1745–1747 In the winter after the battle of Fontenoy there were many gala performances at Versailles, among them several operas at the Théâtre des Petites-Écuries. One of these was Voltaire’s play The Princess of Navarre,* set to music by Rameau. The piece had just been altered and had its title changed to The Feasts of Ramiro.† This change of subject demanded several alterations in the incidental interludes, both in the words and music; and someone had to be found capable of dealing with both. Voltaire – who was then in Lorraine – and Rameau were working on the opera The Temple of Glory* and could not attend to the matter. M. de Richelieu thought of me, suggested to me that I should undertake it, and in order that I should be able to judge what there was to do he sent me the poem and the music separately. In the first place, I was unwilling to touch the words without their author’s express permission; and I wrote a very straightforward letter to him on the subject, as was only right. Here is his reply, the original of which is in the packet labelled A, No. I.
15 December 1745
In you are united, sir, two talents which hitherto have always been separate, and these are two good reasons why I should respect you and endeavour to love you. I sympathize with you for having employed these two talents on a work not entirely worthy of them. Some months ago the Duke de Richelieu gave me positive orders to compose at a moment’s notice a poor little sketch consisting of a few insipid and fragmentary scenes, to be fitted to certain songs and dances utterly un-suited to them. I obeyed him to the letter; I worked very fast and very badly, and sent my miserable scrawl to the Duke, feeling quite certain that it would not do or that I should have to correct it. Fortunately it is in your hands, and you can decide its fate; I have entirely put it from my thoughts. I have no doubt that you have corrected all the errors I must have made in the hasty composition of this simple sketch, and that you have filled in all that was missing.
One stupid blunder I remember in particular. In the scenes linking the interludes I omitted to explain how the Princess Grenadine suddenly passes from a prison into a garden or a palace. As it is not a magician but a Spanish nobleman who is giving the festivities in her honour, I do not think that anything ought to be done by way of enchantment. I beg you, sir, to look this passage over; I have only a confused memory of it. See whether it is really necessary for the prison to open and for our princess to leave it for a fine gilt and lacquered palace, especially prepared for her. I know very well that all this is wretched stuff, and that it is unworthy of a thinking being to make a serious matter of such trifles. But since ultimately it is a case of giving as little displeasure as possible we must use all the intelligence we can even on a miserable opera interlude.
I leave everything in the hands of M. Ballod and yourself, and hope soon to have the honour of tendering you my thanks and of assuring you, sir, how gratified I am to be, etc.
There is no reason to be surprised at the great politeness of this letter when compared to the somewhat brusque tone of those which he has since written to me. He supposed that I was in high favour with the Duke de Richelieu; and his well-known diplomatic suppleness prompted him to show considerable politeness to a novice until such time as he had gauged the measure of his influence.
With M. de Voltaire’s authority, and under no necessity of considering Rameau, who was only out to injure me, I set to work and in two months my job was done. As for the verse, there was very little of it. I only tried to make the difference of styles imperceptible, and I had the presumption to believe that I had succeeded. My work on the music was longer and more laborious; not only had I to compose several introductory pieces, among them an overture, but all the recitatives devolved upon me and were extremely difficult, since I had to link, often by a few verses and by the rapidest of modulations, orchestral pieces and choruses in the most different keys. For in order that Rameau should not accuse me of having spoilt his arias I was unwilling to alter or transpose any of them. The recitatives were a success. They were well accented, most vigorous and, what is more, perfectly modulated. The thought of these two great men, with whom they were so kind as to associate me, had acted favourably on my genius; and I can say that in this thankless and inglorious task of which the public could not even be informed, I very seldom fell below the level of my models.
The opera, with the changes I had made, was rehearsed at the grand Opera House. I was the only one of the three authors present. Voltaire was away, and Rameau did not come, or did not show himself.
The words of the first monologue were most mournful. They began:
Come, death, and terminate the miseries of my life!*
I had been obliged to compose music to suit it. Yet it was on this point that Mme de La Popelinière founded her criticism. She protested with some bitterness that I had written funeral music. M. de Richelieu judiciously began by inquiring whose were the verses of this monologue. I showed him the manuscript he had sent me, which proved that they were Voltaire’s. ‘In that case,’ said he, ‘only Voltaire is to blame.’ During the rehearsal everything that was mine was successively censured by Mme de La Popelinière and defended by M. de Richelieu. But in the end I found the opposition too strong, and was informed that several alterations were necessary in my work, about which I must consult M. Rameau. Deeply distressed at receiving this verdict in place of the praises I had expected, and which were certainly due to me, I returned home sick at heart. Tired out and consumed by grief, I fell ill, and for six weeks was not fit to leave my room.
