It is impossible to commence the biography of this extraordinary man without feelings of apprehension as to our power of well executing the task. To write the life of Voltaire in a full and satisfactory manner, is to write not only the biography of an individual author, and the history of French literature during the course of nearly a century, but also of a revolution in the minds of men, in their opinions and rules of action, which, if not brought about entirely by him, was fostered and supported by his influence, in a manner the most singular and powerful. We are apt, as we read his letters, to laugh at the petulance which he evinced when attacked, and to reprove the vehemence with which he attacked others in return. But when we consider that an absolute monarch and a powerful hierarchy supported opinions which he and his friends struggled to subvert, we feel that it required all his dogmatic spirit, all his bitterness of sarcasm and vehemence of temper, to combat opposition, and to support both his own courage and that of his followers, in his attempt.
Voltaire has been called the Apostle of Infidelity. He denied the truths of revealed religion—he desired to subvert Christianity. He disbelieved its divine origin; he was blind to the excellence of its morality—insensible to its sublime tenets. It is easy to make his life one diatribe against the wickedness and folly of such principles and intentions—to intersperse the pages that compose his history with various epithets of condemnation of a man so lost to the knowledge of truth. But we do not intend to do this. We consider that Voltaire had many excuses, and he had also his uses. We do not mean, on the other hand, to write an elaborate defence of a system that cannot be defended; but we will mention the heads of those topics which we consider available for his justification to a certain limited extent.
In the first place, Catholicism is not Christianity. Voltaire's great war was against the church of Rome, and more particularly against the Gallican church, which was one of great persecution, bigotry, and misused power. We turn to the pages that record the history of his country, during the years that immediately preceded him, and of his own age, and we find them stained with brawls and cruelties, excited and exercised by the priesthood. The quarrels of the violinists, the Jansenists, the Quietists, and the disgraceful exhibitions of the convulsionaries, absorbed so much of the talent, and perverted so much the uprightness and charity, of men of first-rate genius, that we turn with pity and loathing from the history of the misuse of one of the best gifts of God. Voltaire had it deeply at heart to put an end to these discussions—to prevent such men as Bossuet and Fénélon from expending their vast talents on unworthy squabbles, and to prevent such men as Pascal and Racine from sacrificing their talents at the altars of superstition. He wished to redeem such of his countrymen as were slaves to the priests, from the miseries of bigotry and ignorance; and he most ardently desired to liberate those, whose piety was enlightened, frompersecution at the hands of bigots. The cruelties exercised on the Huguenots raised a tumult of generous indignation in his benevolent heart; the insolence and barbarity with which the French priesthood endeavoured to quell all rebellion to their authority roused his anger and pointed his sarcasms. Liberty for the soul was the aim of his endeavours. It was a noble and a useful one.
He went too far. There are two classes of minds among men of education. Those who live for the affections—for the elegances of literature—for moral and intellectual purposes; who are virtuous and enlightened, but devoid of enthusiasm for truth or the dissemination of opinion. There is another class, to whom what they consider truth is the great all in all. It is vain to talk to them of a falsehood or mistake that has its good uses; they consider truth, that most glorious attribute of God, as the best of all things—the reformer of abuses—the sustainer of the unfortunate—the advancer of human excellence—the rock in which we ought to put our trust. To them, truth, or what they consider truth, is light; falsehood, darkness. Such a mind was Voltaire. He did not distinguish the truths of the Gospel from the multifarious, sometimes ridiculous, but always pernicious, impostures of papacy. He read of, and his heart revolted from, the series of intolerable evils brought upon the world by the Roman Catholic religion; he forgot the civilisation produced by the Gospel, and even the uses of the system of the church of Rome during days of feudal barbarism: he saw only the evil, and visited the whole with his reprobation, his ridicule, his unflinching and unwearied opposition. He fell into great and mischievous mistakes. As is often the case, he destroyed, but he could not construct. France owed to his mighty labours and powerful influence a great and swift advance in civilisation, and enfranchisement from political and priestly thraldom. But he went beyond the useful and right in his struggle; and, not contented with warring against superstition, made inroads into theblessed fields of rational piety. This must be admitted and censured. Let some among us rise to drive him back and barricade him from his invasion on revealed religion; but let us do this without, rancour or scurrility, feeling grateful at the same time for the good he did achieve, and acknowledging our esteem for his motives and abilities. Let us, above all, in writing his life, show ourselves just and impartial. From the limited nature of this work, we can only present the reader with a sketch of his labours and their effects; it is our earnest desire that this sketch should be one drawn from undoubted sources, and prove itself to the minds of all, a fair, exact, and impartial account of so great a man.
François-Marie Arouet was born at Chatenay, 20th of February, 1694. His enemies, in after life, displayed their spite by promulgating that his father was a peasant—an assertion without foundation. His father was a notary by profession, and filled the situation of treasurer of the chamber of accounts; a lucrative place, which he occupied with such integrity as to save but a small fortune, where others amassed great riches. His mother was named Marguerite d'Aumont, of a noble family of Poitou. The child was so feeble at the time of his birth that he was not expected to survive; he was hastily baptized in the house, nor considered sufficiently strong to be carried to church until he was nine months old, when he was baptized over again by the parish curate, from whom his age was concealed. Condorcet, in his life, remarks the singularity that two illustrious men of letters of that day, Voltaire and Fontenelle, were both born so feeble as not to be expected to survive, and yet lived to extreme age. He might have added the more curious instance of their contemporary, the marshal de Richelieu, a six months' child, fostered in cotton and reared artificially, who enjoyed strong and robust health, and lived till a still more advanced age.
The child was quick and sprightly; he had an elder brother, who was dulland sombre. The elder, in progress of time, became a Jansenist, a convulsionary, and a bigot; the germ of his tendency to superstition existed even in childhood; and the brothers disputed, in prose and verse, to the amusement of the family. The abbé de Chateauneuf, godfather to François-Marie, took pleasure in educating him, and taught him some of La Fontaine's fables. The boy got hold also of a deistical ode, attributed to J. B. Rousseau, called the "Mosaide," a poem, which said—
"Les hommes vains et fanatiquesReçoivent, sans difficulté,Les fables les plus chimériques;Un petit mot d'éternitéLes rend bénins et pacifiques;Et l'on réduit ainsi le peuple hébétéA baiser les liens dont il est garrotté."
"Les hommes vains et fanatiquesReçoivent, sans difficulté,Les fables les plus chimériques;Un petit mot d'éternitéLes rend bénins et pacifiques;Et l'on réduit ainsi le peuple hébétéA baiser les liens dont il est garrotté."
This was a singular production to put into a child's hand: it was more singular that a child should enter into its meaning. François-Marie quoted it against his brother in argument, and his father, frightened at the premature wit and freedom of speech his son betrayed, hastened to send him to school.
Sidenote: 1704.Ætat.10.
He entered the college of Louis-le-Grand, of which the Jesuits were the preceptors. Here the boy learned, not to take part with the Jesuits, but to despise the Jansenists, against whom, as an author, he showed himself hostile. The talents of the child rendered him a favourite with the greater number of his masters; father Porée, professor of rhetoric, saw the germ of remarkable talents, which he took great pleasure in developing; and, in after life, Voltaire always expressed gratitude for his master's encouragement and kindness. Encouragement of a far different and of a pernicious sort he received from another professor, father le Jay, who entered into arguments with his pupil; was irritated by his wit and sophistry; and on one occasion, angrily exclaimed that he would become the "Choryphæus of Deism,"—a prophecy which this very denunciation helped probably to fulfil. On all sides, the boy found admiration for his premature genius. His godfather introduced him toNinon de L'Enclos, then advanced in years, but still full of that warmth of intellect and feeling that distinguished her whole career. She perceived and appreciated the child's genius, and no doubt her kindness and conversation tended to open his mind and refine his wit at a very early age. When she died, Ninon left him a legacy to buy books.
