Voltaire in Love

  Linant was not being a success at Cirey. He gave himself the most irritating airs, behaving as if Rameses, of which he had only finished a few indifferent verses, had put him on a par with Voltaire as a writer. He went to stay with some neighbours without so much as a by-your-leave, forgetting that he was paid to look after the child, and while he was away he wrote a rude letter to Mme du Châtelet ending up ‘the boredom of Cirey is the greatest of all boredoms’. He was given to speaking of Cideville as poor Cideville, or dear Cideville, instead of Monsieur de Cideville. Voltaire was a great stickler for proper forms of address and used to say that all the nobodies and hangers-on at the Comédie Française spoke of La Lecouvreur, whereas Cardinal Fleury never called her anything but Mademoiselle Lecouvreur. ‘Poor Cideville’ maddened him. Mme du Châtelet often spoke of sending Linant away, but Voltaire pointed out that though she did not need him he needed her, and in fact if he left Cirey he would starve to death.

  Cideville, urged to do so by Voltaire, wrote and scolded Linant for his uppishness and laziness. He replied very wretchedly. He can’t help laughing when he is told that he must never remain seated in the presence of Mme du Châtelet because she is of the House of Lorraine. But Cirey to him is a prison and he is miserable there. They expect him to finish Rameses; there is nothing he would like better, but how can he work with a little boy on a string? He must stop the child from falling into wells in summer and into the fire in winter. He must teach him things that he, very naturally and rightly, does not want to learn and Linant is sorry that he is paid to make the boy unhappy, but the boy gives it him back, all right. He is like a man who is tied down and told to run.

  However, things went rather better after Cideville had read the riot act. Linant took advantage of a happier atmosphere to ask Mme du Châtelet to do something for his mother and sister who were in distress. The mother was placed, through Émilie’s influence, in a convent; the sister was more of a problem. Linant begged and bothered Émilie to find her some employment at Cirey. Émilie said it would be difficult to have her there as a maid since that would lower the status of her son’s tutor. So she placed her with Mme de Richelieu, but at the last moment that arrangement fell through and there was nothing for it but to have her at Cirey.

  After Kaiserling’s departure they discovered he was in communication with Linant, who had made a plan with him to go off and join the Prince of Prussia’s establishment. Instead of being delighted to get rid of such an unsatisfactory creature, Émilie flew into a fury and said she had counted on him to bring up her son. She strenuously opposed his departure. No doubt she thought he would tell all sorts of tales, at Rheinsberg, about Cirey, and no doubt he would have. So the poor fellow saw that chance of escape fading away; Frederick could not have taken him without the consent of his employer. Meanwhile, the sister was being quite a success. When they told her of her brother’s plot with Kaiserling, she seemed to be deeply shocked and said that nothing would induce her to follow him. She loved her mistress too much, she said. The mistress was touched by these words. But only a few days later Mme du Châtelet got hold of Mlle Linant’s letters to a certain Abbé at Rouen and found herself treated with scant respect – laughed at, in fact. There was a tremendous blow-up and both the Linants left Cirey for ever.

  Voltaire wrote to Cideville: ‘Linant was stitching away at that Eyptiatic [sic] intrigue which I made him begin some seven years back. He seemed to have gathered up strength and I flattered myself that in fourteen years he would have finished the fifth act. Joking apart, if only he had worked a little I believe it might have succeeded. But you know that it was the sister who was possessed by the demon of composition in prose, so that Mme du Châtelet was obliged to send away both of them. They are very foolish; they could have led a charming life and looked forward to an agreeable future. Linant would have stayed on here with a pension and his pupil would have taken care of him . . . M. du Châtelet’s tutor died in the family, quite nicely off. Now it is my duty to forget them, since they have failed in theirs to Mme du Châtelet.’ He told Thieriot that he felt like a priest whose penitent has ended up in a brothel. This is not the last occasion on which we shall hear of Émilie’s reading other people’s letters. She gave Linant a good character, however, to somebody who thought of employing him, blaming the sister for his dismissal.

