_Mme. de Graffigny--Baron d'Holbach--Mme. d'Epinay's Portrait of
Herself--Mlle. Quinault--Rousseau--La Chevrette--Grimm--Diderot--The
Abbe Galiani--Estimate of Mme. d'Epinay_
A few of the more radical and earnest of the philosophers rarely, if
ever, appeared at the table of Mme. Geoffrin. They would have brought
too much heat to this company, which discussed everything in a light
and agreeable fashion. Perhaps, too, these free and brilliant spirits
objected to the leading-strings which there held every one within
prescribed limits. They could talk more at their ease at the weekly
dinners of Baron d'Holbach, in the salons of Mme. Helvetius, Mme. de
Marchais, or Mme. de Graffigny, in the Encyclopedist coterie of Mlle. de
Lespinasse, or in the liberal drawing room of Mme. d'Epinay, who held
a more questionable place in the social world, but received much good
company, Mme. Geoffrin herself included.
Mme. de Graffigny is known mainly as a woman of letters whose life had
in it many elements of tragedy. Her youth was passed in the brilliant
society of the little court at Luneville. She was distantly related
to Mme. du Chatelet, and finally took refuge from the cruelties of a
violent and brutal husband in the "terrestrial paradise" at Cirey. La
belle Emilie was moved to sympathy, and Voltaire wept at the tale of
her sorrows. A little later she became a victim to the poet's sensitive
vanity. He accused her of sending to a friend a copy of his "Pucello,"
an unfinished poem which was kept under triple lock, though parts of it
had been read to her. Her letters were opened, her innocent praises were
turned against her, there was a scene, and Cirey was a paradise no more.
She came to Paris, ill, sad, and penniless. She wrote "Les Lettres
d'une Peruvienne" and found herself famous. She wrote "Cenie," which was
played at the Comedie Francaise, and her success was established. Then
she wrote another drama. "She read it to me," says one of her friends;
"I found it bad; she found me ill-natured. It was played; the public
died of ennui and the author of chagrin." "I am convinced that
misfortune will follow me into paradise," she said. At all events, it
seems to have followed her to the entrance.
Her salon was more or less celebrated. The freedom of the conversations
may be inferred from the fact that Helvetius gathered there the
materials for his "De l'Esprit," a book condemned by the Pope, the
Parliament, and the Sorbonne. It was here also that he found his
charming wife, a niece of Mme. de Graffigny, and the light of her house
as afterwards of his own.
A more permanent interest is attached to the famous dinners of Baron
d'Holbach, where twice a week men like Diderot, Helvetius, Grimm,
Marmontel, Duclos, the Abbe Galiani and for a time Buffon and Rousseau,
met in an informal way to enjoy the good cheer and good wines of this
"maitre d'hotel of philosophy," and discuss the affairs of the universe.
The learned and free-thinking baron was agreeable, kind, rich, and
lavish in his hospitality, but without pretension. "He was a man simply
simple," said Mme. Geoffrin. We have many pleasant glimpses of his
country place at Grandval, with its rich and rare collections, its
library, its pictures, its designs, and of the beautiful wife who turned
the heads of some of the philosophers, whom, as a rule, she did not like
overmuch, though she received them so graciously. "We dine well and a
long time," wrote Diderot. "We talk of art, of poetry, of philosophy,
and of love, of the greatness and vanity of our own enterprises... Of
gods and kings, of space and time, of death and of life."
"They say things to make a thunderbolt strike the house a hundred times,
if it struck for that," said the Abbe Morellet.
Among the few women admitted to these dinners was Mme. d'Epinay, for
whom d'Holbach, as well as his amiable wife, always entertained the
warmest friendship. This woman, whose position was not assured enough
to make people overlook her peculiar and unfortunate domestic
complications, has told the story of her own life in her long and
confidential correspondence with Grimm, Galiani, and Voltaire. The
senseless follies of a cruel and worthless husband, who plunged her from
great wealth into extreme poverty, and of whom Diderot said that "he
had squandered two millions without saying a good word or doing a good
action," threw her into intimate relations with Grimm; this brought her
into the center of a famous circle. Her letters give us a clear but far
from flattering reflection of the manners of the time. She unveils the
bare and hard facts of her own experience, the secret workings of
her own soul. The picture is not a pleasant one, but it is full
of significance to the moralist, and furnishes abundant matter for
psychological study.
The young girl, who had entered upon the scene about 1725, under the
name of Louise Florence Petronille-Tardieu d'Esclavelles, was married at
twenty to her cousin. It seems to have been really a marriage of love;
but the weak and faithless M. d'Epinay was clearly incapable of truth or
honor, and the torturing process by which the confiding young wife was
disillusioned, the insidious counsel of a false and profligate friend,
with the final betrayal of a tender and desolate heart, form a chapter
as revolting as it is pathetic. The fresh, lively, pure-minded,
sensitive girl, whose intellect had been fed on Rollin's history and
books of devotion, who feared the dissipations of the gay world and
shrank with horror from the rouge which her frivolous husband compelled
her to put on, learned her lesson rapidly in the school of suffering.
