influence appeared to him to be growing too formidable. They were curious
relations which subsisted between Voltaire and the priest. With de Tressan
and other Academicians Menoux was at open and embittered feud. Voltaire
was more of a statesman. To their faces the two opponents invariably
professed the sincerest friendship and the warmest admiration. Even many
years after we find Voltaire, when writing to Menoux, declaring to him his
unaltered love and attachment, while at the same time paying the Abbe
delicate compliments on the score of his _esprit_: "Je voudrais que vous
m'aimassiez, car je vous aime." Behind their backs they called each other
names. Menoux was by no means a mere hierophantic prig or sacerdotal oaf.
Voltaire calls him "le plus intrigant et le plus hardi pretre que j'ai
jamais connu," and adds that he had "milked" Stanislas to the extent of a
full million. D'Almbert describes him as the type of a Court
divine--"habitue au meilleur monde," without any "rigidite
claustrale"--"homme d'infiniment d'esprit, fin, delicat, intelligent,
subtile, ayant heureusement cultive les lettres et en conservant les
graces et la fraicheur sans la moindre trace de pedanterie." Between him
and Boufflers there was continual warfare--above-ground and below-ground,
by open hostilities and by schemes and intrigues. It was with a view to
checkmating Boufflers, so Voltaire relates, that Menoux first suggested an
invitation to Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet to come to the Court. Madame
du Chatelet was to become the favourite's rival. To this theory French
writers object that, as du Chatelet was some years older than Boufflers,
not nearly as good-looking, certainly not _devote_, and another man's
property already, the scheme was absurd. In the result Menoux certainly
showed himself to have made a mistake; but that was owing to a
circumstance which neither he nor any one else could have foreseen.
Otherwise the scheme cannot be pronounced bad. To literary-minded
Stanislas, at his time of life, the intellectual graces of du Chatelet
might well balance the greater personal attractions of Boufflers. Besides,
Menoux did not look for an actual ally so much as for a rival to the
favourite. Even to lessen her absolute authority would be quite enough for
his purpose. He travelled all the way to Cirey to sound the two, and,
finding them willing, pressed their invitation upon Stanislas.
Stanislas was, as Menoux had foreseen, only too eager to accept the
suggestion. He had had more than one taste of the pleasures of playing the
Maecenas. Montesquieu had been at his Court, working there at his _Esprit
des Lois_, and Madame de Grafigny, Helvetius, Henault, Maupertuis; and the
shy and retiring, but gifted Devaux was a fixture. However, Stanislas
wanted more. The only disappointment to Menoux was that he found the
invitation planned by himself actually issued by his rival, Madame de
Boufflers. It was, of course, accepted; and the beginning of 1748 saw
Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet safely arrived at Commercy.
The Lorrain Court, always bright and gay, was at that time perhaps at its
very brightest. Stanislas, being permitted to play at being king, and
given ample pecuniary resources for doing so, played the game in good
earnest, with a due appreciation of showy externals, and with a
singularly happy grace. He had at his command an apparatus which any real
king might have envied. Here was Commercy, raised by Durand for the rich
and tasteful Prince de Vaudemont, the friend of our William III. and of
the elder Pretender, a blaze of magnificence, with gardens around it, and
sheets of water, and cascades, which cast Versailles into the shade. His
principal residence, however, one of the masterpieces designed by
Boffrand, was the Palace of Luneville. On seeing it Louis XV., surprised
at its grandeur, exclaimed, "Mais, mon pere, vous etes mieux loge que
moi." That was the
salon magnifique,
Moitie Turc et moitie Chinois,
Ou le gout moderne et l'antique,
Sans se nuire, ont uni leurs lois,
of which Voltaire writes--very incongruous, but decidedly splendid and
comfortable. Stanislas had added the delightful "Bosquet," laid out for
him by Gervais--overloading it, it is true, with kiosks and pavilions,
renaissance architecture and renaissance statuary, a hermitage, and
eventually with de Tressan's "Chartreuse." Like all persons of "taste" in
his day, Stanislas loved gimcrackery; he had utilized Francois Richard's
inventive genius for embellishing his principal residence with a unique
contrivance, admired by all Europe--an artificial rock with clockwork
machinery setting about eighty figures in motion. You may see a picture of
it still in the Nancy Museum. It must have been very ingenious and very
ugly. First, there was a miller's wife opening her casement-window to
answer some supposed caller; then two cronies appear on the scene,
