199 When one of the old guard… had criticized her: This was the Marain incident of 1741. Vaillot Avec Madame du Châtelet, pp. 146–47, is good on the key timing, but I don't think he gives enough credit to her arguments and their importance in clarifying the concept of kinetic energy.
200 Even by the undemanding standards… Louis was known: “His education having been neglected, his mind remained under-furnished. He had a gentle and timid character and an invincible distaste for [public] affairs, which he could not bear even to have mentioned in his presence…. [He was] capable of friendship… [but] indolent, hating and fearing work.” And this was from Antoine Pecquet, one of Louis's own senior officials; in Robert Darnton, Mademoiselle Bonafon and the Private Life of Louis XV (London, 2003).
201 She'd always been hated by ordinary people: Louis was caught within a subtle transformation. In the seventeenth century, mistresses had been seen as revealing the king's power. Now, though, they were increasingly seen as revealing his weakness. For women were imagined as stronger than before. This was good for Emilie—it helped open at least some doors for her—but it was catastrophic for poor Châteauroux. The murder of a royal mistress would inspire no popular calls for revenge.
202 “screaming with pain and at unknown horrors”: Hubert Cole, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber: The Life of Louis-François-Armand, Maréchal Duc de Richelieu (London, 1965), p. 134.
202 Voltaire also recognized her as another outsider: The majority at court actually were the comparatively new nobles of the robe. Such an infusion of energetic, relatively lower orders into higher ones was taking place across Europe at the time.
202 Through a mix of bedroom skills and conversational ability: Her official name at the time was Mme d'Etioles, for her mother had arranged for her to be married to a rich official of that name. At class-obsessed Versailles, however, this fooled nobody, and she was constantly harangued for her lowly origins. The fact that the mother tried to promote the story that the grandfather had been a weaver (which was a somewhat more acceptable profession but contradicted the family name, Poisson) just made them seem more ridiculous.
203 On the morning of April 11, 1745 … the battle began: There's a famous story about how the shooting started, based substantially on Voltaire's interviews with the survivors. It has too much the air of Voltaire's typical staging to ring entirely true, but at least in that version (and using some phrasing from Hubert Cole) the battle began with the British troops marching forward, in strict square formations, till they were scarcely a hundred yards from the French lines. The thousands of trained soldiers, with muskets aimed at each other, stood perfectly still, for everyone knew what had to happen before the firing began.
The overall British commander was George II's son, the Duke of Cumberland, but what was called for at this point was action too intense for him to participate in directly. It was a subordinate officer, Lord Charles Hay, who left the lines and moved forward. He took off his hat. The French troops' muskets didn't move. He lowered his hat. The British troops' muskets didn't move. He raised his hat again, and waited.
To his great dismay, the French officer, the comte d'Auteroche, now did something very ingenious: he refused to lower his hat! So Lord Hay had to return, dejected, to the British lines, no doubt to whispers of commiseration from his fellow officers. What had happened was that the British had offered the French the opportunity to shoot first. Auteroche had refused, because if he did fire first and his troops' musket balls missed—which was likely, since muskets didn't impart a smooth gyroscopic spin to the balls they shot out— then the British could charge while they were reloading.
The hat-lowering stratagem having failed, both armies now silently marched closer. When, at about thirty yards, the British officers lifted their canes slightly, the front two rows of French troops quickly kneeled. The canes had been raised because the British troops were preparing to kneel as well. Scared soldiers aim high, and the British officers now began strolling along their lines, gently tapping down the pointed muskets. Nothing could be heard but the squelch of feet in mud and the brush of musket stocks against uniforms. Only then, with everyone in position, did the deadly shooting begin.
203 The king was scared, and his generals were dithering: The usually efficient de Saxe was the official overall commander but, being in poor health, he didn't directly control this part of the campaign.
203 “as tightly wedged…as a square peg in a square hole”: Cole, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, p. 147.
