Voltaire in Love (15 page)

Madame de Grafigny was now about forty-four, the same age
as Voltaire, whom she had met at Lunéville when the last Duke of Lorraine was ruling there. Since then the Duke had gone to Vienna, to marry Maria-Theresa, the Austrian heiress. Under the Treaty of Vienna, 1738, Lorraine had been given to Stanislas Leczinski, ex-king of Poland and father-in-law of Louis XV, to compensate him for the loss of his own country. Lunéville was about a day's journey from Cirey; du Châtelet often went there, as he had interests in Lorraine. Voltaire and Émilie had not yet paid their court to Stanislas, though both of them had known Lunéville under the former reign and had many friends there. Mme de Grafigny's husband had been Chamberlain at that Court; he was a beastly madman, had nearly killed his wife more than once, and was now shut up. She had obtained a legal separation from him on grounds of cruelty, very unusual in those days. Mme de Richelieu asked Émilie to harbour her for a while, until the Richelieus came back from Toulouse and could have her to live with them. Émilie did not want her in the least but she would have done anything to please this Duchess.

Voltaire and Émilie were divided on the subject of guests. He longed to have his friends to stay and, according to him, Cirey was on the way, wherever they were going. (He told Sir Edward Fawkener that it was on the way from Calais to Paris and once when d'Argenson was supposed to be going to Lisbon, Cirey was said to be on the way there.) But Mme du Châtelet, when she invited somebody, which was unusual, used to say quite firmly, ‘You must come for the sake of coming.' Indeed, situated in a remote corner of Champagne, Cirey is on the way nowhere. Émilie very much preferred, for the present, not to have anybody, unless of course it could be Maupertuis. The work on which she was engaged, an intensive study of the philosophy of Leibnitz, required concentration. Her thought was beginning to run counter to that of her lover, so unusual in a woman. He never accepted the ideas of Leibnitz and the two philosophers of Cirey agreed to differ on this subject. ‘One must love one's friends whatever side they take,' he said. Voltaire too was working hard at several different things, but he could do so in the midst of a pandemonium (Frederick used to say he had a hundred arms). Mme du Châtelet needed
quiet and calm. She had no desire to look after visitors; emotional upsets, which seemed, if anything, to stimulate Voltaire, were bad for her. Soon after Mme de Grafigny's arrival at Cirey the atmosphere became heavy with the emotion caused by
La Voltairomanie.
She could hardly have chosen a more unfortunate time to be there.

Mme de Grafigny had many friends at Lunéville, and they were agog to hear every detail of the goings-on at legendary Cirey. It was arranged that she should write her news to M. Devaux and that he would communicate it to the others. Devaux, who was never called anything but Pan-pan, or Panpichon, was the spoilt darling of all the Lunéville women. He was twenty-seven, had been destined by his family for the law, but when he grew up was observed to have a notable aversion to work, although fond of a little light reading. So his various friends at the Court asked King Stanislas to take him on as reader. The good King, who was by no means bookish, said very well, but that his functions would be those of Louis XV's confessor, in other words nil. Everybody liked Pan-pan, and Mme de Grafigny wrote to him as
tu,
then almost unheard of in France between an unrelated man and woman. On 4 December 1738 she went to Cirey from the house of another friend, Mme de Stainville, which she disloyally called
le château de l ‘ennui.
From now on every moment of every day was described in her famous letters to Pan-pan.

Cirey, Thursday, 4 December 1738. Pan-pan will jump for joy when he sees where this letter is dated. ‘Ah! Mon Dieu, she is at Cirey! But how ever did she get there?' Well, she borrowed horses from a fellow guest and left
le château de l'ennui
before daylight. The day which dawned was perfect, more like June than December except that there was no dust on the roads; she was in a state of euphoria. At Joinville her friend's coachman refused to go on, and she got into a public conveyance which set her down, on a deserted road, two hours after dark. She and Dubois, her maid, trembling with terror, had to feel their way up a mountain; they arrived at Cirey more dead than alive. Mme du Châtelet received her guest kindly and took her to her room, where presently Voltaire appeared, holding a little candle, like a monk. He gave Mme de Grafigny a tremendous welcome and thousands of caresses, he kissed her hand
ten times. He asked her news, and took an interest in her replies which touched her to the heart. He spoke of Pan-pan for at least a quarter of an hour before asking about his other friends at Lunéville. Then he left her so that she could dress for supper, which she did, and now here she is, waiting for the bell to ring. She takes up her pen once more. She had said that Mme du Châtelet received her kindly. Yes. But that was all. She wears a printed cotton dress and a huge black taffeta apron, her long black hair is tied to the top of her head, falling in ringlets like a little girl's; this suits her perfectly. She talks like an angel. As for Voltaire, he is dressed and powdered exactly as he would be in Paris. M. du Châtelet is there, but leaving the next day for Brussels so then there will be the three of them. They had already confided in each other that this will not make them cry. Still no bell. Pan-pan's letters are a great joy, he must be sure to go on writing. She misses them all at Lunéville dreadfully. ‘So, good night, dearest friend.'

