The life of Voltaire

by Evelyn Beatrice Hall

of a conflagration. At last he reached Brunswick, where for a few days he was royally entertained by the Duke. Finally, he returned to Brussels.

It is not to be supposed that the divine Émilie had been sitting contented and smiling in Paris while her lover was addressing tender rhymes to princesses in Bayreuth. Voltaire had been away four months—four heart-burning, chafing, angry months. What unsatisfying food for the heart were diplomatic despatches after all! Voltaire was one whole fortnight without writing a single letter to his mistress. She had to learn his movements “from ambassadors and gazettes.” “Such conduct would alienate anyone but me,” she wrote to d’Argental, always her confidant. Then, to add insult to injury, was that delay at the court of the Duke of Brunswick. Courts and kings! Madame du Châtelet was weary of them. She started up in a passion and left Paris: was ill with a nervous fever at Lille, and feverishly reproachful still when she met her Voltaire at last. That inevitable storm blew over as it had blown over before. The sun came out again, though it was a sun in a clouded sky. The pair went to Paris together about the middle of November, 1743: Voltaire to report on his mission and to be, he hoped, substantially rewarded.

But the ill-fortune which always dogged him beset him now. Amelot, the Foreign Minister, fell out of favour, and with him his protégé, Voltaire.

No two people in the world were so used to chagrins and disappointments as the two who returned to Brussels in February, 1744, and in the spring to Cirey, and applied their old panacea for every evil in life—work. It succeeded. It was generally successful. Very few letters belong to the early months of this year. There was not time even for letter-writing. Monsieur Denis died in April, leaving behind him a bouncing widow of seven-and-thirty.

It was in April too that Voltaire received a very satisfactory little courtly consolation, to compensate him for many rebuffs. Richelieu engaged him to write a play for the wedding festivities of the Dauphin and the Infanta of Spain, which were to take place in the autumn, and which would presently demand the presence of M. de Voltaire at Versailles.

It is not necessary to say that Voltaire took immense trouble over this bagatelle, because he always took immense trouble over everything. All his works are as good as he could make them. He called his play “The Princess of Navarre.” He laid the scene there in delicate compliment to the Infanta—and for the practical reason that he could introduce into it both French and Spaniards, with their gorgeous medley of costume. Rameau was to write the music. There were to be the loveliest ballets, processions, and songs. The scenery was to be unique in splendour. “The Princess of Navarre” is what would now be called a comic opera, and as such was certainly unworthy of the genius of Voltaire. But it was not unworthy of his shrewdness. If it would but gain him some trifling post at Court, the favour instead of the fear of the King, why, then it would give him, too, the right to live where he liked in peace, would cripple the power of Boyer, of censors, of Desfontaines, might open to him the doors of the Academy and gain him liberty to think—aloud. It was worth while after all. He worked at it night and day. He wrote immense letters about it to Richelieu and to d’Argenson. Cirey was delightful, priceless—“Cirey-en-félicité” once more. “To be free and loved ... is what the kings of the earth are not.” Nevertheless, to be free and loved in Cirey alone was not enough. “I am engaged in writing a divertissement for a Dauphin and Dauphiness whom I shall not divert,” said he, and again to Cideville: “Me! writing for the Court! I am afraid I shall only write foolery. One only writes well what one writes from choice.”

But he wrote, rewrote, altered, improved, not the less. On July 7th, President Hénault, the friend of Voltaire’s friend Madame du Deffand, came to spend the day at Cirey. He found it “a delightful retreat, a refuge of peace, harmony, calm, and of mutual esteem, philosophy, and poetry.” Voltaire was in bed when the guest arrived: working hard there, as usual. Summer was on the land. The house was a marvel. Madame, recalled from her exact sciences, was a charming hostess. If Voltaire was fifty years old and ailing, if he had to look back on many honours missed and favours given to meaner men, his “Princess of Navarre” was but the more delightful a compliment for being paid so late and so unexpectedly. He read it to the President, who wept (though the “Princess” is not at all pathetic), and was very nearly as interested in it, and as pleased with it, as the eager author himself.

In September, Voltaire and Madame came up from Cirey to Champs-sur-Marne, a village only five leagues from Paris, to take part in the rejoicings which celebrated Louis XV.’s recovery from an illness and return from a campaign, and to arrange about the production of the “Princess.”

One night Madame insists on her Voltaire driving up with her those five leagues to Paris, to witness the fireworks and festivities. Madame has her own carriage and her country coachman, unused to the city. She is in grande tenue and diamonds. The carriage gets into a crowd—that light-hearted, light-headed mob of Paris—and cannot move an inch until three o’clock in the morning. Out gets Madame followed by her lean Voltaire (not a little disgusted and amused and having the very greatest admiration for this extraordinary woman’s pluck and spirit), pushes her way through the crowd, marches straight into President Renault’s house in the Rue Saint-Honoré and takes possession of it. The President is away from home. Madame sends for a chicken from the restaurant, and she and her Voltaire sit down to supper with perfect philosophy and enjoyment, and drink to the President’s very good health.

Voltaire recounted the story to Hénault a few days afterwards. The man who had undertaken to write a court divertissement had laid himself open to all kinds of social adventures, amusements, boredoms. In the beginning of the January of 1745 he took up his abode at Versailles to superintend rehearsals, arrange scenery, and accommodate his verses to Rameau’s music.