When The World Spoke French [1 ed.] 1590173759, 9781590173756

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NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS CLASSICS

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH MARC FUMAROLI and

art.

is

a scholar of French classical rhetoric

He is a member of the British Academy,

the Ameri-

can Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Societe d’histoire litteraire

received

de

la

France, and the

from the Academie

Academie

fran^aise.

Fumaroli

franchise, before being elected a

member, the Monseigneur Marcel Prize Critique Prize in 1992, and he

is

in 1982

and the

president of the Societe des

Amis du Louvre.

RICHARD HOWARD for his translation

received a National

oiLes Fleurs du mal and

for Untitled Subjects his third ,

translator of the

Book Award

a Pulitzer Prize

volume of poems.

He is the

NYRB Classics Alien Hearts and

Unknown Masterpiece.

The

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

MARC FUMAROLI

Translated from the French by

RICHARD HOWARD

NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

New York

—

NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW

THIS 435

IS

A

Hudson

Street,

OF BOOKS

New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com Copyright ©zooi by Marc Fumaroli Copyright ©1001 by Editions de

Fallois

Translation copyright ©2.01 1 by Richard

Howard

All rights reserved.

Originally published as Quand. 1 ’Europe parlaitfrancais by Editions de Fallois, 2001

Fumaroli, Marc.

[Quand ’Europe 1

parlait francais. English]

When the world spoke French / by Marc Fumaroli

;

translated by Richard

Howard. p.

cm.

— (New York review books

Originally published in French:

ISBN 1.

Quand

1

’Europe parlait francais.

978-1-59017-375-6 (alk. paper)

— Europe — History— 18th century. Paris (France — 18th century. Europe — Civilization — French influences.

French language

Intellectual life I.

classics)

Howard, Richard.

2.

3.

II.

Title.

PC3680.E85F8613 2010 4 40.9 '409033

— dc22 2010034847

ISBN

978-1-59017-375-6

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

10987654321

To

Liliane de Rothschild,

generous

memory of

French Europe

1

CONTENTS Preface

•

xi

Introduction

1

Paris at the

.

•

xv

Dawn of the Enlightenment:

The Abbe Conti and the Comte de Caylus 2

the

Comte de Gramont

5

.

Lelio and Marivaux

6

.

Louis

55

•

70

•

86

•

X V’s Condottiere:

Herman-Maurice of Saxony, Marshal of France

8

and Voltaire

•

97

no

.

Frederick

.

Frederica Sophia Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bayreuth, Sister

9

34

The French Achilles of the Hapsburgs:

.

Eugene, Prince of Savoy-Carignan

7

•

An English Cicero in the France of Louis XIV:

.

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke 4

i

A French Alcibiades and His English Plato:

.

Anthony Hamilton and 3

•

II

of Frederick

II

•

•

125

Francesco Algarotti and Frederick

.

II

•

139

10 Charlotte-Sophie dAldenburg, Countess of Bentinck: .

“The Sevigne of Germany” 1

.

•

159

The Parisian Model Seen from London: Lord Chesterfield, His Son’s Tutor

12. The Marquise du Deffand:

From

Voltaire to Walpole

•

216

•

177

9 3

1

.

Catherine the Great: Voltaire’s Eminent Correspondent

•

14 Ekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova, Princess of Dashkova: .

A Russian Heroine at Home and Abroad

•

258

15 The Abbe Galiani: .

The Warmth of Naples and the Wit of Paris 16 Friedrich Melchior .

•

268

Grimm and the Strabismus

of the Enlightenment

279

•

17 William Beckford: .

The Author of Vathek

298

•

18 Goya, the Marquesa de Santa Cruz, and .

William Beckford 1

.

Louis-Antoine Caraccioli and “French Europe”

20 Gustav

III

.

21

.

317

•

of Sweden:

•

336

A Parisian from Stockholm

•

364

•

384

A Romance in “The Cyclops’s Maw”: Hans Axel von

Fersen and the “Austrian

Woman”

22 Benjamin Franklin, Frenchmen, and Frenchwomen .

23

.

A

.

412

•

A Queen of England in Partibus

:

Fouise Maximilienne Caroline von Stolberg-Gedern,

Countess of Albany

•

^28

25 Charles-Joseph de Eigne: .

The Fast Homme d’Esprit

26

.

393

United States Ambassador to the Rescue of Fouis XVI:

Gouveneur Morris

24

•

•

448

An Enlightenment Test Site: Poland and Stanislaw

Index

•

Its

II

501

Fast King,

Augustus Poniatowski

•

467

240

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2017 with funding from

Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/whenworldspokefrOOfuma

—

Gustav

III,

the

Abbe

Galiani,

Grimm,

the Prince de Ligne, Admiral Caraccioli

such persons of wit

who

discerned in France

a certain transitory perfection of society, have

never ceased adoring that country. Until

become

angels, or

men

in pursuit of the

we

all

same

object (as in England), our pleasure will best

be served by being French, as one was French in the salon of

Mme du DefFand.

— STENDHAL, HISTOIRE DE LA PEINTURE EN ITALIE

—

PREFACE

Some books by

itself

one has grown

are premeditated, others not. This

and discovered by

its

own movement

its

form and

its

end,

constantly baffling in the course of its growth the intentions that

and again mistaking

naively strove, again

stem, to impose

upon

it.

At

first I

thought

branch or

a it

a

I

twig for a

was going to be

“a little

anthology of French prose” written by foreigners in the eighteenth century.

Then the

brief headnotes

gave to these citations, in a sort

I

of feuilleton that the review Commentaire kindly agreed to publish,

assumed

a certain amplitude: they

posed that

I

became

portraits.

I

then sup-

was proceeding, without abandoning the anthology,

the direction of a gallery of portraits of foreigners

— kings

in

and

queens, military leaders, ambassadors, great ladies, adventurers

whose declared Francophilia or had made into

irrepressible attraction to France

characteristic witnesses of “French

Europe” in the

Age of Enlightenment. Then the singular portraits became paired or interconnected, turned into brief biographies or slices of history.

Indulging and even approving these developments, Commentaire

continued publishing the feuilletons quarterly, unperturbed by the singular transformations they were undergoing. essays have emigrated into prefaces

and

little

Some of these

books, as was the case

of the essay on Lord Chesterfield, transformed in the Rivages edition into a preface to his Letters

,

now

translated into Italian

published by Adelphi. The one dedicated to the

and the Abbe Conti

is

and

Comte de Caylus

growing these days, almost against

my will,

into a full-fledged biography of the comte.

Frequently these essays overlapped

my studies of “Conversation” XI

xii

PREFACE

•

and “The Genius of the French Language” that

Nora had

Pierre

published in Realms ofMemory and that themselves expanded ,

at

times into prefaces to anthologies conceived by Jacqueline Helle-

gouarc’h and published by Classiques Gamier: LArt de la conversa-

and LEsprit de

tion

societe.

The

anthology of French prose

little

written by foreigners in “French Europe,” with which

all

it

began,

had gradually been transformed into an incessantly enlarged Grand

Tour of Continental (Enlightenment) Europe in the company of its French-speaking and French-writing citizens. Gradually, not only the stem but the foliage of the

being born appeared before

meaning and

my

eyes,

appeared

but

it

book that was

was only

as if of their

after the fact

own

accord.

The

that

its

title

was discovered during a telephone conversation with Commen-

its title

whose readers had observed

tates, director, Jean-Claude Casanova,

that the review’s feuilleton scription.

now

no longer corresponded

to the initial de-

For that matter, neither the meaning nor the

title

that

appeared canceled out any of those, partial or intermediary,

with which

I

had

started,

nor did they compel

me

to surrender

any

of them. It

was then that Bernard de

Fallois,

who had

followed at some

distance, with that floating attention that has nothing in

common

with the kind recommended to psychoanalysts but everything to

do with the amused empathy of

a great editor, decided that the

plant had reached maturity, and that the time had

had

to trim

it

had become evident

in the course of time,

it. I

and

in

of myself. Quite unfairly, and merely to take on myself alone

any remaining weaknesses and mistakes, title

to pot

here, restore equilibrium there, in order to respect the

rib structure that

spite

come

page of a book of which

Indeed

I

I

my name

am something less

could never account for

all

appears on the

than the author.

the inspirations,

all

the trib-

utary springs and forms of sustenance that have allowed this book to spread

When

and develop quite without

my

doing.

The dedicatee of

The World Spoke French, Baroness Elie de Rothschild, unceas-

ingly put at

its

service the inexhaustible resources of her collections,

her library, her mind, and her generous heart. She has

left

us since

PREFACE but

only

pursue

to

conversatio

nostra

in

•

xiii

Jacqueline

coelis.

