Voltaire in Love

by Nancy Mitford

  In Paris Émilie stayed with the Richelieus and Voltaire took a furnished room at the Hôtel de Brie, rue Cloche-perce, in the Marais. Two pieces of news were very well received by him on arrival. Linant had won an Academy prize for a poem Le progrès de l ‘éloquence sous le règne de Louis-le-Grand and Louis XV had at last taken a mistress, Mme de Mailly. ‘Down with hard hearts. God loves a tender soul.’ Paris was en fête; the King was marrying his eldest daughter to a Spanish Prince. Voltaire thought the various entertainments were inadequate. Under Louis XIV such fêtes were presented by Molière, Corneille, Lully, and Le Brun and works of art were the result. Under the Romans solid stone arches were erected for a day’s ceremonies. But now, a scaffolding is put up outside the Hôtel de Ville, where only yesterday a couple of thieves were broken on the wheel, and a few fireworks are attended by a mob of over-dressed bourgeois and poor people. The money would be better spent on a theatre or an opera house, both of which are inadequate in Paris. (Louis XV’s contemporaries were always scolding him for not spending enough money.) Frederick, to whom Voltaire wrote all this, replied that he heard of nothing but fêtes and balls on every hand. In Petersburg the niece and heiress of the Empress Anne was marrying the Duke of Brunswick. Frederick had recently seen this Prince with the Duke of Lorraine (Maria-Theresa’s husband) and said that he could not imagine why Providence should arrange for these two to govern the greater part of Europe between them. ‘I’ve seen them chattering together in a way which hardly smelt of kingship.’ On the other hand he was all in favour of fêtes. ‘Pleasure is the greatest reality of our existence.’

  Voltaire did not really enjoy his two months in Paris. The wear and tear of the life was destructive to a temperament like his own, and he realized that he would never be able to live there again for very long at a time. Everybody is in too much of a hurry, there is too much noise, haste, and confusion, impossible to get hold of one’s friends: the whole town seems to be whirling round in Descartes’ vortex. One flies between the Opera, the theatre and seeing the sights like a foreigner. There are a hundred people to be embraced in a single day, a hundred protestations to be made and received; not a moment to oneself, no time to write, to think, or to sleep. However there is one comfort, Desfontaines never shows his face anywhere now, just as J.-B. Rousseau never shows his in Brussels. These spiders are not to be found in well-kept houses.

  Émilie had soared back into the social life which she loved so much. She was at the age for it, and it did not tire her. Her unsatisfactory relationship with Maupertuis was resumed; she still pursued him with little notes, alternately ordering and imploring him to come and see her. He must find her a substitute for Koenig who does not look like staying. At the Court everything seems much more as it should be now that the King has a mistress. Her friends there do not change, they are delightfully frivolous.

  As inconsequently as she had dragged Voltaire to Paris, she dragged him back to Brussels, calling at Cirey on the way. This journey was made disagreeable by a dispute which broke out and raged in the carriage between Émilie and Koenig on the subject of the infinitely little. They were at it hammer and tongs the whole way to Brussels. There had already been quarrels between them; Koenig was supposed to have been ungrateful in some respect. This was the end of their association, though by no means the end of their differences. Maupertuis offended Mme du Châtelet deeply by taking Koenig’s side. After this she and Maupertuis were on bad terms for a while until at last Voltaire wrote him a conciliatory letter. He was afflicted, he said, by the coldness between Maupertuis and the only woman in the world capable of understanding him. ‘You two are made to love each other.’ (In 1752 Koenig got into trouble with the Berlin Academy for publishing a forged letter from Leibnitz. On this occasion Voltaire supported him in order to annoy Maupertuis.)

  It was as well that they had returned to Brussels when they did. They had hardly arrived there when they received bad news from Paris. Voltaire had given a few oddments to his new publisher Prault – the first chapters of the Siècle de Louis XIV, an Ode sur lefanatisme, and various pieces which had already been published – to make up a book called Recueil de pièces fugitives. Whether because the censor really found something objectionable in this little collection, or because Prault was printing the book without a privilège, the police raided his premises and confiscated the sheets. He was fined 500 livres and obliged to shut his bookshop for three months. Had Voltaire been in Paris all this would have been disagreeable; as it was, safely in Brussels and working harder than ever, he did not take it to heart. This time there was no quarrel with the publisher: he was entirely on Prault’s side and himself paid the 500 livres. Of course he wrote his usual letters of complaint to d’Argental and protest to the authorities. ‘I love the French, but I hate persecution so I shall stay here.’