Rameau was commissioned to make the alterations indicated by Mme de La Popelinière, and sent to ask me for the overture of my own opera, so that it could be played in place of the one I had just composed. Luckily I saw the trick and refused. As it was only five or six days till the performance, there was no time to compose another, and mine had to be left in. It was in the Italian style, which was something new in France at that time. Nevertheless it was liked, and I heard from M. de Valmalette, the King’s chamberlain and son-in-law of my relative and friend M. Mussard, that the connoisseurs had been very pleased with my work and that the general public had not been able to distinguish it from Rameau’s. But Rameau himself, in concert with Mme de La Popelinière, took measures to prevent its being known that I had contributed to it. On the texts which are handed round to the audience, and on which the authors’ names are always given, Voltaire alone was mentioned; Rameau preferred his name to be suppressed rather than see it associated with mine.
As soon as I was fit to go out I resolved to call on M. de Richelieu. I had lost my opportunity; he had just left for Dunkirk where he was to command the expedition intended for Scotland. On his return I told myself, to excuse my laziness, that it was now too late. As I never saw him again I forfeited the honour that my work deserved and that I feel it should have earned me. My time, my labours, my disappointment, my illness and the expenses it entailed, all went for nothing; I did not get a halfpenny in return, or rather in compensation. Nevertheless, I have always thought that the Duke de Richelieu conceived a liking for me and thought well of my talents; but my bad luck and Mme de La Popelinière combined entirely nullified the effects of his goodwill.
I was quite unable to understand that woman’s dislike of me; I had been at some pains to please her and had paid her regular court. Gauffecourt explained the reasons to me. ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘there is her friendship for Rameau, whose avowed advocate she is and who will not stand any competitors; and secondly, an original sin which damns you in her eyes and for which she will never pardon you – that of being a Genevese.’ He explained to me, as the reason, that the Abbé Hubert, who was from Geneva and was a sincere friend of M. de La Popelinière, had tried hard to prevent his marrying this woman, whose character he knew well; and that after her marriage she had vowed an implacable hatred against him and against all Genevese. ‘Although La Popelinière feels friendly towards you,’ he added, ‘as indeed I know, do not count on his backing. He is fond of his wife; she hates you; she is spiteful and cunning, a
nd you will never gain anything from that household.’ I took his word for it.
At about that time this same Gauffecourt rendered me a service of which I stood in great need. I had just lost my esteemed father who had been about sixty years old.* I did not feel his loss as keenly as I should have done at another date, when less preoccupied with the difficulties of my situation. I had never been willing in his lifetime to claim what was left of my mother’s property, from which he had drawn a trifling interest; I had no longer scruples on that score after his death. But the lack of legal proof that my brother had died made a difficulty which Gauffecourt undertook to remove, and which he did remove through the good offices of De Lolme, the lawyer. As I was in the greatest need of that small capital, and as the outcome was in doubt, I waited for definite news with the liveliest impatience. One evening, on returning home, I found the letter which must contain it, and picked it up to open with a tremor of impatience of which I was inwardly ashamed. ‘What!’ I said to myself in scorn. ‘Can Jean-Jacques let himself be such a slave to self-interest and curiosity?’ Immediately I put the letter back on the mantelpiece. Then I undressed, went quietly to bed, slept better than usual and got up rather late next day without remembering my letter. I noticed it as I was dressing, and unhurriedly opened it; I found a bill of exchange inside. It gave me several pleasures at once, but I can affirm that the keenest of them was a consciousness of victory over myself. There might be twenty similar cases that I could quote in my life, but I am too short of time to be able to relate everything. I sent a small part of this money to my poor Mamma, with tears of regret for the happy time when I should have laid it all at her feet. All her letters revealed her distress. She sent me piles of recipes and secret remedies by which she alleged I could make my fortune and hers. Already the consciousness of her misery was closing her heart and narrowing her mind. The little I sent her fell to the rogues who surrounded her. She got no profit from anything and I was put off by the thought of dividing what I needed myself with those wretches, especially after the vain endeavour I had made to get her out of their hands, as will be told hereafter.