Next day.
Heavens, where to begin! The best plan will be to tell everything that happens, not day by day but hour by hour. So she wrote until supper-time last night, when they came to fetch her and took her to Voltaire's part of the house. No time to look round, they sat down to supper at once. What an enchantment! Delicious food, not too much of it, and so well served – beautiful silver on the table. As Voltaire's study is not ready yet there were globes and various scientific instruments lying about. Impossible to do justice to the conversation which was sparkling in the extreme; it ranged over poetry, science, and art and was full of jokes. Voltaire was on her right, so learned, so polite, and so sweet; the host on her left, rather dull, but he hardly spoke and went away long before the end of the meal. They were talking of books when somebody mentioned Jean-Baptiste Rousseau upon which Voltaire became less of a hero and more of a human being. It is forbidden to praise Rousseau here. The dame [Mme du Châtelet] says she can't bear odes and the idol [Voltaire] can't understand how any civilized person can read such sad stuff. Then they talked about Abbé Desfontaines's paper,
Observations.
Mme de Grafigny asked if they took it in? Indeed they did, and all of a sudden there was a perfect stream of invective against it. Voltaire pressed into her hands a
pamphlet called
Le Préservatif contre les Observations,
written, so he said, by a friend of his. She will send a copy to Pan-pan.

At last they all went to bed and goodness gracious how she slept! She only woke up at twelve, so stiff from yesterday's climb that she could hardly move. The dame visited her in the morning, rather nicer to her than before. Mme du Grafigny has read
Le Préservatif
in order to be able to say so and Voltaire has sent up a copy of Newton to her room. Well, it seems they don't dine in this house, so she read Newton all day in order to have something to talk about at supper. She didn't do too badly, she understood quite a lot. While she was struggling away with it, she had a visitor in the shape of Mme du Champbonin, a country neighbour of the du Châtelets who spends most of her time at Cirey. She is exactly like the short fat woman in Marivaux's
Paysan parvenu,
but really rather a dear; she positively worships Voltaire. Poor woman, they do lead her a dance, they shut her up in her room and make her read all the books in the house, and she is none the wiser for it. She didn't stay long. Then Voltaire came but Mme de Grafigny chased him away as her room is chilly and he has a dreadful cold. Fancy chasing Voltaire! After that the host appeared and bored her for two hours until Voltaire rescued her by sending for her to go and see him. She didn't have to be asked twice!

Voltaire's wing of the house is at the bottom of the main staircase. You go through a tiny antechamber to his bedroom which is small and low and hung with crushed velvet in the winter. Not much tapestry but gilded panelling with pictures set in it; the furniture is chinoiserie. The looking-glasses, lacquer corner-cupboards, china, a clock supported by marabouts, and many, many other valuable things are all in that taste. There is a ring holder with twelve rings of engraved stones and two of diamonds. Everything so clean you could kiss the parquet. A gallery thirty or forty feet long leads out of this room. It has three windows and between them are two very exquisite little statues on lacquer bases; one is the Farnese Venus and the other Hercules. Two cupboards, for books and scientific instruments, have a stove between them which heats the gallery so that it feels like springtime – this will eventually be hidden by a statue of Cupid. The panelling is yellow lacquer, there
is a quantity of furniture, clocks, etc., nothing missing unless it be a comfortable chair to sit on. Bodily comfort doesn't seem necessary to Voltaire.

Supper was rather disappointing. There was a tedious fellow called Trichâteau, of whom M. du Châtelet has expectations (he is a cousin) and one had to talk to him. However, she had a little chat with Voltaire afterwards; he spoke of Pan-pan, and said he really ought to do something with his life. ‘His father should turn him out, as mine did.' Saint-Lambert,
*
however, has talent. By the way, Saint-Lambert gave her a message for Voltaire which she has forgotten; can Pan-pan find out what it was?