  In the summer of 1740, Prault published a book by Émilie called Institutions de physique, in which she expounded the ideas of Leibnitz as disseminated by Wolff. It was dedicated to her little boy: ‘I have always thought it a solemn duty to educate children so that they will have no reason to regret their youth, the only time of life when it is possible to learn. You, my dear son, are at that happy age when the mind begins to think and is not troubled as yet by the passions of the heart . . . So I want you to take advantage of the awakening of reason and I shall try and protect you from that ignorance which is only too common among people of your rank . . .’ Leibnitz was introduced to the French by Mme du Châtelet as Newton was by Voltaire. Her contemporaries admired this work for its extraordinary clarity. ‘Everybody understands the monads,’ said La Mettrie, ‘since the Leibnitzians made the brilliant acquisition of Mme du Châtelet.’ Voltaire disagreed with the argument of the book and was sorry that Venus-Newton should have turned into La Belle Wolffienne. He had nothing but praise for the quality of her work. She surpassed Leibnitz, he thought, in elegance, lucidity, and method. But he disapproved of her wasting her time over ‘the scientific absurdities that Leibnitz gave to the world from vanity and which Germans study because they are German. It is deplorable that a Frenchwoman such as Mme du Châtelet should use her intelligence to embroider such spiders’ webs and make these heresies attractive.’

  One of the interminable quarrels which the philosophers of Cirey so often drew upon themselves broke out over this book. The tutor Koenig, who had left them after the acrimonious scene on the high road, told everybody in Paris that Institutions de physique was a rehash of his own lessons to Mme du Châtelet. When Émilie heard this she retorted that he had been engaged to teach her algebra, not metaphysics. True, he said, and he had indeed begun with algebra. But at the end of every lesson Mme du Châtelet would madden him by remarking smugly, ‘Celà, c’est évident.’ One day he was stung into offering to teach her truths of equally great importance but without one shred of evidence, in other words metaphysics. At this she burst into shrieks of annoying laughter. However, she told him he could try and interest her if he liked and he succeeded so well that her book was a collection of these lessons.

  Mme du Châtelet was, naturally, furious. She had acknowledged Koenig’s help in the book itself and in a letter to Maupertuis, but it was ridiculous to suggest that it was not her own work. A great deal of it had been written before she had ever set eyes on Koenig. She dragged the Académie des Sciences into the dispute, appealing to Mairan, the secretary-general, to tell the world that she had expounded her Leibnitzian views to him a whole year before Koenig went to Cirey. Mairan’s reply was ambiguous. The whole thing was unfair because all the scientists knew that Mme du Châtelet was perfectly competent to write such a book. Perhaps they would have been more ready to take her side, had she not been a woman. Parisian society and the scientific world buzzed over this dispute for months. Voltaire tried to keep out of it as much as possible, he wanted to be on the right side of the Académie des Sciences. He thought metaphysical speculation a great waste of time and could not get excited over the controversy; his aim now was to bring Émilie bac
k to Newton.

  Voltaire to M. Fawkener, 2 March 1740, received 1 August (in English):

  Dear Sir, I take the liberty to send you my old follies having no new things to present you with. I am now at Brussels with the same lady Duchastelet, who hindered me some years ago from paying you a visit at Constantinople and whom I shall live with in all probability the greatest part of my life, since for these ten years I have not departed from her. She is now at the trouble of a damned suit in law that she pursues at Bruxelles. We have abandoned the most agreeable retirement in the country to bawl here in the grotto of the Flemish chicane. The high dutch baron who takes upon himself to present you with this packet of french reveries is one of the noble players whom the Emperor sends into Turkey to represent the majesty of the Roman empire before the Highness of Musulman power.

  I am persuaded that you are become, nowadays, a perfect Turk; you speak, no doubt, their language very well and you keep, to be sure, a pretty harem. Yet I am afraid you want two provisions or ingredients which I think necessary to make that nauseous draught of life go down, I mean books and friends. Should you be happy enough to have met at Pera with men whose conversation agrees with your way of thinking? If so you want for nothing for you enjoy health honours and fortune. Health and places I have not; I regret the former I am satisfied without the other. As to fortune I enjoy a very competent one, and I have a friend besides. Thus I reckon myself happy though I am sickly as you saw me at Wandsworth.