203 Richelieu got back to the king and: Victory has many fathers, and everyone wanted to take credit for the undoubted success at Fontenoy. De Saxe had seen that all the men and equipment were in position; Richelieu's role here—perhaps the most level-headed of his often self-promoting military career—was as described in the text; but the greatest credit might well go to Lord Clare, Irish and a Jacobite, who commanded the Irish regiments that, in the end, swung the battle.
203 The king's generals, however…a very nice bridge: They were also planning to leave their own (largely peasant) army behind.
204 There were at least four French cannon available: De Saxe was a superb commander—possibly the best of that era, of any side—but on this day he was slipping. He'd left orders for the cannon not to be moved from where they'd been placed, and it was those orders that Richelieu had to get the king to override.
205 In July, the Catholic claimant… with promises of French support to come: The qualifier “promises” is important, for French support was grudging, and only came after Charles Edward had successfully landed, raised the clans and won his first important victory (at Prestonpans). Had the support come earlier, and publicly, the more cautious of his Scottish followers would probably have been emboldened to keep advancing.
205 Pamphlets had to be prepared: What Voltaire wrote began:
MANIFESTO
Of the King of France in favor of
Prince Charles Edward
… The D uke of R ichelieu, COMMANDER OF THE ARMY OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF FRANCS, ADDRESSES THIS DECLARATION TO THE FAITHFUL PEOPLE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS OF GREAT BRITAIN, AND ASSURES THEM OF THE CONSTANT PROTECTIONS OF THE KING HIS MASTER. HE COMES TO JOIN THE HEIR OF THEIR ANCIENT KINGS….
208 “what worries me now is free will”: D1486; also D1496. The term energy in its modern sense was still a century in the future; she wrote of “this quantity of force.”
208 In many respects he…was the last of the medievals: The point was understood in his time but forgotten later, for Newton's ideas were taken up by anti-religious reformers, who wouldn't accept that Newton had these beliefs. The modern concept is Keynes's, promoted after he examined a longforgotten collection of alchemical writings that Newton had left at Kings College, Cambridge.
208 Hardly anyone could use it directly: Looking back, in 1731, Johann Bernoulli senior wrote: “I tried to understand it. I read and reread what [Newton] had to say concerning the subject, but…I could not understand a thing.” Feingold, Newtonian Moment, p. 67.
209 That itself would be an immense undertaking: She'd made a desultory start before, but now could do it properly.
209 Indeed, she was now increasingly known: Though the dauphin— when not in his father's presence—avoided saying “Madame de Pompadour,” preferring “Madame Whore.”
210 The invasion of England had also failed… not helped by his ongoing arguments: They weren't the only two who had it in for each other.
The Council of State, which had responsibility for the invasion and uprising, had six ministers at this time. In Frank McLynn's deft summary, “[Richelieu's] immediate boss was the war minister Comte d'Argenson, who was at daggers drawn with his brother the marquis d'Argenson, who in turn was at loggerheads with the king's personal favorite the duc de Noailles, who in turn despised Cardinal Tencin, the Jacobite promoter.” The wonder is that the invasion plan got as close as it did.
210 “Monsieur de Voltaire… begs the director-general”: Besterman, Select
Letters, p. 90.
210 Soon more honors came in: Including, after several attempts, membership in the Académie Française. “This…is the subject of all literary men's secret hopes, it is a mistress against which they launch songs and epigrams until they have obtained its favors, and which they neglect as soon as they have entered into possession…. After forty years of work you [get to] deliver in a broken voice, on the day of your reception, a discourse which on the next day will be forgotten for ever.” Voltaire's further summary to the aspiring writer Le Fèvre; in ibid., p. 72.
211 Voltaire had begun an affair… incest…was much less abhorrent: It was not uncommon amongst royalty, as witness Philip II; similarly, Lamartine or Voltaire's lottery colleague La Condamine.
211 “I can barely believe, dear heart”: Vaillot, Avec Madame du Châtelet, p. 290.
212 Voltaire, by contrast…a potboiler of a play: A harsh charge against the long-famous Sémiramis, but try reading it.
213 “When I finished consuming my repast”: Longchamp and Wagnière, Mémoires sur Voltaire, pp. 136–37. I've translated liberally, to capture his extraordinarily subservient tone, which is layered with just a hint of unctuousness and resentment.