engaging in a morning chat. A shepherd playing on his _musette_ leads his
flock, tinkling with bells, across the rock. Two wethers engage in a real
contest; a clockwork dog jumps up, barking, and separates them. There was
a forge, with hammers beating and sparks flying. An insatiable tippler
knocks at the closed door of the tavern, and is answered by the hostess
with a pailful of water emptied upon his head from a window above. In the
distance a pious hermit is seen telling his beads. And in the background
is discovered, standing on a balcony, to crown the whole, the Queen,
Catherine Opalinska, complacently looking down upon the scene, while two
sentries pace solemnly up and down, occasionally presenting arms. Such
were the toys of royalty in those days. Besides these two palaces
Stanislas had others--Chanteheux, well in view from Luneville, built in
the Polish style: "rien de plus superbe, rien de plus irregulier";
Einville, flat and level, disparaged by the duc de Luynes, but
nevertheless grand, and possessing a "salon" famed for its magnificence
throughout Europe; and lastly the historic Malgrange, close to Nancy, the
"Sans souci" of Henri le Bon, in which Catherine of Bourbon had met the
Roman doctors of divinity, despatched to convert her, in learned
disputation, and sent them away discomfited, to the no little annoyance of
her brother, Henri IV. Beyond this, Here was at work beautifying Nancy in
the Louis-Quinze style, with statuary and balustrades, gorgeous gateways,
and magnificent arches; and he was building that handsome palace, which
now serves as the Commanding General's quarters, in which, in 1814, when
the Emperor of Austria, the last real Lorrain Duke's grandson, was lodged
there, was hatched the Absolutist conspiracy of the "Holy Alliance."
The Court itself was modelled entirely on the pattern of the superior
Olympus of Versailles. "On ne croyait pas avoir change de lieu quand on
passait de Versailles a Luneville," says Voltaire. There was splendour,
display, lavishness, gilding everywhere--only in Lorraine there was an
absolute absence of etiquette and restraint--"ce qui completait le
charme." At Luneville the etiquette was of the slightest. From the other
palaces it was wholly banished--"me voici dans un beau palais, avec la
plus grande liberte (et pourtant chez un roi)--a la Cour sans etre
courtisan." "C'est un homme charmant que le roi Stanislas," Voltaire goes
on, in another letter. And not without cause. For Stanislas had placed
himself and all his household at the great writer's service. The king
entertained a perfect army of Court dignitaries, who had scarcely anything
to do for their salaries. He had his _gardes-du-corps_, resplendent in
scarlet and silver, his _cadets-gentilhommes_, who were practically pages,
half of them Lorrains, the remainder Poles, his regular pages, two of whom
must always stand by him, when playing at _tric-trac_, never moving a
muscle all the while. He had his pet dwarf "Bebe," decked out in military
dress, with a diminutive toy-coach and two goats to carry him about, and a
page in yellow and black always to wait upon him. This dwarf the king
would for a joke occasionally have baked up in a pie. Upon the pie being
opened Bebe would jump out, sword in hand, greatly frightening the ladies
and performing on the dinner-table a sort of war-dance, which was his
great accomplishment. Then he had his _musique_, headed by Anet, the
particular friend of Lulli, and with Baptiste, another friend of Lulli,
for "premier violon." The Lorrain court had always been noted for its
concerts, its theatricals and its _sauteries_--that was at the time the
fashionable name for balls. Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mademoiselle Clairon,
Fleury, had all come out first on the Lorrain stage. Luneville it was
which invented the "Cotillon," which has become so popular all over the
continent. Luneville also was the birthplace of the aristocratic and
graceful "Chapelet." And king Stanislas' orchestra enjoyed a European
reputation. "Do you pay your musicians better than I do?" asked Louis
Quinze of his father-in-law with a touch of jealousy. "No, my brother; but
I pay them for what they do, you pay them for what they know." There was
wit and fashion in abundance, and a galaxy of beauty--the royal-born
Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, the Princesse de Luetzelburg, the fascinating
Princesse de Talmonde, Stanislas' cousin, who subdued the heart of our
young Pretender, the Countess of Leiningen, the Princesse de Craon, Madame
de Mirepoix, Madame de Chimay, and others. But what of all things
Stanislas prided himself upon most were his table and his kitchen. He was,
as I have said, fond of gimcracks and he was a great eater, though he
often concentrated all his eating upon one Gargantuan meal. The
