Part 15

Menoux was now trembling for his authority. Madame de Boufflers' influence appeared to him to be growing too formidable. They were curious relations which subsisted between Voltaire and the priest. With de Tressan and other Academicians Menoux was at open and embittered feud. Voltaire was more of a statesman. To their faces the two opponents invariably professed the sincerest friendship and the warmest admiration. Even many years after we find Voltaire, when writing to Menoux, declaring to him his unaltered love and attachment, while at the same time paying the Abbé delicate compliments on the score of his _esprit_: "Je voudrais que vous m'aimassiez, car je vous aime." Behind their backs they called each other names. Menoux was by no means a mere hierophantic prig or sacerdotal oaf. Voltaire calls him "le plus intrigant et le plus hardi prêtre que j'ai jamais connu," and adds that he had "milked" Stanislas to the extent of a full million. D'Almbert describes him as the type of a Court divine--"habitué au meilleur monde," without any "rigidité claustrale"--"homme d'infiniment d'esprit, fin, délicat, intelligent, subtile, ayant heureusement cultivé les lettres et en conservant les grâces et la fraicheur sans la moindre trace de pédanterie." Between him and Boufflers there was continual warfare--above-ground and below-ground, by open hostilities and by schemes and intrigues. It was with a view to checkmating Boufflers, so Voltaire relates, that Menoux first suggested an invitation to Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet to come to the Court. Madame du Châtelet was to become the favourite's rival. To this theory French writers object that, as du Châtelet was some years older than Boufflers, not nearly as good-looking, certainly not _dévote_, and another man's property already, the scheme was absurd. In the result Menoux certainly showed himself to have made a mistake; but that was owing to a circumstance which neither he nor any one else could have foreseen. Otherwise the scheme cannot be pronounced bad. To literary-minded Stanislas, at his time of life, the intellectual graces of du Châtelet might well balance the greater personal attractions of Boufflers. Besides, Menoux did not look for an actual ally so much as for a rival to the favourite. Even to lessen her absolute authority would be quite enough for his purpose. He travelled all the way to Cirey to sound the two, and, finding them willing, pressed their invitation upon Stanislas.

Stanislas was, as Menoux had foreseen, only too eager to accept the suggestion. He had had more than one taste of the pleasures of playing the Mæcenas. Montesquieu had been at his Court, working there at his _Esprit des Lois_, and Madame de Grafigny, Helvétius, Hénault, Maupertuis; and the shy and retiring, but gifted Devaux was a fixture. However, Stanislas wanted more. The only disappointment to Menoux was that he found the invitation planned by himself actually issued by his rival, Madame de Boufflers. It was, of course, accepted; and the beginning of 1748 saw Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet safely arrived at Commercy.

The Lorrain Court, always bright and gay, was at that time perhaps at its very brightest. Stanislas, being permitted to play at being king, and given ample pecuniary resources for doing so, played the game in good earnest, with a due appreciation of showy externals, and with a singularly happy grace. He had at his command an apparatus which any real king might have envied. Here was Commercy, raised by Durand for the rich and tasteful Prince de Vaudémont, the friend of our William III. and of the elder Pretender, a blaze of magnificence, with gardens around it, and sheets of water, and cascades, which cast Versailles into the shade. His principal residence, however, one of the masterpieces designed by Boffrand, was the Palace of Lunéville. On seeing it Louis XV., surprised at its grandeur, exclaimed, "Mais, mon père, vous êtes mieux logé que moi." That was the

salon magnifique, Moitié Turc et moitié Chinois, Où le goût moderne et l'antique, Sans se nuire, ont uni leurs lois,

