Voltaire in Love

by Nancy Mitford

  In spite of Émilie’s protests Voltaire sent his new friend various philosophical writings of his own which, if they were read in Paris, would be enough to get him exiled for ever. Émilie saw the red light at the first exchange of letters. Knowing that Voltaire dearly loved a royal highness and had a weakness for clever young men, she realized that this heir to a throne, babbling of metaphysics, might easily become a dangerous rival. Voltaire lost no time in telling the world what had happened. Here is an enlightened Prince (buried away, unfortunately, in Germanie) who knows a philosopher when he sees one. If they are not careful at Versailles, Voltaire will be lost to France for ever; this splendid Prince, writing as Julian might have written to Libanius, has invited him to his Court. Frederick’s letters were copied and copied again and sent off in every direction. Voltaire enjoining each and all of the recipients to keep them a deadly secret. For the present he intends to stay at Cirey and meet the claims of friendship; for the future, who can tell?

  We English can only think of Frederick the Great in the accents of Carlyle, who, anxious to seem ‘Teutsch’, always spelt the name of his hero Friedrich whereas the hero, anxious to seem French, signed himself Fédéric. On 6 August, two days before writing to Voltaire, Frederick had ‘kindled the sacred hearth’ with his wife. Carlyle knew quite well that their marriage was never consummated; he only meant that they now had an establishment of their own at Rheinsberg. ‘Here he lives to the Muses, to the spiritual improvements, to the social enjoyments and has . . . a sunny time.’ ‘Voltaire was the spiritual complement of Friedrich; what little of lasting their poor century produced lies mainly in these two.’ ‘Admit it, reader,’ says Carlyle.

  Frederick answered Voltaire’s letter with another of enormous length which drew tears of joy from the recipient. He foresees that this Prince will be the beloved of the human race: ‘You think like Trajan, you write like Pliny and you speak French like any of our best writers. Under your auspices Berlin will become the Athens of Germany and perhaps of the whole of Europe.’ Perhaps he really thought so; who can tell what Voltaire really thought? Later in life, speaking of this correspondence, he said, ‘all these epithets cost us nothing. He hadn’t much to do so he spent his time writing to French men of letters. The principal burden fell on me.’ He certainly did not think that Frederick wrote French ‘like any of our best writers’. His French was very poor indeed, full of mistakes which Voltaire called ‘fautes de doigts’. He took good care to correct the letters before boastfully broadcasting them to his friends in Paris. Presents soon began to arrive, portraits of the Prince, bibelots for Émilie, and a cane with a golden head of Socrates, who, Frederick said, could be compared with Voltaire except for the calumnies with which Socrates had been blackened.

  Voltaire wrote all the developments of this interesting friendship to Thieriot. Knowing everybody in Paris, invited everywhere, Thieriot was an excellent publicity agent since this entailed no work or trouble. Voltaire and his doings were news and Thieriot dined out on them. Voltaire engaged him, on Frederick’s behalf, to write a regular letter of literary gossip to Berlin. As this did entail a little work and trouble he did it badly, though he kept it up in a desultory way for years. He never failed to include anything disagreeable that appeared about Voltaire, keenly gathering up all the most damaging libels against his old friend and benefactor in order to post them off to Frederick. Voltaire was aware of this, and sometimes said how pleased he would be if Thieriot would include the good things that were written about him. They were generally forgotten. It was understood that Frederick would pay Thieriot for his trouble, not at once, but on his accession to the throne. He never did. When Thieriot complained about this, Voltaire would vaguely reply that one day he would hear the words ‘well done, thou good and faithful servant’.

  Voltaire was becoming more and more interested in natural philosophy. As always when an author turns to something new, his friends thought it a great pity that he should give up writing poetry and plays. Cideville sadly asked him what he gained by knowing the weight of Saturn? D’Argenson said there were plenty of people to instruct the world in physical science, but very soon there would be nothing amusing to read. The actors of the Comédie Française were crying out for a play, and Voltaire said they must cry in vain. His mind was filled with Newton and he had time for little else. He was conducting optical experiments, in a dark room, with the aid of instruments sent him by the Abbé Moussinot and was writing Les Éléments de la philosophie de Newton. At that time hardly anybody outside England understood these elements; Newton’s own book was written in Latin and in algebra and was therefore incomprehensible to the common man. Voltaire performed a service to France by forcing himself to understand it so that he could make it clear to others. Very likely he never would have done so but for Émilie. ‘Minerve dictait,’ he said himself, ‘et j’écrivais.’

