end of genuine
and solid glory. I have always esteemed you and loved you : I can-
not give you a better proof of it than in speaking to you with the free-
dom that I now do."
Then, with regard to the King of Prussia, nothing, he
thought, could be more becoming in Voltaire than to pay his
homage to so glorious a prince.
" I was not aware [continued the cardinal] that the precious gift
which Madame la Marquise du Chatelet made me of the ' Anti-
Machiavelli ' came from you. It is all the more dear to me as your
gift, and I thank you for it with all my heart. As I have but few mo-
ments to bestow upon my pleasure, I have only been able to read
about forty pages or so, and I shall try to finish it in what I call, very
improperly, my retreat ; for it is, unhappily, too much disturbed for re-
pose. Whoever may be the author of this work, if he is not a prince,
he deserves to be one ; and the little which I have read of it is so wise,
so reasonable, and expresses principles so admirable, that the author
would be worthy to command other men, provided he has the courage
to put them in practice. If he was born a prince, he contracts a very
solemn engagement with the public ; and the Emperor Antoninus
would not have acquired the immortal glory which he retains, age
after age, if he had not sustained by the justice of his government the
exquisite morality of which he had given such instructive lessons to
all sovereigns I should be infinitely touched if his Prussian
majesty could find in my conduct some conformity with his principles ;
but I can at least assure you that 1 regard his as the outline of the
VOLTAIRE AS AJIATEUR DIPLOMATIST. 439
most perfect and most glorious government. Corruption is so gen-
eral and good faith so indecently banished from all liearts in this un-
happy age that, if we do not hold very firmly to the superior mo-
tives which oblige us not to depart from right principles, we shall
sometimes be tempted to lay them aside on certain occasions ; but the
king, my master, makes it plainly evident that he does not claim the
right to use reprisals of this kind, and, at the first moment of the
news of the emperor's death, he assured the Prince de Lichtenstein
that he would faithfully keep all his engagements. I fall without
thinking of it into political reflections, and I conclude by assuring you
that I shall endeavor not to render myself unworthy of the good opin-
ion which his Prussian majesty deigns to have of me."
The King of France, then, meant to keep the peace, —
meant to respect the claims of Maria Theresa. Could the
author of the " Anti-Machiavelli" do less?
Early in November, the season no longer favorable for trav-
eling, Voltaire set out from the Hague on his journey to Re-
musburg, distant not less by the usual road than three hun-
dred miles. At the moment of his departure, who should ar-
rive but a young man, Dumolard by name, recommended by
Thieriot for the service of the King of Prussia as librarian.
That monarch had ceased to want librarians ; but, neverthe-
less, he took him into his carriage, and thus' had a traveling
companion. The king, moreover, had been remiss in paying
Thieriot's salary and expenditures as Paris agent and news-
writer, and it occurred to Voltaire that the arrival of Dumo-
lard would furnish an occasion for him to jog the memory of
a king overwhelmed with business. " Send me at once," he
wrote to Thieriot, " the amount of your disbursements ; do not
doubt that his majesty will act generously." Thieriot, in fact,
was getting tired of writing letters and making purchases,
even for a king, without receiving an occasional remittance.
The usual breakdown of their carriage occurred soon after
they had entered the dominions of Frederic. One of their
servants, as Voltaire told the king, asked help of some na-
tives, who, not acquainted with the French language, supposed
he wanted something to drink. Another servant ran off with-
out knowing where. " Dumolard proved a man of resources,
as if he had not been a scholar." Voltaire, accoutred as he was
in velvet breeches, silk stockings, and low shoes, mounted one
440 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
of the carriage horses, restive and sharp-backed, and thus ap-
proached the walled town of Herford. " Who goes there ? "
cried the sentinel. " Don Quixote," answered Voltaire ; and
under that name he entered the city.
Two weeks of laborious travel brought him to the ch^
teau of Remusburg, where he found a numerous and gay com-
pany of the king's friends, including his sister of Bayreuth.
The quinine which Voltaire had recommended — a new rem-
edy then — had broken the king's ague, and he was able to
meet his guests in the evening. To all appearance nothing
had changed, if not that the king was more bent on pleasure
than usual ; every evening a concert, at which he played two
or three concertos on the flute ; a merry supper afterward,
with verses, play, dancing, and " eating to burst." Voltaire,
who was always improved in health by a journey, was in
his brightest mood, and pleased the king better than be-
fore. When opportunity served, the great topic of the day,
the death, of the emperor and its possible consequences, was
spoken of between them. The flattering letter of the car-
dinal upon the " Anti-Machiavelli " was brought into play;
or, as Voltaire wrote to the cardinal, " I have obeyed the
orders which your Eminence did not give me, and have shown
your letter to the King of Prussia." It was a bad move.
He would not have recalled that embarrassing publication if
he had known what was passing in the king's mind, and
whither those regiments were tending which were on the
march in various parts of the Prussian dominions.
But he did not know. Frederic II. had two kingly traits,
— decision and secrecy, — without which no man is king.
He knew pi-ecisely what he meant to do, and he confided his
intention only to the three individuals who must of necessity
know it. This excessive gayety, these rollicking verses, this
musical assiduity, these feasts and balls, were merely his mode
of concealing himself during the weeks that had to elapse
before he was ready to begin his invasion of Silesia. Voltaire,
therefore, after his six days' stay at Remusburg, went away
without having discovered or guessed Frederic's purpose.
He mentions in his "History of the Reign of Louis XV."
that he was with the King of Prussia at this critical time, and
could assert positively that Cardinal de Fleury had not the
i
VOLTAIRE AS AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST. 441
least idea what kind of a prince lie had to do with. He did
not conceal his disappointment. Before leaving he gave the
king this epigram : —
" No, despite your virtues, no, despite your charms, my soul
is not satisfied; no, you are only a coquette who subjugates
hearts, but does not give one."
To this the king made a happy reply : " My soul feels the
value of your divine charms, but does not presume to be satis-
fied. Traitor, you leave me to follow a coquette, — me, who
would not leave you."
The amateur diplomatist went to Berlin to pay his re-
spects to the queen and the queen dowager ; to Potsdam
also ; then returned to Berlin, where asrain he saw the kino%
and joined the French ambassador in vain attempts to divine
impending events. To both of them, on the subject of his
intentions, the king was still evasive or dumb. Early in De-
cember the visitor set out on his return to the Hao;ue, leaving
Berlin excited and expectant, waiting anxiously for a develop-
ment of the king's designs. The royal manifesto which briefly
announced them was published about a week after Voltaire's
departure, and while he was still struggling along on miry
German roads.
We perceive from their familiar letters that, during this
visit, each of these gushing lovers discovered that the other
was human. The king asked for an account of Voltaire's ex-
penditures in his service, — moneys spent in journeys between
Brussels and Holland, printer's charges, copyist's wages, and
other items. In reckoning with the king, Voltaire added the
expenses of the present journey, which was undertaken at
Frederic's urgent request, as well as for his pleasui^e and pur-
poses, — its diplomatic character being an incident and an
after-thought. The total was thirteen hundred crowns [«?cms].
And most of it was for the " Anti-Machiavelli," so absurdly
embarrassing at that moment ! This king, moreover, had
another royal trait, without which no man is long a king,
namely, a fixed principle and habit of ruling his expenses with
exactness. He was no lavish semblance of a monarch, like
a Louis XIV., but the veritable ruler of his country, and in
some degree aware of his responsibility to his " fellow-citi-
zens," whose hard-earned monev he administered, not owned.
442 LIFE OF VOLTATRE.
But Voltaire also possessed this trait of the victor. He, too,
knew the value of money, and hence presented his large sum
total, only omitting from the account five months of his own
time, so precious in Frederic's eyes. The king paid the
bill with a wry face. He even exhibited the wry face to
Jordan.
" Your miser," wrote the king, November 28tii, to that
most familiar of all his familiars, " will drink the dregs of his
insatiable desire to enrich himself ; he will have thirteen hun-
dred crowns. His six days' visit will cost me five hundred
and fi^fty crowns a day. This is paying a fool [fou] well.
Never did the buffoon of a great lord have such wages."
This might have been deemed the irritation of a moment, if
the king had not added, two days after, " The brain of the poet
is as light as the style of his works, and I flatter myself that
the attractiveness of Berlin will have power enough to make
him return thither immediately, and the more since the purse
of the marchioness is not always as well furnished as mine.
You will deliver to this man, extraordinary in everything, the
letter inclosed, with a little compliment in the style of a know-
ing procuress." Again, a day or two after, " I can assure
you that Voltaire has made a subtle collection of the ridicu-
lous people of Berlin for reproduction at the proper time and
place, and that the Secretary of the Impromptus [Jordan] will
have his place among them, as I mine. I have lost those
verses which he wrote upon some tablets. Send them to me
again."
It is a bad habit in a king to allow himself such license as
this ; for the time comes, at last, when the contrast between
the language addressed to a favorite and the language em-
ployed in speaking of him comes to the favorite's knowledge.
There were, in fact, two men in this Frederic II. of Prussia,
as in an engrafted tree there are two trees. His stock was
that of a strong, coarse, hard, ambitious, upright and down-
right Prussian soldier, — very much what his father would have
been if he had had a good French tutor in his boyhood, and
avoided excess in wine and tobacco. Inheriting something less
of animal vigor than that of the paternal " ogre," Frederic had
had an intelligent and gifted French teacher, who engrafted
upon him that culture which made him, for half a century,
VOLTAIRE AS AMATEUE DIPLOMATIST. 443
turn to Voltaire with longing and admiration, even from the
field of battle, — even from the midst of carnage, disaster, de-
feat, and despair. But he never was a Frenchman ; with all
his merits he was an imperfectly civilized being.
In France, in Rome, in England, in New England, in all
advanced civilizations, women are at once the price and prize
of the social system ; its risk and its reward. They do not
rule; they reign. They ai'e not formed to rule, but to give
lustre, charm, interest, and dignity to social life. Now, this
Prussian Fredei'ic, with such a termagant of a mother as he
had, and a mild, submissive princess forced upon him as a wife,
came to hold the whole sex in a certain aversion, and never
admitted one of them to his familiar court. He tried to be
happy without paying the price. He tried to enjoy the play
without buying a ticket. His correspondence with his wife is
one of the curiosities of epistolary literature, — brief, punctual,
polite, and, as the poor queen herself remarked, icy, rjlaciale.
The whole forty-seven years of it occupies no more space than
his correspondence with Voltaire during single months. He
would announce to her the gain or loss of a battle in three
lines, in two lines, in one line, while writing to him four pages.
In communicating to her the news of the battle of Soor, he
extended himself to three lines, half a line of which read thus :
" They say that Prince Louis is wounded." Prince Louis was
the queen's brother. On another occasion he announced to
her the death of a brother in battle, and added, " I pity you,
madame, for the pain which it is natural you should feel at
the death of your relations, but these are events for which there
is no remedy."
The queen was not insensible to this treatment. "I am
accustomed to his manners," she wrote on this occasion to one
of her brothers, " but not on that account the less wounded
by them, especially at such a time, when one of my brothers
has lost his life in his service. It is too cruel for him to have
such manners." ^
It was not " manners ; " the man was dead on that side. It
was not possible for him to feel with a woman's heart, or see
with a woman's eyes, or have the least intimation of the com-
plex reasons, for example, why Voltaire could not break the
1 26 (Euvrea de Frederic le Grand, 23.
444 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
irksome bond that bound him to an exacting and exasperating
marchioness. He endeavored to supply the void in his life,
— which women alone can fill in men's lives and hearts — by
surrounding himself with the most gifted spirits in Europe. It
is consoling to know that this attempt was not successful.
Voltaire, meanwhile, was hastening homeward, dreading to
meet his tyrant at Brussels. He had originally timed his
flight into Prussia so as to get back before she had returned
from Fontainebleau. The king had begged him for two more
days ; but away he sped to the Hague ; whence, pursuing his
journey by water, he was caught in the ice, and detained mo-
tionless tw^elve days. He employed the time, in the cabin of
the vessel, in working upon his tragedy of " Mahomet " and
writing long letters to his friends. He might well be afraid to
meet Madame du Chatelet. She looked upon this diplomatic
adventure with the indignation and alarm of a woman who
had detected her lover going to a rendezvous. He was a whole
month in getting from Berlin to Brussels, a journey now of ten
hours, so that he was two months absent ! She poured out her
sorrows to the Count d'Argental: —
" I have been cruelly repaid for all that I did for him at Fontaine-
bleau, where I put in good train for him an affair the most difficult
that can be imagined. I procure for M. de Voltaire an honorable
return to his country ; I restore to him the good-will of the ministry ;
I open to him the road to the Academies ; in a word, I give him back
in three weeks all that he had taken pains to lose in six years. Do
you know how he recompenses so much zeal and attachment ? When
he sets out for Berlin he dryly sends me the news of his departure, well
knowing that it would pierce my heart ; and he abandons me to a grief
without example, of which others have not the idea, and which your
heart alone can comprehend. I heated my blood so much by sitting
up at night, and my chest was in so bad a condition, that a fever has
seized me, and I hope soon to end my Hfe Would you believe
that the idea which occupies me most in these fatal moments is the
frightful grief which will be the lot of M. de Voltaire when the in-
toxication wherein he now is of the court of Prussia is diminished ? I
cannot sustain the thought that the recollection of me will one day be
his torment. All those who have loved me must refrain from re-
proaching him."
These words were written at the time when Voltaire was us-
ing all his force to tear himself from that intoxicating court,
VOLTAIRE AS AMATEUE DIPLOMATIST. 445
only that he might rejoin her. Nevertheless, the unhappy
■woman was not altogether mistaken. The tie which bound
him to her was beginning to be extremely inconvenient, and
he sometimes said as much to his intimate friends. From the
cabin of his yacht he wrote to the King of Prussia some lines
which Madame du Chatelet might have read with advantage
to both : —
" I abandon a great monarch who cultivates and honors an art which
I idolize, and I go to join a person who reads nothing but the meta-
physics of Christianus Volfius. I tear myself from the most amiable
court in Europe for a lawsuit. I did not leave your adorable court to
sigh like an idiot at a woman's knees. But, sire, that woman aban-
doned for me everything for which other women abandon their friends.
There is no sort of obligation which I am not under to her. The
coiffure and the petticoat which she wears do not render the duties of
gratitude less sacred. Love is often ridiculous ; but pure friendship
has rights more binding than a king's commands. My little fortune
mingled with hers places no obstacle to the extreme desire which I
have to pass my days near your majesty."
The news of the invasion of Silesia in December smoothed
the way for the happy return of the baffled diplomatist ; for
he could assign to his departure a motive more dignified than
lovers can usually offer for their late return. Peace was soon
restored between them, and Voltaire could write to their guard-
ian angel, D'Argental, that they were more lovers than ever,
and that he would not go to Prussia if the king should make
him a free gift of Silesia.
The invasion of that province astonished no man in Europe
more than it did Voltaire ; and he was obliged to agree with
Madame du Chatelet that there could not be a more glaring
contradiction between word and deed than the seizure of the
province presented to various passages of the " Anti-Machia-
velli," which the editor had modified, but not erased. Ma-
dame was not ill pleased to see the idol step down from his
pedestal. " He may take as many provinces as he likes," said
she, " if he does not take from me that which makes the hap-
piness of my life." Voltaire was something more than aston-
ished, so warmly had he certified to the young monarch's pa-
cific and magnanimous character. He did not know what to
think. He wrote to the Countess d'Argental, March 13, 1741 :
446 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
" I do not yet know if the King of Prussia deserves the in-
terest which we take in him. He is a king ; that makes one
tremble. Time will tell." On the same day to Cideville :
" The cat of La Fontaine, metamorphosed into a woman, runs
after the mice as soon as she catches sight of them, and the
prince throws off his philosopher's mantle and takes the sword
as soon as he sees a province at his mercy." Again to Cide-
ville, a little later: "After all, he is only a king." The
strangest thing of all was that Frederic, from the midst of his
rapid campaign, found time to write his usual chatty, poetical
epistles to Voltaire, and wrote with all his former careless
gayety.
Nor did Voltaire neglect to call the king's attention, with
his usual adroitness, to the apparent inconsistency of his pro-
ceedings in Silesia. On recovering from an indisposition in
April, 1741, he wrote thus to the young conqueror: "I put
only one foot upon the border of the Styx ; but I was very
sorry, sire, at the number of poor wretches that I saw passing
over. Some arrived from Scharding, others from Prague or
from Iglau. Will you not cease — you and the kings, your
colleagues — to ravage this earth, which you have, you say, so
much desire to render happy ? " To which the king replied
in a tone as far removed from that of the " Anti-Machiavelli "
as even Madame du Chatelet could have desired, in her worst
humor. " You ask me," said he, " how long messieurs my
brother kings have given themselves the word to devastate
the earth. My reply is that I know nothing about it ; only
it is the fashion at present to make war, and there is reason to
believe that it will last a long time. The Abbd de Saint-
Pierre, who sufficiently distinguislies me to honor me with his
correspondence, has sent me a beautiful work upon a mode of
restoring peace to Europe, and of preserving it forever. The
thing is very practicable. Nothing is wanting to make it suc-
ceed except the consent of Europe, and some other bagatelles
of that kind."
Voltaire, however, returned to the charge both in prose and
in verse. He told the king how much he wondered and la-
mented that the Solomon of the North should have become its
Alexander, the affright of the world, after having been the
object of its love. " I hate heroes ; they make too much dis-
VOLTAIRE AS AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST. 447
turbance. I hate those conquerors who find their supreme
happiness in the horrors of the fight." Even the victories of
the king wrung from him only a qualified congratulation. " I
think of humanity, sire, before thinking of yourself ; but after
having, like the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, wept for the human
race, of which you have become the terror, I deliver myself to
all the joy which your glory gives me. That glory will be
complete if your majesty forces the Queen of Hungary to ac-
cept peace and to make the Germans happy Go on,
sire ; but make at least as many people happy in this world as
you have taken out of it."
To this the king promptly replied : " Do not believe me
cruel ; but think rather that I am reasonable enough to choose
an evil when it is necessary to avoid a worse. Every man who
makes up his mind to have a tooth out when it is decayed
would give battle when he wished to terminate a war. To
shed blood in such a conjuncture is truly to spare it ; it is a
blood-letting which we give an enemy in delirium, and which
restores him to his senses." Voltaire again pressing the king
hard, and reminding him that it was he who began the war,
Frederic rejoined, with what was intended to be a home thrust,
" You declaim at your ease against those who sustain their
rights and their claims by force of arms ; but I remember a
time when, if you had had an army, it would, no doubt, have
marched against the Desfontaines, the Rousseaus, the Van
Durens, and others. Until the platonic arbitration of the
Abb^ Saint-Pierre is established, there will remain no other
resource to kings to terminate their differences."
In this strange correspondence they touched all their usual
topics, even religion ; the king again remonstrating with Vol-
taire for troubling himself with a subject at once so trivial
and so perilous. " There are so many things," he wrote once
from camp, " to be said against religion that I wonder they
do not occur to everybody. But men are not made for the
truth. I regard them as a herd of deer in the park of a great
lord, which have no function but to people and occupy the
inclosure."
Voltaire remonstrated : " I fear that you are coming to de-
spise men too much. The millions of animals without feath-
ers, with two feet, who people the earth, are at an immense
448 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
distance from your person, as well in their souls as in their
condition. There is a beautiful verse of Milton : —
' Amongst unequals no society.' " '
Lib. viii., V. 387.
He hoped, however, that the king would not take too
severe a view of human nature, nor think a king could not be
loved for his own sake. And so each of these sovereigns of
Europe pursued his career, and exchanged their thoughts ;
neither quite sincere with the other ; and each having for the
other a considerable, even a warm, but no longer an unquali-
fied regard.
1 " Amongst unequals what society
Can sort, what harmony or true delight 1 "
Paradise Lost, Book VIII.
I
CHAPTER XXXIX.
" MAHOMET " AND " MEROPE."
The first week of the new year, 1741, found him again set-
tled at Brussels, much improved in health by his two months'
contention with the elements. Madame du Chatelet and
himself were at once absorbed in labors, literary and legal,
scientific and metaphysical, dramatic and historical. An im-
portant point was gained, this spring, in the interminable
lawsuit, after two years of exertion ; and it was gained, as
Voltaire observes, by the courage, the intelligence, and the
fatigues of Madame du Chatelet. This advantage, he thought,
would abridge the suit by two years, and made final success
probable.
The reader may imagine that such a disturbed, tumultuous
life, so far from books and conveniences, must have been
detrimental to an author's proper work. It would have been
to that of most men ; but Vollaire was, as the King of
Prussia remarked, extraordinary in everything. These inter-
ruptions may have saved him. He possessed, moreover, the
power of snatching his work from the social tumult, the domes-
tic broil, the mire, the waves, the ice. He could work in his
carriage ; he could elaborate a play in the cabin of an ice-bound
vessel ; he could dictate in bed ; and when he was so sick
that he could not do that, he could always, as Madame du
Chatelet mentions, correct his poems, and even compose verses
for a tragedy. He never worked more successfully than dur-
ing this Brussels lawsuit period, from 1739 to 1745 ; and so
he thought himself. "I have never," he wrote to Cideville
in January, 1740, when he was in the full tide of his " Ma-
homet," "been so inspired by my gods, or so possessed by my
demons. I know not if the last efforts I have made are those
of a fire about to be extinguished."
That famous tragedy, one of the most vigorously tem-
VOL. I. 29
450 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
pered of all his plays, was now ready for the stage. The mo-
ment cliosen for the action of this drama is indicated by two
of its celebrated lines : —
" Aujourd'hui c'est un prince ; il triomphe, il domine ;
Imposteur a la Mecque, et prophete a Medine."
Revered as a prophet, as the prophet, at Medina, his na-
tive Mecca is still restrained to the old ways by an aged,
powerful sheik, the venerable and beloved Zopire. Mahomet
and a few of his chiefs are allowed to enter Mecca, where,
first, they seek to gain over Zopire and his party by argument
and persuasion. This gives occasion to some scenes of com-
manding interest, in which Voltaire rises to a degree of
dramatic force and fire which we can enjoy even without for-
getting Shakespeare*; and this the more as he did not him-
self forget Shakespeare. Tliere are reminiscences of Brutus
and Cassius in some of these fierce dialogues of " Mahomet ; "
the most important of which are between the aged Zopire
and the chief of the new religion. But the spirit of those
dialogues was the new wine which was to break the old bot-
ties of the European system to pieces, and intoxicate the
human soul. The old sheik taunts Omar, a trusted lieuten-
ant of Mahomet, with the low birth of his prophet. " Mortals
are equal," replies Omar; "not birth, but worth alone, makes
the difference between them. Mahomet is one of those spir-
its, heaven-endowed, who are what they are of themselves,
and owe to their ancestors nothing."
The great lesson of the play is that the founders of false
religions at once despise and practice upon the docile credu-
lity of men. When I remember that this powerful exhibition
of executive force triumphing over credulity and weakness
was vividly stamped upon the susceptible brain of Frederic by
Voltaire's impassioned declamation, at the very time when he
was revolving his Silesian project, I am inclined to the con-
jecture that it may have been the deciding influence upon
the king's mind. All the utterances of Mahomet and Omar
breathe the same impious contempt of human kind which the
King of Prussia so often expressed at this period of his life.
" The people, blind and feeble, are born for the great, — are
born to admire, to believe, and obey us." ZoplRE. — " Who
made him king ? Who crowned him ? Omar. — " Victory ! "
"MAHOMET" AND "M^ROPE." 451
ZoPiRE. — " What right have you received to teach, to fore-
tell, to carry the censer, to affect the empire ? " Mahomet. —
" The right tvhich a spirit^ vast mid firm in its designs, has
over the dull soids of common men.''''
In the earlier scenes of the play the interest is chiefly
intellectual ; it is the conflict between the virtuous adherents
of an ancient faith and the ruthless founder of a new one.
Later, the interest arises from the struggle of opposing pas-
sions. It is' necessary to Mahomet's purposes that the aged
Zopire should be destroyed, and he selects as the assassin a
young zealot, weak enough, as Omar intimates, to believe
the new religion, without thought or question. But it re-
quires the utmost exertion of Mahomet's fascinating and com-
manding personality to work the brave youth up to the point
of slaying a defenseless old man. When he recoils, Mahomet
addresses him thus : —
" Rash man, to deliberate is sacrilege. Far from me be
mortals bold enough to judge for themselves, and see with their
own eyes. Whoever dares to think is not born to be my
disciple. Your sole glory is to obey in silence. Know you
who I am ? Know you the place wherein my voice charged
you with the commands of heaven ? If Mecca is a sacred
spot, do you know the reason ? Abraham was born here,
and here his dust reposes, — Abraham, whose arm, submis-
sive to the Eternal, drew his only son to the steps of the altar,
stifling for his God the cries of nature. And when that God
by you desires to avenge his wrong, you hesitate ! Go, base
idolater ; fly, serve, crawl, under my proud enemies ! "
The young fanatic yields ; the murder is done ; and Ma-
homet rules in Mecca. A complicated love story intensifies
the later scenes, and renders the play effective upon the
French stage. The obvious perils which such a subject of-
fered to such a poet were avoided with much art, and the
weight of the satire was carefully confined to false religion.
Among the English visitors to Brussels who frequented the
house of Madame du Chatelet was Lord Chesterfield, and to
him Voltaire read portions of the play.' Chesterfield deemed
it a covert attack upon the Christian religion. He thought
that where the author wrote Mahomet he meant Jesus Christ.
But, assuredly, in the play as we now have it, there is not a
452 LIFE OP VOLTAIRE.
phrase that gives the slightest countenance to such an idea.
If tliere are in it any alhisions to Christian history' or French
fanatic assassinations, they are completely veiled from foreign
eyes.
And now, in the spring of 1741, the tragedy was ready for
presentation. The retirement of two or three leading actors
from the Th(iatre-Francais induced the author to defer its
production there, when an opportunity occurred to exhibit it
upon a provincial stage near at hand. It was those fatal
mushrooms of the German emperor that gave him this un-
expected chance. The company of French comedians with
whom he had been negotiating on behalf of the King of Prus-
sia were then established at the large industrial city of Lille,
fifty miles west of Brussels, where also his niece, Madame
Denis, lived with her husband. The manager was indignant
upon learning that the treaty was to be broken off. He was
of opinion that the king had gone too far to retreat without
dishonor. He was even tempted to expose the proceeding to
the public, and to select a moment for the purpose when the
eyes of Europe were fixed upon the King of Prussia. Voltaire
hastened to appease him, and as one means to that end con-
sented to the first production of his " Mahomet " at Lille.
The play was given in May, 1741 ; the author present, ac-
companied by Madame du Chatelet and Madame Denis ; the
theatre filled with an expectant and excited auditory, flattered
by a distinction accorded to a stage two hundred miles from
Paris. The first acts passed off extremely well. While the
poet was sitting in his box waiting for the third act to begin,
a dispatch was handed to him from the King of Prussia, an-
nouncing the victory of Molwitz, the first of his long series
of triumphs in the field. The dispatch of two lines, written
two days after the battle, was penned by a flying victor, by a
commanding general who ran away from his own victorious
army : —
" It is said the Austrians are in retreat, and I believe it is
true. Frederic." ^
The people of Lille, who had been besieged by Austrian
troops within living raemoiw, could be nothing less than en-
thusiastic partisans of a young monarch warring against Aus-
1 Voltaire to D'Argental, May 5, 1741.
"MAHOMET" AND " M^ROPE." 453
tria at the head of his own battalions. The author of the
play, prompt to seize an advantage, rose in his box and read
the dispatch to the audience, who received it with the due
thunders of applause. The play itself seemed to share the
triumph of the king, and it was played to the end with a suc-
cess the most unequivocal. It was repeated the next evening
with equal applause, and was demanded for the third time.
" T^e came near," writes Madame du Chatelet, "exciting a
riot in the pit, because we hesitated to accord the third repre-
sentation." There was even a fourth presentation of the play,
at the house of one of the magistrates, for the convenience of
the clergy, who, as the poet remarked, " wished absolutely to
see a founder of religion." This, also, received the unani-
mous approval of the spectators, who were of opinion that the
author had avoided the rocks and quicksands which the sub-
ject presented. The performance of the play also justified the
author's high recommendation of the company to the king.
" The manager," he wrote, " with the face of a monkey,
played Mahomet better than Dufresne, and Baron made the
whole audience cry, as when one bleeds from the nose."
These performances of the tragedy upon a provincial stage
the author regarded only as dress rehearsals, and he sub-
jected it to many a severe revision. One thing was reas-
suring : the clergy of Lille saw no offense in it. And, in
very truth, even from a Jansenist point of view, there was no
offense ; not a line, not a phrase, to which the most sensitive
Catholic could plausibly object. Various circumstances re-
tarded its representation in Paris. A Turkish envoy, with a
numerous suite, w^as a conspicuous figure in the great houses
of Paris during the next winter, and the poet thought " it
would not be decent to blacken the Prophet while entertaining
his ambassador." The Turk departed at length, when a far
more alarming obstacle arose. At a moment, in the summer
of 1742, when Frederic of Prussia seemed about to enter
upon that course of polities which was to make him an enemy
of France, and when, in consequence, he was an unpopular
person in Paris, one of Voltaire's comic versified letters to
the king appeared in the gazettes. A post-office clerk at
Brussels, following the example of his superiors, had broken
the seal, copied the letter, and put it on its way to publicity.
454 LIFE OF VOLTAIEE.
" Here I am, sire," it began, " in Paris ; your capital, I be-
lieve, for all the fools and all the wits, clergy, lawyers, dan-
dies, pedants, speak of you without pause. As soon as I
come in sight, crowds surround me and block my way, saying,
Have you seen him f " Forty lines of these airy nothings,
ending with a sentence or two in prose : " But, sire, will you
be always taking cities, and shall I always be at the tail of
a lawsuit ? Will there not be this summer some happy hours,
when I can pay my court to your majesty? "
This to a king whom the people and the ministry were
beginning to regard as a public enemy ! It cost him a world
of trouble and multitudinous denials to parry the stroke. He
protested that the letter had not been correctly copied ; he
wrote eloquently to the king's mistress, declaring that he was
a Frenchman and a patriot ; he set in motion all the means
of influence within his command. Luckily, the Cardinal de
Fleury, in his extreme anxiety during the crisis, again thought
of Voltaire as a possible conciliator of the King of Prussia ;
and so the storm blew over, leaving the public in some ill-
humor with the author of a play announced for speedy rep-
resentation under the title of " Fanaticism, or, Mahomet the
Prophet."
The garrulous advocate, Barbier, probably gave the current
gossip of the caf^s when he made his entry of August 8, 1742:
" Voltaire is generally decried. People are convinced that the
letter to the King of Prussia, which he has disavowed, is cer-
tainly his Madame du Chatelet is severely reflected
upon ; it is thought singular that a woman of quality should
lead by the hand a man who has rendered himself the object
of general contempt No quarter is now given her upon
her gallantries. Her son's tutor, they say, was selected only
because he valued himself upon having no religion. Nothing
good is said of Voltaire's new piece, which, it is thought, will
have a bad success [rnauvais swcees]."
Imagine plenty of such talk as this in the more sedate
coffee-houses frequented by wig and gown. August 19, 1742,
the tragedy Avas performed at the Thdatre-Fran^ais. Every
precaution had been taken against every possible danger.
The author had submitted the play, in form, to the censor-
ship; he had given the manuscript to the Cardinal de Fleury,
II
"MAHOMET" AND " M^ROPE." 455
who approved it, and made some suggestions on points purely-
literary, which the author adopted. The theatre was crowded
with an audience the most distinguished that Paris could fur-
nish : many of the ministry were present ; one great box was
filled with magistrates ; a number of the clergy were there ;
D'Alembert and the literary men were out in force ; Voltaire
himself conspicuous in the middle of the pit. Some murmurs
of disapprobation were occasionally heard ; but these were
overwhelmed with the general applause, and the play gained,
as it seemed, an unquestionable success. A second and third
performance appeared only to confirm and establish the verdict
of the opening night.
But those few murmurers had their way, notwithstanding.
Thieriot used to recount that a professor of theology who was in
the theatre the first night rushed out at the close of the play,
and went home to the Sorbonne, declaring that the new trag-
edy was " a bloody satire against the Christian religion," and
gave as one reason for the assertion, that the name of j\Ia-
homet had three syllables, " the same number as that of the
adorable name of Jesus Christ " ! The next day the solicitor-
general, Joly de Fleuri, an important magistrate, heard of the
play in a chamber of the parliament of Paris, and wrote of the
same to the lieutenant of police : " I hear a comedy spoken of,
which some of these gentlemen have witnessed, and which,
they say, contams enormous things against religion." The
lieutenant sent a copy of the drama to the solicitor-general,
who, without reading it, wrote again to the lieutenant : —
" I need not tell you [said this enlightened personage], that I
have not read a word of the play ; but, judging from what I hear, I
believe it is necessary to forbid its performance. Three persons of
my knowledge saw it yesterday, and this is what they say of it" It is
the acme of infamies, wickedness, irreligion, and impiety ; and such is
the judgment also of men who have no religion. One said, during the
performance, ' I wonder the audience does not rise and stop the piece.'
Another said, 'Here are fine instructions for a Ravaillac' Another
said, ' The author should be put in Bicetre for the rest of his days.'
One man, on leaving the theatre, met his friend, who was also going
out, and asked him what he thought of the play. The reply was, ' I
have seen it three times.' To this he responded, ' Never will I see
you again. To have had the hardihood three times to see such hor-
rors ! ' Everybody says that to have written such a piece a man must
456 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
be a reprobate fit to burn. This is all I have heard ; it is a universal
revolt."
The lieutenant of police, awai'e that the tragedy had re-
ceived the privilege, despatched a courier extraordinary to
Versailles, to convey this appalling letter to the minister,
Maurepas, who, in turn, passed it on to the Cardinal de
Fleury. The courier was not kept waiting many minutes for
his return packet, which contained the following from M. de
Maurepas to the lieutenant of police : —
" I took your letter, monsieur, to my lord the cardinal, and read
it to him, as well as that of the solicitor-general which was joined
thereto. Although his Eminence agrees substantially with you, he is
nevertheless of opinion that you ought not to risk a scene for such a
cause, and he approves that you suggest to the actors to assign the
sickness of one of their number as a pretext for not playing the piece
on Friday ; also, that you advise Voltaire to withdraw the play from
their hands, to avoid commotion. I even believe that you had better
begin by the expedient last named, and that he will himself assist you
to cover your proceedings. The communication to him of the epithets
given his play by the solicitor-general, joined to a certain decree of
the parliament, by virtue of which it is in the power of that officer to
arraign the author of the Philosophic Letters [upon England], will
render your argument persuasive ; and by this means you will not be
committed with any one. I hasten to send back your express, so that
you may be able, before the end of the play, to speak to him, or to
Madame du Chatelet."
The argument was persuasive, and the piece was withdrawn
after the fourth representation. The reader remarks, doubt-
less, that the connection between the author of the tragedy
and Madame du Chatelet was recognized and accepted by the
ministry.
This abrupt, needless frustration of so many hopes and so
much generous toil cannot be realized except by those who
have borne something of the kind. There was, too, a witty
Piron in the caf(5s to celebrate the mishap by couplets and
epigrams ; also, a malign Desf ontaines to go about pretending
it was he who had compelled the withdrawal.
The Kinsf of Prussia was not so absorbed in correcting the
map of Europe as not to be attentive to what passed at the
Theatre- Fran 9ais. He asked Voltaire to send him the tragedy
"MAHOMET" AND " MIEROPE." 457
as it had been performed in Paris. The author had it copied,
and sent it, Avith an apology for his countrymen. '* It is the
story of Tartuffe over again," he wrote, August 19, 1742.
" Hypocrites persecuted Moliere, and fanatics rose against me.
I yielded to the torrent without a word. If Socrates had done
as much, he would not have drunk the hemlock. I avow that
I know nothing which more dishonors my country than this
infamous superstition, made to degrade human nature. I
ought to have the King of Prussia for a master, and the peo-
ple of England for fellow-citizens. Our Frenchmen, in gen-
eral, are only great childven ; but, also, as I alwaj^s insist, the
small number of thinking beings among us are excellent, and
claim pardon for the rest."
The king took him at his word, and urged him to pay him
a visit at Aix-la-Chapelle. Voltaire spent a few days with
him there in September, when Frederic, who had just signed
a treaty of peace, renewed his endeavors to lure him away from
his marchioness. He offered him a handsome house in Berlin,
a pretty estate in the country, an income ample for both, and
the free enjoyment of his time ; in return, asking only the
pleasure of his society, the honor of his presence, and his ad-
vice in matters relating to literature and art. No more perse-
cution ! No more Bastille ! No more rude suppressions of
immortal dramas ! No more flights over the border for a few
gay and harmless verses! No Desfontaines ! Nq Jansenists !
No convulsionists ! Instead of these, life-long basking in the
sunshine of royal favor, and the rank in Prussia of a man
whom the king delighted to honor. But he remained true to
his word. " I courageously resisted all his fine propositions,"
he wrote to Cideville. " I prefer a second story in the house
of Madame du Chatelet ; and I hasten to Paris, to my slavery
and persecution, like a little Athenian who had refused the
bounties of the King of Persia."
Meanwhile, the sudden withdrawal of a successful play by a
celebrated author was having the natural effect of making it
a European topic. Pamphlets were published upon it. An
actor of Lille wrote one in the form of a letter. " The Senti-
ments of a Spectator " was the title of another. An unau-
thorized edition of the play was published in Paris at once ;
another at Brussels within a month ; another at Amsterdam,
458 LEFE OF VOLTAIRE.
during the following winter, — all, as the author insisted, more
or less incorrect. The poet's own edition was deferred for
a while ; but it appeared, at length, with unparalleled eclat^
as we shall see in a moment.
A dramatic author, of all others, needs to have a spare shaft
in his quiver ; for the fate of a play is something which the as-
tutest dramatist has never learned to foresee. For two years
Voltaire had been elaborating a tragedy upon the ancient
legend of Mdrope, Queen of Messina, a story of the classic
sort, like those treated by the elder dramatists. In " Merope "
he ventured to dispense with the passion of love, and to de-
pend for the interest of the drama upon maternal affection.
He felt all the difficulty of his scheme. ' It was his opinion
that a reciprocated passion does not move the spectator of a
play, and that therefore the love of mother and son cannot be
as effective upon the stage as in the written story. " iTvery
scene of a tragedy," he wrote once to Father Porde, " must be
a combat^ and the great rock of the arts is what is called com-
monplace." Nevertheless, he had ventured upon this theme,
and he had now the play in his portfolio complete, and ready
for the theatre. No sooner was " Mahomet " shelved than he
drew forth this hidden treasure, and read it to the comedians.
It was accepted and put in rehearsal, the author himself super-
intending.
The anecdote was current at the time that he had much dif-
ficulty in getting Mademoiselle Duniesnil, who played Merope,
to rise to the height of the terrific scene in the fourth act,
where the distracted mother reveals her son to the usurper of
his throne, — a scene associated since with the glor}^ of the suc-
cessive queens of the tragic stage of Paris, from Dumesnil to
Rachel. Throwing herself between Egisthe and the guards
about to lead him to execution, she cries, " Barhare ! il est
mon fils ! "
The young tragedienne could not satisfy the author, and he
gave the passage himself as he thought it ought to be de-
livered. "Why," said she, "I should have to have the devil
in me to reach the tone you wish !" " Exactly so, mademoi-
selle ! " cried the author. " It is the devil you must have in you,
to excel in any of the arts."
The play was represented February 20, 1743. Various cir-
"MAHOMET" AND " MEROPE." 459
cumstances had inflamed public curiosity respecting it : among
others, the new attempt of the author to get admission to the
French Academy. The death of Cardinal de Fleury, January
29, 1743, had created a vacancy, and there was a ferment at
the very idea of a Voltaire succeeding a cardinal. The harsh
treatment of the author and the public in the affair of " Ma-
homet," six months before, must have conciliated many minds.
The theatre, accordingly, was filled to repletion wdth specta-
tors, most of whom seem to have been well disposed toward
an author to whom they owed so vast a fund of innocent
pleasure.
" Mdrope," the most finished and evenly excellent of all
Voltaire's tragedies, made also the most thrilling and triumph-
ant first-night of his whole experience as a dramatic author.
Its success with the audience was everything that the most
sanguine and exacting writer could have anticipated, — a suc-
cess without previous parallel.
Readers familiar with the old French drama are aware that '
the simple test formerly applied to tragedy and tragic acting
was the quantity of tears they drew from the spectators.
" M^rope " drowned the theatre in tears, filled as it was with
the fashionable world of Paris, who might be thought hard-
ened against theatrical suffusion. During all the last three
acts, we are told, the audience was sobbing. Nor was the play
quite wanting in those Voltairean strokes, so much in harmony
with the " sentiment " of the period : " He who serves his
country well has no need of ancestors ! " This, also : " The
right to command is no longer an advantage transmitted by
nature, like an inheritance." Usually, however, the senti-
ments were those of the ancient time delineated, and the ef-
fects legitimate. Hence prejudice was dissolved, and the tri-
umph was not marred by audible dissent. Advocate Barbier,
a dull and narrow chronicler, who was so well pleased to re-
cord the forced withdrawal of " Mahomet," assures us that the
success of " Mdrope " was the most striking ever known in
Paris. " The pit," he says, " not only applauded fit to break
everything, but asked, a thousand times, that Voltaire should
appear upon the stage, that the people might testify to him
their joy and satisfaction. Mesdames de Boutflers and de Lux-
embourg did everything they could to induce the poet to com-
460 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
ply with the public desire ; but he vpitlidrew from their box
with a submissive air, after having kissed the hand of the
Duchess de Luxembourg." The same Barbier records that
two of the poet's enemies, Roy and Cahuzac, came near faint-
ing away, if one could judge from the mortal pallor which
overspread their visages.
Voltaire himself adds an incident of his triumph. After es-
caping from the box of the two duchesses, who were his warm
partisans, he hid himself somewhere in front of the house.
Friends sought him out, and he drew back into the box of his
old friend, the Duchess de Villars. " The pit was mad," wrote
the poet to one of his friends. " They cried to the duchess to
kiss me, and they made so much noise that she was obliged at
last to do it, by the order of her mother-in-law. I have been
kissed publicly, like Alain Chartier by the Princess Mar-
guerite of Scotland ; but he ^vas asleep, and I was awake."
This was the first time, as French writers inform us, that
' an author was called for by an audience.
The actor Lekain adds an anecdote of the run of this trag-
edy. During the third or fourth representation, Voltaire was
struck with a defect in one of the dialogues. That very even-
ing, as soon as he had reached home, he made the alterations,
and told his servant to carry the packet at once to the house
of the actor who played the part of the usurper, Polyphonte,
and who was to speak most of the new lines. The valet ob-
served that it was past midnight, and that it was impossible
to wake the actor at that hour. " Go, go," said the author ;
" tyrants never sleep ! "
But this fine tragedy did not open to its author the doors of
the French Academy. The death of Cardinal de Fleury, in
January, 1743, made a chair vacant, and there was a strong
movement to secure it for the man whose absence from the
Academy was beginning to cast a certain ridicule upon it. He
desired the chair as a protection against his enemies. " The
tranquillity of my life," he wrote, " depends upon my getting
it." He desired it not less, perhaps, because his election would
be a victory over his enemies, whom he believed to be the en-
emies of man and truth. As the king had a veto upon the
election, it was necessary to gain, besides the vote of the Acad-
emy itself, the concurrence of three individuals : the king's
"MAHOMET" AND "M^ROPE." 461
mistress, the king's chief minister, and the king. It is Vol-
taire himself who informs us of his endeavor to secure this
concurrence, and what came of it.
" Several Academicians [lie says] wished that I should have the
cardinal's jDlace in the French Academy. At the king's supper table,
the question was asked who was to pronounce the funeral oration of
the cardinal at the Academy. The king replied that it was to be me.
His mistress, the Duchess de Chateauroux, desired it ; but the Count
de Maurepas, secretary of state, did not. He had the mania to em-
broil himself with all the king's mistresses, and he did not find it ad-
vantageous.