Hellegouarc’h, Benedetta Craveri, Benoit d’Aboville, Benjamin Strorey,

Marianne Roland-Michel,

Waquet have l’Institut,

supplied

all

and

and Framboise

contributed. Eric de Lussy, of the Bibliotheque de

his colleagues

of the Bibliotheque Mazarine have

with photocopies. With patience extending over

it

Catherine Fabre,

years,

Pierre Rosenberg,

my

assistant at the College de France, has

given typographic body to a multitude of scattered fragments,

which had something to do with the same

late Professor

all

of

idea. Pierre-E. Leroy, lec-

ture chairman at the College de France, reread the

nard Minoret and the

many

first

proofs; Ber-

Bruno Neveu have

graciously

given their time and their celebrated acribia to reading the second ones.

Paris,

tion

August 2010, correcting thefirst proofs of the American

—

It is

hard to find words for

poet Richard Howard,

who

tional linguistic skills

and

dear friend Robert Silvers, to

my gratitude toward my friend the

loved the gifts to

book and brought

bock

series

his excep-

the translation. Thanks to

my

who endorsed Richard’s project. Thanks

Rea Hederman, who was willing to publish the

prestigious

transla-

attached to The

New

translation in the

York Review of Books.

who took upon himself the task of surveying the proof-correcting process. Thanks to Grace Dudley, who fol-

Thanks

to

Michael Shae,

lowed with sympathy the different stages of

this labor

of

love.

I

could not imagine such a happy transatlantic rebirth of this book, in

many ways

tive offspring

and

conceived on the two shores and achieved as a collec-

of a group conversation, like so

many

plays, essays,

fictions in eighteenth-century Paris.

Marc Fumaroli

"

INTRODUCTION

This book

is

Frenchmen and

promenade among various encounters between

foreigners during the eighteenth century,

when the

home wherever they went, when Paris was every forsecond homeland, and when France became the object of

French were eigner’s

a

at

Europe’s collective curiosity.

The Age of Enlightenment begins of the

treaties

in 1713-1714

with the signing

of Utrecht and Rastadt, which secured the essentials

of France’s position in Europe, and ends in 1814, with the Allies’ entry into Paris and the

we

shall

meet with that

fall

of Napoleon’s empire. As we proceed,

age’s successive generations

pal events that distinguish them.

the Europe of the period and Paris

and

Versailles, to

find ourselves in

which we

London, Rome,

burg,

and Warsaw, from which

Paris

and Versailles

as if we

known

as the

shall

we

shall start

shall often return, but

we

from

shall also

Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, St. Peters-

cities

we shall keep our eyes fixed on

were there.

An Age That Believed Everywhere we

princi-

We shall journey as well through

various capitals:

its

and the

in

Earthly Felicity

encounter that disposition to happiness

Enlightenment, which makes this French century

one of the most optimistic in the history of the world. By a remarkable (and

seldom remarked) conservatism, the United States of

America, that progeny of the eighteenth century and “realm of memory,”

still

its

enormous

bears today the euphoric, naive,

and XV

xvi

•

INTRODUCTION

“young” traces forever obliterated in Europe

after the

Terror of

A thaw of the sacred, a poi-

1792-1794. The French Enlightenment?

moment of grace that located its heavenly Jerusalem in Paris. Now militant, now qui-

gnant and profane religion of happiness and of the

etist,

with

tuffes, fierce

it

its

high and low

was persecuted

dogma was

clergy, its believers, its libertines, its Tar-

by

in Paris itself

avowed or assumed, and only

inspires

own

heresies

whose

revealed by Chateaubriand:

At the heart of these various systems edy,

its

any hesitation:

this

its

remedy

readily understood,

and linked

from one liberation

to the next, has

abides one heroic rem-

moment of application is

murder.

human

simple,

to that sublime Terror that,

pursued us through the

fortifications of Paris: the merciless slaughter

pedes the progress of the

It is

race.

of whatever im-

1

The wars of the eighteenth century were certainly not waged

in

kid gloves, but they were fought between professional armies, and their battles

were merely diplomacy continued by other means.

Nothing about them was comparable ish Succession (1701-1714), that long

called “the

first

to either the

and terrible

War of the Span-

conflict Churchill

world war,” or the second, initiated during the

French Revolution and ending only in

1815 at

to the total wars of annihilation that

Waterloo, or a fortiori

began in 1914. Eighteenth-

century Europe’s seventy years of peace and prosperity, quite relative

and unequal depending on the region, occasionally interrupted by local conflicts, are in every respect exceptional against the continu-

ously grim and tragic background of European history. They en-

couraged every rational and irrational faculty of happiness and

hope within the

territories possessed

by the Europeans, and with

a

singular furia by the French, to swell and sway in the clouds of an ever

1.

more promising

future, like those hot-air balloons of the

Memoires d’outre-tombe, edited by

pp. 583-584.

J.-C. Berchet (Paris:

Gamier,

1998), vol. z,

INTRODUCTION

•

xvii

Montgolfier brothers that Louis XVI’s subjects never tired of

watching rise into the heavens and vanish downwind. Catholicism, despite Jansenist resistances, as well as Protestantism

assumed the

flattering colors

by the light of their

tall

tion of rococo churches

Everywhere in

this

and Judaism,

of an imminent paradise

many-paned windows,

in the

still visible,

ornamenta-

and synagogues.

Europe convinced of

a golden age or of

imminence, we encounter professional ambassadors,

its

secret agents,

or part-time intermediaries, citizens of the world and of the great

who

world

ishing by

find

its

it

only natural to operate in a magnetic

electricity the delicate

field

nour-

and uninterrupted network of

diplomatic negotiations, each of them controlling one of the

ments: such incessant negotiatory activity

of that

relative, fragile, sensitive,

cent activity that

managed

sions. Versailles, the

du

Secret

Men uities

affairs;

roi (the

the guiding principle

but nonetheless real and benefi-

to secure

Europe against major explo-

nerve center of this network, enjoyed the

luxury of two diplomacies: one

of foreign

is

fila-

official,

conducted by the minister

the other clandestine and doubling the

first: le

King’s Secret).

of letters,

artists,

musicians, virtuosi of the arts and antiq-

market, frequently traveling from capital to capital, frequently

corresponding with princes and sovereigns, invariably turn out to be,

on closer inspection, either conscious collaborators in a tentative

negotiation or else unconscious catalysts of the stabilized and/or reviving relations between one court and another. Letters

is

The Republic of

one of the huge networks sustaining the general scheme.

This cosmopolitan and quasi-clandestine club, born in Italy around

1400, spoke, wrote, and published in the catholic language of Renaissance Europe, Ciceronian Latin restored by the humanist linguists.

Why,

three centuries

this international lish

later, in

the Enlightenment age, did

community of the learned speak, write, and pub-

mostly in French? This then recent substitution was certainly a

consequence of the successful war strategy and cultural politics led by Cardinal Richelieu in 1624-1642. The French monarchy since the treaties

of Westphalia (1648) appeared

as the

modern and victorious

xviii

INTRODUCTION

•

model of statecraft, imitated and emulated

in

its

own

language on

the Continent. Voltaire in the following centry agreed with this explanation. But he added an important correction.

power alone could not obtain such

that hard

The European public had above clarity

all

He insisted rightly

a linguistic success.

endorsed the

talent, wit,

and

of expression in French of the realm’s writers and thinkers.

The worst

political decision

of Louis XIV, the revocation of the

Edict de Nantes (1685), had turned in favor of the French language, if not

of Versailles’s image. In London, Leiden, Amsterdam, Berlin,

Dresden, and Hamburg, colonies of French Protestant exiles created printing houses, weekly newspapers, and translation workshops, serving in French a European Republic of Letters but hardly the

of Versailles or the religion of Paris and Rome. “King” Vol-

politics

taire himself,

when sojourning

in Berlin

and Potsdam, was not

a

simple intermediary between Versailles and the king of Prussia; his

freedom of spirit made him dangerous thetic to

for

both courts and sympa-

an entire European public.

The Republic of the Arts does not Paris of the Italian players,

of Modena in 1716, was

a

lag behind.

The return

to

which the regent requested of the Duke

peace signal addressed to Europe. The so-

journ of a French painter and sculptor in Stockholm became the pledge of a closer alliance between France and Sweden, ever threat-

ened by

The

St.