  When he had been studying physics for some years, he asked Clairaut to give a candid opinion on his progress. Clairaut, who could be trusted to tell the truth, as he was a good and simple man, jealous of nobody, replied that Voltaire had no gift for science and that the greatest industry would never make a first-class scientist of him. After this, independent search for physical truth was given up. Voltaire’s real interest was in the human race, past, present, and to come. Émilie thought he was too fond of history, which she regarded as singularly useless. ‘What does it matter to me, a Frenchwoman living on my estates, that Egil succeeded Harquin in Sweden? I renounced a study which overwhelms the mind without illuminating it.’ His scientific work at Cirey however was by no means such waste of time as his Parisian friends thought it. Nearly all that is still read of Voltaire was influenced by it. Nobody now can wade through his tragedies, which seem to us like bad Racine; nobody acts his comedies, or reads the Henriade. Marivaux, whom Voltaire despised from the bottom of his heart, has survived as a playwright; Voltaire has not. But Candide and the other tales, the Dictionnaire philosophique, and his letters which increased in number, depth, and importance during the Cirey period will be read as long as our civilization endures.

  In the middle of more serious work, Voltaire did find time to scribble a poem, Le Mondain, to amuse himself and his friends. Its theme was the superiority of civilized over primitive life. Adam and Eve, said Voltaire, must have been too bored for words, poor things, with nothing to do but eat, drink, and make love. No soap, no scissors, their nails and hair must have been in a disgusting state. Their supper, under an oak-tree, consisted of millet and acorns washed down with water. What a contrast is the life of a civilized man, surrounded by the children of his taste: Correggios, Poussins, and Gobelins hang on his walls; his silver is by Germain, his statues by Bouchardon. When he wishes for distraction he sends for his carriage and goes to see Camargo dance at the Opera; there all the senses are catered for. People who cry out against luxury are generally themselves poor and badtempered. It is in Le Mondain that the classic phrase occurs, ‘le superflu, chose si nécessaire’.

  Copies of this little poem were sent off, as usual, to a few friends and, as usual, somebody betrayed Voltaire and delivered it to a publisher. The Bishop of Mirepoix, who was later to be Mme de Pompadour’s enemy at the Court, read it and objected violently. Since giving up his See in order to become the little Dauphin’s tutor he always signed himself anc: (ancien) de Mirepoix, which Voltaire pretended to read as âne. The donkey of Mirepoix now complained to Cardinal Fleury and there was trouble. The clergy said that the poem was blasphemous because Adam and Eve were depicted as making love constantly in the Garden of Eden. There were other, equally far-fetched complaints. ‘Keeper’ (the Garde des Sceaux) had given his word to the Duc and Duchesse de Richelieu, and to Mme du Châtelet’s influential cousin the Bailli de Froulay, that no proceedings would ever be taken against Voltaire while he was at Cirey, without warning. This promise was kept. On 22 December 1736 Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet received an alarming letter from him.

  Snow was thick on the ground; Voltaire f
elt the cold to an exaggerated degree; yet, so great was their agitation that they left Cirey that very night and went to the inn at Vassy whence Voltaire was to proceed, with post-horses, to Holland. There was no thought of sleep, Voltaire wrote letters and at four in the morning he wrote to d’Argental, ‘. . . but, my true, tender, and respected friend, as I see the moment approaching when I must part for ever from one who has given up Paris, society, and everything that makes life pleasant, on my behalf, one whom I adore and whom it is right that I should adore, you will understand what I am feeling . . . My heart is pierced. Simply because I have enemies in Paris, must she return solitary to a house she has built for me, must I be deprived of my life’s consolation?’ He says that he could easily go and live in Prussia, or indeed in any foreign land without too many regrets were it not for Émilie. ‘I am exhausted, overwhelmed with grief and illness. Adieu.’

  Indeed it was horrible for him. He had settled down to a routine of congenial work; he had installed his library, laboratory, and darkroom; and he had found a woman with whom he could live happily. All this had to be abandoned, at a moment’s notice, in the middle of a bitter winter’s night. A sense of unfairness added to his misery. The charming, light-hearted Mondain certainly did not deserve such treatment. He realized, however, that Émilie’s state was even worse than his. She now had to go back to a sad, deserted Cirey where her husband, two dull little children, and Linant would henceforth be her sole companions. Voltaire worried about her, and from Givet, the first stop on the road to Brussels, he sent a line to Mme de Champbonin begging her to go to Émilie at once.