At thirty she writes of herself, after the fashion of the pen portraits
of the previous century:
"I am not pretty; yet I am not plain. I am small, thin, very well
formed. I have the air of youth, without freshness, but noble, sweet,
lively, spirituelle, and interesting. My imagination is tranquil. My
mind is slow, just, reflective, and inconsequent. I have vivacity,
courage, firmness, elevation, and excessive timidity. I am true without
being frank. Timidity often gives me the appearance of dissimulation and
duplicity; but I have always had the courage to confess my weakness, in
order to destroy the suspicion of a vice which I have not. I have the
finesse to attain my end and to remove obstacles; but I have none
to penetrate the purposes of others. I was born tender and sensible,
constant and no coquette. I love retirement, a life simple and private;
nevertheless I have almost always led one contrary to my taste. Bad
health, and sorrows sharp and repeated, have given a serious cast to my
character, which is naturally very gay."
Her first entrance into the world in which wit reigned supreme was in
the free but elegant salon of Mlle. Quinault, an actress of the Comedie
Francaise, who had left the stage, and taking the role of a femme
d'esprit, had gathered around her a distinguished and fashionable
coterie. This woman, who had received a decoration for a fine motet
she had composed for the queen's chapel, who was loved and consulted by
Voltaire, and who was the best friend of d'Alembert after the death of
Mlle. de Lespinasse, represented the genius of esprit and finesse. She
was the companion of princes, the adoration of princesses, the oracle of
artists and litterateurs, the model of elegance, and the embodiment of
social success. It did not matter much that the tone of her salon was
lax; it was fashionable. "It distilled dignity, la convenance, and
formality," says the Marquise de Crequi, who relates an anecdote that
aptly illustrates the glamour which surrounded talent at that time. She
was taken by her grandmother to see Mlle. Quinault, and by some chance
mistook her for Mlle. de Vertus, who was so much flattered by her
innocent error that she left her forty thousand francs, when she died a
few months later.
Mme. d'Epinay was delighted to find herself in so brilliant a world, and
was greatly fascinated by its wit, though she was not sure that those
who met there did not "feel too much the obligation of having it." But
she caught the spirit, and transferred it, in some degree, to her own
salon, which was more literary than fashionable. Here Francueil presents
"a sorry devil of an author who is as poor as Job, but has wit and
vanity enough for four." This is Rousseau, the most conspicuous figure
in the famous coterie. "He is a man to whom one should raise altars,"
wrote Mme. d'Epinay. "And the simplicity with which he relates his
misfortunes! I have still a pitying soul. It is frightful to imagine
such a man in misery." She fitted up for him the Hermitage, and did a
thousand kind things which entitled her to a better return than he gave.
There is a pleasant moment when we find him the center of an admiring
circle at La Chevrette, falling madly in love with her clever and
beautiful sister-in-law the Comtesse d'Houdetot, writing "La Nouvelle
Heloise" under the inspiration of this passion, and dreaming in the
lovely promenades at Montmorency, quite at peace with the world. But the
weeping philosopher, who said such fine things and did such base ones,
turned against his benefactress and friend for some imaginary offense,
and revenged himself by false and malicious attacks upon her character.
The final result was a violent quarrel with the whole circle of
philosophers, who espoused the cause of Mme. d'Epinay. This little
history is interesting, as it throws so much light upon the intimate
relations of some of the greatest men of the century. Behind the
perpetual round of comedies, readings, dinners, music, and conversation,
there is a real comedy of passion, intrigue, jealousy, and hidden misery
that destroys many illusions.
Mme. d'Epinay has been made familiar to us by Grimm, Galiani, Diderot,
Rousseau, and Voltaire. Perhaps, on the whole, Voltaire has given us
the most agreeable impression. She was ill of grief and trouble, and had
gone to Geneva to consult the famous Tronchin when she was thrown into
more or less intimacy with the Sage of Ferney. He invited her to dinner
immediately upon her arrival. "I was much fatigued, besides having
confessed and received communion the evening before. I did not find it
fitting to dine with Voltaire two days afterward," writes this curiously
sensitive friend of the free-thinkers. He addresses her as ma belle
philosophe, speaks of her as "an eagle in a cage of gauze," and praises
in verse her philosophy, her esprit, her heart, and her "two great black
eyes." He weeps at her departure, tells her she is "adored at Delices,
adored at Paris, adored present and absent." But "the tears of a poet do
not always signify grief," says Mme. d'Epinay.