" An old imbecile, tutor to the Dauphin, formerly a monk, and then
Bishop of Mirepoix, Boyer by name, undertook, for reasons of con-
science, to second the caprice of M. de Maurepas. This Boyer had
the bestowal of the church benefices ; to him the king abandoned all
the affairs of the clergy ; and he treated this matter as a point of ec-
clesiastical discipline. He argued that for a profane person like my-
self to succeed a cardinal would be to offend God. Knowing that M.
de Maurepas was urging him to act in this way, I called upon the
minister, and said to him, ' A place in the Academy is not a very im-
portant dignity ; but, after one has been named for it, it is painful to
be excluded. You are on ill terms with Madame de Chateauroux,
whom the king loves, and with the Duke de Richelieu, who governs
her ; what, I pray you, has a poor place in the French Academy to
do with your differences ? I conjure you to answer me frankly. In
case Madame de Chateauroux carries the day over the Bishop de Mire-
poix, will you oppose her?" He reflected a moment, and said to me,
' Yes ; and I will crush you ! '
*' The priest, in fact, triumphed over the mistress ; and I did not get
the place, for which I cared little."
For which he cared too much ! We have a long letter of
his, written in the heat of the canvass, to the "old imbecile "
Boyer, Bishop of Mirepoix, which takes unjustifiable liberties
with the truth. He seems to have thought it right to fight fire
with fire, solemn humbug with solemn humbug. He begins
by saying that he had long been persecuted by calumny, which
he had long been in the habit of pardoning ; and, from Socra-
tes to Descartes, it had been a habit with envious rivals, where
they could not assail an author's works or morals, to attack his
religion.
" Thanks to Heaven," he proceeds, " my religion teaches
462 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
me that it is necessary to know how to suffer. The God who
founded it, as soon as he deigned to become man, was of all
men the most persecuted. After such an example, it is al-
most a crime to complain ; let us correct oar faults, and sub-
rait to tribulation as to death ! An honest man can, in truth,
defend himself ; he even ought to do so, not for the vain sat-
isfaction of imposing silence, but in order to render glory to
the truth. 1 can say, then, before God who hears me, that I
am a good citizen and a true Catholic ; and this I say because
I have always been such at heart. I have not written one
page that does not breathe humanity, and I have written many
pages sanctified by religion."
A true Catholic he might claim to be ; it was a harmless
play upon words ; but when he descended to use such an ex-
pression as "the God who founded it deigning to become
man," he stepped over the line that divides what may from
what may not be said by such as he. True, he deceived no
one. He neither expected nor designed to deceive. He
meant merely to deprive the hierarchy of a weapon against
himself and his order. But he went too far.
He did not get the chair, however. The Bishop of Mire-
poix, as if he really did regard the forty chairs of the Academy
as forty benefices, caused the vacant one to be given to a
bishop of very slight claim to literary rank. " For a prelate
to succeed a prelate," said Voltaire, " is according to the can-
ons of the church." He added that, as he had not the honor
to be a priest, he believed it became him to renounce the
Academy.
Four chairs, as it chanced, became vacant during this year,
1743, all of which except one were given to persons of little
account in the world of intellect. Maupertuis was the excep-
tion, and his distinction was not literary. One of the seats
was given to Bignon, aged thirty-one years, whose sole con-
nection with literature was this : he had inherited from his
uncle the place of king's librarian. " I believe," wrote the
King of Prussia, touching one of these exploits of JMirepoix,
" that France is now the only country in Europe where asses
and idiots can make their fortune." The king sent comic
verses also upon the " forty learned paroquets, who sat upon
the French Parnassus, and dreaded to let in Voltaire, lest his
"MAHOMET" AND " M^ROPE." 463
flashing brilliancy should dim the trivial beauty of their twi-
light."
It remained, however, that Voltaire was not of the Academy ;
while the old imbecile Boyer, about the time of the election,
added to his other fat things a benefice of eighty thousand
francs a year, to which the queen appended a suite of apart-
ments in her palace, all the world expecting his good luck to
be crowned soon by a cardinal's hat.
CHAPTER XL.
VOLTAIEE AND MADAME STUDY HISTORY TOGETHER.
When they first went to live at Cirey, madame was de-
voted to mathematics and he was collecting material for a
history of the reign of Louis XIV. This was bis serious work,
poems and dramas being his delight, his glory, his defense.
She objected to his employing time upon history. " This
vixen \_be(/ueule^,'^ wrote Madame de Grafigny in 1738, "does
not wish him to finish his ' History of Louis XIV.' She
keeps it under lock and key. He was obliged to beg hard
before she would promise to let me have it. I will bafile her
little game." ^ She did baffle it so far as to get a reading of
the manuscript, from which she used to copy long passages
for the entertainment of her correspondent.
Voltaire confirms this anecdote, but he tells it as a lover
tells the fault of a mistress. Far from styling her a begueule,
he speaks of her as "a person rare in her time and in all
times," who had conceived a disgust for history from the man-
ner in which it was usually written. " What matters it," she
would say, " to me, a Frenchwoman, living here upon my
estate, that in Sweden Egil succeeded King Haquin, and that
Ottoman was the son of Ortogul ? I have read with pleasure
the history of the Greeks and Romans. They present to my
mind grand pictures which hold my attention. But I have
not been able to finish any extended history of our modern
nations, in which I see little but confusion ; a crowd of trifling
events, without connection and without result ; a thousand bat-
tles which decided nothing, and from which I only learn what
weapons men used to destroy one another with. I have re-
nounced a study equally tedious and immense, which over-
whelms the mind without enlightening it." ^
1 Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet, par Madame de Grafigny, page 27. ^Hi
2 Essai sur les Moeurs. Pre'face. 19 CEuvres de Voltaire, 3.
VOLTAIRE AND MADAME STUDY HISTORY. 465
She often spoke in this strain when something in their
studies brought the subject into conversation. Sharing the
general ignorance respecting the history of France, she laid
the blame upon such chroniclers as the* Jesuit Father Daniel,
whose three ponderous folios of 1713 seemed to both of them
to have been ' written on the principle of excluding every-
thing of interest to thoughtful readers, and everything that
could warn or enlighten patriotic statesmen. " I desired,"
she would say, "to read the history of France, Germany,
Spain, Italy, and found a mere chaos; a heap of useless facts,
for the most part false and ill digested ; barbarous actions
under barbarous names ; insipid romances ; no knowledge of
manners, governments, laws, opinions, — not very extraordi-
nary in a time when there were no opinions except monks'
legends, and no laws but those of brigandage. The Middle
Ages ! Nothing remains of those miserable times but con-
vents founded by the superstitious, who thought to ransom
their crimes by endowing idleness. I cannot endure in Daniel
those continual tales of battles, while I look for light upon
the states-general, parliaments, municipal laws, chivalry, all
our usages, and, above all, the progress of communities once
savage and to-day civilized. I seek in Daniel the history of
the great Henry the Fourth, and I find in it that of the Jesuit
Coton."
Much more to the same effect he attributes to her, which
was probably only his generous and brilliant interpretation of
her impatient disgust.
He tells us how he met her objections. "But," he Avould
say to her, " if among so much material, rude and unformed,
you should choose wherewith to construct an edifice for your
own use ; if, while leaving out all the details of warfare, as
wearisome as they are untrue, all the petty negotiations
which have been only useless knavery, all the particular ad-
ventures which conceal the great events ; if, while preserving
these details which paint manners, you should form out of
that chaos a general and well-defined picture ; if you should
seek to discover in events THE HISTORY OF the HUMAN ]\IEND,
"would you believe you had lost your time ? "
This idea, he says, determined her to enter with him upon
a course of historical studies ; and it was upon this general
VOL. I. 30
466 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
scheme of tracing the progress of civilization and the devel-
opment of human intelligence that they proceeded. At first,
he was surprised at the little light throvrn upon his subject
by the multitude of . books consulted. " I remember," he
adds, " that when we began to read Puffendorf, who wrote in
Stockholm, and to whom the archives of the state were open,
we were confident of learning from him what was the strength
of that country ; how many inhabitants it nourished ; how the
people of the province of Gothland were related to those who
ravaged the Roman Empire ; how in the course of time the
arts were introduced into Sweden ; what were its principal
laws, its wealth, or rather its poverty. Not one word of what
we looked for did we find. When we wished to inform our-
selves concerning the claims of the emperors upon Rome, and
those of the Popes against the emperors, we found only confu-
sion and obscurity ; so that upon all that I wrote I put in the
margin, ' See, INQUIRE, DOUBT.' These words, in large
letters, are still to be seen in a hundred places of my old
manuscript of the year 1740. The only thing which sus-
tained me in researches so ungrateful was what we met now
and then relating to the arts and sciences. This became our
principal object. It was easy to perceive that, in our ages of
barbarity and ignorance, which followed the decline and
division of the Roman Empire, we received almost everything
from the Arabs, — astronomy, chemistry, medicine, algebra,
arithmetic, geography."
For a quarter of a centurj^, — 1730 to 1755, — with intervals,
history was his chief pursuit, and the result of his labors fills
fifteen of the ninety-seven volumes of his works. The " His-
tory of Charles XII." was already European, though he still
labored to correct and improve it. The " History of the Reign
of Louis XIV." he intended should follow that, until these
conversations with Madame du Chatelet widened his view
and enlarged his scheme. For some years now he had
been gathering knowledge for that general 'history of hur"^"
progress which, beginning to appear in print in 1742,
finally given to the world many years later, under the titL
" Essay upon the Manners and Spirit of Nations, and u
the principal Facts of History from Charlemagne to L(
XIII." The work as we now have it, in six volumes, is
VOLTAIRE AND MADAME STUDY HISTORY. 467
most voluminous of the productions of the author, and it is,
perhaps, the one which has most influenced human thought in
later times. One of its pregnant little sentences is, " Quicon-
que pense fait penser " (whoever thinks makes think). I know
not if there is any other work published in the last two cent-
uries that has suggested so much to the men who suggest.
If it is now obsolete, it is so for the same reason that Adam
Smith's " Wealth of Nations " is obsolete, — because it has ac-
complished its purposes. But it remains an enduring record
of the development the human mind had reached when the
author wrote finis on the last page of his last edition in 1775.
It belongs now to the same class of pi'oductions as Pliny's
" Natural History," — that wondrous and fascinating cyclo-
pgedia of ancient ignorance. On both works could be in-
scribed: This is what men then Tcnew and thought of them-
selves and their ivo7'ld.
But tliere is one vital difference between the ancient and
the modern investigator. Aristotle told his readers that
women had more teeth than men, but never thought of
counting to see if the statement was correct, and never ad-
vised his disciples to do so. He wrote upon anatomy, but,
as Mr. Lewes shows, could never have looked into a human
body. Pliny recounts ten thousand prodigies without ques-
tion, satisfied to preface them with " They sayy Voltaire
doubts, inquires, denies, ridicules, burlesques. His Essay, be-
sides pointing out mistakes, is a contribution toward the nat-
ural history of mistake. He pauses often, after burlesquing
falsehood, to dwell upon the laws governing the generation,
promulgation, duration, and extinction of falsehood ; and
therefore, while falling very frequentl}^ into gross error, he ed-
ucated his period to surpass and supersede himself. Gibbon,
Niebuhr, Bentham, Colenso, Renan, Franklin, Jefferson, Dar-
win, Buckle, Motley, Knight, Carlyle, and others follow out
lines of investigation which he suggested, or carry on inves-
tigation in a spirit and method which he made easy. Even
Carlyle's Dryasdust was pierced by Voltaire's airy shaft, be-
fore the autlior of " Sartor Resartus " finished him with his
heavy mace, and rolled him in his own element of dust.
Take Niebuhr for another example. Voltaire found Chris-
tendom still believing the legends of Romulus and Remus, the
468 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Horatii and Curatii, and all the other Roman marvels, just
as thoughtlessly as they believed the biblical prodigies. Be-
sides laughing at this credulity, he showed, by amusing exam-
ples, the folly of believing a story because an ancient monu-
ment attestecL it. " What ! because young Bacchus issuing
from Jupiter's thigh was celebrated in a temple at Rome,
did Jupiter actually carry Bacchus in his thigh? " After sev-
eral questions of this kind we have the remark, " An idiot
princess built a chapel to the Eleven Thousand Virgins ; the
incumbent of that chapel does not doubt that the eleven
thousand virgins existed, and causes the sage who does doubt it
to be stoned."
In Grote, also, the Greek legends are subjected to the same
process ; and Mr. Grote, improving upon the Voltairean method,
relates the beautiful legends as legends, and through them
gropes his way to the point where it is possible to begin his-
tory. Dr. Arnold pursues the same method in his " History of
Rome."
Gibbon is another instance. Both for the method and the
spirit of the " Decline and Fall " Gibbon was much indebted
to this Essay ; but especially for the spirit. Solid Gibbon
could not catch "Voltaire's lightness and brilliancy, or he, too,
would have described Julian as a man " who had the misfortune
to abandon the Christian religion, but did much honor to the
rehgion of nature, — Julian, the scandal of our church and the
glory of the Roman Empire." Gibbon's fifteenth and sixteenth
chapters are wholly in the spirit of this Essay, though weight-
ier in manner, and the result of wider investigation.
Bishop Colenso's arithmetical test applied to the Hebrew
narratives was very freely used by Voltaire in the Essay, as
well as in other works, accompanying the same with a profusion
of exquisite mockery. The line of investigation pursued by
M. Renan is in harmony with the spirit of the work, and was
made possible by it.
The author most indebted to Voltaire was Henry Thomas
Buckle, who died in attempting, with all the modern accumula-
tions of knowledge, to do what Voltaire essayed with the
scanty materials accessible in his day. Buckle's " History of
Civilization," if the gifted and devoted author had lived to
complete it, could have been little more than an amplification
VOLTAIRE AND MADAME STUDY HISTORY. 469
and rectification of Voltaire's Essay. Even in the form, Buckle
followed his model ; for Voltaire too has an " Introduction "
of extraordinary length, — nearly a volume. We are reminded
of the English author in a hundred places of Voltaire's " Intro-
duction : " as when we read, for example, of the controlling in-
fluence of climate in developing civilization ; that civilization
began with leisure, and cannot thrive without it ; tliat the im-
mensities of nature limited the population of America ; that
religion retards and knowledge promotes development; that
the " aspects of nature," when they are terrible, make men
more superstitious, and when they are benign make them less
so ; that such works as the pyramids prove the builders to have
been poor and servile ; that ignorance and fear are the allied
causes of all that is most deplorable in the history of man ; and
that the beginning of all progress is the increase of knowledge.
He anticipates, also, those investigators who trace the grad-
ual development of such doctrines as the real presence and
miraculous inspiration, as well as the gradual construction of
such modes of worship as the Catholic mass. On this line, he
displays all his knowledge, acuteness, humor, and audacity.
The infinite absurdities of the early church history, such as
tracing the papacy to St. Peter, who never saw Rome, give
him matter for many entertaining and effective pages. The
awful power wielded for so many ages by the Ring of small-
brained, greedy Italians who governed the church from Rome,
and debauched both the mind and morals of Europe, received
due recognition at his hands. He sums it all up in one sen-
tence of terrible truth: —
" You will observe," he says, as if addressing Madame du
Chatelet, " that in all the disputes which have inflamed Chris-
tians against one another since the birth of the church, Rome
has always decided for the opinion that most degraded the
human mind and most completely annihilated human reason."
Having made this powerful statement, he appends a jest :
" I speak here only of history ; leaving out of view the inspi-
ration of the church and its infallibility, with which history
has nothing to do." It was this mingling of weighty truth
with amusing mockery that rendered the Essay the only his-
torical work in six volumes which readers for pleasure were
likely to read through.
r
470 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
If the merits of this work are immense, so also are the de-
ductions \A'hich modei'n readers are obliged to make from former
estimates. Its defects are due in part to the impossibility of
procuring at that time the requisite knowledge, and in part to
the narrow limits of the human mind, and to the dominating
antipathies of Voltaire. Instead of expanding upon these de-
fects, I will quote one passage which exhibits them, — a pas-
sage which American readers can judge better than othei's.
In his last volume, he comes to speak of the colonies in North
America, and he selects Pennsylvania and New England,
among others, for particular remark. The reader will observe
the extreme, even ludicrous, incorrectness of his information,
as well as the influence of his early liking for the Quakers and
his life-long aversion to Calvinism : —
" Pennsylvania [he says] was long without soldiers, and it is only
of late that England sent some troops to defend them, when they were
at war with France. Take away that name of Quaker, cure them of
their revolting and barbarous habit of trembling when they speak in
their religious meetings, abolish some other^ridiculous customs, and we
must agree that those primitive people are of all men worthiest of re-
spect. Their colony is as flourishing as their morals have been pure.
Philadelphia, or the City of the Brothers, their capital, is one of the
most beautiful cities in the universe ; and they reckon that, in 1740,
there were a hundred and eighty thousand men in Pennsylvania. These
new citizens are not all primitives or Quakers ; half of them are Ger-
mans, Swedes, and people of other cotin tries, who form seventeen re-
ligions. The primitives, who govern, regard all those strangers as
their brothers.
" Beyond that province, the only one upon earth to which peace has
fled, banished as it is from every other region, you come to New Eng-
land, of which Boston, the richest city of all that coast, is the capital.
"It was inhabited and first governed by Puritans, persecuted in
England hj Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, who afterwards paid for
his persecutions with his head, and whose scaffold served to raise that
of the king, Charles I. Those Puritans, a species of Calvinists, fled,
about the year 1620, into that country, since named New England.
If the Episcopalians pursued them in the Old World, it was a war of
tigers against bears. They carried to America their sombre and fero-
cious humor, and vexed in every way the peaceful Pennsylvanians, as
soon as those new-comers had established themselves. But, in 1692,
the Puritans were self-punished by the strangest epidemic that ever
attacked the human mind.
VOLTAIRE AND MADAME STUDY HISTORY. 471
" While Europe was beginning to escape from the abyss of horrible
superstitions wherein ignorance had plunged it for so many ages, and
while sorcery and possession were, in England and other polite na-
tions, only regarded as ancient follies, at which they blushed, the Pu-
ritans gave them new life in America. A girl had convulsions in
1692; a preacher accused an old female servant; they forced the old
woman to confess that she was a witch. Half the inhabitants believed
they were possessed ; the other half were accused of sorcery ; and the
people in fury threatened all the judges with hanging if they did not
hang the accused. For two years nothing was seen but sorcerers,
possessed, and gibbets ; and it was the countrymen of Locke and
Newton who abandoned themselves to that abominable delusion. At
last the malady ceased ; the citizens of New England recovered their
reason, and were astonished at their own madness. They devoted
themselves to commerce and agriculture. The colony very soon be-
came the most flourishing of them all. They reckoned there, in 1750,
about three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, which is ten times
more than the estimated population of the French establishments. ___- ■ '
" From New England you pass to New York ; to Acadia, which
has become so great a cause of discord ; to New Land, where is carried
on the great cod fishery."^
This is highly diverting, and shows h'ow difficult it is for
a human mind to get to the limpid water at the bottom of
the well where Truth resides. Defective information and a
biased mind, — these are the reasons why each generation has j/
to re-write for itself the history of the world. He attributes
the Reformation to a squabble of two rival orders of monks,
as to which of them should have the German agency for tlie
sale of indulgences. Calvin, of course, he cordially and justly
detests. To Luther he is more lenient. He approves Luther's
marriage, commends his good-humor, and signalizes the fact
that, ecclesiastic and controversialist as he was, he never com-
mitted a cruel action, — not even burnt a Unitarian. "De-
spite the theologic fury that reigns in his works, he was a
good man at home, frank in character and peaceful in social
intercourse. His hatred of the sacramentarians limited itself
to expelling them from the universities and the ministry ; a
very moderate thing for the age in which he lived." On the
other hand, he did not perceive, living in a Catholic countr}^
that the Reformation was a step toward the emancipation of
1 6 Essai sur les Moeurs, 124.
472 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the mind from the bondage of the letter. He saw that the
writings of the reformers were silly and savage ; he knew that
their demeanor was austere and forbidding ; and he supposed
that, in removing the heavy yoke of the old chm'ch, they had
imposed one more crushing still.
" If," he remarks, " the reformers condemned celibacy, if
they opened the doors of the convents, it was to change human
society itself into convents. Sports and plays were forbidden
among them. Geneva, for a hundred years, did not allow a
musical instrument within its borders. They proscribed au-
ricular confession, but they wished public penitence ; and so
it was established in Switzerland, Scotland, Geneva. We suc-
ceed little with men when we propose something easy and sim-
ple. The strictest school-master is the one most run after."
In relating the horrors of religion in every age, he still
blends pathos an4 fun ; lamenting the woes unutterable that
zealots have inflicted for religion's sake, and j^et never allow-
ing his readers to forget the trivial and ridiculous nature of
the usages and doctrines for which they slew and tortured.
He sometimes makes the mistake that we are all apt to make
in commenting upon those scenes of blood and devastation, in
Spain, in Holland, in Florida, in France, attributing them too
much to individuals, and too little to man. People were dis-
mal in Geneva and cruel in Spain, not because Calvin was dys-
peptic and Philip II. ambitious, but because man was still
weak, ignorant, and timorous. He, too, felt this when, after
relating the appalling massacres that followed the surrender
of Haarlem, he adds only, " The pen drops from the hands
when we see how men are wont to deal with men." He felt
it, also, and gave it memorable expression, when he wrote,
"It is characteristic of bai'barians to believe the divinity ma-
levolent. Men make God in their own image."
Such were the studies that occupied him during these years
of wandering and disturbance ; cheered occasionally by the
warm commendations of the King of Prussia, to whom he sent
the portions as they were completed. Frederic praised this
work without reserve. He pronounced it the ornament of the
age, sufficient of itself to show how much superior modern
genius was to ancient. For a wonder, he did not object to its
audacities. " Cicero," said the king, " could not conceive how
II
VOLTAIRE AND MADAME STUDY HISTORY. 473
the augurs could look one another in the face without laugh-
ing ; you do more : you expose the absurdities and furies of
the clergy to the view of all the world.'' Again, on reading
Voltaire's account of the crusades, the king broke into poetry,
congratulating himself upon being Voltaire's contemporary,
to be instructed by him, instead of being a crusader, to be
pierced by his satire. "Go on with this excellent work," he
added ; " go on with it for the love of truth ; go on for the
happiness of men. It is a king who exhorts you to write the
follies of kings." Frederic was, indeed, so roused by it that
he resumed his own literary labors, wrote a poem and a com-
edy, and began to compose those Memoirs of his house and
time which occupy six of the thirty volumes of his works.
The " History of the Age of Louis XIV." was not neg-
lected, meanwhile. The author's familiar intercourse with the
men and women whose parents and connections had lived at
the old court supplied him with documents and memoirs. To
the polite society of his time no other work of his could have
been so fascinating as this melange of anecdote, epigram, and
history. He " stands by his order^" Half his first volume
consists of a catalogue, with brief explanations, of the princi-
pal writers of the time of the late king, among wdiom, wdth
his usual tenacious loyalty, he includes " Chatelefc (Gabrielle-
Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du) " who was nine
years of age when Louis XIV. died. She was dead herself
when he added that, " of all the women who had illustrated
France, she was the one who had possessed most of genuine
esprit^ and had least affected the hel-esprity The History
is so much occupied with matters appertaining to the mind
and the taste that it reminds us of the amiable Philadelphian
who proposed the " History of the United States with the
Wars omitted."
He could not, for many reasons, speak of the late king with
perfect candor. He w^as himself somewhat under the influ-
ence of the general illusion with regard to Louis XIV. ; and
the more because the redeeming glory of his reign was the
encouragement given to art and literature. Nor liad the co-
lossal egotism of the monarch been clearly revealed to the
world, though it had brought France close to the verge of
ruin, and left to his successor the chaos of 1715. The Mem-
oirs of Saint Simon, of Madame de Maintenon, and many
474 LIFE or VOLTAIRE.
others enable us to know that court better than any individ-
ual could have known it who spent a life in attendance. Vol-
taire knew more than he could tell, and he " manages " the
dangerous points of his theme with all his own audacious pru-
dence. The anecdotes are a valuable part of his work, and
these will make it always a source of information. " Anec-
dotes," he says, " are an inclosed field in which one gleans
after the vast harvest of history." Most of those which he has
recorded have become part of the common stock of entertain-
ment and illustration, used by each generation as it passes,
and left intact for the next. The spirit of the work is Vol-
tairean enough. In other words, it is a solicitation, in three
agreeable volumes, to the world of readers, to think with their
own minds, to believe only what is in harmony with tlie
known nature of things, and, having done this themselves, to
concede the same right to all men without reserve. The Rev-
ocation of the Edict of Nantes he adduced as a case in point.
How often during his long life he returned to this theme! He
reminded his countrymen, on every convenient opportunity,
that the priests who ruled the ignorant mind of Louis XIV.
drove from the kingdom eight hundred thousand people, moral,
skillful, frugal, loyal, who carried away with them a thousand
millions of francs, and planted in Holland, England, Germany,
America, several branches of manufacture of which till then
France had enjoyed a monopoly. He told his countrymen
of the ffreat colonies of Frenchmen that he had himself seen
in Berlin, London, Switzerland, Holland, — the descendants of
those good people who had followed their pastors into exile,
rather than renounce their right to believe. On this point he
was called in question, and met his opponent with accounts of
these foreign settlements as visited and inspected by himself.
He concluded the Histor}^ with a narrative of the persistent
endeavor on the part of the Jesuits, under Louis XIV., to
convert the Chinese. The missionaries sent home a pious lie
to inflame the zeal and swell the offerings of the people of
France. Four crosses had appeared, they said, on the clouds
near the horizon, as if to sanction the sublime enterprise. Vol-
taire ended his History thus : " But if God had wished that
China should become Christian, would he have contented him-
self with putting some crosses in the air ? Would he not have
put them in the heart of the Chinese ? "
CHAPTER XLI.
AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST AGAIN.
These elevated studies were never so frequently or so long
interrupted as during the next two or three years, — a period of
his life to which he always looked back with regret. When he
"was an old man, the Ahh6 Duvernet asked him if it was true
that he had once been a courtier. He replied that it was all
too true. "In 1744 and 1745," he added, " I was one ; I cor-
rected myself in 1746 ; and I repented in 1747." He under-
stated the misfortune. From 1743 to 1753 he passed a great
part of his time at or near the courts of his three kings, Louis,
Frederic, and Stanislas, snatching his own proper work from
tumultuous distraction. " It was not the period of my glory,"
said he, " if I ever had any." ^
There was a grand wedding at Paris, in the family of the
Du Chatelets, in the spring of 1743. Madame du Chatelet
gave her daughter to a Neapolitan, the Duke de Montenei'o-
Caraff. It appears to have been a veritable marriage of the
good old time : the bride a plump damsel of seventeen, fresh
from the convent ; the bridegroom much older, a foreigner,
as Voltaire notes, " with a big nose, a meagre visage, and a
hollow chest." But the King of France signed the contract;
the King of Prussia was formally notified ; and all was done in
the rules. The mother had had other wishes for this daugh-
ter ; at least, she said so in her letter announcing the marriage
to the King of Prussia. " If 77it/ vows had been heard," she
wrote, "it had been at your court that she had passed her
life ; and that would have been a happiness of which I should
have been jealous." Could the young Baron de Kaiserling
have aspired ? The young lady had been brought home from
her convent to take part in a comedy performed for his amuse-
ment at Cirey.
1 Voltaire to Duvernet, February, 1776.
476 LT^E OF VOLTAIRE.
Weio-htier matters called Voltaire from his books in June,
1743, and detained him long. Europe was still embroiled.
Frederic, who had broken the peace in 1740, had withdrawn
from the strife, with Silesia his own. He was at peace ; but
France was waging disastrous, discreditable war against Aus-
tria and Hanover, a war without well-defined object, and wo-
fully ill conducted. Again all eyes were fixed in hope or dread
upon Prussia, whose alliance could turn the scale and give to
either belligerent decisive preponderance. It was Frederic
himself who seemed to invite Voltaire to try once more his
skill in the diplomatic art. " I now ask you," wrote Frederic,
" for a new explanation ; for, behold, the cardinal is dead and
affairs are going a different way. It were good to know what
are the channels which it is necessary to employ."
The Duke de Richelieu was then "first gentleman of the
king's bed-chamber," an office which he fulfilled by supplying
that sumptuous apartment with occupants agreeable to the
king, and useful to himself. The Duchess de Chateauroux was
one of them. Petticoat II. she was styled by a King of Prus-
sia, indifferent to women. Richelieu conceived the scheme of
sendingr Voltaire to Berlin on a secret mission to sound the
King of Prussia, to warn him of the danger to himself of allow-
ing Maria Theresa to recover power and prestige through the
aid of the King of Hanover, who was also King of England,
and to win him over to an alliance with France ; or, as Vol-
taire expressed it, " to ask him if he would be so good as to
lend us a hundred thousand men, for the nonce, in order the
better to assure his Silesia." The mistress seconded, the min-
istry adopted, the king sanctioned the project, and he prepared
to depart.
A pretext being necessary to account for his presence at
Berlin, he suggested his recent public quarrel with the ancient
Bishop of Mirepoix, which also the king approved. The new
envoy wrote to Frederic that he was about to seek refuge at
his court from the persecutions of " that bigoted old monk."
Boyer was accustomed to sign himself, officially, the " anc.
Bishop of Mirepoix." The abbreviation ajic. in the bad hand-
writing of the bishop bore a resemblance to the French word
ane, which means ass. Voltaire and Frederic styled him
habitually Vane de Mirepoix, and made merry at his ex-
I
AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST AGAIN. 477
pense. Voltaire took care that the bishop should see some of
the king's letters in which liberties of this kind were taken
with his name and character. Boyer complained to the King
of France that Voltaire was giving him out in foreign courts
as a fool. Louis replied, as Voltaire reports, that " it was a
thing agreed upon, and that he need not concern himself about
it." Thus, he adds, he had the pleasure, at once, of aveng-
ing the indignity of his exclusion from the Academy, of tak-
ing an agreeable journey, and of having an opportunity to
serve his king ; all, too, at the king's expense, for he was
authorized to spend as much money as he wished.
But how was he to get away from Madame du Chatelet,
■who would make " a horrible outcry " at this appearance of
desertion? It was agreed that she should be let into the
secret, and that the letters between Voltaire and the ministry
should pass through her hands. She made the outcry, not-
withstanding; but she made it with discretion and with his-
trionic effects. Voltaire took leave of her about June 15, 1743,
to be gone six weeks ; and she performed her part so well that
the gossiping Barbier was deceived by it. July 1st, he made
this entry in his diary : " Madame du Chatelet is going im-
mediately to join Voltaire at Brussels. It is remarked that
the government ought to conciliate this poet, or else assure it-
self of him. He is extremely dissatisfied, extremely angry, and
in great favor with the King of Prussia. That woman passed
a part of Saturday last in crying, because she had not received
on Friday any letters from that Adonis." ^ From this we may
infer that the purpose of the journey was not suspected.
Before leaving Paris he procured from his old school-fellow,
the Marquis d'Argenson, minister of war, a contract for his
relations, Marchand and son, for making ten thousand army
coats. " All they ask," said he, " is to clothe and feed the
defenders of France." Marchand lived to be a farmer-cren-
eral. For another nephew, badly wounded in a recent action,
he solicited " that cross of St. Louis, for which men have
their arms and legs broken." For Madame du Chatelet, also,
he obtained something, not stated, from the same minister.
" Permit me, Monseigneur," he writes to D'Argenson from
the Hague, " to thank you tenderly for the favor accorded to
^ 8 Journal de Barbier, 309.
478 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Madame du Cliatelet, and for the manner of it." He was in
great vogue ; for the first news he had to remark upon in his
letters to the minister was of the famous victory won over the
French at Dettingen by George II. 's English and Hanoverian
troops, — that army of Uncle Toby's which swore so terribly
in Flanders. Nothing was too good for the envoy who might
win for France at such a crisis so powerful an ally as Frederic
II., King of Pj-ussia. The envoy improved his hour of sun-
shine.
From the light tone in which he wrote of his mission, years
after, we might suppose that it was all a jest at the expense
of Vane de Mirepoix. His letters of the time, however, show
that he was a vigilant, laborious, and able amateur in the dip-
lomatic art, with the usual fault of the amateur, excess of
zeal. He sent home an abundance of documents, maps, plans,
and information, supplied by and through Frederic's agents
and ministers. He dispatched couriers ; he sent unsigned let-
ters ; he wound himself up in impenetrable secrecy, and be-
haved, in all respects, in the approved diplomatic style. But
he did more than this. Living for six weeks in Prussia, in the
royal palaces, in daily and nightly intimacy with the king, he
had with him long and serious conversations, in the course of
which Frederic spoke with apparent candor and fullness of his
intentions and desires. Voltaire reports one of these conver-
sations to M. Amelot, French minister for foreign affairs. It
occurred September 3, 1743, in Voltaire's own room, after a
dinner given by the king to M. de Valori, the French ambas-
sador at Berlin. The gayety and ease of a Paris table marked
this repast, and, when it was over, the king came to Voltaire's
apartment, and they talked alone together until the evening
concert was announced.
The King. — "I was very glad yesterday to invite the envoy of
France alone of all the ministers, not only to give him marks of con-
sideration, but to disquiet those who would be displeased at the pref-
erence."
Voltaire. — " The envoy of France would be much more content
if your majesty should send some troops to Wesel or to Magdeburg."
The King. — " But what do you wish me to do ? Will the King
of France ever forgive my having made a separate peace ? "
Voltaire. — " Sire, great kings know not vengeance ; all yields to
AMATEUE DIPLOMATIST AGAIN. 479
the interest of the state. You know if the interest of your majesty
and that of France is not to be forever united."
The King. — " How can I believe that it is the intention of France
to bind herself firmly to me ? I know that your envoy at Mayence
makes insinuations against my interests, and that a peace is proposed
with the Queen of Hungary, involving the reestablishment of the em-
peror and an indemnification at my expense."
Voltaire. — "1 dare believe that this accusation is an artifice of
the Austrians, a practice too common with them. Did they not calum-
niate you in the same manner last May ? Did they not publish in
Holland that you had made an offer to the Queen of Hungary to join
her against France ? "
The King (lowering his eyes). — " I swear to you that nothing is
more false. What could I gain by it ? Such a falsehood destroys
itself."
Voltaire. — " Very well, sire ; why, then, not openly unite with
France and the emperor against the common enemy, who hates you
and calumniates you both equally ? What ally can you have but
France?"
Thk King. — "You are right. You know, also, that I am endeav-
oring to serve France ; you are aware of what I am doing in Holland.
But I cannot act openly until I am sure of being seconded by the em-
pire, to which end I am now laboring ; and this is the real object of
the journey I shall make to Bayreuth in eight or ten days. I wish to
be assured that some, at least, of the princes of the empire — such as
Palatine, Hesse, Wurtemberg, Cologne, and Stettin — would furnish a
contingent to the emperor."
Voltaire. — " Sire, ask their signature only, and begin by making
your brave Prussians take the field."
The King. — "I do not wish to recommence the war ; but I con-
fess I should be flattered to be the pacificator of the empire, and to
humiliate a little the King of England, who wishes to give law to
Germany."
Voltaire. — " You can do it. Only this glory is wanting to you,
and I hope that France will owe peace to her own arms and your ne-
gotiations. The vigor she will show will doubtless increase your good-
will. Allow me to ask what you would do if the King of France
should demand succor from you by virtue of your treaty with him ? "
The King. — "I should be obliged to excuse myself, and to reply
that the treaty was annulled by what I have since done with regard to
the Queen of Hungary. At present I can serve the emperor and the
King of France only by negotiating."
Voltaire. — " Negotiate, then, sire, as fortunately as you have
480 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
fought ; and suffer me to say to you, what all the earth says, that the
Queen of Hungary only awaits the favorable moment to attack Si-
lesia."
The King. — " My four fortresses will be finished before Austria
can send against me two regiments. I have a hundred and fifty thou-
sand combatants ; I shall have then two hundred thousand. I flatter
myself that my system of military discipline, which I consider the best
in Europe, will always triumph over the Hungarian troops. If the
Queen of Hungary attempts to recover Silesia, she will force me to
take Bohemia from her. I fear nothing from Russia ; the Czarina is
forever devoted to me since the last conspiracy fomented by Botta
[envoy of Maria Theresa] and by the English. I advise her to send
the young Ivan and his mother to Siberia, as well as my brotlier-in-
law, with whom I have always been dissatisfied, and who has always
been governed by the Austrians." ^
At this point the king was notified that the musicians
were ready to begin the concert. Voltaire followed him to
the music-room, and the conversation ended ; to be renewed,
however, on several succeeding days. The king could scarcely
have been more explicit or more frank ; and, probably, an ex-
perienced diplomatist would not have pressed him farther.
But Voltaire had private as well as public reasons for making
of this embassy an unquestionable and striking success. He
desired something in the king's handwriting to take home
with him ; and, to this end, he wrote the well-known series
of questions, leaving a wide margin on the paper for the king's
written comments. Frederic, obliged to disappoint the per-
tinacious envoy, appended ridiculous or evasive answers. " Is
it not clear," asked Voltaire, " that France displays vigor and
wisdom ? " The king wrote in the margin, " I admire the
wisdom of France, but God keep me from ever imitating
it." Voltaire alluded to the burning desire of the Austrians
to attack Silesia. Frederic wrote, " They will be received,
birihi, in the style of Barbary, mon ami ! " The king would
not commit himself upon paper. In conversation he contin-
ued to discuss the situation in a manner which his subsequent
conduct showed to be sincere. Their final conversation
turned upon King George II. of England, whom Frederic did
not love. The king's last word was this: —
1 Voltaire to Amelot, September 3, 1743.
AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST AGAIN. 481
" George is Frederic's uncle ; but George is not King of
Prussia. Let France declare war against England, and I
march ! " ^
To oblige the envoy, the king wrote him a long letter to
shou\ eulogizing France, complimenting her king, and com-
mending Voltaire as a loyal subject and admirable citizen,
Frederic still longed to possess him ; and it is evident from
scattered intimations that the envoy endeavored to turn this
passionate desire to account. I think he said in substance to
the King of Prussia, " Let me be the means of bringing suc-
cor to France, make ray mission brilliantly successful, and
what can I not ask of the king, mo7i maitre ? Say, for ex-
ample, that I should wish the obliging Marquis du Chatelet
appointed ambassador at your majesty's court, with one Vol-
taire as guest of the family, resident at Berlin for many
years, and perhaps always ! " Frederic, on his part, re-
newed all his former offers. " France," he wrote, a few days
before Voltaire's departure, " has passed hitherto for the asy-
lum of unfortunate kings ; I wish my capital to become the
temple of great men. Come, my dear Voltaire, and dictate
all that can be agreeable to you. I wish to give you pleasure ;
and to oblige a man it is necessary to enter into his way
of thinking. Choose a suite of apartments or a house ; rule
whatever is necessary to you for the agreeableness and the
luxury of life; make your condition such as your happiness
requires ; it shall be mine to provide for the rest. You shall
be always free and entirely master of your destiny."
In his mania to have him, the king descended to a trick
which, doubtless, he regarded as a kind of harmless practical
joke, but which few readers will be able to see in that light. Vol-
taire, as we have observed, caused some of Frederic's letters to
fall into the hands of the Bishop of Mirepoix. Before leaving
Prussia, he discovered that the king was taking precisely the
same liberty with certain letters of his, in which the " mitred
donkey of Mirepoix " was spoken of with infinite contempt.
" Here," wrote Frederic, August 17, 1743, to his favorite,
Count de Rottembourg, then visiting Paris, — " you have a
morsel of a letter of Voltaire's, which I beg you will get de-
livered to the Bishop of Mirepoix in some roundabout way,
1 Memoires. 2 CEuvres dc Voltaire, 56.
VOL. I. 31
482 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
without either you or me appearing in the business. My in-
tention is to embroil Voltaire so thoroughly in France that
there will remain no part for him to take but to come to
me." ^ The morsel inclosed read thus : —
" This ugly Mirepoix is as hard, as fanatical, as imperious,
as the Cardinal de Fleury was suave, accommodating, polite.
Oh, how he will make that good man regretted ! "
Ten days later, the king sent to Count de Rottembourg
some verses of Voltaire's upon Mirepoix, and charged him to
get them secretly delivered to the bishop ; for, added the king,
" I wish to embroil Voltaire forever with Fi-ance ; it would
be the means of having him at Berlin." These verses, be-
sides heaping contempt upon Mirepoix, contained a line that
seemed to speak of Louis XV. as " the most stupid of kings."
This was going far, even for a monarch. Voltaire, who had
partisans or friends everywhere, was promptly informed of
this procedure, and did not approve it. He was extremely
indignant. If he had amused himself a little by putting
some jocular paragraphs of Frederic where the bishop could
see them, he did not consider the game equal between a king
with two hundred thousand men at his command and a poet
who was obliged always to serve and charm his country at
the risk of a dungeon. Strange to relate, Frederic was as-
tonished that he should take the flattering treason amiss.
" Voltaire," he wrote to Rottembourg, " has unearthed, I
know not how, the little treason we have played him. He
is strangely piqued at it. He will get over it, I hope."
He pouted for a while, it appears, and then forgave the little
treason. Luckily, it had been a thing agreed upon that Mire-
poix was to be " written down an ass ; " and thus he was
able to make it up with his own court. Nor was he ill pleased
to let the French ministry know how intensely he was desired
at the Prussian court. " Not being able," he wrote to M. Am-
elot, " to gain me otherwise, the king thought to acquire me by
destroying me in France ; but I swear to you that I would
rather live in a town of Switzerland than enjoy at this price
the perilous favor of a man capable of putting treason into
friendship itself."
But he was not quite so angry then as these words imply.
1 25 CEuvres de Frederic le Grand, 523, 525, 527, 528.
II
AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST AGAIN. 483
He brought his Prussian journey to a happ}^ close by accom-
panying the king to the court of his sister, the Margravine of
Bayreuth, where he passed fourteen days of sumptuous and
elegant festivity. Operas, comedies, concerts, hunts, suppers,
filled up the hours. The king's sisters, Ulrique and Amelia,
as well as Wilhelmiiia, were there, all sharing their brother's
enthusiasm for the guest, all owing part of their mental devel-
opment to him. Voltaire had never been so feted and caressed.
He left behind him at Bayreuth, as a memorial of those en-
chanting days, three little poems, unequaled in their kind in
all the literature of the drawling-room. These trifles are so
exquisite that the plainest prose of them leaves a pleasing im-
pression upon the mind : —
" To the Princess Ulrique : Often a little truth mingles with
the grossest falsehood. Last night, iti the error of a dream, to
the rank of kings I was mounted. I loved you, princess, and
dared tell you so. The gods, at my waking, did not take all
from me. I have lost only my empire."
"To the Princesses Ulrique and Amelia: If Paris should
come upon the earth to judge between your beautiful eyes, he
would cut the apple in two, and not cause any war."
" To the Princesses Ulrique, Amelia, and Wilhelmina : Par-
don, charming Ulrique ! pardon, beautiful Amelia ! I had
thought to love only you for the rest of my life, and to serve
only under your laws ; but, at length, I hear and I see that
adorable sister upon whose steps Love follows. Ah, it is not
wronging the Three Graces to love all three of them ! "
The Princess Ulrique ventured to send him a reply in verse
and prose. She, too, had had a dream : " Apollo, with majes-
tic port, gentle and gracious, accompanied by his Nine Sisters,"
appeared before her, to rebuke her for replying to such verses
only in dull prose. The god dictated ; she wrote : Eis dream
had been a mere delusion ; it was Emilie who had appeared to
him, not Ulrique ; and so he would discover as soon as he had
returned to Brussels. What a difference between Ulrique and
them ! They had placed themselves on the heights of Helicon ;
they had made themselves famous ; but she owed all to her an-
cestors. Tn this tone Voltaire and the princess continued to
correspond until she went away to be Queen of Sweden.
After four months' absence, he set his face toward home,
484 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
bearing with him many evidences of the favor in which he was
held ; among others, a gold box from the king, in which were
several medals in gold, representing Frederic giving peace to
his subjects. Long as he had been absent, still he lingered
several days at the court of the Duke of Brunswick, writing
few letters and short to that Emilie of his, who was chafing
and anxious at Brussels. She wrote to D'Argental that she
no longer knew the man upon whom her happiness depended.