  Émilie, for her part, worried about him. She thought his health might give way, in that bitter cold. But as she knew, really, that Voltaire’s health became very good in times of crisis and was at its best during long, hard journeys, her chief preoccupation was a more selfish one. She feared that he would go to Prussia. In spite of the poor quality of Frederick’s letters, which had so far given no idea of his real personality, the curious magnet had begun to work upon Voltaire. Émilie was frightened of the Prince. She wrote frantically to d’Argental, who must have dreaded the post-bag during these days, filled as it was with the wails of the two philosophers: ‘I beg you on my knees to stop him going to Prussia.’ As a matter of fact there was no danger of this for the present. Frederick did not want him there while his father, the King, was still alive. He himself went in terror of this absolutely powerful madman, who would certainly regard his friendship for Voltaire with no good eye. Voltaire told everybody in Paris, and published in the gazettes that he was on his way to Prussia, but this was in order to conceal his whereabouts: in fact he got no further than Amsterdam.

  Meanwhile Émilie, pondering and brooding alone at Cirey, was having second thoughts which she communicated to d’Argental in long, hysterical letters. It really seems impossible that the French Court, bigoted though it may be, could exile such a man as Voltaire, merely for saying that Adam and Eve never had a bath. The explanation must lie elsewhere. D’Argental tells her that du Châtelet is to be asked to withdraw his protection from Voltaire and this gives her a clue. The whole thing must have been plotted by her cousin, the Marquis de Breteuil, with whom she has quarrelled; it is his way of taking his revenge. Fortunately, M. du Châtelet is the soul of integrity, the best and most reliable man in the world and there is no question of his lending himself to such proceedings. If her surmise is correct, Voltaire only has to lie low for a bit and all will be well. But she is fearfully unhappy. A fortnight ago she never spent as much as two hours away from him; even when they were both working they continually sent each other little notes. Now she is not even sure where he is, since his letters are not arriving. Meanwhile, Cirey is nothing but mountains and she is really too wretched. When Voltaire’s letters begin to arrive she reads, to her horror, that he has sent a manuscript copy of his unpublished Métaphysique to Frederick. This work is a thousand times more dangerous and punishable than La Pucelle. (She need not have worried about that; it was only later that Frederick betrayed Voltaire to the French government. There was no point in doing so at present.)

  All the Paris friends upset her by writing their views and advice. Some say that the Garde des Sceaux is angry with Voltaire for leaving the country without informing him. Others that the correspondence with Frederick is regarded as highly suspect at Versailles. Others again that Voltaire has written an indiscreet letter about M. Hérault, the Chief of Police. These hypotheses go round and round in her head and nearly drive her mad. Du Châtelet wants to take her to the Court of Lorraine at Lunéville for a change and a distraction, but she cannot leave the place where she last saw Voltaire. So there she stayed, pining like a faithful dog.

  In Paris people were saying that Voltaire had seduced the daughter of the concierge at Cirey who had had a child. When the girl was questioned she was supposed to have observed that she had only done with M. de Voltaire what she had seen Madame doing and that she knew Madame never did wrong. After which Émilie sent Voltaire packing. Another story had it that the Chevalier du Châtelet, as stupid as his brother but not so easy-going, had chased Voltaire out of the house for dishonouring the family.

  Meanwhile, Voltaire was thoroughly enjoying himself. He assumed an alias, M. Revol, but it took in nobody, nor did the notice in the papers that he had gone to Prussia. He only stayed one night in Brussels, a town he never liked and where he risked a meeting with the hated Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. But on that one night they gave Alzire in his honour. In Holland he received most flattering visits. The Prussian Minister to London, who happened to be at The Hague, called to put his house at Voltaire’s disposal should he wish to go to England. Twenty Englishmen of King George’s Household came to see him. The learned ’sGravesande, professor of philosophy at Leyden and a prominent Newtonian, welcomed him with open arms; Voltaire attended his lectures and they had long, interesting talks. His publisher invited him to stay and soon he was hard at work, correcting proofs, seeing about illustrations and so on. Voltaire liked nothing better than to correct and even to re-write his published works; it was a sort of relaxation for him.

