Finding Emilie (17 page)

Diderot leaned in toward Lili with the air of a conspirator. “I was waiting to see if you would include the Bible.”

Startled, Lili looked up at Maman to see if she had made a mistake. “Say what you think,” Julie said. “There are no official opinions in this house.”

“I think—” Lili hesitated. Even though she was long out of the convent, it still unnerved her to say some things out loud. “I don’t think the Bible or the church should be relied upon as a source for what is true about the world.” She thought for a moment. “Stories can be good to help us figure some things out or decide what we ought to do, but there’s a different kind of information the Bible doesn’t tell us anything about. How the world really works, I mean.”

“And, tell me—do you think if the Bible does not tell those kinds of truths, that we should question the existence of the God whose story it tells?” Diderot asked.

Lili squirmed. This was a bit like being examined by Baronne Lomont’s priest, except she was more confident Monsieur Diderot was not sniffing around for something to punish. “I think we should question everything, just as Descartes says. But God would still exist even if nothing had ever been written about him. Even if no one
knew he was there.” She paused, pondering a new thought. “Isn’t that what it means to be God?”

Diderot slapped his thigh in approval. “Spoken with the same high spirit as her mother—or should I say both of them?” He took off his glasses to wipe them clean, and Lili looked away, uncertain what to think.

Julie got up and took Lili’s notebook from her lap. “I told Monsieur Diderot about Meadowlark,” she said, “and he said if your stories were as witty as I claimed, a newspaper might publish them.”

“Possibly the Gazette d’Amsterdam,” Diderot said. “To avoid the censors. And under a false name, of course.”

Publish? Lili thought of all the times when they were younger that Delphine had squeezed in next to her as they read each new adventure. It was difficult enough to feel close to Delphine anymore, as she whirled through each day, filling it with hours of determined practice of all the petty details she was sure would make the Queen of France, Marie Leszczynska, like her enough to make her one of her ladies-in-waiting. It was the best thing Delphine could do to ensure that her marriage prospects sunk no lower than a rich count or marquis, with quarters at Versailles, a beautiful town house in Paris, and at least one château in the country. But all of it added up to a vision of Delphine spinning away, out of reach forever.

Maman and Diderot were already discussing how to rearrange the letters in “Châtelet” to create a pseudonym, when Lili finally spoke. “Thank you for your offer, but I don’t think I want to,” she said, looking at Diderot to avoid seeing Maman’s reaction. “I’m not trying to be witty, and Meadowlark is private.”

Diderot sat back, rebuffed. “I’m sorry, monsieur,” Lili added. “You’ve done me a great honor. It’s just—”

Maman broke in. “There’s no need to explain, ma chérie,” she said in a voice that, to Lili’s relief, offered no hint of anger or disapproval. “They are your stories to do with as you please.” She turned to Diderot. “The world will simply have to wait for Lili to be ready.” Although Lili always kept the notebook on the desk in her room,
Julie made a show of enforcing her point by putting it in a drawer and turning the key.

Monsieur Diderot stood up. “Well then,” he said, “fame will have to wait.” He looked at Lili with a curious smile, before turning back to Julie to offer her his arm. “Shall we return to your guests?”

Lili followed behind, feeling as if Maman had opened a window and invited Meadowlark and Tom to fly off without her. But as she entered the salon, she felt her heart racing not so much in anger but with pride. I could have said yes. How would I feel right now if I had? She wasn’t sure, but it was a very good secret to have, one that toyed at the corners of her mouth as she stood just inside the salon and listened to the voices of some of the great men of France.

Though they noted Julie’s reappearance immediately, their heated debate resumed within a moment. “My dear Abbé Turgot,” a man in his twenties was saying. “Surely you can’t think that leaving everyone to fend for themselves—this laissez faire approach you write of—is enough protection for the poor soul who is being swindled by some merchant. Or for the merchant, come to think of it, cheated by his own suppliers.”

Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot had his back to Lili, but his voice was raised sufficiently to be heard. “Monsieur Leclerc, I must have a higher opinion of my fellow citizens than you, for if there’s one thing all but the dullest-witted can understand, it’s self-interest. The market always works in the public interest as long as it is left alone. Buyers look for the best price, and successful sellers will be the ones offering that price. Too high and customers go elsewhere. Swindlers find themselves out of business rather quickly, I imagine.”

“And go somewhere else and start again,” one of the men said, to the murmured approval of his friends.

“But you are a government minister, Abbé!” the man called Leclerc replied. “As tax collector for Limoges, surely you aren’t arguing that there is no role for the government in trade. We live in modern times! Everyone—the parlement and the king—agrees that
progressive regulations can move our economy beyond the—shall I say it?—medieval exchanges of peasants on market day—”

“Everyone agrees?” Abbé Turgot arched his thick eyebrows.

“All but a few lunatics!” someone else broke in. “We need to do whatever it takes to rebuild our treasury, if we are to avoid another military defeat at the hands of the English. Mon Dieu, we just handed them North America!”

“My dear Monsieur Leclerc,” Turgot went on. “There is nothing more important to the financial health of France than market day, and without financial health there is no such thing as military victory. And if we are going to talk about reason, let’s include the first principle of it, which is to hold sacred the liberties that are the right of all men. The government should always protect the freedom of the buyer to buy, and the seller to sell, and the minute it imposes restrictions and special privileges, it stops doing that.”

“How so?” Lili asked.

Monsieur Turgot turned in surprise at hearing a young woman’s voice. “Mademoiselle du Châtelet,” he said with a slight bow, “I am charmed to be the recipient of what I believe are your first words at Madame’s salon.”

The man standing next to him guffawed. “Oh, come now, Turgot—a lovely young woman is taking you seriously! You’re more than charmed—you’re amazed!”

Turgot joined the laughter for a moment before moving out of their circle. Standing in front of Lili, he addressed her alone, bending slightly at the waist to accommodate her smaller stature. “The price of goods should work out between any two people so that the buyer pays no more than is necessary for the seller to make a reasonable profit,” he said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Of course,” Lili said, resisting the urge to take a step back. “Although minds might differ on what is reasonable.”

The men roared. “Be careful what you say, Turgot,” Leclerc said. “You’re not used to having an audience actually listen to you!”

Turgot ignored him. “A point well taken,” he said to Lili before
turning to include the group. “But it can never be as simple as that when governments get involved. Am I correct about that, gentlemen?” When they had nodded agreement he turned back to Lili. “Suppose the king wants to make the price of grain the same everywhere, and he decrees that it remain the same next year as last. That sounds like a good thing for a king to do, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lili said, “because it would mean everyone gets enough bread.”

“Precisely. But to do so would require inspectors, and reports, and possibly even the need to move grain from one place to another to ensure such a system was workable. And that would involve money. If the king promised not to raise the price of grain, the money to make such a program work would have to come from somewhere else—a higher tax on wine perhaps, or salt. Or another charge added on top of the official price of grain—an inspection fee, say, or a transportation tax. So in the end, the person buying the grain is buying it for the merchant’s fair profit plus a little more, or else the merchant finds his profit eaten up by his costs. Or perhaps the buyer can’t afford the price and has to substitute something cheaper—rye for wheat, perhaps. Poorer products, higher prices. It’s hardly a benevolent act in the end, when the results come to that.”

Seeing Lili’s troubled expression, he stopped. “Do you understand?”

Lili’s mind was whirling. “I’ve never tried to see the whole of France at one time,” she said, “but I think I see your point.”

“Well, then explain it to me!” another man said, but Lili didn’t hear.

“Still,” she said, “I’ve seen times right here in Paris where it wasn’t a matter of reasonable profit, but whether a person would be paid at all for his work. And I understand the population flottante grows every year just because peasants can’t avoid going into debt to feed their families. It seems only fair that the government would concern itself with those things, if it cares so much about the natural liberties
of man. How can a man feel free if he has no way of knowing if his labor will be rewarded or his family will be fed?”