His letters and his behavior were equally strange to her. " He
is absolutely drunk ; he spends twelve days in going from
Berlin to the Hague ; he is mad for Germany and courts ; he
stayed fifteen days at Baja-euth ; he has passed fifteen days
without writing to me ; and for two months past I have learned
his designs from ambassadors and gazettes. Such conduct
would, perhaps, detach any one but me." But the truant re-
turned at length, and all was forgiven. He had had a painful
journey, he said, but his return overwhelmed him with happi-
ness ; he had never found his Emilie so amiable and so far
above the King of Prussia.
Soon they went to Paris together ; he to give details of his
mission, and to receive, perhaps, the glory and reward which
kings bestow upon subjects returning from hard and not un-
successful service. But he did not receive either glory or re-
ward. The Duchess de Chateauroux was offended because the
negotiation had not passed through her hands ; she had taken
a dislike to the person of M. Amelot, minister for foreign af-
fairs, because he stammered ; she detested him, also, because
he was controlled by M. de Maurepas, her mortal foe ; and,
when Voltaire reached Paris, she was in full intrigue to expel
the odious stammerer. A few weeks later, M. Amelot was
dismissed, and Voltaire was " enveloped in his disfavor."
After a month's stay at Paris, madame and himself returned
to Brussels, where they resumed their lawsuit and their stud-
ies, aftei'seven months' interruption. On the opening of spring
they were at Cirey, its new gardens all blooming with the
beauty which their taste had imagined. Few visitors enlivened
this retreat, it is true, but they thought, perhaps, that they
were now settled for a long period of generous toil and elegant
pleasure. President Henault looked in upon them again in
the spring of 1744, and found them immersed in intellectual
AMATEUR DIPLOMATIST AGAIN. 485
employments, with madame's new tutor in mathematics their
only companion. "If," wrote H(^nault, in his Memoirs, "one
should make a fancy picture of a delicious retreat, an asylum
of peace, of union, of calm of soul, of amenity, of talents, of
mutual esteem, of the attractions of philosophy joined to the
charms of poetry, he would have painted Cirey : a building
simple and elegant from the ground-floor up ; cabinets filled
with the apparatus of mechanics and chemistry ; Voltaire in
bed, beginning, continuing, finishing works of all kinds."
CHAPTER XLII.
VOLTAIEE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE.
After this interesting experience of court life in a foreign
country, where the king was king, he was to become a court-
ier at Versailles, where the man who governed the king's mis-
tress was king.
Again it was the Duke de Richelieu, First Gentleman of
the Chamber, who broke in upon the elevated pursuits of
Cirey, and called him to lower tasks and less congenial scenes.
The royal children were coming of age. The marriage of the
Dauphin to the Infanta of Spain, long ago agreed upon, was
soon to be celebrated, the prince having passed his sixteenth
year, and it devolved upon the First Gentleman to arrange the
marriage festival. This was no light task ; for Louis XIV.
had accustomed France to the most elaborate and magnificent
fetes. Not content with such splendors as mere wealth can
everywhere procure, that gorgeous monarch loved to enlist all
the arts and all the talents, exhibiting to his guests divertise-
ments written by Moliere, performed with original music,
and with scenery painted by artists. Several of his festivals
have to this day a certain celebrity in France, and have left
traces still noticeable. There is a public ground in Paris,
opposite the Tuileries, which is called the Place of the Carou-
sal. It was so named because it was the scene of one of this
king's fetes, in which five bodies of horsemen, or quadrilles,
as they were called, took part. One of these bodies were
dressed and equipped as Roman knights, and they were led by
the king in person. His brother, the Duke of Orleans, com-
manded a body of Persian cavalry ; the Prince of Conde, a
splendid band of Turks ; the Duke of Guise, a company of
Peruvian horse ; and a son of Cond^ shone at the head of
East Indian horsemen in gorgeous array. Imagine these five
bodies of horse galloping and manoeuvring, entering and de-
I
VOLTAIRE AT THE COUET OF FRAl^CE. 487
parting, charging and retreating, like circus riders in an ex-
tremely large and splendid tent ; and in the midst, on a lofty
platform, three queens in splendid robes, the mother of Louis,
the wife of Louis, and the widow of Charles L, who lived and
died the guest of the King of France. There were grand
doings at this festival. There were tournaments, games of
skill and daring, stately processions, concerts, plays, and buf-
fooneries, with a ball at the close.
That pageant, splendid as it was, was " effaced," as the
French say, by one which the king gave only two years after
at Versailles, probably the most sumptuous thing of the kind
ever seen. On the 5th of May, the most beautiful month of
the year in France, the king rode out to Versailles with all
his court, which then included six hundred persons, each at-
tended by retainers and servants, the whole numbering more
than two thousand individuals and as many horses. The fes-
tival was to last seven days, and the king defrayed the ex-
penses of every one of his guests. In the park and gardens
of Versailles miracles had been wrought. Theatres, amphi-
theatres, porticoes, pavilions, seemed to have sprung into being
at the waving of an enchanter's wand. On the first day there
was a kind of review, or march-past, of all who were to take
part in the games and tourneys. Under a triumphal arch the
three queens appeai'cd again, resplendent, each attended by
one hundred ladies, who were attired in the brilliant manner
of the period ; past these marched heralds pages, squires, car-
rying the devices and shields of the knights, as well as ban-
ners upon which verses were written in letters of gold. The
knights followed, in burnished armor and bright plumes, the
king at their head in the character of Roger, a famous knight
of old. All the crown diamonds glittered upon his coat and
the trappings of his horse. Both he and the animal sparkled
and blazed in the May sun ; and we can well imagine that a
handsome young man, riding with perfect grace the most
beautiful of horses, mus't have been a very pretty spectacle,
despite so much glitter. When this procession of squires and
knights had passed and made their obeisance to the queens,
a huge car followed, eighteen feet high, fifteen wide, and
twenty-four long, representing the Car of the Sun, — an im-
mense vehicle, all gilding and splendor. Behind this car
488 .LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
came groups exhibiting the Four Ages, of Gold, of Silver, of
Brass, and of Iron ; and these were followed by representa-
tions of the celestiiil signs, the seasons, and the hours. All
this, the spectators inform us, was admirably performed to the
sound of beautiful music ; and, now and then, persons would
step from the procession, and the music would cease, while they
recited poems, written for the occasion, before the queens.
Imagine shepherds, blacksmiths, farmers, harvesters, vine-dress-
ers, fawns, dryads. Pans, Dianas, Apollos, marching by, and
representing the various scenes of life and industry !
The procession ends at last. Night falls. With wondrous
rapidity four thousand great torches are lighted in an inclos-
ure fitted up as a banqueting place. Two hundred of the per-
sons who had figured in the procession now bring in various
articles of food ; the seasons, the vine-dressers, the shepherds,
the harvesters, each bear the food appropriate to them ; while
Pan and Diana advance upon a moving mountain, and alight
to superintend the distribution of the exquisite food which had
been brought in. Behind the tables was an orchestra of mu-
sicians, and when the feast was done the pleasures of the day
ended with a ball. For a whole week the festival continued,
the sports varied eYery day. There were tourneys, pageants,
hunts, shooting at a mark, and spearing the ring. Four times
the king gained the prize, and offered it to be competed for
again. There were a great number of court fools at this fes-
tival, as we still find clowns at a circus. Indeed, when we
attend a liberally appointed circus we are looking upon a show
resembling in many particulars the grand doings in the park
of Versailles when Louis XIV. entertained his court and fig-
ured as chief of the riders.
Most of the performances could have been procured by
money lavishly spent ; and, in order to reproduce them, the
Duke de Richelieu needed little assistance from the arts. But
there were items of the programme which redeemed the char-
acter of. this festival, and caused it to be remembered by the
susceptible people of France with pride. Moliere composed
for it a kind of show play, called the '' Princesse d"Elide," a
vehicle for music, ballet, and costume, with here and there a
spice of his comic talent. A farce of his, the " Forced Mar-
riage," was also played ; and the first three acts of his " Tar-
II
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 489
tuffe," the greatest effort of French dramatic genius in that
age, if not in any age, were performed for the first time.
There was only one man in France who could help a " First
Gentleman " to features of the coming fete at all resembling
these ; and to him that First Gentleman applied. Voltaire
entered into the scheme with zeal. In April, 1744, Cirey all
blooming with flowers and verdure, he began to write his fes-
tive divertisement, the " Frincesse de Navarre," the hero of
which was a kind of Spanish Duke de Richelieu. " I am mak-
ing," he wrote, " a divertisement for a Dauphin and Dauphiu-
ess whom I shall not divert ; but I wish to produce some-
thing pretty, gay, tender, worthy of the Duke de Richelieu,
director of the fete.''' It was his chief summer work, and he
labored at it with an assiduity that would have sufficed to pro-
duce three new tragedies. He very happily laid the scene of
his play in an ancient chateau close to the borders of the
Spanish province of Navarre, — an expedient which enabled
him to group upon the stage both Frenchmen and Spaniards,
with their effective contrasts of costume, and to present to the
Spanish bride and her court pleasing traits of their own coun-
trymen. The poet and the First Gentleman arranged the
processions, tlie ballets, the tableaux, the fete within a fete ;
exchanging many long letters, and pondering many devices.
There is good comic writing in this piece ; and there are two
characters, a rustic Spanish baron and his extremely simple-
minded daughter, that are worthy of a better kind of play and
occasion.
This was the year in which the King of France first braved
the hardships of the field, accompanied by his mistress, the
Duchess de Chateauroux, and attended by that surprising ret-
inue of courtiers and comedians, often described. I need not
pause to relate how, after being present at warlike operations,
he fell dangerously sick of a fever ; how the mistress and the
First Gentleman took possession of the king's quarters, and
barred the door against priests and princes ; how, as the king
grew worse, the alarmed mistress tried to come to a compro-
mise with the royal confessor, the keeper of the king's con-
science, saying to him, in substance, " Let me go away without
scandal, that is, without being sent away, and I will quietly
let yoa into the king's chamber ; " how the cautious Jesuit
490 LIFE OF VOLTAIEE.
contrived to get through a long interview without saying either
yes or no to this proposal ; how, at length, when the king
seemed near his end, she was terrified into yielding, and the
king, fearing to lose his absolution and join some of the bad
kings in the other world, sent her a positive command to de-
part, as if she had been, what the priest officially styled her, a
concubine ; how the king, having recovered, humbly courted
her return, calling upon her in person at her house ; and how,
while she affected to hesitate, and dictated terms of direst ven-
geance, even the exile of every priest, courtier, and minister
who had taken the least part in her disgrace, she died of min-
gled rage, mortification, and triumph, leaving both the king
and the First Gentleman perfectly consolable. Upon all that
we need not here dilate ; it is related with modesty and force
by the brothers De Goncourt in their work upon the " Mis-
tresses of Louis XV.," a precious series of illustrations of the
system of personal government.
The impressive fact is that none of these things impaired
the spell of the king's divinity. During the crisis of his fever
all France seemed panic-stricken ; and when he recovered, the
manifestations of joy were such as to astonish the king him-
self, inured as he was to every form and degree of adulation
from his childhood. " What have I done," cried the poor
man, " to be loved so ? " It was at this time that he received
his name of Louis the Well-Beloved, by which it was pre-
sumed that he would go to posterity, along with Louis the
Fat and Philip the Long, titles so helpful to childish memory.
On his return to Paris in September, 1744, " crowned with
victory" and recovered from the borders of the tomb, the
fetes were of such magnitude and splendor that Madame du
Chatelet came to Paris to witness them, with her poet in her
train. He brought his " Princesse de Navarre " with him,
however, and was soon in daily consultation with composer,
ministers. First Gentleman, and friends as to the resources of
an extemporized theatre.
A curious street adventure befell madarae and himself on
the night of the grand fire-works, which they rode in from a
chateau near the city to witness. They found all the world
in the streets. Voltaire gave an account of their night's ex-
ploits to the President Renault, whose visit to Cirey they now
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 491
returned in an unusual manner : " There were two thousand
backing carriages in three files ; there were the outcries of two
or three hundred thousand men, scattered amono; those car-
riages ; there were drunkards, fights with fists, streams of wine
and tallow flowing upon the people, a mounted police to aug-
ment the embroglio ; and, by way of climax to our delights,
his Royal Highness [Duke de Chartres] was returning peace-
fully to the Palais-Royal with his great carriages, his guards,
his pages ; and all this unable either to go back or advance
until three in the morning. I was with Madame du Chatelet.
Her coachman, who had never before been in Paris, was about
boldly to break her upon the wheel. Covered as she was with
diamonds, she alighted, calling upon me to follow, got through
the crowd without being either plundered or hustled, entered
your house [Rue St. Honore], sent for some roast chicken at
the corner restaurant, and drank your health very pleasantly
in that house to which every one wishes to see you return."
It was a busy time with him during the next six months,
arranging the details of the fete, with Rameau the composer,
with scene-painters, with the Duke de Richelieu, and the Mar-
quis d'Argenson. We see him cutting down eight verses to
four, and swelling four verses to eight, to meet the exigencies
of the music. We see him deep in converse with Richelieu
upon the complicated scenes of his play, — suggesting, alter-
ing, abandoning, curtailing numberless devices of the stage-
manager.
On this occasion, also, as before going to Prussia, he took
care to secure some compensation in advance. It was not his
intention to play courtier for nothing. He was resolved to
improve this opportunity, and to endeavor so to strengthen
himself at court that henceforth he could sleep in peace at his
abode, in Paris, or in the country, fearless of the Ane of Mire-
poix. To get the dull, shy, sensualized king on his side was a
material point with him. He wrote a poem on the " Events
of the Year" (1744), in which the exploits of the king upon
the tented field and his joyful recovery from sickness were
celebrated in the true laureate style. He also took measures
to have this poem shown to the king by the Cardinal de Ten-
cin, "in a moment of good-humor." He made known to two
of his friends in the ministry, M. Orry and the Marquis d'Ar-
492 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
genson, precisely what he wanted. He wanted an office which
would protect him against confessors, bishops, and Desfon-
taines, — say, for example, gentleman-iu-ordinary of the king's
chamber, a chai-ge of trifling emolument, less duty, and great
distinction. He would then be a member of the king's house-
hold, not to be molested on slight pretext by a Mirepoix, nor
to be calumniated with impunity by a journalist. But since
such offices were seldom vacant he asked to be appointed at
once writer of history (Jdstoriographe) to the king, at a nomi-
nal salary of four hundred francs a year. M. Orry thought
this very modest and suitable ; the Marquis d'Argenson was
of the same opinion ; and both engaged to aid in accomplish-
ing his wishes. If he could add to these posts an armchair
in the French Academy, which in good time he also meant
to try for, he thought he might pursue his natural vocation
in his native land without serious and constant apprehen-
sion.
But, first, the fete ! That must succeed as a preliminary.
In January, 1745, he took up his abode at Versailles to super-
intend the rehearsals, conscious of the incongruity of his em-
ployment. " I am here," he wrote to Thieriot, " braving For-
tune in her own temple ; at Versailles I play a part similar
to that of an atheist in a church." To Cideville, also : " Do
you not pity a poor devil who at fifty is a king's buffoon, and
who is more embarrassed with musicians, decorators, actors,
singers, and dancers than the eight or nine electors will soon
be in making a German Caesar ? I rush from Paris to Ver-
sailles ; I compose verses in the post-chaise ; I have to praise
the king highly, Madame the Dauphiness delicately, the royal
family sweetly. I must satisfy the court, and not displease the
city."
In the very crisis of the long preparation, February 18,
1745, seven days before the festival, Voltaire's Jansenist of a
brother, the " Abbd Arouet," Receiver-of-Fees to the Chamber
of Accounts, died at Paris, aged two months less than sixty
years. The brothers, as we know, had been long ago es-
tranged, and had rarely met of late years. The parish regis-
ter, still accessible, attests that the funeral was attended, Feb-
ruary 19th, by " Frangois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, bowgeois
of Paris;" not yet gentleman-in-ordinary. The receiver-of-
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 493
fees died, as he had lived, in what was called the odor of sanc-
tity ; presenting to the view of young and old that painful
caricature of goodness which has for some centuries, in more
than one country, made virtue more difficult than it naturally
is. From his will, which also exists, we learn that, if he did not
disinherit his brother, he came as near it as a French brother
could without doing violence to the sentiment and custom of
his country. After giving legacies to cousins, friends, and serv-
ants, he leaves one half the bulk of his estate to his nephew
and nieces, and the other half to his brother ; but with a dif-
ference. Voltaire was to enjoy his half " in usufruct only,"
the capital to fall finally " to his nephew and nieces aforesaid."
He look care, also, to prevent his brother from gaining any-
thing by the decease of any of the heirs. As the receiver-of-
fees, besides bequeathing his valuable office to a relative, died
worth, as French investigators compute, about two hundred
thousand francs, Voltaire received an increase to his income of
perhaps six thousand francs a year.^
From his brother's grave, without waiting to learn these
particulai-s, he was obliged to go post-haste to Versailles, to-
wards which all eyes were now directed. The marriage festi-
val, a tumult of all the splendors, began February 23, 1745.
The " Princess of Navarre " succeeded to admiration. A vast
and beautiful edifice had risen, at the command of Richelieu, in
the horse-training ground near the palace of Versailles, so con-
structed that it could serve as a theatre on one evening and a
ball-room on the next, both equally magnificent and complete.
The stage was fifty-six feet in depth ; and, as the boxes were
so arranged as to exhibit the audience to itself in the most ef-
fective and brilliant manner, the words spoken on the stage
could not be always perfectly heard. But this was not so im-
portant, since the play was chiefly designed as a vehicle for
music, dancing, costume, and picture. At six in the evening
the king entered and took the seat prepared for him in the
middle of the theatre, followed, in due order, by his family and
court, arrayed in the gorgeous fashion of the time. These
placed themselves around him, a splendid group, in the midst
of a great theatre filled with the nobility of the kingdom, all
sumptuous and glittering. The author of the play about to
1 Voltaire a Cirey, page 438. Menage et Finances de Voltaire, page 44.
494 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
be performed was himself thrilled by the picturesque magnifi-
cence of the spectacle which the audience jDresented, and he
regretted that a greater number of the people of France could
not have been present to behold the superb array of princes
and princesses, noble lords and ladies, adorned by master-
pieces of decorative art, which the beauty of the ladies " ef-
faced." He wished that more people could observe the noble
and becoming joy that filled every heart and beamed in all
those lovely eyes.
But, since nothing can be perfect, not even in France, this
most superb audience was so much elated with itself that it
could not stop talking. There was a buzz and hum of conver-
sation, reminding the anxious author of a hive of bees hum-
ming and buzzing around the queen. The curtain rose ; but
still they talked. The play, however, being a melange of
poetry, song, music, ballet, and dialogue, everything was en-
joyed except the good verses, here and there, which could
scarcely be caught by distant ears. Every talent in such a
piece meets its due of approval except that of the poet, who
imagines the whole before any part of it exists. At half past
nine the curtain fell upon the closing scene ; when the audi-
ence, retiring to the grounds without, found the entire facade
of the palace and adjacent structures illuminated. All were
enchanted. The king himself, the hardest man in Europe to
amuse, was so well pleased that he ordered the play to be re-
peated on another evening of the festival. " The king is
grateful to me," wrote Voltaire to his guardian angel, D'Ar-
gental. " The Mirepoix cannot harm me. What more do I
need?"
He was exhausted with the long strain upon his nervous
system. " So tired am I," he wrote to Thieriot, " that I have
neither hands, feet, nor head, and write to you by the hand
of another." But he soon had the consolation of receiving
the king's promise of the next vacancy among the gentlemen-
in-ordinary, and his immediate appointment as writer of his-
tory at an annual salary of two thousand francs. Thus the
year consumed in these courtly toils, he thought, was not with-
out its compensations. Nor did he relax his vigilance, nor
give ministers peace, until these ofiices were securely his by
letters patent and the king's signature. His brevet of histo-
J
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 495
riographe was signed b}^ the king April 1st, and tlie salary-
began January 1, 1745. The document ran thus : —
"To-day, April 1, 1745. The king being at Versailles, taking into
consideration that tlie recompenses which his majesty accords to those
who devote themselves to the study of letters contribute to their
progress by the emulation which they excite, no one has appeared to
his majesty more worthy to receive marks of his benevolence and to be
distinguished by an lionorable title than the Sieur Arouet de Voltaire,
who, by the superiority of his talents and his steady application, has
made the most rapid progress in all the sciences that he has cultivated,
and of which his works, received with just applause, are the fruit.
To this effect his majesty has retained and retains the said Sieur de
Voltaire in quality of historiographer of France, permits him to take
the title and quality of the same in all documents and papers whatso-
ever, desiring him to enjoy all the honors and prerogatives which per-
sons hitherto invested with such titles have enjoyed and had a right
to enjoy, together with the sum of two thousand francs of emolument,
payable annually during his life, beginning with the 1st of January
last, according to the conditions and ordinances which will be drawn
up by virtue of the present brevet, as well as to certify its validity.
" Signed, " Louis." ^
When he accepted this office he was far from anticipating
an increase of labor through it. But, in truth, no poet laure-
ate ever won his annual pipe of sack by labors so arduous as
those by which Voltaire earned this salary of two thousand
francs. Several volumes of history attest his diligence. Dur-
ing the first two or three years of his holding the place, he
was historiographer, laureate, writer of royal letters and min-
isterial dispatches, complimenter of the royal mistress, and
occasionally court dramatist and master of the revels.
The marriage festivities at Versailles drew to a close, and
all that brilliant crowd dispersed. From the splendors of the
court he was suddenly called away to attend the son of Ma-
dame du Chatelet through the small-pox. He assisted to save
the future Duke du Chatelet for the guillotine, applying to
his case his own experience of the two hundred pints of lem-
onade. That duty done and his forty days of quarantine ful-
filled, he returned to court, wdiere the minister for foreign
affairs had a piece of work for his pen. Elizabeth, Empress
of Russia, had offered her mediation to the King of France,
1 Voltaire k Cirey, page 445.
496 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
and the task of writing the king's reply, accepting tlie offer,
was assigned to Voltaire, who performed it in the loftiest style
of sentimental politics. If Louis XV. took the trouble to
glance over this composition he must have been pleased to find
himself saying that " kings can aspire to no other glory than
that of promoting the happiness of their subjects," and swear-
ing that he " had never taken up arms except with a view to
promote the interests of peace." It was an amiable, effusive
letter, in the taste of the period, being written by the man
who made the taste of the period. Later in the summer he
drafted a longer dispatch to the government of Holland, re-
monstrating against its purpose of sending aid to the King of
England against the Pretender. It was he also who wrote
the manifesto to be published in Great Britain on the landing
of the French expedition under the Duke de Richelieu, in aid
of the Pretender. Whenever, indeed, during 1745, 1746, and
1747, the ministry had occasion for a skillful pen, Voltaire was
employed. We perceive in this part of his correspondence
the mingled horror and contempt that war excited in his
mind. " Give us peace, Monseigneur," is the burden of his cry
to the Marquis d'Argenson in confidential notes ; and we see
him, with his usual easy assurance, suggesting such marriages
for the royal children as would " render France happy by a
beautiful peace, and your name immortal despite the fools."
Whatever philosophers may think of war, few citizens can
resist the contagious delirium of victory after national defeat
and humiliation. The King of France again, in 1745, was
posed by his advisers in the part of conqueror. From a hill, he
and the Dauphin looked on while Marshal Saxe won the de-
cisive and fruitful victory of Fontenoy over the English Duke
of Cumberland and the forces of the allies, with a loss of eight
thousand men on each side. Voltaire received the news at
Paris, late in the evening, direct from D'Argenson, who was
with the king in the field. He dashed upon paper a congrat-
ulatory note to the minister: "Ah! the lovely task for your
historian! In three hundred years the kings of France have
done nothing so glorious. I am mad with joy ! Good-night,
Monseigneur ! "
In a few days came that letter from D'Argenson in reply to
" Monsieur the Historian " which has long been justly re-
VOLTAIRE AT THE COUKT OF FRANCE. 497
garded as one of the curiosities of the regime. It affords mat-
ter both for the hiughing and the crying philosopher.
" It was a glorious sight [wrote M. d'Argenson to Voltaire] to see
the king and the Dauphin writing upon a drum, surrounded by the
conquerors and the conquered, the prisoners, the dying and the dead.
I had the honor to meet the king on Sunday near the field of battle.
When I arrived at the camp from Paris I was told that the king was
gone an airing. I immediately procured a horse, and came up to his
majesty near a place which was in view of the enemy's camp I then
learned, for the first time, what his majesty's intentions were, and I
never saw a man so cheerful as he was upon the occasion. Our con-
versation turned precisely on a point of history that you have discussed
in four lines, — Which of our kings gained the last royal battle? —
and I assure you that his majesty's Courage did not wrong his judgment,
nor his judgment his memory.
" We then went to lie down upon the straw. Never was there a ball
night more gay, or so many hon-mots. We reposed between the inter-
ruptions of couriers and aids-de-camp. The king sang a very di'oll song
of several verses. As for the Dauphin, he went to the battle as to a
hare-hunting, saying, ' What is all this ? ' A cannon-ball struck in the
clay, and bespattered a man near the king. Our masters laughed
very heartily at the man who was bespattered. One of my brother's
grooms, who was behind, received a wound in the head with a musket
ball.
" It is certainly true, and without flattery, that the king gained the
battle by his own steadiness and resolution. You will see different
accounts and details of this affair. You will be told of a terrible mo-
ment, in which we beheld a second edition of Dettingen, where the
French were prostrated before the English. Their rolling fire, which
resembled the flames of hell, did, I confess, stupefy the most uncon-
cerned spectators, and we began to despair for the state.
" Some of our generals, who have more heart and courage than abil-
ities, gave very prudent advice. They dispatched orders all the way
to Lisle ; they doubled the king's guard ; they had everything packed
up. The king laughed at all this, and, going from the left to the cen-
tre, asked for the corps-de-reserve and the brave Lowendahl : but there
was no occasion. A charge was made by a sham corps-de-reserve, con-
sisting of the same cavalry which had already made an unsuccessful
attack, the king's household, the carbineers, those of the French guards
who had not advanced, and the Irish brigade, who are excellent troops,
especially when they march against the English and Hanoverians.
" Your friend, M. de Eichelieu, is another Bayard ; it was he who
VOL. I. 32
498 XIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
gave and put into execution the advice to attack the infantry like
hunters or foragers, pell-mell, the hand lowered, the arm shortened,
masters, servants, officers, cavalry, infantry, all together. Nothing
can withstand this French vivacity, which is so much spoken of; and
in ten minutes the battle was gained by this unexpected stroke. The
heavy English battalions turned their backs upon us; and, in short,
there were fourteen thousand of them killed.-'
" The heavy artillery had indisputably the honor of this terrible
slaughter ; there never were so many or such large cannon fired in
one battle as at the battle of Fontenoy ; there were no less than a
hundred. It would seem, sir, as if the poor enemy had willingly per-
mitted everything to reach the army that could be destructive to them,
the cannon from Douay, the gens (Tarmes, and the musketeers.
"There is one anecdote of the last attack I mentioned, which I
hope will not be forgotten. The Dauphin, from a natural impulse,
drew his sword in the most graceful manner, and insisted upon charg-
ing ; but he was requested to desist. After all, to mention the bad
and the good, I observed a habit, too easily acquired, of looking with
tranquillity on the dying and the dead, and on the reeking wounds
which were to be seen on every part of the field of battle. I own that
my heart failed, and that I stood in need of a cordial. I attentively
observed our young heroes, who seemed too indifferent upon this oc-
casion. I am fearful that this inhuman carnage may harden their dis-
positions through the course of their lives.
" The triumph was the finest thing in the world : God save the king ;
hats in the air and upon bayonets ; the compliments of the sovereign
to his troops ; visiting the entrenchments, villages, and redoubts ; joy,
glory, and tenderness ! But the ground of the picture was human
blood and fragments of human flesh !
•' At the end of the triumph the king honored me with a conversa-
tion on the subject of peace, and I have dispatched some couriers.
" The king was much entertained yesterday in the trenches ; they
fired a great deal at him, but he remained there three hours. I was
employed in my closet, which is my trench ; for I confess to you that
I have been much retarded in business by all these dissipations. I
trembled at every shot I heard fired. I went the day before yesterday
to see the trenches, but I cannot say there is anything curious in them
in the day-time. We shall h^ve the Te Deum sung to-day under a tent,
and there will be a general feu-de-joie of the whole army, which the
king will go to see from Mont Trinity. It will be very fine.
" Adieu ! Present my humble respects to Madame du Chatelet."
1 There were indeed fourteen thousand men missing at the muster, but about
six thousand returned the same day.
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 499
Voltaire read this epistle with the delight becoming a court-
ier of the period, and set to work instantly to turn it into
heroic verse. His poem, "Fontenoy," of three hundred lines or
more, was scattered over the delirious city damp from the
press, and in a few days was declaimed in every town of the
kingdom. Edition after edition was sold. " Five editions in
ten days ! " The author, as his custom was, added, erased,
altered, corrected; offending some by omitting their names,
offending others by inserting names odious to them ; working
all one night to make the poem a less imperfect expression of
the national joy ; not forgetting to dedicate it to the king, and
to get a copy placed in his hands. " The king deigns to be
content with it," he wrote. Thousands of copies were sold in
the first month, and there were two burlesques of the poem
in the second.
In the very ecstasy of the general enthusiasm, he still re-
peats, in a private note to D'Argenson, " Peace, Monseigneur,
peace, and you are a great man, even among the fools ! "
He was now in high favor, even with the king, who had
said to Marshal Saxe that the " Princesse de Navarre " was above
criticism. The marshal himself gave Madame du Chatelet
this agreeable information. " After that," said the author,
"I must regard the king as the greatest connoisseur in his
kingdom." He renewed his intimacy with his earl 3' patron,
the Duchess du Maine, who still held court at the chateau of
Sceaux, near by. By great good luck, too, as doubtless he
regarded it at the time, he was acquainted with the new mis-
tress, Pompadour, before she was Pompadour. He knew her
when she was only the most bewitching young wife in France,
cold to her rich and amorous young husband, and striving by
every art that such women know to catch the king's eye as
he hunted in the royal forest near her abode. Already, even
while the king was sleeping on histrionic straw on the field
near Fontenoy, it was settled that the dream of her life was
to be realized. She was to be Petticoat HI.
This summer, during the king's absence at the seat of war,
Voltaii-e was frequently at her house, and had become estab-
lished in her favor. She was a gifted, brilliant, ambitious
woman, of cold temperament, who courted this infamy as men
seek honorable posts which make them conspicuous, powerful,
500 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
and envied. In well-ordered nations, accomplished men win
such places by thirty years' well-directed toil in the public ser-
vice. She won her place, and kept it nineteen years, by amus-
ing the least amusable of men, and gratifying a sensuality witli
which she had no sympathy whatever. She paid a high price.
In return, she governed France, enriched her family, promoted
her friends, exiled her enemies, owned half a dozen chateaux,
and left an estate of thirty-six millions of francs. ^
With such and so many auxiliaries supporting his new
position, the historiographer of France, if he had been a
younger man, might have felt safe. But he knew his ground.
Under personal government nations usually have two masters,
the king and the priest, between whom there is an alliance,
offensive and defensive. He had gained some favor with the
king, the king's ministers, and the king's mistress. But the
priest remained hostile. The king being a coward, a fit of
the colic might frighten him into turning out the mistress
and letting in the confessor ; and, suppose the colic success-
ful, instantly a pious and bigoted Dauphin became king, with
a Mirepoix as chief priest ! Moreover, to depend upon the
favor of either king or mistress is worse than basing the pros-
perity of an industrial community upon a changeable fraction
in a tariff bill.
Revolving such thoughts in an anxious mind, Voltaire con-
ceived a notable scheme for going behind the Mirepoix, and
silencing him forever by capturing the favor of the Pope.
Benedict XIV. was a scholar, a gentleman of excellent tem-
per, and no bigot. He owed his election to his agreeable
qualities. When the cardinals were exhausted by days and
nights of fruitless balloting, he said, with his usual gayety and
good humor, "Why waste so much time in vain debates and
researches ? Do you want a saint ? Elect Gotti. A politi-
cian ? Aldovrandi. A good fellow ? Take me." And they
took him.
It was soon after the close of the fete at Versailles that Vol-
taire consulted the Marquis d'Argenson, minister for foreign
affairs, upon his project of getting, as he expressed it, " some
mark of papal benevolence that could do him honor both in
this world and the next." The minister shook his head. He
1 2 Les Maitresses de Louis XV., 98.
I
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 501
said it was scarcely possible to mingle in that way things ce-
lestial and political. Like a true courtier of the period, the
poet betook himself to a lady, Mademoiselle du Thil, a con-
nection of Madame du Chatelet, and extremely well disposed
toward himself. She had a friend in the Pope's household,
the Abbe de Tolignan, whom she easily engaged in the cause.
D'Argenson, also, bore the scheme in mind when he wrote
to the French envoy at Rome. Voltaire, meanwhile, read the
works of his Holiness, of which there are still accessible fif-
teen volumes, and in various ways "coquetted" with him,
causing him to know that the celebrated Voltaire was one of
his readers. The good-natured Pope was prompt to respond.
The Abb^ de Tolignan having asked for some mark of papal
favor for Voltaire, the Pope gave two of his large medals to
be forwarded to the French poet, the medals bearing the
Pope's own portrait. His Holiness also caused a polite letter
to be written to him by his secretary, asking his acceptance of
the medals. Then the French envoy, ignorant of these pro-
ceedings, also applied to the Pope on behalf of Voltaire, re-
questing for him one of his large medals. The Pope, ignorant
of the envoy's ignorance, replied, " To St. Peter's itself I
should not give any larger ones ! " The envoy was mystified,
and Voltaire, on receiving a report of the affair, begged the
minister for foreign affairs to write to the envoy in explana-
tion.
The two large medals reached the poet in due time. He
thought Benedict XIV. the most plump-cheeked holy father
the church had enjoyed for a long time, and one who " had
the air of knowing very well tvhat all that was worth.'" He
wrote two Latin verses as a legend for the Pope's portrait, to
the effect that Lambertinus, officially styled Benedict XIV.,
was the ornament of Rome and the father of the world, who
by his works instructed the earth, and adorned it by his vir-
tues. Emboldened by success, he ventured upon an audacity
still more exquisite, and one which would not be concealed in
the archives of the foreign office. All Europe should know
the favor in which this son of the church was held at the pa-
pal court. He resolved to dedicate to the Pope that tragedy
of " Mahomet," which the late Cardinal de Fleury had ad-
mired and suppressed. He sent a copy of the drama to the
Pope, with the following letter : —
602 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
[Paris, August 17, 1745.] "Very Holy Father, — Your Holi-
ness will be pleased to pardon the liberty which one of the humblest,
but one of the warmest, admirers of virtue takes in consecrating to
the chief of the true religion a production against the founder of a
religion false and barbarous. To whom could I more properly ad-
dress a satire upon the cruelty and the errors of a false prophet than
to the vicar and imitator of a God of peace and truth ? Will your
Holiness deign to permit that I place at your feet both the book and
its author ? I dare ask your protection for the one, and your bene-
diction for the other. It is with these sentiments of profound venera-
tion that I prostrate myself and kiss your sacred feet."
The Pope delayed not to accept the homage. He answered
the letter in the tone of a scholar and man of the world : —
" Benedict XIV., Pope, to his dear son, salutation and Apostolic
Benediction. Some weeks ago there was presented to me on your
behalf your admirable tragedy of ' Mahomet,' which I have read with
very great pleasure. Cardinal Passionei gave me afterwards, in your
name, the beautiful poem of ' Fontenoy.' M. Leprotti has communi-
cated to me your distich for my portrait ; ^ and Cardinal Valenti yes-
terday sent me your letter of August 17th. Each of these marks of
your goodness merited a particular expression of my gratitude ; but
permit me to unite these different attentions in order to render you
my thanks for all of them at once. You ought not to doubt the sin-
gular esteem with which merit so acknowledged as yours inspires me.
When your distich was published in Rome, we were told that a man
of letters, a Frenchman, being in a company when it was sjjoken of,
discovered in the first verse a false quantity. He pretended that the
word hie, which you employ as short, ought always to be long. We
replied that he was in error; that that syllable was short or long in
the poets indifferently, Virgil having made the word short in this
verse, —
' Solus hie inflexit sensus, animumque labantem/
and long in this, —
' Hie finis Priami fatorum, hie exitus ilium.'
"This answer was, perhaps, pretty well for a man who has not read
Yirgil in fifty years. Although you are the interested party in this
difference, we have so high an idea of your candor and integrity, that
we do not hesitate to make you the judge between your critic and
ourselves. Nothing remains but for us to grant you our Ajiostolic
Benediction.
1 The distich was as follows : —
" Lambertinus hie est, Romse decus, et pater orbis,
Qui munduin scriptis doeuit, virtutibus oniat.''
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 503
" Given at Rome, on the clay of Holy Mary the greater, Septem-
ber 19, 1745, the sixth year of our pontificate."
To this letter Voltaire replied with curious happiness. He
contrived to flatter the Pope very agreeably, while surpassing
him on his own ground : —
[Voltaire to Pope Benedict XIV.] " The lineaments of your Holi-
ness are not better expressed in the medals with which you have had
the particular goodness to gratify me, than are those of your mind
and character in the letter with which you have deigned to honor me.
I place at your feet my very humble and heart-felt thanks. I am
obliged to recognize the infallibility of your Holiness in your literary
decisions, as in other things more important. Your Holiness has a
better acquaintance with the Latin tongue than the French fault-finder
whose mistake you deigned to correct. I admire the aptness of your
citation from Virail, Amonsf the monarchs who have been amateurs
in literature, the sovereign pontiffs have always distinguished them-
selves ; but none have adorned like your Holiness the most profound
erudition with the richest ornaments of polite literature.
'Agnoscoi rerum dominos, gentemque togatam.'
" If the Frenchman who censured with so little justice the syllable
hie had had his Virgil as present to his memory as your Holiness,
he would have been able to cite, very apropos, a verse in which this
word is both short and long. That beautiful verse seemed to me
to contain the presage of the favors with which your generous good-
ness has overwhelmed me. It is this : —
* Hie vir, hie est, tibi quern promitti ssepius audis.' ^
" Rome ought to resound with this verse, to the exaltation of
Benedict XIV. It is with sentiments of the most profound vener-
ation and of the most lively gratitude that I kiss your sacred feet." *
Soon an edition of the tragedy of " IVIahomet " appeared,
preceded by this correspondence, in Italian and in French,
and thus the world was informed, in the most interesting man-
ner, that the author stood well with the head of the* church.
He continued to labor for the amusement of the court. He
wrote his opera of the " Temple of Glory," set to music
by Rameau, for the grand fete to be given at Fontainebleau
1 For Romanes. 1 ^neid, 281.
2 Tliis is the man, this is he [Augustus Caesarl whom thou hast often beard
promised to tliee. 6 ^neid, 791.
* 5 (Euvres de Voltaire, 352.
504 LITE OF VOLTAIRE.
in honor of tne late successes of the French in the field. He
also set about preparing a more durable memorial of the
two campaigns in which the king had figured, — a history of
the same, compiled from the lips of eye-witnesses. He flew
at this patriotic task, as he says, "with passion," and con-
tinued it until his work became a considerable history of the
reicrn of Louis XV.
An incident which occurred at the beginning of this task
amused him very much, and added one mure supper story
to his ample stock. Having heard that the secretary of the
Duke of Cumberland, during the recent operations, bore the
name of his old English friend Falkener, ambassador at Con-
stantinople, he wrote to the secretary, asking for information
relating to those operations. He wrote in English : —
" You bear a name that I love and respect. I have, these twenty
years since, the honor to be friend to Sir Everard Falkeuer. I hope
it is a recommendation towards you. A better one is my love for
truth. I am bound to speak it. My duty is to write the history
of the late campaigns, and my king and my country will approve me
the more, the greater justice I'll render to the english nation. Though
our nations are ennemies at present, yet they ought for ever to enter-
tain a mutual esteem for one another : my intention is to relate what
the duke of Cumberland has done worthy of himself and his name, and
to enregister the most particular and noble actions of your chiefs and
officers, which deserve to be recorded, and what passed most worthy
of praise at Dettingen and Fontenoy, particularities, if there is any,
about general sir James Campbel's death, in short, all that deserves
to be transmitted to posterity. I dare or presume to apply to you,
sir, on that purpose ; if you are so kind as to send me some mem-
oirs, I'll make use of them. If not, I'll content myself with relat-
inof what has been acted noble and glorious on our side ; and I will
mourn to leave in silence many great actions done by your nation,
which it would have been glorious to relate."
We can imagine his delight on receiving in reply a cor-
dial letter from Sir Everard himself. It was Sir Everard
Falkener who was serving under the Duke of Cumberland.
" How could I guess, my dear and honorable friend [wrote Vol-
taire] that your Mussulman person had shifted Galata for Flanders ?
and had passed from the seraglio to the closet of the duke of Cum-
berland ? But now I conceive it is more pleasant to live with such
a prince, than to speak in state to a grand-visir by the help of au
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 505
interpreter. Had I thought it was my dear sir Everard who was
secretary to the great prince, I had certainly taken a journey to
Flanders. My duty is to visit the place where your nation gave such
noble proofs of her steady courage. An historian ought to look on
and view the theatre in order to dispose the scenery of his work."
Sir Evenird supplied him with abundant documents, and
continued to serve him in various ways, as well in the field as
at home. One short English letter of the next campaign
from Voltaire to Falkener may find place here : —
[Paris, June 13, 174G.] "My dearest and most respected
Friend, — Although I am a popish dog, much addicted to his Holiness,
and like to be saved by his power, yet I retain for my life something of
the english in me ; and I cannot but pay you my compliment upon the
brave conduct of your illustrious duke. You have made a rude, rough
camfDaign in a climate pretty different from that of Turky. You have
got amongst your prisoners of war a French nobleman called the mar-
quis d'Eguilles, brother to that noble and ingenious madman who has
wrote the Lettres juives. The marquis is possessed of as much wit as
his brother, but is a little wiser. I think nobody deserves more your
obliging attention, I dare say kindness. I recommend him to you
from my heart. My dear Falkener is renowned in France for many
virtues and dear to me for many benefits ; let him do me this new
favour, I will be attached to him for all my life. Farewell, my dear
friend ; let all men be friends, let peace reign over all Europe ! "
Voltaire suggested to the minister for foreign affairs that
he be sent on a secret mission to the quarters of the Duke of
Cumberland, in the interest of peace, concealing his object
under a pretext of visiting his old friend, the duke's secretary.
The scheme, however, was not carried out.
Early in December, 1745, the victories of the French army
were duly celebrated at Fontainebleau, when the Duke de
Richelieu again called into being a hall like that which had
served for the marriage festival, and again Voltaire slione as
author of the divertisement performed in it. He presented to
the splendid auditory gathered on the occasion three kinds of
royal glory. In the first act, Belus figures, a conqueror pure
and simple, barbarous and bloody, — a mere despoiler and des-
olater. Him the Muses disdain and the gods drive from the
Temple of Glory. Next appears Bacchus-Alexander, con-
queror of India, himself conquered by his appetites, roaming
the earth with his bacchanalian crew. To him also a place is
606 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
denied in the Temple of Glory. Last comes benign, majestic
Trajan, aiming only at the glory of Rome and the welfare of
the world ; valiant in war, but loving peace ; deaf to calumny,
but ever solicitous to seek out and reward modest worth, —
such a king, in short, as intoxicated France longed to be able
to think that Louis XV. was. To him, of course, the Temple
of Glory flung open wide its gates, and Louis-Trajan entered,
amid the rapturous effusion of the spectators. But he entered
not alone. Plotine, a new and tender conquest, appears at his
side, and goes with him into the Temple, while the chorus
sings, —
" Toi qne la Victoire
Couronne en ce jour,
Ta plus belle gloire
Vient du tendre amour." ^
Who could fail to recognize Louis and Pompadour in Trajan
and Plotine ? No true courtier. This opera, aided by music,
dance, song, and spectacle, all in great perfection, was highly
successful. At the close of the performance, the author, much
elated, went to the door of the royal box, and said to the Duke
de Richelieu, who was near the king, and said it loud enough
for the king to hear, " Is Trajan content ? " The king had
the grace to be disconcerted by this enormous compliment, and
made no remark upon it. He ordered the divertisement to be
repeated on a subsequent evening ; and it served on similar
occasions during the long favor of Richelieu.^
During this fete^ Madame du ChS,telet was conspicuous
among the grand ladies of the court, and enjoyed once more
her hereditary right of sitting in the queen's presence on a
stool without a back, and of losing her money at the queen's
play.
