Authors: Nancy Mitford
Four days later.
The ebb and flow of fellow guests has removed the families Maillebois and Villeneuve and brought us Mme du Four who has come on purpose to play Mme Barbe, the governess of Mlle de la Cochonière and, I think, to be the slave of M. de la Cochonière.
Since yesterday Mme du Châtelet is at her fourth lodging. In the end she could not bear the one she had chosen because it is noisy and there is smoke without fire (which might well be her own emblem). She tells me she does not mind noise at night but that when she is working it destroys her train of thought. She is engaged upon a review of her principles, an exercise which she performs once a year; otherwise they might escape and go so far that she would never be able to lay her hands on them again. As I think her head is their prison rather than their birthplace it must be very important to guard them carefully. She prefers this occupation to any form of amusement and only leaves it at night. Voltaire has written some gallant verses which have slightly set off the bad impression they have both made. Now pray don't leave my letters lying about on your chimney-piece.
Finally, the two ghosts had to be off in a hurry. M. de Richelieu was leaving for Genoa and naturally, says Mme de Staal, could not do so without consulting them.
Boursoufle
was given a day sooner
than had been arranged. Mme de Staal admitted that Mme du Châtelet was perfection in her part although, out of vanity, she was too well dressed for it. Voltaire had argued with her about this, but she was the sovereign and he the slave. After their departure Mme du Châtelet was found to have collected tables out of all the neighbouring bedrooms. She had seven in her room, to hold her papers, gew-gaws, and jewels. Mme de Staal had to confess that when the ghosts had gone she missed them very much.
As soon as the Duchesse du Maine arrived back at Sceaux for the winter the ghosts turned up again and set on foot a season of theatrical performances. Mme du Châtelet, who had a talent for acting and a very pretty singing voice, always took the part of the leading lady, dressed up to kill and covered with diamonds. As usual Voltaire went too far and it all ended in tears. Determined to have a good audience he sent out circulars to his friends and acquaintances in Paris: âA new company of actors will present a new comedy Friday 15 Dec. [1747] at the theatre of Sceaux. All are welcome, without ceremony, at 6 o'clock precisely. Carriages must be in the courtyard between 7.30 and 8. The doors will be shut to the public after 6.00.'
So, one evening, the Duchess found five hundred total strangers thronging into her house, where Voltaire was receiving them exactly as if it were his. To make matters worse she discovered that he had told them they need not bother about her. After this it is hardly surprising that the Château de Sceaux closed its doors to Voltaire for a time.
The love affair was in the doldrums. It had imperceptibly turned into a marriage: Ãmilie found that she had two husbands on her hands while Voltaire was prevented by a middle-aged wife from establishing himself with his new mistress. Chains had been forged (as Mme Denis had truly observed in her honeymoon letter to Thieriot) which could not be broken. She very much wanted, now, to break them and Voltaire was obliged to explain to her why this was impossible. He owed it to his public, he said, not to make a scandal which would cover him with ridicule and contempt. He thought it right to follow a straight line and to respect what he
called, with his usual inaccuracy, a
liaison
of twenty years (really about fifteen). If a man wants to leave a woman, however, he can always find ways and means of doing so. In truth, Voltaire was still very much attached to his Ãmilie, and when it came to possessing him, she won, as she always had.
Ãmilie, too, spoke of chains. In the
Réflections sur le bonheur
she described the course of events since the beginning of her life with Voltaire. Mme du Châtelet has received from God one of those tender, constant souls which can neither disguise nor moderate their passions. There can be no question, for her, of love growing weaker, it will resist everything, even the knowledge that it is not returned. For ten years she was perfectly happy, loving and beloved. She and Voltaire spent these years together without one moment of satiety. When age, illness, and perhaps also habit made him less ardent she did not notice it for a long time. She loved enough for both of them, he was always there, she had no suspicions and she was happy. Alas, this ideal state of things had not gone on for ever and she has shed many a tear.