dinner-hour never came round fast enough for him, which made Galaiziere
say, "If you go on like that, Sire, we shall shortly have you dining the
day before." His particular delight were quaint culinary refinements,
"imitations" and "surprises," which were only to be achieved with the
help of so accomplished a master as his supreme _chef de cuisine_ (there
were five other _chefs_ besides) Gilliers, the author of that unsurpassed
cookery-book, _Le cannameliste francais_. Every dining-table at Court was
a mechanical work of art. Touch a spring, when the cloth was removed, and
there would start up a magnificent _surtout_--there were some measuring
five feet by three--a silversmith's _chef d'oeuvre_, covered with rocks,
and castles, and trees, and statuary, a swan spouting water at a beautiful
Leda, and the like. And between these ornaments was set out a rich array
of dessert, likewise so shaped as to represent every variety of figures,
like Dresden China. One year, when all the fruit failed--I believe it was
while Voltaire was in Lorraine, in 1749, which was a year of unparalleled
distress--Gilliers kept the Court supplied with a continual succession of
imitation fruit, which did service for real plums and peaches. Stanislas
had introduced such "bizarreries septentrionales" as raw _choucroute_ and
unsavoury messes of meat and fruit, and imitation _plongeon_ (great
northern diver), produced by plucking a goose alive, beating it to death
with rods, and preparing it in a peculiar way. A turkey treated in the
same manner found itself transformed into a sham capercailzie. But the
_chefs d'oeuvre_ were Gilliers' "surprises," prepared after much thought,
to which Stanislas contributed his share. Voltaire makes out that "bread
and wine"--which he did not always get--would have been amply sufficient
for his modest wants; but what we hear of the Lorrain Court shows him to
have been by no means indifferent to the products of Gillier's inimitable
_cuisine_. We read of Voltaire's eyes glistening with delight when, after
the removal of the cloth, what looked like a ham was brought upon the
table, and a truffled tongue. The ham turned out to be a confectionery
made up of strawberry preserve and whipped cream, _pane_ with macaroons;
the tongue something of the same sort, truffled with chocolate. I must not
forget the coffee, to which Voltaire, like most great writers, was
devoted. Swift declared that he could not write unless he had "his coffee
twice a week." Voltaire consumed from six to eight cups at a
sitting--which is nothing compared with the performance of Delille, who,
to keep off the megrim, swallowed twenty. Stanislas employed a special
_chef du cafe_, La Veuve Christian, who was responsible for its quality.
Then, there was the wine, Stanislas' special hobby. Of course, he had all
the Lorrain _crus_. The best of these, that grown on the famous Cote de
Malzeville, close to Nancy, he had made sure of by bespeaking the entire
produce in advance for his lifetime, at twelve francs the "measure." His
peculiar pride, however, was his Tokay. Every year his predecessor,
Francis, become Emperor of Germany, sent him a large cask, escorted all
the way by a guard of Austrian grenadiers. As soon as ever that cask
arrived, Stanislas set personally to work. What with drugs, and syrups,
and sugar, and other wine, he manufactured out of one cask about ten,
which he drew off into bottles specially made for the purpose. Some he
kept for his own use at dessert. The larger portion he distributed among
his friends, who every one of them becomingly declared upon their oath
that better Tokay they had never tasted.
But there were better things to entertain the Lorrain Court. There were
fetes; there were theatricals--at some of which Voltaire and du Chatelet
performed in person, Voltaire as the "Assesseur" in _L'Etourderie_, du
Chatelet as "Isse"; there was brilliant conversation, music, everything
that money could buy and good company produce. And Voltaire was the feted
of all. "Voltaire etait dieu a la Cour de Stanislas," says Capefigue. He
could do as he liked--sleep, wake, work, mix with the company, stroll
about alone--without any restraint; the king and all were at his beck, all
eager for his every word, taking everything from him in the best part,
appreciating, admiring, worshipping. His plays were put upon the stage. He
was allowed to drill the actors at his pleasure. In this way, _Le
Glorieux_ was produced with great pomp; also _Nanine_, _Brutus_, _Merope_,
and _Zaire_, the last-named, for a novelty, by a troupe of children.
Whatever he wrote, he could make sure that he would have an attentive
audience of illustrious personages to hear him read out.
Je coule ici mes heureux jours,
Dans la plus tranquille des Cours,
Sans intrigue, sans jalousie,
Aupres d'un roi sans courtisans,
Pres de Boufflers et d'Emilie;
Je les vois et je les entends,
Il faut bien que je fasse envie.