  Perhaps it was the fact of his protégé turning out so badly that made Voltaire remember his own kith and kin. He had never liked his brother who was ten years older than he and different in every respect. Arouet had long been a bigoted Jansenist; he belonged to the most advanced congregation of that sect and had taken part in the convulsions at Saint-Médard. Voltaire speaks of his mœurs féroces and says he had affairs with all the prettiest convulsionists. But he loved the sister who had died when he was in England and he began to think about her children and make plans for their future. They had recently lost their father. The eldest daughter Louise, at twenty-six, was a spinster and Voltaire proposed to marry her to Mme de Champbonin’s son. She would have a little château, not very pretty but it could be arranged for her, l’aimable Champenoise as a mother-in-law, 8,000 livres a year, and besides all this, she would live near her uncle, a companion for his old age. As the attractions of Champbonin himself are never stressed, they were probably not overwhelming. In any case the future Mme Denis had a mind of her own. She saw herself as an intellectual, a musician, pupil of Rameau; a real Parisian not at all cut out for country life. Without having been there she seems to have suspected that the boredom of Cirey was the greatest of all boredoms. She refused to hear of marrying young Champbonin. Voltaire had promised to give her a dowry and many an uncle in his place would have waved aside such a refusal and insisted on the marriage of his own choice. Voltaire did not even press the point but said that she must be happy in her way, not his.

  She decided to be happy with Denis, a bourgeois of about the same age and with the same tastes as herself. The marriage was a success. Voltaire was generous to her and as Uncle Arouet also did more than his duty (he, too, was a rich bachelor), Mme Denis started life very nicely provided for. Mme du Châtelet said she only wished her relations had done as well for her. Voltaire made one reservation, he refused to go to the wedding. He knew too well what such weddings are like, ‘gatherings of the clan, facetious nuptial jokes and puns, dirty stories to make the bride blush and the prudes pinch their lips, a great deal of noise, interrupted conversations, a lot of nasty food, giggles and no real desire to laugh, heavy kisses heavily bestowed, and little girls taking it all in through the corners of their eyes’.

  The young people went to Cirey for their honeymoon and Mme Denis wrote to Thieriot an account of what they found there. Her uncle is lost to his friends, chains have been forged which can never now be broken. He and Mme du Châtelet live in a terrifying solitude, twelve miles from any human habitation, surrounded by mountains and moors. Hardly any of their Paris friends visit them there. They have a pretty theatre, but can seldom raise enough actors to use it, though the neighbours within a radius of thirty miles have a standing order to come and perform. While Mme Denis was there none came, and they had to fall back on marionettes. Not much of a life for the greatest genius of the age. He was ill during the whole of Mme Denis’s visit. Mme du Châtelet has got rather fat, but she is certainly very pretty, full of fun, and takes all the trouble in the world to fascinate him. He seems more bewitched than ever. The young couple could not have been more kindly received; Voltaire likes M. Denis very much indeed and no wonder!

  Mme Denis must have been thanking her lucky stars that she had not married young Champbonin and gone to live in far Champagne surrounded by mountains and moors.

  10. The Battle of Desfontaines

  In the spring of 1738 the two philosophers of Cirey entered for a competition, set by the Académie des Sciences, on the nature of fire. (This affair has been described by Mr E. M. Forster in Abinger Harvest. It must be read in his words.) Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet were not placed. The
competition was won by Euler, who had something new to say on the rapidity of waves of heat. Two other papers, though inferior to those of Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet, pleased the Academicians more because they were faithful to Descartes. Voltaire’s paper has since been recognized to have been in advance of contemporary physics; he came very near to comprehending the phenomenon of oxidization, which was mysterious at that time. The lovers were quite resigned over their failure, putting it down to their adherence to Newton. ‘In France one is a good citizen only if one believes in the vortex.’ ‘We are the heretics of philosophy.’