of which Voltaire writes--very incongruous, but decidedly splendid and comfortable. Stanislas had added the delightful "Bosquet," laid out for him by Gervais--overloading it, it is true, with kiosks and pavilions, renaissance architecture and renaissance statuary, a hermitage, and eventually with de Tressan's "Chartreuse." Like all persons of "taste" in his day, Stanislas loved gimcrackery; he had utilized François Richard's inventive genius for embellishing his principal residence with a unique contrivance, admired by all Europe--an artificial rock with clockwork machinery setting about eighty figures in motion. You may see a picture of it still in the Nancy Museum. It must have been very ingenious and very ugly. First, there was a miller's wife opening her casement-window to answer some supposed caller; then two cronies appear on the scene, engaging in a morning chat. A shepherd playing on his _musette_ leads his flock, tinkling with bells, across the rock. Two wethers engage in a real contest; a clockwork dog jumps up, barking, and separates them. There was a forge, with hammers beating and sparks flying. An insatiable tippler knocks at the closed door of the tavern, and is answered by the hostess with a pailful of water emptied upon his head from a window above. In the distance a pious hermit is seen telling his beads. And in the background is discovered, standing on a balcony, to crown the whole, the Queen, Catherine Opalinska, complacently looking down upon the scene, while two sentries pace solemnly up and down, occasionally presenting arms. Such were the toys of royalty in those days. Besides these two palaces Stanislas had others--Chanteheux, well in view from Lunéville, built in the Polish style: "rien de plus superbe, rien de plus irrégulier"; Einville, flat and level, disparaged by the duc de Luynes, but nevertheless grand, and possessing a "salon" famed for its magnificence throughout Europe; and lastly the historic Malgrange, close to Nancy, the "Sans souci" of Henri le Bon, in which Catherine of Bourbon had met the Roman doctors of divinity, despatched to convert her, in learned disputation, and sent them away discomfited, to the no little annoyance of her brother, Henri IV. Beyond this, Héré was at work beautifying Nancy in the Louis-Quinze style, with statuary and balustrades, gorgeous gateways, and magnificent arches; and he was building that handsome palace, which now serves as the Commanding General's quarters, in which, in 1814, when the Emperor of Austria, the last real Lorrain Duke's grandson, was lodged there, was hatched the Absolutist conspiracy of the "Holy Alliance."

The Court itself was modelled entirely on the pattern of the superior Olympus of Versailles. "On ne croyait pas avoir changé de lieu quand on passait de Versailles à Lunéville," says Voltaire. There was splendour, display, lavishness, gilding everywhere--only in Lorraine there was an absolute absence of etiquette and restraint--"ce qui complétait le charme." At Lunéville the etiquette was of the slightest. From the other palaces it was wholly banished--"me voici dans un beau palais, avec la plus grande liberté (et pourtant chez un roi)--à la Cour sans être courtisan." "C'est un homme charmant que le roi Stanislas," Voltaire goes on, in another letter. And not without cause. For Stanislas had placed himself and all his household at the great writer's service. The king entertained a perfect army of Court dignitaries, who had scarcely anything to do for their salaries. He had his _gardes-du-corps_, resplendent in scarlet and silver, his _cadets-gentilhommes_, who were practically pages, half of them Lorrains, the remainder Poles, his regular pages, two of whom must always stand by him, when playing at _tric-trac_, never moving a muscle all the while. He had his pet dwarf "Bébé," decked out in military dress, with a diminutive toy-coach and two goats to carry him about, and a page in yellow and black always to wait upon him. This dwarf the king would for a joke occasionally have baked up in a pie. Upon the pie being opened Bébé would jump out, sword in hand, greatly frightening the ladies and performing on the dinner-table a sort of war-dance, which was his great accomplishment. Then he had his _musique_, headed by Anet, the particular friend of Lulli, and with Baptiste, another friend of Lulli, for "premier violon." The Lorrain court had always been noted for its concerts, its theatricals and its _sauteries_--that was at the time the fashionable name for balls. Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mademoiselle Clairon, Fleury, had all come out first on the Lorrain stage. Lunéville it was which invented the "Cotillon," which has become so popular all over the continent. Lunéville also was the birthplace of the aristocratic and graceful "Chapelet." And king Stanislas' orchestra enjoyed a European reputation. "Do you pay your musicians better than I do?" asked Louis Quinze of his father-in-law with a touch of jealousy. "No, my brother; but I pay them for what they do, you pay them for what they know." There was wit and fashion in abundance, and a galaxy of beauty--the royal-born Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, the Princesse de Lützelburg, the fascinating Princesse de Talmonde, Stanislas' cousin, who subdued the heart of our young Pretender, the Countess of Leiningen, the Princesse de Craon, Madame de Mirepoix, Madame de Chimay, and others. But what of all things Stanislas prided himself upon most were his table and his kitchen. He was, as I have said, fond of gimcracks and he was a great eater, though he often concentrated all his eating upon one Gargantuan meal. The dinner-hour never came round fast enough for him, which made Galaizière say, "If you go on like that, Sire, we shall shortly have you dining the day before." His particular delight were quaint culinary refinements, "imitations" and "surprises," which were only to be achieved with the help of so accomplished a master as his supreme _chef de cuisine_ (there were five other _chefs_ besides) Gilliers, the author of that unsurpassed cookery-book, _Le cannaméliste français_. Every dining-table at Court was a mechanical work of art. Touch a spring, when the cloth was removed, and there would start up a magnificent _surtout_--there were some measuring five feet by three--a silversmith's _chef d'oeuvre_, covered with rocks, and castles, and trees, and statuary, a swan spouting water at a beautiful Leda, and the like. And between these ornaments was set out a rich array of dessert, likewise so shaped as to represent every variety of figures, like Dresden China. One year, when all the fruit failed--I believe it was while Voltaire was in Lorraine, in 1749, which was a year of unparalleled distress--Gilliers kept the Court supplied with a continual succession of imitation fruit, which did service for real plums and peaches. Stanislas had introduced such "bizarreries septentrionales" as raw _choucroûte_ and unsavoury messes of meat and fruit, and imitation _plongeon_ (great northern diver), produced by plucking a goose alive, beating it to death with rods, and preparing it in a peculiar way. A turkey treated in the same manner found itself transformed into a sham capercailzie. But the _chefs d'oeuvre_ were Gilliers' "surprises," prepared after much thought, to which Stanislas contributed his share. Voltaire makes out that "bread and wine"--which he did not always get--would have been amply sufficient for his modest wants; but what we hear of the Lorrain Court shows him to have been by no means indifferent to the products of Gillier's inimitable _cuisine_. We read of Voltaire's eyes glistening with delight when, after the removal of the cloth, what looked like a ham was brought upon the table, and a truffled tongue. The ham turned out to be a confectionery made up of strawberry preserve and whipped cream, _pané_ with macaroons; the tongue something of the same sort, truffled with chocolate. I must not forget the coffee, to which Voltaire, like most great writers, was devoted. Swift declared that he could not write unless he had "his coffee twice a week." Voltaire consumed from six to eight cups at a sitting--which is nothing compared with the performance of Delille, who, to keep off the megrim, swallowed twenty. Stanislas employed a special _chef du café_, La Veuve Christian, who was responsible for its quality. Then, there was the wine, Stanislas' special hobby. Of course, he had all the Lorrain _crûs_. The best of these, that grown on the famous Côte de Malzéville, close to Nancy, he had made sure of by bespeaking the entire produce in advance for his lifetime, at twelve francs the "measure." His peculiar pride, however, was his Tokay. Every year his predecessor, Francis, become Emperor of Germany, sent him a large cask, escorted all the way by a guard of Austrian grenadiers. As soon as ever that cask arrived, Stanislas set personally to work. What with drugs, and syrups, and sugar, and other wine, he manufactured out of one cask about ten, which he drew off into bottles specially made for the purpose. Some he kept for his own use at dessert. The larger portion he distributed among his friends, who every one of them becomingly declared upon their oath that better Tokay they had never tasted.

