Passionate Minds

by David Bodanis

  There were many distinctions within each category, based on region, duration of ennoblement and the like. The key dynamics were to always look down on those below you, always act as if you're entirely comfortable wherever you are; and always try to rise higher. Thus Renée-Caroline's conversations with Gabrielle-Anne; thus too Louis-Nicolas's purchase of an estate at Preuilly-sur-Claise in Touraine as soon as he was rich enough, so transforming himself into a Baron (and explaining why Emilie was sometimes known, before her marriage, as Mademoiselle de Preuilly).

  21 Her mother and cousin: Renée-Caroline—Gabrielle-Anne's friend!— describes the mother's sighs and glaring. Créquy, p. 96.

  21 Emilie was relegated: In fairness to Renée-Caroline, she was desperately envious of Emilie. Her own childhood bore a resemblance to a nasty fairy tale: she'd largely been raised in the tower of an isolated château, not knowing if her parents were alive. Only shortly before the events in this chapter did she learn that her father was in fact living, and established at Versailles. She was sent to Paris, but there discovered that he didn't want her to live with him—upon which she was fobbed off on relatives and, most particularly, Gabrielle-Anne.

  21 “I don't believe”: Mauzi, ed., Bonheur, p. 13. She was writing after her break with Voltaire, but before meeting Saint-Lambert.

  21 Fontenelle told the ten-year-old Emilie: Emilie's father held these dinners every Thursday, and Fontenelle was a regular. He liked talking to women, and especially about his Conversations on the Plurality of Inhabited Worlds, for it was the book that had made his reputation, and he nurtured it carefully through numerous editions over the years. Emilie would be the only attendee who could follow his technical points. M. Terrall's “Gendered Spaces, Gendered Audiences: Inside and Outside the Paris Academy of Sciences,” Configurations 3, 2 (1995), pp. 207–32, shows why it was so important for Fontenelle to spread his ideas among the next generation of aristocratic women.

  21 “You will soon discover”: Fontenelle, Conversations, “Fifth Evening,” p. 70.

  22 Most European thinkers: It was a common view. Molière's satire Les Femmes Savantes, for example, which ridiculed women who tried to think for themselves, had been a great success among women as well as men. A few decades later a female anatomist in France, Thiroux d'Arconville, made a point of sketching female skeletons as if they had far smaller skulls than those of males. See Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), p. 197.

  On the other hand, there was a significant handful of thinkers who did support women's rights. John Locke had written in his 1693 Thoughts on Education: “since I acknowledge no difference of sex… relating…to truth, virtue and obedience, I think well to have no thing altered in [an educational programme for daughters] from what is [writ for the son].”

  22 Even when Emilie had been younger: Renée-Caroline: “My cousin Emilie…was immensely clumsy… and had big feet.” Créquy, p. 96.

  22 “Men can choose lots of ways”: Mauzi, ed., Bonheur, merged from pp. 21, 22.

  22 Even the most distinguished girls' school: This was Madame de Maintenon's Maison Royale de St. Louis. See Samia I. Spencer, ed., French Women and the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomington, 1984), pp. 84–85.

  22 One of Louis XV's daughters: Ibid., p. 86.

  23 Luckily, though, when Emilie was fifteen: Puberty came late then, since nutrition was so poor compared to later eras. Record books of Bach's students, for example, show that it was common for boys to still sing soprano till their midor late teens.

  23 “my cousin was three or four years younger”: Créquy, p. 96.

  23 Her face took on an attractive oval shape: Even the most envious of women, such as Voltaire's niece Mme Denis, remarked on Emilie's physical beauty. Although Nancy Mitford was vague about Emilie's ideas, she was insightful about her looks: “Over and over again,” Mitford writes, Emilie “is described, in letters and memoirs of her day, as beautiful; reading between the lines one can conclude that she was what is now called a handsome woman…. In spite of a great love of dress, [she was never] really elegant. Elegance, for women, demands undivided attention; Emilie was an intellectual; she had not endless hours to waste with hairdressers and dressmakers.” Mitford, Voltaire in Love, p. 15.

  23 At age sixteen she was sent to: Under the Regency, in a break from the extreme formality of Louis XIV's final years, and the somber influence of the severely pious Madame de Maintenon, the court had largely moved back to Paris. When Louis XV was old enough, it went back to Versailles.