On leaving college the abbé de Chateauneuf introduced his godson into Parisian society. There had been a time when Louis XIV. assembled the most distinguished men of the kingdom at his court, and wit and refinement were almost confined to the circles of Versailles. In his old age, under the tutelage of madame de Maintenon and his confessors, Louis disregarded every merit but that of piety which bore the Molinist stamp. Catinat was disgraced, notwithstanding his virtues and military talents, because he was suspected of freethinking; the duke de Vendôme was reproached bitterly for not going daily to mass: bigotry, hypocrisy, and dulness reigned at Versailles. But the king was old, and could no longer make his will the fashion of the day. Unfortunately, bigotry and hypocrisy are apt to beget their opposites. The society of Paris, throwing off the yoke of royal intolerance, gave itself up to pleasure and licence. The young Arouet was introduced to the circles whose members enjoyed pre-eminence for birth and talent; he became a favourite; he wrote verses; he meditated a tragedy: his whole heart was devoted to becoming a poet and man of letters. When, on occasion of the dispute between Jean Baptiste Rousseau and Saurin, the former was banished, the young Arouet took the part of the victim, and exerted himself to make a subscription in his favour. He was now known and admired by all the first people of Paris, though he failed when he wished to bring out a tragedy on the stage, and to be crowned by the academy. The actors rejected his play; the academicians preferred another poet. The disappointed youth revenged himself by writing a satire against his rival.
M. Arouet was deeply pained by the course his son was taking; he considered the career of a literary man that of disgrace and ruin. He proposed to him to accept the office of counsellor to parliament; his son replied, that he would not buy, but earn, distinction. His attempt with the academy, and the literary quarrels that ensued, raised his father's inquietudes to the greatest height; he threatened his son with various marks of his severity, and the quarrel was becoming critical, when the marquis de Chateauneuf, ambassador to Holland, offered to take him with him to that country in the quality of page. His father readily consented to a plan which removed him from a scene where his literary ambition was excited by rivalship, and fostered by admiration.
1714.Ætat.20.
It is, as it appears to us, a most interesting task to inquire into the early days of such a man as Voltaire; to find the exterior circumstances that influenced his mind, and the passions that were excited in his unformed character. The atmosphere of wit and gaiety which Voltaire carried with him wherever he went made him a favourite; and this favour again imparted zest to his desire for literary advancement. His father's opposition produced a thousand struggles in his mind, that tended, in the end, to give force to his inclinations: he became eager to exonerate himself, and to elevate the profession which he wished to adopt; and this gave dignity to his endeavours. Now, torn from his partial friends, and thrown on a new scene, his mind was yet further excited to gain strength. His curiosity, as to the manners and peculiarities of a strange country, was insatiable: he carried everywhere his keen observing spirit; and his early travels out of France tended to enlarge his understanding, and shake his prejudices.
Youthful passion intruded to disturb his residence in Holland. Madame du Noyer was born a Protestant; she abjured her religion when she married; and then, desirous of separating from her husband, she made religion the pretext, and fled to Holland with her two daughters. She resided at theHague, where she subsisted on a sort of traffic of libels. Fear of the Bastille, and the laws against the freedom of the press, restrained the busy Parisians from publishing the vast quantity of libels, epigrams, and satires, which were continually being manufactured in that metropolis: these made their way to Holland; and the collecting of such, and publishing them, became a sort of trade,—infamous indeed, but lucrative. Madame du Noyer was at once notorious and enriched, by being pre-eminent in the traffic. One of her daughters was married; with the other—a gentle, amiable girl—Voltaire fell in love. He wished to save her out of the hands of such a mother. Madame du Noyer discovered the intercourse, and complained to the ambassador, who put his page under arrest, and sent an account of his son's attachment to the father. Young Arouet meanwhile carried on his intercourse with the young lady by stealth, and was again denounced to the marquis by madame du Noyer; he, seeing himself in danger of being compromised by the malice of a woman whose great desire was to create scandal, and by the perseverance of his page, sent him back to Paris. His father, knowing the vehement and resolute disposition of his son, was prepared to prevent the continuance of his love affair by the severest measures: he obtained an order that permitted him either to imprison or to transport him to the isles. The poor lawyer, whose career had been one of routine and respectability, was rendered equally miserable by both his sons; the elder having immersed himself in the Jansenist quarrels: and the old man declared that he had two fools for children, one in prose, and the other in verse.
On his return to Paris the young Arouet had two objects chiefly at his heart;—to take his mistress out of the hands of her infamous mother, and to reconcile himself to his father. For the sake of the first, he did not scruple to apply to the Jesuits, and to employ religion as the pretext. He applied also to M. du Noyer: he interested the court in theconversion. It was agreed that mademoiselle du Noyer should be carried off, and brought to the convent of New Converts in Paris; but the marquis de Chateauneuf opposed himself to so violent a proceeding, and the plan fell to the ground. In the sequel, the young lady married the baron de Winterfeld, and always preserved a great esteem and friendship for her early friend.
The young man was not less earnest to be reconciled to his father. He was carried away by innate genius to cultivate literature; but his heart was good, and he revolted from the idea of living at variance with his parent. He wrote a pathetic letter to him, declaring that he was ready to emigrate to America, and to live on bread and water, if only, before he went, he were forgiven. M. Arouet was touched by this mark of submission; and, on receiving the further one of his son's consent to attend the office of a procureur, or attorney, he was reconciled to him.
The young poet became the pupil of M. Alain, an attorney, residing in a dark, obscure quarter of Paris. Disagreeable as this change was, it had its advantages; it strengthened his habits of industry, and it taught him a knowledge of business. Voltaire became in after life a rich man, through his excellent management of his affairs: a legal education was the foundation of his prosperity. He lightened his labours, also, by forming a friendship with another pupil. Thiriot had not his friend's talents, but he shared in his youth his enthusiasm for literature: an intimacy was formed which lasted Thiriot's life. In spite of various acts of faithlessness on the part of the latter, Voltaire remained, to the end, constant to his early friend: However, the business of procureur became intolerable. He still frequented the society of Paris. He had become deeply in love with madame de Villars: he afterwards averred that this was the only passion he had ever felt that was stronger than his love of study, and caused him to lose time. Its ill success made him conquer it; but the society into which he was drawnrendered him still more averse to his legal studies. He implored his father to permit him to quit them; the old man asked him what other profession he would adopt: to this the son could not reply.
He had a friend, M. de Caumartin, who was also acquainted with the father, and asked permission that François-Marie should visit him at his chateau of St. Ange, where he could deliberate at leisure on his future course, and where he would be separated from the connections deemed so dangerous. At St. Ange the young poet found a library; and, plunging into study, became more than ever eager for the acquisition of knowledge. The father of his host was a man of great age; he had been familiar with the nobles of the days of Henri IV., and with the friends of Sully: his enthusiasm for those times and men was warm and eloquent. Voltaire listened to his anecdotes and eulogies with deep interest; and began, without yet forming a plan, to write verses in their honour.
The last years of the reign of Louis XIV. had been disastrous, through unfortunate wars and pernicious policy. Adversity in various forms visited the old age of that illustrious monarch. The generation immediately succeeding to him, brought up in his days of glory and power, died off; of the young race that remained, its hope and flower, the duke of Burgundy, died; he lost another of his grandsons also by death, and the third was removed to the throne of Spain. The successor to his crown was an infant only five years of age; the successor to his power was a prince whose dissolute character inspired the devout with hatred, and the thoughtful with sorrow and distrust.1715.Ætat.21.It was a moment full of eager interest, when Louis died; the cord that held the faggot snapped; and it became doubtful by whom, and in what way, it would again be gathered together. The pupil of Dubois became regent; the kingdom rang with his intrigues, his debaucheries, and the misconduct of his children. But the duke of Orléans, perverted as he was as a moral character, was a man of talent, and an enlightened ruler. Hemaintained peace: and though the kingdom was convulsed during his regency by the system of Law, yet its general prosperity was increased; showing, however speculative and wild a people may be in their financial schemes, yet, as long as they are preserved from war, no event can materially injure their prosperity. The regent was, to a certain degree, king Log, with this exception,—that his libertinism offered a pernicious example, which plunged Parisian society in immorality, while his toleration gave encouragement to those men of talent whose aim was to disseminate knowledge and liberal opinions.