If Voltaire was "god," Madame du Chatelet was "goddess"--waited upon,
petted, having her every wish and every whim studied and gratified. There
could seemingly be no more congenial, mutually appreciative group of
persons than Stanislas and Voltaire, the Marquise de Boufflers and the
Marquise du Chatelet.
Stanislas was then already an oldish man--according to one of his
biographers, Abbe Aubert, sixty-six; according to another, Abbe Proyart,
seventy-one. He was not quite the robust hero that he had been when he
accompanied Charles XII. on his trying ride to Bender, and shared rough
camp-life with Mazeppa. When, in 1744, Charles Alexander of Lorraine
crossed the Rhine at the head of 80,000 Austrians, and sent out manifestos
which gladdened his countrymen's hearts, proclaiming that he was coming to
take possession of the old Duchy--when signal-fires blazed on every
hilltop of the Vosges to bid him welcome, and all Lorraine was throbbing
with patriotic excitement; when Galaiziere mustered what scratch forces he
could improvise for defence, and dragged the twelve ornamental pieces of
cannon out of the Luneville Park to point against the foe--then Stanislas,
remembering his age, had discreetly retired, in a sad state of tremor,
behind the safe walls of Nancy. But in 1748 he was at any rate still hale
and hearty, and bore the weight of his years with an easy grace. He
managed to gallop to the Malgrange at a pace which left all his younger
companions far behind. He is described as of winning manners, rather
majestic in figure and bearing, of an engaging countenance, exceedingly
good-natured and affable. It was said that "il ne savait pas hair." "Je ne
veux pas," he declared when multiplying charities and hospitals, "qu'il y
ait un genre de maladie dont mes sujets pauvres ne puissent se faire
traiter gratuitement." Among such "maladies" he included "the law"--for he
paid advocates to give gratuitous advice to the poor.
Voltaire is described as about at his best at that period. The air of
Lorraine is said to have suited him particularly well. He was just turned
fifty--a little too old, as Madame du Chatelet was cruel enough to inform
him, to act the part of an ardent lover, but appearing to less exacting
persons still in the very vigour of manhood. "Apres une vie sobre, reglee,
sagement laborieuse," he is represented as "well preserved"--slim,
straight, upright, of a good bearing, with a well-shaped leg and a neat
little foot. His features, we know, were wanting in regularity; but they
wore a benevolent and pleasing expression. His greatest charm is said to
have lain in his brilliant and expressive eyes, which seemed by their play
to be ever anticipating the action of his lips. His mind certainly was
still young, and so were his tastes. He is described as a most fastidious
dandy, _irreprochablement poudre et parfume_, affecting clothes of the
latest cut and richly embroidered with gold. To his factotum at Paris,
Abbe Moussinot, he writes from Luneville: "Send me some diamond buckles
for shoes or garters, twenty pounds of hair-powder, twenty pounds of
scent, a bottle of essence of jessamine, two 'enormous' pots of pomatum _a
la fleur d'orange_, two powder puffs, two embroidered vests,"--&c. He was,
moreover, an accomplished courtier. Properly to ingratiate himself with
his new host, he made his appearance at Commercy with a complimentary copy
of his _Henriade_ in his hand, on the flyleaf of which were penned these
lines:
Le ciel, comme Henri, voulut vous eprouver:
La bonte, la valeur a tous deux fut commune,
Mais mon heros fit changer la fortune
Que votre vertu sut braver.
Of Madame du Chatelet's appearance we have two hopelessly irreconcilable
accounts. She was certainly past forty-two; if her ill-natured cousin, the
Marquise de Crequi, speaks truly (and she refers doubters to the parish
register of St. Roch), she was even five years more. Voltaire's portrait
of her, painted with the brush of admiration, is probably more
complimentary than strictly truthful. Madame du Deffand limns her in very
different lines:--"Une femme grande et seche, une maitresse d'ecole sans
hanches, la poitrine etroite, et sur la poitrine une petite mappe-monde
perdue dans l'espace, de gros bras trop courts pour ses passions, des
pieds de grue, une tete d'oiseau de nuit, le nez pointu, deux petits yeux
verts de mer et verts de terre, le teint noir et rouge, la bouche plate et
les dents clair-semees." This hideous portraiture, it is true, Sainte
Beuve protests against as a "page plus amerement satirique" than any to be
found in French literature. But Madame de Crequi has even worse to say of
her cousin, adding, by way of further embellishment, "des pieds terribles,
et des mains formidables"--let alone that, if Emilie was "une merveille de
force," she was also at the same time "un prodige de gaucherie." "Voila la
belle Emilie!" Even Voltaire speaks of her "main d'encre encore salie."
