Voltaire in Love

by Nancy Mitford

After Easter Stanislas went to Trianon to see his eldest granddaughter, Mme Infante, who had come back from Spain, with her little girl, to visit her parents. He was accompanied, as usual, by the husband and lover of his mistress, the Marquesses de Boufflers et de La Galaizière. Mme du Châtelet asked if she could go and stay with him at Trianon and when permission was given she moved in with a mountain of trunks containing all her summer dresses. In about a fortnight she had extracted everything she wanted from the King. He said she could have the Queen’s small apartment, and he would shut up the big one so that she would be entirely private. The bosquet near the Queen’s terrace would be reserved for Émilie and when her time was near, she could take air and exercise there without being seen. Stanislas even promised to furnish a little summer-house where she could go and rest.

  The matter of her lying-in off her mind, Mme du Châtelet went back to Paris and concentrated on Newton. No more social life, no supper-parties – she refused to see Mme du Deffand and indeed everybody except Voltaire and Clairaut. Clairaut went through each chapter of her book as she finished it to make sure that there were no careless mistakes; these were so easily made and overlooked that the manuscript was then given to a third party to correct. She translated the Latin into French, and amplified the demonstrations to bring the material within the grasp of French mathematicians. Her working hours were from eight, or at the latest nine, in the morning, to 3 p.m. when she had her coffee. At four she began again and went on until supper time at ten o’clock. After supper she chatted with Voltaire an hour or two and then worked until 5 a.m. She was feeling very well and thought the baby particularly lively, it jumped about so much.

  ‘I don’t love Newton,’ she wrote to Saint-Lambert. ‘I am finishing him because it is reasonable and honourable to do so, but I only love you.’

  Voltaire was leading, as he always did in Paris, a life divided between intellectual activity and nervous upsets. A new play of his, Nanine, was put on at the Théâtre Français without making much of a splash. His correspondence with Frederick, which had flagged of late, began again, as loving as ever. Frederick was, of course, delighted at the discomfiture of his female rival. ‘It seems that Apollo, as God of Medicine [sic], has ordered you to preside at Mme du Châtelet’s lying-in.’ Voltaire promised to go to Berlin as soon as it was over. He would see his King again, die happy, and be buried in Frederick’s church with ‘Ci-gît Vadmirateur de Frédéric le Grand’ on his tombstone. Frederick replied that his proudest title would be ‘Possesseur de Voltaire’. Voltaire hinted that he would be irresistibly drawn to Berlin if he were presented with the Prussian order Pour le Mérite. The flirtation, in fact, was resuming its prickly course. Frederick told his sister Wilhelmine, ‘We shall have Voltaire here this autumn, he is coming as soon as Mme du Châtelet has had her baby. It’s doing him too much honour to father it on him; a certain Saint-Lambert enjoys the glory, her husband the shame, and Voltaire the spectacle.’ At about this time Frederick made his often-quoted remark to Algarotti: ‘C’est bien dommage qu’une âme aussi lâche soit unie à un aussi beau génie. Il a les gentillesses et les malices d’un singe.’*

  Voltaire now had a quarrel with Richelieu which very nearly put an end to their age-old friendship. The Duke and he had arranged a little back-scratching with the object of gaining favour in the eyes of Louis XV. The French Academicians were to go to Versailles and congratulate their master on the recent peace treaty (Aix-la-Chapelle). Richelieu, a member of that body, which always includes two or three Dukes, had been chosen as spokesman and particularly wanted to shine. So he made Voltaire write the address for him to learn by heart and deliver as his own. ‘If the Academy has chosen me to express its sentiments it must be because it is my good fortune to enjoy daily contact with the great soul and essence of all we admire . . . It is the duty of my colleagues, Your Majesty, to acquaint future generations of your triumphs over your enemies and over yourself, the good you do to the nations and the example you set to other Kings . . . .’ This was not entirely insincere. Voltaire did in fact greatly admire Louis XV for the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle – by which France reaped practically no benefit from a series of glorious victories to her arms. The King had said that he was not a merchant and did not intend to bargain. Most of his subjects, however, thought his generosity misplaced and were very much annoyed with him for making such an unprofitable treaty.

  Voltaire having written Richelieu’s speech, the Duke, for his part, had engaged to present the King with Voltaire’s Panégyrique à Louis XV, in Latin and the four civilized modern languages, French, Italian, Spanish, and English, finely bound in blue morocco. In this Voltaire went much further. Louis XV, he said, was the greatest French King since Charlemagne and it was to be hoped that all the monarchs of the future would resemble him. As Louis XV never now spoke to Voltaire, or even looked in his direction, he did not dare present the Panégyrique himself.