“Vive Mademoiselle la Philosophe!” Leclerc said.

Denis Diderot cleared his throat. “You, my friends, may some day say you were here when this young woman made her first mark on the world.”

Lili scarcely heard him. “No—I mean it,” she said, her voice piercing the levity in the room. “I want to know what you have to say about those who need the protection of the law and don’t have it.”

“Mademoiselle,” Turgot said, with a noticeable tightness in his voice. “Should the government pay the cleaning bills for every hem that is dirtied in a city street? To demand regulations against every fraud or cheat who takes advantage of another person is to assume a perfectible society—and I, for one, will leave that to dreamers like Rousseau, who have nothing practical to offer.”

Lili took in a breath. Nothing practical? Before she could reply, she felt an arm around her shoulder. “I think that’s enough,” Maman whispered.

I want to be heard. Lili felt like crying. But Maman was right. She had to know a great deal more about the world before she could win a challenge with someone like Abbé Turgot. A vision of Baronne Lomont at her breakfast flashed into Lili’s mind. If I can learn to whack the top off an egg, Lili told herself, I can learn how to argue in Maman’s salon. Her day would come, but now it was time to retreat. “You are right, monsieur,” she said, with a demure smile. “It is most important to be practical, and I know little about that, being still so young.”

Turgot’s eyes softened and he cocked his head in amusement. “Well, it appears I am not going to suffer defeat today after all. But much as I fear my demise may be imminent, I await our next encounter with the most delightful trepidation.”

Another intense but nice man, Lili thought, just like Rousseau and Diderot, with ideas bigger than she could comprehend. She gave him a smile Delphine would have been proud of. “I shall practice all week for it,” she said, feeling Maman’s hand give hers an approving squeeze.

Château de Montjeu, Bourgogne, 15 June 1734
To Monsieur Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Paris

My Dear Friend,

Words cannot express my dismay at your last letter, which I received this morning by post. Monsieur Voltaire and I are still guests of the Duc de Richelieu a full month after we came to his wedding, since he knows full well the need at present to keep Voltaire safely in hiding. Things have gone steadily from bad to worse, if worse is indeed still possible. The lettre dde cachhet for Voltaire’s arrest created quite a stir here, and though Richelieu did not produce his guest for the authorities—thank heavens for the continuing devotion of former lovers, among whom I most fondly include you as well!—the letter is still in effect, and my dear Voltaire is afraid even to walk the grounds lest some enthusiastic local policeman carry him off.

That such a reaction should come from a mere book! Philosophical Letterscontains nothing that any thinking man should fear, except perhaps the truth that in some ways the English means of government is superior to our own, and that their manners are often more civilized, especially in matters of social class. Are we French so brittle that we crumble at any criticism? And could it not be soundly argued ipso facto that those who cannot take criticism with a mind to self-improvement are indeed of a lesser breed than those who can?

But I digress, and important matters remain. I shudder to think it is true what you have said is true, that Parlement—without the mind of a milk cow in the way they bow to the king!—made a public ceremony of burning the book and the police have now confiscated all copies they can find. “Scandalous to religion, morality, and the respect deserved by the authorities” indeed! The scandal is they, not Voltaire’s book!

My treasured friend, my misery is great, since I can now no longer deny to myself how deeply I love him. I am mortified at the ridicule with which my pleas to my usual allies at court have been met. I ask only that they convey to the king that Voltaire did not authorize the book to be smuggled into France, but I am met with the cold reply that having written an evil book in England while exiled there for writing another evil book in France hardly warranted any protestation of innocence when said evil book found its way here, whether by his leave or not. My dear Maupertuis, I know there is nothing you can do, but rest assured I do not intend to see someone of such brilliance languish in prison, especially since his health is already a cause of concern, having never been strong even in his youth.