On the death of Louis XIV., young Arouet left St. Ange, and came up to Paris to witness the effects of the change. He found the people in a delirium of joy; they celebrated the death of their sovereign by getting drunk with delight, and by manifesting their detestation of the Jesuits, who had so long tyrannised over them. Paris became inundated with satires and epigrams: the French, as in the days of the Fronde, were apt to signalise their aversions in witty and libellous verses. Voltaire was accused of writing a piece of this kind; it was entitled "Les J'ai vu," in which the author enumerates all the abuses and evils he had witnessed, and concludes by saying,—
J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans.
J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans.
1716.Ætat.22.
Voltaire was two and twenty, but the difference was slight, and the verses were clever; he was accused of being their author, and thrown into the Bastille. The solicitations of his powerful friends were of no avail to liberate him. His father saw with grief the melancholy accomplishment of all his prognostics, and failed in his efforts to obtain his release. It was not till the true author of the verses, touched by remorse, confessed to having written them, that Voltaire was set free.
He passed a whole year in his prison without society or books, or ink and paper. We find no mention in his works or letters of the extremesufferings which solitary and unemployed confinement must have inflicted on a man as vivacious, sensitive, and restless—delicate in health, and vehement in temper—as Voltaire, except in the deep terror with which he regarded the possibility of a second imprisonment. Thrown back on the stores of his own mind, his latest impressions were those of the conversations at St. Ange with the elder Caumartin, and the enthusiasm excited for Henri IV. and his contemporaries. The idea of an epic on this subject suggested itself. It flattered his honest pride to raise a monument of glory to the French nation in the form of a national poem, while he was the victim of the government; his literary vanity was enticed by the idea of sending his name down to posterity as the author of a French epic, a work hitherto unattempted in verse. He composed the first two cantos in his dungeon, in his mind, committing them memory; and it was his boast that, in all his subsequent improvements, he never changed a word in the second canto. He was prouder, in after life, of being the author of the "Henriade" than of any other production. His contemporaries regarded it with admiration; even our own countryman, lord Chesterfield, declares it the best epic in any language, simply because, according to the reasons he gives, it is the most devoid of imagination.
Epic poetry, in its essence, is the greatest achievement of the human intellect. It takes a subject of universal interest; it exalts it by solemn and sacred sentiments, and adorns it with sublime and beautiful imagery, thus lifting it above humanity into something divine. While the mind of man enjoys the attribute of being able to tincture its earthly ideas with the glory of something greater than itself in its every day guise, which it can only seize by snatches, and embody through the exertion of a power granted only to the favoured few, whom we name great poets,—and while it can exercise this power in giving grandeur to a narration of lofty and sublime incidents,—while this can be done bysome, and appreciated by many, an epic must continue to rank as the crowning glory of literature. We find nothing of all this in the "Henriade." The very elevation of the sentiments is rendered commonplace by Voltaire's inability to mould language to his thoughts. During the whole poem he suffered language to be the shaper of his ideas—not the material which he forced to take a shape. In his letters, he quotes Fénélon's just opinion, that the French language might be adapted to lyrical poetry, but not to epic. He fancies that he disproves this assertion in the "Henriade;" while, in fact, he gives it entire support.[1]The second canto is the favourite of many French critics. They consider the account Henri IV. gives queen Elizabeth of the civil struggles of France a masterpiece. It consists of a rapid and forcible view of that disastrous period. But it contains no poetry. Voltaire's imagination was fertile, versatile, and gay; in some of his tragedies, he even rose to the passionate and energetic; but it wanted elevation—it wanted the fairy hue—the sublime transfusion of the material into the immaterial. It wanted, above all, a knowledge and love of nature. There is not a word in the "Henriade" descriptive of scenery, or storm, or calm, or night, or day, that is not commonplace, imitative, and without real imagery. Of imagery, indeed, he has no notion. Besides this, he always acted by his own verses as by those of others, and corrected them into tameness. In a word, the "Henriade" has no pretensions to success as an epic poem, and is, in whatever view we take of it, dull and tiresome. Even in his days it had not enjoyed the reputation it reached but for his admirable powers of reciting, by which he fascinated the circles of Paris, and the peculiar circumstances thatrendered every other opinion in France an echo of those circles.[2]There is an amusing anecdote told, which shows, however, that the charm of his reading did not always suffice to gain unqualified approbation. One day so many petty criticisms were flung at him, that, irritated to the utmost, he exclaimed, "Then it is only fit to be burnt!" and threw the poem into the fire. The president Hainaut sprang forward, and saved it, saying, as he gave it back to the author, "You must not think that your poem is better than its hero. Yet, notwithstanding his faults, he was a great king, and the best of men." "Remember," the president afterwards wrote, "that it cost me a pair of lace ruffles to save it from the fire."
The chief interest of the poem lies in the era of its conception, and in the fact that its composition alienated the horrors of his dungeon. At last he was set free. The duke of Orléans being informed of his innocence, he was liberated. The regent compensated for the mistake by a present of money. Voltaire, on thanking the regent, said, "I thank your royal highness for continuing to support me, but I entreat you not to burden yourself again with finding me a lodging." The genius and wit,however, of Voltaire, continued to expose him to calumny and danger. He was suspected of having written the "Philippiques," a clever, but most atrocious libel against the regent and his family. His frequent visits at Sceaux, the palace of the duchess de Maine, and his intimacy with Goerts, caused his name to be mingled in the intrigues which cardinal Alberoni excited in France. The regent, however, refused to credit his enemies, and limited his displeasure to an intimation that he had better absent himself from Paris for a time. Voltaire spent several months in going from one friend's chateau to another, being sedulously occupied, meanwhile, by the "Henriade" and other literary projects. The most important in his eyes was his tragedy of "Œdipus."1718.Ætat.24.This piece, commenced at eighteen, altered and altered again, was at last brought out, and had the greatest success. This was not solely caused by its intrinsic merit. The reputation of the author, its being his first tragedy, and the discussions to which it gave rise with regard to the ancient and modern theatre, imparted a factitious interest; it was attacked and defended on all sides, and pamphlets were daily published and hawked about on the subject. To these legitimate sources of interest were added the unworthy one of the calumnies in vogue against the duke of Orléans, which made the odious subject of the tragedy peculiarly piquante.[3]
Voltaire wrote several letters on the treatment of his subject. His critique on the tragedies of Sophocles gives us, at once, the measure of his taste and learning: nothing can be more contemptible than either. The Frenchsoi-disantpoet was utterly incapable of entering into the solemn spirit of the Athenian tragedian, and still less could he comprehend his sublime poetry, being even ignorant of the language inwhich it was written. The "Œdipus Tyrannus" of Sophocles is admirable as a work of art, and more admirable from a certain majesty that sustains the subject and characters to the end, and from the solemn, magnificent beauty of the choruses. All this was a dead letter to the sprightly Parisian, who admits that had Sophocles lived in his days, he had written better, but had never approached the greatness of Racine.
