Voltaire in Love (21 page)

The lawsuit began to take a more favourable turn for them now, flapped up, no doubt, by Frederick. In October its mysteries led them back to Cirey. (M. de Trichâteau had died and his will must be proved.) They went by way of Paris. Here they did not stay at the Hôtel Lambert, which, in spite of the efforts of L'Abbé Moussinot and the midwife, was still not ready to receive them, but at the house where Voltaire had lived with Mme de Fontaine-Martel. He invited Thieriot and d'Argenson to go and see him there to cheer up her ghost and remember the old times and all those hilarious if uneatable suppers they used to have.

In the summer of 1742 Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet may have
moved into the Hôtel Lambert for a week or so. As they have become a part of its story we like to think of them there, but in fact no letters are dated from it or contain a word about it. In June it went back to its original owner and soon after was sold for twice the amount Voltaire had paid for it, if, indeed, he ever had paid in full. He was badly hit just then by the bankruptcy of one Michel, an important Parisian financier to whom he had lent a large sum of money. Possibly he thought the Hôtel Lambert too expensive for him. Mme du Châtelet took a little house, No. 13 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, next door to the Hôtel de Charost (now the British Embassy), and this was their Paris residence until the summer of 1745. It is a great pity that no Mme de Grafigny has described Voltaire's various town houses with their furniture and general arrangement. He was always surrounded by beautiful things.

In June 1742 Voltaire wrote to Sir Everard Fawkener:

Voltaire was preparing his
Mahomet
for the Comédie Française. Its enthusiastic reception in Lille, where nobody, even the clergy, had found anything to object to, had greatly encouraged him. Cardinal Fleury read it, liked it and made one or two corrections of a literary nature which Voltaire accepted. But there were various obstacles to its production; for one thing it was not an easy play to cast. The delegation of delightful Turks, friends of Fawkener, was still in Paris. The Ambassador was a most seductive man; he charmed everybody and knocked down French wives like ninepins. Voltaire had no desire to hurt his feelings: better wait until he had gone. So he went on polishing and correcting and biding his time with all the impatience of a writer longing to give his work to the public.

Unfortunately he remained in Paris where of course he soon got into a scrape. Voltaire was a consistent pacifist. Warring Princes, to him, were, ‘hateful spiders, tearing each other to pieces instead of spinning silk'. Ever since Frederick had invaded Silesia he had been scolding him for breaking the peace of Europe. ‘I am so afraid that you will come to despise human beings.' ‘I only put my foot on the banks of the Styx, but I was grieved, Sire, at the number of poor wretches I saw passing by.' ‘Will you and your fellow Kings never stop ravaging this earth to which you say you want to bring
happiness?' Frederick took all this quite good-naturedly: ‘It's the fashion now to make war, and presumably it will last a good long while.' ‘I can remember the time when, if you had had an army, it would have marched against Desfontaines, Rousseau, and Van Duren.'

Cardinal Fleury agreed with Voltaire on the subject of peace but most of their compatriots did not. French public opinion was strongly in favour of joining Frederick in his war with Austria. If rich pickings were to be had, at nearly no cost to France, it seemed foolish, almost unpatriotic, not to benefit. The Austrians were in a very bad way and Frederick had easily won the two battles which he had fought against them. French general officers were violently belligerent and so were the Ministers. Against the will of the Cardinal and the better judgement of the King, a Prussian alliance was signed. A French army was sent to Prague; whereupon Frederick immediately made peace with Maria-Theresa. He was naturally considered by his new allies to have behaved in a twisting and dishonest way; and he became most unpopular in Paris. Voltaire, always for peace at any price, now wrote an indiscreet effusion in verse to Frederick. ‘Paris –
your
capital – your name on everybody's lips – wherever I go I am mobbed by people asking if I have really seen you.' Some unknown person, a post-office employee at Brussels, according to Frederick, sent copies of this letter to the Ministers, the Ambassadors, and to Mme de Mailly, the King's powerful mistress. This trouble-maker was of course Frederick himself; his idea was so to blacken Voltaire in the eyes of his compatriots that he would be obliged to leave France for ever. Then Frederick could be sure of possessing him.

