Voltaire/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
MADAME DU CHÂTELET.
Besides this craving after liberty of expression, his desire to devote himself to letters, in the abstract, was extraordinarily powerful. It was by far his strongest passion, and, in fact, absorbed and turned to its own account all the others. "Heavens, my dear Cideville!" he exclaims, "what a delicious life to find one's self living with three or four literary people who have talents but no jealousy—to live thus in harmony, to cultivate our art, to talk it over, to enlighten each other! I fancy I may live some day in such a little paradise." Notwithstanding the extraordinary industry and success which had thus far distinguished him, he must have felt that the life he had led of late, one of constant evasion—the life, in fact, of a bird of passage, whose periods of migration were altogether uncertain and fortuitous—diversified by intervals when he figured as a man of pleasure—was, to say nothing of its discomfort, at variance with his true vocation. He now perceived an opportunity of quitting the frivolities and dissipation of Paris, and of living in comfort and security in a spot so near the French frontier that a single step would place him beyond the grasp of arbitrary and capricious power, while he would at the same time enjoy the solace of the most congenial female society which, perhaps, all France could supply to him. This opportunity, of which he immediately took advantage, consisted in retiring to the country house of the Marquis du Châtelet, on the verge of Lorraine, along with the Marquis's wife:—
"I was tired," he says, "of the idle, turbulent life of Paris, of the crowd of dandies, of bad books printed with the approbation and privilege of the king, of the cabals of literary people, of the baseness and dishonesty of the scum who dishonour letters. I found in 1733 a young lady who thought much as I did, and who took the resolution to pass several years in the country, and there to cultivate her mind, far from the tumult of the world: this was the Marquise du Châtelet, the woman who was the most disposed to study the sciences of any in France. Her father, the Baron de Breteuil, had made her learn Latin, which she knew as well as Madame Dacier; she had by heart the choice passages of Horace, Virgil, and Lucretius; all the philosophical works of Cicero were familiar to her. But of all studies, she preferred mathematics and metaphysics."
Nor is this the testimony merely of a too partial admirer—critics of unimpeachable judgment confirm it. "She really took a high place in letters and philosophy," says St Beuve, "and retained the admiration of Voltaire, who was not the man to let his intellect be for long the dupe of his heart."
Madame du Châtelet, twelve years younger than Voltaire, who was not yet forty, was then about twenty-seven. Although an enemy of hers, Madame du Deffant, has left an unfavourable portrait of her, there is no doubt that she was in person as well as in mind an extremely attractive woman. She was a tall dark beauty, with very pretty features, and a countenance of much individuality. Unlike learned ladies in general, she had a very strong leaning towards a life of pleasure: society, operas, balls, suppers, the gaming-table, flirtation—all these she enjoyed with uncommon zest. She had been married young to the Marquis du Châtelet, a very uncongenial mate, who, having small taste for the sciences, pursued his own paths in other directions, and left his wife to hers. The Marquise, according to the custom of the time, had had a lover; and that lover, also according to the custom of the time, had been the Duke of Richelieu. The Duke had given her a ring containing his portrait, which she now replaced with the likeness of Voltaire, who evidently considered that he had at length sowed his wild oats, was turning over a new leaf, and was respectably settling himself in life, when he retired with his companion to Cirey. Everybody seemed to be of the same opinion; M. de Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet received and returned the visits of great people, and people of fashion, and learned people; they were frequent guests at the neighbouring Court of King Stanislaus; the lady's brother came to stay with them, and the too indulgent Marquis du Châtelet also gave them occasionally the sanction of his presence as a guest.
Cirey was a dilapidated mansion in Champagne, situated in a poor, barren district. None of Voltaire's extant letters give any description of the surrounding scenery—indeed, he seems to have had but a very commonplace perception of natural beauty. His income, now more than £3000 a-year, supplied the means of furnishing the chateau, and of embellishing it with gardens; with his contributions, too, a gallery was built for pictures and statues, and a cabinet of objects of science formed. A set of apartments for Madame du Châtelet, and another for him, were fitted up with extraordinary taste and splendour. A guest who has left a record of her visit to Cirey, Madame de Grafigny, says that Voltaire's rooms were more like those of a prince than of a private gentleman. The rest of the mansion seems to have been left much in its former condition, which was the reverse of magnificent.
This was his home for fifteen years, from 1734 to 1749—his abode there being, however, varied by frequent visits to Paris, to Brussels, and to Berlin. While at Cirey, both he and Madame du Châtelet studied and wrote perseveringly. He was, Madame de Grafigny says, so greedy of his time, so intent upon his work, that it was sometimes necessary to tear him from his desk for supper. "But when at table he always has something to tell, very facetious, very odd, very droll, which would often not sound well except in his mouth, and which shows him still as he has painted himself for us—
'Always one foot in the coffin,
The other performing gambades.'
To be seated beside him at supper, how delightful!" Reading aloud, the performance of comedies and tragedies, marionettes, and magic-lantern, exhibited by Voltaire, fêtes—these were the chief diversions of the place. Their journeys to and from Cirey to Paris, Brussels, and elsewhere, generally made by night for economy of time, were performed in a huge carriage so crowded with trunks, baggage, and movables of all kinds, that it sometimes broke down on the road.