Petersburg.

clear-cut distinction

“culture”

we

are

tempted to make today between

and “diplomacy” impedes the understanding of the eigh-

teenth century in which diplomacy impregnates everything, because this century passionately sought a civilized peace

be

fragile;

it

it

knew

realized that only an uninterrupted diplomacy, of the

sort that in 1648

had put an end

to the Thirty Years’

War and

achieved the treaties of Westphalia, could keep the pledge to spect an inevitable

ing

it

to

European

toward peace;

it

diversity,

even while constantly nudg-

also realized that the masterpiece of the

human mind, compromise between opposing ests, is closely related to belles lettres

and ornaments of peace.

re-

It is this

and

passions and inter-

to fine arts, those fruits

general conspiracy of minds, their

INTRODUCTION numerous

various filaments so that was utterly

as to

confounded and

•

xix

defy description and analysis,

in large part dismantled by the

extremism of the French Revolution, inconceivable and immobilizing for

men accustomed

to moderation

diplomacy would nonetheless Metternich

at

and

the

try, in

conciliation.

The old

wake of Talleyrand and

the Congress of Vienna, to reconstitute itself as the

nerve system of the European equilibrium. Whatever was fruitful in the nineteenth century was

born of this prudential prejudice that

even Bismarck adopted in seeking not to

wound

too gravely the

conquered France of 1870, and that definitively collapsed in the nationalist hysteria

of 1914.

Crowned Heads Everywhere in

this

Europe enamored of happiness and peace that

appears on the horizon of our promenade,

our democratic

memory endeavors to forget:

aristocracy that, without forswearing cation,

had converted

sumed

leadership,

are

we

to the

and had

crowned heads:

its

encounter what

the grand figures of an

origins

manners and the

set

shall

and

arts

its

military vo-

of peace, had

as-

an example. Several of these figures

representatives of ruling dynasties

whose

alli-

ances cast another network over Europe, a reticulation of families

whose unifying power cannot be tion, after the fact, to

overstated, despite the tempta-

emphasize the seeds of conflict to be discerned

in dynastic rivalries, quarrels of succession, failed marriages.

Enlightenment Europe a family affair? For dipus, Eteocles,

many

as readily as

sassinations of tsars

we

do.

Court manners,

Christian centuries, appear to have prevailed

over the terror of Greek tragedy.

and

No

one wants to hear about the

tsarevitches in

European diplomacy, eyes trian royal families, relies riage

family means Oe-

and Polynices. But the eighteenth century does not

hark back to Theban antiquity dulcified by so

us,

fixed

Moscow and St.

as-

Petersburg:

on the French, English, and Aus-

on the humanly

affective terrain

of mar-

and cousinage, exempt from any ideological or passional motive,

XX

•

INTRODUCTION

to facilitate fruitful rapprochements or to cicatrize the conflicts that,

without such family unguents, would remain open

and purulent. In

this sense, the

Family Pact concluded by Choiseul

in 1761 in order to unite the various branches of the nasty,

wounds of

and supplemented

in 1770

Bourbon

dy-

by the dauphin’s marriage to

Marie-Antoinette of Austria, reconciling the two great broods of “hereditary foes,” Bourbons and Hapsburgs,

is

the masterpiece of a

diplomatic art that trusts to the happy endings of novels and fairy tales.

In addition, the internal equilibrium of the (Germanic) Holy

Roman Empire and its insertion ian family tree

and Russia,

into

Europe depend on

whose branches extend

a

Hercyn-

to England, Scandinavia,

a filiation inadequate to forestall or restrain the

Ma-

chiavellianism of Frederick II and the partition of that expiatory

victim Poland, though affording diplomatic means to certain subtle

and pacifying maneuvers that the ax of Napoleon, followed by that of Clemenceau, would make simpler, more rational, and more “transparent,” but at the price of creating a concatenation of inexpiable hatreds.

Princes, Marshals, Gentry The

aristocracy of crowned heads does not rule alone.

rable

from an aristocracy of court and

caricature retrospectively

and without

feudalism or a vampiric leisure its

of blood. From

come

ranks

insepa-

we have managed to

differentiation as a belated

class. It is

nonetheless an aristocracy

warlike demeanor, and pays a heavy tax

that does battle, retains its

city that

It is

great marshals

and

generals,

and

this

will

remain the case in the France of the Revolution and the Em-

pire.

Converted since the Renaissance to

a peacetime savoir vivre,

it

was in the eighteenth century, of all the Enlightenment publics, the principles

and most generously won over

practices. Rousseau, protected

by Malesherbes and the Prince

one most permeable to to

its

its

de Conti, the guest of the Marechal de Luxembourg and the Marquis de Girardin, also found his most talented disciple in a

young

INTRODUCTION aristocrat,

Chateaubriand. If the American Revolution encountered

much sympathy

so

first years,

xxi

•

in Europe, if the French Revolution, during

its

provoked a general enthusiasm that blocked the percep-

tion of the direction

was already taking,

it

it is

enment’s enthusiasm for reform and progress,

good against the

favor of the

evils

because the Enlight-

its

crusading

spirit in

of superstition and despotism,

were shared by the greatest names of the French aristocracy, and spread by

its

example to the Continental

aristocracies,

educated by

enlightened preceptors and fed on philosophical readings obtained

from

The remarks of the crown prince of Sweden to

Paris.

derly tutor

Count

Scheffer in 1767 suggest the “political correct-

ness” that the future

Gustav

III

was already beginning to mistrust:

In Spain and Portugal the Jesuits are plotting to form a archy, not in tions.

his el-

honor of

God

but to further their

own

monambi-

They have been driven out of Spain and Portugal where

the Inquisition

demned

is

still

active,

and Father Malagrida con-

not a regicide. They are banished from

as a heretic,

France, yet in France Belisaire and jean Calais have both

been burned

at the stake.

In France Rousseau

is

treated as a

criminal and the Encyclopedic championed. The Jesuits

be eradicated, their establishment abolished, yet

new

may

errors

and equivalent abominations, commit-

will replace the old,

ted for other reasons,

may cause

us to regret the old ones.

To

hope to extinguish superstition and correct human wickedness

believe, to seek the philosopher’s stone; as

is, I

men live

in society, as long as they have differing passions

interests,

they will be wicked and cruel.

to correct them,

We

shall

it is

It is

and

a fine thing to try

nearly impossible to succeed in doing so.

1

understand neither the audacity nor the upshot of

Voltaire’s battle against I’Infdme

2.

long as

Gustave III par ses

lettres,

edited by

stedts/Paris: Touzot, 1986), p. 44.

(meaning what we

call “religious

Gunnar von Proschwitz (Stockholm: Nor-

xxii

INTRODUCTION

•

fundamentalism”)

if we fail to see

that the Seigneur of Ferney

knew

he could count on the sympathy of the French noblesse d’epee by ,

definition secular, galante,

pute, ever

By

and rendered, by the Jansenist-Jesuit dis-

more disdainful of the

its lifestyle

clerical

yoke and church morality.

and the form of open society

French aristocracy offered

a sort

it

exemplified, the

of immediate and promising

glimpse of the Enlightenment’s faith in the propitious future

it

au-

thorized and propagated. The very freedom of “living nobly”

seemed

to suggest that pleasure

and happiness had appeared on the

horizon of a humanity freed of its chains. Elegance, politesse, and a

new

sweetness of manners seemed to prefigure a world in which

each man’s freedom could accommodate the equality of all, and in

which the vivacity of private passions would not disturb the

communal life. Furthermore,

as artists

of the private

the urban aristocracy and their wealthy imitators ate in their

of society,

managed

to cre-

mansions and their country houses veritable private

academies in which the diverse plastic art

life

joys of

of gardens and the

arts,

table, the talents

the theater, music, the

of the jeweler, the gold-

smith, the tailor, and the dressmaker united to offer the art of conversation

and gallantry

steeped their

own

a euphoric milieu in

which the philosophes

enthusiasm and found a willing mirror for

it.

Versailles and Paris Diplomacy and freedom of manners, the Republic of Letters and of the Arts, royalty and aristocracy of court and

mingling arts

and

sailles

“good company”

men of the world and men of letters, conformity of the

skilled crafts in the service of social pleasures,

every realm of the levels

city,

France was

of Louis

mind and

their role as educators

now mother and

XV has

Lumieres in

— on

all

these

uncontested mistress. The Ver-

inherited from Louis

XIV

a tradition of

diplomatic intelligence unrivaled in Europe, to the point where

diplomats of French origin like the

it is

Comte de Mercy-Argenteau

INTRODUCTION

xxiii

•

who are chosen to represent foreign courts, and this in France itself. The academies created or reformed under Louis

XIV have

shifted

the center of the Republic of Letters to Paris, and Parisian high society, living in

symbiosis with the royal academies, has become the

audience and arbiter of the European reputation of books,

as

it

has

become, with the institution of the salon, the audience and arbiter of taste in painting and sculpture:

its

favor

becomes the

criterion of

an artists European reputation. The oldest monarchy in Europe,

which had never had tinued under Louis

so

much

XV and Louis XVI, with

but in the same magnificent

impose

and

its

authority as under Louis XIV, con-

ritual, to exercise its seniority

on every European

superior prestige

evident inflections

brilliant aristocracy, bearing historic

A numerous

court.

names

and to

that ever since the

Crusades had spoken to the imagination of all Europe, constituted a

crown around the king and the

royal family in the

most fabulous

chateau and park ever built by any sovereign.

