Voltaire in Love (14 page)

La Voltairomanie
reached Cirey on Christmas Day. There were two copies in Voltaire's mail; one was extracted by Émilie who always had a nibble at the postbag before anybody else. She missed the other copy; it was probably in the package from Abbé Moussinot which was sacred and which even she never dared to touch. For
several days she and Voltaire pored over this horrible document alone, each keeping it from the other. She thought that if he read it, in his present state of health, it might kill him; he knew how much she took to heart anything which concerned him and wanted to spare her feelings. There was, staying with them at Cirey, a garrulous Madame de Grafigny. They neither of them confided in her but perhaps they were quite glad to have a third person there, in the circumstances. They must have made a considerable effort when she was with them, which was only at meal-times, for, in her letters, she describes scintillating conversation and many jokes.

Of course poor d'Argental was at the receiving end for both of them. Émilie wrote frantically. First she said that their ‘friend' must never know about
La Voltairomanie;
it must be ignored, passed over in a contemptuous silence. Her second thoughts, however, were that, on the contrary, it must be answered. The public should not be left with the idea that Voltaire was forbidden to go to Paris. Thieriot must be made to speak up about the pamphlet. She enclosed an answer to
La Voltairomanie
in which she went for Desfontaines tooth and nail. It began: ‘Naturalists take pains to trace the origins of those monsters which nature used to produce, they do so out of curiosity and cannot guarantee us against their reappearance; but there is another kind of monster whose study is of greater interest to society and whose extirpation is more necessary.' She demolished all Desfontaines's arguments, one by one, referring to him as ‘le
misérable'
, and ended ‘Socrates thanked God that he was born a man and not a beast, a Greek and not a barbarian; and M. de Voltaire must thank Him for such a despicable enemy'. Then she wrote to Thieriot pointing out that it was his duty to come to the support of his friend. Thieriot's reply was exceedingly unsatisfactory. He recognizes and is edified by Mme du Châtelet's zeal on behalf of M. de Voltaire. He has been greatly scandalized by
Le Préservatif
and he is appalled to learn that ill-intentioned folk are attributing it to Voltaire. Since it appeared many people have asked him about the allegedly libellous pamphlet, he always gives the same answer, which he now gives to Mme du Châtelet: he does vaguely remember having seen such a manuscript but cannot say for certain whether this was before or after the
Abbé's imprisonment. (The date, of course, was exceedingly important as if the Abbé had written the pamphlet before going to prison he could not be accused of ingratitude.)

Émilie sent this letter to d'Argental with her own annotations.

(1) Too good of Thieriot to have been edified by her zeal and to say that he interests himself in M. de Voltaire in order to emulate her.

(2) He was edified a moment ago. Now, all of a sudden he is scandalized, implying that he suspects M. de Voltaire of having written
Le Préservatif.
This suspicion certainly scandalizes Mme du Châtelet.

(3) It has suddenly become convenient for M. Thieriot to forget circumstances which are important for M. de Voltaire.

(4) He seems to be the only person in the world who does not know the identity of the ‘young lawyer'.

She also remarks that they have twenty letters from Thieriot written in 1725 in which he speaks of this affair. If his memory continues to play him false, these letters will be printed. On 3 January she tells d'Argental that Voltaire and she have at last had it out together. Greatly to her relief, he minded much less than she had feared, and was more concerned about her feelings than his own. Also she was relieved to find that he did not intend to continue the slanging match in print but merely to bring a lawsuit against the Abbé. He had written to Moussinot telling him to buy the pamphlet in the presence of two witnesses and take it to a magistrate.

Voltaire wrote to Thieriot describing himself as a public figure. He must defend himself against libel and his friend must help him to do so. He has only ever known of Desfontaines's original pamphlet from Thieriot; Desfontaines now alleges that Thieriot denies all knowledge of this pamphlet. Of course the Abbé lies; why only the other day, when Thieriot was at Cirey, they had been talking about it together. Thieriot cannot now say that this is none of his business, he cannot let his old friend down after so many long years. Why, what would the Crown Prince of Prussia think of such behaviour? Friendship and truth must triumph over hatred and perfidy; Voltaire knows that they will – and embraces his friend more lovingly than ever.