It is more agreeable to observe that Voltaire used this gleam
of court favor for the benefit of others, as well as himself. To
this period belongs the pleasing story of his inviting Marmon-
tel to Paris, and starting him upon the perilous career of liter-
ature. With us a poor and ambitious student works his way
through college by teaching, by mechanical labor, by harvest-
ing, by serving as waiter at summer hotels ; in France, he
^ Thou whom Victory crowns to-day, thy most beautiful glory comes of tender
love.
2 Voltaire a la Cour, par Desnoiresterres, page 32.
VOLTAIEEAT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 607
often competes for the liberal prizes offered every year by the
"Academies" of the larger towns for the best poems and es-
says. Marmontel, destined to a long and illustrious litei'ary life,
was at twenty an extremely poor student at a college of Tou-
louse. For the prize of poetry, while as yet he knew not one
rule or usage of prosody, he selected as his subject the Inven-
tion of Gunpowder, and launched boldly into the sublime,
" Kneaded by some infernal Fury's bloody hands."
The ambitious competitor has related, in his own interest-
ing manner, the results of this venture, —
" I could not [he says in his Memoirs] recover from my astonish-
ment at having written so fine an ode. I recited it with all the intox-
ication of enthusiasm and self-love ; and when I sent it to the Academy
I had no doubt of its bearing away the prize. It did not succeed ; it
did not even olitain for me the consolation of honorable mention. I
was enraged, and, in my indignation, I wrote to Voltaire, sent him my
poem, and cried to him for vengeance. Every one knows with what
kindness he received all young men who announced any talent for
poetry ; the French Parnassus was an empire whose sceptre he would
have yielded to no one on earth, but whose subjects he delighted to
see multiply. He sent me one of those answers that he could turn
with so much grace, and of which he was so liberal. The praises he
bestowed on my poem amply consoled me for what I called the injus-
tice of the Academy, whose judgment, as I said, did not weigh one
single grain in the balance against such a suffrage as his. But what
flattered me still more than his letter was the present he sent me of a
copy of his works, corrected by his own hand. I was mad with pride
and joy, and ran about the town and the colleges with his present in
my hands. Thus began my correspondence with that illustrious man,
and that intimate friendship which lasted, without any change, for five
and thirty years, dissolved only by his death.
" I sent ray mother the handsome present he made me of his works.
She read them, and (on her death-bed) was reading them again. ' If
you see him,' said she, ' thank him for the sweet moments he has
made your mother pass ; tell him that she knew by heart the second
act of " Zaire," that she wept over " Merope," and that the verses in
the " Henriade " upon Hope have never left her memory or her
heart.' "
The young man, compelled at length to decide between the
church, the law, and literature, consulted the chief of litera-
508 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
ture, wlio advised him to remove at once to Paris and try the
career of letters. Marmontel replied that his poverty forbade
so doubtful and costly an experiment. During the December
fete at Fontainebleau, Voltaire was so happy as to get from
the Count d'Orry, comptroller-general of the finances, the prom-
ise of a place in the public service for the young poet. Let
Marmontel relate what followed : —
"Toward the end of this year [1745], a little note from Voltaire
came, and determined me to set off for Paris. ' Come,' said he, ' and
come without inquietude. M. Orry, whom I have spoken to, under-
takes to provide for you.' Who was M. Orry ? I knew not. I went
to ask my good friends at Toulouse, and showed them my note. ' M.
Orry ! ' exclaimed they. ' Why, it is the comptroller-general of finance !
My dear friend, your fortune is made : you will be a farmer-general.
Remember us in your glory. Protected by the minister, it will be
easy for you to gain his esteem and confidence. You will be at the
source of favor. Dear Marmontel, make some of its rivulets flow
down to us. A. little streamlet of Pactolus will content our ambi-
tion.' One would be receiver-general ; another would be satisfied with
an humbler place in the finances, or with some other employment of
two or three hundred a year ; and this depended on me ! "
With six louis d'or in his pocket, and a translation into
French of Pope's " Rape of the Lock," he set out for Paris, a
journey of three hundred miles, and reached at length, with
palpitating heart and " a kind of religious fear," the abode of
Voltaire.
" Persuaded [he continues] that I should have to speak first, I had
turned in twenty ways the phrase with which I should address him,
and was satisfied with none. He relieved me from this difiiculty. On
hearing my name, he came to me, and extending his arms, ' My good
friend,' said he, ' I am very glad to see you. Yet I have bad news to
tell you. M. Orry had undertaken to provide for you ; M. Orry is
no lonjier in favor.'
" I could scarcely have received a more severe, more sudden, or
more unexpected blow ; but I was not stunned by it. I have always
been astonished at the courage I have felt on great occasions, for my
heart is naturally feeble. ' Well, sir,' said I, ' then I must contend
with adversity ; I have long known and long struggled with it.' ' I
am glad,' said he, ' to find you have confidence in your own powers.
Yes, my good friend, the true and most worthy resource of a man of
letters is in himself and in liis genius. But, till yours shall have pro-
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 509
cured you something upon which to subsist, — I speak to you candidly,
as a friend, — I must provide for you. I have not invited you hither
to abandon you. If, even at this moment, you are in want of money,
tell me so : I will not suffer you to have any other creditor than Vol-
taire.' I returned him thanks for his kindness, assuring him that, for
some time at least, I should not need to profit by it, and that, when I
should, I would confidently have recourse to him. ' You promise me,'
said he, ' and I depend on you. In the mean time, let 's hear what
you think of applying to.' ' I really don't know ; you must decide
for me.' ' The stage, my friend, the stage is the most enchanting of
all careers ; it is there that in one day you may obtain glory and for-
tune. One successful piece renders a man at the same time rich and
celebrated ; and if you take pains you will succeed.' ' I do not want
ardor,' replied I ; ' but what should I do for the stage ? ' ' Write a
good comedy,' said he, in a firm tone. ' Alas, sir, how should I draw
jDortraits ? I do not know faces.' He smiled at this answer. ' Well,
then, write a tragedy.' I answered that I was not quite so ignorant
of the passions and the heart, and that I would willingly make the
attempt. Thus passed my first interview with this illustrious man."
INIarmontel began at once to study the art of play-writing,
and an old actor soon set him upon the true path by telling
him that the art of writing plays that act well can be learned
only at the theatre. " He is right," said Voltaire ; " the thea-
tre is the school for us all. It must be open to you, and I ought
to have thought of it sooner." He procured free admission
for the young poet, and, erelong, Marraontel produced his
" Dionysius " with a success that fixed his desthiy. Voltaire
himself witnessed his second tragedy, " Aristomcne."
" He had expressed [says Marmontel] an inclination to see my
piece before it was completed, and I had read to him four acts, with
which he was pleased. But the act I had still to write gave him some
inquietude, and not without reason. In the four acts that he had
heard, the action appeared complete and uninterrupted. ' What ! '
said he, after the reading, ' do you pretend, in your second tragedy, to
supersede a general rule ? When I wrote " The Death of Cassar," in
three acts, it was for a boys' school, and my excuse was the constraint I
was under to introduce only men. But you, on the great theatre, and
on a subject where nothing could confine you, give a mutilated piece in
four acts ; for which unsightly form you have no example ! This, at
your age, is an unfortunate license that I cannot excuse.' * And, in-
deed,' said I, ' this is a license I have no intention of taking. In my
own imagination, my tragedy is in five acts, which I hope to complete.'
610 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
' And how ? ' inquired he. ' I have just heard the last act ; all is per-
fectly coherent ; and you surely do not think of beginning the action
earlier ? ' * No,' answered I, ' jthe action will begin and finish as you
have seen ; the rest is my secret. What I meditate is, perhaps, folly.
But, however perilous the step may be, I must take it ; and if you
damp my courage all my labor will be lost.' ' Cheerily, then, my
good friend, go on ; risk, venture ; it is always a good sign. In our
profession, as in war, there are fortunate temerities ; and the greatest
beauties frequently burst forth under the most desperate difficulties.'
" At the first representation he insisted on placing himself behind me
in my box ; and I owe him this testimony, that he was almost as agi-
tated and tremulous as myself. ' Now,' said he, 'before the curtain
is drawn up, tell me from what incident you have drawn the act that
was wantino-.' I made him recollect that at the end of the second act
it was said that the wife and son of Aristomene were going to be tried,
and that at the commencement of the third it appeared that they had
been condemned. ' Well,' said I, ' this trial that was then supposed
to take place between the acts I have introduced on the stage.'
' What ! a criminal court on the stage ? ' exclaimed he. ' You make
me tremble.' ' Yes,' said I, 'it is a dangerous sand, but it was in-
evitable ; it is Clairon that must save me.'
"'Aristomene,' had no less success than 'Dionysius.' Voltaire at
every burst of applause pressed me in his arms. But what astonished
him, and made him leap for joy, was the effect of the third act. When
he beheld Leonide, loaded with irons, like a criminal, appear before her
judges, command them by her dignity and magnanimity, get full pos-
session of the stage and of the souls of the spectators, turn her defense
into accusation, and, distinguishing among the senators the virtuous
friends of Aristomene from his faithless enemies, attack, overwhelm,
and convict them of perfidy, amid the applauses she received, ' Brava,
Clairon ! ' cried Voltaire, ' Made animo, generose puer !
The coming of Marmontel to Paris added one more to the
ever-increasing number of young writers whom Voltaire had
assisted to form. The new men of talent were his own, and
they were preparing to aid him in future contests with hostile
powers. The Marquis de Vauvenargues, the young soldier
who was compelled by ill healtli to abandon the career of arms,
in which he was already distinguished, and now aspired to
serve his country in the intellectual life, had been for some
time one of Voltaire's most beloved friends. His first, his only
work, "Introduction to the Knowledge of the Human Mind,"
was just appearing from the press, heralded by Voltaire's zeal-
I
VOLTAIRE AT THE COURT OF FRANCE. 611
0U8 commendation. " My dear Master," the young disciple
loved to begin Lis letters ; and Voltaire, in writing to him, used
all those endearing expressions which often make a French
letter one long and fond caress. He sank into the grave in
1747, but his name and his work survive. It is evident from
his correspondence that he was of a lofty and generous nature,
capable of the true public spirit, — the religion of the new
period.
Marmontel reached Paris in time to witness a day of tri-
umph for Voltaire, which had been long deferred. There was
a vacancy at the French Academy early in 1746. Mirepoix's
voice was not heard on this occasion, and Voltaire, without se-
rious trouble, succeeded in obtaining a unanimous election to
the chair. This event could not have been at that time any
increase of honor to an author of his rank. He valued an aca-
demic chair for himself and for his colleagues, such as Mar-
montel, D'Alembert, and others, as an additional protection
against the Mirepoix. Members of the Academy had certain
privileges in common with the officers of the king's household,
Tliey could not be compelled to defend a suit out of Paris ;
they were accountable to the king directly, and could not be
molested except by the king's command. Above all, they stood
in the sunshine of the king's effulgent majesty; they shared in
the mystic spell of ranh, which no American citizen can ever
quite understand, and of which even Europeans of to-day begin
to lose the sense. He was £t little safer now against all the
abuses of the royal power, usually covered by lettres de cachet.
May 9, 1746, was the day of his public reception at the
Academy, when, according to usage, it devolved upon him to
deliver a set eulogium upon his departed predecessor. The
new member signalized the occasion by making his address
much more than that. His eulogy was brief, but sufficient,
and, when he had performed that pious duty, he struck into an
agreeable and very ingenious discourse upon the charms, the
limits, the defects, and the wide-spread triumphs of the French
language. With that matchless art of his, he contrived in
kingly style to compliment all his "great friends and allies,"
while adhering to his subject with perfect fidelity. Was it not
one of the glories of the French language that a Frederic should
adopt it as the language of his court and of his friendships, and
512 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
that Italian cardinals and pontiffs should speak it like natives?
His dear Princess Ulrique, too, — then Queen of Sweden, — was
not French her native tongue ? There were some wise remarks
in this address ; as, for example, where he says that eminent
talents become of necessity rarer as the whole nation ad-
vances : " In a well-grown forest, no single tree lifts its head
very high above the rest." He concluded with the "necessary-
burst of eloquence " respecting the late warlike exploits of the
king ; in which, however, he gave such prominence to the
services in the field of the Duke de Richelieu, a member of
the Academy, that the First Gentleman almost eclipsed the
monarch.
He was now at the highest point of his court favor. An
epigram of his, written at this period, conveys to us his sense
of the situation, and renders other comment superfluous : —
" Mon ' Heuri Quatre ' et ma ' Zaire '
Et mon Americaine ' Alzire '
Ne m'ont valu jamais un seul regard du roi ;
J'eus beaucoup d'euncmis avec tres-peii de gloire ;
Les honneurs et les bicus pleuvent enfin sur moi
Pour une farce de la foire." ^
1 My "Henry IV." and my "Zaire" and my American "Alzire" were never
worth to me one look of the king. I had many enemies and very little glory.
At length honors and benefits rain upon me for a farce of the fair.
I
CHAPTER XLIir.
OUT OF FAVOR AT COURT.
His court favor was no protection to him against his ill-
wishers, either within or without the palace. Least of all
could it protect him against himself.
His young friend, Vauvenargues, told him truly, just after
his election to the French Academy, that his enemies had
never been " so unchained against him " as then, and notified
him that no effort would be spared to damn his new tragedy,
" Semiramis," which he had written for the approaching /e^g
of the Dauphiness, and at her request. The generous Vauve-
nargues was so shocked at the mania that seemed to prevail
among some men of letters to degrade their chief that he said
he was disgusted, not only with them, but with literature itself.
" I conjure you, my dear master," he wrote, " to finish your
tragedy so thoroughly that there will remain no pretext for an
attack upon it, even to envy's self." The lamentable death
of the princess in the second year of her married life delayed
the production of " Semiramis," but did not stay the torrent
of abuse that assailed the author.
Everything he did was burlesqued or lampooned, — his
" Princesse de Navarre," his " Temple de Gloire," his speech
at the Academy. The poet Roy, an old man now, and
sharper tempered than ever, had been doubly disappointed
by Voltaire's success at court. He had composed a divertise-
ment for the wedding fete, which had been rejected ; and he
had been for many years a candidate for an academic chair,
with no chance of success. One member, perhaps, remem-
bered his ancient epigram upon the election of the Duke de
Clermont, to the effect that 39 -fO does not equal 40. The
acidulated poet revived this year a scurrilous poem of his, writ-
ten in 17oG, entitled "The Poetic Triumph," in which the
various mishaps of Voltaire's life, real and imaginary, were
VOL. I. 33
614 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
related in the manner of a burlesque Odyssey. Of course the
" bastonades " figured conspicuously in this work, as well as
the controversy with Desfontaines ; and, in the new edition of
1746, all the recent adventures and misfortunes of Voltaire
which admitted of burlesque treatment were introduced. Roy
had a particular skill in defamation, as men of small talent
are apt to have, and he produced on this occasion some effect-
ive couplets. Besides this burlesque, be composed a parody
of Voltaire's " Fontenoy," and a burlesque of his academic
discourse, and, in general, " unchained himself " against the
historiographer of France.
It is a pity Voltaire could not have been philosopher enough
to laugh at all this, and straightway forget it, and so say we
all, until some small, malign Roy selects us for a target.
Then we feel as Voltaire felt, and many of us would do as he
did, if we could. Among other things, he casually let loose
in Paris drawing-rooms an epigram of the following pur-
port : —
" Know you a certain rhymer, obscure, dry and pompous,
often cold, always hard, having the rage and not the art to
slander, who cannot please, still less can injure ; for his mis-
deeds in a jail once caged, and after at St. Lazarus confined ;
banished, beaten, detested for his crimes, disgraced, laughed
at, spit upon for his rhymes, — contented cuckold, speaking
always of himself ? Every one cries, Ah I it is the poet
Roy!''
Such verses do not appease anger. The booksellers' shops
of Paris were not the less littered with burlesques of the au-
thor, in verse and prose, sportive and rancorous. From the
catalogue which French compilers give of these, we might
conclude that they were the chief literary product of the sum-
mer of 1746. Voltaire, enraged, unable to reach the well-
known, anonymous authors, rose against the sellers of this
defamatory trash. Armed with ministerial authority, and
conscious of a king's mistress behind him, he caused the shops
to be searched by the police, the offensive publications to be
seized, and at least five persons to be arrested. Two inci-
dents of these proceedings were exceedingly unfortunate. In
one of the houses searched, an elderly man, a zealous col-
lector of the burlesques, was lymg sick of a mortal disease, of
OUT OF FAVOR AT COURT. 515
which he died soon after. In another instance the wrong man
was accidentally cast into prison. One Travenol, a violinist
at the opera, had distinguished himself above all others by his
industry in spreading abroad everything he could find adverse
to Voltaire ; induced thereto by some offense the poet had
given his mistress in the distribution of the roles of the opera
of " Samson." Travenol being in the country on leave, the
police committed the terrible error of arresting his father, an
old dancing-master, aged eighty years, who kneAV nothing of
the matter. On learning the mistake, Voltaire procured from
the ministry an order for his release; but, unhappily, the re-
spectable old man had been six days in prison, of which three
had been passed in solitary confinement, before he was re-
stored to his home. His aged wife, too, and the wife of his
absent son were alarmed and distressed beyond measure.
The true culprit was found at length, and against him the
exasperated author brought a suit for damages. For a mo-
ment, through the good offices of the Abb^ d'Olivet, he was
disposed to forgive ; but, mistaking some proceeding of Tra-
venol, he conceived the idea that he was played upon, and
therefore resumed the prosecution with redoubled zeah For
sixteen months this affair was in the courts ; the Travenols
bringing a counter suit for false imprisonment. After the
usual delays, the cause was first tried in December, 1746,
when a decision was pronounced which satisfied no one. For
the imprisonment of the elder Travenol, Voltaire was con-
dejnned to pay five hundred francs damages, with costs, and
ordered, in the manner of the ancient courts, not to do so
again. Travenol, the younger, was required to pay three
hundred francs, with costs and interest, for having " occasioned
and circulated defamatory libels " against Voltaire, and he was
expressly forbidden to repeat those offenses. Two of the pieces
circulated by Travenol, namely, Roy's " Poetic Triumph "
and a burlesque by the same author of Voltaire's speech at
the Academy, were ordered to be brought to the bar of the
court, and there publicly " suppressed and lacerated " by the
clerk of the court.
Voltaire appealed to a higher tribunal. Another year passed.
After a new trial, which occupied five sessions, the decree of
the lower court was confirmed. Again all parties issued from
616 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the contest disappointed. The plaintiff had demanded a par
ticular retraction, and the infliction of a penalty which would
deter his libelers from repeating their offenses. He deemed
the penalty imposed a mere mockery of justice. " Ought not
the scoundrels to be hanged," he wrote to Richelieu, " who
infect the public with these poisons ? But the poet Roy will
have some pension, if he does not die of leprosy, by which his
soul is more attacked than his body." Both the court and
the public, we are assured, disapproved this prosecution, and
censured all the parties to it. The collusion between the
old satirist and the young violinist, for the purpose of wreak-
ing their spite upon Voltaire, was sufficiently shown in the
course of these trials. Nevertheless, the prosecution of a poor
musician for selling burlesques, which gave but slight pain
to any one but the object of them, did not present the plain-
tiff to the public in a pleasing light. Then, as now, a rich
and powerful man seeking justice. In a court of justice, against
a poor and insignificant man, had small chance of success.
The sympathies of the court and the public go with the poor
man. Ere long, the poet Roy was pensioned ; Travenol con-
tinued to play the violin at the opera ; and the libels were not
extinguished.
The favor of the reigning mistress could not avail in protect-
ing the historiographer against the consequences of his own im-
prudence. The rage among ladies of the highest rank in Europe
to possess cantos of " La Pucelle " was such that the author
of the poem did not always I'esist their importunities. The
Duchess of Wurtemberg had a portion of it. Frederick II. of
Prussia had with him two cantos, and Voltaire could not but
remember that once the king's campaign carriage had been
captured by Austrian hussars, and manuscripts of his own
carried off, no one knew where. That monarch had a peculiar
fondness for the " Pucelle." He disapproved the poet's new
vocation of historiographer to such warriors as Louis XV. and
Richelieu, which delayed the completion of that precious work.
*' Believe me," wrote the king, in December, 1746; '-finish
* La Pucelle.' Better worth while is it to smooth the wrinkles
from the foreheads of worthy people than to compose gazettes
for blackguards [poZ/ssons]." He reproached the poet for not
trusting him with more of a poem which he had confided to a
OUT OF FAVOE AT COURT. 517
lady. <' You have lent your ' Pucelle ' to the Duchess of
Wurtemberg. Know that slie has had it copied during the
night. Such are the people whom you trust ; while the only
persons who deserve your confidence, or, rather, to whom you
ought to abandon yourself entirely, are the only ones whom
you distrust." Voltaire swore that the duchess possessed no
more of the poem than the king, "She has perhaps copied a
page or two of the part which you have ; but it is impossible
that she has that which you have not." Besides, he might
have added, duchesses do not take the field in a travelins: car-
riage full of contraband writings. The king's mistress could
not at that day protect the known author of " La Pucelle,"
even though she might read it nightly to the king in her bou-
doir.
Meanwhile, he seemed to be drawing nearer to the court.
In December, 1746, according to Duvernet, he made his first
appearance at the table assigned in all the palaces of the king
to the Gentlemen of the Chamber. The tradition is that some
of these high-born functionaries eyed the bourgeois gentleman
askance, until he had uttered one of those pleasantries which
no true son of Gaul can resist. They were speaking of the
rumored marriage of a young lord with the daughter of a far-
mer-general, and the question arose as to where the ceremony
should be performed. " At the tax-office," suggested one.
" There is no chapel there," said others. Voltaire, hitherto
silent, joined in the conversation. " Pardon me, gentlemen,"
said he, " there is the chapel of the Impenitent Thief." Farm-
er-general, under the old regime, was synonymous in the pub-
lic estimation with plunderer. The company laughed, and
relented toward their new associate.^ It is not improbable
that the bourgeois gentleman-in-ordinary was an unwelcome
addition to a corps that valued itself upon its unquestionable
nobility. M. Desnoiresterres publishes a curiously illiterate
letter of the time from a young gentleman to his uncle in La
Vendee, in which he reflects upon the king for appointing to
so exalted a post " a certain Arouet of Saint-Lou, son of one
Domar, who has made himself known under the name of Vol-
taire." The king, he adds, will not put upon the nobility
" the affront " of dispensing this person (ce cuidani) from his
^ Duvernet, chapter xii.
518 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
proofs (of nobility) ; but in order to procure those proofs, lie
will be obliged to seek them among the relations of his mother,
which will be " a dishonor to gentlemen of name and arms,
noble from time immemorial." Duvernet's anecdote, there-
fore, may have had a basis of truth ; and it may have been for
this reason that the king permitted him, soon after, to sell the
keenly-coveted post, and retain its title, rights, exemptions,
and privileges. He sold it for thirty thousand francs, and
never again bestowed his society uj^on his colleagues.
Other enemies he had at court, more powerful and more
respectable than a second-table of court dandies. In the royal
palaces of France and of other countries in that century, there
were two courts, the dull-virtuous and the brilliant-wicked ;
one presided over by the neglected queen, the other by the
reigning mistress. The Queen of France, with her children
and court, all under the influence of the austere and orthodox
Mirepoix, could protest against the life led in the other wing
of the palace only by the practice of piety carried to a forbid-
ding excess. They sought and found alleviation in strict com-
pliance with the religious routine prescribed by the church.
They lived with some frugality and decency. If their con-
ception of duty and self-control was narrow, erroneous, obso-
lete, they at least kept alive in France the sense that there
were such things as duty and self-control. They felt, also, in
some degree, that duty and self-control, though binding on all,
are most binding upon the powerful and conspicuous classes,
who may disregard them for a time with apparent impunity.
Nor did they neglect the elegant life. The princesses at-
tempted every art and played upon every instrument, even the
trombone, and the queen sustained her wearisome part with
sufficient dignity. It was necessary, no doubt, that their mode
of virtue, so cramping to the intelligence, so debilitating to the
conscience, should pass away, and be supplanted by a mode
that will at length give the intellect and taste free play. But,
take them just as they were, the life led at the queen's end of
Versailles was less remote from virtue than that lived in Pom-
padour's splendid rooms.
The queen's circle was not so destitute of influence as it
seemed. The king was not devoid of natural affection, and
he was liable to fits of religious fear. His family, it appears,
OUT OF FAVOR AT COURT. 619
had influence enough to keep Voltaire from gaining a firm
foothold at court.
This was the period when private theatricals were the reign-
ing amusement of the idle classes in Europe. In 1748 there
were, as we are told, sixteen noted companies of amateur actors
in Paris among the nobility, without reckoning those of the
bourgeois, one of which was about to give Lekain to the public
stage. Madame de Pompadour conceived the project of amus-
ing the king by a company of amateurs composed of the elect
courtiers, herself being manager and chief actress. She pos-
sessed all the agreeable accomplishments : she could act, sing,
play, and dance, to admiration. She could draw and paint
pretty well, and even engrave with some skill. Her company,
which chiefly consisted of princes, dukes, and duchesses, was
capable of giving comedy, opera, and ballet. Admission to its
lowest grade, even to the rank of silent supernumeraries, was
regarded in the palace as the most exquisite distinction which
a mortal could hope to attain in this sublunary scene. Ma-
dame de Pompadour's femme de chamhre obtained a commis-
sion in the army for one of her relations by procuring for a
duke the illustrious privilege of playing a policeman's part of
a few lines in " Tartuffe."
Voltaire had formed madame's literary taste ; he had kno\vn
her from childhood ; he was a member of her circle when the
king first cast his eyes upon her bewitching beauty ; she had
made him the confidant of what she called her "love;" she
used to give him some of that medicinal Tokay, recommended
by the King of Prussia, which he declared was better than that
which the king himself had sent to Cirey. Moreover, she was
naturally and necessarily on the side of " the philosophers,''
who alone could imagine a scheme of morals that would not
condemn her position in the home of the Queen of France.
Cardinals, bishops, and priests courted her, flattei'ed her,
cringed to her, during all her long reign of nineteen years,
and stood ready to give the king instant absolution, on the
easy con.dition of her brief i-esidence at one of her numerous
chateaux. Nevertheless, she knew very well what the lan-
guage was in which their profession compelled tiiem to de-
scribe hers. In a word, she desired to oblige Voltaire, and
she selected his comedy of " The Prodigal Son " as the play
520 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
to be first performed in the palace before the king. It had a
striking success. At this theatre the etiquette was suspended
which forbade applause in the king's presence, and the hall
resounded Avith acclamations. The comedy was even played
a second time, which gave the author the right to witness the
performance, and admission to the royal theatre ever after.
Naturally desirous of testifying his gratitude, he circulated a
little poem which he had written for Madame de Pompadour
while the king was at the seat of war, in 1745 : —
" So then you reunite all the arts, all the tastes, all the tal-
ents of j)leasing. Pompadour, you embellish Court, Parnassus,
and Cythera. Charm of all hearts, treasure of a single mor-
tal, may a lot so blest be eternal ! May your precious days be
marked hj fetes ; may peace to our land return with Louis!
Be both of you without enemies, and may both of you keep
your conquests'"'
In this poem he now made a slight alteration. Instead of
wishing peace to return w4th Louis, he said, " May new suc-
cesses mark the fetes of Louis," which gave it the appearance
of a more recent composition. There was a swift copying of
these verses in the palace ; and she was the fortunate lady
who could first exhibit the true version. The queen and her
daughters soon read them, and read them only to be the more
incensed against the author. According to Pierre Laujon, a
dramatist who contributed several pieces to Madame de Pom-
padour's theatre, and knew all the gossip of both ends of the
palace, the entire coterie of the queen and Dauphin wei'e boil-
ing with indignation at the last line of this poem : " May both
of you keep your conquests ! " Those soured, dull, virtuous
people thought this pretty jest " the climax of rashness and
audacity." "The very idea," says Laujon, "of putting upon
a level the glorious conquests of the king in Flanders and his
conquest of the ' heart ' of a mistress was an unpardonable
crime." All the enemies of Voltaire were summoned to a con-
ference in the apartment where the queen usually passed the
evening, and there this new audacity of his was amply dis-
cussed.
The next day, the king's daughters, who always retained
some hold upon his affections, visited him at their usual hour,
and embraced him with more than their usual tenderness.
OUT OF FAVOR AT COURT. 521
They repeated their caresses again and again, and when his
heart was softened toward them they introduced the subject
of the verses, and dwelt upon the insolence of a poet who
could speak in that light tone of the king's immortal exploits.
" Before Madame de Pompadour could be informed of it," says
Laujon, "the exile of Voltaire was signed ; " and the mistress,
powerful as she was, dared not risk a struggle to get the
decree annulled. She dissembled her mortification and was
silent.
Voltaire dined that evening in Paris with a gay company of
literary men, one of whom was his brother dramatist, Pierre
Laujon, who reports the scene. Voltaire came late to the
foftst, no one but himself being aware of what had occurred at
Versailles. " Quick ! " said the host ; " bring some dinner for
M. de Voltaire." But the new-comer took nothing except
seven or eight cups of coffee without milk and two little rolls.
That, however, did not prevent him from " paying his score
by a number of piquant sallies." " I remember," says the
narrator, " that when the guests began to speak of the new
tax upon playing cards, he very strongly approved it, and men-
tioned many other articles of luxury that invited taxation ;
thus indicating an ardent and fruitful mind, to which no sub-
ject of politics or administration was foreign. After leaving
the table, he was surrounded by the guests, who plied him well
with questions." 1
This exile of which Laujon speaks was probably a moment-
ary concession to the ladies, and did not involve the immedi-
ate departure of the poet from Paris. From about this time,
however, in 17-17, we perceive, from his letters and other indi-
cations, that his court favor was of little force ; and in the
course of that year an event occurred which caused him to
leave the royal abode with precipitation. He was out of place
at court. No palace is large enough to contain two monarchs.
All deference and courtesy as he Avas to princes and their mis-
tresses, he was not under the illusion which concealed from
many eyes the precise stature of those personages. He knew
too well, as he remarked of the jovial Pope Benedict, " what
all that was worth."
^ CEuvrcs Choisies de P. Laujon, page 90.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT.
During bis long life of literary labor, Voltaire usually bad
an amanuensis or secretary domesticated witb bim. Tbree of
his secretaries recorded tbeir recollections, from wbicb we get
close and interesting views of tbe man, botb in bis ordinary
routine and at some crises of bis existence. One of tbem, S.
G. Longcbamp, entered bis service during tbis turbulent period
of court and ministerial favor, and remained witb bim about
seven years. Voltaire evidently bad mucb confidence in bim ;
he trusted bim to collect, bold, and pay considerable sums of
money, and even left bim in charge of important affairs during
his own absences from Paris. Some doubt has been cast upon
tbe trustwortbiness of Longcbamp's extraordinary anecdotes
from tbe incorrectness of some statements wbicb be must have
derived from others. Tbe Travenol affair, for example, he
misunderstood, and blends witb it otber matters having no
connection witb it. When be related what he personally saw
and heard, he appears to have usually done his best to tell tbe
truth ; and, indeed, we may well ask what mortal could have
invented those of bis tales wbicb task our credulity most. I
shall tberefore translate a few passages from his narrative,
leaving to the reader tbe mucb more difficult task of reading
tbem by tbe light of otber days and climes.
I need only add that Longcbamp owed his introduction into
tbe house of Madame du Cbatelet to tbe recommendation of bis
sister, who was madame's femme de chamhre. He was first
engaged as her steward, or maitre d'hStel, and took charge of
her establishment in Paris.
LONGCBAMP ENTERS THE SERVICE OF VOLTAIRE.
" I remained five or six months sufficiently at my ease in the house
of Madame du Chatelet, having scarcely anything to do except attend-
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 623
ing to purchases and commissions. She had but a single meal a day,
which was supper, and she took that almost always away from home.
In the morning her breakfast consisted of a roll and a cup of coffee
with cream, so that her steward and cook had very little occupation.
During that period I do not believe she gave more than ten or twelve
suppers, and when that happened there were but few guests, with few
dishes and still less wine, ller cellar was not well furnished ; her wine-
merchant sent her two dozen bottles at once, half being red, which
he called burgundy, but which really was of Paris vintage ; and the
other half white, called champagne, and no more correctly styled than
the other. When that supply was exhausted it was renewed. My
principal business was to lay in the other provisions of the house, —
wood, candles, food, etc. Madame did not board her servants, but
gave them instead a compensation in money. It was I who was
charged to pay them every fifteen days : her coachman, her two lack-
eys, and her female cook at the rate of twenty sous per day; her
footman, her femme de chamhre, and myself at thirty sous per day. I
received also the dessert from the table, which I shared with my sister.
It was not long before I wearied of the monotonous life which I led
at Madame du Chatelet's, where, during a great part of the day, I was
without employment. I sought some resource to dissipate my eniiui,
and I found one which suited me very well. M. de Voltaire lodged
in the house, as well as his secretary, and with the latter I contracted
a firm friendship. When the work of the house was done, and there
remained nothing more for me to do, I mounted to this secretary's
room. He gave me the works of M. de Voltaire to read, and even,
seeing that I wrote pretty well, begged me sometimes to help him
copy the manuscripts of that author, who often overcharged him with
work. That amused me much, and when madame was from home,
which happened often, I passed almost whole days in this occupation.
M. de Voltaire found me there one day, and, knowing me to be at-
tached to Madame du Chatelet and an inmate of the house, he made
no objections. He examined my writing, and I perceived that he
found it to his mind. From that time I did not fail, whenever there
was nothing for me to do, to go to his secretary's room, where I was
entertained and instructed, and took pains to improve my handwrit-
ing.
" Nevertheless, at the end of some months, I had to renounce this
occupation, as well as the house of Madame du Chatelet. I left that
lady, perhaps too lightly, piqued at an injustice she had done my sis-
ter, whom I obliged also to leave. Some weeks after, there was in
her house a more considerable defection. It was the season of the
royal residence at Fontainebleau, when all the court was there ; ma-
524 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
dame, also, as usual, having tabouret with the queen, and being of her
play. At the moment when she was making her preparations to go
to Fontainebleau, all her servants left her, under pretext that living
was dearer in that city than at Paris ; complaining, too, of her econ-
omy and the smallness of their wnges, and saying that they could
easily find better pay elsewhere. There remained to her only a femme
de c/mmbre, whom she had taken but a few days before. She had had
all M. de Voltaire's servants put upon the same footing as her own,
because she governed him ; and they left, also, according to an under-
standing among themselves. As a climax of misfortune, his secretary
was taken from him by a violent inflammatory disease. This circum-
stance, doubtless, made him remember me in the midst of the incon-
venient desertion, and, having informed himself of my abode, he sent
for me to come and speak to him. He asked me if I was willing to
go with him to Fontainebleau, and serve him as secretary during the
time of his residence there. Being satisfied with the terms he offered,
and charmed also to see the court, which I had not seen since my
coming to Paris, I acquiesced willingly in his request. Thus it was
that I entered the service of M. de Voltaire. I expected to remain in
it only during the stay at Fontainebleau ; but various circumstances,
unforeseen, deranged my projects, and made me take the resolution to
stay with him as long as he wished. I did not leave him until long
after, during his residence at the court of the King of Prussia, as I
shall relate by and by. I can but applaud myself for having entered
his service. I was overwhelmed with his bounties and honored with
his entire confidence, as I had previously been with that of Madame
du Chatelet."
LONGCHAMP'S FIRST DAy's WORK FOR VOLTAIRE.
" M. de Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet were lodged at Fontaine-
bleau at the house of the Duke de Richelieu. All their servants had
left them the evening before their departure, giving as pretext the in-
sufficiency of their wages. Madame, in haste to set out, took at once
and without inquiry the first servants who presented themselves. M.
de Voltaire had none. I arrived the third day after them at Fon-
tainebleau, at two o'clock in the morning. All was perfectly quiet in
the mansion. After sleeping some hours, I went into the chamber of
M. de Voltaire, who was just waking. He had been unable to find any
servant. Delighted to see me, he begged me to light his fire, the
cold being somewhat severe that day. That done, being still in bed,
he told me, to bring him a portfolio, which I did not immediately
perceive. As I delayed satisfying him, not knowing where he had
put that portfolio, he threw oS. his bed-clothes, got half out of bed,
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 625
and, pointing with his finger to a chair in a dark corner of the room,
he cried out with force and emphasis, ' There it is ! Don't you see it ? '
A little confused by the tone of his exclamation, I seized the portfolio,
and placed it in his hands. He took from it a copy-book which con-
tained the beginning of his * Essay upon the Manners and Arts of
Nations,' and said to me that, after I had looked about for a lackey?
I could employ the rest of the day in copying its contents upon some
fine Dutch paper which he had brought for the purpose. He then
asked me if I knew how to dress his wig. I answered, Yes. Then
he got up, put on his shoes and stockings, and shaved. Meanwhile,
I took his wig, dressed it as well as I could, and powdered it with
white powder. When he came to put it on it was not dressed to
his mind ; he laughed at his new wig dresser, took the wig, shook out
the powder with violence, and told me to give him a comb. Having
given him the one I had in my hand, which was small, although it
had two blades, he threw it upon the floor, saying it was a large
comb that he wanted. Upon my telling him that I had no other for
the moment, he told me to pick it up. I did so, and gave it to him
again. He passed it several times through his wig, and, after having
put it thoroughly out of order, he tossed it upon his head. I helped
him on with his coat, and he went to breakfast with Madame du
Chatelet.
" This debut into the service of M. de Voltaire did not appear to
me to promise well for the future, and I applauded my good sense in
having engaged only for their stay at Fontainebleau. His abruptness
displeased me, and I took it at first for brutality ; but I soon perceived
that it was in him only an extreme vivacity of character, which burst
forth upon slight occasion, and was almost instantly calm again. I
saw more and more, as time went on, that, while his vivacities were
transient and, so to speak, superficial, his indulgence and goodness
were qualities solid and durable.
"A moment after, I went out of the house in search of a servant for
him. I went all over the city without being able to find one that
would suit him. After having dined, I returned, and set myself to
copying the manuscript he had left me."
SUDDEN DEPARTURE FROM FONTAINEBLEAU.
" Neither madame nor he came home during the day. I sat up for
them until half past one in the morning, not doubting that they were
at the queen's play, which was prolonged sometimes far into the niglit.
At that hour I saw them returning together, both looking sad and
troubled. On arriving, madame told me to find her servants, and
tell her coachman to put the horses at once to the carriage, as she
626 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
wished to leave immediately. At that hour, in the middle of the
night, it was difficult to get together her people, who were lodged in
various parts of the city. There were only in the house her femme
de chambre and myself. I went at once in search of the servants.
The coachman, wTiom I awoke first, made haste to harness the horses
to the carriage. When all was ready, they got into it with the femme
de chamhre, who had only time to pack two or three parcels, which she
took with her. They left Fontainebleau before the break of day.
" This order of Madame du ChPitelet surjarised me much ; I could
not guess the true cause of so precipitate a departure. I only learned
it at Paris, when I had returned to her house there. That night the
play at the queen's table had been very stormy, and Madame du Chatelet
had been particularly unfortunate. Before setting out for Fontaine-
bleau, she had got together as much money as she could. The strong-
box of her agent was but slenderly furnished, and she had been able
to draw from it only four hundred and odd louis. M. de Voltaire,
who did not play, had two hundred in his purse. The first day of
their arrival, madame lost her four hundred louis. On returning to
her lodging, she dispatched a lackey as a courier with letters to her
agent and some friends, in order to get a supjjly. Meanwhile, M. de
Voltaire gave the marquise the two hundred louis which he had
brought with him. At the second session these took the same road
as the others with great velocity, but not without some remonstrances
on the part of the lender. The lackey returned the next day, bring-
ing two hundred louis, which her agent, M. de la Croix, had borrowed
at high interest, and a hundred and eighty more, which her friend,
Mademoiselle du Thil, had joined to them. With this sum madame
returned to the queen's play. Alas! her louis d'or only appeai'ed upon
the table to disappear. Piqued by such constant ill luck, and believing
it must cease at last, she determined to make good her losses, and con-
tinued to play very high, going in debt for the sums lost. She lost
eighty-four thousand francs with inconceivable intrepidity. The play
over, M. de Voltaire, who was at her side, alarmed at so considerable
a loss, said to her in English that her absorption in the game had pre-
vented her from perceiving that she was playing with cheats. These
words, though pronounced in a low tone, were overheard by some
one, and repeated. Madame remarked it, and told M. de Voltaire,
for whom that could have some disagreeable consequences. They with-
drew quietly, and, having taken the resolution to return at once to
Paris, they set out from Fontainebleau the same night.
" I remained behind alone to gather and pack their effects, and con-
vey them to Valvin, where I wis to take the water-coach \le coche
d'eau'] and bring the whole to Paris. Madame's carriage took the
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 527
high-road. On arrriving near Essonne, a wheel of the carriage was
broken, and luckily it was almost opposite the house of a wheelwright,
who repaired the accident by substituting another wheel. The work
finished, it was necessary to pay this wheelwright, but it so happened
that neither the masters nor their servants had a single sou. The
man, not knowing them, refused to let tliem go before he was paid.
At that moment, by another happy accident, an acquaintance passed,
coming from Paris in a post-chaise. Madame du Chatelet, having gone
up to the chaise, saw in it with great joy an old friend of her house.
She informed him of her embarrassment, which he ended at once by
handing to madame the wherewithal to pay the debt and the expenses.
of the journey."
TWO MONTHS TS HIDING AT SCEAUX.
" When they were near Paris, M. de Voltaire alighted, and went to
a village a little way from the high-road. There he wrote a letter to
the Duchess du Maine, and had it carried by a peasant, who was
to wait for an answer. In this letter, M. de Voltaire informed the
princess of his adventure, and prayed her to give him at Sceaux, where
she then was, an asylum in which he could be concealed from his ene-
mies. Madame du Maine took his request in good j^art. A messen-
ger was sent him with a note, informing him tluit, on his arrival, he
would find at the gate of the chateau M. du Plessis, a confidential olii-
cer, who would conduct him to private rooms, which would be made
ready to receive him in the manner he desired. He waited until after
dark before going to Sceaux, and there he found M. du Plessis, who
conducted him, by a secret staircase, to a remote suite of rooms, which
was precisely what he wanted. It was from the depths of this retreat
that he went down every night to the chamber of the Duchess du
Maine, after she was in bed and her servants had retired. A single
footman, who was in her confidence, then set a little table by her
bedside, and brought M. de Voltaire's supper. The princess took
great pleasure in seeing him and talking with him. He amused her
by the gayety of his conversation, and she instructed him by telling
him many old court anecdotes which he did not know. Sometimes,
after the repast, he read to her a tale or a little romance which he had
written during the day on purpose to divert her. Thus were com-
posed 'Bahouc,' 'Memnon,' ' Scarmentado,' ' Micromegas,' ' Zadig,' of
which he wrote every day some chapters.
" On her part, Madame du Chatelet was shut up at home for nearly
six weeks, occupied in making arrangements for the payment of her
gambling debts Two months passed before M. de Voltaire
dared show himself or leave his rooms in the day-time. At last, Ma-
628 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
dame du Cliatelet succeeded in appeasing the players wlio liad com-
plained of the words of M. de Voltaire Madame du Chatelet
hastened herself to carry this news to Sceaux, where Madame du
Maine retained her. M. de Voltaire then went out of his mysterious
asylum, and appeared at the court of the princess, where a number of
amiable and accomplished persons were always to be found. From
that moment the company were occupied in arranging festivals and
divertisements of all kinds for Madame la Duchesse in which every
one took part."
LONGCHAMP JOINS HIS MASTER AT SCEAUX.