  On the appointed day, a party of Academicians went to Versailles: Richelieu, the Duc de Saint-Aignan, Mirabaud, Abbé d’Olivet, President Hénault, Abbé Alary, Hardion, Crébillon, the Bishop of Mirepoix, La Chaussée, Foncemagne, Cardinal de Soubise, Abbé Duresnel, Marivaux, the Bishop of Bayeux, Bignon, Abbé de Bernis, Abbé de laVille, Duclos, Paulmy, and Gresset. It included two great enemies of Voltaire, Crébillon and the Bishop of Mirepoix, and four great friends, Richelieu, d’Olivet, Bernis, and Hénault. He himself was not present. The delegation was assembled in the Œil de Bœuf awaiting its audience when, to his horror, Richelieu heard somebody in the crowd reciting the very phrases that he had so carefully learnt and was just about to deliver. He was obliged to make up a new speech there and then and stammer it out under the mocking glances of his enemy, Maurepas, who knew quite well what had happened.

  The Duke thought that this was one of Voltaire’s monkey tricks; he was furious and riposted by sending the Panégyrique back to its author without comment. Voltaire, in his turn, flew into a wild rage. He tore down an Apothéose du Duc de Richelieu in gouache which always hung in his bedroom and trampled it to pieces. In the end the matter of the ‘leakage’, was cleared up. It was the usual story. Mme du Châtelet, it seemed, had read the address to Mme de Boufflers who had come to pick her up and take her to the Opera. Mme de Boufflers asked for a copy, had twenty more made, and distributed them among her friends. Voltaire and Richelieu laughed together over this feminine indiscretion, all was forgiven and forgotten, and they never quarrelled again in the course of their long lives.

  The Panégyrique was presented to the King by Mme de Pompadour. He was quite clever enough to see through its fulsome flattery and Voltaire complained that the only person who did not seem to like it was Louis XV.

  *‘It is a great pity that such a despicable soul should be joined to such a beautiful genius. He has all the charming ways and all the malice of a monkey.’

  23. ‘C’est vous qui me l’avez tuée’

  In June 1749 Mme du Châtelet had finished her work with Clairaut, though not her book. She and Voltaire set out for Cirey. The weather was bad, and on three days of that month there was hard frost. Voltaire said: ‘We hear a great deal about St Martin’s summer and always forget St John’s winter.’ (St John’s Day is 24 June.)

  Saint-Lambert was supposed to meet them at Cirey. Émilie had told him to go there from Nancy with M. du Châtelet. But in the end he said he really could not risk spending several days alone with the Marquis and preferred to wait for Émilie in Lorraine. She and Voltaire only stayed a fortnight at Cirey and then went on to Lunéville. Voltaire says that Émilie now behaved like a man about to embark on a long journey. Sadly, but firmly, she put her affairs in order and began to take leave of her friends. She made up various parcels of letters and manuscripts, some of which she gave to Longchamp with directions for disposing of them in case of her death.

  Saint-Lambert was very kind and affectionate during the last two months of Émilie’s pregnancy, and so was Mme de Boufflers. In fact she was surrounded by love and it would hav
e been a happy time but for her melancholy premonitions and her physical state. She became absolutely enormous and had a great deal of pain in her back. Everybody at Lunéville was worried about her, it was thought most dangerous to have a child so late in life and she seemed worn out by her exertions in Paris. Saint-Lambert blamed Voltaire for having allowed her to work so hard.

  ‘When I am with you,’ she wrote to Saint-Lambert, who had gone to see the Prince de Beauvau at Haroué, ‘I can bear my condition, often, indeed, I hardly notice it, but when I lose you everything goes blank. I walked to my little summer-house today and my belly is so terribly fallen, I am suffering such pain in my kidneys, I feel so sad this evening, that it would not surprise me if I had the baby tonight. I should be miserable, though you, I know, would be pleased. My pains would be easier to bear if you were here in the same house. I wrote you eight pages yesterday . . .’

