COURT DISFAVOUR, AND HIDING AT SCEAUX
It was one of the very doubtful privileges of Madame du Châtelet’s rank
that she was permitted to play cards at the Queen’s table. Émilie had
never done anything in moderation in her life. She not only loved,
worked, and dressed to excess, but she gambled to excess also. High play
was in the air of that eighteenth century. In England, as well as in
France, men lost an estate or a fortune in an evening, and women staked
the diamonds on their breast and the doweries of their children.
The thrifty Voltaire regarded the dangerous craze in Madame du Châtelet
with not a little apprehension. He had known poverty not by name, but in
person; and had no desire to renew the acquaintance.
One night at Fontainebleau, probably at the end of October, 1747, but
the actual date is not quite clear, Émilie lost four hundred louis. She
must have exerted all her power over the man who had ceased to love her,
but not to fear her or to be faithful to her, to make him lend her two
hundred more. She played again the next evening, and lost those. One can
fancy the scene--the crowded ante-chamber of royalty; the flushed and
excited players; lights, laughter, and talk; Émilie, desperate and
breathless, forgetting alike her fine clothes which were the sign she
was but as other women, and her cool reason which set her far above
them--and at her side, Voltaire, urging her in fervent English whispers
to come away, that the game was played, and the loss must be accepted
with a shrug of the shoulders and as good a grace and philosophy as one
could muster.
A fly buzzing at her ear could not have moved her less. The intoxication
of play was upon her. She sent out and raised from her man of business
and a friend, Mademoiselle du Thil, three hundred and eighty louis more.
She lost them. Luck had been against her. It _must_ turn now! She played
on and on. At last she owed eighty-four thousand francs. The quick
Voltaire at her elbow, robbed of all prudence and discretion (to be
sure, he never had much of either), bent over her desperately at last
and said in an agitated whisper in English: “Don’t you see you are
playing with cheats?” The words were hardly out of his mouth before he
realised that they had been overheard and understood, or before one of
the quickest intelligences that ever man had, had decided on action.
Madame du Châtelet, sobered suddenly, was herself far too clever not to
see the danger of the situation. The pair rose at once and left the
palace. The room was full of their enemies; noble Gentlemen-in-Ordinary
jealous of a brother whose pedigree was his brain and who had no
birthright but genius; and women angry with Émilie for her absurd airs
of youth, and her passion for learning which must be affected in _her_,
because it certainly would be affected in _us_!
Would Madame de Pompadour’s patronage save her brilliant _protégé_? By
no means. The play was at the Queen’s table; and the silent Queen had no
reason to love the Pompadour’s friends. Historiographer of France and
Member of the French Academy--even that would not save a Voltaire, with
a Voltaire’s record behind him, from the consequences of such an
utterance as this.
The two returned post-haste to Richelieu’s house where they had their
quarters. It was half-past one in the morning. They waited for nothing.
The horses were put to at once. Longchamp was sent in search of their
servants who were lodging at different houses in the place. Émilie’s
_femme de chambre_ had only time to throw together a few packages of
chiffons. She, Voltaire, and Émilie got into the carriage just as the
October day was breaking. Longchamp was left behind to pack. The
carriage was driven towards Paris, and the desperate pair within hastily
sketched in the details of their scheme of action. A wheel of the
carriage broke when they were near Essore, and the wheelwright, who had
no mind to be cheated of his dues even by fine folk in gala attire,
declined to let the carriage proceed till his bill was paid. Neither
Voltaire nor Émilie had a single sou. A _lettre de cachet_ and the
Bastille loomed much too close for delays to be endurable. Luckily, an
old acquaintance of the du Châtelets, coming by post-chaise from Paris,
recognised Madame and paid the wheelwright. They drove on. At a little
village near Paris, Voltaire alighted. Madame proceeded to the capital.
It had been arranged that there she should make arrangement for the
payment of her gambling debts, and if possible smooth the way for
Voltaire’s return. She was used to that office.
From a wayside inn Voltaire wrote to the Duchesse du Maine, now hard by
at Sceaux; and sent the letter by messenger. He had asked his old friend
for hiding, shelter, refuge, till the storm blew over. She responded,
telling him to come that night to the château, where one Duplessis,
known to Voltaire, would meet him and conduct him to the rooms she was
keeping for him. He did as she said. He entered the house unknown to any
save Duplessis and the Duchess.