Along with appeared

whose

this theater

after the

bequeathed by the Grand

Regency (1715-1723)

vitality, inventiveness,

nothing to the court. Paris of private

life;

a vast

Siecle, there

and manifold

and influence outside France owed

now became

urban aristocracy

set the

a laboratory of the

charms

tone of its urbanity for

Europe. In order to serve a French and international

was here that rococo fashion and

taste

were crystallized:

appropriate to the leisures occupying social readings,

its

chamber

theater in

literary

commerce,

intrigues,

its

novelties.

Only music

life, its

commentary on

is

Italian or

— the most social — ones.

German

analysis, deflects

it,

to song,

and

its

It

Rameau and

it

its

amorous

news and

charm, a

agrees best

lends itself less well than

vocation for wit, but also for

at least in principle,

Despite the genius of

decor

The French

essentially a social

marvelous rhetoric of dialogue. The arts with which are the visual

its

all

escapes this Parisian hegemony.

language in the eighteenth century

a

Paris.

conversation,

mansion and chateau, its

all

clientele, the

marketplace for the arts and luxury crafts was concentrated in It

stage

from musical expression.

the brilliance of the concerts

xxiv

•

INTRODUCTION music therefore prevails in

spirituels given at the Tuileries, Italian

the rest of Europe. This irritating oddity becomes the object, in France, of recurrent literary disputes throughout the century.

The Parisian press, relayed by the gazettes

in

French published in

Amsterdam, Fondon, and Germany, becomes the echo chamber of these flurries that divide the French capital into

European

press

also,

is

two camps. This

along with Parisian opinion, the ultimate

judge of books and ideas. Parallel to the Gazette de France, which

many journals published in French in Paris, Fondon, and Germany and an endless quantity of brochures and satires made known in Europe to the last

published the news of public and court

detail the alliances

grande compagnie

and It

.

altercations that

was among

which numerous planets

this

life,

emerged from the Parisian

grande compagnie, a galaxy in

revolved, that the

fame of the philosophes

prospered and extended beyond the frontiers, and this same com-

pany made cially

their

when

books fashionable and sought

after

even and espe-

the Parlement, the Sorbonne, or the Archbishopric

condemned them

to public obloquy.

Until 1748, thanks to the tact of the minister of the royal house-

Comte de Maurepas, who was charged with among others, Versailles had retained a certain

hold and of Paris, the this responsibility

control, nies”

however

and

their

invisible

discreet, over the Parisian

“compa-

men of letters. Versailles lost this command after the

disgrace of this astute city

and

man. The disputatious independence of the

and the provocative audacity of the philosophes sure of the com-

munication systems

at their disposal

escaped the prudence and the

moderation of the ministers. This war of words and the numerous conflicts siastical

between the philosophes and

their parlementary or eccle-

censors merely intensified the interest and the

amusement

of the courts and the foreign public, not always Francophile, in the polemical character of the

Each new

querelle

literary, artistic,

provoked

a

new wave of curiosity, and

sovereigns did not hesitate to intervene. this

permanent agitation

On

the contrary, this was one

and worldly life of Paris.

No

one

a threat to the ancient

more reason

at the

foreign

time saw in

French monarchy.

to befriend a realm ca-

INTRODUCTION

.

xxv

pable at once of the glory of memory and of the most irresponsible

and outrageous It is

sarcastic impertinence.

evident that no one in Europe, not even the English,

had every reason rival

as a

who

wish for the weakening of France, their chief

to

on the Continent, foresaw that

a revolution regarded initially

new and particularly reckless manifestation of Parisian disputa-

tiousness could overthrow in a matter of months every foundation

of the realm,

its

dynasty legitimated by centuries,

its

aristocracy

had liberated America and overwhelmingly sided with the

that

leading spirits of the Enlightenment, and even castigated by the philosophes, to Burke,

whose

church, naturally

its

clergy nonetheless, according

was one of the most “enlightened” of the period. The

por, the disillusion, the chaos created

stu-

by the Terror measured up to

the sympathy, the admiration, even the fascination exerted by the

France of the Enlightenment. The Terror precipitated a crisis

among

even the most fervent “enlightened” adherents: the poets Chenier, Alfieri,

and

Schiller

came

Wordsworth turned

to the defense of Louis

against the Revolution.

did to isolate the Lumieres from the

wake

Try

as

Mme

de Stael

Medusa that had arisen in their

in 1792-1794, the nineteenth century

itating

XVI; Goethe and

would never cease med-

with the dark irony of Schopenhauer, Flaubert, and Dos-

toevsky upon this absolute evil that had revealed

itself at the

very

heart of the passion for goodness.

The Universality of the French language On

every road taken, this

book

leads us to the encounter with an

eighteenth century that converses and corresponds in French, even

when

it is

not Francophile. Rivarol, in the years of disturbing eu-

phoria that preceded the French Revolution, used to speak so

pomp-

ously of the universality of our language, drawing an argument

from the recent French victory over England,

American

insurgents,

side

by

side

with the

and concluding that English had no

The violence of Jacobin nationalism and the

spirit

future!

of conquest of

xxvi

•

INTRODUCTION and the Empire

the Directory, the Consulate,

away the

had convinced the French and many Europeans

veil that

that the language of the realm fied

entirely stripped

and the realm

itself were to

be identi-

with the humanitarian universalism of the Enlightenment. The

Revolution had awakened the “genius” of nations, rousing in each the jealous love of its

own language.

Until 1789 the quite relative universality of the French language, already contested in England,

Italy,

Germany, and Spain, benefited

from the same powerful vectors that assured the preeminence of the French

monarchy

and

in Europe: the authority

intelligence

of an excellent diplomatic network, the quality of the translations of every important European book published in French in

Amsterdam, and London, the

Paris,

prestige of the etiquette of the pre-

mier court in the known world, the authority of the royal academies

and of the Salon of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture; but also, in Paris, the attraction

of the great

quality of their experts, the

sales

of artworks and the

magnetism exerted throughout the

world by an urban aristocracy that had raised the life

to the

rank of a

fine art

master of the hunt to the gardener,

of living, served by

last

to the jeweler,

from the painter

of light verse to the philosopher of thought

first

from the poet

— director of conscience and leader

— from the ballerina to the great actor, from the play-

mention the gaiety of

streets

from the

from the wigmaker

to the architect,

wright to the novelist, from the tutor to the to

artists

of private

kennel keeper, from the chef to the

from the dressmaker

to the perfumer,

leisures

fairs, festivals,

lady’s

companion, not

and the daily

life

of the

of Paris, the charm and good manners of its actresses and

its

grisettes.

All these allures constituted the object of an indirect (and

more penetrating)

all

the

publicity by the typography, the engraving, the

journals, the pamphlets, the French ambassadors at foreign courts,

and the theater companies performing everywhere the French ertoire, classical or

rep-

modern. Like today’s America, without resorting

to the voluntarism of a “cultural politics” or a “linguistic politics,”

eighteenth-century France and

its

language were quite simply con-

INTRODUCTION tagious

and

irresistible

xxvii

•

because their image was that of the small

amount of happiness and

intelligence of

which men

are capable

during their brief passage through this earthly vale of tears.

It is as

absurd to suppose that someone like Colbert ever imagined or fore-

saw or planned the long-standing seduction of such an image

US De-

suppose today that an occult project of persuasion of the

partment of State seeks to imprint

a

as to

pinup America upon the uni-

versal imagination.