Voltaire was evidently not at all sure that his friend would spring to his defence, and he was right. Thieriot was now living, in parasitical luxury, with La Popelinière, one of the richest and most civilized of the Parisian financiers. He enjoyed the easy existence of a man-about-town. Effort, and especially disagreeable effort, was foreign to his nature; live and let live his motto. He was, no doubt, very fond of Voltaire; he knew his works by heart and was the greatest expert on the various editions; he willingly did odd jobs for the inhabitants of Cirey. But all Voltaire's friends were getting tired of his endless, rather ridiculous quarrels. Richelieu once told him so outright, saying ‘even Thieriot doesn't stand up for you any more'. It was not the fashion in their light-hearted society to nourish these excessive hatreds. Thieriot had no wish to be involved in a lawsuit which his friend was not at all sure to win and which would certainly give rise to mirth all over Paris. Furthermore the Abbé's paper,
Observations,
was read every week by Thieriot's circle of acquaintances; the Abbé had a nice talent for holding people up to mockery and Thieriot preferred to keep on the right side of him. Voltaire had lied to him about
Le Préservatif,
and if he thought that many another lie was probably being cooked up at Cirey he was not far wrong. The whole of this business was conducted, on both sides, with the maximum of bad faith. It is possible to sympathize with Thieriot's point of view, given his light, unstable character, but nobody can approve of his sending
La Voltairomanie
to Frederick, as he now hastened to do. It was the one thing that Voltaire dreaded, though he felt quite sure that it would happen. This piece of ill-nature was Thieriot's only contribution to the affair: thereafter he sat back and did nothing.

A new irritant was added to Voltaire's miseries. The other great enemy, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, was allowed back in France after an exile of thirty-two years. Voltaire pretended not to care – ‘He is to all intents and purposes a dead man, the late Rousseau' – but he felt it as a slap in the face and knew that Rousseau would make as much trouble for him in Paris as he could. The sensible d'Argental wrote and said the best thing that Voltaire could do now was to forget all these worries and write some interesting work. He had overlooked the terrifying energy of his friend; Voltaire wrote
Zulime,
it took him exactly a week and left him free to go on with his war against Desfontaines. He wanted total revenge, that is to say the withdrawal of permission to publish
Observations.
Even that would not be enough unless it were made quite clear that the paper was suppressed on account of attacks against Voltaire.

A petition was drawn up. It went over the whole ground, from the chimney-sweeps onward, letting it be supposed that Desfontaines's life had been devoted to one-way persecution of Voltaire. Naturally there was no mention of his many attacks on the Abbé, nor of
Le Préservatif.
Abbé Moussinot was to present this document to a magistrate. Voltaire instructed him to hire several carriages. He was then to go and pick up all Voltaire's relations, also three people who were mentioned in
La Voltairomanie,
Pitanal, the lawyer, Andy, a fashionable doctor, Procope, another doctor (son of the Procope who owned the café frequented by the theatrical world), as well as Voltaire's various little hangers-on, some of whom were to receive money for their pains. Money, indeed, was not to be spared. They were all, including Moussinot himself, to pretend to be members of Voltaire's outraged family. It was thought that this display of clannish solidarity would have a good effect on the magistrate. No wriggling out was to be allowed: ‘No ifs and ans, no buts, friendship must surmount all obstacles.'