The life of Voltaire was an alternation of pleasure and literary labour, which would have been infinitely delightful but for that system of caballing which existed in French society, more especially among authors. Voltaire had to struggle with the envious and the presumptuous. His method of warfare was bold; it was that of attack rather than of defence. He was unsparing towards his enemies, and this perpetuated hostilities that robbed him of peace and leisure. Add to this, his labours were often interrupted by bodily suffering; for, though his constitution was strong, he was afflicted by a painful disease. Still pleasure waited on his moments of ease and leisure. Sometimes he resided in Paris, but much of his time was spent in visiting, by turns, the chateaus of the chief nobility; private theatricals, in which his own plays were got up with care and splendour, were principal amusements at these country residences. While at Maisons, a chateau belonging to the president des Maisons, he was seized with the small-pox, on the very eve of a festival, during which a comedy was to be acted, and he, himself, was to read his tragedy of "Mariamne;" he was attended by Gervasi, who treated him in the, then, novel manner, of letting blood and lowering remedies, by means of which he recovered. His friend Thiriot came up from Normandy, and waited on him with anxious solicitude. When he recovered, "Mariamne" was brought out; it went through forty representations, though it nearly fell on the first, through the levity of a Parisian audience. When, in the fifth act, Mariamne put the cup of poison to her lips, a man in the pit called out, "La Reine boit!" On thesucceeding night the mode of her death was changed. Restless, and on the alert for the ridiculous, the danger of saying anything that suggested a ludicrous or familiar idea continually hampered a French tragedian; yet, with all his vanity and eagerness for success, Voltaire's lively spirits made him sometimes jest with peril. When "Œdipus" was acted, he went on the stage himself, holding up the train of the high priest, and played such antics that the maréchal de Villars asked who the young man was who was desirous of getting the piece condemned. This very liveliness was, however, a great cause of his universal success. The Parisians, and especially the nobility, desired to be amused, and no man was ever born so fitted to afford excitement to the circles of the rich and gay, as the vain, witty, restless, eager poet, who made a jest of everything, yet rendered all instinct with the interest imparted by his good heart and versatile talents.
His quarrel with Jean Baptiste Rousseau is characteristic. He visited Holland in 1722 with madame Rupelmonde. When passing through Brussels, he sought out the poet whom he had befriended in his need, and whose talents he admired. They met with delight. Voltaire called him his master and judge; he placed his "Henriade" in his hand, and read him various of his epistles. All went smilingly for a short time. Rousseau read some of his poetry in return. Voltaire did not approve. Rousseau was piqued. Various sarcasms were interchanged. Rousseau had composed an "Ode to Posterity." Voltaire told him that it would never reach its address. A violent quarrel ensued, and Rousseau became his bitter enemy.
A more serious dissension interrupted the routine of his life. One day, dining at the table of the duke de Sully, one of his warmest friends, he was treated impertinently by the chevalier de Rohan, a man of high birth, but disreputable character. The chevalier asked. Who he was? Voltaire replied that he did not inherit a great name, but would neverdishonour that which he bore. The chevalier angrily left the room, and took his revenge by causing him to be seized and struck with a cane by his servants. Such were the prejudices then existent in the minds of the French noblesse, that though the duke de Sully esteemed and even loved Voltaire, and held the chevalier de Rohan in contempt, yet the bourgeois birth of the former, and noble blood of the latter, caused him to show himself perfectly indifferent to the insult. Voltaire resolved to avenge himself. He secluded himself from all society, and practised fencing carefully. As soon as he considered himself a match for his enemy, he sought him out at the opera, and demanded satisfaction. The chevalier appointed time and place for a duel, and then acquainted his family. The consequence was, the instant arrest of his antagonist, and his imprisonment for six months in the Bastille; to which was added the further injustice of an order of exile after his liberation from prison.
1728.Ætat.34.
Voltaire took this opportunity to visit England. He had been acquainted with lord and lady Bolingbroke in France. He appreciated the talents of the illustrious Englishman, admired his various knowledge, and was fascinated by the charms of his conversation. Although he never appears to have at all understood the real foundations of English liberty, yet he appreciated its effects, especially at a moment when he was suffering so grievously from an act of despotism. Liberty of thought was in his eyes a blessing superior to every other. He read the works of Locke with enthusiasm; and while he lamented that such disquisitions were not tolerated in France, he became eager to impart to his countrymen the new range of ideas he acquired from the perusal. The discoveries of Newton also attracted his attention. He exchanged the frivolities of Paris for serious philosophy. He became aware that freedom from prejudice and the acquirement of knowledge were not mere luxuries intended for the few,but a blessing for the many; to confer and extend which was the duty of the enlightened. From that moment he resolved to turn his chief endeavours to liberate his country from priestly thraldom and antique prejudices. He felt his powers; his industry was equal to his wit, and enabled him to use a vast variety of literary weapons. What his countrymen deemed poetry, the drama, history, philosophy, and all slighter compositions, animated by wit and fancy, were to be put in use by turns for this great end. He published his "Henriade" while in England. It was better received than it deserved; and the profits he gained were the foundation of his future opulence. He wrote the tragedy of "Brutus," in which he imagined that he developed a truly republican spirit, and a love of liberty worthy of the Romans.
He spent three years in exile. He became eager to return to his country, to his friends, and to a public which naturally understood him better, and could sympathise more truly with him than the English. He ventured over to Paris. For a time his return was known only to a few friends, and he resided in an obscure quarter of the capital. By degrees he took courage; and the success of various tragedies which he brought out raised him high in public favour, and promised greater security for the future. He was regarded as the pride of France by the majority of his countrymen. The priesthood—accustomed to persecute on the most frivolous pretexts of difference of opinion—who had excited Louis XIV. to banish the Jansenists and suppress their convents—to exile the virtuous Fénélon—to massacre the Huguenots, who had long wielded religion as a weapon of offence and destruction, and had risen to a bad height of power by its misuse—held him in the sincerest hatred; while his attacks, excited by, and founded on, their crimes, unveiled to the world a scene which, had it not been rife with human suffering, had been worthy only of ridicule. A couplet in "Œdipus" first awakened their suspicion and hatred:—
"Nos prêtres ne sont point ce qu'un vain peuple pense,Notre crédulité fait tout leur science."
"Nos prêtres ne sont point ce qu'un vain peuple pense,Notre crédulité fait tout leur science."
From that moment they lay in wait to crush him. It needed all his prudence to evade the effects of their enmity. There was a party in Paris, indeed, who went to the opposite extreme, by which he was idolised—a party which saw no medium between the superstition upheld by the clergy and direct disbelief, which it termed philosophy. This, indeed, is one of the chief mischiefs of Catholicism—by demanding too much of faith, it engenders entire infidelity; and by making men, sinful as ourselves, the directors of the conduct and thoughts, it injures the moral sense and deadens the conscience. The party in opposition had not yet risen to the height of talent it afterwards displayed; but it sufficed, through the rank, abilities, and number of the persons of whom it was composed, to encourage Voltaire in his career. Another chief support was derived from the liberal independence of means which he had attained. He inherited a competent fortune from his father and brother; the profits of "Œdipus" added to it; the duke of Orléans had made him presents; the queen of Louis XV. bestowed a pension on him; the edition of the "Henriade," brought out in London, augmented his means considerably: he was economical and careful. A fortunate speculation in a lottery instituted to pay the debts of the city of Paris, in which, from certain happy calculations, he was the chief winner, raised him to opulence. He was charitable and benevolent; and though, in his letters, we find allusions to his donations, this is never done ostentatiously, but with the plain speech of a man who, having fabricated his own fortune, knows the value of money, and keeps strict account of his expenditure. At this juncture we may also speak, of his change of name. It was the custom, as is well known, for the younger branches of noble families in France to assume the name of some estate, so to distinguish themselves from their relations. In the middling ranks the same customwas in a manner followed. Boileau took the name of Despréaux, and his younger brother that of Puy Morin, to distinguish themselves from the elder. People in this rank did not assume thede—distinctive of territorial possession. François-Marie Arouet thought it worth while, however, to purchase the estate of Voltaire (as Madame Searron, at Louis XIV.'s instigation, had that of Maintenon), as a means of elevating himself to a more respectable position in the eyes of his contemporaries. He succeeded; and though, to our ears, Arouet had sounded as well as Voltaire, did it stand in the title-page of his works; in his own day, in spite of various petty attacks from his enemies, the one he assumed was regarded by his countrymen with greater complacency.
