Part 14 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration 3: _MME. DU CHaTELET PROTECTING VOLTAIRE After the painting by Mme. E. Armand Leleux._ _A woman who played a prominent part in society during the Regency, but who had no salon in the proper sense of the word, was Mme. du Chatelet, commonly called Voltaire's Emilie. She was especially interested in sciences, and did more than any other woman of that time to encourage nature study. It was at her Chateau de Cirey that Voltaire found protection when threatened with a second visit to the Bastille; and there, from time to time for sixteen years, he did some of the best work of his life. It was Mme. du Chatelet who encouraged him, sympathized with him, and appreciated his mobile humor as well as his talent. During these years, while he was under the influence of madame, appeared_ Merope, Alzire, _the_ Siecle de Louis XIV, _etc._]
In matters literary, Mme. du Deffand preserved an absolute liberty and independence of opinion. She refused to accept the verdicts of the most competent judges; with instinctive attractions and repulsions, she found but few writers that pleased her. Boileau, Lesage, Chamfort, were her favorites. She said that Buffon was of an unendurable monotony. ”He knows well what he knows, but he is occupied with beasts only; one must be something of a beast one's self in order to devote one's self to such an occupation.”
As a writer, she showed remarkable good sense, admirable sincerity, rare judgment, justness, and precision; depth and charm were present in a less degree than were other desirable qualities, but she exhibited excellent _esprit_. She was probably the most subtile, and at the same time the most fastidious person of the century. The best portraits of her were written by her own pen; two of them we give, one written at the beginning of her career in 1728, the other at its end in 1774.
”Mme. la Marquise du Deffand is an enemy of all falseness and affectation. Her talk and countenance are always the faithful interpreters of the sentiment of her soul. Her form is not fine nor bad. She has _esprit_, is reasonable and has a correct taste. If vivacity at times leads her off, truth soon brings her back. After she falls into an ennui which extinguishes all the light of her mind, she finds that state insupportable and the cause of such unhappiness, that she blindly embraces all that presents itself, without deliberation.”
(1774.) ”They believe Mme. du Deffand to possess more _esprit_ than she really has; they praise and fear her, but she merits neither the one nor the other. As far as her _esprit_ is concerned, she is what she is; in regard to her form, to her birth and fortune--nothing extraordinary, nothing distinguished. Born without great talent, incapable of great application, she is very susceptible to ennui, and, not finding any resource within herself, she resorts to those that surround her and this search is often without success.”
Mme. du Deffand arouses our curiosity because she was such an exceptional character, led such a strange life, made and retained friends in ways so different from those of the noted heroines of the salons. In her youth, she was beautiful and fascinating, with numerous lovers and numberless suitors, but she grew even more famous as her age increased; when infirm and blind, and living in a convent, she ruled by virtue of her acknowledged authority and was still able to cope with the greatest philosophers, the chief and dean of whom, Voltaire, wrote the following four lines:
”Qui vous voit et qui vous entend Perd bientot sa philosophie; Et tout sage avec Du Deffand Voudrait en fou pa.s.ser sa vie.”
[He who sees and hears you, Soon loses his philosophy.
Wise he who with Du Deffand Insane would pa.s.s his life.]
Living long enough to witness the reigns of three kings and one regent, she was brilliant enough to reign over the intellectual and social world for over fifty years, by virtue of her intellectuality, keenness, and wit; yet, among all the great women of France, she is truly the one who deserves genuine pity and sympathy.
The salon of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, her rival, was of a different type, being exclusively intellectual, but permitting absolute liberty of expression of opinions. Born in 1732, at the house of a surgeon of Lyons, she was the illegitimate daughter of the Comtesse d'Albon and was baptized as the child of a man supposed to be named Claude Lespina.s.se. From 1753 she was the constant attendant to Mme. du Deffand, her mother's sister-in-law, for a period of ten years, until she became completely worn out physically, morally, and mentally by incessant care and endless all-night readings. An attempt to end her existence with sixty grains of opium failed. Owing to the jealousy of Mme. du Deffand, a separation ensued in 1764, when she retired some distance from the Convent Saint-Joseph to very modest apartments, where, by means of her friends, she was able to receive in a dignified way. The Marechale de Luxembourg completely fitted up her apartment, the Duc de Choiseul succeeded in getting her an annual pension from the king, and Mme. Geoffrin allowed her three thousand francs.
The majority of the members of her salon were from that of Mme. du Deffand, having followed Mlle. de Lespina.s.se after the rupture of the two women; besides these, there were Condorcet, Helvetius, Grimm, Marmontel, Condillac, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and many others. As her hours for receiving were after five o'clock, her friends were made to understand that her means were not such as to warrant suppers or dinners, four o'clock being the dinner hour in those days.
Her salon immediately became known as the official encyclopaedia resort, Mme. du Deffand dubbing it _La Muse de l'Encyclopedie_.