That was her day, yesterday. This morning she came down at eleven for coffee which they drank in the gallery. Voltaire was in a dressing-gown, his cold is really awful. Then the dame took Mme de Grafigny to see her own rooms. Voltaire's are simply nothing at all compared with these. Her bedroom is panelled in yellow and blue, the alcove for the bed lined with Indian paper, the bed covered with blue moiré – everything, even the dog's basket, is to match. The looking glasses have silver frames, beautifully cleaned. A big glass door, decorated like a snuff-box, leads to the library which is not yet finished, it will have pictures by Paul Veronese. Beside the alcove there is a tiny boudoir; one could fall on one's knees it is so pretty, panelled in blue with a ceiling by a pupil of Martin who has been working here for the last three years. Each panel has a picture by Watteau. There is a chimney-piece with brackets by Martin, which have pretty little things on them, and an amber ink-stand sent with some verses by the Prince of Prussia. A big armchair and two footstools to match are all upholstered in white taffeta. This divine boudoir has one window leading on to a terrace with an admirable view. The other side of the bed there is a dressing-room paved with marble, panelled in grey wood and hung with delightful prints. Everything is in perfect taste, including the curtains which are embroidered muslin. When they had seen it all, Mme du Châtelet kept her guest in her bedroom and expounded the details of a lawsuit in which her husband's family had been
involved for the last eighty years. Strange to say she was not boring about it, although she went on for an hour and a half; she spoke so well that it was impossible not to be fascinated. She also showed Mme de Grafigny her jewels which are more beautiful than Mme de Richelieu's. Funny thing, when she was at Craon in the old days she didn't possess so much as a tortoise-shell snuff-box. Now she has at least twenty, some of gold with precious stones and some in the new fashion of enamel on gold which is so expensive, as well as jasper and diamond watches, jewelled
étuis,
rings with rare stones, in fact no end of trinkets. Mme de Grafigny was amazed, for the du Châtelets had never been rich.

The post has arrived – no letter for Mme de Grafigny, how sad. Back in her own room, she will describe that. Well, it is absolutely vast and very dark with one draughty little illfitting window which looks on to an arid mountain you could touch by putting out your hand, it is so near. [Quite untrue, there is no such mountain at Cirey.] The tapestry is covered with large ugly people whom she cannot place at all. The bed is upholstered with bits of stuff quite nice in themselves but which don't match so the effect is hideous. The fireplace is tiny and so deep that you could burn a forest there without raising the temperature of the room. The furniture consists of old-fashioned chairs and a chest of drawers; beside her bed is the only table. She hates this horrid room, really her maid's is better, though that has no outside window at all. Except in the part of the house inhabited by Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet, everything is disgustingly squalid and that's the truth.

Now that Pan-pan knows what the house is like they will talk about people. It seems the Prince of Prussia sent an embassy here to bring his portrait and to take away the
Siècle de Louis XIV
. He must be a handsome prince, not unlike M. de Richelieu. Voltaire spends his time looking out books for Mme de Grafigny to read – manuscripts, too. What a pity she can't copy them and send them to her Panpichon. By the way, Pan-pan must be careful how he repeats the things she tells him as it would never do for her to get into a scrape with these people. Could he be a dear and go to La Tour for her, get some of that yellow mouth-wash which is so good for the horrid little things that come in her mouth and send
it to Cirey ? But La Tour mustn't know it's for her, because she owes him money. Goodnight, goodnight – she is off to supper, to stoke up for the morrow.

The letters become more and more enthusiastic, quite incoherent in fact. Voltaire told funny stories, oh how she pities Pan-pan for not being here, really they burst their sides with laughing. Then he read out Algarotti's book,
Newtonianismo per le dame,
which has just been translated. Only imagine, there was something about physics being like a town with fields round it; nobody could help shrieking, though Algarotti is a friend here. Mme de Grafigny is reading
Louis XIV
now – there's an account of the Fronde which is simply divine. But the dame won't let Voltaire finish it, she keeps it under lock and key and forces him to do geometry. She herself is strangely ignorant of history. They have their tiffs like everybody else. This evening she had gone to bed, they were sitting in her bedroom and she told Voltaire to go and change his coat. It's not a pretty coat, certainly, but he had beautiful lace and was well powdered. He refused to change it, saying he would catch cold. She went on nagging until he spoke very sharply in English and left the room. She sent after him but no, he was sulking. Then a neighbour arrived and Mme de Grafigny went to find Voltaire who was chatting to the fat lady, as merry as could be. The dame presently sent word to say they were all to come back, but as soon as he saw her Voltaire turned sulky again. Finally they had it out in English and everything was all right after that. This was the first sign that they were lovers because as a rule they behaved with great circumspection together, though the dame leads him rather a dance. By the way, Panpichon can write as often as he likes because the incoming letters are all paid for, is that not gallant? She only wishes it were the same for the ones that go out – oh well!