The life of Voltaire

by Evelyn Beatrice Hall

This wary Voltaire propitiated her, dedicated to her “L’Indiscret,” and made her his very useful friend. Drinking the waters (“There is more vitriol in a bottle of Forges water than in a bottle of ink,” he wrote; “and I do not believe ink is so very good for the health”) was brought to a tragic conclusion by the Duc de Melun, who was out hunting with Richelieu, being gored to death by a stag. The hunt was at Chantilly, and the unhappy Melun died in the arms of the Duke of Bourbon and in the presence of the Court. Voltaire, who never abandoned a friend, stayed another fortnight to console Richelieu, and then went back to Paris, which he had reached by August 15th.

He had a lodging in the Rue de Beaune now, but the unbearable noise of the street drove him into an hôtel garni, and the discomforts of the hôtel garni back again to the Rue de Beaune. Finally, he completed an arrangement begun the year before, and rented a room from the Bernières in their noisy house.

Wherever he was, he was working as usual. He rewrote “Mariamne.” He obtained for Theriot the offer of the secretaryship to Richelieu—Richelieu having been appointed ambassador to Vienna. And M. Theriot is too idle to be bothered with regular work, and twice declines the offer. Voltaire was not a little mortified, and found forgiveness difficult; but he forgave. His letters on the subject are an admirable lesson in the arts of friendship and of forbearance.

In April of the next year, 1725, the rewritten “Mariamne” was produced, with that gay little bagatelle, “L’Indiscret,” after it. “L’Indiscret” was said to justify its name in that it took too much liberty with the upper classes. “Mariamne” was very fairly successful now. But, after all, the author had had it and “L’Indiscret,” as well as the “Henriade,” all printed at his own expense, and at a very great expense. Fame, he observed, was agreeable but not nourishing. His thrifty soul began to look out for the nourishment.

In this summer of 1825, Louis XV., aged fifteen, was to be married to Marie Leczinska, aged twenty-one, daughter of Stanislas, ex-King of Poland. Madame de Prie gave Voltaire the refusal of rooms in her house at Fontainebleau, where the royal honeymoon was to be spent. Here was an opportunity! He had said not a year ago that he had renounced Courts for ever through the weakness of his stomach and the strength of his reason.

But in many respects, and in this respect above all, he was nothing if not inconsistent. He cried for royal favour as a spoilt child cries for the moon; and when he had it, it bored, wearied, and irritated him. But in his day, if the King, and the person who ruled the King, did not smile on talent, talent had small chance of success. “To make one’s fortune,” Voltaire wrote bitterly hereafter, “it is better to speak four words to the King’s mistress than to write a hundred volumes.”

So on August 27, 1725, he came up to Madame de Prie’s house at Fontainebleau. The festivities were in full swing, though the marriage was yet to come. Voltaire was one-and-thirty. He was there by his own choice. He knew himself to be for the first time in his life well placed. Yet his visit had not lasted three days when he wished himself away again. There was a dreadful rumour, too, that all the pensions were to be discontinued, and a new tax imposed instead to pay for the bride’s chiffons! Then Voltaire wrote a little divertissement to amuse the royalties, and the master of the ceremonies preferred “Le Médecin Malgré Lui.” On Wednesday, September 5th, the wedding took place. Then the bride accorded her gracious permission to M. de Voltaire to dedicate to her “Œdipe” and “Mariamne.” Things were a little better! Her father, with whom Voltaire was to have much to do hereafter, begged for a copy of the “Henriade” on his daughter’s recommendation. Voltaire was presented to her Majesty. Things were better still. “She has wept at ‘Mariamne,’ she has laughed at ‘L’Indiscret,’ she talks to me often, she calls me her ‘poor Voltaire.’” Charming! charming! but just a little bit—well, unsubstantial. And then she allowed her poet a pension of fifteen hundred livres.

Voltaire’s state of mind at Court was the state of mind of many—perhaps of most—courtiers. It is a dreadful bore to be here—but it is very advantageous! The cage is really so exquisitely gilded that one must try not to see the bars through the gilt! I want to get out, and I could get out—but I am so very lucky to be here, and so many people envy me, that I certainly will not. What an inexplicable and yet what a very common state of mind it is!

Voltaire could now count on the friendship, not only of the Queen, but of Madame de Prie, and of the minister Duverney. He was a pensioner of both their Majesties. The Court acknowledged him the first poet in France. Epigrams and the Bastille were in the background. He had hopes of being useful to his friends.

All this was not ungenerous payment for three months’ ennui at the finest Court in the world. But was it sufficient? Voltaire had indeed his gift of satiric observation to make the dullest entertainment amusing. “The Queen is every day assassinated with Pindaric odes, sonnets, epistles, and epithalamiums,” he wrote; “I should think she takes the poets for the Court fools; and if she does she is right, for it is a great folly for a man of letters to be here.” The boredom was stronger than the satisfaction after all. To hang about in the antechamber, tickling the jaded fancy of the Court gentlemen with one’s mots—to try and rouse the sleepy selfishness of a callow king with one’s finest wit—to flatter and cajole a duke’s mistress and a poor, honest, simple little foreigner because she happened to be a king’s wife—to play for apples of Sodom that turned to dust and ashes at one’s touch—was it worth while? “It is better to be a lackey of wits than a wit of lackeys”—better to do any work than none—better any life than this narcotic sleep of easy idleness. In Voltaire’s ear that siren, Verse, was always whispering and calling him away. In his heart were passionate convictions throbbing to be spoken. He had been glad to go to Court. He was more than glad to get away.