The heyday of youth was passing away with Voltaire; his vivacity was still the same: but, from the period of his return from his exile in England, he began to look differently on life; and while he still regarded literary labour as his vocation, literary glory as the aim of his existence, he grew indifferent to the pleasures of society. At one time he meditated expatriating himself; thus to acquire liberty of writing and publishing without fear of the Bastille. His attachment for madame du Châtelet caused him to alter this plan. This lady was distinguished for her learning, her love of philosophy, and talent for the abstruse sciences. She was witty, and endowed with qualities attractive in society; but she preferred study, and the acquisition of literary renown, in seclusion. This friend induced Voltaire to remain in France, but strengthened his purpose of retiring from Paris. Various persecutions were, however, in wait for him before he gained a tranquil retreat.
Voltaire wrote his tragedies as a means of gaining public favour. He knew his countrymen. As a sovereign of the French must gather popularity by leading them to victory and military glory, so must an author, who would acquire their favour, achieve eminent success, at once to raise their enthusiasm, and to gratify their vanity, by making themparticipate in the greatness of his name. On his return from England, Voltaire determined to acquire the popular favour, by his triumphs in the drama. At first he was not as successful as he wished: his "Brutus" fell coldly on the gay, excitement-hunting Parisians; "Eryphile," on which he spent excessive pains,—remodelling and re-writing different portions again and again,—had faults that the author's quick eye discerned at once to be incurable, and he withdrew it after the first representation. "Zaire" repaid him for these disappointments;—"Zaire," which, whatever its faults may be, is so fresh, so eloquent, so deeply and naturally pathetic. This play was written in twenty-two days. It was a happy thought.1732.Ætat.38.Voltaire writes concerning it: "I never worked so fast; subject carried me on, and the piece wrote itself. I have tried to depict what has been long in my head,—Turkish manners contrasted with Christian manners; and to unite, in the same picture, all that our religion has of dignified, and even tender, with an affecting and passionate love." Two months afterwards, he writes: "I wish you had witnessed the success of 'Zaire;' allow me to enjoy freely, with you, the pleasure of succeeding. Never was piece played so well as 'Zaire' at the fourth representation. I wish you had been there; you would have seen that the public does not hate your friend. I appeared in a box, and the whole pit clapped. I blushed, and hid myself; but I should be deceitful did I not confess that I was deeply moved;—it is delightful not to be put to shame in one's own country." But, after this triumph, he laboured to correct his piece. He feared, he said, to have owed too much to the large dark eyes of mademoiselle Gaussin, and to the picturesque effect produced by the mingling of plumes and turbans on the stage. He felt, for the moment, that he had arrived at the height of literary renown, and that his task was nearly fulfilled. "What labour and pains I go through," he writes, "or this smoke of vain glory! Yet what should we do without the chimæra?it is as necessary to the soul as food to the body. I shall re-write 'Eryphile,' and the 'Death of Cæsar,'—all for this smoke. Meanwhile I am correcting the 'History of Charles XII.' for an edition in Holland; and when this is done, I shall finish the 'Letters on England,' which you know of,—that will be a month's work; after which I must return to my dramas, and finish, at lastly the 'History of the Age of Louis XIV.' This, dear friend, is the plan of my life."
New persecutions were in store for him, to disturb his schemes. Mademoiselle de Couvreur was the most eminent actress of the time; she was his friend, and had shown her generosity by attending on him at the dangerous moment of his attack of small pox. She was worthy of his good opinion; there was a dignity in her character which imparted the chief charm to her acting, and rendered her estimable in private life. When she died, according to the insulting practice of the French clergy, burial rites and holy ground were denied the corpse, and she was interred on the banks of the Seine. Voltaire could not restrain his indignation. Warmed by esteem for his friend, and contempt for the priesthood, he wrote her apotheosis, which drew on him the outcry of impiety, and forced him to conceal himself for some months in a village of Normandy.
Scarcely had this storm passed off, than another broke over him. His exile in England occurred during the reign of George II., at a time when literature boasted of great and glorious names; and if the principles of political liberty were less well understood than now, they appeared in a highly flourishing condition to the Frenchman. He regarded with admiration the blessings derived from toleration in religion, a comparatively free government, a press unfettered by a censorship, and the general diffusion of knowledge. He wished to describe these things and their effects to his countrymen, and he wrote his "Lettres sur les Anglais." There is nothing—save a passing Voltairian sarcasm here and there—to shock our notions in this work. It begins with an account ofthe Quakers,—to demonstrate that dissent in religion, joined to independence of thought and action, could accord with a peaceable fulfilment of the duties of a subject. He commences with a humorous description of a Quaker, to whom he was introduced, who receives him with his hat on, and without making a bow; speaks to him with the thee and thou, and defends the peculiar tenets of his sect. He goes on to give the history of Fox and Penn. Other letters concern the parliament, the government, the encouragement given to literary men, and literature itself, of the introduction of inoculation; and then comes his main topic,—the discoveries of Newton, and the philosophy of Locke. It is a work that would have excited no censure in England; but he was well aware that both it and its author would be denounced in France. When he thought of publishing it, he at the same time entertained the plan of expatriation; when he relinquished this, he meant to suppress his book; but it was published through the treachery of a bookseller. Alettre de cachetwas granted against him, of which he received timely notice, and left Paris to conceal himself at Cirey, while he gave out that he was in England. The volume itself was publicly burnt. He obtained a cessation of the persecution by causing the edition to be given up; but he did not return to Paris, and continued to inhabit the chateau of Cirey, in Champagne, a property of the marquis du Châtelet, where he and his wife, and their illustrious friend, lived for the space of six years in seclusion and laborious study.
We have, from various sources, descriptions of the life he led at Cirey; not a little instructive from the light they throw on human nature, and on Voltaire's own character. Voltaire tells us, himself, in his "Fragment of Memoirs," that, weary of the idle, turbulent life led at Paris, of the pretensions of the silly, the cabals of the wicked, and persecutions of bigots, he resolved to pass some years in the country at the chateau of madame du Châtelet. This lady had received a careful education, was perfectly mistress of the Latin language, but herinclination led her to prefer the study of metaphysics and mathematics. Her ardour for the acquisition of knowledge was unspeakably great, and she longed for retirement, where she might dedicate her whole time to study. Voltaire taught her English: she read Leibnitz and Newton. Both she and her friend aspired to the prize given by the Academy of Science, for a treatise on fire; and their essays were mentioned with praise, though the prize was gained by the celebrated Euler. Voltaire was told, however, by an enlightened friend, that he would never be great in science. He was glad of this. The arguments and taste of madame du Châtelet, and his own love of all that was absolutely and demonstrably true, led him to cultivate abstruse science; but the bent of his genius and imagination, fertile of plot, situation, and development of passion, made him turn with delight to the composition of tragedies, the investigation of the philosophy of history, and the writing lighter productions, in which he gave full scope to his sarcastic spirit, his wit, and, we grieve to add, the impurity of his imagination: for this was the great defect of Voltaire, arising from his inability to appreciate the sublime, and his contempt of what he considered monkish virtues, that he loved to indulge in jests, the point of which lay in the grossest indecency. Having broken loose from the fetters of mathematics, he wrote "Alzire," "Mérope," "The Prodigal Child," and "Mahomet." He laboured at his "Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations;" he collected materials for the "History of the Age of Louis XIV.;" and he relaxed from these labours by writing the "Pucelle d'Orléans." One of his chief amusements, also, was bringing out his tragedies at his private theatre. He was a good actor, and an admirable teacher of the art.
Somewhat in contrast to the sort of fairy splendour and paradisaical happiness which, from his memoirs and letters, we might judge to have been the portion of the inhabitants of Cirey, we have another account, which does not indeed derogate from the character of Voltaire himself,but which casts gloomy and tempestuous shadows over the picture of his retirement. This account is worth quoting; though, as we shall afterwards mention, the fair writer, from private reasons, represented madame du Châtelet in darker colours than she merited.