For not less than a month he lived in those rooms on the second floor,
with the shutters barred night and day. Longchamp joined him there,
bringing luggage, books, and papers. All day long the master wrote and
the valet copied. Voltaire never slept more than five or six hours; but
wrote, wrote, wrote by that eternal candle-light. At two o’clock every
night, when the rest of the house was asleep, he came softly downstairs
into the Duchess’s bedroom, where the little, great lady was already in
bed and where, propped on pillows, she royally waited to be amused by
her guest. She was never disappointed. A servant, the only one in her
confidence, brought M. de Voltaire a little supper which he ate on a
little table between his hostess’s bed and the wall. The valet left the
room. During the meal the old Duchess told her visitor the most
delightful, wicked stories of the Court of Louis XIV.--from her own
experience. And then, M. de Voltaire produced a manuscript and read to
the Duchess the charming result of his imprisonment--those miniature
masterpieces of romance, “Zadig,” “Scarmentado,” “Micromégas,” and
“Babouc.”
Only children of that astonishing eighteenth century could have enacted
such a scene entirely without awkwardness, self-consciousness, or
exaggeration. It was worth days of labour and darkness to find a
listener as acute, as sympathetic and intelligent as this little old
woman who had lived so fully and knew human nature to the core.
While this lean M. de Voltaire with his startlingly brilliant eyes, and
the sardonic mouth and drooping hook-nose more nearly meeting year by
year--his conversation alone could turn night into day, and make one
forget that such things as fatigue, ennui, sleep, are part of man’s
portion. Out of gratitude for her goodness--gratitude was never a virtue
he lacked--he was wittier now than ever. Gratitude guided his pen as
well as his speech, and made his stories the most easy, graceful, and
delightful in the world.
Voltaire had not been a romancer hitherto. He did not find it in him to
invent plots now. “Zadig” is founded on a story by English Thomas
Parnell; and “Micromégas” pretty openly taken from Cyrano de Bergerac’s
“Journey to the Moon.” But as the “amazing genius” of Shakespeare took
the stillborn children of lesser men’s brains and breathed on them the
breath of life, so did Voltaire. Everything that makes a story immortal
is his own in those matchless _contes_. Charm, wit, delicacy, an
exquisite lightness of touch, the finest taste in satire, humour,
variety, epigram, gaiety--with that ever-present undercurrent of biting
meaning--almost all the Voltairian gifts are here. Every story is a
pungent satire on the King, Court, _régime_, or religion of that evil
day. The characters are very palpably drawn from life. In “Zadig” there
is a certain Yebor who could by no possibility be anyone else than
Boyer, the Âne of Mirepoix.
The graceless old Duchess, sitting up in bed, thoroughly enjoyed hearing
her order castigated. She laughed loud and long to see how this Voltaire
always had his whip on the raw.
No wonder she was eager for the tales to be given to the larger public
of her court. The imprisonment was becoming wearisome. The unlucky
Longchamp was ennuied to death. Voltaire’s health began to suffer for
want of light and fresh air. The secret of his whereabouts had been kept
so well, that his enemies at Court supposed him to be on the road to
Frederick and Berlin.
Everybody was glad when one fine day, probably about the end of
November, Madame du Châtelet appeared with the news that the storm had
blown over, that the unlucky utterance was more or less forgotten, and
the gambling debts settled--somehow. The autocratic little Duchess was
not going to part with her Voltaire now she might enjoy him openly. He
and Madame du Châtelet joined her throng of gay satellites. There were
comedies, operas, and balls. Voltaire, Émilie, and Madame de Staal all
took parts in his play of “The Prude,” imitated from Wycherley’s “Plain
Dealer,” and now played for the first time--December 15, 1747. They
acted “Issé” by La Motte, “Zélindor” by Moncrif, and “Les Originaux,” a
comedy by Voltaire, first performed at Cirey. Émilie took the part of
_Issé_; was _Fanchon_ in the “Originaux,” and _Zirphé_ in the opera of
“Zélindor.” If she _was_ one-and-forty years old and _would_ dress her
parts, not to suit them, but her own love of finery, it must be
confessed that she was matchlessly accomplished and versatile.
Voltaire, after the manner of the days when he was lover indeed,
improvised gay verses of compliment to her. “Madame du Châtelet,” he
wrote to a friend, “sang _Zirphé_ correctly and acted with nobility and
grace: a thousand diamonds were her least ornament.”
Besides play-acting there was an orchestra of marquises and viscounts.
Dancers from the Opera amused the pleasure-loving little court. A
delightful girl of thirteen carried that art to its highest perfection
and charmed everyone with her grace and talent. And, in the bad quarter
of an hour before dinner, Voltaire read the _contes_ composed for the
Duchess, to the Duchess’s guests gathered together in the great salon.
The visit came to an end about the middle of December, when Voltaire had
been at Sceaux about two months. Once more in Paris, he busied himself
with a very pretty little _ruse_, by which he evaded the piracy of
publishers and had two hundred private copies of “Zadig” printed to give
to the Duchess and her friends, before the rest of the world had read
it.