  I hope I shall return to Paris with my lady Duchastelet in two years’ time. If, about that season, you return to dear England by way of Paris, I hope I shall have the pleasure to see your dear Excellency at her house which is without doubt one of the finest in Paris and situated in a position worthy of Constantinople for it looks upon the river and a long tract of land, interspersed with pretty houses, is to be seen from every window. Upon my word, I would with all that prefer the vista of the Sea of Marmora before that of the Seine and I would pass some months with you at Constantinople if I could live without that lady whom I look upon as a great man and as a most solid and respectable friend. She understands Newton; she despises superstition and in short she makes me happy.

  I have received this week two summons from a French man who intends to travel to Constantinople. He would fain entice me to that pleasant journey. But since you could not, nobody can. Farewell my dear friend whom I will love and honour all my life time farewell. Tell me how you fare; tell me you are happy; I am so if you continue to be so. Yours for ever. V.

  13. Frederick Comes to the Throne

  In Voltaire’s New Year letter to Frederick, 1740, he asks what can be wished for a Prince who not only has everything which, as a Prince, he could desire, but also has talents that would make the fortune of any commoner. He therefore wishes nothing for Frederick. For himself, he repeats ut videam salutare meum.* For the public, that it will be allowed to see the refutation, by a Prince, of Machiavelli, corrupter of Princes. Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet have been devouring this precious monument of literature. Their only criticism is that, in one or two places, the author’s zeal against the tutor of tyrants has carried him almost too far; a fault, however, on the right side. Certain branches of the splendid tree might be pruned and Voltaire is going to submit a plan for the pruning to his Prince. He also begs to be allowed to write the preface. He has had an enthusiastic account from Algarotti of his visit to Rheinsberg, where he went with Lord Baltimore on their way back from Russia. Ah! Why is Voltaire not Algarotti and M. du Châtelet not Lord Baltimore?

  Voltaire often hinted that du Châtelet should be given a post of some sort in Prussia, so that the three of them could go and live with their Prince. In that case he would see the model for all Kings. Meanwhile, he remains with the model for all women. But Frederick was good at turning a deaf ear to suggestions that did not appeal to him, another of which was that he should buy the du Châtelet estate under litigation. He passionately wanted Voltaire, but was determined to possess him without all these encumbrances, while Voltaire was equally determined not to abandon Émilie. The correspondence between the philosopher and the Prince, or, as Frederick would have it, the two philosophers, flourished more than ever. Voltaire corrected the Anti-Machiavel while Frederick corrected Mérope; each privately thought that the other’s observations on his work were idiotic, but their letters were none the less loving for that. Voltaire continued to compare him, favourably, with Aesculapius, Trajan, Prometheus, Marcus Aurelius, Horace, Hercules, the Infant Christ, and other respected figures.

  Frederick wished the Anti-Machiavel to be published anonymously; he left the business side of the transaction to Voltaire. As soon as he had received all the sheets, Voltaire got in touch with Van Duren, a publisher at The Hague. He described the book to him as a refutation, chapter by chapter, of Machiavelli’s Prince, written by one of the most important men in Europe. The Prince itself, either in French or Italian, must be incorporated in the book, which should be beautifully printed, with big margins. Van Duren can keep all the profits, but must send two dozen copies finely bound in morocco, to a German court to be specified later, and another two dozen, in calf, to Voltaire himself. He asks for an immediate, and very precise, reply. If Van Duren could know who the author of this work really is, he would see what a favour Voltaire is doing him. Should he not wish to take advantage of this piece of luck, Voltaire will put it in the way of somebody else.

  On 31 May 1740, Frederick’s Most All-Gracious Father, a beastly old man of fifty-two who had been quite senile for many months, was gathered to the primeval sons of Thor. Nobody outside Prussia knew that this had happened; the post was stopped at Berlin and the gates closed for several days, until Frederick felt himself securely in the saddle. Rarely had the accession to a third-class throne provoked so much interest. It seemed, to liberal-minded people everywhere, that kingship might at last become respectable. Algarotti and other visitors to Rheinsberg had broadcast descriptions of the Crown Prince, extolling his high principles, his love of philosophy and of the arts. Frederick’s letters to Voltaire had been copied out and circulated in the Paris salons; the contents of the Anti-Machiavel were also pretty well known. The sentiment which ran through the correspondence, the whole theme of the Anti-Machiavel, was the wickedness of those rulers who seek self-aggrandizement at the expense of other men’s lives, the uselessness of territorial conquest, the importance of learning and above all of pleasure.