  He wrote regularly to the Prince of Prussia. ‘Frederick, greater already than Socrates’; ‘Socrates is nothing to me, it is Frederick whom I love’;’The olives, the laurels and the myrtles put out their leaves again and Frederick appears’. ‘You are composing, in Berlin, French verse as it was written at Versailles in the golden age of taste and pleasure.’ ‘Bossuet and Fénelon must have been your tutors, Mme de Sévigné your nurse.’ ‘Like old Simeon in the Temple I say, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen my salvation.’* However he took the repeated hints in Frederick’s letters and did not attempt to go and see his salvation that winter.

  Instead he went back to Cirey. Du Châtelet had been absolutely loyal, as his wife had said he would be, and announced that he was prepared to speak to Cardinal Fleury on Voltaire’s behalf. Good little Mme de Richelieu flung herself into the fray and matters were arranged with ‘Keeper’. Voltaire was allowed to return in February; he had only been away two months.

  *Voltaire always put ‘my salvation’ instead of ‘thy salvation’.

  9. Exit Linant, Enter Mme Denis

  So the happy, laborious life was resumed – not quiet and peaceful though. Voltaire engendered disquiet and strife. The post-bag, which he so eagerly awaited, was a constant anxiety to Mme du Châtelet and, in the case of Frederick’s letters, a constant irritation. ‘Do come and stay,’ she wrote to Maupertuis,’ + Clairaut and – a Prince, for I do not like them.’ Voltaire read Frederick’s effusions aloud over and over again, dissecting them and discussing them at enormous length. This was very tedious for Émilie. Then there was generally bad news of some sort from Paris, a new devilry of Desfontaines or Jean-Baptiste Rousseau to throw Voltaire into a frenzy and set him scribbling indiscretions. Rousseau put it about that Voltaire had gone to the Low Countries to preach atheism. ’sGraves
ande was called to the rescue; he stated in the Gazette that Rousseau’s story was quite untrue, and he also wrote to Cardinal Fleury.

  Voltaire never admitted to being an atheist, it would have been too dangerous; he had not the stuff of a martyr. Perhaps he really believed in God: ‘When I see a clock I believe in a clock-maker.’ He was certainly not a very good Catholic. He thought the Quakers had evolved the only logical Christian religion; Catholic priests were denied too many pleasures and this drove them to ambition. But he was not yet the avowed enemy of the Church that he became later in life. His bedroom at Cirey was next door to the Chapel so that he could hear Mass from his bed when he was ill. He wished to employ a scientific young chaplain; Abbé Moussinot was to find one for him, making it quite clear that he would be expected to say Mass, give Voltaire a hand with his experiments, and have his meals with du Châtelet, the little boy, and Linant.

  Soon after Voltaire’s return from Holland Frederick sent him Count Kaiserling, ‘ambassador plenipotentiary to the Court of Cirey’. Caesarion, as they called him, was a small, fat, jolly, chattering, homosexual Courlander, whom they liked very much. He spoke all languages, sometimes several at once, and was most agreeable to everybody, including Linant. He was attracted by Émilie, saying that ‘when she spoke I was in love with her intellect and when she was silent with her person’. They entertained him with fêtes and fireworks; Frederick’s name was illuminated: ‘To the Hope of the Human Race.’ Voltaire and Émilie acted for Kaiserling in their theatre, where they now had two companies, one for comedy and one for tragedy. They sent him back to Rheinsberg with the unfinished Siècle de Louis XIV and various other works, but without La Pucelle which was what Frederick really wanted. Émilie had very sensibly put it under lock and key and nothing would induce her to give it up. Kaiserling’s account of the sparkling life at Cirey made Frederick more determined than ever to possess Voltaire, while Voltaire wrote ‘every time we pass your Royal Highness’s portrait we sing the hymn of old Simeon in the Temple’. Émilie told everybody that as soon as the Prince succeeded to the throne she and Voltaire would both go and see him. This was not at all Frederick’s intention, the idea of ‘Milady de Cireyshire’ wearied him profoundly, and he had no wish to possess Venus-Newton as well as Socrates-Apollo. However, in all the letters between him and Voltaire he exchanged loving messages with Mme du Châtelet.