Then came the pleasing news that on December 30th “The Prodigal Son” had
been played in the private apartments before the King by a distinguished
company of amateurs: and that his Majesty had deigned to be amused.
Amateur theatricals had a vogue only second to gaming in
eighteenth-century France. To play the smallest parts in the feeblest
piece in the King’s presence, men and women made incredible sacrifices
of fortune, of honour, and of truth. Madame de Pompadour’s _femme de
chambre_ obtained a commission in the army for one of her friends by
procuring, for a duke, the very minor _rôle_ of a policeman, who had
only two lines in his part, in “Tartuffe.” The clever Pompadour herself
was an actress of no mean ability. She took a part in the “Prodigal.”
Voltaire had not been behindhand in encouraging her histrionic tastes.
He does not appear to have been present at this performance of his
comedy. When a play had already been performed in public (and “The
Prodigal Son,” it will be remembered, was played, anonymously, in
October, 1736), it was not etiquette to invite its author to witness its
_début_ before royalty. But it pleased his bored Majesty so much that,
on the strength of it, Madame de Pompadour obtained for her brilliant
Voltaire the delightful right and privilege of being henceforth always a
spectator at the plays acted in the private apartments. And this unlucky
Voltaire, in his enthusiasm and gratitude, must needs look among his
papers and discover a poem, which, with a little artful alteration, will
express his thanks to the mistress.
Nothing would ever have made Voltaire cautious. Audacity was in his
nature, and there was no preventing it oozing out, like Bob Acres’s
courage, at the tips of his fingers whenever he got a pen in his hand.
To be sure, if he had been circumspect he could not have been half so
witty. If wit is not spontaneous, it is rarely wit at all. And this
verse really would not have done him the slightest harm, if the
favourite had but kept it to herself.
Every grace and charm and art,
Pompadour, in you is found.
And it is alike your part
To be the treasure of one heart
And a Court’s delight.
So much blest, then, live for aye
Lovely years with pleasure crown’d.
The King brings peace with him. Oh may
Your foes be nothing: and alway
You both your conquests keep!
But, after all, though she was an astute, cool-blooded Pompadour, she
was a woman too and loved a compliment; and that her _entourage_ should
be aware she received such beautiful ones as that.
It soon reached the ears of poor Marie Leczinska, patient and dignified
in the dreary and respectable seclusion of her apartments. The days were
long gone when, a bride of one-and-twenty, she had called Voltaire “my
poor Voltaire” and pensioned him from her own purse. The ugly daughters,
Mesdames, too, had still some influence over their royal father, the
King, and were not slow to use it.
Old Roy took occasion to sententiously point out in a dreary poem how
abominable it was to allude to royal--mistakes: and how the loves of
gods and kings were never meant for the comment of the vulgar. The
unlucky Voltaire was further suspected at the moment of having been the
author of some lines to the Dauphine, whose gay philosophy offended the
King. He denied the authorship, of course, _in toto_. But that was very
little use. It was whispered that Mesdames, the daughters, so worked
upon Louis that he signed a decree of banishment for Voltaire, without
even consulting Madame de Pompadour. That would seem to have been an
addition to make a good story better. There was most likely no edict of
banishment on paper. Voltaire himself denied that there was ever any
idea of such a thing. But on January 13, 1748, coming gaily to
Versailles and not in the least anticipating any evil effect from the
charming audacity of his verses, he found the Court too hot to hold him.
He dined in Paris that night at a coffee-house, with a few other
literary men. He arrived rather late. He had come straight from
Versailles, and alone of the company knew what had occurred there. He
made his dinner, after his frugal fashion, off seven or eight cups of
black coffee and a couple of rolls, and was very talkative and amusing.
The conversation turned on the newly imposed tax on playing-cards, and
on luxury. When the dinner was over other visitors at the coffee-house
gathered round him and “plied him with questions.”
He was not exiled. But he had committed an offence which made it
expedient to Go. He knew the Pompadour much too well to suppose she
would put her position in jeopardy by trying to save a friend, even if
he were a Voltaire. “Circumspection is all very well,” he had once
written to d’Argenson, “but it is a melancholy thing in poetry: to be
reasonable and cold is almost the same thing.” For his part, he would
rather write even compliments and madrigals as he chose, and be banished
for them, than remain at Court, tongue-tied and careful. If the
Historiographership and the Academy and the solemn joy of signing
oneself Gentleman-in-Ordinary to the King did not give one freedom, they
were useless. Neither Voltaire nor Émilie had seen Cirey for many
months. On the whole, it was best to go. They left Paris in the deep
midwinter at nine o’clock on a January evening, 1748, with the snow
thick on the ground and a temperature many degrees below
freezing-point.