Nothing

is

so mysterious in the history of Europe,

and now of

the world, as the vocation of certain languages to universality. The

Latin of republican and imperial Rome, the Greek of the late

and then of Byzantium, the

pire

Italian

Em-

and the Spanish of the Re-

and the Counter-Reformation, the French of the

naissance

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, continuing on

own

its

impe-

tus to 1914, the English of the twentieth century, have experienced this vocation, but

each time under conditions so different, so

compatible, and so incomparable that no

in-

common explanation can

be proposed. Political and military power had long since abandoned

Greece when the Greek language imposed Hellenistic Mediterranean that

and

as the archaizing literary

itself as

the koine of the

had come under Latin

authority,

language preferred by the imperial

Roman elite. French, having become hegemonic in Europe after the treaties

of Westphalia in 1648, was a language in

difficult, aristocratic,

and

Greek, inseparable like ners,

from

it

prestige,

literary, like Cicero’s

Latin or Lucian’s

ancient ancestors from a

a certain bearing in society,

nourished on Yet

its

itself inconvenient,

and from

bon ton

in

a quality

man-

of wit,

literature, in conversation.

was

this exigency

of

style that constituted its universal

whereas the English that prevails today the world over

is

a

vernacular and technological language dispensing with style altogether,

and

nean than Crusades:

less

to the lingua franca of the

now it

sive character,

the

comparable to the koine of the

manner

is

just this

Roman

Mediterra-

Mediterranean

after the

summary, convenient, elementary, pas-

demanding of its speakers no commitment

either in

or the matter of their utterance, that constitutes the

xxviii

INTRODUCTION

•

essence of

its

power of

global English

is

attraction.

The

of this

soft “transparency”

and

the contrary of the precise

quired by the French of the Enlightenment, even

lively clarte re-

when

it

was spo-

ken and written by Robespierre, whose bearing was impeccable,

whose hair was always

freshly

ners were those of a courtier.

powdered, whose diction and man-

The question

arises:

What language in

the twenty-first century will offer a civilized idiom to a “global”

world?

Communication System or Feast

of Minds?

This book makes no claim whatever to theorize or to defend any particular agenda.

It

has led me, nonetheless, as

arrive at a clearer awareness

it

has proceeded, to

of the obstacle preventing the French of

today from understanding the real trump cards of their guage, which they

still

speak, however absently,

own

lan-

and which they no

longer dare to love.

On

the one hand, politicians gladly listen to the linguists,

explain to this

them

that, since

French

is

a

who

communication system,

system to survive in a world “in constant mutation,”

it

for

must

free itself from the

grammatical norms and semantic scruples inher-

from another

— aristocratic, reactionary, literary—world that

ited

would put it in which

is

a

handicapped situation vis-a-vis “global” American,

considered perfectly adapted to utilitarian information

and amply

sufficient for

phony mediational

“discussions.”

Adopt

then a resolutely technological and yet voluntaristic attitude that will finally release

and

an elementary neo-French from

facilitate succinct

communication. Such

is

its

old precision

the discourse that

imperiously dominates today. The pressure of mass education also proceeds, without acknowledging the fact, in the direction of a hex-

agonal idiolect refashioned to the measure of the global dialect. Yet try as

it

glais (as titles

will to humiliate I

write this in the

itself,

to renounce

summer of 2001,

its

all

of novels are advertised in English in

scruples over Fran-

film titles

Paris), to

and

several

renounce

its

INTRODUCTION meaning of words

grammar, to

let

become

much more attractive or lively.

that

friends abroad,

Baudelaire,

the

more

drift, this

xxix

Cinderella has not

has lost

its

traditional

faithful to Moliere, Saint-Simon, Balzac,

and Proust than drawn by the demagogic theories of

our modern linguistic advisers. In France longer claims to be the spinal it

It

•

itself,

column of a

the

new French no

civilized education,

has thereby lost the qualifications the old one

order to compete with a global American. Today

and

possessed in

still

in English, in

it is

English-language book reviews faithful to the tradition of the Republic of Letters but published in last

word on the worldwide

New York and London,

value of books and ideas

is

that the

printed and

On the other hand, we hear eloquent speeches in favor of a Francophone safeguard whose doctrine,

a loose

one to say the

least,

tends distinctly toward a gelatinous neo-French, the lowest com-

mon denominator between

the

members of

this vast, vague,

and

multiple provincial community.

This promenade through the eighteenth century with foreigners

me

speaking and writing French has proved to

the contrary of

everything that passes today for politically correct evidence with

moment when

regard to language. If French, at the liveliest attraction

was certainly not only

it

communication system. Frederick

II,

as

who

its

whom,

as a

mistakenly regarded

such a system, said that he reserved

grooms, for which and

Abbe

exercised

over an exigent and difficult world, answered the

expectation of the Enlightenment,

German

it

it

for his horses

and

moreover, he cared deeply. If the

Conti, Francesco Algarotti, and Vittorio Alfieri defended

Italian,

and Walpole English, against

the Enlightenment French,

own language was

it

a too-exclusive

hegemony of

was because they judged that

their

not a communication system but a way of being,

thinking, and feeling different from that of the French, and because it

mattered to them to inhabit their

ence.

They were

polyglots,

and

it

was

own

first

of all and by prefer-

in full awareness of the situa-

tion that they admitted or contested the preeminence of French.

The

greatest friends of our language,

who were

frequently the

xxx

•

INTRODUCTION

warmest partisans of the Enlightenment, did not separate the education of which

was the

it

which it had been won, and from an entire happily

is,

ficed for

from the

vector,

art

from

it

of living civilly

— that

— to which the local communication systems that

most of their compatriots did not

the French lexicon,

on

literature

suf-

French grammar,

lead.

whose relative poverty Voltaire was not afraid to

mock, French syntax, the demanding semantics of the French

lan-

guage, French versification, whose defects Walpole saw clearly a

century before the in

crise

which our language

du

vers

diagnosed by Mallarme, the genres

excelled, notably the intimate genres, the let-

the diary, the poetry of occasion, memoirs, and that oral literary

ter,

genre that

is

conversation between friends

prenticeship had the

meaning of an

—

all this difficult

ap-

an exceptional

initiation to

fashion of being free and natural with others and with oneself.

was altogether different from communicating.

It

It

was entering “into

company.” Willy-nilly, in the twenty-first century as in the eighteenth, any-

who wants

one

to shake off the leaden cloak of

conformism and

mass communication, anyone who discovers that he wants before dying to participate in a civilized conversation, the image on this earth of nostra conversatio quae

does so in French, and

est in coelis,

certainly not in the French that satisfies the consumers of the neo-

French communication system for which

shown

their disdain

its

by preferring English to

very champions have

it.

A publisher told me

one day that the number of real readers in a country

which he meant those who had amassed ied since the sixteenth century:

like

France (by

had not

var-

between three thousand and

five

a real library)

thousand. The demographic variations and the degrees of literacy

had never altered anything. perience that the

of a ers

An

optimist,

number of people in

real conversation in

and owners of a

I

am

led to believe by ex-

the present-day world capable

French (who are necessarily also

library) has actually increased

real read-

and that

it

has,

since the eighteenth century, in fact diversified the world over.

The number of young candidates ished.

Go

anywhere

for this club has not

dimin-

in the world, to Japan, Argentina, the

United

INTRODUCTION States,

and you

will doubtless find fewer

menus

•

xxxi

in French, fewer

hotels where French will be spoken to you, fewer ponderous collo-

quia in which the participants communicate in our language, but

you tion

will find today, as

who do

under Louis XV,

artists

of French conversa-

not issue from Francophone channels or the Berlitz

academies of neo-French: they have followed untrodden ways in

or-

der to participate in the banquet of minds of which France was long the expert hostess, and

whose memory will never be

where these good people

effaced. Every-

are already your friends, your confidants,

your correspondents. It is

in this clandestine

worldwide minority, and no longer in the

visible minority, splendidly tals

furnished but reduced to several capi-

of the banquet of enlightened minds, that today

known

to the statisticians, linguists,

“novlangues,”

unknown

resides,

un-

and programmers of the

to the majority of the French, the life

and

the future of their irreplaceable idiom, qualified as a literary lan-

guage and the language of “good company.” French, the modern language of the mind’s clandestinity?

i

.

Paris at the

Dawn

of the Enlightenment:

The Abbe Conti and the Comte de Caylus

The seventeenth century

War

dwindles and dies in the

of the Spanish Succession. From 1701 to 1714, the forces of the Haps-

burg emperor, united with those of England and Holland opposed ,

Louis XI V’s powerful war machine on several fronts, in Europe and overseas.

The eighteenth century dawns once the rumors of secret

peace negotiations between France and England, the

new Tory government, begin

made

possible by

to spread in Paris in 1712.

A cer-

tain lassitud e appears as a consequence of the terrible sacrifices

the

permanent tension imposed on

cade by the Great King, rible winters, the defeats

and grandsons. The delicate

Paris

is

more than

a de-

himself failing, overcome by

ter-

of his generals, and the deaths of his son

sole heir

orphan born

name Louis XV,

who was

his realm for

and

of the senior branch of the family

in 1710; this child,

who

in 1715

is

a

assumes the

the eighteenth century.