  24 It didn't help: Louis XIV had lived so long that his son and grandson had both died. His great-grandson was the direct heir, but was only five years old when he assumed the rights to the throne, hence the need for a regent.

  24 As one account has it: Jonathan Edwards, The Divine Mistress (London, 1971). As discussed in the reading guide, Edwards's errors tend to be in transposing events, rather than wholesale invention.

  24 “She… wields a sword like a hussar”: Richelieu, quoted in ibid., p. 10.

  24 “My youngest… frightens away the suitors”: Ibid., p. 12.

  24 What she learned: What she learned was more Whiggish than the reality, for researchers were proud of emphasizing their break from past centuries. In fact—though unknown to her—medieval investigators had engaged in powerful examinations of the foundations of mechanics, as well as developed inductive aspects of Aristotle, building especially on his Posterior Analytics.

  25 Emilie was desperate to learn more: He had a large library, but it wouldn't have had the maths and science books she then wanted.

  26 “My daughter is mad”: Edwards, Divine Mistress, p. 11.

  26 Finally, though, late in 1724: Since she was born near the end of 1706 (on December 17), many biographers who use simple subtractions to arrive at her age are off by one year.

  26 With some help from her friends: Often spelled “Chastellet,” till Voltaire chose to simplify it. Spelling was more variable in that period than now; even many of the founding fathers of the American republic happily spelled words and names in different ways at different times.

  27 One aristocrat, for example: It was the Comte d'Evreux, in his marriage to Crozat's daughter; from St. Simon's memoirs.

  29 The verses attacked… the liberal Regent: Orléans was supposed to rule in conjunction with Louis XIV's beloved though illegitimate son, the duc du Maine (for although Orléans was the King's nephew, he was exceptionally dissolute). Orléans broke with that arrangement, however, even though the late king had written it into his will. The consequences—including du Maine's effort to overthrow the state—arise again in chapter 20.

  30 He smiled, and asked: From Beauregard's letter, D45. Throughout these notes, a capital D followed by a number refers to letters in Besterman's comprehensive edition. (Generations of students have puzzled over why he began his numbering with that letter: it simply stands for Definitive.)

  30 The new court that had been built at Versailles: Louis XIV's famous assertion “L'état, c'est moi” is generally taken as his bold, military-backed claim that the king outranked the potentially divisive nobles and Parlements. It suffers, however, from being almost certainly apocryphal. The first known reference is in Dulaur's 1834 Histoire de Paris, almost two hundred years after Louis was supposed to have declared it to Parlement in April 1655. But how could such a succinct summary of his overriding power have been ignored over all those years? It's also unlikely that the seventeen-year-old Louis would have dared be so insistent in 1655, when the Fronde wars were so recent.

  Throughout his reign he was nervous, moving even between rooms in his palaces only when loyal guards protected the corridors and stairs. The fate of his relations emphasized what could go wrong: his English uncle, Charles I, had been beheaded; his French grandfather, Henri IV, had been assassinated; his English cousin James II was deposed.

  31 It didn't help… sexual relations with his own daughter: Paraphrasing Besterman's elegant slur (Voltaire, p. 62).

  31 A little
later…a commoner named Desforges: René Vaillot, Avec Madame du Châtelet 1734–1749, p. 359. It was not the only such case: “One Dubourg, the editor of a satirical gazette, was put in a tiny cage at Mt. SaintMichel in 1745 and died there in a fit of madness a year later…in 1757 the poet La Martellière was sentenced to nine years on the galleys.” P. Gay, Voltaire's Politics: The Poet As Realist (New Haven, 1988), p. 78.

  32 There was no reliable sewage system: The several miles of sewers that did exist in the city worked poorly, frequently getting blocked and flooding when it rained.

  32 There was a spurting: From the far too vivid account Ysabeau wrote to his superior officer soon after.

  33 “M. Arouet, with his active imagination”: D54.

  33 The cell was deathly silent: The phrases are modified from Voltaire's later L'Ingénu, which—written with the vividness of personal experience— describes the feelings of a young man unjustly flung into the Bastille after a lettre de cachet. Pomeau discusses this in his D'Arouet à Voltaire: 1694–1734 (Oxford, 1985) p. 111.