When the marquis and marchioness du Châtelet resolved on inhabiting Cirey, the chateau was in a state of dilapidation. A portion of it was repaired, and furnished with princely magnificence; partly at the expense of the owners, chiefly, it would seem, at Voltaire's, who built a gallery and bath rooms, decorated his apartments with inlaid works of marble, and adorned them with a variety of precious works of art.
Usually the family party was nearly uninterrupted. Madame du Châtelet disliked receiving visitors who should intrude on her hours of study. How the marquis regarded the severe labours of his wife, and the permanent residence of his guest, we are not told; but he seems to have been easy and complaisant. When visitors arrived, Voltaire exerted himself to entertain them by acting plays, and by calling into requisition the stores of his own mind, which, various and prolific, never failed to enchant. There was a lady, madame de Graffigny, who had been very unfortunate through the ill conduct of her husband.1738.Ætat.44.She at last obtained a divorce; but she was poor, and nearly friendless. She was asked to spend a few weeks at Cirey, and joyfully accepted the flattering invitation. She had been residing at Lunéville, at the court of the ex-king of Poland: she left there a friend, who had beep brought up with her as a brother; and to him she poured out, in her letters, her enthusiasm, her joy, and her subsequent disappointment and misery.
From the beginning, Voltaire acquired all her kindness by the cordiality and friendliness of his reception, and the great and delicate attention he paid to her comfort; while madame du Châtelet lost it by her coldness and selfishness. Still the wit and talent of both made it at first enchanted ground. "Supper was announced to me," she writes, "and Iwas shown to an apartment which I recognised as Voltaire's. He came forward to receive me; we placed ourselves at table—I was indeed happy. We conversed on all subjects; poetry, the arts and sciences; and all in a light and witty tone. I wish I could give you an account of his charming, his enchanting conversation; but I cannot. The supper was not abundant, but it was recherché, delicate, and good, and served on a good deal of plate. Voltaire, placed next me, was as polite and attentive as he is amusing and learned. The marquis was on my other side—this is my place every evening; and thus my left ear is softly charmed, while the right is but very slightly ennuied, for the marquis speaks little, and retires as soon as we rise from table."
She describes the apartments of madame du Châtelet and Voltaire as magnificent. His was hung with crimson velvet and gold fringe, the walls were covered with pictures and looking-glasses, and the room crowded with articles of luxury in worked silver. It opened into a small gallery wainscotted with yellow wood, adorned by statues, furnished with books, and filled with tables covered with curiosities and porcelain; opening on a grotto that led to the garden. The rooms of madame du Châtelet were far more elegant and rich; splendid with mirrors in silver frames, and adorned with pictures of the first French artists. Her boudoir, of which, in her vivacious style, the guest said, "you were ready to kneel and worship for its elegant magnificence," opened on a terrace commanding a beautiful prospect: the whole was a model of luxury, taste, and elegance. Unfortunately, however, in repairing and furnishing, no attention had been paid to any apartments but those occupied by madame du Châtelet and Voltaire. Discomfort reigned everywhere else. Poor madame de Graffigny was placed in an immense chamber, ill furnished—the wind entering at a thousand crevices—which it was impossible to warm, in spite of all the wood that was burnt. "In short," she says, "all thatdoes not belong to the lady or Voltaire is in a most disgusting state of discomfort."
However, talent spread its charm over the place, although madame du Châtelet, from the first, was no favourite with her guest, yet she allows that she talked well, sang divinely; was witty, eloquent, and, when she chose, pleasing; but, devoted to the study of abstruse mathematics, she gave up nearly her whole time, night and day, to these labours. Their way of life was regulated by their excessive industry. No one appeared till twelve o'clock, when coffee was announced in Voltaire's gallery for the chosen guests, while the marquis and others dined. At the end of half an hour Voltaire bowed his friends out; each retired to their room, and did not assemble again till nine for supper. This was the chosen season for conversation and enjoyment. He read to them passages from his works, he showed a magic lantern, and exerted all his wit, his buffoonery, and knowledge in the explanations. Froward as a child, amiable as a woman, always full of vivacity, his conversation was an exhaustless source of laughter and delight. When any guests were there whom they were peculiarly desirous of pleasing, everything was done for their amusement: plays were acted—no moment of repose allowed—all was gaiety and pleasure. "Voltaire," she writes, "is always charming, always occupied with amusing me; he is never weary of paying attention; he is uneasy if I seem the least ennuied. In short, I find, from experience, that agreeable occupation is the charm of life. The lady, at first a little cold, grows kinder, and we are become familiar."—"Voltaire read us two cantos of his Joan, and we had a delightful supper. Madame du Châtelet sang with her divine voice; we laughed, we knew not why—we sang canons—it was a supper during which gaiety made us say and do we knew not what; and we laughed at nothing."—"The Marionettes have greatly diverted me; they are delightful: the piece was played in which Punch's wife hopes to kill herhusband by singingfagnana fagnana.It was delicious to hear Voltaire say, seriously, that the piece was excellent. It is silly, is it not, to laugh at such follies? Yet I laughed. Voltaire is as delightful a child as he is a wise philosopher."—"This morning we were to hear an epistle read; but the fair lady was still in the same merry humour of yesterday; and she began to joke Voltaire, who, holding his epistle in his hand, parodied it against her in the most delightful manner: in short, there was no reading. He laughed at first, but was a little annoyed at last. For myself, I was ashamed to laugh so much; but there was so much wit; each word came and shone like lightning, and all accompanied by such vivacity and pleasantry that Heraclitus himself must have laughed."—"We had the Marionettes again. Voltaire declared that he was jealous. Do you know that I think that Voltaire shows genius in laughing at these follies. I sat next him to-day; it was a delightful seat. Yesterday evening he read an epistle which the fair lady criticised most wittily."
At other times, every hour was given to labour. Voltaire spent the entire day writing: "Does he leave his work for a quarter of an hour during the day," writes his guest, to pay me a visit, he does not sit down, saying that the time lost in talking is frightful—that no moment ought to be wasted, and loss of time is the greatest expense of all. This has gone on for a month. "When we come in to sup he is at his desk; we have half done before he joins us, and he is with difficulty prevented from returning immediately after. He exerts himself to amuse us during the meal; but evidently from sheer politeness: his thoughts are far away." Madame du Châtelet was even more industrious. "She spends her whole nights till five or six in the morning, writing; when she finds herself overcome by sleep, she puts her hands in iced water, and walks about the room to rouse herself. After this, instead of sleeping till the middle of the day, she rises at nine or ten. In short, she only gives two hours to sleep, and never leaves her desk except forcoffee and supper." This hard labour was productive of great ennui to their guests, and considerable ill health to themselves; especially to Voltaire, whose constitution was feeble: but the result with him was, his voluminous works; and with her, a degree of scientific knowledge surpassing that attained by almost every other adept of the day. Her essays were full of most abstruse reasoning, and written in a clear and elegant style. Madame de Graffigny had the highest opinion of her understanding. "I have been reading her dissertation on fire; it is written with admirable clearness, precision, and force of argument. I beg Voltaire's pardon, but it is far superior to his. What a woman! How little do I feel beside her! If my body grew as small, I could pass through a key-hole. When women do write, they surpass men; but it requires centuries to form a woman like this." Unfortunately, all this talent was darkened by a vehement and irritable temper. By degrees the truth became manifest, that these sages quarrelled violently. In madame de Graffigny's account, some of these disputes are very whimsical. These are trifles; but they display the inner nature of the man better than more important events, and deserve record. Voltaire was writing the "Age of Louis XIV.," in which he took great pride and pleasure, although from the tyranny then existing in France, the publishing of it would have doomed him to the Bastille. Madame du Châtelet locked up the manuscript, and would not let him finish it. "He is dying to do so," madame de Graffigny writes; "it is the work, of all his, which he prefers. She justifies herself by saying there is little pleasure in writing a book that cannot be printed. I exhort him to go on, and to be satisfied with the immortality he will gain. He said, yesterday, that assuredly he would finish it, but not here. She turns his head with her geometry; she likes nothing else."—"One day, being indisposed, the lady could not write; so she went to bed, and sent for me, saying thatVoltaire would read his tragedy of 'Mérope.' When he came, she took it into her head that he should change his coat. He objected, on the score that he might catch cold, but at last had the complaisance to send for his valet to get another coat. The servant could not be found. Voltaire thought himself let off. Not at all: she recommenced her persecution till Voltaire got angry. He said a few words in English, and left the room. He was sent for; but replied he was taken ill. Adieu to 'Mérope!'—I was furious. Presently a visitor came, and I said I would go to see Voltaire, and the lady told me to try to bring him back. I found him in excellent humour, quite forgetful of his illness; but it returned when we were sent for, and he was very sullen." Another time she writes: "I pity poor Voltaire, since he and his friend cannot agree. Ah, dear friend! where is there happiness on earth for mortals? We are always deceived by appearances: at a distance, we thought them the happiest people in the world; but, now that I am with them, I discern the truth."