Awakes

An irresistible appetite for civil life, for relaxation and felicity, seizes the city of Paris; the energies

awakened then

will traverse every gen-

eration until 1789.

The French city

capital turns

its

back on Versailles and becomes a

of festivity once the Treaty of Utrecht

1713,

is

signed with

London in

soon followed in 1714 by the Treaty of Rastadt with Holland

and the Hapsburg emperor. Old Louis and the

frontiers of the realm.

XIV

has saved the honor

His grandson Philippe d’Anjou

is

1

i

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

recognized by Europe as the king of Spain. France’s trump cards in

game

the

established by the treaties of Westphalia in 1648 remain

intact. Paris, never seriously threatened,

ments, has long believed

itself secure.

Duke of Brunswick’s provocative

the

terical in that Paris

as a

had regarded

even

The

at the war’s

city’s

reactions in 1791 to

threats were all the

more

hys-

of Louis

XIV

disasters.

The

itself since the reign

immune to any foe. life made up for public

worst mo-

sanctuary

Private

anxieties

and

Duchesse du Maine, escaping from the ceremonials of Versailles

and Marly, collecting men of letters, poets, and grands

seigneurs,

gave the impetus and the example at the Chateau de Sceaux: around the capital, country residences suddenly multiplied. Even in the last

wartime months, the pleasures of society great estates

and

in

mansions whose

tall

hummed

in the parks of

windows opened onto

gar-

dens and pools: conversations, theatricals, and rustic diversions invented joie de vivre.

An amazed

re-

Europe, eager to do likewise,

observed the sudden transformation of the vale of tears into a sunny

and no

lon-

between

1711

setting forfetes galantes, the tone set by private persons

ger by the court of the Great King.

The and

secret negotiations for the Peace of Utrecht

1713, necessarily

conducted by indirect channels, in themselves

afforded a special savor to Parisian parties, into which melted, in-

cognito St.

at first,

John,

would be status.

Mme

officially

unknown

Matthew Prior and Henry

to Versailles, as

Benjamin Franklin

until Vergennes officially recognized his ambassadorial

These were the

first

foreigners to be seen for a long while.

de Tencin’s worldly career formally began in 1712, upon her

liberation sister

such British emissaries as

from the convent of the Cloistered Dominicans,

in her

Mme de Ferriol’s mansion in the rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin.

She entered society by becoming Matthew

Prior’s mistress

and by

imposing her wit upon the guests in the rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin: the Marechal d’Uxelles, titular lover of the lady of the house; Vau-

ban; Arthur Dillon, one of the handsomest

and

especially the writer Fontenelle,

who

men of his era;

St.John;

assiduously frequented

the house, though he was the particular oracle of the

company

the

PARIS AT

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

•

3

Marquise de Lambert gathered twice weekly in her house in the rue de Richelieu. In 1715 tresse

who

Mme de Tencin

at the Palais-Royal, the

is

mai-

de maison of the regent’s former tutor, Guillaume Dubois,

will be

made

and appointed prime minister

a cardinal in 1721

man

in 1722; she then took as her lover a

of letters, the Chevalier

Destouches. The child he gave her, immediately abandoned on

church

steps, will

become Jean Le Rond d’Alembert.

Gradually there emerge and take the stage the star performers of that

comedy of the Enlightenment,

Paris of the Lumieres. In the

rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, the lovely Circassian Mile Ai'sse, brought

from

his

embassy

by the Comte de Ferriol and

in Constantinople

which

the eventual heroine of a love story over tears,

is

in 1712-1715

still

for the rest

Europe shed

playing with the two sons of the house, the

young Comte d’Argental and

main

all

of their

lives

both

his brother, Pont-de-Veyle:

re-

devoted friends and assiduous corre-

spondents of Voltaire, their classmate at the College Louis-le-Grand.

Already as the new century begins, a more gracious manner than the grand style of Versailles zat’s,

is

apparent

whose brand-new mansion and

the banker Pierre Cro-

at

vast gardens, completed in

1706, occupy the upper end of the rue de Richelieu, not far from

Mme de Lambert’s and the Palais-Royal. The concerts offered in his Montmorency country house by

this financier so

about works of art gather a crowd of

women,

the painters Charles de

arbiter of artistic elegance

ings

and prints

men of

fashion and lovely

La Fosse and Antoine Watteau, the

Roger de

Piles,

Pierre -Jean Mariette,

the

young expert

in draw-

and certain learned and

new Academy of Abbe Fraguier.

fined antiquaries from the Belles-Lettres, such as the

knowledgeable

Inscriptions

re-

and

The Age of Enlightenment thus dawned well before the Sun

King had vanished over the horizon Philippe d’Orleans, for

in 1715.

The

regent, his

nephew

whom Crozat had assembled a collection of

paintings and drawings, had long shared this Parisian aspiration to the pleasures of civil tures of this

life

and the

arts

new master of France

of peace.

after the

One

of the

first ges-

death of Louis

XIV was

to shift the seat of government to the Palais-Royal in the heart of

4

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

Paris,

one of the two

city residences,

along with the Palais du Lux-

embourg, of the dynasty’s junior branch.

Once

the Treaty of Rastadt was signed, the

who had been

Caylus,

had rapidly risen from lonia

given his rank at the age of fifteen and

his

mother

adequately paid his share of the blood he

“My son informs me,”

his

that,

having more than

owed his king, he was leav-

the comtesse wrote to her aunt,

the Marquise de Maintenon, “that he

on the

who

during several brilliant campaigns in Cata-

it

and Germany, informed

ing the army.

young Colonel de

would

rather leave his head

scaffold than continue to serve.” In the intervals

between

campaigns he had frequented the Hotel Crozat, formed friend-

ships with

its

and had studied with

habitues, notably Watteau,

that painter the fabulous collection of paintings

the banker regent.

and drawings

had amassed along with those he was choosing

The young colonel’s vocation

as a “virtuoso,”

combine with the frequentation of as well as the assiduous cultivation

polite

of

arts

for the

which he would

and

frivolous society

and

letters,

had been

determined.

His

was to for

first

impulse

as a free

set off for Italy to

gentleman returning to

complete his

artistic

civilian life

education, remaining

almost a year; he would have remained even longer had not the

news of Louis XI V’s death

recalled

him to his mother’s side in Paris.

In 1717, the family situation having been stabilized, he set off again, this

time intending to begin his education

as

an antiquary, for Greece

and Turkey where he studied architecture, sculpture,

and the topography of the Greco-Roman world. 1718,

On

inscriptions, his return in

he encountered in his mother’s house the Venetian Abbe An-

tonio Conti, philosopher, mathematician, poetaster, and essayist, a universal savant

who

corresponded with

Newton and

Leibniz but

also frequented Luigi Riccoboni, director of the theatrical troupe

that the regent

had invited

des Italiens closed by Louis painters

and virtuosi

as

Antonio-Maria Zanetti,

to Paris in 1716 to reopen the Theatre

XIV

in 1696, as well as such Venetian

Rosalba Carriera, Sebastiano Ricci, and all

called to Paris

under the Regency at the

invitation of the wealthy conoisseur Pierre Crozat. Alter the Eng-

PARIS AT lish, it

was the

Italians

Paris quite naturally tal

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT who

returned to the

city.

•

5

In a very few years,

became the incontestable cosmopolitan

capi-

of the Enlightenment.

Telemachus and Mentor The Comtesse de Caylus, amazed and delighted by her new Venetian friend’s conversation, sensibility,

and eager

and

total absence

of bigotry,

to provide proper sustenance for her son’s studious

quiring mind, writes to the latter in 1718:

Abbe

ple of the

Conti.”

“Make

And forthwith the

and

in-

yourself the disci-

Italian

Mentor

initiates

the French Telemachus into the systems of Leibniz and

Newton

and so widens

this neophyte’s philosophical

horizon

that in 1724,

armed with the

makes

even as he

visits,

him

scientific

abbe’s letters of introduction, he

a third journey that will consecrate

public of Letters and lead

and

to

him

a citizen of the Re-

Amsterdam and London. And

in the cities he passes through, the collections

cabinets of curiosities, he

is

welcomed by

several

and

European princes

of intellect: in London by Dr. Robert Mead, in Amsterdam by the

famous Calvinist refugees Basnage de Beauval and Jean

Young Caylus henceforth becomes

the Enlightenment

Leclerc.