But there were better things to entertain the Lorrain Court. There were fêtes; there were theatricals--at some of which Voltaire and du Châtelet performed in person, Voltaire as the "Assesseur" in _L'Etourderie_, du Châtelet as "Issé"; there was brilliant conversation, music, everything that money could buy and good company produce. And Voltaire was the fêted of all. "Voltaire était dieu à la Cour de Stanislas," says Capefigue. He could do as he liked--sleep, wake, work, mix with the company, stroll about alone--without any restraint; the king and all were at his beck, all eager for his every word, taking everything from him in the best part, appreciating, admiring, worshipping. His plays were put upon the stage. He was allowed to drill the actors at his pleasure. In this way, _Le Glorieux_ was produced with great pomp; also _Nanine_, _Brutus_, _Mérope_, and _Zaïre_, the last-named, for a novelty, by a troupe of children. Whatever he wrote, he could make sure that he would have an attentive audience of illustrious personages to hear him read out.

Je coule ici mes heureux jours, Dans la plus tranquille des Cours, Sans intrigue, sans jalousie, Auprès d'un roi sans courtisans, Près de Boufflers et d'Emilie; Je les vois et je les entends, Il faut bien que je fasse envie.

If Voltaire was "god," Madame du Châtelet was "goddess"--waited upon, petted, having her every wish and every whim studied and gratified. There could seemingly be no more congenial, mutually appreciative group of persons than Stanislas and Voltaire, the Marquise de Boufflers and the Marquise du Châtelet.