There is a second period in her life, when she introduces us again to
the old friends who always sustained her, and to many new ones. The
world that meets in her salon later is much the same as that which dines
with Baron d'Holbach. To measure its attractions one must recall the
brilliancy and eloquence of Diderot; the wit, the taste, the learning,
the courtly accomplishments of Grimm; the gaiety and originality of
d'Holbach, who had "read everything and forgotten nothing interesting;"
the sparkling conversation of the most finished and scholarly diplomats
in Europe, many of whom we have already met at the dinners of Mme.
Geoffrin. They discuss economic questions, politics, religion, art,
literature, with equal freedom and ardor. They are as much divided on
the merits of Gluck's "Armida" and Piccini's "Roland" as upon taxes,
grains, and the policy of the government. The gay little Abbe Galiani
brings perennial sunshine with the inexhaustible wit and vivacity that
lights his clear and subtle intellect. "He is a treasure on rainy days,"
says Diderot. "If they made him at the toy shops everybody would want
one for the country." "He was the nicest little harlequin that Italy has
produced," says Marmontel, "but upon the shoulders of this harlequin
was the head of a Machiavelli. Epicurean in his philosophy and with a
melancholy soul, seeing everything on the ridiculous side, there was
nothing either in politics or morals apropos of which he had not a good
story to tell, and these stories were always apt and had the salt of an
unexpected and ingenious allusion." He did not accept the theories of
his friends, which he believed would "cause the bankruptcy of knowledge,
of pleasure, and of the human intellect." "Messieurs les philosophes,
you go too fast," he said. "I begin by saying that if I were pope I
would put you in the Inquisition, and if I were king of France, into
the Bastille." He saw the drift of events; but if he reasoned like a
philosopher he laughed like a Neapolitan. What matters tomorrow if we
are happy today!
The familiar notes and letters of these clever people picture for us
a little world with its small interests, its piques, its loves, its
friendships, its quarrels, and its hatreds. Diderot, who refused for
a long time to meet Mme. d'Epinay, but finally became an intimate
and lasting friend, touches often, in his letters to Sophie, upon the
pleasant informality of La Chevrette, with its curious social episodes
and its emotional undercurrents. He does not forget even the pigeons,
the geese, the ducks, and the chickens, which he calls his own. Pouf,
the dog, has his place here too, and flits often across the scene, a
tiny bit of reflected immortality. These letters represent the bold
iconoclast on his best side, kind, simple in his tastes, and loyal
to his friends. He was never at home in the great world. He was seen
sometimes in the salons of Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. Necker, and others, but
he made his stay as brief as possible. Mme. d'Epinay succeeded better
in attaching him to her coterie. There was more freedom, and he probably
had a more sympathetic audience. "Four lines of this man make me
dram more and occupy me more," she said, "than a complete work of our
pretended beaux esprits." Grimm, too, was a central figure here, and
Grimm was his friend. But over his genius, as over that of Rousseau,
there was the trail of the serpent. The breadth of his thought, the
brilliancy of his criticisms, the eloquence of his style were clouded
with sensualism. "When you see on his forehead the reflection of a ray
from Plato," says Sainte-Beuve, "do not trust it; look well, there is
always the foot of a satyr."
It was to the clear and penetrating intellect of Grimm, with its vein
of German romanticism, that Mme. d'Epinay was indebted for the finest
appreciation and the most genuine sympathy. "Bon Dieu," he writes to
Diderot, "how this woman is to be pitied! I should not be troubled
about her if she were as strong as she is courageous. She is sweet and
trusting; she is peaceful, and loves repose above all; but her situation
exacts unceasingly a conduct forced and out of her character; nothing
so wears and destroys a machine naturally frail." She aided him in his
correspondance litteraire; wrote a treatise on education, which had the
honor of being crowned by the Academy; and, among other things of more
or less value, a novel, which was not published until long after her
death. With many gifts and attractions, kind, amiable, forgiving, and
essentially emotional, Mme. d'Epinay seems to have been a woman of weak
and undecided character, without sufficient strength of moral fiber to
sustain herself with dignity under the unfortunate circumstances which
surrounded her. "It depends only upon yourself," said Grimm, "to be the
happiest and most adorable creature in the world, provided that you do
not put the opinions of others before your own, and that you know how to
suffice for yourself." Her education had not given her the worldly tact
and address of Mme. Geoffrin, and her salon never had a wide celebrity;
but it was a meeting place of brilliant and radical thinkers, of the men
who have perhaps done the most to change the face of the modern world.
In a quiet and intimate way, it was one among the numberless forces
which were gathering and gaining momentum to culminate in the
great tragedy of the century. Mme. d'Epinay did not live to see the
catastrophe. Worn out by a life of suffering and ill health, she died in
1783.
Whatever her faults and weaknesses may have been, the woman who could
retain the devoted affection of so brilliant and versatile a man
as Grimm for twenty-seven years, who was the lifelong friend and
correspondent of Galiani and Voltaire, and the valued confidante
of Diderot, must have had some rare attractions of mind, heart, or
character.