Frenchman

par excellence, preparing himself for the independent career that by

midcentury will win him great fame. In order to

become not only an honnete

homme

in

the

seventeenth-century manner but an expert of international standing in several

arts,

an antiquary enjoying European authority, and a

Maecenas and guide

for

many young

nobleman of agreeable presence and

artists, this

lively

sword-bearing

conversation quietly en-

gaged in a continuing process of ascesis; without ever aspiring to the notoriety of an author, he mastered several literary genres, from the

most entertaining and “To

fugitive to the

live nobly,” that aristocratic

tablished by the ancient Greeks

most erudite and

mode whose

and that

severe.

superiority

was

es-

in France remains, in

peacetime, the only ideal comparable to a monk’s contemplative

6

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

life,

would offer the Comte de Caylus the

of metropolitan company tellectual disciplines

vie

de chateau enjoyments

as well as the disinterested practice

borrowed from scholars and men of

Leisure, the schole of the Greeks, the otium of the

of in-

letters.

Romans,

is

the

shared ideal of men of letters and gentlemen, studious for the

for-

mer, nonchalant and galant for the

latter.

The Comte de Caylus participated

fully in

both versions, which

makes him an archetypal hero of the French Enlightenment. This

man

of the world will never be a worldling: he has an indubitable

social spirit, attends the theater,

is

seen at pleasure parties, frequents

several agreeable intellectual circles, frin’s

Mondays; when

makes and

ily

Mme

Geof-

in Paris he lives as a Parisian, but he also

a fetish of friendship

active expenditure

truth. This descendant

and presides over

and never shrinks from the assiduous

of his time in the service of beauty and

on the paternal

side

of a distinguished fam-

from the Rouergue resembles Montaigne

in his jealous con-

sciousness of the meditative self and the requirements of intimacy.

Invariably cheerful in society, he reserves the right to be a melan-

own company. Yielding to the “diversions” condemned by Pascal, he yet knows how to remain at peace in a small room. cholic in his

Intercourse between this vice

young officer

released

from armed

ser-

and the extremely learned Venetian abbe will extend, thanks

their correspondence, long after in 1726,

ionship,

Antonio Conti’s return

where Montesquieu will be his guest

in 1728.

it

to Venice

Such compan-

and the easy manners and disinterested passion

of the mind

to

for things

supposes, are characteristic at once of the cosmopoli-

tanism, the encyclopedism, and the sociability of the French eigh-

teenth century. The Enlightenment had no need to wait for the generation of the encylopedists to spread in Paris and to radiate

throughout Europe. Indeed the movement was never so

and fecund

as at its inception.

felicitous

On the threshold of this book, which

gathers a portrait gallery of foreigners conquered by Enlightenment

France, the portrait of this French Telemachus and his

Mentor

commands our attention. Anne-Claude Philippe de Tubieres, de Grimoard, de

Pestel,

de

PARIS AT

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Comte de Caylus

Levis,

Watteau painted

Cochin much

(1692-1765), of whom

in 1719, as well as a profile

•

7

we have a portrait by drawing engraved by

had nothing of the elegant leanness bestowed

later,

by his painter friend upon the male personages of his conversations galantes. Powerfully built, his face broad, his

gable walker, the

stevedore

if,

jaw heavy, an indefati-

comte might well have passed,

at closer range, the delicate

and

his long sensitive fingers,

at a distance, for a

contour of his nose and

a gaze capable

of authority

lips,

as well as

melancholy and ennui had not betrayed the grand seigneur. But this

grand seigneur in early youth had shared the

his troops

and was quite

and

streets

fairs as

as

life

of camps with

much at ease with the people of the Paris

with the cheerful company of witty

women and

men.

He

jacket

and duck trousers, mingling like the Saladin of the Thousand

enjoyed exchanging his court garments for a twill

still

and One Nights with

the

with his

— the

cobbler

'characters'’

swarming life of workaday Paris, engaging idler,

the coachman, the milliner, the

— savoring their easy ways, remarking their curious turns of Montaigne took

speech, just as

lessons

from the patois of Gascon

peasants.

Diderot’s outspoken hatred of the comte

(all

the

more murder-

ous since the author of the Salons of the Correspondance

owed art)

ure

a

has

Comte de

good deal

to the

managed

to erase

who was

in his

Caylus’s taste

from French memories

way a prince of intellect:

and

litteraire

ideas about

this original fig-

his mistake

was

to have

been wellborn to loathe the charlatanry of the philosophes, and to ,

lead according to his

own

and indelatigably fecund

notions the apparently unconstrained

life

of one of the Enlightenment’s busiest

bees.

A Fenelonian Trinity The Abbe Antonio Conti

— born in Padua in 1677, to an ancient

family of the Venetian patriciate, and dying in the city of his birth in 1749

— belonged

to the preceding generation. In 1699 he

had

8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

entered the Congregation of the Oratorio della Fava, where he completed his training as a humanist with intensive studies in philoso-

phy and theology of

a Platonist

and Augustinian

tinge. In 1709,

without leaving the priesthood, he obtained leave from the congregation in order to gain a better acquaintance with novelties arriving

from the north: Bacon and Descartes, Malebranche and Locke,

Newton and Leibniz, of Padua. In

innovations in mathematics, physics, and phi-

1713, the year

his

homeland

his

way

into the

to Paris

of the Treaty of Utrecht, duly initiated in

new science and

where he

sufficiently

the

new doctrines, he made

impressed Malebranche for

the latter to agree to discuss his metaphysical system with him, and

where he frequented Sciences. Far

eminent members of the Academy of

several

from being a dazzled innocent, Conti espoused no

specific school

of thought or

new

careful to familiarize himself with

scientific theory, all

though he was

of them. To gain a better idea

of the British counterpart of the Cartesianism dominant in France, he visited London where he met the astronomer Halley and the

mathematician Newton. His mastery of the new science election to the Royal Society.

He

extended his peregrinations to

Holland and Germany, where he met Newton’s great with ers

won him

whom he remained in correspondence.

His

rival Leibniz,

curiosity, his

pow-

of assimilation and comparison, and his irenicism made this en-

lightened ecclesiastic an ideal audience and interlocutor for the greatest

On

contemporary minds of the Republic of Letters.

his return to Paris,

Conti took the measure of the expan-

sion of the Querelle des Anciens et des

d’Homere he then drew up :

Modernes into the Querelle

for his friends, in French,

an impartial

balance sheet of the contending positions without concealing the fact that

he tended to side with the ancients. The French and par-

ticularly the English

moderns were

all

too ready, in his view as in

that of the Neapolitan Vico (whose genius Conti

was among the

few to recognize), to discard the remote for the immediate, the

di-

vine for the instrumental. It

was

at the

beginning of his second Parisian

stay, in 1718,

that

PARIS AT

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

•

9

Conti became acquainted with the Comtesse de Caylus and translated Racine’s Athalie into Italian for her.

An

autumnal attach-

ment, including a good share of love, united them.

had been one of the Versailles

beauties,

Mme de Caylus

more graceful and

delicious

than truly beautiful, and already more suited to Watteau’s becoming gowns than to the ornamental carapaces in which ladies were corseted by royal etiquette.

In the absence of any surviving iconography for the abbe, difficult to

imagine his physical appearance. In 1718 he was in his

mid-forties, six years

younger than the comtesse.

tempted to believe that

who

lived for his

mind

this wellborn,

alone,

years before at Versailles

One might

well-mannered

somehow reminded

be

ecclesiastic,

Mme de Caylus

whom she had known well thirty

of the spiritual beauty of Fenelon,

had found

it is

and at Saint-Cyr, and whose inner light she

positively daunting.

Both

Mme de Caylus and the Abbe

Conti conceived an enormous sympathy for the Chevalier Ramsay, Fenelon’s most famous disciple, and they read in manuscript the

chief

work of

this singular personage,

spired, appropriately

On

Les Voyages de Cyrus

in-

enough, by the Aventures de Telemaque.

this point too they

both inaugurated the Age of Enlighten-

ment, which virtually worshipped Fenelon. Conti was too Platonist

,

and an Augustinian not

much

a

to savor the literary refinements

and the negative theology that placed the archbishop of Cambrai above and beyond the doctrinal contradictions quite

him

at this “crisis

of European consciousness”

tween Molinists and Jansenists. fered too

much from

Mme

as familiar to

as the disputes be-

de Caylus had herself suf-

the extremes of Jansenism, and then sampled

the terrible Bossuet, not to relish in contrast Fenelon’s exigent but

heart-warming religion. Could she

had discovered and

lage lead the latter

to

this

whom

second swan from Padua whom

she had entrusted her son’s tute-

from agnosticism to

faith?