  Unfortunately the Germans have a way of turning their rulers into war lords with a taste for popular philosophy. Voltaire must be given some credit for the fact that Frederick was so much the most enlightened of them all. He began his reign with many a liberal measure. He spoke of reducing the Prussian army to 45,000 men (but never did so). He disbanded his father’s regiment of giants, so that Germany was filled with huge, weak nitwits, sadly lurching along the roads looking for work. The year 1740 was one of those when summer never comes to the north of Europe: the harvest failed completely. Frederick opened the state granaries and sold the corn at a reasonable price to his hungry subjects. He put a thousand destitute old women into well-warmed rooms and set them spinning. He abolished torture which was not used again in Prussia for nearly two hundred years, and did away with censorship; all through his reign his subjects were at liberty to write as they chose about him, though foreign rulers were protected. He brought the philosopher Wolff back from the exile to which the late King had condemned him, and he summoned ’sGravesande and Maupertuis to found a Berlin Academy. ’sGravesande refused, but Maupertuis could not resist the honour and publicity of such an appointment.

  On 6 June Frederick wrote his first letter, as King, to Voltaire whom he would see, he hoped, this very year. It was a short, affectionate note and contained the prophetic sentence, ‘The whirlwind of events carries us away and we must let ourselves be carried.’ ‘Love me always and always be sincere with your friend, Fédéric.’ Voltaire’s instant reaction was to send the Anti-Machiavel to Van Duren, saying he
had better get on with it as quickly as possible. Then he wrote to Frederick, addressing the new monarch as ‘Votre Humanité’. He is overwhelmed by one word in H.M.’s letter which gives him the hope of a blessed vision this very year. He would remind His Majesty that the Queen of Sheba, too, longs to see Solomon in his glory. (The husband, of course, would accompany her.) Frederick countered this by saying that two divinities at once would blind him with their dazzle and he would have to borrow the veil of Moses to protect him from the rays. Meanwhile he and the Marquise wrote to each other in terms of exquisite politeness, saying how greatly they wished to meet.

  Now that Frederick was himself a ruling Prince he found that there were certain things in the Anti-Machiavel which would better have been left unsaid. This had been foreseen by Voltaire, whose flair for knowing what people would do must have made the fortune of a fortune-teller. He had been jostling Van Duren to rush the book into print ever since the death of the old King. In July Frederick, as Voltaire had expected, told him that he must get hold of it at all costs and prevent its publication. After some high words with Émilie, who thought this journey quite unnecessary, Voltaire dashed off to The Hague to see what could be done. He regarded publishers as his natural enemies and was always glad of an excuse to cross swords with a member of the hated profession. ‘All publishers are fools or knaves; they misunderstand their own interests as much as they cling to them.’ In Van Duren he found a worthy antagonist; he came to grips with him at once. ‘I had to do with a Dutchman who abused both the freedom of his country and his own right to persecute authors.’ In other words, the publisher, realizing that he had got a gold-mine, refused to part with it at any price. Voltaire asked for the proofs, saying he wished to correct them. Van Duren said very well, but he must do so in the office, surrounded by members of the firm. Voltaire agreed. He carefully corrected a few pages, and having thus gained Van Duren’s confidence, went back the next day to finish the work. This time he was left alone in the room. He scribbled rubbish over so much of the text that he thought he had quite got the better of Van Duren. He went gleefully back to Brussels. But he had underestimated his opponent. Van Duren engaged a literary hack to rewrite the mutilated passages and then published the book. No result could have been more annoying to an author. Frederick was obliged, in self-defence, to allow Voltaire to publish the original edition, but with Voltaire’s own cuts and corrections, which Frederick disliked. He no longer recognized the Anti-Machiavel as his own work. He intended to recast it himself and have it printed in Berlin. However, this particular Prince was soon too busy following the maxims of Machiavelli to bother much more about his own refutation of them.