" After the departure, so precipitate, of INIadame du Chatelet and M.
de Voltaire, I hastened to execute their ordei's. The packages were
immediately made. I hired a wagon to transport them to Valvin,
where I had them placed upon the water-coach, which did not arrive
at Paris until pretty late in the evening. Upon reaching the mansion,
I found Madame du Chatelet, and was surprised not to see M. de Vol-
taire. Madame told me that he was not in Paris, which redoubled my
surprise. She then explained to me the late proceedings, and the res-
olution which M. de Voltaire had taken not to show himself for some
time, and mentioned the retreat which he had chosen. The next day I
received a note from him, in which he told me to go to him at Sceaux,
and to bring with me in a hackney-coach the little traveling bureau
in which he usually kept his unfinished manuscripts, and which was
then in his parlor. He warned me not to arrive before eleven o'clock
in the evening, because at that hour I should find some one at the gate
of the chateau who would guide me to his apartments, and who
would cause to be carried in the little article of furniture of which he
was in need. I executed his orders to the letter, and was conducted
to a suite in the second story of the chateau, looking out upon the gar-
dens and a court-yard. In order to conceal who inhabited those roonas,
the shutters remained closed even in the day-time.
" Here I passed nearly two months with M. de Voltaire, without
seeing the sun, unless by stealth, or when I escaped on the sly to do
some errand in the village. During the first days of my confinement
in this new kind of prison, where I had scarcely anything to do, I
slept a great part of the day ; for idleness was to me a punishment.
It was necessary that we should not be seen. I kept close all day,
and did not go down until eleven in the evening to sup with one of the
footmen of tlie chateau, to whom I had been recommended. I usually
prolonged this repast until one or two o'clock in the morning, as it
was the only one I took in the twenty-four hours. M. de Voltaire did
not descend to the room of Madame la Duchesse until every one else
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 529
had gone to bed, and did not return to liis own until a little before
daylight.
" This indefatigable man, to whom an idle life was still more insup-
portable than to me, laid in an ample supply of candles, by the aid of
which he wrote all the time when he was not asleep ; and he slept not
more than five or six hours, at most. He made me copy the tales
with which he was to regale Madame du Maine every evening. From
time to time he gave me some commissions for Paris. la that case, I
both went out and came back by night, and he remained alone during
the day. To remedy this inconvenience, he told me one day to bring
him from Paris a little Italian boy, whom he would employ to do his
errands, so that I could remain always with him, and said that he
would give him a place to sleep in a closet next to the room I occupied,
where there was a camp-bed. I easily found such a boy as he wanted,
a child of ten or eleven years, sufficiently intelligent, full of candor,
and M. de Voltaire was well satisfied with him.
" Here is a proof of his ingenuous character. One day I brought
some money from Paris for IM. de Voltaire, — a purse containing two
hundred louis d'or. Upon receiving it he put a part of the gold into
a purse which he had in his pocket, closed the other again, and placed
it in a little cupboard at the side of his chamber. In the same cup-
board was a pair of new shoes, which M. de Voltaire had brought,
but not yet worn, because they were too narrow. Some days after,
when I was gone out upon an errand, he took a fancy to wear those
shoes. He called Antoine, told him to take them from the cupboard
and carry them to a shoemaker in the village to be stretched upon a
last. The boy took the shoes, put them under his arm, and started.
He crossed the park, which was covered with a foot of snow, slipped,
plunged in, fell down, putting the pair of shoes now under one arm,
now under the other. He reached the village at last, and entered the
shop of a shoemaker, who, late as it was, was still at work. The man
took his last and tried to get it into one of the shoes, which he thought
at first was hobnailed, since it seemed so heavy. Unable to get in
the last, he shook the shoe over a table, when there fell from it a
purse full of louis d'or. Antoine, no less surprised than himself, had
nevertheless the presence of mind to take the purse, and said, cry-
ing, that it was all a trick to prove his honesty. The man comforted
him as best he could, and, the work being done, the little fellow paid
him and returned. On seeing me, Antoine said, with the tears in his
eyes, that he was an honest boy, incapable of doing wrong, and that
it was unfair to test him in tliat manner, and a great piece of good
luck for him that the money had not fallen out on the way. I con-
soled him, praised his honesty, and told liim that it was only an eflfect
VOL. I. 34
530 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
of the distraction of M. de Voltaire, who had thrown this money into
the cupboard without looking, and had not thought of it again.
" I took the purse to M. de Voltaire, and related Antoine's advent-
ure, which confirmed the good opinion he had of him. He put the
purse upon his table, and told me we could both go to supper. For
his part, he seldom went down to Madame du Maine until between
one and two in the morning, and sometimes I returned before he did,
each of us having a key to the rooms. This time I came back from
supper later than usual. While I was at supper, M. de Voltaire,
wishing to know if the money was right, spread it out upon that bu-
reau of his which was covered with a green cloth ; after which he
went away, forgetting to lock it up, and leaving two lighted candles
upon the table, two others upon the mantel-piece, and a door open.
While going up-stairs I was astonished to see light in the corridor, and
still more astonished to find all the doors open, the gold spread out,
and M. de Voltaire absent. It frightened me, and a little after the
idea occurred to me to count the sum, in order to ascertain if it was
all there. Upon his return I remonstrated upon his imprudence, add-
ing that, for my own satisfaction, I had counted the coins upon the
table, and there were one hundred and sixty-five louis. ' That is my
count,' said he. I asked him if he had actual need of the money.
He said, ' No.' ' Very well, then,' said I, ' permit me to be the guard-
ian of this sum, that at least I may be sure of its not having a third
adventure before the day is over.' He laughed and consented.
" Meanwhile, we began to be tired of our retreat. M. de Voltaire
took no exercise, slept little, employed all his time in writing, not by
the feeble light of a lamp, but by that of wax candles, no less heating
to the blood. His health was visibly impaired. For nearly two
months we led this solitary life at Sceaux, when, one fine day, Ma-
dame du Chatelet arrived, and informed Madame du Maine thai, there
was no longer any reason why M. de Voltaire should not show him-
self in public. Madame du Maine urged them to remain at Sceaux
and join the brilliant company already assembled. The divertise-
ments were varied every day : comedy, opera, balls, concerts. Among
other comedies they played ' The Prude ; ' and before the repre-
sentation M. de Voltaire came upon the stage and pronounced a
new prologue appropriate to the occasion. Madame du Chatelet, who
was as good a musician as actress, acquitted herself to perfection in
the role of Isse. She played still better, if possible, the part of Fan-
chon, in the ' Originals,' — a comedy by M. de Voltaire, written and
played previously at Cirey. This character seemed to be made ex-
pressly for her ; her vivacity, her cheerfulness, her gayety, were dis-
played after Nature's own self. Ballets, also, were executed by the
first dancers of the opera.
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 531
" Among so many varied pleasures must be mentioned the reading
of several novelties, in verse and in prose, which were given in the
drawing-room when the company assembled before dinner, Madame
du Maine had made known to M. de Voltaire her desire that he should
communicate to her little court those tales and romances which had
so much amused her every evening. M. de Voltaire obeyed her.
He knew as well how to read as to compose. Those little works
were found delightful, and every one pressed him not to deprive the
public of them. He objected that those ti'ifles of society would not
bear the light of publicity, and did not deserve to appear in it. He
was obliged at length to promise that, on his return to Paris, he would
think of having them printed.
" These amusements continued more than three weeks, which seemed
to pass as quickly as a fairy dream. IMadame du Chatelet then took
leave of Madame du Maine, thanked her for all she had done for them,
and returned to Paris."
VOLTAIRE CIRCUMVENTS A PUBLISHER.
" On reaching home, after three months' absence, M. de Voltaire,
unwilling to fail in keeping the promise he had given at Sceaux, re-
solved to publish some of the little works which had been asked for
there. He first made choice of the romance of ' Zadig,' one of the
most striking, and his intention was not to let the public have it be-
fore Madame du Maine and her society had enjoyed the first reading,
nor before he had sent copies to all his friends, — a thing not devoid
of difficulty, even if he had it printed on his own account. Plis
experience instructed him on this point. He wished, on the present
occasion, not to be the dupe of publishers, and, to attain that end, this
is what he contrived. He sent for M. Prault, who had previously
published pretty editions of several of his works He asked M.
Prault how much he would charge for an edition of a thousand copies
of the little romance of ' Zadig.' The price not suiting M. de Vol-
taire, he said the printing would be put off to another time. M. Prault,
intending to print extra copies for his own advantage, returned the
next day, and was not ashamed to reduce his price more than a third,
pretending that he could economize a little both in the workmanship
and in the paper. M. de Voltaire said that he wished his work printed
in the best manner and upon fine paper, a sample of which he showed,
at the same time designating the form and type. He said that he
would himself revise the last proof, and he requested that the sheets
should be sent to him as soon as they came from the press. M. Prault
consenting, M. de Voltaire gave him one half of the romance of ' Za-
dig,' and told him that while that part was in the press he would
532 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
revise the other half with care, and perhaps add something to it. The
bargain was carried out. M. de Voltaire, having received the first
printed sheet, easily calculated that the last chapter of tlie part which
M. Prault was printing would end with a certain page.
" The next day he sent for one Machuel, a Rouen printer, whom he
knew to be in Paris, and proposed to liim also to print the romance on
the author's account. This printer took the job at a lower price than
M. Prault. M. de Voltaire, alleging that he wished to make some
changes in the first part of the work, gave him the second half, and
told him the number of his first printed page. When all was finished,
and the sheets of both halves had been brought in, he saw with pleas-
ure that the two parts agreed perfectly in type and paper. The two
publishers having no more eopy, and calling to get the remainder of
the work, he put them off for some days on various pretexts. Mean-
while, he charged me to seek out some women to fold and sew the
sheets, and to buy some elegantly colored paper with which to cover
the volumes. I at once found in the quarter Saint-Jacques all that he
wanted, and brought back with me two women, who in less than three
days folded, sewed, and covered all the copies. He ordered me to
make forthwith a package of two hundred copies for Madame du
Maine, and to put in envelopes an infinite number of others. He
dictated to me the addresses, which I wrote upon the envelopes ; being
those of all his friends and even his acquaintances, as well those liv-
ing in Paris as in the provinces. That done, all were sent ofE the
same day by express, by mail, and by the coaches. The next day
' Zadig' was a subject of conversation in all Paris.
" The two booksellers, astounded, ran to the .house of M. de Vol-
taire, where they poured forth complaints and reproaches, and asked
payment of the sum agreed upon. He told them that, having heard a
rumor of their printing more than the prescribed number of sheets,
and fearing lest copies might be circulated among the public before
his friends had seen the work, which would have frustrated his design,
he had been able to think of no better means of preventing it than the
little stratagem he had employed. He paid them for the work they
had done, and even added something as a mark of his satisfaction with
the excellent style in which the printing was executed. He added, by
way of completing their consolation, that they could increase their
profits by each printing his half and exchanging sheets with the other,
so as to make complete copies; or, if they preferred it, each might set
in type the other half, and publish an edition of his own. They put a
good face upon the matter, begged him to continue his favor toward
them, and, I believe, acted upon his advice ; for new editions of ' Za-
dig ' immediately appeared both in France and in foreign countries."
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 533
A WINTER JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO CIREr.
" On her return from Sceaux, Madame du Chatelet, either to forget
her losses or merely to economize, took the resolution to go with M.
de Voltaire and pass the rest of the winter at her estate of Cirey in
Champagne. She preferred to travel by night. It was the month of
January ; the earth was covered with snow, and it was freezing very
hard. JMadanie had caused to be made ready all the traps which us-
ually accompanied her in her travels. Her old carriage was loaded
like a coach, and it was drawn by post-horses. Alter Madame du
Chatelet and M. de Voltaire were well wedged in side by side in the
cariiage, they placed the femme de chamhre on the front seat, with the
bandboxes and the various effects of her mistress. Two lackeys were
posted behind, and we got upon the road towards nine o'clock in the
evening.
"I rode on before as postilion, that they might find horses ready
for them, and not have to wait for relays. They were to make one
stop for rest at La Chapelle, a chateau thi-ee leagues beyond Nangis,
belonging to M. de Chauvelin, where I was to arrive before them, to
have a supper prepai-ed and to light a fire in their rooms. I did not wait
for them at the post-houses, but kept on in advance, according to their
orders. It was an hour after midnight when I reached the post-house
of Nangis. It was the festival of the place, and the postilions, not ex-
pecting any one at that hour and in such weather, had gone to divert
themselves at a ball at the other end of the town. It was in vain,
tlierefore, that I cracked my whip and shouted for tlie door to open.
No one responded. I dismounted, and knocked with all my strength
with the heel of my boot. At last, roused by this noise, a neighbor,
putting his head out of the window, told me that there was no one at
home, and that all the postilions were gone to the ball. I asked him
if I could not hire some one to run thither and get the postilions at
once. He offered to go himself, and in less than a quarter of an hour
he returned with two postilions, which was the number re(piired for
the carriages. The time thus lost seemed to me sutRcient to allow for
the arrival of the carriage, and I was a little uneasy at the delay. I
hesitated a moment whether to go on or return to find them ; but reflect-
ing that our travelers would be very much dissatisfied if, on arriving
at La Chapelle, they should not find their orders exactly executed, I
determined to continue my journey ; and so much the more as there re-
mained three long leagues to go, by a cross-road with which I was not
acquainted.
*' Unable to procure a guide, I had the road explained to me several
times. I was told that, in going out of this town, I had only to follow
534 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the high-road to the first left-hand turning. From that point the white
horse they gave me, which knew that road perfectly, would serve me
as a guide, and with the bridle upon his neck would take me straio-lit
to La Chapelle. I followed these directions, and after an hour and a
half found myself opposite to the gate of a chateau, where the horse
stopped of his own accord. The concierge, who expected no one, was
gone to bed in the interior of the chateau, which was separated from the
gate-way by a vast court-yard. In vain, therefore, I called and shouted ;
uo one replied. Then, leading my horse by the bridle, I endeavored
to go round the chateau, to see if I could make myself heard better at
some other place. I came at last to a little door where there was
a bell, which I rang several times. I saw with pleasure that I was
heard ; a gardener came and asked me who I was and what I wanted.
I having answered him, he went to wake the concierge, who soon came
and let me in. He immediately roused the servants, lighted a great
fire in the kitchen and fires in the chambers. Some pigeons were
brought and a chicken, which were immediately prepared and put down
to roast. They added everything which they could find suitable to
satisfy travelers, whose appetite ought to be well diposed. Neverthe-
less, despite all the time thus employed, they did not arrive. The day
was about to dawn, and, my uneasiness increasing at every moment, I
decided to return to Nangis, in order to discover what could have hap-
pened to them. I mounted, and set out from the chateau toward eight
o'clock in the morning. I had gone some hundreds of paces when I
perceived a carriage coming towards me very slowly, which I soon rec-
ognized to be that of Madame du Chatelet. When I had ridden up,
they soon told me the cause of their delay ; and the story was related
afterwards to me in detail by ihefemme de chambre, and confirmed by
M. de Voltaire himself.
" About half-way to the village of Nangis, the hinder spi'ing of the
carriage broke and let the carriage down upon the road, upon the side
where M. Voltaire was seated. Madame and hev femme fell upon him,
with all their bundles and bandboxes, which were loosely piled on
the front seat on each side of the woman, and which, following natural
laws, were precipitated toward the corner where M. de Voltaire was
compressed. Half stifled under such a load, he uttered piercing cries,
but it was impossible to change his position. He had to remain as he
was until the two lackeys, one of whom was hurt by his tumble, came
up with the postilions to unload the carriage. First, they drew out
all the bundles, then the women, then M. de Voltaire. They could
get them out only by the door of the carriage which was uppermost ;
and hence, one of the lackeys and a postilion, having climbed upon the
body of the carriage, drew them out as from a well, seizing them by
.
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 535
the first members which presented themselves, arms or legs, and passed
them into the hands of their comrades below, who put them on the
ground ; for there was neither step nor stool by which they could be
assisted to descend. It was then the question how to raise the car-
riage and see what had caused its overturn. These four men were not
strong enough to do it, so overloaded was the roof with baggage, and
it was necessary to dispatch a postilion on horseback for help in the
next village, a mile and a half distant.
" While he was gone, M. de Voltaire and madame were seated side by
side upon the cushions of the carriage, which had been drawn out and
placed upon the road, that was covered with snow ; and there, almost
benumbed with cold notwithstanding their furs, they admired the
beauty of the heavens. It is true, the sky was perfectly clear, the stars
shone with the utmost brilliancy, the whole horizon was in view ; no
house, no tree, concealing from them the least part of it. It is known
that astronomy was always one of the favorite studies of our two phi-
losophers. Ravished by the magnificent spectacle displayed above
and around them, they discoursed, shivering, upon the nature and the
movements of the stars and upon the destination of so many immense
globes scattered in space. They wanted nothing but telescopes to be
perfectly hap{)y. Their minds being thus lost in the depths of the
skies, they were no longer conscious of their disagreeable position on
the eartli, or rather upon the snow, and in the midst of fragments of ice.
" Their learned contemplation and discourse were interrupted only
by the return of the postilion, who brought with him four men, fur-
nished with cord, tools, and a false spring. The carriage being set
upright, the real cause of the accident was perceived, and they mended
it as well as they could with the materials they had brouglit with them.
Twelve francs were given them when their work was done ; and
they returned toward their village, little content with this sum, and
grumbling at it.
"The carriage went on again, but had scarcely gone fifty paces
when the cords, not being strong enough, became loose and partly
broken, and the vehicle came down a second time, but without over-
turning, which rendered this new break-down much less disagreeable
to our travelers.
" Some one ran quickly after the workmen who had just left. They,
however, did not wish to return. They were brought back by force of
promises that they should be better paid. With the assistance of the
postilions, they raised the body of the coach with levers, and mended it
more strongly, without deranging the interior of the vehicle. For
greater safety, they proposed to these workmen to go with tliem as far
as Nangis, which they did, and the carriage arrived there without other
536 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
accident. This time the men were liberally paid, and they went home
well satisfied. The spring was solidly repaired by a blacksmith of
that town, but the body of the vehicle was so badly damaged that the
blacksmith advised them to go no faster than a walk, if they wished
to prevent accidents ; and it was so that they went nine miles before
arriving at a good harbor.
*' Having reached the chateau, they warmed themselves thoroughly
before a large fire, which was not less necessary to them than nourish-
ment. After having supped, or, to speak more correctly, breakfasted,
for it was daylight, they withdrew to their rooms, where good beds had
been prej^ared for them, and they slept very well till late in the
afternoon. M. de Voltaire, having got up, ordered me- to get workmen
to repair the body of the carriage, v/hich proved to be in such bad
order that it took two whole days to put it in tolerable condition. On
the third day we left La Chapelle, and arrived at lengtli, without new
delay or accident, at Cirey, the estate of Madame du Chatelet."
MADAME PROJECTS A PRIVATE EDITION OF " LA PUCELLE."
" Madame da Chatelet had long had a copy of ' La Pucelle,'
written with her own hand. Her friends, both men and women, often
importuned her to read portions of it to them. This trouble, from
which she wished to be freed, suggested to her an odd idea, which
was to print the poem secretly at her chateau of Cirey during her
sojourn there in the following year, 1749. Her design was to have
but a very small number of copies printed, to be distributed among
those of her friends whom she knew to be discreei. Counting in
advance upon the acquiescence of M. de Voltaire, fhe began, even
in the winter, to prepare quietly for the execution of her project.
In order to confine the secret to fewer persons, she resolved to take
part in the work herself, with two faithful workmen, one of whom
was to instruct her in making up the pages. This was an adroit
and intelligent printer named Lambert, who for a number of years
enjoyed the confidence of Madame du Chatelet and of M. de Voltaire.
He performed well the commissions which they gave him, and he be-
came their usual purveyor of forbidden books. Madame charged him
to select a comrade for the following spring, and the conditions were
arranged to their satisfaction.
" Lambert bought two fonts of new type, well assorted, from a
type-founder of his acquaintance, who gave him pretty long credit and
took notes in payment. He procured also some forms and a press,
and the other necessary articles. The whole was packed and depos-
ited with a commissioner of transportation, who, upon the first advice,
was to send it to Bar-sur-Aube, whence the servants of Madame
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 537
du ChAtelet would have conveyed it to Cirey. According to the pro-
ject, Madame la Marquise was to preside at the case, that is to say,
at the type-setting, with the aid of Lambert, who, with the assistance
of his companion, was to work the press. They counted upon M. de
Voltaire as proof-reader.
" All being thus ver}^ well arranged, there remained only one tri-
fling difficulty, whicli madame flattered herself to be able to overcome
easily : it was merely to get the author's consent. He ought to have
been told of it the first, but he was told the last. She ended where
she ought to have begun ; for madame must have known that the
operation could not go on in the chateau without M. de Voltaire's
knowing it. She cherislied the idea that to oblige her he would con
sent to a thing which would remain secret between them and a very
small number of sure friends.
" She was deceived. Scarcely had she spoken a word of it, when he
rejected the idea. At first he thought it was only a jest, but when
he saw that the scheme was serious, and that preparations were already
made, he was much excited, and dwelt with energy upon the conse-
quences of such an enterprise ; among others, the danger of seeing
the book fall into the hands of strangers, whether by indiscretion or
by accident, and so reach the public, which would expose both of them
to serious inconveniences and bitter relets. She could not resist the
force of those reasons. It was no longer a question of printing ' La
Pucelle.' She explained the matter afterwards to Lambert; the
materials, which were still at Paris, were given back to the dealers,
who consented to receive them, on being indemnified for their trouble.
Lambert was recompensed for his pains, and took upon himself to
satisfy the comrade whom he had engaged."
MADAME LA MARQUISE WILL NOT BE IMPOSED UPOX.
" Madame la Marquise du Chatelet, who had much enjoyed her last
visit to the court of the King of Poland, and had promised that prince
to return the next summer, was well disposed to keep her word, and
took, with M. de Voltaire, the resolution to go thither without stop-
ping on the road, and the carriage was therefore furnished with some
provisions. But on reaching Clullons-sur-Marne, madame felt herself
slightly indisposed, and made the postilion stop opposite the Bell Inn.
There, while they changed horses, she had a fancy to take a bowl of
broth. The landlady, having ascertained who it was she had the
honor to serve, came to the carriage door, having a napkin under her
arm, a porcelain plate in her hand upon a silver tray, and a porringer
of silver containing the broth. While madame was taking it the
horses were already put to, and ready to start. I hastened to carry
538 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
back the plate and the other articles to the landlady, and asked her
how much we had to pay. ' One louis,' said she. I was almost pros-
trated at this word ; then, recovering from my astonishment, I cried
out upon the enormity of the price, and said to her that I would have
thouf^ht a crown, or even four francs, too much. She declared she
could not abate one sou. Upon this I went to explain the matter to
madame, who was of my opinion. The landlady, who had followed
me, then approached the carriage door, and upon madame represent-
ino- to her how excessive her demand was she replied that she was
not accustomed to have her charges disputed, and that it was her fixed
price. I took the liberty to remark that with a crown's worth of
meat I could make several bowls of broth, and the meat would still
remain over and above. Consequently I believed I should be paying
her well in offering her that crown. She persisted, declaring that all
the persons who did her the honor to alight at her house, whether
they took only a fresh egg, a bowl of broth, or a dinner, invariably
paid the same price. ' Very well,' replied I, ' we have not alighted ;
Madame la Marquise has not left the carriage, and has not set foot
upon the threshold of your door.'
"M. de Voltaire, joining in the colloquy, said to the landlady,
' Your method, madame, seems to me as new as it is strange, and I
believe it very little advantageous to your house ; for, in fact, all trav-
elers are not in a condition to give twenty-four francs for a bowl of
broth, and for one or two customers who fall, without knowing it, into
your i\et you are likely to lose a hundred others." Thereupon the
woman began to be augry and to dispute with a loud voice, and at
the noise she made one, two, three, four neighbors and more left
their shops and came to hear what was going on. Soon a numerous
populace ran from all directions and grouped themselves around the
carriage, clamoring and wishing to know what was the matter. All
asked and answered at the same time ; it seemed as if a sedition was
going to burst forth in the town. All that we could discern amid
so many squeaking voices was that the landlady was in the right.
M. de Voltaire saw plainly that there was no means of gaining the
suit against so powerful a i)arty. He was of opinion that it was nec-
essary to give it up, and to get out of the scrape like Harlequin, that
is, by paying. This I did, and we set out, not without exciting the
laughter of all that crowd. Madame du Chatelet swore well that, no
matter how exhausted she might be in traveling from Paris to Lor-
raine, she would never stop in that cursed town, and the broth of
Chulons-sur-Marne was not rubbed out of her tablets."
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 539
VOLTAIRE AND LONGCHAMP MAKE A JOURNEY TO PARIS.
" Fifteen days after their arrival at Luneville they learned by a
letter from M. d'Argental that the French actors were preparing
to give immediately the first representation of ' Semiramis.' They
vrould have both liked to be present; bnt madame, fearing to dis-
please the King of Poland, consented to remain at Luneville and to
let M. de Voltaire set out alone for Paris. He took only me with him,
and placed me on the front seat of the post-chaise. As he had time
to spare, he resolved to visit on the way some persons of his acquaint-
ance, and particularly to go through Reims, to see M. de Pouilli, his
old college friend, who had invited him many a time. We started, and
our first bait was at the country-house of the Bishop of Chrilons-sur-
Marne, a colleague of M. de Voltaire at the French Academy, and his
friend. He was very well received, and passed three days there ; and
even on the fourth that prelate consented to his leaving with reluc-
tance, because the weather was threatening. In fact, at the end of
some hours the sky was covered with very black and frightful clouds ;
whirlwinds of dust almost hid the road from view ; we were dazzled
and deafened by the lightning and thunder. Half-way between Cha-
lons and Reims this storm ended by a rain so abundant that the foot-
path and ditches on each side of the road were both overflowed. M.
de Voltaire, fearing to be overturned and drowned, made the chaise
stop in the middle of the road, which, with the adjoining fields, was
one sheet of water. He attentively considered this spectacle, and
suffered much to see the postilion and his horses drenched while we
were sheltered. At length, the weather improving and the waters
having subsided, we could continue our journey, and at night-fall
reached Reims. M. de Voltaire was expected, as he had sent a note
from Chfdons to M. de Pouilli, asking hospitality.
" A grand repast was prepared, to which had been invited several
friends of M. de Voltaire ; and they made it a festival to meet that
celebrated man. The beginning of the supper was noisy enough,
every one talking at once. The guests interrupted one another, and
M. de Voltaire kept on eating and said not a word. At last, the de-
sire to hear him speak induced a moment of silence. M. de Pouilli,
then alluding to the dangers which M. de Voltaire had run upon the
road, asked liim some questions on tlie subject. Replying, he entered
into details, and described the storm he had encountered in a man-
ner so pathetic that the whole company listened with the greatest in-
terest, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of interrupting him, or to
lose a word of what he was saying. His narrative, however, was
quite natural, without emphasis and without gesture. The truth of
540 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the images, the simplicity of his words, their variety and suitableness,
sufficed to excite the highest degree of emotion. Even I, who had
been witness of the event, and who heard him relate it with the same
attention as the guests, believed for the moment that I was again
upon the high-road and in the midst of the inundation. After supper,
when the company was gone, M. de Voltaire, before going to bed,
talked again a quarter of an hour with M. de, Pouilli, who felicitated
himself upon having spoken of the storm. ' For my part,' he added,
' I was in no degree astonished at the impression which you made
upon them ; for I assure you that never did the description of a tem-
pest give me more affright and at the same time more pleasure.'
" The next morning we took the road to Paris, where we arrived
in the evening."
THE PLOT AGAINST THE NEW TRAGEDT.
" The actors had already had one rehearsal of the tragedy of ' Se-
miramis.' They rehearsed it several times in the presence of the au-
thor, who gave them some useful hints, from which they profited. Al-
though he was well enough satisfied with their ability, and could count
upon their zeal, and had elaborated his tragedy with much care, he
was far from daring to depend upon its success. He was not ignorant
that Piron, who thought himself much superior to him, and was jeal-
ous of his successes, had fomented a powerful cabal against ' Semira-
mis,' and that to this band were rallying the soldiers of Corbulon, as
he used to call the partisans of Crubillon, in allusion to a passage in
one of his pieces. The latter were in truth much less sincere admirers
of their hero than jealous enemies of Voltaire ; and as M. de Crebillon
had also written a ' Semiramis,' they assumed that no other author
should dare to make a better one.
"To counterbalance this league, M. de Voltaire had recourse to a
measure little worthy of him, indeed, but which he believed necessary,
and which, in fact, was not without effect. He bought a number of
pit tickets, which he gave to his friends and acquaintances, who in
turn distributed them among their friends. Thieriot, Lambert, the
Abbe de La Mare, and others, whose devotion he knew, acquitted
themselves very well of this commission. I had also my share of tick-
ets to <:ive away, and I placed them in good hands ; by which I mean
hands capable of clapping well and at the proper places. The day of
the first representation arrivea (August 29, 1748). The champions
on both sides did not fail to be present on the field of battle, armed
cap-a-pie, among whom I held firmly my rank of foot-soldier. Each
party was confident of victory, and the struggle was tlierefore hard
and painful. Even during the first scene there was excitement in the
I,
PEECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 541
pit; some bravos, some murmurs, were heard, aud even some faint
hisses. But from the start the applause at least balanced the signs of
discontent, and finished by stifling them. The piece held its own,
ended very well, aud its success seemed not equivocal The an-
tagonists of M. de Voltaire renewed their attempts on the following
nights, but they served only the better to assure his triumph. Piron,
to console himself for the defeat of his party, employed iiis usual re-
source, and assailed ' Semiramis ' with spiteful epigrams which did it
harm."
THE AUTHOR OF " SEMIRAMIS " GOES IN DISGUISE TO HEAR THE
VERDICT OF THE CAFE DE PROCOPE.
"M. de Voltaire, who loved always to correct and improve his
works, desired to know more particularly and with his own ears what
was said for and against his tragedy, and he thought he could do this
nowhere better than at the Cafe de Procope, which was called also the
Cave of Procope, because it was very dark, even in broad daylight,
and by no means well lighted in the evening, and because poets were
often seen there, gaunt and pallid, who looked like ghosts. In this
cafe, which is opposite the theatre, had been held for more than sixty
years the tribunal of the self-styled Aristarques, who imagined them-
selves judges in the last resort of pieces, authors, and actors. M. de
Voltaire wished to appear there disguised and entirely incognito. It
was at the end of the play that the judges used to begin wliat they
called their grand sessions.
" On the day of the second representation of ' Semiramis,' he bor-
rowed the garb of an ecclesiastic. He put on a cassock, with a long
cloak, black stockings, a girdle, bands, and, that notliing might be
wanting, a breviary. Upon his head he wore an ample wig without
powder, ill dressed, which covered more than half his cheeks, and left
visible scarcely anytiiing of his face except the end of a long nose.
This was surmounted by a large three-cornered hat, much dilapidated.
It was in this costume that the author of ' Semiramis ' went on foot to
the Cafe de Procope, where he established himself in a corner, and,
while waiting for the end of the performance, called for a cup of tea, a
roll, and a newspaper. He had not long to wait before the frequenters
of the parterre and of the cafe arrived. There were present persons
of both the parties, and they entered at once into the discussion of the
new tragedy. His partisans and his adversaries pleaded with warmth,
and gave reasons for their judgment. Some impartial persons of-
fered their opinion, and repeated beautiful verses of the piece.
"All this time M. de Voltaire, with spectacles upon his nose, his
head bent over the newspaper which he pretended to read, listened to
542 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
the debates, profited by the reasonable remarks, and suffered much
from hearing absurd observations witliout being able to repl}', which
put him into bad humor. In this way, during an hour and a half,
he had the courage and patience to hear people reason and gossip upon
' Semiramis ' without uttering one word. At length, all these pretended
arbiters of the renown of authors having retired without converting
one another, M. de Voltaire left also, took a cab in the Rue Mazarine,
and reached home at eleven o'clock. Although I knew his disguise,
I confess that I was again struck and almost frightened on seeing him
accoutred as he was. I took him for a spectre of Ninus who was ap-
pearing to me, or, at least, for one of those Hiberian arguers arrived
at the end of their career, after having exhausted themselves in syllo-
gisms in the schools. I helped him shed all these traps, which I took
back the next day to their true owner. After having made some cor-
rections in several of the parts, and given them to the actors, M. de
Voltaire did not wish to remain in Paris, and no longer doubting the
success of his piece he set out satisfied, and eager to rejoin Madame
du Chutelet at Luneville."
VOLTAIRE RESCUES HIMSELF FROM DEATH AND A COUNTRY DOCTOR.
" M. de Voltaire, when he arrived at Paris (in August, 1748), did
not enjoy very good health. A slow fever wore upon him severely.
Rest and his usual regimen could have calmed and even cured him,
but it was impossible to think of rest in Paris, where he was always in
agitation : by day, visits and continual running about; at night, writ-
ing, kept up almost until morning. He scarcely reserved some hours
for sleep. His fever increased. Although extremely fatigued and
suffering much, he persisted not less in setting out for Luneville.
" At Chrdons, where we stopped at the post-house, it was necessary
to rest, for it was impossible for M. de Voltaire to go further. He
had no longer the strength to stand or talk, and I was obliged to carry
him from his carriage to a bed. Fearing that this was the beginning
of a dangerous disease, 1 thought it my duty to notify the Bishop and
the Intendant of Chrdons, who had always testified much regard for
him. Both came to see him the same day, and ^iressed him to let him-
self be carried to one of tlieir houses, that he might be the better cared
for. M. de Voltaire excused himself from accepting their offer, assur-
ing them that he already felt himself better since he had taken some
repose in bed. The magistrate insisted upon sending him his own
doctor, who, in fact, came to see him in the evening, examined him,
and prescribed bleeding and various medicaments. M. de Voltaire
listened to him with much patience, and replied to his questions as
laconically as possible ; but when the doctor was gone, he told me
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 543
that he should follow none of his directions, for he knew how to man-
age himself as well in sickness as in health, and he should continue to
be his own doctor, as he had always been. The bishop and the mag-
istrate then urged that, at least, some of their servants should come
and take care of him. This oifer he also declined, saying that a woman
was already engaged to watch with him and make his broth, and that
I should serve as her assistant and do his errands out-of-doors.
" M. de Voltaire had eaten nothing since we left Paris. As night
was coming on, I proposed to him to take some broth, to which he con-
sented ; but scarcely had it touched his lips, when he pushed it away
and shook his head, intimating that he did not wish any. Then, with
a voice scarcely audible, he entreated me not to abandon him, and to
remain near him in order to cast a little earth upon his body when he
had breathed his last. I was surprised and still more alarmed at these
words, and indeed not without reason, for that night was one of his
worst. He had a burning fever accompanied by delirium, and when
the fit was passed there was scarcely any life left in him. Next morn-
ing he was again visited by the bishop, the intendant, and the doctor.
Those gentlemen could scarcely get a word from him, and they saw
him steadily refuse all the drugs the doctor tried to make him swallow.
On leaving him they did not conceal their apprehension of seeing him
perish, and hasten his end by his obstinacy in refusing to take what
they recommended for his relief.
" When they were gone he made me come near his bed, and putting
into my hand a purse full of gold, which had been in the drawer of
his night-table, he said to me that if he yielded to his malady his in-
tention was that I should keep that sum, which was all the good he
could do me at the moment ; but if, on the contrary, he escaped the
danger which threatened him, I was to give him back the purse, on ac-
count of the immediate use he should then have for it, and he would
supply its place by a recompense with which I should be better satis-
fied. He prayed me not to abandon him in his present situation, and
to remain with him to the last in order to close his eyes. I replied
with tears that I would never leave him, that his orders were sacred to
me, that I hojjed still to see him restored to health, and that that was
all I desired. I assured him he could count upon the sincerity of my
words, for I loved him, and was truly attached to him.
"■ On our arrival at Chrdons I had, unknown to him, written a few
lines to Madame Denis and to Madame du Chatelet, to inform them
of his sickness and of the place where he was. Nevertheless, as soon
as he had come to himself, I asked him if he did not think I had bet-
ter send for madarae his niece to come and bear him company. He
was then on ill terms with her, and had not seen her for some time.
544 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
He absolutely forbade me to write to her. However, I received every
day letters from Madame Denis, and I gave her an account of her
uncle's health by every courier who left for Paris, as also Madame
du Chatelet by the couriers who went to Strasbourg by way of Lune-
ville.
'• As he continued to be unwilling to take any solid food whatever,
confining himself to certain drinks, such as weak tea, toast and water,
and a veiy refreshing kind of barley water, slightly aperient, he be-
came so weak that he could scarcely move any of his limbs. At
length, in the evening of the sixth day after our arrival at Chalons,
he astounded me by telling me to prepare everything for his depart-
ure, to pay what he owed, pack his trunk, and make arrangements
for leaving Chalons very early in the morning, since he did not wish
to die there. He added that if at the break of day he was still alive,
whatever his condition might be, I had only to carry him to his post-
chaise, and convey him to Luneville. He dictated to me some lines
to inform the bishop and the intendant of his sudden resolution, and
to thank them for their attentions. The landlord was charijed to for-
ward those notes to them after our departure. Then he rested, and I
occupied myself with the execution of his orders.
"The next day, all being ready and the horses harnessed, I carried
him out to his post-chaise, wrapped in his dressing-gown, and a coun-
terpane over it. I seated myself in front of him, so as not to lose him
from my sight, and to hold him up if he should fall forward ; to which
precaution I added that of tying together the hand-straps at the sides,
which formed a kind of barrier to keep him in place. It was in this
way that I brought him from Chalons to Saint-Dizier [about thirty
miles], without his uttering a single word. He was so weak, so pale,
that I dreaded not to be able to get him to Luneville alive. While
we were changing horses at Saint-Dizier, he seemed as if to wake
from a sleep all of a sudden, and asked me where we were and what
o'clock it was. Having answered these questions, I asked him some
questions in my turn, but he made no answer, and appeared to relapse
into unconsciousness. We resumed our journey.
" Between Saint-Dizier and Bar-le-Duc we met a lackey, whom Ma-
dame la Marquise du Chatelet had sent on a post-horse to. Chalons, to
ascertain more particularly the condition of the sick man, and to see
if he could bear transportation to Luneville. I mentioned this to M.
de Voltaire. It appeared to give him pleasure and restored him a lit-
tle. The lackey returned, and served us as a courier to have horses
got ready upon the road, so that we arrived at Nancy in the evening
before the closing of the gates. We alighted at the post-house, where
the lackey of madame waited upon us again, to know if there were
PRECIPITATE FLIGHT FROM COURT. 545
any orders for liim. M. cle Voltaire charged me to tell him to push on
to Luneville, so that madame should get news of him the sooner. As
to himself, he could go no further without much risk. Exhausted
with fatigue and inanition, I put him into a good bed on arriving,
and had some broth brouijht to him. He drank the whole of it
with relish. Having myself no less need of nourishment, for I had
scarcely broken my fast all day, I had my supper brought into his
chamber, where also I had a camp-bed put for myself ; for I re-
mained with him night and day. Seeing the avidity with which I
devoured what they brought me, he said, ' How happy you are to have
a stomach and a digestion ! ' He had seen disappear half a leg of
mutton and a side-dish. They brought me, besides, two roast thrushes
and a dozen red-throats, which latter are the ortolans of the country,
and they were then in season. I asked him if he was not tempted to
suck one of those little birds. ' Yes,' said he, ' I would like to try
one.' I picked out two of the fattest, and carried them with a morsel
of the crumb of bread to his bed, where, half reclining, he ate a good
part of them with pleasure. Then he asked for a glass of wine mixed
with a third of water, which also he swallowed briskly enough. After
that he told me he felt some inclination to sleep, and that after I had
finished my supper I had only to go to bed. The next morning, as
soon as he awoke, we were to start for Luneville.
" Then, putting his head upon the pillow, he soon fell asleep. For
my part, I slept very well until five in the morning. By six all the
arrangements for our departure were made, and I only waited for M.
de Voltaire to wake. I saw him in a sleep so profound that nothing
could have induced me to interrupt it. I went from time to time to
look at him, thoroughly resolved to let him wake of his own accord.
I was far from expecting that that moment would not arrive until
three o'clock in the afternoon. At that hour he drew aside his cur-
tains, saying that he had slept well. He had slept better and longer
than he supposed. I helped him get up and dress. That sleep had
refreshed him, and I found him improved. After he had taken some
broth with bread in it, we set out at five in the afternoon for Lune-
ville [ten miles distant], where we arrived easily the same evening.
There M. de Voltaire found himself much better, and the presence of
Madame du Chatelet completed his recovery. In a few days she
made him resume all his usual gayety, and forget the tribulations he
had experienced on his journey from Paris.
"Thus it was that M. de Voltaire cured himself of a malady which
probably would have had graver consequences if he had delivered him-
self up to the -^sculapius of Chalons. His principle was that our
health often depends upon ourselves ; that its three pivots are sobriety,
VOL. I. 35
546 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
temperance in all things, and moderate exercise ; that in almost all the
diseases, which are not the result of very serious accidents, or of rad-
ical vitiation of the internal organs, it suffices to aid nature, which is
endeavoring to restore us ; that it is necessary to confine ourselves to
a diet more or less severe and prolonged, suitable liquid nourishment,
and other simple means. In this manner I always saw him regulate
his conduct as long as I lived with him."
The events related in these passages from the graphic Long-
champ occurred between January, 1746, and September, 1748,
when Voltaire rejonied madame at the mimic court of Stan-
islas, at Luneville. One of his " anecdotes," which he tells
circumstantially, and with a great number of names of persons
concerned, has a particular interest for Americans, because it
relates to the Count d'Estaing, who commanded a French fleet
in American waters during the Revolutionary War, and after-
wards died upon the guillotine in the French Revolution.
This nobleman, still a young man when Longchamp left the
service of Voltaire, had run so deeply into debt that there ap-
peared no resource left to him but to sell his paternal estates,
and reduce himself to abs-olute penury. Voltaire, one of the
largest creditors, undertook to save the lands and put the
young man's debts in a train of liquidation. He bought
enough of the debts, at a serious reduction, to constitute him
the chief creditor, and thus secured the legal right to control
the affair. Other debts he arranged to pay at various periods,
and converted others into annuities. By these and other de-
vices he saved the estate entire, and enabled the count, while
still enjoying a sufficient revenue, to relieve it from incum-
brance within a reasonable time. " Often," adds Longchamp,
" I have seen M. d'Estaing at the house of M. de Voltaire,
whom he regarded as his best friend, and he said openly to
those who talked to him of his affairs that if there remained
to him something of his ancient fortune he was indebted for
it to M. de Voltaire alone." ^
1 2 Memoires sur Voltaire et sur ses CEuvres, par Longchamp et Wagni^re, ses
Secretaires, 115 to 223. Paris, 1826.
CHAPTER XLV.
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET.
Perhaps it is fortunate for civilization that so many of the
most conspicuous men of that century managed their relations
with women so badly as they did. Their intense and shame-
ful sufferings instruct the student of the art of living. We
see them expecting to enjoy the good of women without pay-
ing the just price of that good. We see them shunning the
salutary restraints of marriage, and enduring inconveniences
ten times greater. The illustrious Goethe, a rover and a lib-
ertine from his youth, after shrinking from marriage with a
kind of horror, found himself, in his declining years, mated to
his inferior, a bloated drunkard, who transmitted her despotic
appetite to their son ; and that son, in his turn, became its
abject slave, and died miserably in the prime of his life.
Voltaire we have seen figuring for sixteen years as part of the
baggage of a wild marchioness, enduring more than the cost
and worry of married life, while enjoying very little of its
peace, happiness, and dignity, and nothing at all of its great-
est charm.
His long bondage was now to end in a catastrophe com-
pounded of the farcical and the tragic. Nature cannot be
cheated. Of all the multitudes of men who have attempted
to steal a good, not one has ever succeeded ; perpetual motion
is not more impossible. In the affairs of sex, nature, so far
as we can discern, has but one object, the production and due
custody of superior offspring. Slie seems to regard nothing
else as of the slightest importance ; and since the production
and due custody of even one child demands the affectionate
cooperation of both parents for an average life-time, every
healthy sexual instinct tends to life-long marriage. Nature
will not be cheated in a matter of supreme importance. She
bore much from this ill-regulated Du Chatelet, but turned
upon her at last to wreak a sudden and horrible vengeance.