  34 It didn't help that Arouet was probably illegitimate: Theodore Besterman, Voltaire (London, 1969; rev. ed., 1976), pp. 20–23, gives indirect evidence that in a fury his father once told François that he wasn't even his real son: that a minor poet named Roquebrune had been his true parent. As François's mother had died when he was seven, this was a severe, unanswerable calumny. Years later, when the charge was hurled at him again, François apparently replied “that what was to his mother's honor was that she had preferred an intelligent man like Roquebrune, musketeer, officer, writer, to his [legal] father, who was by nature a very commonplace man.” The attribution of the quotation is only second-hand, but seems plausible, especially after further evidence that Besterman presents. However, René Pomeau, La Religion de Voltaire (Paris, 1956; 2nd ed., 1969), p. 35, makes the point that Voltaire might just have been engaging in Freudian projection, trying to create a father more gallant and romantic than the narrow-minded official who raised him.

  34 Arouet wouldn't be able… the books that were passed around: One book circulating in the Bastille that Voltaire saw was a 1690 text on pseudonyms; another, earlier, inmate (around 1710) had penciled in much of a poem that bore some similarities to Voltaire's later epic on Henri IV. Wade, Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet, suggests Voltaire's partial plagiarism, though I'm more inclined to Pomeau's suggestion (D'Arouet à Voltaire, p. 112) that both authors were using standard sources, and had just converged on similar results.

  35 Another theory: There have been many other explanations, as with Casanova's suggestion that it was to avoid the poor pun on Voltaire's original name of Arouet (à rouer— to be beaten). The key question, however, of why he chose to make the change then, is easier to answer. “I have been too unfortunate under my former name,” he told Mlle du Noyer; “I mean to see whether this will suit me better.”

  35 Voltaire was supposed to stay away from Paris: Curiously, it was Emilie's father, Louis-Nicolas, who pulled the strings to enable him to return so quickly. Voltaire had dined at the Breteuil home when Emilie was a child, but seems to have paid no attention to her then. Louis-Nicolas, however, liked him, for in this young man's flamboyance and wit he recognized the grandeur of France in his youth, and probably hoped that Voltaire would be able to help bring that back. Knowing Voltaire's reputation, though, he was careful to keep him from meeting his daughter again once she was older.

  35 “who would not sin… those alabaster breasts”: Paraphrase and reordering of lines from his later epistle on the charming Suzanne; in the Moland edition of Voltaire's works, vol. 10, p. 270.

  35 There were some changes…young man named Génonville: “Easygoing” is Voltaire's own description of Génonville; D91.

  35 What we are feeling, our Kings cannot know: Oedipus, Act II, scene V. As with most of the poetry in this book, this is a very free translation. See Besterman, Voltaire, p. 76, for a flatter reading.

  35 Yes we can have faith: Act I, scene V.

  37 “ye best poet maybe ever was”: Besterman, Voltaire, p. 80.

  37 A distinguished prince: The prince de Conti, indirectly related to the great Condé of the Fronde. It was at a dinner in Conti's presence that Voltaire said, “Ah, are we all poets, or are we all princes?”—a presumptuousness that could have been punished with prison, but which the young Voltaire got away with because of his charm and Oedipus's great success.

  38 But there was also an up-and-coming actress: Lecouvreur had been popular for several years, since her late teens, but still found it hard to be accepted by many of the elders who controlled patronage within the theater.

  38 “it was routine to offer a performance in bed”: Paraphrase of Baron von Grimm, Correspondence Littéraire, vol. 9, p. 209.

  38 “felt so well that he was astonished”: D125.

  38 If conversation turned to sibling rivalries: This particular remark is from his later notebooks, jotted in English during his English exile. Like all good writers, he used and reused his material; this is typical of his repartee.

  38 If they were discussing…an ode to posterity: His famous remark to the unpleasant Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, about the latter's “Ode to Posterity.” Again, it is from a later period.

  38 Many distinguished women visited: It's where Voltaire had first met Suzanne de Livry.

  39 There were evenings spent gossiping: D92, Voltaire to Fontenelle, I June 1721, for the muddling and the opera glasses.