Nor was the lady always the peccant person. On one occasion madame de Graffigny writes: "Voltaire is in a state resembling madness. He torments his friend till I am forced to pity her. She has made me her confidant. Voltaire is really mad. One day we were about to act a comedy—every one was ready, when the post came in; he received unpleasant letters: he burst forth into exclamations of anguish, and fell into a species of convulsions. Madame du Châtelet came to me with tears in her eyes, and begged me to put off the play. Yesterday he had an interval of quiet, and we acted. How strange that, with all his genius, he should be so absurd!"
Voltaire's disquiet arose from some defamatory attacks made on him by J. B. Rousseau and the abbé Desfontaines. We have seen the history of his intercourse with the former; it was unworthy the poet to revenge himself by libels. Voltaire had exerted his influence to save Desfontaines whenaccused of a capital offence: he was repaid by the publication of calumnies. The attacks deserved contempt only; but Voltaire could not be brought to this opinion: "I must have reparation," he writes to a friend, "or I die dishonoured. Facts and the most shocking impostures are in question. You know not to what a degree the abbé Desfontaines is the oracle of the provinces. I am told that he is despised in Paris; yet his 'Observations' sell better than any other work. My silence drives him to despair, you say. Ah, how little do you know him! He will take my silence as a mark of submission; and I shall be disgraced by the most despicable man alive, without the smallest act of revenge—without justifying myself."
With these feelings he thought it necessary to write a defence. He proposed, at one time, entering on a lawsuit. And, to add to his troubles, his friend Thiriot acted a weak, tergiversating part. Weak in health, irritated in temper by excessive application, he was in a state of too great excitement to judge calmly and act with dignity. For six months every occupation was postponed to his desire of vengeance; a serious attack of illness was the consequence. With this unfortunate susceptibility when defamed, we must contrast his patience under every other species of annoyance, and his constant benevolence. He suffered various pecuniary losses at this time, but never complained, nor ceased to benefit several literary men who had no resource except in his generosity.
To return to Cirey and its letter-writing guest. Madame de Graffigny's own turn for suffering came at last. The bigotry and severity of the French government with regard to the press, while cardinal Fleuri was minister, kept Voltaire and his friend in a continual state of uneasiness. Twice since his retirement to Cirey he had been obliged to fly to Holland to escape alettre de cachet; and, meanwhile, he could not resist writing satires on religion and government, which he read tohis friends; and, their existence becoming known, the cardinal was on the alert. He had declared that if his burlesque of the "Pucelle" appeared, the author should end his days in the Bastille. Madame du Châtelet was more cautious and more fearful than Voltaire himself; and the imprudence of the latter, and the frightful evils that impended, did any treacherous friend either lay hands on any portion of the manuscript, or have a memory retentive enough to write it after it was read aloud, is in some degree an excuse for the otherwise unpardonable liberty she took to waylay, open, and read the letters of her guests. Madame de Graffigny had been delighted with a canto of "Joan," and sent a sketch of its plan in a letter to her friend. M. Devaux, in answer, simply replied, "The canto of 'Joan' is charming." The letter containing these words was opened by madame du Châtelet. Her terror distorted the meaning of the phrase, and represented in frightful colours the evil that would ensue; for she fancied that madame de Graffigny had in some manner possessed herself of, and sent to Lunéville, a canto of a poem so forbidden and guarded, that she had prevented Voltaire from communicating any portion of it to the prince royal of Prussia, lest any accidental discovery should be made. The storm broke unexpectedly and frightfully. Voltaire learnt and shared his friend's apprehensions. As a means of discovering the extent of the mischief, he, unexpectedly, the same evening, after madame de Graffigny had retired to her room, and was occupied writing letters, visited her there, saying, that he was ruined, and that his life was in her hands; and in reply to her expressions of astonishment, informed her that a hundred copies of one of the cantos of "Joan" were about in the world, and that he must fly to Holland,—to the end of the world—for safety; that M. du Châtelet was to set out for Lunéville; and that she must write to her friend Devaux to collect all the copies. Madame de Graffigny, charmed that she had an opportunity of obliging her kind host, assured him of her zeal, and expressed hersorrow that such an accident should happen while she was his guest. On this, Voltaire became furious: "No tergiversation, madam," he cried. "You sent the canto!" Her counter-asseverations were of no avail—she believed herself the most unlucky person in the world that the suspicion should fall on her. In vain she protested. Voltaire at length asserted that Devaux had read the canto sent by her to various persons, and that madame du Châtelet had the proof in her pocket: her justification was not attended to by the angry poet, who declared that he was irretrievably ruined. In the midst of this frightful scene, which had lasted an hour, madame du Châtelet burst into the room: her violence, her abuse, and insulting expressions overwhelmed her poor guest. Voltaire in vain endeavoured to calm her. At length madame de Graffigny was informed of the cause of the tumult and accusation; she was shown the phrase in her correspondent's letter,—"The canto of 'Joan' is charming;"—she understood and explained its meaning. Voltaire believed her on the instant, and made a thousand apologies. His friend was less placable. Madame de Graffigny was obliged to promise to write for her own letter containing the account of the canto of the poem, to prove her innocence. She did this; and till it came all her letters were opened: she was treated with haughtiness by the lady, and remained shut up in her own room, solitary and sad; for, to crown her misfortunes, the poor woman had not a sous in the world, and could not escape from a place where she was exposed to so much insult. At length her letter was returned. Madame du Châtelet took care to waylay it, and satisfied herself by reading it; and then, a few days after, she apologised to her unfortunate guest; and, fearful, indeed, of her ill report on the subject, became remarkably civil and kind. Voltaire conducted himself much better. "I believe," madame de Graffigny writes, "that he was entirely ignorant of the practice of opening my letters; he appeared tobelieve my simple word, and saw the illness I suffered, in consequence, with regret. He often visited me in my room, shed tears, and said that he was miserable at being the cause of my suffering. He has never once entered my room without the humblest and most pathetic apologies; he redoubled his care that I should be well attended; he even said that madame du Châtelet was a terrible woman—that she had no flexibility of heart, though it was good. In short, I have every reason to be content with Voltaire."
Such was the paradise of Cirey. The arduous study and ill health of Voltaire, the mental labours of his friend, their very accomplishments and wit, tended, probably, to irritate tempers, irritable in themselves. As to the poem, the cause of the storm, it had certainly better never have been written than occasion so much fear, and pain, and misconduct. We confess we have never read it. Its framework is indecency and ridicule of sacred things; chiefly, indeed, of the legends of the saints, which is more excusable; but still the whole is conceived in bad taste. We cannot understand the state of manners when such a poem could be read aloud to women; and we feel that we are scarcely fair judges of persons living in a system and actuated by motives so contrary to our own: so that, while we thank God we are not like them, we must be indulgent to faults which we have not any temptation to commit.