D'Alembert was the high priest, and it was not long before he was comfortably lodged in the third story of her house, Mlle. de Lespina.s.se having nursed him through a malignant fever which the poor man had contracted in the wretched place where he lodged. A strange gathering, those salons! Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, one of the leaders in the social world, with a prominent salon, was the illegitimate daughter of a Comtesse d'Albon, and her presiding genius was the illegitimate son of Mme. de Tencin; here we find the wealthiest and most elegant of the aristocracy coming from their palaces to meet, in friendly social and intellectual intercourse, men who lived on a mere pittance, dressed on almost nothing, lodged in the most wretched of dens, boarding wherever a salon or palace was opened to them. Surely, intellect was highly valued in those days, and moral etiquette was at a low ebb!
Mlle. de Lespina.s.se possessed two characteristics which were prominent in a remarkable degree--love and friends.h.i.+p. She appeared to interest herself in everybody in such a way as to make him believe that he was the preferred of her heart; loving everybody sincerely and affectionately, she ”lacked altogether the sentimental equilibrium.”
Especially pathetic was her love for two men--the Count de Mora, a Spanish n.o.bleman, and a Colonel Guibert, who was celebrated for his relations with Frederick the Great; although this wore terribly on her, consuming her physical force, she always received her friends with the same good grace, but often, after their departure, she would fall into a frightful nervous fit from which she could find relief only by the use of opium.
Her love for Guibert was known to her friends, but was a secret from her platonic lover, D'Alembert. When, after a number of years of untold sufferings which even opium could not relieve, she died in 1776, having been cared for to the last by D'Alembert, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, and her cousin, the Marquis d'Enlezy, it was with these words on her dying lips, addressed to Guibert: ”Adieu, my friend!
If ever I return to life, I should like to use it in loving you; but there is no longer any time.” When D'Alembert read in her correspondence that she had been the mistress of Guibert for sixteen years, he was disconsolate, and retired to the Louvre, which was his privilege as Secretary of the Academy. He left there only to go walking in the evening with Marmontel, who tried to console him by recalling the changeableness of humor of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se. ”Yes,”
he would reply, ”she has changed, but not I; she no longer lived for me, but I always lived for her. Since she is no longer, I don't know why I am living. Ah, that I must still suffer these moments of bitterness which she knew so well how to soothe and make me forget!
Do you remember the happy evenings we used to pa.s.s? What is there now?
Instead of her, when coming home, I find only her shadow! This Louvre lodging is itself a tomb, which I enter only with fright.”
Mlle. de Lespina.s.se died of grief for a lover's death, but she left a group of lovers to lament her loss. In many respects she was not unlike Mlle. de Scudery; exceptionally plain, her face was much marked with smallpox, a disfigurement not uncommon in those days; her exceedingly piercing and fine eyes, beautiful hair, tall and elegant figure, excellent taste in dress, pleasing voice and a most brilliant talent for conversation, combined to make her one of the most attractive and popular women of her time. As previously stated, she was the only female admitted to the dinners given by Mme. Geoffrin to her men of letters.
Mme. du Deffand's friend, _le President_ Henault, left the following portrait of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se: ”You are cosmopolitan--you are suitable to all occasions. You like company--you like solitude.
Pleasures amuse, but do not seduce you. You have very strong pa.s.sions, and of the best kind, for they do not return often. Nature, in endowing you with an ordinary state, gave you something with which to rise above it. You are distinguished, and, without being beautiful, you attract attention. There is something piquant in you; one might obstinately endeavor to turn your head, but it would be at one's own expense. Your will must be awaited, because you cannot be made to come. Your cheerfulness embellishes you, and relaxes your nerves, which are too highly strung. You have your own opinion, and you leave others their own. You are extremely polite. You have divined _le monde_. In vain one would transplant you--you would take root anywhere. In short, you are not an ordinary person.”
The salon of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se was unique. Everyone was at perfect liberty to express and sustain his own opinions upon any subject, without danger of offending the hostess, which, as has been seen, was not the case in the salon of Mme. Geoffrin. Her high and sane intellectual culture permitted her to listen to all discussions and to take part in all. She had no strong prejudices, having read--for Mme.
du Deffand--nearly everything that was read at that time; also, she had the talent of preserving harmony among her members by drawing from each one his best qualities.
A woman who played a prominent part in society during the Regency, but who had no salon in the proper sense of that word, was Mme.
du Chatelet, commonly called Voltaire's Emilie. She was especially interested in sciences, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, and did more than any other woman of that time to encourage nature study.
It was at her Chateau de Cirey that Voltaire found protection when threatened with a second visit to the Bastille; and there, from time to time for sixteen years, he did some of the best work of his life.
It was Mme. du Chatelet who encouraged him, sympathized with him, and appreciated his mobile humor as well as his talent. During these years, while he was under the influence of madame, appeared _Merope_, _Alzire_, the _Siecle de Louis XIV_, etc.
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