  Voltaire’s nerves began to give way under the strain of waiting for the baby to be born and he found an outlet for them in a short but violent quarrel with M. Alliot, the Controller of the Household at Lunéville. Alliot, a fermier-général, was one of the remarkable Frenchmen whom Louis XV had sent to administer Lorraine. By his honest, clever, and thrifty conduct of the treasury there he made it possible for Stanislas, who was far from rich, to gratify his taste for building. Nancy owes its beautiful monuments almost as much to Alliot as to Stanislas himself. Mme Alliot, a pious bourgeoise, had already had a passage with Voltaire. During a tremendous storm at Lunéville she made it clear that in her view God would most likely destroy all the courtiers with a thunderbolt to punish them for associating with so much wickedness. ‘Madame,’ said Voltaire, ‘I have thought and written more good of Him than you, who find Him so terrifying, could say in a lifetime.’

  Voltaire was sometimes too ill and often too bored to dine with the rest of the party. He considered that the food which was sent up to him on these occasions was nasty and inadequate. Suddenly, on 29 August, he seized his pen and wrote a violent letter of complaint to Alliot. Voltaire has left everything to come and pay his court to the King. But he is a sick man, and unfortunately the times of meals often coincide with those of his worst pains. Also, in such freezing weather, it would be most dangerous for an invalid to leave his room in the mornings and evenings. Will M. Alliot see to it that in future he will be sent what is necessary, or must Voltaire complain to the King himself?

  This letter went off to Alliot’s office in the palace at 9 a.m. At nine-fifteen, having received no reply Voltaire wrote again. The King of Prussia is for ever asking Voltaire to go and live with him. At Berlin he is not obliged to beg for bread, wine, and a candle. It is monstrous that an officer of the French Court, visiting the King of Poland, should be obliged to solicit these elementary attentions.

  No reply. Voltaire gave it another half-hour and then wrote to Stanislas.

  29 August 1749, 9 3/4 hours.

  Sire, When one is in Paradise it is to God that one must address oneself. Your Majesty has allowed me to come and pay my court until the end of the autumn, at which time I shall be obliged to take my leave of Y.M. Your Majesty knows that I am very ill and that my work and my sufferings keep me in my own apartment. I am obliged to beg Your Majesty to give orders that I shall receive the usual amenities granted to foreigners at your court. Since the time of Alexander kings have nourished men of letters, and when Virgil was with Augustus, Allyotus, the Court Chamberlain, issued him with bread, wine, and a candle. I am ill today and have neither bread nor wine for my dinner. I have the honour to be with profound respect, Sire, Your Majesty’s very humble etc.

  V.

  At last Voltaire received a reply from Alliot, to whom Stanislas had passed on his letter.

  You have got dinner in your own room, Monsieur. You have soup, wine, and meats; I have sent you firewood and candles. And now you are complaining to the Duke and to the King, with equal injustice. His Majesty has sent me your letter, without comment, and for your sake I hesitate to tell him how much you are in the wrong. There are certain rules in this house to which you will be so good as to conform. Nothing leaves the cellar without a note from myself of the same day. If this is tiresome for anybody, it is for me. What difference can it make to you, so long as you get what you ask for?

  I say to you that you have lacked nothing, and you say that you have lacked everything.

  You are the first person who has ever complained about the treatment here of foreigners, if you count yourself such. I have sent you everything you have asked for, and I tell you again you are quite wrong to grumble.

  You mention the French Court as a model. It has its rules and we have ours, but ours have nothing to do with the French Court and you know that as well as I.

  I am very sorry, on your own account, that you have seen fit to take these steps, and I hope you feel how much they are out of place.

  I do not agree with you that Allyotus, Court Chamberlain, gave bread, wine, and a candle to Virgil.

  I do so for M. de Voltaire because he is a poor man, but Virgil was powerful and kept an excellent table of his own, where he entertained his friends and was happy with them. No comparison is possible. And, by the way, Virgil worked to please himself and for the glory of his times; M. de Voltaire does so out of sheer necessity and to satisfy his needs. So, what is given to one from decency could not even have been offered to the other, for fear of a rebuff.

  For once in his life Voltaire was silenced by this letter, which brings to an end the exchange of notes that summer morning.

  Four days later, Mme du Châtelet was sitting, as usual, at her writing-table when she felt something. This something was a little girl. Émilie barely had time to call her maid, the maid barely had time to hold out her apron and receive the child, who was then put on a large book, while her mother arranged some papers and went to bed. Soon they were both sleeping like dormice. The birth which had been so much dreaded was as easy as that. Voltaire wrote to all the friends describing this event in letters radiant with joy and relief. It has been much easier for Mme du Châtelet to have a baby than for him to write Catalina. She is so well that she has only gone to bed because it is usual to do so, and is only not writing herself to announce the news because that is not usual. But to Mme Denis he made it all sound rather tedious. ‘Mme du Châtelet has had her baby and I have lost a whole week.’