548 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Madame du Chatelet recorded the decline of Voltaire's affec-
tion for her with great candor. She introduces the topic into
her *' Reflections upon Happiness."
" I received from God [she tells us] one of those tender and im-
movable souls that know not how either to disguise or moderate their
passions ; whose love knows neither decline nor disgust, and the tenac-
ity of which is such as to resist everything, even the certainty of
being loved no more. Yet I was happy for ten years through the
love of him who had subjugated my soul, and those ten years I passed
at his side without any moment of disgust or languor. When age,
maladies, possibly also the satiety of enjoyment, had lessened liis
fondness, it was long before I perceived it. I loved for two ; I passed
my entire life with him ; and my heart, free from suspicion, enjoyed
the pleasure of loving and the illusion of believing myself loved. It
is true that I lost that happy condition, and not without it costing me
many tears. Terrible shocks are necessary to break such chains ; the
wound at my heart bled a long time. I had reason to complain, and
I forgave all. I was even just enough to feel that, perhaps, in the
whole world there was only my heart which had that immutability
that annihilates the power of time. I thought, too, that if age and
sickness had not entirely extinguished his desires they would still have
been for me, and his love would have returned to me ; and, finally,
that his heart, though incapable of love, chei-ished for me the most
tender friendship, and would have consecrated to me his life. The
absolute impossibility of the return of his taste and of his' passion,
which I well knew was not in the nature of things, led my heart in-
sensibly to the gentle sentiment of friendship ; and that sentiment,
joined to my passion for study, rendered me sufficiently happy." ^
Which means that she had found another lover. At the
distance of a day's ride eastward from Cirey was Luneville,
the principal seat of Stanislas, "King of Poland," father-in-law
to the King of France, and Duke of Lorraine. He was an
indolent, good-natured old gentleman, now a little past sev-
enty, who amused himself by maintaining a court in the style
then accepted in Europe as the true royal mode. That is to
say, he kept a confessor and a mistress ; he went to mass
every morning ; he was scrupulously polite to his wife ; he
corresponded with authors, wrote books, founded an Academy,
gave prizes for poems, loved the drama, and doted upon Vol-
taire. His court, too, was a centre of intrigues, which were
1 Lefctres luedites de Madame la Marquise du Chatelet. Paris, 1806. Page 369.
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 549
as active and virulent as those of courts wliere a hundred
times as much of the public money was wasted. Voltaire had
been an occasional visitor at LumSville for many years ; but it
was one of those petty court intrigues that drew him thither
as a more established inmate.
• The king, as Voltaire has recorded, " shared his soul be-
tween his mistress, the Marquise de Boufflers, and a Jesuit
named Menou, the most intriguing and audacious priest I have
ever known. This man had beguiled from King Stanislas,
through the importunities of his wife, whom he governed, about
a million francs, part of which he employed in building a mag-
nificent house for himself and some Jesuits in the town of
Nancy. This house was endowed with a revenue of twenty-
four thousand francs, of which twelve thousand were for Me-
nou's table, and twelve thousand were at his disposal. The
mistress was far from being so well treated. She drew from the
King of Poland scarcely money enough to buy her petticoats,
and yet the Jesuit coveted her portion, and was furiously jeal-
ous of the marquise. They were openly embroiled. Every day
the king had much trouble, on going out from the mass, to
reconcile his mistress and his confessor. At length, our Jesuit,
having heard Madame du Chatelet spoken of as a woman well
formed and still handsome enough, conceived the project of
putting her in Madame de Boufflers's place. Stanislas occa-
sionally composed some sufficiently bad little works, and Menou
believed that a woman who was an author would succeed better
with him than another. It was he who came to Cirey to begin
this game. He cajoled Madame du Chatelet, and told us that
Kinfj Stanislas would be enchanted to see us. He returned to
say to the king that we burned with desire to pay our court to
im.
And, indeed, as Longchamp has already informed us, ma-
dame, from 1747, found herself very much at home at the little
court, where all her talents were agreeably exercised. She
acted, sang, danced, played, conversed, and translated Newton.
But it was Voltaire who captivated the benevolent old king.
" We attached ourselves," he says, " to Madame de Boufflers,
and the Jesuit had two women to combat." The king's let-
ters to Voltaire, of which several have been preserved, are
warmly eulogistic, and he praises some of his writings of this
650 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
period in a manner which casts doubts upon his orthodoxy.
Stanishis published, in 1749, his Uttle work entitled " The
Christian .Philosopher," which was held by good Catholics to
savor of heresy. His daughter, the Queen of France, read it
with emphatic disapproval, and laid the blame of it at the door
of her father's favored guests. They had perverted the good
old man, she thought, and she did not love Voltaire the better
for it. She wrote to her father that his book was the work of
an atheist, and she entertained the opinion that Voltaire and
Madame du Chatelet had first lured him from the path of vir-
tue throuo-li Madame de Boufflers, and then stifled his remorse
with irreligion.i
Voltaire soon felt this renewal of antipathy. After reach-
ing Lundville in September, 1748, he heard that a low bur-
lesque of his " S^mirainis " was about to be performed at Fon-
tainebleau. He begged the King of Poland to come to his
bedside, and entreated him to forward to the queen, his daugh-
ter, a remonstrance against the sacrilege. The queen coldly
replied that everything was parodied, even Virgil ; parodies
were in fashion ; why should he complain ? He then appealed
to Madame de Pompadour, and she contrived to prevent the
performance. Parodies, be it observed, were not then in fash-
ion ; they had been forbidden five years before, and the edict
was still in force. Stanislas heaped favors upon the guests
who amused him with such an enchanting variety of enter-
tainments. He bestowed a solid boon upon Madame du Cha-
telet in 1748 by appointing her husband grand marshal of his
household, at a salary of two thousand crowns per annum.
He interested himself also in procuring for her son his first
military commission, which was obtained about the time of
this visit.
One of the officers of King Stanislas's little court was the
Marquis de Saint-Lambert, afterwards celebrated as a poet, au-
thor of " Les Saisons," once rated by Frenchmen above " The
Seasons "of 'Thomson. He was a native of Lorraine, a scion
of an ancient house, though possessed of little fortune. He
served for a while as an officer of Stanislas's guards, but after-
wards accepted the post of grand master of the royal ward-
robe. In 1747, when Madame du Chatelet first became inti-
1 Voltaire to Eichelieu, Au<;ust, 1750.
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 551
mate with him, he was thirty-one years of age, a well-formed,
attractive young man, not less agreeable than when, in later
years, he was a favorite in the circles of Paris. She was then
forty-one. They were thrown much together at Lun^ville,
at Commercy, another abode of the King of Poland, and at
Nancy, Saint-Lambert's native place. It was not long before
she became furiously in love with him. As early as the spring
of 1748, she wrote him a tumultuous letter, in which she ex-
pressed her passion without the least reserve. It is evident
from this burning epistle and other hot notes of the same
month of May, 1748, that she was the wooer of the young
man, and that he yielded to her solicitations. She assures
him tWfit her love is without bounds, and tells him that her
only fear is lest he should be unable to return her passion with
the entire devotion she craves.
" Come to Cirey," she wrote, " to prove to me that I am
wrong."
He came. He was with her at Luneville, while Voltaire was
sick on the road to Paris, and this was probably the reason
why, in answer to Longchamp's letters, she only sent a lackey
to inquire how he was. She was urgent in her love. " Come
to me as soon as you are dressed," she writes in one flaming
note ; " afterwards you may ride on horseback if you wish."
In another, " I shall fly to you as soon as I have supped.
Madame de Boufflers is gone to bed." For several months
tliis amour was in full tide without awakening the least sus-
picion on the part of Voltaire, who was doubtless relieved
by it from some of the constraint in which he had lived. He
probably owed to it his happy escape to Paris with Long-
thamp, and his gay meeting with old friends, untrarameled by
madame's bandboxes. But the time came when he discov-
ered it. We owe to the curious Longchamp some wondrous
scenes that followed the discovery, which occurred at the
chateau of the King of Poland at Commercy, twenty miles from
Cirey : —
" One evening, M. de Voltaire, having come down-stairs before be-
ing called to supper, entered Madame du Chatelet's rooms without
having been announced, there being no servant in the ante-chamber.
He traversed the whole suite without meeting any one, and reached
at length a small room at the end, half lighted by one candle.
552 LIFE OF VOLTxMRE.
There he saw, or thought he saw, Madame du Chatelet and M. de
Sakit-Lambert .... conversing upon something besides verses and
philosophy. Struck with astonishment and indignation, unable to
control his feelings, he broke out into violent reproaches. M. de
Saint-Lambert, without being disconcerted, observed that it seemed
to him very singular that any one should give himself airs to censure
his conduct ; if that conduct displeased any one, the jjerson offended
had but to leave the chateau, and he would follow, in order to ex-
plain himself in a suitable place. M. de Voltaire went out furious,
ascended to his room, and ordered me to go at once to find a post-
chaise that could be hired or bought, his own having been left at
Paris ; adding that, after having found it, I should get post-horses
put to it, and bring it to the gate of the chateau. He said he was
resolved to return to Paris that very night.
" Amazed at a departure so precipitate, of which I had not heard
a word the evening before, and unable to divine the cause, I went
in search of Madame du Chatelet, to inform her of the order I had
just received, and try to learn from her what was the motive of it.
She told me that M. de Voltaire was a flighty man [^un visionnaire],
who had burst into a passion because he had found M. de Saint-
Lambert in her room. It was necessary, she added, to prevent his
leaving and making an outcry, and that I must evade executing the
commission which he had given me in a moment of fury. She
would know how to appease him ; it was necessary to let him dis-
charge his first fire, and try only to keep him in his room the next
day.
'• I did not return to his room until toward two o'clock in the
morning, when I told him that in all Commercy I had not been able
to find a carriage, either for hire or sale. His- servants lodo^ed in
the city ; I slejit alone in a small room near his chamber. Before
going to bed, he drew from a secretary a small bag of money, which
he gave me, saying that, after having rested, I was to go, at the
dawn of day, hire a post-horse and ride to Nancy, whence I should
bring him a carriage suited to his purpose. Seeing that he was still
in the same resolution, I wished to give notice of it to Madame du
Chatelet. Before retiring, I descended secretly to her room, where
she was still occupied in writing. On seeing me, she first asked if
M. de Voltaire was a little more tranquil. I replied that he appeared
to be still irritated ; that he had just gone to bed ; but that probably
he would sleep little during the night. Thereupon she dismissed me,
saying that she was going up to speak to him.
" I returned softly to my little room. A few minutes after some
one knocked, and I ran, with a candle, to open the door for madame,
t
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 553
and to announce her to M. de Voltaire. Seeing me half undressed, he
did not suspect that I had been forewarned of this visit. She entered
the chamber almost at the same time as myself, and took a seat upon
the foot of his bed. After having lighted two candles I withdrew ;
but I could hear part of their conversation through the very thin wall
which separated me from the chamber ; and, since the death of Ma-
dame du Chatelet, I have heard some details from Mademoiselle du
Thil, her intimate confidante. While I was still with them, madame
first addressed him in English, repeating a pet name in that language
which she ordinarily called him by. After I was gone she spoke
in French, and did what she could to soften him and excuse her-
self.
" 'What,' said he, ' you wish me to believe you after what I have
seen ! I have exhausted my health, my fortune ; I have sacrificed all
for you ; and you deceive me ! '
" ' No,' she replied, ' I love you always ; but for a long time you
have complained that you are sick, that your strength abandons you ;
I am extremely afflicted at it; I am very far from wishing your death ;
your health is very dear to me ; no one in the world takes more in-
terest in it than I do. On your part, you have always shown much
interest in mine ; you have known and approved the regimen which
suits it ; you have even favored and shared it as long as it was in your
power to do so. Since you agree that you could not continue to take
care of it except to your great damage, ought you to be offended that
it is one of your friends who supplies your place ? '
"' Ah, madame,' said he, 'you are always right; but since things
must be as they are, at least let them not pass before my eyes.'
" After half an hour's conversation, madame, seeing that he was a
little more calm, bade him adieu with an embrace, and urged him to
give himself up to repose. She then retired.
" She had already taken much trouble to appease M. de Saint-Lam-
bert, who still wished to have satisfaction for the insult which he pre-
tended to have received from M. de Voltaire. She succeeded in molli-
fying him, and she determined him even to take measures for the res-
toration of good-will between them, persuading him that this was his
dyty, were it only from deference to the age of M. de Voltaire. The
latter, after the interview with madame, slept for some hours, and did
not leave his rooms that day. Toward evening, M. de Saint-Lambert
called, alleging that he was anxious concerning the healtli of M. de
Voltaire. Astonished to see him, I went to announce him to M. de
Voltaire, who permitted him to enter. The young man, approaching
with a modest air, began by apologizing for the words, a little ani-
mated, which had escaped him in a moment of trouble and agitation.
554 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Scarcely was his sentence finished, when M. de Voltaire seized him
with" both hands, embraced him, and said, —
" 'My child, I have forgotten all, and it was I who was in the wrong.
You are in the happy age of love and delight. Enjoy those moments,
too brief. An old man, an invalid, like me is not made for the pleas-
ures.'
" The next day all three supped together as usual. A few days
after this adventure, M. de Voltaire began to compose a comedy in
one act and in verse, wherein all that had happened was delineated
under a veil of allegory. The characters, the passions, were depicted
in it with as much energy as truth. The author judged it proper to
suppress the manuscript of this piece, some verses of which are to be
found in ' Nanine,' another comedy, which was also written at Com-
mercy some time after."
The autumn of 1748 rolled away. Voltaire, having recov-
ered his health and composure, designed to spend part of the
winter at Paris, where he hoped to see " Serairamis " revived,
to present to the public a new tragedy, and submit to the King
of France some chapters of his history of the late campaigns.
Madame was to leave her young lover for a while, and accom-
pany her old " friend " to the capital ; not to share his ex-
pected triumphs at the theatre and the court, but to finish at
Paris her version of Newton's "Principia," with the aid of
M. Clairaut, her instructor in mathematics.
" Before going to Paris [continues Longchamp] she desired to ar-
range a matter of business with one of her farmers near Chalons ;
whence she proposed to go on to Cirey, in order to audit the accounts
of the men who had the management of her foundries and forests.
Both having taken leave of the King of Poland, they set out from
Luneville toward the middle of December, 1748. On approaching
Chillons at eight o'clock in the morning, Madame la Marquise was
very far from stopping to take a bowl of broth at the inn. She was
driven to the country-house of the bishop, whom she knew to be at
home. He received our travelers with pleasure, and caused a good
breakfast to be served to them. Madame's farmer, notified by one of
the postilions, came to meet her there, and the regulation of his ac-
count was neither long nor difficult. At the same time the other pos-
tilion had been charged to bring a change of horses by half past nine
at the very latest.
" The farmer having gone, madame took a fancy, while waiting for
the horses, to propose to some gentlemen who were at the bishop's
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 555
house to play a game of comet or cavagnole, games then in fashion.
They yielded to her desire, and play began. It was much prolonged.
Meanwhile the horses were at the door, and the postilions, tired .of
waiting, sent in to say that if the travelers were not going to start
they Avould take the horses back to the stable. They received orders
in reply to do so, since the travelers would not set out till after din-
ner, and to bring the horses back at two o'clock. The postilions
executed punctually these orders ; but, dinner over, madame and her
friends began again to play at comet. The game was long. It was
raining. The postilions, chilled to the bone in the rain, did not cease
to crack their whips in the most furious manner. That game over,
Madame du Chatelet, who was on the losing side, asked her revenge.
Another game was begun. Then the postilions, losing all patience,
swore like mired cartmen ; and if they had been their own masters
they would have abandoned their horses. To quiet them they were
told to put the horses into the stables of the chateau, and were as-
sured that the time lost would be amply paid for. At length, the day
was entirely spent. It was eight o'clock in the evening. Then M.
de Voltaire, to whom this delay was not agreeable, and Madame du
Chatelet, who cared nothing about it, thanked and took leave of the
very obliging prelate, and resumed their journey.
" It had rained all day ; the weather was still bad and the night
very dark. Mounted upon a large white horse, I rode on before to
have the relays ready for them. It was not possible for me to see
two paces ahead, and unfortunately, while directing my horse by
chance, I got out of the middle of the road, and went headlong into
the ditch. Losing my seat, I was precipitated over the head of the
animal, and found myself stretched at length at the bottom of the
ditch, with a part of the horse resting upon me The postilion
who was sent to find me, having heard my cries, ran up to me and as-
sisted me to reach the carriage. Tiiey had me placed beside the
femme de chamhre, for I was bruised and could no longer ride on
horseback. I reached Cirey, suffering much pain and in a miserable
condition ; but rest and the care lavished upon me restored me, and
prevented the serious results which the accident might have had, some
of the consequences of which I felt for several years.
" Two or three days sufficed for madame to transact the business
which brought her to Cirey before going to Paris, where she expected
to pass the winter. When not studying she was always lively, active,
and good-humored. In the midst of her preparations for departure
she appeared all at once abstracted,' melancholy, restless. She had
discovered, from various symptoms, that she was in a way to become a
mother again, at the age of forty-four years. She was terrified at the
556 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
prospect. How to conceal her condition and its consequences, and
especially from M. du Chatelet ?
" M. de Voltaire, struck with a change in her demeanor, so sudden
and so extraordinary, asked her with concern what was the reason of
it. She gave it without hesitation. He was not very much aston-
ished. The information could not give him pleasure; but, on learning
it, he thought only of tranquillizing Madame du Chatelet, and pre-
venting its affecting her to the point of making her sick. He told
her that there was no occasion for despair, and nothing in her case at
all supernatural. It became them, he said, to consider the matter
coolly, with good sense and prudence, and decide what was the best
course to take in the circumstances. His advice was, first of all, to
send for M. de Saint-Lambert, that they might all three take part in
the deliberation. Informed by M. de Voltaire of the business in hand,
M. de Saint-Lambert was at Cirey the day after he received the noti-
fication.
" A council was immediately held. A mischance which seemed to
be of a nature to displease equally each of the three personages, as
parties in interest, and to separate them forever, served, on the con-
trary', only to unite them the more. The event, serious as it was, was
even turned into jest. Nevertheless, they considered first if there
was any way of concealing from the public, and, above all, from M.
du Chatelet, the condition of madame and its natural consequence.
It was decided that both her character and propriety forbade the long
and indispensable precautions which such a scheme would involve ;
and even were she capable of submitting to them the least indiscre-
tion, the merest accident, might cause the plan to fail. The questions
then arose how the pregnancy should be announced, and to what fa-
ther the child should be assigned ; which latter seemed very embar-
rassing: to M. de Saint-Lambert and to Madame du Chatelet.
" ' As to that,' said M. de Voltaire, ' we will put it among the mis-
cellaneous works [^oeuvres melees^ of Madame du Chatelet.'
" On discussing the thing more gravely, it was agreed not to falsify
the legal axiom, that he is the father whom the nuptial relation indi-
cates, and that the child belonged of right to j\L du Chatelet. To
him, then, it was resolved to give the child ; but the difficulty was to
make him accept it. All being well weighed and deliberated, they
agreed that madame should write at once to her husband, who was
then at Dijon (one hundred and twenty miles distant), and invite him
to come immediately to Cirey to arrange some family business, so as
to avoid a lawsuit with which she was threatened. She pressed him
to come also for the purpose of receiving the money she had collected
at Cirey for the expenses of the next campaign, adding that, if the
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 557
war continued, he was to have a higher grade, which she had assisted
to obtain for him by her influence.
" The marquis flew to Cirey, where he was received with lively
demonstrations of tenderness and regard on the part of his wife, as
well as of respect and joy on that of his vassals. He was rejoiced to
find there M. de Voltaire and M. de Saint-Lambert, who neglected
nothing that could render his visit to his estate agreeable, despite
the season. He was flattered with so much cordiality, seemed ex-
tremely cheerful, and responded by unequivocal marks of friendship.
Madame invited several noblemen of the neigliborhood to spend some
days at the chateau to augment the satisfaction of her husband. They
gave him Ihtla fetes, and even theatricals. During the first days she
employed a great part of the morning with him arranging the affairs
of the house, while the guests were hunting. At dinner great cheer
was made. The marquis performed well his part at table, having
previously gained a good appetite in going to see his farmers and
inspecting his forges and his woods. After dinner they had cards and
other amusements ; but nothing surpassed supper in agreeableness and
gayety. All the guests were in the best humor, and testified their
delight in seeing M. du Chatelet again. Every one talked with the
greatest freedom of whatever interested him, and M. le Marquis du
Chatelet related some stories of the last campaign in Flanders. They
seemed to listen to him with great interest, and he was much flattei-ed
by it. They let him talk and drink as much as he liked. When
he ceased, others told pleasant tales, said good things, and gave some
curious anecdotes. M. de Voltaire went beyond all the rest, and
heightened the general gayety by the drollest and most diverting
stories.
" Madame du Chatelet, who on that day was dressed with extreme
elegance, sat next her husband, and said some agreeable and happy
things to him, paid him, without affectation, pretty little attentions,
which he took in good part, and to which he responded by addressing
flattering compliments to his wife. M. de Voltaire and M. de Saint-
Lambert exchanged glances, and secretly rejoiced to see that all was
going so well. Indeed, during dessert the marquis was in a beautiful
humor, and became entirely gallant. His wife appeared in his eyes
such as he had beheld her at twenty. He felt himself transported
back to the same age, and played the young man During this
little conjugal colloquy the other guests, animated by champagne,
talked loudly of hunting, fishing, horses, and dogs. But M. de Vol-
taire and M. de Saint-Lambert, interested in another matter, I'ead
with great pleasure in the face of M. du Chatelet, and still better in
the eyes of his wife, that their project would be accomplished accord-
558 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
ing to their intention. In fact, from that night the pair occupied the
same suite of rooms. Nothing was neglected to sustain the illusion
during the following days. They kept the marquis in play. Pleas-
ure followed pleasure, and his lovely humor was maintained in the
midst of the gayety by which he was surrounded. Three weeks and
more passed in a kind of enchantment, and then madame declared to
her husband that, from certain signs, she had reason to believe herself
enceinte.
" At this news M. du Chatelet thought he should faint with joy.
He sprang to the neck of his wife, embraced her, and went to commu-
nicate what he had heard to all his friends who were in the chateau.
Every one congratulated him, and called upon madame to testify the
interest they took in their mutual satisfaction. The news was imme-
diately spread into the neighboring villages. Gentlemen, lawyers,
large farmers, came to compliment M. du Chatelet. He received
them all to admiration. Perhaps he was secretly flattered to prove
to them that he could still be of service elsewhere than in the field.
This gave occasion to new rejoicings at Cirey. At length the time
arrived for M. du Chatelet to return to his post, and he took his de-
parture. M. de Saint-Lambert went back to Luneville. Madame
la Marquise and M. de Voltaire renewed preparations for their jour-
ney to Paris. All four set out from Cirey, well content with what
had passed there."
Thus, Longchamp. On reading his unique narrative we
naturally turn to the correspondence of the characters who
fisfure in it, to see if it harmonizes with his statements. We
find that it does. December 1, 1748, Voltaire wrote at Lune-
ville to the D'Argentals at Paris, " Divine angels, I shall be
under your wings at Christmas." This accords with Long-
champ's information that they left Luneville for Paris toward
the middle of December, intending to make but a brief stay
at Cirey for business only. Something not expected detained
them there until the end of January, 1749. January 21st, Vol-
taire wrote to D'Argental from Cirey, " Madame du Chatelet
has just finished a preface to her Newton, which is a chef
d'oeuvre.'" January 2Gth, he wrote from Cirey a long letter to
the King of Prussia, and did not begin to send letters from
Paris until February. Thus, ample time was afforded (six
weeks) for the performance of the amazing comedy described
by a secretary of inquiring mind.
More than this, Voltaire's presence in Paris, during all that
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 559
long period of detention in the country, was veliemently de-
sired by his friends, and particularly by his guardian angels,
the D'Argentals, ever watchful for his interest. The actors
and the public were waiting for his coming with impatience
that " S^miramis " might be revived, with the author's last
corrections and improvements. Never before had the clique
hostile to him been more active, more resolute, more hopeful ;
and a tragedy was his favorite means both of offense and de-
fense. D'Argental wrote urgently for his coming. Madame du
Chatelet, as we have observed, was one of those ladies who can
look out from the warm shelter of an elegant room, and bear,
with perfect equanimity for many hours, the inconveniences
suffered by postilions in the piercing rain of a French Decem-
ber. She was hard j)ut to it on the present occasion to account
for this unforeseen delay in a manner that would satisfy the
Count d'Argental. January 13th, she wrote to him, " If I
thought that the presence of M. de Voltaire was necessary at
Paris, I would leave everything to bring him thither ; but, in
truth, I think it is best to teep the public fasting with regard
to ' Sdmiramis,' so that they may long for it as it merits. I am
sure of M. de Richelieu, and know that the parody upon 'Senii-
ramis ' will not be played. These are my principal reasons for
not abandoning the very essential and tedious business which
I am transacting at Cirey. A forge-master who is leaving,
another who takes possession, some woods to examine, some
disputes to reconcile, — all that, without losing a moment,
cannot be accomplished before the end of the month." ^
All of which confirms the narrative of Longchamp.
They were established, then, at the Du Chatelet mansion in
Paris early in February, 1749. Each of them was at once ab-
sorbed in intellectual labor, madame being passionately intent
upon completing her Newton before returning to the country
on a less agreeable errand. Were they really on as cordial
terms as before? They were always liable to tiffs' and scenes;
and if age had cooled Voltaire's temperament it does not ap-
pear to have quieted his nerves. Let Longchamp relate two
scenes between them at Paris, which occurred while the lady
was closeted daily and nightly with her professor of mathemat-
ics, reading proofs and verifying algebra : —
^ Lettres, page 481.
660
LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
FIRST SCENE.
""Upon their return to Paris, madame plunged again into the sci-
ences, and invited M. Clairaut, of the Academy of Sciences, to come
and examine her work upon Newton and go over the calculations.
M. Clairaut came every day, and went with her to a room in the second
story, where they shut themselves up in order not to be interrupted.
There they passed a great part of the day, and in the evening they
usually supped with M. de Voltaire, who then kept house, and occupied
rooms on the first floor. For some days he had not been well, and
complained that his digestion was out of order. When that was the
case, his usual remedy was to confine himself to a strict diet, and drink
abundantly of very weak tea.
" One day, when his affairs had obliged him to take several walks
in Paris, finding in the evening that he had gained a little appetite, he
asked to have supper somewhat earlier than usual, and told me to go
and call the two learned persons, Madame du Chatelet and M. Clai-
raut. Madame, who was deep in a calculation which she wished to
finish, asked a respite of a quarter of an hour. M. de Voltaire con-
sents, and waits patiently. Half an hour passes, and no one comes.
He makes me go up-stairs again. I knock, and they cry out to me,
' We are just coming down ! ' Upon receiving this answer, M. de Vol-
taire has the soup brought in, and takes his seat at the table, expecting
the company immediately. But they come not, and the plates are
getting cold. Then he gets up, furious, rushes up the stairs, and, find-
ing their door locked, he gives it a tremendous kick. At this noise,
being obliged to leave their work, the two geometers rise and follow
him with some confusion. As they were going down-stairs he said to
them, ' You are then in a conspiracy to kill me ? ' Usually their sup-
per was cheerful and very long, but that night it was very short;
scarcely anything was eaten ; each of them, with eyes fixed upon his
plate, said not a word. M. Clairaut left early, and it was some time
before he came to the house again."
SECOND SCENE.
" M. de Voltaire went to bed, but could not sleep all night, so
much was he excited by the events of the evening. The next morn-
ing, madame sent some one to his room to ask how he was, and to
know if he desired her to come and breakfast with him. He answered
that if she wished to come she should be well received. A moment
after, madame came down, holding in her hand a superb cup and sau-
cer of Saxony porcelain, which he had given her, and which she loved
to use. They were very large, all gilt inside, and the outside adorned
with a landscape containing a great number of figures very well painted,
I
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 561
which formed some charming pictures, as well from the elegance of the
design as from the brilliancy of the coloring. M. de Voltaire told me
to pour into it some coffee and cream, which having done I withdrew.
Madame, while sipping her coffee, began to speak to him of what had
passed the evening before, reproaching him for his quickness of temper
and excusing herself for keeping him waiting. She was standing with
her cup in her hand, and, while sipping and talking, she had come very
near the fauteuil on which he was seated. Suddenly he rose, as if to
make room for her to sit beside him, and, in rising, he struck madame
with his left shoulder, which caused the cup and saucer to fall from
her hands and break into a thousand pieces. Roused by this noise, I
reentered. Madame, much attached to this little article, and having
quite as quick a temper as M. de Voltaire, said to him in English
some words which I did not understand, and, without waiting for his
reply, went up to her room, extremely irritated, as it seemed to me.
" As soon as she was gone out, M. de Voltaire called me, told me
to pick up the pieces and put them upon the table. He chooses one
of the largest pieces, and tells me to go at once to the shop of M. la
Frenaye, jeweler, to buy a cup and saucer exactly like the fragment,
if he has one such. At the same time he gives me a little bag of
money to pay him. But among all the porcelains which adorned the
shop, I found not one cup of the pattern I wished. Having chosen
one of those which seemed most like it, I asked the price. Ten louis.
The bag was two or three louis short of this sum, and I asked M. la
Frenaye to send one of his men with three or four of his most beauti-
ful breakfast cups, that M. de Voltaire might choose the one he liked
best. The man brought six. Having selected the most elegant, and at
the same time the most expensive, M. de Voltaire haggled much about
the price ; but gained nothing by it, the man protesting that ten louis
was the cost price, and that it was impossible to abate anything. M.
de Voltaire finished by counting out to the man the ten louis, not with-
out regretting the expense, and saying between his teeth that madame
ought to have taken her coffee in her own room before coming down
to his. Nevertheless, he sent me to make his excuses for his ill-tem-
per, and to carry her this new coffee-cup, which she received with a
smile. Their reconciliation was prompt, and this little disturbance had
no after-effects."
The weeks flew by, as only time can fly which is spent in
mental labor. Madame might well be excused for keeping her
companion waiting for his supper. She spared herself no more
than she considered him. She was under a terrible pressure.
She worked upon her Newton as ambitious or procrastinating
VOL. I. 36
562 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
students ■work during the ten days before their final examina-
tion. She wrote, at the same time, burning letters to her ab-
sent lover, lamenting her long detention, and explaining its
cause.
[May 18, 1749.] " No ; it is not possible for my heart to express
to you how it adores you. Do not reproach me for my Newton ; I am
sufficiently punished for it. Never have I made a greater sacrifice
to reason than in remaining here to finish it ; it is a frightful labor, —
one that demands a head and health of iron Mon Dieu ! how
amiable INI. du Chatelet is to have offered to take you with him [to
Cirey] ! "
[May 20th.] " My departure hence does not depend absolutely
upon me, but upon Clairaut and the difficulty of my work. I sacrifice
everything to it, even my shape, and I beg you to remember it if you
find me changed. Do you kuow the life I have led since the depart-
ure of the king ? I get up at nine, sometimes at eight ; I work till
three ; then I take my coffee ; I resume work at four ; at ten I
stop to eat a morsel alone ; I talk till midnight with M. de Voltaire,
who comes to supper with me, and at midnight I go to work again,
and keep on till five in the morning I must do this, or else I
must either renounce the idea of lying in at Luneville, or lose the fruit
of my labors if I should die in child-bed With regard to the
fear you have of being alone with M. du Chatelet, it does not depend
entirely upon me to secure you against it ; and if you prefer seeing me
ten or twelve days later to risking that accident I have nothing to
say I can love nothing but what I share with you ; for, at
least, I do not love Newton. I finish it from reason and honor ; hut
I love only you." ^
This work upon Newton, published in 1756 by her distin-
guished teacher, Alexis Clairaut, in two quarto volumes, in-
volved vei'y severe and long- continued toil. She attempted in
it to do for Newton's " Principia " what Mrs. Somerville aft-
erwards accomplished for the Astronomy of Laplace. She
translated the Latin into French, and amplified the demon-
sti'ations so as to bring the work within the grasp of advanced
French students of mathematics. The title finally given it by
M. Clairaut was " The Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy." How much of the work was done by the teacher
and how much by the puj^il will never be known. At the
end of May she saw her last of Paris, and went to pass the
1 Lettres. Paris. 1878. Page 487.
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 563
lovely clays of June at beautiful Cirey, lier work still incom-
plete.
They spent most of the summer at Lun^ville, where ma-
dame chose that her child should be born, because there its
father could be near her at the critical time. Both Voltaire
and herself continued to labor with an intensity which was ex-
traordinary even for them. At Luneville, being separated
from his books and papers, and kept long waiting for the ex-
pected child, he had no resource but in original composition.
The Duchess du Maine had suggested to him a subject for a
new tragedy, the Conspiracy of Catiline, recently treated by
the aged Crdbillon. He thought of it during these summer
weeks of tedious waiting. Kindled by the project of his Paris
enemies to exalt above him the veteran dramatist just men-
tioned, whose " Catiline," despite all their efforts, had signally
failed, he now had one of his frenzies of inspiration, and wrote
in eight days and nights his tragedy of " Rome Saved." It
was a wonderful feat. Every other day, he says, madame
looked up from her Newton to be astounded by his bringing
in two new acts. But here is one of his own accounts of the
mad fit, written August 12, 1749, at Luneville, to D'Argen-
tal: —
" Read, only read, what I send you ! You are going to be aston-
ished ; I am, myself. On the 3d of the present mouth the devil,
saving your grace, took possession of me, and said, Avenge Cicero and
France ; wash away your country's shame ! He enlightened me ; he
made me imagine the wife of Catiline, etc. This devil is a good devil,
my angels ; yourselves would not do better. He made me work day
and niglit. I thought I should die of it; but what does that matter?
In eight days, — yes, in eight days, and not in nine, — Catiline has been
done ; and the first scenes, very nearly as first written, I send you.
It is all done in the rough, and I am quite exhausted. I shall send it
to you, as you may well believe, as soon as I have put the last hand
to it. You will see in it no amorous Tullia, no go-between Cicero ;
but you will see a terrible picture of Rome. I shudder at it still. Ful-
via will rend your heart. You will adore Cicero. How you will love
Caesar ! How you will say, This is Cato's self ! And Lucullus, Cras-
sus, what shall we say of them ? Oh, my dear angels, ' Merope ' is
scarcely a tragedy in comparison. But let us employ eight weeks in
correcting what we have done in eight days. Believe me, beUeve me,
this is the true tragedy ! "
564 • LITE or VOLTAIRE.
[Again, August 16th.] "This post ought to convey to my divine
angels a cargo of the first two acts of Catiline. But why entitle the
work Catiline ? Cicero is the real hero of it : he it is whose glory I
wished to avenge ; it was he who inspired me, he whom I tried to im-
itate, and who occupies all the fifth act. I pray you, let us call the
piece Cicero and Catiline."
The heat of creation having subsided, he labored more
peacefully at correcting his work, kpeping an eye ever upon
Paris, and beginning already to make partisans for the new
play by giving early accounts of its progress. The Duchess du
Maine was of course promptly notified. The President Re-
nault, a French Horace Walpole, rich, critical, and friendly,
was amply advised. The zealous Marmontel was not over-
looked. The author, meanwhile, on surveying his work more
at leisure, found abundant faults in it, and did, in fact, spend
much more than eight weeks in correcting the composition of
eight days.
August drew towards its close, and still madame kept them
waiting. The ofiicers and servants of the King of Poland
did not all appreciate the merits of guests who stayed so long,
increased their labors, and, perhaps, in some instances, cur-
tailed their perquisites. One M. Alliot, aulic councilor, ad-
ministrator of the king's household, did not approve the system
of M. de Voltaire in confining himself so much to his own
rooms, instead of taking sustenance in the usual place. He
was slack in supplying a frenzied tragic poet with such homely
necessaries as " bread, wine, and candles." But he found
that the tragic poet was a person who knew his rights as a
king's guest. Voltaire wrote an exquisitely polite letter to
M. Alliot, informing him that at the court of his majesty of
Prussia he was not obliged " to importune every day for bread,
wine, and candles." " Permit me to say to you," he added,
" that it belongs to the dignity of the King of Poland and the
honor of your administration not to refuse these trifling at-
tentions to an officer of the court of the King of France, who
has the honor to pay his respects to the King of Poland.'"
This note was ostentatiously dated "August 29th, at a quar-
ter past nine in the morning." He waited just half an hour.
Receiving no answer, he wrote to the king himself, dating his
letter " August 29th, at a quarter to ten in the morning."
DEATH OF MADAJME DU CIIATELET. 565
"Sire, when we are in Paradise, it is necessary for us to address
ourselves to God. Your majesty has permitted me to pay you my
court until the end of autumn, when I shall not be able to avoid
taking leave of your majesty. Your majesty is aware that I am very
sick, and that unceasing labors, not less than my continual sufferings,
retain me in my own rooms. I am compelled to beseech your majesty
to give orders that the director of your majesty's household shall con-
descend to pay me those attentions, necessary and suitable to the
dignity of your abode, with which your majesty honors foreigners who
come to your court. Kings, from the time of Alexander, have had
it in charge to nourish men of letters ; and when Virgil was in the
house of Augustus Alliotus, aulic councilor to Augustus, caused Virgil
to be supplied with bread, wine, and candles. I am sick to-day, and
have neither bread nor wine for dinner. I have the honor to be, with
profound respect, sire, of your majesty, the very humble servant."
The wine, the bread, and the candles were not again with-
held by an aulic councilor, the king having given orders to
that effect. Madame Alliot, we are informed, was extremely
sotte and superstitious, and did not enjoy this irruption of
French pagans into a quiet chateau with a chapel and a daily
mass. One day she chanced to be in the same room with
Voltaire while a frightful thunder-storm was passing over
Lun^ville, and she did not conceal her apprehension that his
presence much enhanced the danger the chateau was in from
a vengeful bolt. " Madame," said he, pointing to the sky,
" I have thought and written more good of him whom you are
so much afraid of than you will be able ,to say of him in the
whole of your life." ^
So passed these summer months. September came in.
Madame du Chatelet still labored assiduously at her Newton,
not neglecting her part in amusing the good-natured old king.
Gay as she seemed, she was not, as Longehamp assures us,
without occasional fears. She sent to Paris for her old friend,
Mademoiselle du Thil, who obeyed her summons. She arranged
her papers, and had them divided into parcels, which she caused
to be sealed and directed. She made Longehamp promise to
deliver them to their addresses if she should not survive.
September 4th her child was born. All went as favorably as
possible, and Voltaire wrote three merry notes to convey the
news to anxious friends in Paris.
1 73 (Euvrea de Voltaire, 46. Note by another hand.
566 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
, " This evening [he wrote to the Abbe de Voisenon] Madame du
Chatelet, being at her desk, according to her laudable custom, said,
* But I feel something ! ' That something was a little girl, who came
into the world forthwith. It was placed upon a volume of geometry
which happened to be lying near, and the mother has gone to bed.
As for me, not knowing what to do during the last part of her preg-
nancy, I set myself to make a child all alone, and in eight days was
delivered of ' Catiline.' It was a jest of nature to wish that I should
accomplish in a week what Crebillon took thirty years to do. I am
astonished at the accouchement of Madame du Chatelet, and terrified
at my own. I know not if madame will imitate me and be pregnant
again ; but as soon as I was delivered of ' Catiline ' I had a new preg-
nancy, and produced upon the spot an ' Electre ' " [another subject of
Crebillon's].
In the same light tone he wrote to other friends that night,
while, as he said, mother and child " slept like dormice."
" I am a hundred times more fatigued than she is," he wrote
to D'Argental.
For four days she continued to do well. The child was
christened in the chapel, and given out to nurse, after the
French custom. The fourth day was very warm, and the
mother, being slightly feverish, felt the heat extremely. She
told her femme de chambre to bring her some iced orgeat, a
favorite summer drink of the time, made of almond paste,
sugar, and water. Persons near her bed remonstrated ur-
gently. She insisted, and drank of the ice-cold liquid a large
tumblerful. Alarming symptoms immediately declared them-
selves. Doctors were summoned ; her husband was sent for.
Powerful remedies having relieved her, again every one hoped
for her speedy restoration. Two days passed. September
10th, late in the evening, Voltaire, the Marquis du Chatelet,
and other friends were seated at the supper-table of Madame de
Boufflers, in another part of the chateau. Saint-Lambert and
Longchamp watched in the sick-room. All of them were relieved
and cheerful. Suddenly, ominous sounds were heard from the
bed, — a rattling, hiccoughs, a struggle for breath. They rushed
to her side. She seemed to have fainted. They raised her,
gave her the vinaigrette, rubbed her feet, struck her hands,
and employed all the usual remedies. She never breathed
again. She was dead when they reached her bedside.
From the merriment of the supper-table Voltaire, the bus-
DEATH OF MADA^IE DU CHATELET. 567
band, and all the guests, upon hearing the awful and unexpected
tidings, ran to the chamber. The consternation was such as
we should imagine. To sobs and exclamations of grief and hor-
ror a mournful silence succeeded. M. du Chatelet was led out ;
the other guests went away ; and, finally, the two men who
had most reason for emotion remained alone by the side of the
bed, speechless and overwhelmed. Voltaire staggered out of
the room like a man stunned and bewildered, and made his
way, he knew not how, to the great door of the chtiteau, at
the head of the outside steps. At the bottom of those steps
he fell headlong, close to a sentry-box, and remained on the
ground insensible. His servant, who had followed him, seeing
him fall, ran down the steps, and attempted to lift him up.
Saint-Lambert came, also, and assisted to get him on his feet.
He recognized Saint-Lambert, and said to him, sobbing, as
Longchamp reports, " Ah, my friend, it is you who have
killed her for me." Then, suddenly coming to himself, as if
from a deep sleep, he cried, in a tone of mingled despair and
reproach, " Oh, my God, sir, what could have induced you
to get her into that condition ? " Saint-Lambert said nothing,
and Voltaire was led away to his room.
Among the crowd of distracted persons who had rushed
into the chamber on the first alarm was Madame de Boufflers.
As she was going out, half an hour later, she took Longchamp
aside, and told him to see if the deceased had upon her fin-
ger a cornelian locket-ring ; and if she had, to take it off and
keep it until further orders. He obeyed, and the next day
gave the ring to Madame de Boufflers, who picked out of the
locket, with a pin, a portrait of Saint-Lambert, and then gave
back the ring to Longchamp, to place it among the other ef-
fects, for the Marquis du Chatelet. Two or three days after,
Voltaire, being a little calmer, asked Longchamp for the same
ring, which, he said, contained his own portrait. The secre-
tary informed him that his portrait was not in the ring at the
time of madame's death. " Ah ! " exclaimed Voltaire, " how
do you know that ? " Longchamp related what had passed.
" Oh, heavens ! " cried Voltaire, rising to his feet and clasp-
ing his hands. " Such are women ! I took Richelieu out of
the ring. Saint-Lambert expelled me. That is in the order
of nature ; one nail drives out another. So go the things of
this world ! "
568 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
Longchamp, obeying the orders which madame had given
him, distributed the papers she had left sealed and directed.
Last of all he delivered those addressed to her husband. One
of the parcels was a large case, locked, and sealed in several
places, with the key in a sealed packet tied to one of the han-
dles. Upon the cover of the case madame had written with
her own hand : —
'■'■ I pray M. du Chdtelet to he so good as to hum all these
papers tvithout looking at them. They can he of no use to him.,
and have no relation to his affairs^
The husband, upon opening the case, was disposed to disre-
gard this request ; but his wiser brother, the Count de Lomont,
who was present, told him that he ought to respect the last
wishes of his wife, and not abuse the mark of confidence which
she had shown him. The marquis, however, persisted in read-
ing a few of the uppermost letters, which, says the observant
Longchamp, caused him to make a wry face and shake his
ears. His brother, saying that he was well paid for his curi-
osity, ordered a lighted candle, emptied the case into the fire-
place, and set fire to the papers. There were several thick
and solid packets of manuscript among the mass, which burned
slowly. Longchamp, kneeling down before the fire-place to
quicken the blaze, contrived to rescue, on the sly, Voltaire's
" Treatise upon Metaphysics " and several letters. Even those
letters were afterwards destroyed ; so that of the hundreds of
letters which must have passed between Voltaire and Madame
du Chatelet only one trifling, jocular note of his is known to
exist.