Voltaire's residence at Cirey was marked by the commencement of his correspondence with Frederic the Great, then prince royal of Prussia. It is well known that this sovereign passed a youth of great suffering—that he was imprisoned for an endeavour to escape from the state of servitude to which his father reduced him. His dearest friend was executed before his eyes, and measures taken that he himself should be condemned to death. To avoid a recurrence of these misfortunes, he lived in a most retired manner during the remainder of his father's life; given up to the cultivation of poetry and the study of philosophy. He shared the universal admiration entertained of Voltaire'sgenius, and his noble daring in breaking down the obstacles which the government and clergy of France threw in the way of the diffusion of knowledge, and his resolution in devoting his life to authorship. He addressed a letter to him at Cirey, requesting a correspondence. Voltaire could not fail of being highly flattered by a prince, the heir to a throne, who wrote to him that "Cirey should be his Delphos, and his letters oracles." Voltaire was far from being behindhand in compliments. He writes: "I shed tears of joy on reading your letter—I recognise a prince who will assuredly be the delight of the human race. I am in every way astonished: you speak like Trajan, you write like Pliny, and you express yourself in French as well as our best writers. What a difference between men! Louis XIV. was a great king—I respect his memory; but he had not your humanity, nor spoke French as well. I have seen his letters; he did not know the orthography of his own language. Berlin will be, under your auspices, the Athens of Germany—perhaps of Europe." The compliments on both sides were to a great degree sincere. Frederic shared the enthusiastic, almost, worship in which Voltaire was then generally held—and Voltaire regarding sovereigns and princes as powerful enemies, or at best as mischievous animals, whom it was necessary to stroke into innocuousness, was carried away by his delight in finding one who adopted his own principles—looked up to him as a master, and added to the value of his admiration, the fact of being himself a man of genius. After Voltaire had quarrelled with him, he spoke in a jocular tone of their mutual flattery; but still in a way that shows how deeply it sank at the time. "The prince," he writes, "employed his leisure in writing to the literary men of France, and the principal burden of his correspondence fell on me. I received letters in verse, metaphysical, historical, and political. He treated me as a divine man; I called him Solomon; epithets which cost us nothing. Someof these follies have been printed among my works; but, fortunately, not the thirtieth part. I took the liberty to send him a very beautiful writing desk; he was kind enough to present me with some trifles in amber; and the coffee-house wits of Paris fancied, with horror, that my fortune was made. He sent a young Courlander, named Keyserling,—no bad writer of French verses himself,—from the confines of Pomerania, to us at Cirey. We gave him a fête, and a splendid illumination in which the cipher of the prince was hung with lamps, with the device, "The Hope of the Human Race." In his pique, Voltaire speaks too slightingly. Had he not been a prince, the correspondence of Frederic was worth having; it is full of good sense and philosophical remark. It was a more disagreeable task to correct his verses. Yet these are by no means had; they are nearly as good as Voltaire's own. There is less pretension, but often more spirit. The whole mass has no real claim to be called poetry; and in these days nobody reads either: but when they were written, and had the gloss of novelty, and the interest of passing events and living men appended, they were at least respectable specimens of a talent, which in its own sphere could attain much higher things.
The residence at Cirey was broken up by the necessity of attending to a lawsuit of madame du Châtelet at Brussels, and she and her husband and Voltaire proceeded thither.1740.Ætat.46.At this period Frederic succeeded to the throne of Prussia. The demonstrations of his friendship for Voltaire continued as fervent as ever. "See in me only, I entreat you," he writes, "a zealous citizen, a somewhat sceptical philosopher, but a truly faithful friend. For God's sake write to me simply as a man; join with me in despising titles, names, and all exterior splendour." Voltaire replied, "Your majesty orders me, when I write, to think of him less as a king than as a man. This is a command after my own heart. I know not how to treat a king; but I am quite at my ease with a man whose head and heart are full oflove for the human race." Frederic, now that he was emancipated from his father's control, was most eager to see Voltaire. He asked him to visit him. Voltaire considered his friendship with madame du Châtelet as of more worth than the protection of a king; for although, through vivacity of temper and absence of self-control, they quarrelled, there was a deep feeling of mutual kindness and sympathy on both sides. The king had been ready to lavish compliments on the "divine Emily;" but his indifference to women, and his many and important occupations, made him shrink from receiving a French court lady, full of wit, caprice, and self-importance. He wrote: "If Emily must accompany Apollo, I consent; but if I can see you alone, I should prefer it." It ended in Frederic's forming the plan of including Brussels in a tour he made, and visiting his friend there. Voltaire's own account of their interview is full of spirit and pleasantry; showing how, in reality, a Frenchman, accustomed to the splendour and etiquette of his native court, could ill comprehend the simplicity and poverty of Prussia. He writes: "The king's ambassador extraordinary to France arrived at Brussels; as soon as he alighted at an inn, he sent me a young man, whom he had made his page, to say that he was too tired to pay me a visit, but begged me to come to him, and that he had a rich and magnificent present for me from the king, his master. 'Go quickly,' cried madame du Châtelet, 'I dare say he brings you the crown jewels.' I hurried off, and found the ambassador, who, instead of port-manteau, had behind his carriage a quarter of wine, belonging to the late king, which the reigning sovereign ordered me to drink. I exhausted myself in protestations of surprise and gratitude for this liquid mark of his majesty's goodness, substituted for the solid ones he had given me a right to expect, and I shared the wine with Camas. My Solomon was then at Strasbourg. The fancy had taken him while visiting his long and narrow dominions, which reached from Gueldres tothe Baltic sea, to visit, incognito, the frontiers and troops of France. He took the name, at Strasbourg, of the count du Four, a rich Bohemian nobleman. He sent me, at Brussels, an account of his travels, half prose, half verse, in the style of Bachaumont and Chapelle; that is, as near the style as, a king of Prussia could attain; telling of had roads and the passport he was obliged to give himself, which, having with him a seal with the arms of Prussia, he easily fabricated; and the surprise his party excited—some taking them for sovereigns, others for swindlers. From Strasbourg he visited his states in Lower Germany, and sent word that he would visit me at Brussels incognito. We prepared a good residence for him; but falling ill at the little castle of Meuse, two leagues from Clèves, he wrote to beg that I would make the first advances. I went, therefore, to present my most profound homage. Maupertuis, who already had his own views, and was possessed by a mania to be president of an academy, had presented himself, and lodged with Algarotti and Keyserling in a loft of this palace. I found a single soldier as guard at the gate. The privy counsellor Rambonet, minister of state, was walking about the court, blowing his fingers; he had on large dirty linen ruffles, a hat full of holes, and an old judge's wig, which on one side reached to his pockets, and on the other scarcely touched his shoulder. I was told, and truly, that this man was charged with important state affairs. I was conducted to his majesty's apartment, where I saw only four walls. At length, by the light of a candle, I perceived, in a closet, a truckle bed, two feet and a half wide, on which was a little man, wrapped in a dressing-gown of coarse blue cloth. It was the king, trembling beneath an old counterpane, in a violent access of fever. I bowed to him, and began my acquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I had been his first physician. When the access was over, he dressed and went to supper with me, Algarotti, Keyserling, Maupertuis, and his minister to the States General. We conversed on theimmortality of the soul, free will, and Plato's "Androgynes." Counsellor Rambonet meanwhile mounted a hack, and, after riding all night, arrived at the gates of Liège, where he made a requisition in the name of the king, his master, which two thousand of his troops helped him to enforce. Frederic even charged me with writing a manifesto, which I did as well as I could, not doubting that a king with whom I supped, and who called me his friend, must be in the right. The affair was soon arranged, through the payment of a million, which he exacted in ducats, which served to indemnify him for the expense of his journey to Strasbourg, of which he had complained in his poetic letter. I grew attached to him, for he had talent and grace; and besides, he was a king, which, considering human weakness, is always a great fascination. Generally we literary men flatter kings; but he flattered me, while abbé Desfontaines and other rascals defamed me once a week at Paris.