Stanislas was then already an oldish man--according to one of his biographers, Abbé Aubert, sixty-six; according to another, Abbé Proyart, seventy-one. He was not quite the robust hero that he had been when he accompanied Charles XII. on his trying ride to Bender, and shared rough camp-life with Mazeppa. When, in 1744, Charles Alexander of Lorraine crossed the Rhine at the head of 80,000 Austrians, and sent out manifestos which gladdened his countrymen's hearts, proclaiming that he was coming to take possession of the old Duchy--when signal-fires blazed on every hilltop of the Vosges to bid him welcome, and all Lorraine was throbbing with patriotic excitement; when Galaizière mustered what scratch forces he could improvise for defence, and dragged the twelve ornamental pieces of cannon out of the Lunéville Park to point against the foe--then Stanislas, remembering his age, had discreetly retired, in a sad state of tremor, behind the safe walls of Nancy. But in 1748 he was at any rate still hale and hearty, and bore the weight of his years with an easy grace. He managed to gallop to the Malgrange at a pace which left all his younger companions far behind. He is described as of winning manners, rather majestic in figure and bearing, of an engaging countenance, exceedingly good-natured and affable. It was said that "il ne savait pas haïr." "Je ne veux pas," he declared when multiplying charities and hospitals, "qu'il y ait un genre de maladie dont mes sujets pauvres ne puissent se faire traiter gratuitement." Among such "maladies" he included "the law"--for he paid advocates to give gratuitous advice to the poor.

Voltaire is described as about at his best at that period. The air of Lorraine is said to have suited him particularly well. He was just turned fifty--a little too old, as Madame du Châtelet was cruel enough to inform him, to act the part of an ardent lover, but appearing to less exacting persons still in the very vigour of manhood. "Après une vie sobre, réglée, sagement laborieuse," he is represented as "well preserved"--slim, straight, upright, of a good bearing, with a well-shaped leg and a neat little foot. His features, we know, were wanting in regularity; but they wore a benevolent and pleasing expression. His greatest charm is said to have lain in his brilliant and expressive eyes, which seemed by their play to be ever anticipating the action of his lips. His mind certainly was still young, and so were his tastes. He is described as a most fastidious dandy, _irréprochablement poudré et parfumé_, affecting clothes of the latest cut and richly embroidered with gold. To his factotum at Paris, Abbé Moussinot, he writes from Lunéville: "Send me some diamond buckles for shoes or garters, twenty pounds of hair-powder, twenty pounds of scent, a bottle of essence of jessamine, two 'enormous' pots of pomatum _à la fleur d'orange_, two powder puffs, two embroidered vests,"--&c. He was, moreover, an accomplished courtier. Properly to ingratiate himself with his new host, he made his appearance at Commercy with a complimentary copy of his _Henriade_ in his hand, on the flyleaf of which were penned these lines:

Le ciel, comme Henri, voulut vous éprouver: La bonté, la valeur à tous deux fut commune, Mais mon héros fit changer la fortune Que votre vertu sut braver.

Of Madame du Châtelet's appearance we have two hopelessly irreconcilable accounts. She was certainly past forty-two; if her ill-natured cousin, the Marquise de Créqui, speaks truly (and she refers doubters to the parish register of St. Roch), she was even five years more. Voltaire's portrait of her, painted with the brush of admiration, is probably more complimentary than strictly truthful. Madame du Deffand limns her in very different lines:--"Une femme grande et sèche, une maîtresse d'école sans hanches, la poitrine étroite, et sur la poitrine une petite mappe-monde perdue dans l'espace, de gros bras trop courts pour ses passions, des pieds de grue, une tête d'oiseau de nuit, le nez pointu, deux petits yeux verts de mer et verts de terre, le teint noir et rouge, la bouche plate et les dents clair-semées." This hideous portraiture, it is true, Sainte Beuve protests against as a "page plus amèrement satirique" than any to be found in French literature. But Madame de Créqui has even worse to say of her cousin, adding, by way of further embellishment, "des pieds terribles, et des mains formidables"--let alone that, if Emilie was "une merveille de force," she was also at the same time "un prodige de gaucherie." "Voilà la belle Emilie!" Even Voltaire speaks of her "main d'encre encore salie." However, everybody agrees in praising the grace of her manner, the remarkably attractive play of her expressive eyes--Saint Lambert calls her "la brune à l'oeil fripon"--and her peculiar skill in becomingly dressing her dark hair. She spoke with engaging animation and quickly--"comme moi quand je fais la française," says Madame de Grafigny (who was always proud of being a Lorraine)--"comme un ange," she completes the sentence. If during the day, while wholly engrossed upon her _Newton_, Emilie showed a little too much of the pedant, according to the same lady's testimony--"le soir elle est charmante."