  For several days Mme du Châtelet was perfectly well. Everybody assembled in her room and the jolly communal life flowed round her. The baby was put out to nurse. Then Émilie began to have some fever. There was a heat-wave, for the first time that summer. She never liked hot weather and it added, now, to her discomfort. She asked for an iced drink, very popular at Lunéville, made of almonds. They all tried to dissuade her, but she would have it and drank a large quantity. It seemed to have a bad effect, stopping a natural function of the body necessary to a woman in her state. The King’s doctor came and ordered a treatment which succeeded fairly well. The next day she had palpitations and trouble with her breathing. On 10 September two more doctors were called in, from Nancy. They gave her some medicine to calm her; she seemed better and disposed to sleep. Voltaire and du Châtelet went off to sup with Mme de Boufflers, leaving Saint-Lambert, Mlle du Thil, and Mme du Châtelet’s maid in the sick-room. Saint-Lambert sat talking to Émilie but he thought she was falling asleep so he left her and went across the room to join Longchamp and the two women. Suddenly there was a noise from the bed like snoring, punctuated by hiccups after which Mme du Châtelet lay quite still. They tried to revive her by making her smell vinegar, slapping her hands, and moving her feet, but to no avail. She was dead. ‘She never knew the horror of death; that was left to us,’ said Voltaire.

  Mme de Boufflers and her supper party heard that Mme du Châtelet was worse; they rushed to her room where they learnt the truth. There was a terrible silence followed by unrestrained weeping and sobbing which went on for a long time. Somebody led the husband away, by degrees the others went to bed until
only Voltaire, Saint-Lambert, and Longchamp were left. Voltaire, like a man in a dream, wandered to the outside door leading to the terrace. Here he staggered, fell, rolled down the steps, and began beating his head on the stone pavement. Longchamp and Saint-Lambert, who had followed, ran to him and lifted him up. Seeing Saint-Lambert through his tears, Voltaire, said, gently and sadly, ‘Ah! Mon ami! C’est vous qui me l’avez tuée.’* Suddenly, as though waking from his dream he cried in a terrible voice: ‘Eh! Mon Dieu, Monsieur, de quoi vous avisiez-vous de lui faire un enfant?”† The two men, exhausted by emotion, then parted and went each to his own room.

  The next day Mme de Boufflers sent for Longchamp. She told him that it was very important for her to have a cornelian ring set in diamonds that Mme du Châtelet always wore. Longchamp slipped it off the dead woman’s finger and took it to Mme de Boufflers. She pressed a secret catch and removed a miniature of Saint-Lambert which was inside the stone, after which Longchamp put the ring back among Mme de Châtelet’s effects. He was worried about Voltaire – who was in a black misery – and thought that if he told him about the miniature it might help to cure him by making him angry. Voltaire clasped his hands, raising his eyes to heaven and said that women were all the same. ‘I replaced Richelieu, Saint-Lambert has driven me out. It is the natural order of things, one nail knocks out another, and so it is, in this world.’

  Émilie was far too vivid and vital a person to die with her death, and it was many weeks before she began to fade from the consciousness of Voltaire. By day he shut himself up writing innumerable letters about her, at night he would wake from a troubled sleep and wander from room to room calling her. In the first extremity of his grief he even spoke of entering a monastery. ‘My tears will never stop flowing.’ ‘I only hope to join her soon.’ ‘It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made.’ ‘I love to find her again, as I talk to her husband and her son.’ To d’Argental: ‘I come to weep out the rest of my unhappy existence in your arms.’ He was tormented, now, to think of the light-hearted, joking way in which, so few days before, he had announced the birth of the child to their friends: ‘I was very far from suspecting the slightest danger.’ Mme du Châtelet herself, always conscious that this pregnancy had its ridiculous side, had decreed the tone she wished him to take. (She knew her compatriots. At Versailles they were saying: ‘How like that pretentious Mme du Châtelet to die in childbirth at her age.’) Voltaire said: ‘The unhappy little girl who caused her death had no interest for me.’ This poor baby herself died a few days later, regretted by nobody. Had she lived, she would certainly have been shut up in a cold, damp convent and never heard of again.