However, everybody agrees in praising the grace of her manner, the
remarkably attractive play of her expressive eyes--Saint Lambert calls her
"la brune a l'oeil fripon"--and her peculiar skill in becomingly dressing
her dark hair. She spoke with engaging animation and quickly--"comme moi
quand je fais la francaise," says Madame de Grafigny (who was always proud
of being a Lorraine)--"comme un ange," she completes the sentence. If
during the day, while wholly engrossed upon her _Newton_, Emilie showed a
little too much of the pedant, according to the same lady's testimony--"le
soir elle est charmante."
The advent of the brilliant couple from Cirey, it need not be stated,
added further strength to the _philosophe_ party. Abbe Menoux found out
that he had reckoned without his host. Between the two Marchionesses, De
Boufflers and du Chatelet, in the place of the expected jealousy and
rivalry, there proved to be nothing but sincere, close, and demonstrative
friendship. To some extent Madame du Chatelet's amiability towards the
Duke's favourite was a piece of diplomacy. She had not come into Lorraine
without a very material object in view. Her husband was not as well off as
either he or she might have wished; and, although in other matters she
showed herself very indifferent to the dull "_bonhomme_"--that is what she
used to call him--in matters of money she thoroughly supported his
interest. As in some respect a vassal of the Duke of Lorraine, and a
member of one of those four distinguished families which were known in
Lorraine as "Les grands Chevaux"--the Lignivilles, the Lenoncourts, the
Haraucourts and the du Chatelets--she considered that her husband had
something like a claim upon king Stanislas. One of King Stanislas' best
pieces of patronage, the post of _grand marechal des maisons_, worth 2,000
_ecus_ a year, had at the time fallen vacant, and for her husband _la
belle Emilie_ resolved to secure it. It cost her a tough struggle, for
there was a formidable rival in the field in the person of Berchenyi, a
Hungarian, and one of the King's old favourites. However, her woman's
persistence triumphed in the end. Apart from such cupboard love, the two
women, both of them possessing _esprit_, both born courtiers, and both,
moreover, sharing a sublime contempt for the prosaic rules of what has
become known as the "Nonconformist Conscience," seemed thoroughly made for
one another. And their alliance told upon the Court. The Jesuits became
alarmed. Menoux put himself upon his defence, and threw himself into the
contest, more particularly with Voltaire, with a degree of vigour and
energy which taxed all the combative power of his opponent. Others might
eye the infidel askance and profess a holy horror of the opinions of one
whom Heaven was fully expected some day to punish in its own way. There is
an amusing anecdote of an unexpected encounter between Madame Alliot, the
wife of the "Jesuit" _intendant_, and Voltaire, both of whom rushed for
shelter, in a sudden and exceptionally violent storm, under the same tree.
At first the lady shrank from the atheist as from an unclean thing. The
rain, however, was inexorable. She revenged herself by preaching to the
infidel, attributing the entire displeasure of Heaven, as evidenced in
that fearful storm, to his unbelief. Voltaire, it is said, not feeling
quite sure of his ground while lightnings were flashing, and in no sort of
mood to play the Ajax, contented himself with meekly pleading that he had
"written very much more that was good of Him to whom the lady referred
than the lady herself could ever say in her whole life." Such harmless
little hits the _philosophe_ had now and then to put up with; but for
serious fighting few besides Menoux had any stomach. Devaux (Panpan),
however "devot," was disarmed by being--quite on the sly, but no less
ardently--one of Madame de Boufflers' chosen admirers. Galaiziere was
taken up with other things. Solignac was too much of a dependent. "Mon
Dieu" Choiseul did not carry sufficient weight. There was, indeed, another
Abbe at Court, who might have been expected to help: Porquet, who became
the Duke's almoner, a most amusing person in a passive way. But he was by
no means cut out for a champion. Besides, being tutor to the young de
Boufflers, he was scarcely a free agent. He himself describes himself as
an "homme empaille." When first appointed almoner, and called upon to say
grace, he found that he had quite forgotten his Benedicite. Stanislas made
him occasionally read to him out of the Bible, with the result that,
half-dozing over the sacred page, he fell into mis-readings such as this:
"Dieu apparut en singe a Jacob." "Comment," interrupted the Duke, "c'est
'en songe' que vous voulez dire!" "Eh, Sire, tout n'est-il pas possible a
la puissance de Dieu?"