She went beyond her right in consigning some of these
papers to the fire ; for among the mass were important memo-
randa and documents, collected by Voltaire for his historical
works, of which she disapproved, as well as some compositions
similar to the metaphysical treatise, which she deemed unsafe
for him to possess. He lamented deeply this irreparable loss,
and mentions it in the preface to his " Essai sur les Moeurs,"
with an expression of respect for her memory, which he never
omitted on any fair occasion as long as he lived. From him
the public never learned anything but good of the woman he
had loved.
Madame du Chatelet was buried at Lun^ville, with the
DEATH OF MADAME DU CHATELET. 569
pomp and ceremonial then customary. Her child lived but for
a short time, and passed away lamented by no one, — the mere
incidental supernumerary of a drama in which nature meant
her to be the chief personage^ And these wonderful events,
known to many persons immediately, brought no reproach
upon any of the actors. Saint-Lambert, in the drawing-rooms
of Paris, was regarded as a sort of hero of romance. " It
made him the fashion,'^ says the " Nouvelle Biographic," and
led the way to other "conquests," and to a long career of so-
cial as well as literary distinction in the metropolis of his
country. Voltaire remained on friendly, even cordial, terms
with him as long as he lived, as both did with the family of
the Du Chatelets. Frederic of Prussia was duly advised of
what had occurred by his French correspondents. We find
among his poetical writings of 1749 an epitaph upon Madame
du Chatelet, to this effect : —
" Here lies one who lost her life from the double accouche-
ment of a ' Treatise of Philosophy ' and of an unfortunate in-
fant. It is not known precisely which of the two took her
from us. Upon this lamentable event what opinion ought we
to follow ? Saint-Lambert assigns it to the book ; Voltaire
says it was the child." ^
1 14 CEuvrea de Frederic le Grand, 169.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE WIDOWER.
In some very bad marriages, Mr. Emerson wisely remarks,
tliere is a fraction of true marriage. In Voltaire's connection
with Madame du Cbatelet, tliere was, on his side, a large in-
gredient of true marriage. To the vow which sealed their
union he was faithful against the solicitations of the most se-
ductive king in Europe. He was faithful to it when it became
oppressive. He was faithful when she was faithless ; and, after
having been faithful to her person while she lived, he was sin-
gularly so to her name and honor after she was dead. He had
loved this woman, and he lived, with her in that kindly illusion
which in happy marriages casts a pleasing veil over ugly faults,
and sets good qualities in bright relief. Parents habitually
think of their children as they appear to them in their best
moments and moods. So he thought of her. There had been,
moreover, a genuine communion of spirit between them, and
they had often been true companions to each other. Long-
champ has told us how they sat together on the carriage cush-
ions, in the wintry night, lost in the contemplation of the starry
heavens which spoke to them of Newton's immortal glory.
As that incident gave dignity to a situation otherwise ridicu-
lous, so such communion of soul, though but occasional and
brief, redeemed the quality of their connection.
He was heart-broken at her loss. "Ah, my dear friend,"
he wrote to D'Argental on that fatal night, " I have only you
left upon the earth ! " It distressed him that he had written
of the birth of her child in so light a tone. " Alas, madame,"
he wrote to the Marquise du Deffand, " we had turned that
event into a jest ; and it was in that unfortunate tone that I
wrote, by her order, to her friends. If anything could augment
the horror of my condition, it would be to have taken with
gayety an adventure the result of which poisons the remainder
THE WIDOWER. 571
of my miserable life." In a similar strain lie wrote to other
friends during the first hours of his bereavement. Longchamp
testifies that the death of his Emilie overwhelmed him. He
avoided all company, and remained alone in his chamber, ab-
sorbed, sad, suffering, a prey to the most doleful thoughts.
His life was shattered, and he knew not how to begin to re-
construct it, so accustomed was he to depend upon her for
direction, as well as companionship. His first thought was to
retire to the Abbey of Senones, of which Dom Calmet was
the chief, a laborious writer upon theology and history, whose
extensive collection of books Voltaire had frequently drawn
upon during his long visits to the court of the King of Poland.
The Abbey of S^nones was near the chateau of that king
at Commercy, in Lorraine. Soon abandoning this idea, he
thought of seeking ah asylum with Lord Bolingbroke in Eng-
land, and actually wrote a letter, as Longchamp asserts, to
Bolingbroke, announcing his loss, and saying that he was dis-
posed to seek consolation at his abode. The letter does not
appear in his works, and seems to have had no consequences.
The inevitable duties of the crisis called him from his soli-
tude, and after the funeral he went to Cirey with Longchamp,
where he was joined soon by the Marquis du Chatelet and his
brother. Here he was in some degree consoled by sympathiz-
ing letters from his guardian angels in Paris, the truest and
fondest friends of his long life.
" You make my consolation, my dear angels [he wrote] ; you make
me love the unhappy remainder of my life I will confess to
you that a house which she inhabited, though overwhelming me with
grief, is not disagreeable to me. I am not afraid of my affliction ; I
do not fly that which speaks to me of her. I love Cirey ; I could not
support Luneville, where I lost her in a manner more awful than you
think ; but the places which she embellished are dear to me. I have
not lost a mistress ; I have lost the half of myself, a soul for whom
mine was made, a friend of twenty years, whom I knew in infancy.
The most tender father loves not otherwise his only daughter. I love
to find again everywhere tlie idea of her ; I love to talk witli her hus-
band, with her son I have been reading once more the im-
mense materials relating to metaphysics which she had gathered with
a patience and a sagacity which used to frighten me. With all that,
how was it possible for her to cry over our tragedies ? She had the
572 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
genius of Leibnitz, with sensibility. Ah, my dear friend, we do not
know what a loss we have suffered ! "
Longchamp, meanwhile, was packing for transportation to
Paris his books, marbles, bronzes, pictures, telescopes, air-
pumps, and his other apparatus, much of which was placed
in large barrels, and all was sent to his old abode in Paris.
He had a settlement of accounts with M. du Chatelet, much
to the advantage of that incomprehensible husband. He had
essentially promoted the fortune of the bereaved family, and
continued to be of service to it. He had, as before men-
tioned, lent the marquis forty thousand francs for the restora-
tion of the old chateau at Cirey, receiving, by way of interest,
an annuity of two thousand francs. For several years he had
been in the habit of making a present to the marquis of a re-
ceipt for the amount of the annual sum. • When the Brussels
lawsuit had reached a favorable stage, it was Voltaire who
negotiated and affected a compromise, by which the Du Ch^te-
lets surrendered their claim for the sum of two hundred thou-
sand francs in ready money. He then proposed to the marquis
to terminate their pecuniary relations at once and forever by
selling him back his annuity for the sum of fifteen thousand
francs. Du Chatelet gratefully accepted this proposal, and
contrived to pay ten thousand francs of the sum agreed upon,
leaving five thousand unpaid at the time of his wife's death.
This debt Voltaire now formally relinquished, asking only in
return a few mementos which he had himself given her, such
as his own miniature set in diamonds, and some articles of
furniture which he had bought for her at a sale.^
It is interesting to observe how scrupulously he used the
forms of respect demanded by the rank of this husband, to
whom he was so strangely related. In giving an account of
these transactions to that husband's elder sister, he says, " The
marquis deigned to accept from an old servant this arrange-
ment, which he would not have accepted from a man less at-
tached to him I value his friendship above five thou-
sand francs."
After a stay of fifteen days at Cirey, Longchamp packing,
himself working a little upon his " Rome Sauvde," he returned
1 "Voltaire to the Countess de Montrevel (sister of the Marquis du Chatelet),
November 15, 1749.
THE WIDOWER. 573
by easy stages to Paris, and took up his abode in his old quar-
ters, Rue Traversiere, now hired by him from the Marquis du
Chatelet. The house was a roomy old mansion in the Fau-
bourg St. Antoine, not very far from the Bastille. The mar-
quis, who cared little for Paris or the court, but loved his gun
and doars, retained the first and second floors, and let all the
rest to Voltaire. The rooms would scarcely contain the multi-
tude of things brought from Cirey, which were heaped up pell-
mell, as Longchamp records, a chaos of splendid and interest-
ing objects, which could neither be enjoyed nor seen. The
owner wandered about among them, sick, sorrowful, inconsol-
able, sleepless, admitting only his guardian angels, the D'Ar-
gentals, and Richelieu, and them not often. He never went
out.
" During the nights [says Longchamp] he would get up, all agita-
tion, and, fancying he saw Madame du Chatelet, he would call to her,
and drag himself with difficulty from room to room, as if in search of
her. It was the end of October, and the cold was already somewhat
severe. In the middle of a certain night when he could not sleep,
he got up out of bed, and after groping a few steps about the room
he felt so weak that he leaned against a table to keep from falling.
He remained standing there a long time, shivering with cold, and yet
reluctant to wake me. At length he forced himself to go into the
next room, where almost all his books were heaped upon the floor.
But he was far from remembering this, and, his head always filled
with the same object, he was endeavoring to traverse the room, when,
running against a pile of folios, he stumbled and fell. Unable to rise,
he called me several times ; but so feeble was his voice that at first
I did not hear him, although I slept near by. "Waking, at last, I
heard him groan and faintly repeat my name. I sprang up, and ran
toward him. Having no light, and going very fast, my feet became
entangled with his, and I fell upon him. Upon getting up, I found
him speechless and almost frozen. I made haste to lift him to his
bed, and, having struck a light and made a great fire, I endeavored to
warm him by wrapping his body and limbs in very hot cloths. That
produced a good effect. Gradually I saw him coming to himself ; he
opened his eyes, and, recognizing me, he said that he felt very tired
and had need of rest. Having covered him well and closed his cur-
tains, I remained in his room the rest of the night. He soon fell
asleep, and did not wake until near eleven in the morning."
Longchamp claims to have assisted his recovery by means
574 LIFE OF VOLTAIKE.
still more effectual. Among the letters which he had saved
from the conflagration of madame's papers there were some
in which she had spoken of Voltaire with great freedom. We
know that she did this in conversation. With several of these
letters within easy reach, Longchamp ventured to say to his
" dear master," whom he saw perishing daily, that he was very
much in the wrong to mourn so deeply the death of a lady
who had not loved him. " What ! " he cried. " Mordieu !
She did not love me ? " " No," said Longchamp ; " I have the
proof in my hand, and here it is." He gave him the letters,
which he read, and remained silent a long time. " She de-
ceived me ! " he said at length, with a sigh ; " who would
have believed it ? " From that hour, according to the secre-
tary, he began to recover his cheerfulness, and never again
left his bed in the night pronouncing the name of Emilie.
Something of this kind may have occurred ; for, no doubt,
a person so little accustomed to restrain her tongue had fre-
quently given full play to her pen. The Abbe de Voisenon,
a warm friend of the marquise for many years, has a brief
passage on this point : " Madame du Chatelet cQncealed noth-
ing from me ; I remained often alone with her until five in the
morninfj She said to me sometimes that she was en-
tirely detached from Voltaire. I made no reply. I took one
of the eight volumes [of manuscript letters from Voltaire to
the marquise, which she had had bound in eight beautiful
quartos], and I read some of the letters. I observed her eyes
moisten with tears. I promptly shut the book, saying, ' You
are not cured ! ' The last year of her life, I put her to the
same test. She criticised them ; I was convinced that the
cure was accomplished. She confided to me that Saint-Lam-
bert had been the doctor." ^
Voltaire's letters of this melancholy time harmonize with
his secretary's narrative. The letters of October are in the
tone of despair. In those of November much interest is
shown in his usual pursuits, and he renews his labors to com-
plete and perfect his new plays. He wrote often to the Duch-
ess du Maine, " ma frotectrice^'' arranging with her the de-
tails of a first performance on her private stage at Sceaux
of " Rome Sauvee," in which the author himself was to play
1 Quoted by Desuoiresterres in Voltaire a la Cour, page 180.
THE WIDOWER. 575
the part of Cicero. The drama, always his consolation when
other sources of enjojmient failed, was his chief means of res-
toration now, as it doubtless will be, finally and forever, the
most constant solace of toil-worn mortals. By Christmas,
too, he had put his house in order. He took the whole of the
large house from the Marquis du Chatelet, and so found room
for his furniture and objects of art. He invited his niece,
Madame Denis, to live with him and do the honors of his
abode. She was abundantly willing, and about Christmas
took possession of the keys and governed his house. His other
relations frequently visited him, and assisted to cheer his exist-
ence in the most natural manner. Madame Denis, whatever
her faults, was at least a woman of the world, a true Parisi-
enne, interested in art and society, ambitious to shine. She
had herself written a comedy, was somewhat proficient in
music, and could take a part in a play Avith some credit. " I
have returned to Paris," wrote Voltaire to Frederic, November
10, 1749. " I have gathered my family about me ; I have
taken a house, and I find myself the father of a family, with-
out having any children. Thus, in my grief, I have formed
an honorable and quiet establishment, and I shall spend the
■winter in completing these arrangements."
It seemed, then, that he had won at last, at the age of fifty-
six, a suitable and becoming home in his native city. The
Hotel de Richelieu was close at hand. The D'Argentals were
not far from him. Several of the friends of his early days
were still living, — the Abb^ d'Olivet, D'Argenson, Thieriot,
and others. He was rich beyond the most sanguine dreams of
his youth. Longchamp gives us the catalogue of his revenues
for this very year, 1749, amounting to seventy-four thousand
francs. He informs us, also, that this catalogue was incom-
plete, and that the actual income was probably eighty tliou-
sand francs, a sum equal in purchasing power to perhaps fifty
thousand dollars of our present currency. It was a laro-e in-
come for the time, one that placed every reasonable gratifica-
tion within his reach. It was an income, too, of which the
fiat of no man could deprive him. He did not yet own a foot
of land. He drew his revenue from the bonds of the city of
Paris, from mortgages, from annuities upon the estates of
great lords. He had twenty sources of supply, which could
576 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE,
not all fail him, let him be compelled to fly to the ends of the
earth. He kept his resources in light marching order.
France had been at peace since 1748. Why should he not
henceforth remain at home, cultivate his art, amuse Paris, en-
joy his celebrity, and glide tranquilly into the veteran ? Be-
cause he was Voltaire ; because France was France ; because
he had scarcely yet begun the work which makes him a per-
sonage in the history of man ; and because, until a man's
work is substantially done, it is in vain that he seeks the re-
pose of the chimney corner.
CHAPTER XLVII.
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS.
It is evident from his letters of this time that he considered
himself settled for life. His intention was, after spending the
winter in Paris, to visit the King of Prussia, and then gratify
a long-cherished desire of making the tour of Italy. He
wished to see Rome, and the two buried cities in which the
past had been preserved for the inspection of modern eyes.
This desire appeased, he meant to return to his home in Paris,
and resume there his life of toil and pleasure.
He did not know as well as we now do how completely
he had lost his court favor. Neither Richelieu nor Pompa-
dour could hold their own, in such a cause, against Boyer, the
queen, the dauphin, the princesses, and the antipathy of the
king. Nevertheless, on one condition, he could have lived in
peace in his house the rest of his days : he must have discon-
tinued the important part of his career ; he must have let the
Boyers remain in unmolested possession of the intellect of
France. But this was impossible to him. He might as well
have tried to live without breathing.
Longchamp has already told us the story of the publication
of '' Zadig," one of a series of satirical tales, which he com-
posed from 1746 to 1750. How could an author expect court
favor while publishing burlesques so effective as these of every
court abuse, and even of court personages, transparently dis-
guised ? There was one little tale of his, called " The World
as it Goes, or the Vision of Babouc," which had been circu-
lating two or three years under an equally transparent veil of
the anonymous. Babouc was commissioned by the j)residing
genius of Asia to visit the city of Persepolis, to see if it was
deserving of destruction or only of chastisement. Babouc
was Voltaire, and Persepolis was Paris. Every fault of the
regime was touched lightly, but in a way that made it ridic-
VOL. I. 37
678 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
ulcus forever. Tlie Heedlessness of the war then wastinor
France, promotion by intrigue of mistresses, the " good old
times " superstition, the burial of the dead under churches, the
sale of offices, the persecution of philosophers, all the topics,
important and unimportant, were treated with his own grace,
brevity, and point.
Babouc enters a sombre and vast inclosure filled with the
old and ill-favored, where some people paid money to others
for the privilege of seating themselves. He thought it must
be a market for the sale of rush-bottomed chairs. " But im-
mediately, seeing several women going down upon their knees,
pretending to look straight before them, and eying men fur-
tively, Babouc perceived that he was in a temple." A young
man who had bought a judgeship consults an old lawyer as to
the decision he ought to give in a cause. " But," asks Ba-
bouc, " why is not the old man on the bench ? " Babouc
visits the great college of mages, or priests, the chief of whom
confessed that he had a revenue of a hundred thousand crowns
a year for having taken the vow of poverty. Babouc admires
"the magnificence of that house of penitence."
Another of these tales was called " Memnon, or Human
Wisdom," a burlesque of those luxurious theologians of the
century whose fundamental maxim was that partial evil is the
general good. It was Pope's all-is-as-well-as-possible theory
of the universe. It was the theory of comfortable, solid men,
who have little sympatliy and less imagination. A burlesque
of a system of philosophy would have been harmless enough
from any other pen. But Voltaire must needs bring his bat-
tered enthusiast to court, " with a plaster on his eye and a
petition in his hand," to get redress for outrageous wrongs.
There he meets several ladies wearing hoops twentj'-four feet
in circumference, one of whom, eying him askance, said,
" Oh, horror ! " Another, who knew him a little, said to him,
" Good evening, Monsieur Memnon ; indeed. Monsieur Mem-
non, I am very glad to see you. Apropos, Monsieur Memnon,
how came you to lose an eye ? " And she passed on without
waiting for an answer. Finally, he throws himself at the
king's feet, and presents his petition. The king receives it
very graciously, and hands it to a satrap for examination and
report. The satrap draws Memnon aside, and says to him,
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 579
with a haughty air and a bitter sneer, " I find you a pleasant
style of one-eyed man to address yourself to the king rather
than to me, and still more pleasant to dare ask justice agamst
an honest bankrupt, whom I honor with my protection, and
who is the nephew of a femme de chambre of my mistress.
Abandon this affair, my friend, if you wish to keep your other
eye ! "
After many adventures of this kind, poor Memnon, who be-
gan life with sanguine hopes of attaining perfect happiness by
the exercise of perfect virtue, comes to the conclusion that this
little terraqueous globe of ours is the mad-house of the uni-
verse. All of which was very amusing except to parties bur-
lesqued, who owned France and kept the key of the Bastille.
Another of these airy tales was called "History of the Trav-
els of Scarmentado, by Himself," a burlesque of religious in-
tolerance, that compels the reader to laugh and shudder at the
same moment. Scarmentado visited Rome under Leo X. to
find it a scene of debauchery and rapine ; France, desolate by
sixty years of religious wars ; England, where he was shown
the place on which the blessed Queen Mary, daughter of
Henry VIII., had burned five hundred of her subjects ; Hol-
land, where he saw the bald head of the prime minister, Bar-
neveldt, cut off, because he believed men were saved by good
works as well as by faith. At Seville, on a lovely spring day,
when all breathed abundance and joy, Scarmentado witnessed
a glorious festival. The king, the queen, and their children,
little girls as well as boys, were seated on a magnificent plat-
form in a public square. " Some very beautiful prayers were
chanted ; the forty guilty ones were burned by a slow fire ; at
which all the royal family appeared to be extremely edified."
Scarmentado found a Spanish bishop boasting that they had
drowned, burned, or put to the sword ten millions of infidels
in America, in order to convert the Americans. He gravely
remarks thereupon, " I believe that this bishop exaggerated ;
but if we should reduce those sacrifices to five millions, it
would still be admirable."
The traveler continues his journey round the world, and
everywhere finds men waging cruel war against men for opin-
ions and usages, monstrous or trivial. On reaching Ispahan,
for example, he was assailed by a terrible question : " Are you
580 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
for the black slieep or tlie white sheep ? " He replied, " It is
indifferent to me, provided the mutton is tender." Both sects
set upon him as a vile scoffer, and he had to fly for his life.
Then came " Zadig," the story he had read piecemeal to the
Duchess da Maine in the small hours of the morning. This
was the longest of the series, but it could be read in an even-
ing, and it was full of offense. To Madame du Maine, every
scene was a satire of the life she daily witnessed ; nearly every
name was the pseudonym of a person she was familiar with.
The story begins tlius : " In the time of King Moabdar, there
was at Babylon a young man named Zadig." She took it oth-
erwise : " In the time of Louis XV., there was in Paris a young
man named Voltaire." That is to say, it was the mind of
Voltaire before which now passed in rapid review the state of
things existing in her world. In this work he attacked Boyer
under so obvious an anagram that no one failed to recognize
the ancient Bishop of Mirepoix. He called him " Yebor, the
most stupid of the Chaldeans, and therefore the most fanat-
ical." A controversy raged in Babylon as to whether there
was such an animal as a griffin. " Why," said one party,
" should Zoroaster forbid the eating of griffins, if there are no
griffins ? " Zadig sought to reconcile the embittered sects by
saying, " If there are griffins, let us not eat them ; if there are
none, we shall still less eat them ; and, in either case, we shall
obey Zoroaster." This was flat heresy. A learned person,
who had written thirteen volumes on the properties of the
griffin, hastened to accuse Zadig before the fanatical Yebor,
who would gladly have impaled him for the greater glory of
the sun, and recited the breviary of Zoroaster on the occasion,
with the most satisfied tone. A friend took up the young her-
etic's defense. " Bewai'e of punishing Zadig ! " he cried ; " he
is a saint. He has some griffins in his poultry-yard, and yet
does not eat them. His accuser is a heretic, who dares main-
tain that rabbits have cloven feet, and are not unclean."
" Very well," said Yebor, shaking his bald head, " it is neces-
sary to impale Zadig for having thought ill of griffins, and the
other for having spoken amiss of rabbits." The friend ar-
ranged the matter through his mistress, "a maid of honor,"
and no one was impaled.
The trivial nature of the theological controversies of the
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 581
day was variously burlesqued in this story. " For fifteen hun-
dred years Babylon had been divided into two irreconcilable
sects : one maintaining that to enter the Temple of Mithra
except with the right foot first was an abomination, and the
other denouncing all who presumed to enter except with the
left. The bold Zadig jumped into the temple with both feet,
and proved in an eloquent discourse that God was no respecter
of persons, and cared no more for one foot than the other.
The tale alluded also to the malign whisperers of the ante-
chamber, who every day uttered some new charge against a
loyal servant of the king. " The first accusation is repelled ;
the second grazes ; the third wounds ; the fourth kills."
Besides these fictions, there was a piece of similar tone
which assailed superstition in a more direct manner, called
" The Voice of the Sage and of the People." It was a series
of short paragraphs, tending to show that it is religious enthu-
siasms that waste the wealth of nations and menace the tran-
quillity of kings. " Here is a convent with two hundred thou-
sand francs of annual revenue. Reason says. Divide that estate
among a hundred officers, who would marry and rear citi-
zens for their country." It was superstition that assassinated
Henry III., Henry IV., and the Prince of Orange, besides
causing to flow rivers of common blood. But no philosopher
had ever raised a parricidal hand against his king, or advised
disobedience to the laws. Reason perfected would destroy
the very germ of religious wars, which the philosophic spirit
had already banished from the world.
It was not, however, such passages as these that made the
"Voice of the Sage" so offensive to the Bishop of Mirepoix
and his colleagues. The question of taxing the vast property
of the church was assuming importance, and this pamphlet
presented the question in such a way that it seemed to admit
of only one answer. He went to the root of the matter : —
" There ought not to be two authorities in a state.
" The distinction between spiritual authority and temporal
authority is a relic of Vandal barbarism, as if, in a house, two
masters should be recognized : I, who am the father of the
family ; and, besides me, the tutor of my children, to whom I
pay wages.
" I desire that very great respect be paid my children's in-
582 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
structor, but I am very far from wishing him to have the least
authority in my house.
" In France, where reason becomes more developed every
day, reason teaches us that the church ought to contribute to
the expenses of the nation in proportion to its revenues, and
that the body set apart to teach justice ought to begin by giv-
ing an example of it.
" That government would be worthy of the Hottentots in
which it should be permitted to a certain number of men to
say, ' Let those pay taxes who work ; we ought not to pay any-
thing, because we are idle.'
" That government would outrage God and men in which
citizens should be able to say, ' The nation has given us all we
have, and we owe nothing to it except prayers.' "
This "Voice of the People," a short essay, which the reader
might not observe in the multitudinous writings of the author,
was the sensation of the year in ecclesiastical circles. It was
a Voice that awoke many echoes. Replies, refutations, and
parodies appeared in such numbers that as many as fifteen
are known and catalogued at this day. There was the " Voice
of the Priest," the " Voice of the Bishop," the " Voice of the
Pope," the "Voice of the Fool," the "Voice of the Women,"
the " Voice of the Poor Man," the " Voice of the Rich Man,"
the " Voice of the Poet," the " Voice Crying in the Wilder-
ness," the "Voice of the Christian," and, finally, a volume con-
taining all these Voices. A little pamphlet has seldom raised
such a storm.
These brief notices of his lighter labor's during the last years
of Madame du Chatelet's life will suffice to explain the loss of
any little favor he may have won at court by two years of toil
for its amusement. These tales arid essays were easy to read,
short, full of that satirical gayety which Frenchmen are quick-
est to appreciate, and not wanting in weighty truth most need-
ful for citizens to know. The king himself probably had men-
tal force enough to read works so adroitly adapted to the inert
intellect. The queen, too, and her dull little court may have
been equal to some of them ; and there are always people close
at hand to minister to the passions of those who control the
expenditure of a nation's revenue. A notable scheme was con-
ceived in 1748, as Marmontel records, to assail Voltaire in the
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 583
very citadel of liis power. His dramatic celebrity, as we have
before seen, he habitually used as a means of self-protection.
When a storm lowered, when he felt a lettre de cachet in the
air, he seems always to have gone to his portfolios and rum-
maged for a new tragedy ; for even the most servile minister
hesitated to launch a bolt at a man who had just given Paris
a new pleasure and the king's reign a new glory. But now
the hostile faction disinterred a rival to Voltaire in the drama
itself.
Crdbillon, the dramatist of a former generation, was still liv-
ing, seventy-four years of age, in obscurity, most of his great
successes of other days forgotten. He had written effective
tragedies, chiefly remarkable for their power to excite terror.
Being questioned, after the successful production of one of his
terrific plays, " L'Atree," as to his reason for choosing that
line, he answered, " Corneille has appropriated heaven, and
Racine the earth. Nothing remained for me but hell, and I
threw myself into it headlong." Marmontel, who was now an
established man of letters, a favorite of the reigning mistress,
was an eye-witness of the attempt made to resuscitate the
aged poet, and restore to him the first place in the drama of
France.
" Crebillon [be tells us], old and poor, was living in the vilest part
of the Marais, laboring by starts at that ' Catiliua ' which he had an-
nounced for ten years, and of which he read here and there some bits
of scenes that were thought admirable. His age, his former success,
his somewhat rough manners, his soldier-like character, his truly trag-
ical face, the air, the imposing though simple tone in which he recited
his harsh and inharmonious verses, the vigor, the energy, he gave to
his expression, all concurred to strike the mind with a sort of enthusi-
asm.
" The name of Crdbillon was the rallying cry for the enemies of
Voltaire. ' Electre ' and ' Rhadamiste,' which were sometimes still
played, drew but thin houses. All the rest of Crebillon's tragedies
were forgotten ; while those of Voltaire, ' Qidipe,' ' Alzire,' ' Mahomet,'
' Zaire,' and ' Merope,' were often performed in all the splendor of full
success. The partisans of old Crebillon were few, but noisy. They
did not cease to call him the Sophocles of our age ; and, even among
men of letters, Marivaux used to say that all the fine wit of Voltaire
must bow before the genius of Crebillon.
" It was mentioned before Madame de Pompadour that this great,
584 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
neglected man was suffered to grow old without support, because he
was witliout art and intrigue. This was touching her in a tender
part. * What say you ? ' cried she. ' Crebillon poor and forsaken ! '
She instantly obtained for him a pension of two thousand francs from
the privy purse.
" Crebillon was eager to thank his benefactress. A slight indispo-
sition kept her in bed when he was announced. She desired he might
come in. The sight of this fine old man touched her ; she received
him with an affecting grace. He was moved by it ; and, as he leaned
over her bed to kiss her hand, the king appeared. ' Ah, madame,'
cried Crebillon, ' the king has surprised us ! I am lost.' This sally
from an old man of (nearly) eighty pleased the king. The fortune of
Crebillon was decided. All the little courtiers launched into praises of
his genius and manners. ' He had dignity,' said they, ' but no pride,
and still less vainglory. His poverty was the proof of his disinterest-
edness. He was a venerable character, and the man whose genius
truly honored the reign of the king.' ' Catilina ' was mentioned as
the wonder of the age. Madame de Pompadour wished to hear it. A
day was fixed for the reading ; the king, present, but invisible, heard
it also. It had complete success ; and, on its first performance, Ma-
dame de Pompadour, accompanied by a crowd of courtiers, attended
with the most lively interest. A little time afterward Crebillon ob-
tained the favor of an edition of his works at the press of the Louvre,
the expense defrayed by the royal treasury. From that time Voltaire
was coldly received, and he left off going to court."
The reader does not need to be informed that Voltaire was
not the person to submit to an intrigue of this nature. His
way of meeting it was one possible only to himself. He se-
lected for the theme of his next tragedy the story of S^mira-
mis, Queen of Babylon, a subject which had once been treated
by Crebillon. The success of this powerful play was not as
decided as Longchamp imagined. All depended upon the ghost
scene, which the author again attempted, still remembering
the effect of the ghost in Hamlet on the London stage. But
the crowd of dandies on the stage left, as Voltaire remarked,
" scarcely more than a space of ten feet wide for the actors,"
and thus the awful power of the ghost scene in the third
act, so necessary to the effect of the later scenes, was fatally
marred. On the succeeding nights, more room was retained
for the actors ; and unprejudiced spectators agreed in assign-
ing this tragedy a rank among the masterpieces of the French
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 585
drama. It has retained its place on the stage to this day.
But, for the moment, it failed of the effect the author, at the
moment, desired. The forced success of Crebillon's "■ Cati-
lina " followed. Voltaire, as we have seen, was roused by it
to write a tragedy upon the same subject, and, almost before
the ink was dry, threw himself upon another of Crciibillon's
subjects, — " Electre," — and produced a tragedy which he en-
titled " Oreste." These two pieces — "Rome Sauvc^e" and
" Oreste " — were in the author's portfolio, though still under
revision, when he returned to Paris after the death of Madame
du Chatelet in October, 1749.
The very actors had caught the infection of his ill-favor at
court. They had been restive under his exactions for the due
presentation of " Semiramis," the short run of which had not
tended to make them more submissive. He would have four
men in the wings to extinguish the candles, and another man
to lower the foot-lights, in order to " execute the night," on
the appearance of the ghost. He was himself a good actor, and
he had, as all good actors have, the stage-manager's instinct
sensitively alive. He insisted on having his dramatic concep-
tions conveyed to his audiences as vividly as the art permitted.
One result of the imperfect success of " Semiramis " and the
ostentatious " protection " bestowed upon Cr^billon " was an
ill-feeling between himself and the company of actors attached
to the Theatre-Fran cais. " Sarrasin," he wrote to D'Argental,
"spoke to me with much more than indecency when I begged
him, on behalf of the public, to put into his plajang more soul
and more dignity. There are four or five of the actors who
refuse me the salute, because I made them appear upon the
stage as silent spectators. La None has declaimed against the
piece much more loftily than he declaimed his part. In a
word, I have experienced from them nothing but ingratitude
and insolence."
Established now in a spacious house of his own, his melan-
choly in some degree dispelled, his friends and family about
him, he resolved to dispense with these ungrateful actors, Avith-
out de^oriving himself of the pleasure their art had afforded
him. He had a great room in his second stoiy arranged as a
little theatre, capable of seating a hundred persons and of con-
taining a hundred and twenty. Longchamp had brought him
686 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
a good account of a company of young amateurs, who were in
the habit of playing for their own amusement twice a week in
a hall hired by themselves, and Voltaire sent them a polite in-
vitation to visit him. One of these amateurs was a goldsmith's
son, named Lekain, then just of age, who was destined to a
long and splendid career upon the Paris stage. It was the
ever assiduous Longchamp who bore Voltaire's invitation to
the company.
" My message [he says] was received by all of them with as much
joy as surprise. They promised to call upon M. de Voltaire, and it
was agreed that they should come at ten o'clock in the morning. On
the day fixed, the entire troupe, including even the candle-snuffer,
arrived punctually at the rendezvous. No one on that day had
neglected his toilet, and all those young people were extremely well
dressed. I conducted them to the drawing-room. A moment after,
M. de Voltaire appeared. He began by thanking them for their
good-will and for complying with his desire so promptly. Address-
ing each in turn, he ascertained their line of parts and the pieces
in which they played with most success. He questioned Lekain
much, whom I had described as the best performer of the company.
Then he invited the five or six principal actors to declaim some pas-
sage taken indifferently from one of their parts. In general, he ap-
peared tolerably satisfied ; he encouraged them, and promised them some
instruction from which their talent could profit if they were willing
to receive it with docility. At length, in order to judge them better,
he engaged them to come the next day, towards six o'clock in the
evening, to play upon his stage the tragedy they knew best. They
acquiesced at once in this request, and several voices said that the
tragedy which they played most willingly and successfully was ' Ma-
homet, the Prophet.' A desire to pay court to the author of tliat
piece may have had some influence in determining their choice.
" However that may be, the thing was so arranged, and the next
day they played the tragedy of ' Mahomet ' in the hall he had pre-
pared, the only spectators being M. de Voltaire, Madame Denis, M.
and Madame d'Argental, the Duke de Richelieu, and M. de Pont-
de-Veyle, a brother of M. d'Argental. I also was present at this
representation, according to the injunction of M. de Voltaire. Two
or three persons attached to the house may also have been there.
Lekain played with force and intelligence, and, ahove all, with much
earnestness, the part of Mahomet, which he has since performed in a
manner so superior upon the public stage. The other parts were
played sufficiently well. M. de Voltaire saw with pleasure the union
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 587
of those young people, their zeal, their correctness, and the unity
which they knew how to give to the execution of his piece, though
they were occasionally interrupted. This performance was, to speak
precisely, only a general rehearsal. The author stop{)ed the actors
from time to time, and made them begin a scene again, showing to
each the gesture and tone suitable to his part and to the situation.
" Upon the whole, he was well enough content with this first per-
formance, lie invited both actors and spectators to remain to sup-
per, and, at the end of the repast, he brought the parts of his
' Rome Sauvee,' and distributed them to those young people, request-
ing them to learn their parts as soon as they could He en-
gaged Lekain, in whom he discovered the germ of a superior talent,
to come and live with him, a proposal which was accepted with ardor
by that young man.
" When the roles of ' Rome Sauvee' were well learned, it was re-
hearsed several times, M. de Voltaire giving himself much trouble
to direct and form the aotors. At length, all being arranged to his
mind, he wished to have the piece played before a company of con-
noisseurs, to get their judgment upon it. To complete the illusion,
he desired that all the accessories should be in accord with the sub-
ject of the play. For that purpose, a considerable number of new
costumes in the Roman style were necessary, which could not be made
without much time and expense. He conceived the plan of borrow-
ing for the purpose the superb dresses and magnificent properties pro-
vided by the court for the ' Catilina ' of Crebillon, played some time
before with great pomp, both at court and in the city. All those effects
were preserved with care at the Theatre-Fran^ais, where they were
again to be used before long for the same play, though it had already
had thirty or forty representations. This run was in consequence of
the high protection accorded then to Crebillon, — a protection prepared
and obtained by the intrigues of a cabal envenomed against M. de
Voltaire, whom they thought to abase and annihilate by exalting Cre-
billon M. de Voltaire asked M. de Richelieu to grant him for
a single day the costumes which had been made for ' Catilina.' The
First Gentleman of the Chamber consenting without difficulty, all was
sent to tlie Rue Traversiere, and nothing now delayed the representa-
tion of ' Rome Sauvee.'
" On the day appointed, the hall was filled at an early hour. Only
a very few ladies were present, the audience consisting principally of
men of letters ; among others, MM. D'Alembert, Diderot, Marmontel,
the President Henault, the Abbes de Voisenou and Raynal, and sev-
eral Academicians, such as the Abbe d'Olivet and others. The Dukes
de Richelieu and de la Valliere attended, and some other intimate
588 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
friends of the author, whom I had invited on his part. Among them
were particularly remarked Father de la Tour, principal of the Col-
lege of the Jesuits [Louis-le-Grand], and his companion. These fa-
thers never attended any plays except those which were given by
their scholars in college ; but M. de Voltaire, who had read his tragedy
to Father de la Tour, and had received from him strong compliments
thereupon, so pressed him to come and see it played that he consented.
The actors, kindled by the presence of so many enlightened judges,
put into the performance of their parts all the fire of which they were
capable. The audience, in general, seemed very well satisfied with
them, but were still more so with the piece. They admired the beauty
of the poetry, the force and truth of the characters ; and connois-
seurs agreed that, in these respects, ' Rome Sauvee ' was equal to the
best of M. de Voltaire's plays.
" The Abbe d'Olivet was especially enchanted, and he openly testi-
fied his joy and his gratitude to the author for having at last avenged
his dear Cicero for the flat and ridiculous part which old Crebillon
had made him play in his ' Catiliua.' After the performance, M. de
Voltaire could not doubt the general satisfaction. Every one was
eager to testify it to him, and urged him not to deprive the public of
so beautiful a work.
" The fame of the little theatre of the Rue Traversiere rapidly
spread over all Paris. Though established first by M. de Voltaire
only for the purpose of trying his new pieces, it became in a short
time almost a public theatre. His friends, whom he had at first ad-
mitted, solicited the same favor for others. Persons of consideration,
foreigners of note, who knew him only by reputation, sought admis-
sion, and he had not the force to refuse. I have seen more than one
minister and more than one ambassador present. It was necessary,
at last, to have tickets, the bearers of which alone should be admit-
ted. By means of some steps along the sides of the room, which
M. de Voltaire called his boxes, about a hundred persons could find
seats, while at least twenty others, standing in a kind of vestibule, could
also enjoy the play.
" The fame of the tragedy of ' Rome Sauvee ' gave many people
a desire to see it. A second representation was given, which was
more remarkable than the first, and produced a more lively sensation.
"Without notifying any of the spectators except three or four, M. de
Voltaire himself played the part of Cicero, as he had done once be-
fore at the chateau of Madame la Duchesse du Maine at Sceaux some
weeks previously. He excited the same enthusiasm at Paris. Some
persons whom I saw thirty years after that representation, and who
had been witnesses of it with me, spoke to me of it with as much in-
I
I
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 589
terest as if it had taken place the evening before. Some time after,
M. de Voltaire tried his tragedy of the ' Due de Foix.' I saw played,
also, by the little troupe of amateurs, ' Zulime,' — a piece formerly
represented, but little more known than the play last named. Two
nieces of the author appeared in it together : Madame Denis in the
part of Zulime, and Madame de Fontaine in that of Ative. They
played tolerably well, and must have been flattered by the reception
which the audience gave them.
" The company of the Thea,tre-Fran9ais could not be unaware of
the celebrity of the theatre in the Rue Traversiere. Some of them,
against whom M. de Voltaire had no complaint, ventured to come to
him and ask the favor of being admitted to his theatre. They were
not ill received ; for, before they left, M. de Voltaire called me, and
told me to give them two tickets for each of the next four represen-
tations. The actors thus obliged gave an account to their comrades
of the new pieces which they saw performed. The company felt that
those pieces would have been very useful to their theatre, which lan-
guished for want of interesting novelties. They began to realize their
past imprudence, and to feel how wrong they had been in giving
M. de Voltaire cause to be dissatisfied. They no longer concealed
their desire to atone for their fault. This being the posture of affairs,
M. d'Argental and M. de Pont-de-Veyle, his brother, coming to a
knowledge of the actors' disposition, undertook to reconcile M. de
Voltaire to them, and thus promote the enjoyment of the public, who
eagerly desired to see those pieces played, of which they had heard so
much. These were the two brothers whom he called sometimes his
guardian angels, and sometimes Castor and Pollux, alluding to the
tutelary divinities who restored hope and courage to sailors beaten
by a tempest. Their friendship, beginning in childhood, was always
extremely precious and useful to M. de Voltaire in all the circum-
stances of his life, and deserved the names which he took pleasure in
giving them.
" On the present occasion, those gentlemen spoke to the most in-
fluential actors, and made them feel the propriety of sending him a
dejiutation to ask him to open for them his portfolio. The deputa-
tion arrived, having at its head as orator M. Grandval. His address,
the object of which was to calm M. de Voltaire, asked the oblivion of
all past wrongs, and promised that the recollection of those wrongs
should be entirely effaced from his mind by their future conformity to
all his desires. Grandval ended his speech by entreating the poet,
the adthor of so many masterpieces, to take the company again into
favor, and restore to them his works. M. de Voltaire never knew
how to keep rancor when any one returned to him in good faith ;
590 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
and, in fact, I have in other circumstances seen him pardon and forget
graver injuries when confession was made and repentance shown. He
was not insensible to this proceeding of the actors, gave a good recep-
tion to the deputation, and promised compliance with its request. The
difference between them was so terminated."
We possess, also, Lekain's recollection of his interviews and
residence with Voltaire during this important year, -which
fixed his destiny. He, too, mentions his surprise and delight
upon being invited to visit the author, who was the first of liv-
ing men in his regard.
" The pleasure [he tells us] which this invitation gave me was still
greater than my surprise. But what I cannot describe is my feeling
at the sight of that man, whose eyes sparkled with the fire of imagi-
nation and of genius. On addressing him I felt myself penetrated
with respect, enthusiasm, admiration, and fear. All these sensations
at once I experienced, when M. de Voltaire had the goodness to put
an end to my embarrassment by folding me in his arms, and thanking
God for having created a being who had kindled and moved him by
the delivery of verses that were not too good.
" He questioned me upon my condition, upon that of my father,
upon the manner in which I had been brought up, upon my ideas of
fortune. After having satisfied him upon all these points, and after
having taken my share of a dozen cups of chocolate, mixed with cof-
fee, his only nourishment from five in the morning until three in the
afternoon, I replied to him with intrepid firmness that I knew no
other happiness in life than to play upon the stage ; that, a cruel and
melancholy chance having left me my own master, and possessing a
little patrimony of about seven hundred and fifty francs per annum,
I had reason to hope that in abandoning the trade and skill of my fa-
ther I should not sustain any loss, if I could one day be admitted into
the king's troupe of actors.
" 'Ah, my friend,' cried M. de Voltaire, ' never do that ! Take my
advice : act for your pleasure, but never make acting your business.
It is the most beautiful, the most rare, the most difficult, of talents ;
but it is abased by barbarians and proscribed by hypocrites. One day
France will value your art aright ; but then there will be no more
Barons, no more Lecouvreurs, no more D'Angevilles. If you are
willing to renounce your project, I will lend you ten thousand francs
to go into business for yourself, and you shall pay me back when you
can. Go, my friend ; come and see me toward the end of the week ;
consider the subject well, and give me a positive answer.'
" Stunned, confused, and penetrated even to tears by the obligmg
1
m
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 691
and generous offers of that great man, who was called avaricious,
hard, and jiitiless, I wished to pour out my thanks. Finally I adopted
the plan of making my bow while stammering a few words, and I
was going to take my leave, when he called me back to ask me to re-
peat some fragments of the parts I had already played. Without
consideration, I proposed to him, with little enough tact, the grand
passage from the second act of Piron's ' Gustave.' ' No Piron, no
Piron,' said he, with a voice thundering and tei*rible : ' I do not like
bad verses. Speak all you know of Racine.'