Such chains, she continued, cannot be broken without a terrible upheaval. Her heart was wounded and it bled. She had just grievances but had forgiven everything. She was objective enough to realize that her heart was perhaps the only one in the world to be endowed with such constancy, while as for Voltaire, had his desires not been blunted by age and illness, they might yet have been for her. Even if his heart were now incapable of love, his tender friendship and his whole life were still dedicated to her. She knew that a return of the old passion was a thing that never happened in nature, she resigned herself to this fact and was fairly happy with what did remain, supplemented by her own love of study and work. The question now was whether such a sensitive heart as her own could go on being satisfied with the dull and peaceful sentiment of friendship. Was it right, even, to hope that it would be preserved for ever in a sort of vacuum?
It seems from this statement that Ãmilie's body and soul were by no means ticking together in harmony like Leibnitz's clocks, but were in a sad state of confusion. Had she quite forgotten
Maupertuis and all her other lovers? What was their relationship to that heart, unique in its constancy?
Longchamp records that during the winter of 1747â8 Ãmilie and Voltaire were quarrelling a great deal. The scientist Clairaut came every day to the rue Traversière to verify the findings in her translation of Newton; he and she would shut themselves up together in a room at the top of the house, only appearing for supper and then often very late. One day Voltaire, who was punctual by nature, sent up to say that supper was ready. Ãmilie told the servant to put the dishes on the table, as she was coming at once. This was duly done, time passed, and the food began to get cold. Suddenly Voltaire lost his temper. He rushed upstairs, found Ãmilie's study door locked, kicked it in, and possibly saw that something other than mathematics was going on. He began to scream, saying that they were conspiring to kill him. Presently the three of them came down in silence and nobody spoke a word during the meal. When Clairaut had gone, Ãmilie talked Voltaire back into a good temper. After that she made an effort to be more punctual.
On another occasion the philosophers were having a heated argument while drinking coffee together. Voltaire leapt up from his chair, to illustrate some point, and in doing so he knocked Ãmilie's cup from her hand and smashed it to atoms. It was a beautiful piece of Dresden china, which he himself had given her, lined with gold and ornamented with figures in a landscape. Ãmilie, deeply upset, went to her own room. Voltaire gave the broken bits to Longchamp and told him to go and match the cup at M. la Frenay's china shop on the Ãle de la Cité. Longchamp found nothing as fine, but he brought back half a dozen cups for Voltaire to choose from. The one he picked out cost ten louis. He tried to bargain, M. la Frenay held his ground and Voltaire had to pay in full. However, Ãmilie liked the cup, received it with smiles, and all was well again.
In the New Year of 1748 they went to Cirey. All Paris was saying that Voltaire had been exiled, but there is no proof of this, and the reasons given for it varied wildly. Some said that the Queen and her children had insisted on it after the publication of a poem in
which Voltaire exhorted both the King and Mme de Pompadour to keep their conquests. Others that he had spoken disrespectfully of the Queen's favourite gambling game,
cavagnole,
and called it tedious. He was not the only person who thought so;
cavagnole
was out of fashion and the courtiers grumbled and groaned when they were made to play it. âOf course, naturally,' said Voltaire, âif I had really said such a dreadful thing and been guilty of lèse-cavagnole, I would deserve any fate.' He denied that he was exiled, and probably was not, in the strictest sense of the word, but the feeling at Versailles had certainly become hostile to him. He said that he was leaving Paris because he was a mere planet in the solar system of Ãmilie, obliged to turn in her orbit.
He wrote to Cideville: âMy life is not as I should wish it to be; we are, in this world, like marionettes,' and to Mme Denis, âI feel stupid and sad not to be able to live with you in a peaceful anonymity. Oh how dreary it is not to live with you in the same house!' Mme Denis was threatening to marry a military man she had known at Lille. Voltaire said she must please herself. If she married, his greatest hope was that the wedding service would soon be followed by a funeral (that of the husband). But he would not try to influence her one way or the other. Meanwhile, when she wrote to Cirey, â
bisogna scrivere discretamente perché le lettere sono tal volte aperte.' âLa dame
is watching me as I write.'