Time slipped away, and the money with it. We were two, or rather four or, to be more accurate, seven or eight. For though Thérèse was disinterested to an almost unparalleled degree, her mother was not like her. As soon as she found herself a little better off, thanks to me, she sent for her whole family to share in her good fortune. Sisters, sons, daughters, granddaughters, they all came, all except her eldest daughter who was married to the director of the coach service at Angers. Everything that I did for Thérèse was deflected by her mother for the benefit of their hungry mouths. As I was not dealing with a greedy person, and was not under the influence of a mad passion, I committed no foolish acts. Content to keep Thérèse decently but without luxury and safe from pressing needs, I agreed that what she earned by her work should go entirely to her mother’s profit, and I did not limit myself to that. But, by a fatality which pursued me, whilst Mamma was a prey to her vampires, Thérèse was a prey to her family, and I could do nothing in either case to profit the person I intended to. It was strange that the youngest of Mme Le Vasseur’s children – the only one she had not provided with a dowry – was the only one who supported her father and mother; and that, after having been for a long time knocked about by her brothers and sisters, and even by her nieces, the poor girl was now plundered by them, without being able to defend herself from their thefts any better than she had done from their blows. Only one of her nieces, Goton Leduc by name, was quite pleasant and good natured, but she was spoiled by the lessons and example of the others. As I often saw them together I called them by the names they used for one another. I called the niece niece and the aunt aunt, and both of them called me uncle. Hence the name of aunt by which I have continued to call Thérèse, and which my friends have sometimes used also by way of a joke.
Clearly, in my situation, I could not waste a moment before trying to extricate myself. Concluding that M. de Richelieu had forgotten me, and expecting nothing further from the direction of the Court, I made some attempts to get my opera accepted in Paris. But I encountered difficulties which required some time to overcome, and I was more hard pressed every day. I decided to offer my comedy Narcissus to the Italian theatre. It was accepted, and I was given a free pass to the theatre, which greatly pleased me; but that was all. I could never succeed in getting my piece put on; and growing tired of paying court to the actors, I gave them up. Finally I came to the last expedient remaining to me, and the only one I should really have attempted. Whilst I had been visiting M. de La Popelinière’s house, I had stayed away from M. Dupin’s. The two ladies, although related, did not get on and never met. There were no relations between the two houses, and only Thieriot was at home in both. He was requested to try and secure my readmission to M. Dupin’s. M. de Francueil was then studying natural history and chemistry, and was making a collection. I heard that he was aspiring to the Academy of Sciences. For that reason he wanted to write a book, and he considered that I might be of some use to him in this undertaking. Mme Dupin, who was also meditating a book, had rather similar views about me. They would have liked to employ me in common as a sort of secretary, and this was the course that Thieriot urged on them. I required as a preliminary that M. de Francueil should use his own influence and Jelyote’s to get my piece rehearsed at the Opera. He agreed. The Gallant Muses was played through several times at the Magasin* and then in the main theatre. There was a great crowd at the dress rehearsal and several items were much applauded. During the performance, however, which was very badly conducted by Revel, I myself felt that the piece would not be accepted, indeed that it was in no state to be presented without great alterations. So I withdrew it without a word, and did not expose myself to a rejection. But I plainly saw, from several indications, that even if the work had been perfect it would not have passed. M. de Francueil had certainly promised to get it a rehearsal, but not to secure its acceptance. He had kept his word to the letter. I have always imagined, on this occasion and many others, that neither he nor Mme Dupin were at all anxious for me to acquire any considerable reputation in the world, in case people might suppose when seeing their books that they had grafted their talents on mine. However, as Mme Dupin has always considered mine very slight, and has never employed me except to write at her dictation or to undertake purely learned researches, the accusation, especially in her case, would have been a most unjust one.
1747–1749 This last failure completed my discouragement. I gave up all hopes of advancement and fame, and without another thought for my talents, real or imaginary, that brought me so little profit, devoted my time and energy to procuring a livelihood for myself and my dear Thérèse, in the manner most pleasing to those undertaking to provide it. I attached myself completely, therefore, to Mme Dupin and M. de Francueil. This did not plunge me into great affluence; for with the annual eight or nine hundred francs which I earned for the first two years I had scarcely enough to provide for my most urgent needs, since I was forced to rent a furnished room in their neighbourhood, a rather expensive quarter, and at the same time to pay for another lodging at the other end of Paris, at the top of the Rue Saint-Jacques, where, whatever the weather, I went to sup nearly every evening. I soon got into the way of my new occupation, and even came to like it. I became fond of chemistry, and M. de Francueil and I took several courses in it at M Rouille’s. Then we started some indifferent scribbling on that subject of which we hardly knew the elements. In 1747 we went to spend the autumn in Touraine, at the Château de Chenonceaux, a royal mansion upon the Cher, built by Henry II for Diana of Poitiers, whose initials can still be seen there, and now owned by M. Dupin, the farmer-general. We greatly enjoyed ourselves in this lovely spot, and lived very well; I became as fat as a monk. We had a great deal of music I composed several trios for voices, full of vigour and harmony, of which I shall perhaps speak again in my supplement, if I ever write one. We acted comedies, and I wrote one in t
hree acts entitled The Bold Engagement,* which took me a fortnight and which will be found among my papers; its only merit is that it is very gay. I composed some other little things there, including a play in verse entitled Sylvia’s Avenue,† after a walk in the park that ran beside the Cher; and all this I did without interrupting my study of chemistry or the work I was doing for Mme Dupin.