  39 “in this world… either hammer or anvil”: Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary; entry on “tyranny.”

  40 Now de Rohan called out: The best evaluation of the sources for this incident is Lucien Foulet's, in Appendix I to his edited collection, Correspondance de Voltaire (1726–29) (Paris, 1923), pp. 211–32.

  40 The theater was plush… clusters of candles: This was long before gas lighting, or even smoldering limelight; stage lighting was generally controlled by having hefty servants crank up or down a long plank packed with lit candles.

  40 It was cold outside on this winter midday: The accounts have the attack happening at souper, which wasn't evening soup, but rather the midday meal.

  41 The sentence for murder was death: The official penalty for killing anyone was death, but extenuating circumstances were easy to find if the culprit was distinguished, and the victim was not; much harder if the victim was a nobleman.

  41 But Phélypeaux: Usually referred to by his title, the Comte de Maurepas; I'm using Phélypeaux simply to reduce confusion with Maupertuis. Voltaire usually referred to him by other, ingeniously crude labels.

  41 He had been granted high office as a boy: His grandfather had been Chancellor Pontchartrain (as in the name of the lake in Louisiana); his father had been head of the navy, and at fourteen that job was passed on to him.

  42 Yet where were any of them: Unknown to Voltaire, a handful actually were supportive, most notably the retired military commander, the duc de Villars. Another powerful individual who would have helped Voltaire was Mme de Prie—the official mistress of the Prime Minister, and with whom Voltaire had been close, possibly having an affair. But not only was de Rohan's uncle a cardinal, but that cardinal was also probably the illegitimate son of Louis XIV—which made de Rohan the late Sun King's grandnephew. (Richelieu would have tried to help, but he was too far away, in Vienna on a diplomatic mission.)

  43 Her father, whom she loved… out-of-date geometry texts: The kindly neighbor was M. de Mézières, who lived near d'Avallon. The future great biologist Buffon was actually in Semur at the time, but still just a teenager, and Emilie had no way to meet him, let alone realize his potential or interests.

  44 “women would be able to take part”: From the end of her later preface to her annotated translation of Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees.

  45 “nothing is more neglected”: Fénelon, in his L'Education des filles, 1687. See Gwynne Lewis, France 1715–1804: Power and the People (London, 2005), p. 59; also Spencer, ed., French Women, p. 85.


  45 “I felt…as ifI was swimming”: Mauzi, ed., Bonheur, p. 16.

  45 “I gave in too often to my big appetite”: Ibid., p. 10.

  45 At one point…an affair with…a pleasant young noble: Phélypeaux later wrote an account of Emilie attempting suicide out of desolation at the breakup, with Guébriant instantly finding a perfect antidote in his rooms to save her. It makes no sense though, for a simpleton like Guébriant would never have been able to diagnose a particular poison, let alone “happen” to have all the right antidotes at hand. Also, Emilie was more than capable of showing her feeling for men she'd broken up with in letters, but she never showed any upset from breaking with Guébriant. The more likely explanation is that Phélypeaux, detesting Emilie as a traitor to her class, was making up a story about her—as he did about the many other individuals he tried to insult.

  47 He'd inherited a fortune and been thrown into the Bastille: The second time, when he was sent in for dueling, was typically convoluted. The young comtesse de Gacé had become drunk one evening, then undressed herself, and ended up being passed along among the guests at a dinner party. Richelieu found it difficult not to recount the story at another ball, on February 17, 1716, where de Gacé's husband unfortunately was in attendance. Since the story was true, the husband had to challenge him to a duel.

  No one was hurt much—Richelieu had a slight stab wound in his thigh—but both were sent to the Bastille. The two men became great friends there, especially when Richelieu commiserated with the comte about the flighty wife he'd been induced to marry. As the weather turned hot they were seen spending hours walking together on the top of the Bastille's ramparts: investigating the vegetable garden there; waving to passersby far below. When a surgeon did come to identify the marks of the duel, he found two friendly young aristocrats insisting that it was merely an ordinary birthmark, which meant that the two friends were soon released.

  47 He was a renowned soldier: Though, in fairness, Richelieu's success here was due more to British incompetence than to his own skills. When the king later did give him a marshal's baton, it was largely to stop his complaining about not being appointed as a minister of state.