The philosophers left Paris in bitterly cold weather, starting after supper. Ãmilie always travelled at night, to save time. She said that she could sleep but could not work on the road. She, Voltaire, and her maid were wedged in their places by a variety of parcels and things thrown in at the last minute. There was not room in the coach for another pin. They were to make their first stop at the country house of M. de Chauvelin, one of the King's ministers, near Nangis (Seine-et-Marne). As their host was not there they sent Longchamp, on horseback, to acquaint the servants with their arrival and light fires in their rooms. At Nangis he found the inn shut up and everybody gone to a dance the other side of the town. An obliging neighbour went off to fetch the stable-boys, Longchamp ordered a change of horses to be made ready for Voltaire and then asked the way to M. de Chauvelin's. They said
it was a complicated road but they had a little white horse who knew it, they would lend him to Longchamp. After a certain turning, which they described, off the main road, he need only give the white horse his head. He did as he was told, and sure enough the faithful creature carried him to the house, which of course lay in total darkness. He knocked up the servants and told them to make the necessary preparations. They hurried to the poultry yard, killed a few pigeons and a chicken, and soon had them roasting on a spit. Then hours and hours went by with no sign of the travellers.
Meanwhile the two philosophers had been trotting along the high road from Paris to Nangis when they were violently woken from their first sleep. The back axle snapped in two and the coach fell on its side with a tremendous crash. Voltaire, buried beneath the two women and all the parcels, thought he was in danger of being smothered to death. The air was filled with his screams. He had to stay where he was a good long time, however. One of the footmen was hurt in the accident, and the others had difficulty in extracting the passengers through the up-turned door of the coach. Finally they had to be pulled out by their legs, Voltaire last and screaming all the time. The four men they had with them, one of whom was out of action, were not able to right the coach and they had to send for help to the nearest village, several miles away. Cushions were laid on the snowy banks of the road and Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet sat on them, shivering with cold in spite of their furs. It was a night of brilliant stars. The country was flat, there were no trees or houses, and the firmament could be observed from one horizon to the other. Both very fond of astronomy, they had never before seen the map of the heavens so clearly displayed. They soon forgot the cold and all their troubles as they gazed around them, speculating on the nature, the course, and the destination of thousands upon thousands of enormous globes hanging in space. They only needed a telescope to be perfectly happy. Too soon they were interrupted by the arrival of a band of peasants, complete with ropes and tools. The coach was righted, and the men patched up the axle as best they could, to be rewarded with twelve livres, which was far too little. They grumbled and argued
furiously while the travellers and the luggage were being packed into their places again, but to no avail. However they had the last laugh. The coach advanced fifty yards and again collapsed on to the road, the right way up this time. Of course the discontented peasants now refused to help; they had to be bribed with enormous sums paid in advance before they would set to work again. Finally, in broad daylight, the coach was put into running order and the journey resumed. Just as Longchamp was setting out to see what could have happened to them, the philosophers arrived at M. de Chauvelin's, fell voraciously on the pigeons and the chicken, went to bed and slept for hours.
They had left Paris at short notice, and were not expected at Cirey. Mme de Champbonin was not there to welcome them, or any other neighbours. This was soon rectified.
L'aimable champenoise
arrived with a niece, the whole neighbourhood flocked to them and rehearsals of a comedy were put in hand at once. A few days later, in the middle of a cheerful bustle, a coach drove into the courtyard. It was a very grand affair, displaying the arms of Stanislas, ex-King of Poland; from it emerged a black-habited man of God, a Jesuit priest, Père Menou. An unfamiliar face is always enlivening to a small society; the busy household welcomed him. If he could not act, he could occupy a seat and applaud, which really suited them better. He did so, and was such an appreciative audience that Voltaire pronounced him to be the most enlightened Jesuit he had ever met. How could anybody have foreseen that, more like the wizard in a fairy tale than a priest, he was going to cast a spell that would transform smiling Cirey into a place of mourning?
*
The Chevalier de Gaya, a hanger-on of the Duchess's court.