  Owing to the prejudice against Newton, Voltaire was having trouble with the publication of his new book, Éléments de la philosophie de Newton (or Newton for the Common Reader). Not wishing to have any more alarums and excursions he sent it to the censor and asked, in a straightforward way, for permission to publish it. The censor adopted stone-wall tactics. He would say neither yes nor no; he would not return the book or suggest any alterations. Months went by. Voltaire had given a copy to his Dutch publisher but, anxious to be in order, he told him that it was not to appear until he had permission in France. He waited, and waited in vain for an answer from Versailles. Finally the usual thing happened. A pirated edition appeared in Holland. It was full of printers’ errors, but, even worse than that, it contained two or three chapters added by a Dutch physicist, without a word of explanation. Voltaire was in despair. This last work of his was by far his favourite; he had been longing for it to come out. The weeks and months which had dragged by had already affected his nerves and therefore his health. Émilie said, ‘His sensitivity over such matters may be natural but is not reasonable,’ but any writer would understand what his feelings must have been when he saw this garbled version, over whose manifold mistakes his enemies would surely gloat. Frederick, who had got hold of a copy, wrote at once to say that ’sGravesande had spoken to him of the book in a tone which he, Frederick, had not altogether liked. No wonder, said poor Voltaire, considering that the chapters which had been added to it without his knowledge had contained slighting allusions to ’sGravesande. The Dutch publisher had put on the title-page Éléments de la philosophie de Newton, mis à la portée de tout le monde and Abbé Desfontaines could not resist saying that this should read, ‘mis à la porte de tout le monde’. Voltaire began to work himself up in a mad and morbid way against the Abbé, who now seemed to personify his enemies. He sent the following poem to Thieriot, knowing quite well that it would be all round Paris in a few days.

  Par Vamour anti-physique

  Desfontaines flagellé

  A, dit-on, fort mal parlé

  Du système newtonique.

  Il a pris tout à rebours

  La vérité la plus pure

  Et ses erreurs sont toujours

  Des péchés contre nature.

  It was neither wise, nor kind. Desfontaines was tired of being told he was a pederast. He riposted, in Observations, with the remark that it would clearly be ridiculous for a philosopher, at an advanced age, to give up philosophy and take to writing poetry, but that apparently there is nothing ridiculous in an old poet taking up philosophy. However, it seems a pity that the old poet should give himself over to Newtonianism which all the real philosophers have condemned.

  Voltaire’s answer was Le Préservatif contre les Observations. In this masterly and very unfair production, he picked out every mistake that had ever appeared in Observations, whether of the printers, or of the author; all the errors of grammar, of fact, of taste, or of judgement. He took sentences out of their context and turned them to ridicule. He also raked up the old story of having saved Desfontaines from the faggots and of the vile, ungrateful creature’s pamphlet, shown to Thieriot. Now Desfontaines was quite a good journalist, but, like all of his profession, he was often obliged to write in a hurry. Printers at that time were notoriously slipshod and uneducated. Back numbers of Observations could not stand up to Voltaire’s treatment, administered by such a master-hand, and he had no difficulty in making the Abbé look foolish. Le Préservatif did not appear over Voltaire’s signature but was fastened on to one of his dogs’ bodies, the Chevalier de Mouhy, a literary hack whom Voltaire sometimes befriended. Mouhy was made to say that, having read in Observations various articles against M. de Voltaire, he has taken the liberty to write to M. de Voltaire, with whom he is not acquainted, and this is the answer. The so-called answer was Voltaire’s account of Desfontaines’s ingratitude to him and the pamphlet burnt by Thieriot. It was quite obvious that Voltaire was the author of the whole of Le Préservatif, every word of which could only have come from his pen, but he never admitted it. He told Thieriot that no doubt the Abbé deserved to be taught a lesson, but that if he himself had been consulted he would have advised Mouhy to polish up his style before publishing. ‘One can’t be everywhere at once.’

