The life of Voltaire

by Evelyn Beatrice Hall

The philosophic pair were much fêted en route. “Œdipe” was performed when they were at Cambrai, as a delicate compliment. There was a Congress going on there too; and Voltaire wrote gaily therefrom to Cardinal Dubois (who was archbishop of the place but had never even seen it) one of those audacious, easy letters which were his forte, and which Dubois and Theriot between them passed round the salons of Paris. Voltaire and Madame were at Cambrai for some five or six weeks, and then went on to Brussels. Here lived now J. B. Rousseau, fifty-two years old, who from wit and licence had passed to dulness and orthodoxy. Of course the poets met. Voltaire had not seen Rousseau since he was a schoolboy, and Rousseau had been shown him as a prodigy for imitation. To the gay, unsparing logic of the younger poet the old one did not appear at all in the light of a prodigy now. “He despises me because I neglect rhyme, and I despise him because he can do nothing but rhyme,” said Voltaire carelessly.

At first, however, all went well. Voltaire read his “master” as he called him, a part of the “Henriade.” Rousseau praised it, only criticising such passages as would be likely to give offence to the Church. Then came a meeting, when the poets read to each other some of their minor poems; and Madame de Rupelmonde was a gracious and sympathetic listener. Rousseau read his satire, the “Judgment of Pluto”; which was nothing but an account of the wrongs which had exiled him. And Voltaire said the “Judgment” was unworthy of the Great and Good Rousseau. Then Rousseau must needs read out his “Ode to Posterity,” on the same subject. “That is a letter, master,” says Voltaire, “which will never reach its address.” Then Voltaire takes his “Epistle to Uranie” and reads that. “Stop, stop!” cries old Rousseau, still smarting under the audacious boy’s criticisms. “What horrible profanity!” And Voltaire asks since when the author of the “Moïsade” has become devout.

There was the making of a very pretty quarrel here. The one sun was rising, the other setting. Both men were not a little vain, sensitive, and jealous. Henceforth, it was war to the knife. They parted; and if Voltaire forgave at the last, Rousseau never did.

Rousseau recorded afterwards how Voltaire attended Mass on the first day of his arrival at Brussels and shocked the congregation by his profanity. The story was true, though it was written by an enemy. Voltaire was born irreverent. When he left Brussels he did not even revere that hero of his youth, Rousseau.

By October, 1722, he and Madame had gone on to The Hague and Amsterdam.

The young man was always out dining and playing tennis there, reading aloud his works, keen, active, enjoying himself. His health, of which he was exceedingly fond of talking and complaining was better than it had ever been; but that did not prevent him from drinking up one day as a kind of medical experiment—“from greediness,” said Madame de Rupelmonde—a bottle of medicine from her bedside which she was going to have taken, from necessity.

Perhaps in the midst of gaiety and enjoyment Voltaire recalled the last time he was here, Pimpette, and that wild episode of his youth. But this was the man who was always agog for the future; never a dreamer of the past—a doer, an actor, the most energetic spirit in history.

When he was at The Hague he was busy arranging for the publication of his “Henriade” there, in that freer country, and continually reading and reciting extracts from it to his friends. After a few weeks’ visit he started on his journey home. Madame de Rupelmonde had a house at The Hague, and as there was no other agreeable marquise with a travelling carriage returning to France just then, M. de Voltaire did the journey on horseback alone, and as economically as he could.

He was at Cambrai again on October 31, 1722, announcing the forthcoming publication of his epic. At the beginning of the new year, 1723, he was once more staying at La Source, near Orleans, with that exiled Lord Bolingbroke who had, said his guest, “all the learning of his own country and all the politeness of ours.” The guest read aloud that dear epic. He called it “The League or Henry IV.” now, or “The League,” or “Henry IV.” only. He advertised it industriously at every château he stayed at. In Paris Theriot was trying to get subscriptions for it, and to propitiate the censor. From La Source Voltaire went to stay with other friends at Ussé, who were also friends of a charming early friend of his own, Madame de Mimeure.

By February 23, 1723, he was back again in Paris seeing a new play by Alexis Piron, called “Harlequin Deucalion,” wherein the failure of “Artémire” was piquantly satirised. “Deucalion” is remarkable as having obeyed a prohibition of the censor, designed to stop comic opera in Paris, that not more than one person should appear on the stage at a time, and as having succeeded in spite of that obedience.