Whilst I was growing plump at Chenonceaux my poor Thérèse was doing the same in Paris, though in another way; and when I returned I found the work I had set under way further advanced than I had expected. Considering my position, this would have thrown me into the greatest embarrassment if some table companions had not provided me with the only means of extricating myself. This is one of those essential details which I cannot relate too baldly. For were I to comment on them, I should have either to excuse or blame myself, and here I have no business to do either.
During Altuna’s stay in Paris, instead of going to an eating-house, he and I usually took our meals in the neighbourhood, nearly opposite the Opera cul-de-sac, at the house of a certain Mme Selle, a tailor’s wife, who served pretty poor food, though her table was always popular on account of the good and respectable company that frequented it. For no stranger was received there; one had to be introduced by one of the habitual diners. Commander de Graville, an old rake, all wit and courtesy but foul in his language, lodged there and attracted a giddy and brilliant company of young Guard and Musketeer officers. Commander de Nonant, squire of all the Opera girls, brought all the news every day from that centre of vice. M. Duplessis, a retired lieutenant-colonel, a good and respectable old man, and M. Ancelet,* a Musketeer officer, kept these young people in some kind of order. The place was also frequented by merchants, financiers, and provision dealers, but well-bred and honourable men who were distinguished in their trades. There were M. de Besse, M. de Forcade, and others whose names I have forgotten. In fact one met people of standing of all classes, except priests and lawyers, whom I never found there, for it was agreed that none were to be introduced. The company was fairly numerous and very gay, though not noisy, and the conversation was risky but never vulgar. The old commander, despite the broadness of his stories, never forgot his old courtly good manners, and never did a foul word escape his lips which was not so witty that any woman would have pardoned him. He gave the tone to the whole table. All the young men recounted their affairs with equal elegance and freedom, and there was no lack of tales about girls, since there was a bevy of them close at hand. For the passage through which one came to Mme de Selle’s house also led to the shop of Mme Duchapt, a famous dressmaker, who at that time employed some very pretty ones, with whom our gentlemen would go and chat before or after dinner. I should have amused myself in the same way if I had possessed the courage. I went to dine at Mme de Selle’s fairly often after Altuna left, and heard a lot of most amusing stories there. Gradually indeed I adopted not, thank Heaven, the morals but the principles I found accepted there. Honest men injured, deception of husbands, seductions and secret childbirths were the most common themes; and the man who best helped to stock the Foundling Hospital was always the most applauded. I caught the habit, and modelled my way of thinking upon that which I saw prevalent among these very pleasant and fundamentally very decent people. ‘Since it is the custom of the country,’ I told myself, ‘if one lives there one must adopt it.’ That was the way out I was looking for. I cheerfully resolved to take it without the least scruple; indeed the only scruples that I had to overcome were Thérèse’s, and I had the greatest difficulty in the world in persuading her to accept this sole means of saving her honour. But her mother had another fear, that of a fresh embarrassment in the form of a brat, and she came to my aid; Thérèse gave in. We chose a discreet and safe midwife, Mlle Gouin by name, who lived at the Pointe Sainte-Eustache, to undertake the depositing of the baby; and when her time was come, Thérèse was taken by her mother to be delivered at Mlle Gouin’s. I went to see her there several times, and took her a set of initials which I had written on two cards, one of which was put in the child’s swaddling clothes. It was then deposited by the midwife at the office of the Foundling Hospital in the usual manner. In the following year the same inconvenience was removed by the same expedient, except for the initials, which were forgotten. No more serious reflections on my part, and no greater willingness on the mother’s; she obeyed with a sigh. In due course it will be seen what vicissitudes this fatal conduct occasioned in my way of thinking and also in my destiny. For the present let us confine ourselves to this first period. Its consequences, which were as cruel as they were unforeseen, will force me to return to it only too often.