As the Prussian King had foreseen the Parisians were furious with Voltaire. President Hénault described the letter to Mme du Deffand as perfectly mad. Voltaire seems to be one of those people who would get into trouble even in a Trappist monastery. He is now hotly denying that he has said any of the things imputed to him, and has written to Valory to ask for his real letter so that he can prove his innocence. But Hénault, knowing his Voltaire, is sure that, even if he has not written the published letter, the real one is just as bad. Mme de Mailly is taking a highfalutin, patriotic line
and demanding that Voltaire should be punished; it looks as if he will have to decamp for Brussels without delay. The President added that
la pauvre du Châtelet
ought to put a clause in the lease of every house she took insuring herself against the follies of her lover.

Voltaire grovelled in denials to the Cardinal and Mme de Mailly; there was no proof against him, and some people thought the letter might have been written by Desfontaines, though others swore that it was in the authentic Voltairean voice. In the end no proceedings were taken. But the whole thing gave him a bad press and the atmosphere was favourable neither to him nor to his work.

Nevertheless,
Mahomet
had a brilliant first night. Magistrates, ministers, and the fashionable world received the play with rapturous applause. Unfortunately the enemies, Desfontaines, Piron, and many a jealous young writer, were also there, listening to the text, as yet unpublished. They noticed various lines, scenes, and verses which could have a tendentious meaning; they did not keep their reflections to themselves. Voltaire's ill-wishers were not the only people to be shocked by
Mahomet.
Lord Chesterfield told young Crébillon that Voltaire had read him a good deal of the play at Brussels. While he had greatly admired some of the verses and various reflections (more brilliant, perhaps, than correct) he had seen at once that
Mahomet
was really meant to be Christ. Lord Chesterfield was surprised that nobody had tumbled to this at Lille. He thought it wrong for a man of letters to mock at the religious beliefs of his country, since to do so could only cause trouble and disorder. Many quite unprejudiced French people came to the same conclusions and saw the play as a veiled attack on all religion. It was certainly a dangerous subject for Voltaire to have chosen. Public opinion, already worked up over the poem to Frederick, became strongly inflamed. The chief of police sent a message that he would like to see Voltaire, who rose from a sick bed and went to him accompanied by Mme du Châtelet. After a long and stormy interview they were persuaded to withdraw
Mahomet,
but without making a scandal. Some excuse was found and another play put on at the Comédie Française. Voltaire, more angry than surprised, declared that he would dedicate
Mahomet
to the Pope himself (which, in due course,
he did). ‘Then I shall be made a Bishop
in partibus infidelium,
the proper diocese for me.'

Upon this, Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet shook the dust of Paris from their feet and went back to Brussels. They visited Rheims on the way, and here they were so much fêted that they stayed longer than they had meant to. The day they arrived, two five-act plays were given in their honour, one before and one after supper, and then there was an impromptu ball. Everybody was entranced by Émilie, her singing at the supper, her dancing at the ball, and the enormous quantities of food she ate. She had never stayed up so late in her life. Voltaire, who was secretly planning another infidelity, was in a loving mood.

The French authorities knew quite well that the letter to Frederick was by Voltaire himself, and he knew that they knew, but the Cardinal kept up the polite fiction that it must have been a forgery because he was more anxious than ever to find out Frederick's intentions. This suited Voltaire who particularly wanted an official excuse to go back to his King. Émilie could not say very much if he went on another diplomatic mission. Frederick was at Aix, ‘the capital of Charlemagne and of hypochondriacs', taking the waters, bored to death. He was only too pleased to see Voltaire, who, having had an inflammation that made him hard of hearing, put off his visit until he was better. ‘To go, deaf, to Your Majesty would be like going, impotent, to one's mistress.' But when he arrived he did not hear so much as a whisper of Frederick's plans and projects. He sent pompous accounts of their conversations to Fleury and d'Argenson; they signified nothing. He put the blame for Frederick's dereliction upon England and hinted, rather unconvincingly, at information too secret to write. The King had been more charming and brilliant than ever. In fact, of course, Frederick had gossiped away about everything under the sun except politics. Voltaire still could not persuade him to settle his debt to Thieriot or to pay for some pictures by Lancret that Voltaire had helped him to acquire. His Humanity was adorable, but the visit was not a success, and in five days Voltaire was back with Émilie. They stayed at Brussels for Christmas and then went to Paris.

