The life of Voltaire

by Evelyn Beatrice Hall

The scoffer, the jester, the uprooter had found nobler work for his hands at last. The defender of Byng became the avenger of La Barre, of Sirven, of Montbailli, and of Calas.

CHAPTER XXX
THE INTERFERENCE IN THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR, THE “GENEVA” ARTICLE, AND LIFE AT DÉLICES

On January 5, 1757, Damiens, an unfortunate lunatic, made a very feeble attempt upon the life of Louis XV. As is usual in such cases, the King was accredited with infinite calm and courage, though his heroism had consisted entirely in being the unwilling victim of a very small wound from a very small penknife. However, he took the penknife to be the chosen instrument of the wrath of heaven; went to bed; sent a contrite message to the Queen; and for ten days declined to have any dealings with the lively Pompadour.

On January 6th, d’Argenson wrote Voltaire a very courtier-like account of the affair. To say that when Voltaire heard that a New Testament had been found in the poor lunatic’s pocket he was delighted, is to express his sentiments feebly. A Testament! I told you so! All assassins have “a Bible with their daggers.” But have you ever heard of one who had a Cicero, a Plato, or a Virgil?

He turned, twisted, and tossed the subject with all that gibing buffoonery which was his forte and other men’s fear. Damiens died under tortures which were a disgrace to civilisation. D’Argenson, Secretary of State, and Machault, Keeper of the Seals, who had been bold and foolish enough to suppose that the King would be able to kill time without his Pompadour, united, in her brief disgrace, to crush her. With her return to power, she crushed them. On February 1st they were both exiled. A few days earlier, the other brother d’Argenson (the better friend of the two to Voltaire) had died. Voltaire might well say that his own fate was more worth having than that of a Secretary of State who was banished; and that he would rather scold his gardeners than pay court to kings. In February he received a very flattering invitation from Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, to go to Petersburg to write “The History of Peter the Great,” her father. He undertook to write the history. But he declined the invitation. Frederick, too, was trying coquetries on him—such a tender letter, for instance, from Dresden on January 19th! But here again he was firm: “I want neither king nor autocracy. I have tasted them ... that is enough.”

The early months of the year 1757 were passing, indeed, not a little pleasantly at Monrion.

The society of Lausanne, living up to its character of being more liberal than that of Geneva, was only too delighted to welcome such an amusing person as Voltaire in its midst. Many Lausannois were French—all French in their social charms and their language—and only Swiss in their sincerity and simplicity. Voltaire said that, as an audience, there were a couple of hundred of them who were worth the whole parterre of Paris, and who would have hissed Crébillon’s “Catilina” off the stage. What higher praise could he have given to anybody? Lausanne, indeed, would not have been Swiss if there had not been a certain section of its society who held themselves aloof from this volatile Deist and his more volatile entertainments. Nor would it have been a country town if there had not been in it some touchy and discontented persons who were offended with M. de Voltaire because he had not asked them often enough or had asked someone else too often. Voltaire gaily divided the society into two parts: first, the Olympe, which included both the strait-laced and the offended; and, second, the Sensible People. That classification spoke for itself. He was not a little amused one day when, hearing that an Olympe lady had had a parody of “Zaire” acted at her house, he said to a young girl of the same name, “Ah! Mademoiselle, it is you who have been laughing at me!” and the naïve girl replied, “Oh no, Monsieur, it was my aunt!”

But, Olympes notwithstanding, Lausanne as a whole was only too delighted to come to M. de Voltaire’s theatricals, and the excellent suppers prepared by his first-rate cook. It did not expect him to pay visits, which he hated. So he and Madame Denis spent all their leisure hours learning parts and coaching their company. Madame Denis lived in a whirl of “tailors, hairdressers, and actors,” and being well amused was entirely amiable.

The plays acted were “Zaire,” “Alzire,” and the “Enfant Prodigue,” and a new play of Voltaire’s which he now called “Fanine,” and which was afterwards called “Zulime.”

Voltaire persistently declared that Madame Denis acted “Zaire” infinitely better than Gaussin, “though she has not such fine eyes”; which was a very delicate way of describing her squint.