" Fortunately, I remembered that, while at the College Mazarin, I
had learned the whole tragedy of ' Athalie ' from having heard it often
rehearsed by the scholars who were going to play it. I began at the
first scene, playing alternately Abner and Joab. But I had not yet
entirely completed my task, when M. de Voltaire cried out with a di-
vine enthusiasm, —
" ' Oh ! mon Dieu ! the lovely verses ! And the wonder is that all
the piece is written with the same warmth, the same purity, from the
first scene to the last. Everywhere in it the poetry is inimitable.
Good-by, my dear child,* embracing me. ' I predict that you will
one day rend the heart, but be the delight, of Paris. But never go
upon the public stage.'
" Such is an exact account of my first interview with M. de Vol-
taire. The second was more decisive, since he consented, after the
most urgent entreaties on my part, to receive me into his house, and
let me play with his nieces and all my company in his little thea-
tre
" The expense which this temporary establishment caused him and
the disinterested offer which he made me some days before proved to
me in a very touching manner that he was as generous and noble in
his proceedings as his enemies were unjust in ascribing to him the vice
of sordid economy. These are facts of which I have been a witness.
I owe still another avowal to the truth ; not only did M. de Voltaire
aid me by his counsels for more than six months, but he paid my ex-
penses during that time ; and since I have belonged to the stage I can
prove that he has given me more than two thousand crowns. He calls
me to-day his gi-eat actor, his Garrick, his dear child. These titles I
owe only to his goodness ; but the title which I adopt at the bottom
of my heart is that of a pupil, respectful and penetrated with grati-
tude."
Lekain adds an anecdote of the dramatist's mode of drilling
the troupe : —
" A very young and pretty girl, daughter of a solicitor to the par-
592 LIFE OF VOLTAII^E.
liament, played with me the part of Palmiie in ' Mahomet,' in the
theatre of M. de Voltaire. This amiable child, only fifteen, was far
from being able to deliver with force and energy the imprecations
against her tyrant. She was merely young, pretty, and interesting.
He therefore treated her with a great deal of tenderness, and, to show
her how far she was from being up to her part, he said to her, —
'• 'Mademoiselle, imagine that Mahomet is an impostor, a cheat, a
scoundrel, who has had your father stabbed, has just poisoned your
brother, and who, to crown his good works, absolutely wishes to pos-
sess you. If all these trifles give you a certain pleasure, ah ! then you
are right in treating him so gently as you do ; but if his behavior gives
you rather some repugnance, why, then, mademoiselle, this is how you
ought to address him.'
" Then, repeating the imprecation, he gave to that poor innocent
child, red with shame and trembling with fear, a lesson so much the
more precious since he joined example to precept. She became in
time a very agreeable actress."
Thus it was that he found consolation in the art of which he
was a votary for sixty years, — an art which was the ambition
of his youth, the occupation of his happiest hours, the solace of
his old age, his first triumph and his last. His peace was
now made with the actors of the national theatre, and he could
resume at any moment his career as national dramatist. Ho
put the docility of the company at once to a severe test. Hav-
ing invited them, with the D'Argentals and a few other devo-
tees of the drama, to the reading of a new tragedy, he read to
them, not " Rome Sauv^e," which they expected and desired,
but his new " Electre," which he now called " Oreste," a
piece after Sophocles, in the severe and simple taste of the
Greek master. Crebillon had once treated the subject with
some success, though his " Electre " had ceased to be per-
formed. Voltaire adhered closely to the Greek system, dis-
carding love, and presenting the awful story in the austere, un-
compromising manner of the Greeks. The actors looked blank
when he began the session by reading the list of characters.
" You expected," said the author, " that I was to give you
a reading of 'Catilina.' Not at all, gentlemen. This year I
give you ' Oreste,' and I shall not have ' Catilina ' played
until next year. Now for the distribution of the rdles. I ask
the most profound secrecy."
The explanation of this change was very simple, if he had
m.
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 593
chosen to give it. The exigencies of the theatre obliged the
actors to produce something new within a few days, and the
author would not entrust the presentation of his beloved Cic-
ero, and the complicated drama of which he had made Cicero
the central figure, until it could be thoroughly rehearsed. The
company submitted with a good grace; the parts were dis-
tributed, and the rehearsals were begun. At this distance of
time, in a country where the arts exist, as it were, by suffer-
ance, and the drama is burdened with odium and disadvantage,
we can with difficulty conceive the interest taken by the pub-
lic in this stiuggle between Voltaire and the court on the stage
of the Thdatre-Fran^ais. The polite world of Paris was agi-
tated. When the " Catilina " of Cr^billon was performed in
1748, not only did the king pay the whole cost of the costumes
and appointments, but the court seconded the attempt to cast
Voltaire into the shade. Barbier tells us that for the three
opening nights all the boxes were taken a month in advance.
The princes and princesses of the royal blood made a point of
attending. Servile critics vied with one another in extolling
the piece, and by these arts a play insufferably tedious achieved
twenty representations.
And now again Paris was astir at the announcement of Vol-
taire's " Oreste." Piron, if we may believe tradition, took the
lead of the cabal against the new piece, and Voltaire, I need
not say, omitted no expedient to give it a fair chance of suc-
cess. The dread night arrived, January 12, 1750. Both par-
ties mustered in prodigious numbers. So zealous were the oppo-
nents of the piece that, according to Duverney, some of them
hissed in the street, and they kept up a vigorous hissing in the
theatre, long before the play began. The author had taken
the precaution to write a short address to the public, to disarm
those who pretended that this was an ungracious struggle on
his part against a veteran. One of the actors came forward
and spoke as follows : —
" Gentlemen, — The author of the tragedy which we are about to
have the honor of presenting to you has not the rash vanity to wish
to contend against the play of ' Electre,' justly honored by your ap-
plause, still less against a fellow artist, whom he has often called Mas-
ter, and who has inspired in him only a noble emulation, equally re-
mote from discouragement and from envy, — an emulation compatible
VOL. I. 38
594 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
with friendship, and such as men of letters ought to cherish. He has
only wished, gentlemen, to hazard before you a picture of antiquity.
When you shall have judged this feeble sketch of a masterpiece of
past ages, you will return to the delineations more brilliant and varied
of celebrated moderns. The Athenians, who invented this great art,
which the French alone upon the earth cultivate with success, en-
couraged three of their citizens to labor upon the same subject. You,
gentlemen, in whom to-day we see live again that people, as famous
for their genius as their courage, — you, who possess their taste, will
have their justice also. The author who presents to you an imitation
of the antique is much more sure to find in you Athenians than he
flatters himself to have rendered Sophocles. You know that Greece,
in all its masterpieces, in all the kinds of poetry and eloquence, de-
sired that beauties should be simple. You will find that simplicity in
this piece, and you will discern the beauties of the original despite
the faults of the copy ; you will deign, above all, to accommodate
yourselves to some usages of the ancient Greeks, for in the arts they
are your veritable ancestors. France, which follows in their footsteps,
Avill not censure their customs ; you are to consider that already your
taste, especially in dramatic works, serves as a model to other nations.
It will suffice one day to be approved elsewhere that it should be
said. Such was the taste of the French ; it was so that illustrious
nation spoke ! We ask your indulgence for the manners of antiquity
for the same reason that Europe, in the ages to come, will render
justice to yours."
This ingenious oration sufficed not to conciliate the enemy.
The performance began. During the first four acts, as Du-
verney records, it was a contest of applause and hisses, which
was amusing, at length, even to the author. There were mo-
ments when the stern and awful trails caught from Sophocles
silenced opponents and carried the audience away. There was
one such moment at the beginning of the fifth act, when the
applause seemed unanimous and enthusiastic. But even then
the author perceived that it was only his friends who approved.
He rose, and, leaning over his box, cried out, " Courage !
Brave Athenians, applaud ! That is pure Sophocles ! " The
conclusion of the play, however, gave the enemy another op-
portunity, and the author discerned that he had carried the
Greek severity a little too far. Considering all the circum-
stances, and, especially, the weight and power of the opposing
influences, the evening was regarded as a triumph for the
I
HOUSEHOLDER IN PARIS. 695
author. He at once revised the fifth act^ and strove, with all
his might and tact, to prolong and heighten his success.
We can scarcely wonder that the actors should have been
sometimes rebellious under his demands. His letters to Made-
moiselle Clairon, during the run of this piece, leave us in
doubt whether an actress ought to be envied or pitied for hav-
ing such an exacting master. After giving her an entirely new
fifth act and a considerable list of changes in the other acts,
all to be learned and rehearsed in two or three days, he still
sends her other trifling changes, as well as mmute instructions
as to the delivery of striking passages. But, then, how hum-
bly and gracefully he apologizes ! " He asks her pardon, upon
his knees, for the insolences wdth which he has loaded her part.
He is himself so docile as to flatter himself that talents su-
perior to his own will not disdain, m their turn, the observa-
tions which his admiration for Mademoiselle Clairon has ex-
torted from him." Again, a day or two after, upon sending
her another change : " It is only by a continual and severe ex-
amination of myself, it is only by an extreme docility to wise
counsels, that I am able each day to render the piece less un-
worthy of the charms which you lend to it. If you had a
quarter of the docility in which I glory, you would add some
unique perfections to those with which you now adorn your
part." Then, after a series of hints, he adds, " By observing
these little artifices of art, by speaking sometimes without de-
claiming, by thus shading the beautiful colors which yeu throw
over the pei-sonality of Electre, you would actually reach that
perfection which you now nearly approach, and which ought
to be the object of a noble and feeling soul. Mine feels itself
made to admire and advise you ; but if you wish to be perfect,
think that no one has ever been perfect without listening to
advice, and that one ought to be teachable in proportion to the
greatness of his talents."
At the second representation of the piece, if we may be-
lieve the enemies of the author, the theatre was half filled
with his hired partisans, who earned their wages so faithfully
that opposition was almost silenced. Every night, as one of
the hostile critics has recorded, Voltaire was in the breach,
animating his friends, distributing seats, placing his paid ap-
plauders, clapping passages himself, and crying to those around
596 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
him, " Clap, my dear friends ! Applaud, my dear Atheni-
ans ! " Nevertheless, with all his efforts, the piece at this time
had but ten representations. This was a respectable success
for the period, and the play called forth the usual fire of paro-
dies, burlesques, and epigrams.
What an incredible activity of mind was his ! To these
months belongs a pamphlet by him upon the "Embellishment
of Paris," in which he recommended that liberality of expendi-
ture in the beautifying of the city which has since made it the
most agreeable place of residence in Europe. He dwelt upon
the wise economy of such an expenditure. He foretold, what
we have seen come to pass, that the influx of strangers in
quest of pleasure would cause an ample return from the money
invested in noble structures and beautiful public grounds.
Paris was then dark and heavy with ecclesiastical edifices ; its
streets were narrow, unclean, and ill-paved. He desired Louis
XV. to do for Paris what Louis XIV. had done for Versailles,
and not wait for a great fire to clear the way. " When Lon-
don was consumed, Europe said, ' London will not be rebuilt
in twenty years, and even then it will show the traces of its
disaster.' It was rebuilt in two years, and rebuilt with mag-
nificence. What ! will it be only at the last extremity that
we shall do something as grand ? Such an enterprise would
encourage all the arts, attract foreigners from the extremities
of Europe, enrich the kingdom, far from impoverishing it, and
inure to labor a thousand wretched idlers."
CHAPTER XLVIII.
SETTLING IN PRUSSIA.
The King of Prussia had been courting Voltaire for four-
teen years, and the long courtship, as is usual, had destroyed
some illusions. If Frederic still loved the poet, he had per-
mitted himself to apply to the man the word fou, as a lover,
in a moment of irritation, calls his sweetheart a little fool.
But he desired to possess him not the less. He longed for
him. He said to him once that he would have given him a
province rather than not had him. Death, in 1749, had re-
moved the king's only rival, and taken away Voltaire's con-
stant excuse for not going to him. He renewed and intensi-
fied his solicitations, but saw the bereaved poet arrange himself
for an independent existence in Paris.
Why did this German king want this Frencli author ? It
is Voltaire himself, I think, who suggests the controlling rea-
son. Lord Lyttleton, in his " dialogues of the Dead," as-
signs to Pope these words : " When the King of Prussia drew
Voltaire from Paris to Berlin, he had a whole Academy of
belles-lettres in him alone." That was true, but probably not
the true reason. Voltaire was the most agreeable of living
men to men of intellectual tastes ; and a king who is not
enough man to enjoy the society of women must solace him-
self as best he can with amusing men. But this frugal and
able monarch would not have given a province even for the
best story-teller in Europe. Frederic, then enjoying peace,
leisure, and " glory," had again become an industrious author,
as the thirty volumes of his works attest. He was writing
in prose the history of his house and of his own campaigns,
and he was adding frequently to his stock of French verses,
of which the authorized edition of his writings contains about
forty thousand.
"He was very sure," wrote Voltaire in 1759, " that botb his
598 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
verses and his prose were much above my prose and my verses,
as to the substance ; but he believed that, as to the form, I could,
in my quality of Academician, give a certain turn to his writ-
mgs.
These words were not written with benevolent intention ;
but perhaps they suggest the truth. This great general did
not appear to value himself upon his victories ; but, keenly
coveting the glory of the poet, he may have indulged the hope
of one day enjoying it. And, indeed, the wonder is that a
man who wrote so many pretty good pieces and some very
good lines should not have occasionally risen to the degree of
excellence which the world accepts. He wrote a fable or two,
which appear to need only a touch from the hand of a Lafon-
taine to be good French fables. He wrote a few epigrams,
odes, and epistles, which seem to want nothing but a certain
tournure from the pen of Voltaire, to be all that the author
■wished them to be.
Frederic had just given a new proof of the excessive value
which he put upon the verse-making talent. Among the great
number of young men whose dawning promise Voltaire had
nourished and encouraged was Baculard d'Arnaud, who had
written three tragedies (one upon the massacre of St. Barthol-
omew), neither of which was ever produced, and only one was
printed. For many years he had been a needy hanger-on of
literature. Several of Voltaire's letters to his man of busi-
ness, the Abb^ -Moussinot, end with a request in his favor:
" One more louis d'or to Baculard d'Arnaud ; " "• Instead of
twenty-four francs, give D'Arnaud thirty livres, when he
comes." Voltaire, at length, procured him the appointment
of Paris letter-writer to the King of Prussia, which raised him
from a condition approaching beggary to one of tolerable ease,
the salary being a thousand francs a year. D'Arnaud, in the
•fashion of the time, mingled verse with his items of literary
and philosophical news. He, too, could compose very pretty
and graceful verses, which gave the king, as they had once
given Voltaire, an exaggerated estimate of his abilities. In
1750, Frederic, as if despairing of Voltaire, invited D'Arnaud
to Berlin, and settled upon him a pension of five thousand
francs per annum. He completed the bewilderment of the
young man by addressing him a poetical epistle, in which Vol-
SETTLING IN PRUSSIA. £99
taire was spoken of as the setting sun of French literature, and
Baculard d'Arnaud as the rising kiminary of the same.
" Deja I'Apollon de la France
S'achemine a sa decadence ;
Venez briller a votre tour,
Elevez-vous s'il baisse encore ;
Ainsi le couchant d'un beau jour
Promet une plus belle aurore."
D'Arnaud, in the spring of 1750, took up his abode in Ber-
lin, where, from being a Paris nobody, he found himself in a
position to show these verses in the most distinguished draw-
ing-rooms of the kingdom, with his own verses in reply, mod-
estly declining the royal compliment. An edition of his poems
at once appeared, dedicated to the king, and preceded by an
epistle to Voltaire, in which the young poet spoke of him as
" Mon maitre, men ami, mon pere dans les arts."
The suddenness and splendor of his fortune were, it must be
confessed, a severe trial of the good sense of a gazetteer of
Paris, thirty-two years of age.
Frederic, meanwhile, held Voltaire to his engagement, which
was to pass part of the summer of 1750 at Potsdam and Ber-
lin, on his way to Italy. Voltaire meant to concede no more,
and hesitated to concede even so much. His better instinct
warned him not to venture again within the personal influence
of a king who, as he often said, could caress with one hand
and scratch with the other. But he had made too many prom-
ises to be able to refuse without giving just offense to the most
sliining personage of the time, whose protection both himself
and his philosophic allies might one day need. He had already
been attacked in the citadel of his position by the resuscita-
tion of Cr{;billon. The rasping, satirical Fr^ron, whom Vol-
taire sweetly named " a worm from Desfontaines's carcass,"
had begun his editorial career of defaming the good and ex-
alting the bad. For many a year to come, he was to earn the
good-will of the Boyer faction by assailing, with equal tact
and pertinacity, Voltaire, Marmontel, Diderot, and their
friends. The Boyers, full of blind confidence, were just be-
ginning that last, long, besotted struggle to crush the intellect
of France, which only ended with the explosion that scattered
them to the ends of Europe. They had begun to refuse the
600 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
sacraments to dying Jansenists who could not show a billet de
confession, a certificate declaring that they had accepted the
Bull Unigenitus. Diderot had already been in prison, and
all things in F'rance wore an ill aspect for the little band of
audacious, half-enlightened spirits who were to begin to save
her.
The King of Prussia continued his importunities. " You
are like bad Christians," he wrote : " you put off your conver-
sion from one day to another." Again : " Come, at least, to
correct my eulogium of our officers killed in the last w-ar, a
poem full of faults, in which I take more interest than in all
my other works." D'Arnaud, too, wrote to " my dear Apollo,"
informing him that he was expected with the greatest impa-
tience in Prussia, and that the king would make a festival
of his coming. Apollo may have deemed the letter of the
lucky Baculard a little familiar, but he replied to it with his
usual gayety.
According to Marmontel, it was this Baculard d'Arnaud
who was the occasion of Voltaire's suddenly conquering his
reluctance to set out. The vivacious Marmontel, writing forty
years after the eveut, may have unconsciously heightened the
comic effects of the scenes which he relates, as he certainly
misunderstood some of his facts. He tells us that Voltaire,
unwilling to travel without Madame Denis, asked the king to
give him twenty thousand francs to defray the additional ex-
pense. The king, according to Marmontel, refused this mod-
est demand, which transported Voltaire with fury. " Look,"
said he to me, " at this meanness in a king ! He has barrels
of gold, and he won't give a poor twenty thousand francs for
the pleasure of seeing Madame Denis at Berlin ! But he shall
give them, or I myself will not go." The celebrated scenes in
Marmontel's Memoirs which follow this anecdote are a curi-
ous example of the manner in which falsehood inevitably gath-
ers about a famous name. Marmontel continues : —
"A comical incirleut happened, which ended this dispute. Oue
morning, as I was going to see him, I found his friend, Thieriot, in
the garden of the Palais-Royal, and, as I was always on the watch for
literary news, I asked him if he had heard any- ' Yes,' said he, ' some
that is very curious ; you are going to M. de Voltaire's, and there you
shall hear it ; for I shall go there as soon as I have taken my coffee.'
SETTLING IN PRUSSIA. 601
" Voltaire was writing in his bed when I went in. In his turn, he
asked me, ' What 's the news ? '
"'I know none,' said I ; ' but Thieriot, whom I met in the Palais-
Royal, says he has something very interesting to tell you. He is
coming.'
" ' Well, Thieriot,' said he, ' you have some curious news ? '
" ' Oh ! very curious ; and news that will please you in particular,'
answered Thieriot, with his sardonic laugh, and the nasal twang of a
Capuchin.
"' Let 's hear ; what have you to tell ?'
" ' I have to tell you that Baculard d'Arnaud has arrived at Pots-
dam, and that the King of Prussia has received him with open arms.'
" ' With open arms ! '
" < And Arnaud has presented him with an epistle.'
" ' Very bombastical and very insipid ? '
" ' Not at all ; very fine, — so fine that the king has answered it by
another epistle.'
" * The King of Prussia, an epistle to Arnaud ! No, no, Thieriot ;
they have been poking fun at you.'
" ' I don't know what you call fun ; but I have the two epistles in
my pocket.'
" ' Let 's see, quick. Let me read these masterpieces of poetry.
What insipidity ! what meanness ! how egregiously stupid ! ' said he,
in reading the epistle of D'Arnaud. Then, passing to that of the king,
he read a moment in silence and with an air of pity. But when he
came to these verses, —
' Voltaire 's a setting sun,
But you are in your dawn,'
he started up, and jumped from his bed, bounding with rage: 'Vol-
taire a setting sun, and Baculard in his dawn ! And it is a king who
writes this enormous folly ! Let him think only of reigning ! '
" It was with difficulty that Thieriot and I could prevent ourselves
from bursting into laughter to see Voltaire in his shirt, dancing with
passion, and addressing himself to the King of Prussia. ' I 'II go,' said
he ; ' yes, I '11 go, and teach him to distinguish between men ; ' and
from that moment the journey was decided upon.
" I have suspected that the King of Prussia intentionally gave him
this spur, and without that I doubt whether he would have gone, so
angry was he at the refusal of the twenty thousand francs ; not at all
from avarice, but from indignation at not having obtained what he
asked.
" Obstinate to excess by character and by system, he had, even in
little things, an incredible repugnance to yield, and to renounce what
he had resolved on."
602 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
It seems a pity to spoil so amusing a story, and one which
has passed current so long. But we perceive from the letters
of Voltaire, D'Arnaud, and the king that Marmontel's forty
years had deceived him. Voltaii'e was cognizant of all the
movements of the young poet ; congratulated him on his good
fortune at eveiy stage of it ; congratulated the king upon get-
ting him ; busied himself with procuring for the king another
Paris correspondent ; and alluded, in exquisite verse, to the
king's sorry comparison of the rising and the setting sun. He
certainly did feel all the indecency of that comparison, and
doubtless showed that he did in Marmontel's presence. It
did not diminish his sense of its unworthiness when he found
the verses circulating everywhere in Paris : —
" Je touche a mes soixante hiversj
Mais si tant de lauriers divers
Ombragent votve jeime tete,
Grand homme, est-il done bien honnete
De depouiller mes cheveux blancs
De quelques feuilles negligees,
Que deja I'Envie et le Temps
Ont, de lenrs detestables dents,
Sur ma tete a demi ronge'es? "^
Falling into a lighter strain, he says to Frederic, " What a
devil of a Marcus Antoninus you are, to scratch so with one
hand, while you protect with the other! "
With regard to Madame Denis and the twenty thousand
francs, Marmontel's memory deceived him completely. That
lady was to remain at Paris in charge of her uncle's house,
assisted in out-of-door business and otherwise by Longchamp.
There was never the least suggestion of her going to Berlin
until after Voltaire's arrival there, when the king, out of tiie
abundance of his barrels of gold, offered her a pension for life
of four thousand francs a year, if she would come to Berlin
and keep her uncle's house. There was, it is true, a moment-
ary difficulty with regard to money. May 8, 1750, Voltaire,
writing to the king upon the obstacles to his leaving and the
little pleasure he felt able to bestow on his arrival, proceeded
thus : —
^ I approach my sixtieth winter; but if so many kinds of laurel shade your
young head, great man, is it then quite worthy of you to despoil ray white hairs of
some neglected leaves, which already Envy and Time have, with their detestable
teeth, half gnawed upon my head ?
1
SETTLING m PRUSSIA. 603
" There is still one other difficulty. I am going now to speak, not
at all to the king, but to the man who enters into the detail of human
miseries. I am rich, and even very rich, for a man of letters. I
have, as they say in Paris, ' mounted a house,' where I live like a phi-
losopher, with my family and my friends. Such is my situation. Yet
it is impossible for me to incur at present an extraordijiary expendi-
ture ; first, because it has cost me a great deal to set up my little es-
tablishment : in the second place, the affairs of Madame du Chatelet,
mixed with my own, have cost me still more. I pray you, according
to your philosophic custom, put majesty aside, and allow me to say
that I am not willing to be an expense to you. I cannot have a good
traveling carriage, and set out with the help necessary to a sick man,
and provide for the expenses of my house during my absence, with
less than four thousand German crowns. If Mettra, one of the ex-
change dealers of Berlin, is willing to advance me that sum, I will
secure him upon that part of my property which is the most unques-
tionable."
The king replied to tins letter in forty of his sprightliest
verses ; but added to his merry lines a few sentences in prose :
"As the Sieur Mettra might object to a letter of exchange in
verse, I cause to be sent to you one in proper form by his cor-
respondent, which will be of more value than my jingle."
The letter of exchange, which was for sixteen thousand
francs, arrived in due time. There was never any question
between them with regard to money. The king, generally so
frugal and exact in business, as able men are, was profuse to-
wards him, and pressed money upon him.
Another of Marmontel's anecdotes of this period is equally
entertaining, and may be accepted us founded upon fact. It
belongs to the class of stories which, being often told, gain a
little in point, and lose a little in truth, every year ; until,
after the lapse of forty years, they must be taken with liberal
allowance : —
" I again saw a singular instance of this obstinacy of Voltaire's,
just before his departure to Prussia. He had taken a fancy to carry
a cutlass with him on his journey, and, one morning, when I was at
his house, a bundle of them was brought, that he might choose one.
But the cutler wanted twenty francs for the one that pleased him, and
Voltaire took it into his head that he would give but fifteen. He
then begins to calculate in detail what it may be worth. He adds
that the cutler bears in his face the character of an honest man, and
604 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
that, with such ffood faith written on his forehead, he cannot but con-
fess that the instrument will be well paid for at fifteen francs. The
cutler accepts the eulogy on his face, but answers that, as an honest
man, he has but one word ; that he asks no more than the thing is
worth ; and that, were he to sell it at a lower price, he should wrong
his children.
" ' What ! you have children, have you ? ' asked Voltaire.
" ' Yes, sir, I have five, three boys and two girls, the youngest of
whom is just twelve.'
" ' Well, we '11 think about placing your boys and marrying your
girls. I have friends in the treasury ; I have some credit in the pub-
lic offices. But let 's finish this little affair : here are your fifteen
francs ; say no more about it.'
" The good cutler was confused in thanking Voltaire for the protec-
tion with which he was pleased to honor him ; but he still kept to his
first word about the price of the cutlass, and did not abate one sou. I
abridge this scene, which lasted a quarter of an hour, by the turns of
eloquence and seduction that Voltaire employed in vain, not to save
five francs, — that he would have given to a beggar, — but to prevail
by the power of persuasion. He was obliged to yield, and, with a
troubled, indignant, embarrassed air, threw upon the table the five-
franc piece that he relinquished so unwillingly. The cutler, when he
had got his money, returned him thanks for his favors, and went
away.
" ' I am very glad,' said I, in a low voice, as I saw him go out.
" ' Of what ? ' asked Voltaire angrily. ' What are you glad of?'
" ' That this honest man's family is no longer to be pitied. His
sons will soon be placed; his daughtei-s married ; and he, in the mean
time, has sold his cutlass for what he wanted, and you have paid it, in
spite of all your eloquence.'
" ' And this is what you are glad of, you obstinate Liraosin ? '
" ' Oh, yes ; I am quite pleased ; if he had yielded to you, I be-
lieve I should have beaten him.'
" ' Do you know,' said he, laughing in his sleeve, after a moment's
silence, ' that if Moliere had been witness to such a scene he would
have turned it to some profit ? '
" ' Indeed,' said I, ' it would have been the counterpart to that of
M. Dimanche.'
" It was thus that with me his anger, or rather his petulance, al-
ways terminated in gentleness and friendship."
Only one formality remained to be complied with. " I have
the honor," Voltaire would sometimes say, when his conven-
SETTLING IN PRUSSIA. 605
ience required it, " to be a domestique du roi.^^ A gentlemaii-
in-ordin;iry of the cliamber, who was also the king's histori-
ographer, could not leave the kingdom without the king's per-
mission, and he resolved to ask it in person. On two occasions
he had been charged with public business of high importance,
on leavinfr France for a visit to the Prussian court. He went
to Compiegne, where the King of France was, and, seeking an
audience, asked the required permission and the king's orders.
The tiadition is that he was coldly received. Longchamp re-
lates that the king merely said, " You can set out when you
wish," and turned his back. Madame de Pompadour was
more gracious. "When I took leave of Madame de Pompa-
dour," he wrote to his niece, " she charged me to present her
respects to the King of Prussia. A commission could not be
given more agreeably or with more grace. She put into it all
her modesty, saying, If I dared, and, I asic pardon of the King
of Prussia for talcing this liberty.''''
Returning to Paris, he gave his last orders to Longchamp,
who was to receive part of his revenues during his absence,
and furnish Madame Denis with one hundred louis a month
for household expenses. If that allowance should be found
insufficient, Longchamp was to inform him of the fact, when
he would authorize him to provide "a reasonable addition."
He expected to be absent three or four months at most. To
the last hour he seems to have had misgivings ; he implored
the D'Argentals to pardon his journey, however severely they
might judge his new tragedies, which he was still correcting.
This visit to the King of Prussia, he said to his friends, had
become a duty which, after two years of promises, he could no
longer honorably postpone.
He left to the Boyers of France last proofs of his affection
in the form of two little tracts of amusing satire : one called
" Sincere Thanksgiving to a Charitable JNIan," in which he
reviewed a priestly reviler of Montesquieu, Pope, and Locke.
The zealous priest had laboriously attempted to prove that
" the partisans of natural religion " are all enemies of the Chris-
tian religion. Voltaire congratulated him upon his success in
proving that the men in every age and land who had shown
the most love of truth and the greatest diligence in its inves-
tigation had been hostile to the claims of ecclesiastics.
606 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
" NotliinsT could be said more sensible or more useful to
Christianity." The other pat at parting was a leaf entitled
" Extract from a Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rome
upon a Libel called Letters upon the Twentieth." This
was a broad burlesque of the claim of the clergy to be exempt
from taxation. He little thought that he was exiling himself
from his native haunts for twenty-eight years by these merry
effusions.
" As it is clear that the world is about to come to an end, and that
Anti-Christ has come already, the said Anti-Christ having sent sev-
eral circular letters to some of the bishops of France, in which he
has had the audacity to treat them as Frenchmen and as subjects of
the king, Satan has joined himself to the Man of Iniquity, in order
to put the abomination of desolation into the holy place ; which Satan
has, to that end, composed a book worthy of him, — a book heretical,
savoring of heresy, rash, and unseemly. He strives to prove in the
said book that ecclesiastics form part of the body of the nation, in-
stead of maintaining that they are substantially its masters, as they
formerly taught. He advances that those who enjoy one third of
the revenues of the state should contribute at least one third to the
state's support; not remembering that our brethren were created to
possess all and give nothing. The said book, moreover, is notoriously
filled with impious maxims drawn from natural law, the rights of
the people, the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and other perni-
cious prejudices, tending wickedly to strengthen the royal authority, to
cause more money to circulate in the kingdom of France, to relieve
p^or ecclesiastics now holily oppressed by rich ones.
" For these reasons, it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to
us to cause the said book to be burned, in anticipation of doing the
same to the author of it, who served in this matter as the secretary of
Satan. "We demand, moreover, and command that our first-fruits be
punctually paid. We condemn Satan to drink holy water at supper
every Friday, and we enjoin it upon him to enter into the body of all
those who have read his book. Done at Rome, in Sainte-Marie sans
Minerve, at twenty-five o'clock. May 20, 1750.
" Signed, Coglione-Coglionaccio, Cardinal-President, and, lower,
Cazzo-Culo, Secretary of the Holy Office."
This was his parting word to the keeper of the Dauphin's
conscience and the bestower of the church's fat things. It
was not forgotten.
Berlin is now twenty hours from Paris. Voltaire, who had
SETTLING IN PRUSSIA. 607
a kino" to order relays of horses for liis convenience, accom-
plished the journey in twenty-five days ; but then he lost sev-
eral days through a mistake. That precious time, he wrote,
which ought to have been employed in rendering " Rome Sau-
v^e " less unworthy of the theatre, he wasted in giving himself
a series of indigestions. He left Paris June 15, 1750. July
10th he reached Sans-Souci, near Potsdam, the country palace
of the King of Prussia, seventeen miles southwest of Berlin.
What a reception was his ! From a king who told him he
was welcome to go, he had come to a king who practiced every
seductive art to make him willing to remain. The suite of
rooms assigned him in the palace was the one formerly oc-
cupied by Marshal Saxe. He was left at absolute liberty.
If he wished to dine alone, he had but to indicate the wish.
If he desired to entertain company, the king's kitchen and
store-room were at his command. The king's horses, carriages,
grooms, coachmen, all were at his orders, to use, to send, to
lend. If he was disposed to labor, no one interrupted him ;
if he strolled abroad, his privacy was respected. The whole
court smiles upon the king's favorite. The queen, the queen-
mother, the princesses, the princes, the ambassadors, the
nobles, all the king's circle of officers and friends, paid assid-
uous court to him ; and the people of Berlin, who looked
towai'ds the court from a great imaginary distance, regarded
him with intense curiosity.
At the moment of his arrival preparations were going for-
ward for a grand carousal in the style of Louis XIV., to
which the nobility of the kingdom were invited. This mag-
nificent festival, which took place at Berlin, in August, 1750,
was an assemblage of everything Prussia could boast of the
splendid and the entertaining. Balls, fire-works, concerts, op-
eras, plays, succeeded one another. The court-yard of the
royal palace was turned into an amphitheatre, surrounded by
ranges of seats, one above another, with decorated boxes in the
rear for the king and chosen guests, and, in the midst, an ex-
tensive, oblong arena for the exercises. Three thousand
troops lined this arena, and guarded the avenues leading to it.
Thousands of spectators were present. When all was in read-
iness, and every eye was directed toward the royal box to
catch the first glimpse of the king, a buzz and murmur were
608 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
heard in all parts of the inclosure: " Voltaire! Voltaire! Vol-
taire! " He was seen crossing the arena, attended by a num-
ber of lords, and walking toward one of the boxes. Soon the
king and his family entered, and the performance began.
Four quadrilles, or, as Voltaire styled them, " four little ar-
mies," entered, of mounted knights, Roman, Carthaginian,
Greek, Persian, all superbly costumed and armed, with a
prince of the royal house at the head of each. One of these
quadrilles came in at each corner of the amphitheatre ; in a
moment, the great arena was one glitter of prancing horses
and gorgeous chevaliers, marching and counter-marchmg,
wheeling and manoeuvring, to the sound of the best martial
music then attainable. The usual exercises of the tourney fol-
lowed.
Voltaire could not resist the fascination of the spectacle.
"Not the least confusion," he wrote home to D'Argental ; " no
noise ; all the assembly seated at ease, and silently attentive."
. . . . The Princess Amelia gave the prizes to the victors. "It
was Venus awarding the apple. The Prince Royal won the
first prize. He had the air of a hero of Amadis. You can form
no just idea of the beauty, the singularity, of the spectacle ; the
whole terminated by a supper of ten tables and a ball. This
is fairy-land." It was, at once, a carousal of Louis XIV. and
a Chinese feast of lanterns ; for the amphitheatre and its ap-
proaches were illuminated by forty-six thousand small lanterns
of glass.
The Princess Amelia was not ill-pleased to receive an " im-
promptu " from the poet, penciled, as she could presume, at
the moment of her bestowal of the prize : —
"Jamais dans Athene et dans Rome,
On n'eut de plus beaux jours, ui de plus digne prix.
J'ai vu le fils de Mars sous les traits de Paris,
Et Venus qui donnait la pomme." .
The master and creator of all this magnificence redoubled
his solicitations. He was a little rough on one occasion, which
might have warned a Frenchman that he was in a country
that could buy French polish, but could never be France. Im-
agine this colloquy on Voltaire's arrival at Potsdam: —
Voltaire. — " Madame de Pompadour did me the honor to
charge me with her respects to your majesty."
SETTLING IN PRUSSIA. 609
Frederic. — "I don't know her."
It was blunt. Voltaire did not report the response to the
lady. He was polite for two. In a few pretty verses, he con-
trived, without falsehood, to inform her that her compliments
had reached the person for whom they were intended. Her
myrtles, he added, were now blended with his laurels.
Then, —
" J'ai I'honneur, de la part d'Achille,
De rendre graces a Venus." ^
If all Frederic's familiars had been as politic, Prussia might
have had one enemy the less in the Seven Years' War.
Voltaire did not yield to the king's solicitations without a
struggle. He consulted his niece, Madame Denis, upon the
change of residence proposed for them both. August 14th, he
wrote to her thus : —
" The Kinir of Prussia makes me his chamberlain, gives me one of
his orders, twenty thousand francs a year, and to you four thousand a
year for life, if you are willing to come and keep house for me at
Berlin, as you do at Paris. You lived well at Landau with your hus-
band. I swear to you that Berlin is a better place than Landau, and
that there are better operas here. Reflect ; consult your heart. You
will tell me that the King of Prussia must be very fond of verses. He
is, indeed, a French author born at Berlin. He has come to the con-
clusion that, all things considered, I should be more useful to him than
D'Arnaud. I have forgiven the trifling polite verses which his Prus-
sian majesty addressed to my young pupil, in which he spoke of him
as the rising sun, very brilliant, and of me as the setting sun, dim enough.
He scratches still, sometimes, with one hand, while he caresses with the
other ; but we must not mind that so much. If you consent, he will
have near him both the rising and the setting sun, and, for his own
part, he will be in his meridian, writing prose and verse as much as h(3
pleases, since he has no more battles to give. I have little time to live.
Perhaps it is pleasanter to die in his fashion at Potsdam than in the
manner of an inhabitant of a parish at Paris. After my death you will
return thither, with your four thousand livres of dowry. If these prop-
ositions suit you, you will pack up your effects in the spring ; and, for
me, I shall go, toward the end of this autumn, on pilgrimage to Italy,
to see St. Peter's of Rome, the Pope, the Venus de Medicis, and the
subterranean city. I have always mourned at the thought of dying
without seeing Italy. We should meet in the month of May next. I
1 I have the honor, on the part of Achilles, to return thanks to Venus.
VOL. I. 39
610 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
have four verses from the King of Prussia for his Holiness. It would
be pleasant to carry to the Pope four French verses from a German
and heretical monarch, and to bring back to Potsdam some indul-
gences. You see that he treats Popes better than he treats ladies. He
will compose no verses for you ; but you will find good company here ;
you will have a good house. The king our master must first consent
to this. That will be, I think, very indifferent to him. It matters
little to a King of France in what place the most useless of his twenty-
two or twenty-three millions of subjects passes his life ; but it would be
frightful to live without you."
Madame Denis, a true child of Paris, was proof against these
arguments. She wrote a reply, earnestly dissuading him. The
mere rank of the king, ^he thought, made friendship impossi-
ble between them. Kings, too, changed their minds and their
favorites. If he gave himself to a king, he would bitterly re-
pent it; his life as the servant of a foreign potentate could only
be slavery disguised. This letter he sent to the king's cabi-
net ; whence soon he received an answer, in which Frederic le
Grand, as Voltaire now habitually called him, condescended to
refute Madame Denis's reasoning.
[Berlin, August 23, 1750.] "I have seen the letter which your
niece writes you from Paris. The affection which she has for you
wins my esteem. If I were Madame Denis, I should think as she
does ; but, being what I am, I think otherwise. I should be in despair
to be the cause of my enemy's unhappiness ; and how could I wish the
misfortune of a man whom I esteem, whom I love, and who sacrifices
to me his country and all that is dearest to humanity ? No, my dear
Voltaire, if I could foresee that your removal hither could turn the
least in the world to your disadvantage, I should be the first to dis-
suade you from it. Yes, I should prefer your happiness to my ex-
treme pleasure in possessing you. But you are a philosopher; I am
one also. What is there more natural, more simple, more according to
the order of things, than that philosophers, made to live together, united
by the same studies, by the same tastes, and by a similar way of think-
ing, should give one another that satisfaction ? I respect you as my
master in composition and in knowledge ; I love you as a virtuous friend.
What slavery, what unhappiness, what change, what inconstancy of
fortune, is there to fear in a country where you are esteemed as much
as in your own, and in the house of a friend who has a grateful heart ?
I have not the foolish presumption to believe that Berlin equals Paris.
If wealth, grandeur, and magnificence make a city agreeable, we yield
SETTLING IN PRUSSIA. 611
to Paris. If good taste, perhaps more generally diffused, exists any
where in the world, I know and I agree that it is at Paris. But do
you not carry that taste with you wherever you are? "We have some
organs which give us sufficient means of applauding you, and in point
of sentiments we do not yield to any country in the world. I respected
the friendship which bound you to Madame du Chatelet; but, after
her, I was one of your oldest friends. What ! because you retire to
my house, it will be said that that house becomes a prison for you ?
What ! because I am your friend, I shall be your tyrant ? I confess
to you that I do not understand such logic as that, and I am firmly
persuaded that you will be very happy here ; that you will be regarded
as the father of letters and of people of taste ; and that you will find
in me all the consolations which a man of your merit can expect from
one who esteems him. Good-night." ^
In conversation he was even more affectionate and more ur-
gent. In such circumstances, the poet who deliberates is lost.
It is himself who tells us how he yielded to the royal seducer :
" The large blue eyes of the king, his sweet smile, and his
siren voice, his five battles, his extreme love of retirement and
of occupation, of verses and of prose, as well as attentions to
turn one's head, delicious conversation, liberty, bis rank for-
gotten in our intercourse, a thousand marks of regard, which
even from a private individual would be seducing, — all that
bewildered my brain. I gave myself to him with passion,
bhndly, and without reflection." ^ It was hard indeed for such
a man to say No to such a suppliant. " He took my hand," as
he afterwards recorded, " to kiss it. I kissed his, and made
myself his slave.'"
As usual in such cases, repentance followed quick. No
sooner had he given his word than his heart yearned toward
his friends in Paris : he knew not what to say to them ; he
knew not how to explain this inconstancy of the most con-
stant of men. Writing to the D'Argentals, August 28th, he
begins without a beginning : —
" Judge, my dearest angels, if I am not in some degree excusable.
Judge by the letter which the king wrote to me from his quarters to
mine, — a letter which replies to the very wise, very elegant, very pow-
erful reasons that my niece adduces upon a mere presentimc-nt. I
send her that letter ; let her show it to you, I beg, and you will think
1 22 CEuvres de Frederic le Grand, 255.
2 Vohaire to Richelieu. August 31, 1751.
612 LIFE OF VOLTAIRE.
you are reading a letter of Trajan or Marcus Aurelius. Not the less
is my heart torn. I yield to my destiny, and I throw myself, head
foremost [Za tete la premiere], into the abyss of the fatality which
conducts us. Ah, my dear angels, have pity upon the struggles that
pass within me, and the mortal anguish with which I tear myself
from you ! I have almost always lived apart from you ; but formerly
it was persecution the most unjust, the most cruel, the most unrelent-
ing, that separated us. To-day it is the first man in the universe,
it is a crowned philosopher, who takes me from you. How do you
suppose I could resist ? How forget the barbarous manner in which
I have been treated in my country ? Do you bear in mind that they
took as a pretext the ' Mondain ' ? That is to say, the most innocent
badinage, which I would read at Rome to the Pope. Do you remem-
bei-, I say, that base enemies and infamous bigots used that pretext to
have me exiled? You will tell me that fifteen years have passed
since that was done. No, my angels, only one day ; for those atro-
cious wrongs are always recent wounds."
Madame Denis could hardly come to Prussia after having
expressed herself so freely with regard to the Prussian king.
She remained at Paris, mistress of her uncle's house there,
which he still maintained at an expense of thirty thousand
francs a year, as if to preserve for himself a retreat in case his
niece proved a true prophet. Frederic himself undertook to
procure the consent of the King of France, which was given
without delay. The French king took from him his office of
historiographer, but allowed him to retain his title of gentle-
man-in-ordinary of the chamber and his pension of two thou-
sand francs a year. Madame du Hausset, the/emwie de chamhre
of Madame de Pompadour, has been so good as to inform us
what Louis XV. thought of Voltaire's abandonment of his
country. That monarch was accustomed to express himself
with considerable freedom in Pompadour's boudoir, witli a
few of his familiars around him, and the femme de chamhre
within hearing distance. He greatly admired his grandfather,
Louis XIV., and all his lavish, magnificent ways; and he
loved to imitate him, even in the modest pensions bestowed
by Louis XIV. upon Racine, Boileau, Moliere, Corneille, and
others, who give him all the " glory " that remains to his
name. Louis XV., Madame du Hausset assures us, was proud
of the celebrity of Voltaire, but " feared him, and did not
t?
Ill
iiliiliiiiiii
'■"'■<''>'^-