Cardinal Fleury died on 29 January 1743. His death was a
misfortune which could not have been long postponed; he was eighty-nine. Voltaire had always respected him, and had seen of late how superior to the other ministers he was. A good and clever man, he had made one grave mistake. During the years when he had ruled both his pupil, the King, and France he had failed to cure and had probably encouraged a feeling of inferiority in Louis XV which prevented him from asserting himself at the Conseil des Ministres. The ministers were there only to advise him, he was in no way bound to take their advice, and yet he always did. He had sound political instincts and Fleury ought to have taught him to rely on them, but the Cardinal was too fond of power to want to share it with his pupil.

The death of Fleury left not only the place of first minister vacant, but also a seat in the Académie Française. Voltaire longed to be of the Academy, though he continually made fun of it. As old Fontenelle used to say:

Although the general public thought it quite absurd that the first writer in France should not be a member, the other Academicians were not so very anxious to elect one who would put them all in the shade. Much depended on Versailles. The King had softened lately in his attitude towards Voltaire. He had sent away Mme de Mailly and taken, as his new mistress, her sister Mme de Château-roux; she was on Voltaire's side. She was much more intelligent than Mme de Mailly and very friendly with their uncle, M. de Richelieu. Voltaire began to be fancied for the vacant seat, and rumour had it that the King had declared at supper that he would be the next Academician. But Maurepas, now the most powerful of the ministers, was entirely opposed to his election, while the Church party, headed by the Bishop of Mirepoix (the donkey) thought that for Voltaire to succeed to a Cardinal would almost amount to sacrilege. While the matter was still under discussion,
Mérope
came on at the Comédie Française.

Mérope
was a tragedy which Voltaire had adapted from an Italian
play of that name by Scipione Maffei. He had been working at it, off and on, for years and had altered it so much that it had really become his own. The actors had hesitated to produce it because it treated of maternal love, a subject which they thought would send a French audience to sleep. (The French were not such adorers of their progeny as they have since become.) They decided to use it only when
Mahomet
was interrupted in the middle of what ought to have been a record run and they were anxious to have another play by Voltaire at once. He rehearsed
Mérope
himself and inspired the actors with something of his own genius. He reproached Mlle Dumesnil, in the part of an outraged mother, with not putting enough fire and fury into the line: ‘
Barbare, c'est monfils!'
He bullied her until she cried: ‘But one would have to be possessed of the devil to say it as you want me to.' ‘Exactly, Mademoiselle, one must be possessed of the devil to succeed in any of the arts.'
Mérope
was a perfect production and one of the greatest successes ever known on the French stage. The audience wept and sobbed unrestrainedly during the last three acts, and when the play was over let itself go in a torrent of wild enthusiasm. For the first time in history the author was called to take a curtain. Voltaire, of course, was in a box with two duchesses, Mesdames de Boufflers and de Luxembourg. He kissed their hands and vanished, not however to appear on the stage. He was seen entering the box of two more duchesses, the Maréchale de Villars, his old love, and her beautiful, clever daughter-in-law, born a Noailles. The audience cried out that the Duchesse de Villars must kiss him. A graceful gesture, as though asking permission of the Maréchale, having received assent, she flung herself into Voltaire's arms. The cheering went on for another quarter of an hour. Perhaps not the least satisfactory feature of the whole evening was the aspect of his enemies. They were seen to have the wild, livid faces and staggering gait of dying men. The box-office takings for this play were a record at the Comédie Française. Voltaire said, generously, that
Mérope
was not worth printing and that it owed its success to the wonderful performance of Mlle Dumesnil.