  Le Préservatif came out in November 1738. The Abbé did not waste time and on 12 December he published La Voltairomanie ou lettre d’un jeune avocat. In it a ‘young lawyer’, the opposite number of the Chevalier de Mouhy, flies to the defence of his friend Desfontaines and pours abuse upon Voltaire. La Voltairomanie is heavy handed and not very subtle, nevertheless every sentence has its sting. The intention is to show that Voltaire is mad, bad, and dangerous. Nobody and nothing is safe from this enemy of the human race, of the living, and of the dead. The ‘young lawyer’ goes to work with a will. He begins with Voltaire’s writings. The plays, he says, owe such success as they have had to their bold blasphemy. The Histoire de Charles XII is a dismal collection of fusty old anecdotes. The Lettres philosophiques have made it impossible for decent people to frequent Voltaire, and so now he has to live away from Paris. The Éléments de Newton have turned him into the laughingstock of all serious scientists. The ‘young lawyer’ then goes into the affair of the Abbé’s imprisonment and alleged rescue by Voltaire, pointing out with some truth, that while Voltaire may have had a hand in his release, he has accused him ever since of a crime for which Desfontaines was never even brought to trial. The Abbé (or rather, the ‘young lawyer’) now brings up his big gun. Voltaire’s only excuse for his pitiless persecution of a fellow-writer has always been the pamphlet, containing libels against himself, written after the Abbé’s release from prison and burnt by Thieriot. This pamphlet, in fact, has never existed. M. Thieriot is beginning (and who shall blame him?) to repent of his friendship with such a blackguard as Voltaire; he denies any knowledge of it. What other evidence is there of its existence? None. The whole story is yet another of Voltaire’s lies.

  La Voltairomanie was a best-seller. Voltaire’s enemies fell upon it with glee, while his friends could not help chuckling over it, though pronouncing it a gross and horrible libel. Of all the sorrows which assail our loved ones, the easiest for us to bear is an attack on them in print. While the poor victim is scratching the sore place, reading and re-reading an even greater beastliness into each sentence than was originally intended, we skim through the matter, laugh at the jokes, put it by (or put it in an envelope and send it to a mutual friend) and forget about it. In this case most people felt that Voltaire had brought it on himself by publishing Le Préservatif.

  La Voltairomanie reached Cirey on Christmas Day. There were two copies in Voltaire’s mail; one was extracted by Émilie who always had a nibble at the postbag before anybody else. She missed the other copy; it was probably in the package from Abbé Moussinot which was sacred and which even she never dared to touch. For several days she and Voltaire pored over this horrible document alone, each keeping it from the other. She thought that if he read it, in his present state of health, it might kill him; he knew how much she took to heart anything which concerned him and wanted to spare her feelings. There was, staying with them at Cirey, a garrulous Madame de Grafigny. They neither of them confided in her but perhaps they were quite glad to have a third person there, in the circumstances. They must have made a considerable effort when she was with them, which was only at meal-times, for, in her
letters, she describes scintillating conversation and many jokes.

  Of course poor d’Argental was at the receiving end for both of them. Émilie wrote frantically. First she said that their ‘friend’ must never know about La Voltairomanie; it must be ignored, passed over in a contemptuous silence. Her second thoughts, however, were that, on the contrary, it must be answered. The public should not be left with the idea that Voltaire was forbidden to go to Paris. Thieriot must be made to speak up about the pamphlet. She enclosed an answer to La Voltairomanie in which she went for Desfontaines tooth and nail. It began: ‘Naturalists take pains to trace the origins of those monsters which nature used to produce, they do so out of curiosity and cannot guarantee us against their reappearance; but there is another kind of monster whose study is of greater interest to society and whose extirpation is more necessary.’ She demolished all Desfontaines’s arguments, one by one, referring to him as ‘le misérable’, and ended ‘Socrates thanked God that he was born a man and not a beast, a Greek and not a barbarian; and M. de Voltaire must thank Him for such a despicable enemy’. Then she wrote to Thieriot pointing out that it was his duty to come to the support of his friend. Thieriot’s reply was exceedingly unsatisfactory. He recognizes and is edified by Mme du Châtelet’s zeal on behalf of M. de Voltaire. He has been greatly scandalized by Le Préservatif and he is appalled to learn that ill-intentioned folk are attributing it to Voltaire. Since it appeared many people have asked him about the allegedly libellous pamphlet, he always gives the same answer, which he now gives to Mme du Châtelet: he does vaguely remember having seen such a manuscript but cannot say for certain whether this was before or after the Abbé’s imprisonment. (The date, of course, was exceedingly important as if the Abbé had written the pamphlet before going to prison he could not be accused of ingratitude.)