Unfortunately, Thieriot was not guided by this sentiment. In vain did Voltaire write urging him not to listen to those who would advise him to drink a jolly glass of champagne and forget the rest. He should drink but he should also fulfil the sacred and interesting duties of friendship. The tears are pouring down Voltaire's cheeks as he writes: can Thieriot remain deaf to such an appeal? Thieriot remained not only deaf but dumb; after his one letter to Mme du Châtelet he took refuge in silence. Voltaire wrote to him on 2 January, 7, 9, 10 (undated), 15, 17. Mme du Châtelet wrote again. The Marquis wrote. ‘M. du Châtelet', said his wife, ‘has behaved like an angel.' Mme de Champbonin (who had suddenly become Voltaire's cousin) wrote a letter soaked in tears. At last, on 18 January a letter was received from ‘this soul of mud' but it did not give much satisfaction at Cirey. Thieriot said he was very sorry for Voltaire, he pitied him from the bottom of his
heart. He then went back, irrelevantly, to the old story of the lost, or stolen, copies of the
Henriade.
He answered none of Voltaire's questions, nor did he speak of the petition. He evidently did not intend to appear as a witness. Worst of all, they now learnt from another source that he was going to publish his own letter to Mme du Châtelet in Abbé Prévost's paper
Le Pour et Contre.
More rivers of mingled ink and tears flowed to Paris from Cirey. The good d'Argental managed to stop this publication which would, of course, have been compromising to Émilie. They were all far more furious now with Thieriot than with Desfontaines. His letter replying to M. du Châtelet was opened by Émilie who said that it was neither decent, nor intelligible, nor even in good French. They sent it back to Thieriot, telling him to correct it.

Meanwhile Voltaire was writing to everybody he knew to canvass support for his lawsuit. On the whole, his friends responded quite well. Frederick refused, it is true, to break with Thieriot who, he said, had done no more than his duty in sending
La Voltairomanie.
He particularly wished to see all attacks on Voltaire, otherwise how should he understand what was going on? But he instructed his father's Minister in Paris to do what he could for Voltaire. Mme de Champbonin and the Marquis du Châtelet went to Paris to pull strings. The powerful d'Argenson brothers weighed in on Voltaire's side, and so did various old legal friends of his father. Richelieu was at Toulouse, governing Languedoc, and therefore out of action, but he wrote denying a statement, in
La Voltairomanie,
to do with his first wife. Even poor Linant wrote, a pathetic little letter saying that Voltaire had always been like a father to him. Thieriot after many a talking-to from Mme de Champbonin and a letter from Frederick, and seeing, probably, that the wind was now blowing in Voltaire's direction, consented half-heartedly to give the required evidence. He said that he would have acted before if he had understood exactly what was expected of him. In spite of the way he had been treated, however, he would always be fond of his old friend, though he did not think much of his talent as a writer.

The end of this long and increasingly tedious affair might be described as a draw, rather in Voltaire's favour (April 1739). The
Abbé was obliged to sign a document stating that he regarded
La Voltairomanie
as a gross libel and that he would have considered himself dishonoured if he had had anything to do with it. Voltaire then disavowed
Le Préservatif.
His friends begged him to stop tormenting Desfontaines, and while of course he gave no such engagement, he did manage to ignore the Abbé thereafter. As for the Abbé himself, he went out of his way to write an eulogistic account, in
Observations,
of Mme du Châtelet's essay on fire. Both the opponents were exhausted by the great battle; a lasting peace ensued. As traitors so often are at the end of hostilities, Thieriot was forgiven. Voltaire said that everybody has a good angel and a bad; in his case one was d'Argental and the other Thieriot. But it is degrading to quarrel with old friends.

‘Perhaps we may look in upon the Cirey household at some future time; and – this editor hopes not,' says Thomas Carlyle. The present editor, however, cannot resist sending the reader on Mme de Grafigny's conducted tour; the reader bearing in mind that she alone is the guide and that there is no corroboration of the scenes which she is about to expose.

While the events described in the last chapter were tormenting the philosophers of Cirey, their guest remained in ignorance of what was going on. She had troubles of her own, including the worst troubles that can assail a middle-aged woman: no home and no money. She was forced to be a country-house parasite, living on a circle of good-natured friends. The type is well known, it has always existed and will, no doubt, continue to do so as long as there are country houses to harbour it. The parasite sits by the fire in winter, under the cedar tree in summer, ready to perform little jobs for her hosts; she knows every detail of the household, all about the servants, the dogs, the children, the neighbours. It is her special function to be agreeable to whichever member of the family is providing a problem: neglected wife, betrayed husband, cross old uncle, slightly idiotic son. She thus relieves the guilt-feelings of the others and makes everything go more swimmingly. She never has to be entertained; she writes innumerable letters. Her technique has improved since Mme de Grafigny's day and it would be interesting to see one of our modern experts coping with the situation that faced her at Cirey.