213 To be ready… she'd brought a great deal of cash: She might have brought that much merely out of a gambler's confidence, but it's hard to see Voltaire lending her the substantial extra funds without a great trust that it was well founded.
214 Voltaire had known not to interrupt…breathing deep: It wasn't only in her text On Happiness that she recounts her excitement while playing; in other accounts she is described as playing for hours on end while Voltaire—and at times the coachman—stood waiting.
218 The Fontainebleau cheats knew they'd gone too far: There was a certain amount of “allowable” cheating in aristocratic life, for country house owners often used rigged card or roulette-style games as a polite way of getting their wealthy guests to pay them, thus avoiding the crudity of having to make the guests produce a stack of coins and actually slip them into the host's hands. What happened at Fontainebleau had surpassed that.
218 When those earnings did start coming in: In modern jargon, she was securitizing the tax collectors' future income streams, which she'd acquired at a discount. (And since she'd arranged the initial purchase via a loan, she was never out of pocket.)
219 The duchesse—although a tiny blond pixie: She was always the driving force. When she did go too far, and got herself and her husband locked in prison for their planned overthrow of the state, she was brave enough to perjure herself, in an attempt to get him freed first.
219 For such a task it helps…a magnificent château: The duc's mother had realized how important the great finance minister Colbert was, and had charmed him when her royal beau was away. As a thank-you, Colbert had left her son the Sceaux château.
219 There were messages in invisible ink… with the Spanish court: Which wasn't as unpatriotic as it sounds, for the royal families were closely interrelated. (Thus of Louis XIV's grandsons, one became Philip V of Spain; another became the father of Louis XV.) Instead of an invasion, there would just be a quick coup, and a shift in who held power at the French court.
220 He was old enough… and had kept in occasional touch: Most notably via a recent visit to her summer home of Anet. Mme de Staal kept a wicked account, showing her incomprehension that Emilie should have insisted on staying in her room during the day to work on her Newton, pulling the tables together to make a sufficiently large workspace.
221 He could be assured…liked being called “director of the Honey Bee Society”: Her motto was Piccola si, ma fa pur gravi le ferite— both were small, but stung sharply. Her fame then was so widespread that Couperin wrote his harpsichord diversion Les Abeilles [The Bees] for her.
223 He could use this period…to write her a story: Partly this was her prerogative as an aristocrat, and his hostess; partly it had been a constant of their relationship in years past, when he'd enjoyed night-long parties there. Voltaire also knew that she suffered from insomnia, and was going to be awake anyway.
226 He took out a fresh sheet of paper: How much of the story he wrote was fresh? Vaillot believes hardly any of it was; Longchamp and the immensely careful Besterman think all of it was. The explanation, I think, comes from the way Voltaire worked and reworked his best ideas. Thus the lengthy, eloquent draft about the mouse thinking it's a god, which he sent in a letter to Frederick, became an even lengthier part of his Discourse in Verse on Man (as we saw in chapter 14). Similarly here. The story “Memnon,” which he'd written a good draft of before, naturally slid into the deeper story he was developing at Sceaux, even though it hadn't quite reached what would be its final published form as Zadig (which, for clarity, is what I've called its various versions throughout this text).
What Longchamp had to deal with, then, was a mixture of previous writing (which explains why Voltaire was so insistent that he get the old writing table from Paris, with the key manuscripts in it), but also a great deal of redrafting and fresh writing (which explains why even as tireless a copyist as Longchamp was exhausted by the hours of transcription). The total number of words in the tales that Besterman suggests were written at Sceaux could easily have been read aloud in the hours that Voltaire stayed with the duchesse (arriving back up in his room, as Longchamp reports, often scarcely before the dawn). Given the time of year—end of autumn or early winter— that would be late indeed. But do also see Van den Heuvel's views, in the introductions within Frédéric Deloffre and Jacques Van den Heuvel, eds., Romans et contes (Paris, 1979).
228 The British critic William Empson: In Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity; a point much developed by Sartre, and then especially by the cognitive anthropologist Mary Douglas (in her writings on our fascination with all category-shifting objects, be they honey, or lava, or social minorities). Voltaire had long understood the principle: “It seems to me,” he wrote in 1739, “that sculpture and painting are like music: they do not express ideas. An ingenious song cannot be performed… and a clever allegory, intended only for the intellect, cannot be expressed either by the sculptor or the painter.” To the Comte de Caylus, in Besterman, Select Letters, p. 59.
229 They both were too old… clad in dressing gowns: On the penultimate page of Zadig the hero is dressed in nightcap and dressing gown as he bests the swordsman—the type of insertion of actual life into a story that Voltaire loved.
231 “By all the greatest crimes”: These elegantly split alexandrines are the translation of Donald Frame in his edition Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories (London, 1962).
231 Now though—jump-started…thegreatest new literary form of his life: There were numerous precedents, but it was fresh for Voltaire and, I'd say, fresh even when compared to the others in the genre: less ridiculous than Rabelais's Pantagruel, more sincere and intense than Swift's Gulliver.
231 “now my M. de Voltaire engaged in less sleep”: Longchamp and Wagnière, Mémoires, p. 148.
233 One guest jotted down what was written: The ever-present duc de Luynes, in his journal; quoted in Vaillot, Avec Madame du Châtelet, p. 302.
233 “Order your [returning] carriage… between 7:30 and 8”: Notice that the duchesse is ensuring no one will bother her by staying on afterward for even the briefest of drinks.
240 He'd heard about… the small provincial courts: Lorraine itself was an independent duchy, which would revert to the French crown once Stanislas died.
241 “yes, despite my youth, and I'm sure my weak talents”: Gaston Maugras, La Cour de Lunéville au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1904), p. 82.
242 “My dear child, I don't know when I'll return”: D3632.
243 Their affair had begun… one of Catherine's friends: The friend was Chancellor de la Galaizière. He was the true power in the duchy, for he controlled Stanislas's French stipend, which came from Versailles.
243 “If I hadn't gone up to you”: Emilie, Lettres, vol. 2, p. 172, n. 374.
244 “I'm such
a lazy girl”: The quotations are from Maugras, La Cour de Lunéville, pp. 292, 293.
246 “My sweet, it's not enough to love each other”: Ibid., p. 293.
246 Saint-Lambert's mother and sister were …offended: Georges Mangeot, Autour d'un Foyer Lorraine: La Famille de Saint-Lambert, 1596–1795 (Paris, 1913), p. 66.
247 “I used to make resolutions that I wouldn't fall in love”: From her long letter of May 9, 1748, D3648.
247 “I will… bring you my member”: Modified from the somewhat archaic translation in Besterman's edited Voltaire's Love Letters to His Niece (London, 1958), p. 27. It slightly predates these events in Lunéville, but given Voltaire's health and distraction, the problems were liable to recur.
248 “In but five or six minutes”: Longchamp and Wagnière, Mémoires, pp. 195–97.
248 “take it very hot, but only small amounts”: Maugras, La Cour de Lunéville, p. 310.
248 “In our love… there's no such word as enough”: Ibid., p. 326.
248 “I'd like to spend the rest of my life with you”: D3652.
251 “You took my trust, and yet…You've deceived me”: D3753.
252 Voltaire knew very well: Not least because Voltaire's play was designed to supersede Crébillon's own version of thirty years before. Also, the younger Crébillon was far more radical than his father (who called him “my worst production”), and often took Voltaire's side in public issues.
252 a larger group of applauders: Led by the chevalier de La Morlière, a master in these matters. Paid enough money, he would arrange a group of over a hundred guaranteed loud supporters; they generally met at the adjacent Café Procope (still in existence) to arrange strategy.
253 “Come on! Come on! Make way for the ghost!”: Vaillot, Avec Madame du Châtelet, pp. 233, 236, has the details.
253 His health had always been poor, he confided: Longchamp and Wagnière, Mémoires, pp. 218–21.
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