The abbe took

care

not to preach to this young ex-colonel whose character and tastes

were already formed.

He

concentrated on encouraging his charge’s

passion for knowledge and his taste for meditation and literary

composition. Recondite studies, for a soul closed to religion, might

6

IO

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

take the place of spiritual exercises. Until 1750 the leading principle

of the Enlightenment in France for the

is

to be sought in this stage of piety

Muses and the Graces.

Inviting the comte to collaborate with

him in a critical examina-

tion of Newton’s chronology, Conti also attracted into the tesse’s circle certain

com-

academicians of the sciences or great literary

who made the maternal hearth even more appealing to the youth and who completed, by their conversation, the higher education of a military man converted to the life of the mind. If there is lights

one distinctive characteristic of the eighteenth century, faith

it

places in education,

reflected

on

its

by

it

is

the

and the generosity with which

it

has

methods. This characteristic

Antonio Conti and ited

it

in

is

intensely present in

Mme de Caylus; indeed the comte, who profwould

in their presence,

formation of numerous young

in turn paternally supervise the

artists.

In exchange for this tutelage, the abbe himself received and learned a great deal as the comtesse’s intimate.

might be added

to the life

moral intelligence and

all

He

realized all that

of the mind by the singular alliance of

the heartfelt discernment such a

woman

might reveal she possessed: exclusively masculine dealings with the Republic of Letters had not granted siveness and,

him

a glimpse of such respon-

back in Padua, the Abbe Conti would find no compen-

sation for the separation

from

his friend

and the

circle she attracted

around her except in the letters he exchanged with the comtesse and in the brilliant Venetian musical life

reported to her, accompanied by

During the years 1718-172

,

whose

activities

many manuscript

and by

a

he faithfully

scores

1 .

two-way Paris-Venice

cor-

respondence that remained assiduous until the comtesse’s death in 1729, this mother, her son,

mer’s tender friend

1.

See Sylvie

latter’s

Mamy, La Musique fran^aise

(Paris: B.N.F., 1996). letters to

and the

and the

Mme

Mamy

Italian

who was

mentor constituted

et

a

the for-

fond and

I’imaginaire frannuls des Lumieres

has since published an edition of the

de Caylus: Lettere da Venezia a

(Florence: Olschki, Z003).

abbe

Madame

la

Abbe

Conti’s

Comtesse de Caylus

PARIS AT

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

•

n

harmonious

trinity sharing readings, ideas, friendships, interests,

and

was probably

tastes. It

to diminish her sadness at the abbe’s de-

parture for Venice in 1726 that

Mme de Caylus dictated to her son

her Souvenirs de la cour de Louis XIV, recollections that Voltaire was

make permanently famous by publishing them, with

to

notes, in 1771. This trio

pleasures

and the

folly

Mme

the Regency.

to be

daunted by the pursuit of

of amusements that intoxicated the Paris of

de Caylus managed to instruct her two young

gentlemen that there ing.

was not

own

his

is

also a

knowledge to be derived from mourn-

She was familiar with the meaning of separation,

sentiment of age, glimpses of past youth and the past

unscathed by the naive

grief,

and the

itself.

She was

— and increasingly abstract — euphoria that

many Enlightenment figures. The French language was the medium by which

threatened so

ceptional beings understood one another. shared,

up

Though

these three ex-

the

Abbe Conti

to a point, his compatriots’ impatience with the French

exaltation of their language above

all

other

modern tongues, and

notably the Italian literary idiolect, and try as he would to familiarize his

French friend and her son with the glories of Italian music

and poetry

(since

both were singularly sympathetic to Italian

tural manifestations), he

came

cul-

to realize that the vindication the

French made for their language had a certain basis of truth, and he

had learned that language with the in all his endeavors.

His

are of great distinction

and

essays

spirit

his

of perfection he invested

correspondence in French

and an impeccable

correctness: all the

same

they reveal a certain patavinitas the accent of Padua, as the ancient ,

Romans would

say of provincials incapable by definition of master-

ing the urbanitas of the Fatin spoken and written by the natives of the Urbs. Paris

A

modest man, Conti knew

this all too well.

was the modern and Christian Rome.

had known

XIV and

a

Diotima, a Monica.

It

was

For him,

in Paris that he

And she spoke the French of Fouis

Racine. In Paris, as in Fivy’s

Rome, the

literary

language

and the language of conversation, unlike those of contemporary aly,

It-

were one and the same. This language had internalized, so to

speak, the rhetorical

demands of Fatin urbanitas

:

clarity, precision,

iz

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

music, naturalness.

It

was the vocation of the French language to be

the living Latin of the moderns. Into

could enter with ease and

it

mind and

the

the heart

make themselves heard, a kind of uninter-

rupted musical improvisation.

No

Venetian or Neapolitan voice,

not even that of the prodigious castrato Farinelli, could

make

the

life,

was

abbe forget the French speech of Mme de Caylus.

The comtesse’s

who remained

son,

never so happy as in the

company of his mother and

had bestowed upon him

cal elder she

a bachelor all his

as a

this ecclesiasti-

mentor. His

life

would

begin to darken after Antonio Conti departed from them, and to

an even greater degree when the comtesse’s death matter ties,

how

busily he engaged in his extensive

he was never to

fill

the void

left

left

and

him

in his childhood,

though

No

fruitful activi-

by his mother and his mentor.

Theirs was a threefold emotive configuration that he

known

alone.

in a

more

had already

strident key.

The Quasi Queen and Her Niece Two virtually inseparable women had kept vigil over his childhood. One is a legend who has reached our own times. The other is virtually forgotten.

and without

The

less visible

was

his mother,

young

at

the time

resources:

Marthe-Marguerite Le Valois, Marquise de

Villette-Mursay, better

known by the name she assumed at her mar-

riage in 1686,

was

Comtesse de Caylus. The

other, a

monumental matron,

his great-aunt Fran^oise d’Aubigne, better

known by the name

Marquise de Maintenon, which she owes to Louis XIV, her lover

and then her clandestine husband.

Both

great ladies

had blossomed on the ancestral

tree

of a vigor-

ous family that quite suddenly entered the noblesse d’epee in the sixteenth century.

The grandfather of one

(the great-grandfather

the other) was the formidable Agrippa d’Aubigne, the

first

of

noble-

man of the family stock, hero of the Calvinist faction, great warrior, great lover, great

humanist

as well,

and one of the most splendid

French poets, author ofLes Tragiques and the Hecatombe a Diane.

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

PARIS AT

Mme but

13

de Maintenon was one of the children of Agrippa’s only

Constant d’Aubigne, who had received

son,

•

who

a

humanist education

preferred to be a redoubtable warrior, several times a be-

trayer of his father,

and the murderer of his

was passionately loved by

first

his second wife,

wife. This bluebeard

Jeanne de Cardailhac,

daughter of the governor of the prison of Bordeaux where he had

been incarcerated. Their daughter, Fran^oise d’Aubigne, endured a vagrant and miserable childhood in their wake.

One

of Agrippa’s daughters, Louise-Artemise, married Benja-

min Te Valois,

Sieur de Villette. Their son Philippe Le Valois, Mar-

quis de Villette, fathered in his

Caylus,

first

Mme

marriage the future

who was originally known as Mile de Mursay, born in

de

1671.

Philippe de Villette had a brilliant career in the royal navy, as did his four sons, three of

sea wolf was

still

whom died in Louis XI V’s wars. In

hearty enough to marry a companion of his daugh-

ter in the educational establishment

who

gave

him

Bolingbroke. tire

several children,

It

1695, this

of Saint-Cyr, Mile de Marsilly,

and who was

later to

become Lady

was then that Fran^oise d Aubigne shed over her en-

family something of her luster and her influence. She who, since

1685,

had been the morganatic wife of Louis XIV, the “quasi queen,”

sustained, for example, her old trooper of a brother, their father

worthy son of

Constant d’Aubigne, despite his compromising

esca-

pades; she married off this brother’s daughter, Fran^'oise-Charlotte, to the ters

Marechal de Noailles, who would join the Council of Minis-

under the Regency.

Nor

did

Mme

de Maintenon lose sight of her niece Mile de

Villette-Mursay. She

when

had taken the

girl

from her parents

in 1680,

she was nine years old, to keep in her household in Versailles

and converted her

to Catholicism. She then married her off, at just

under sixteen years of age, to the Comte de Caylus. This was anything but a misalliance. The Caylus were a family of very old and illustrious military nobility, deeply rooted in the

Rouergue but long since members of the nobility of both court and church. The comte’s brother, the as

aumonier du

roi

,

Abbe de

Caylus, called to Versailles

cherished by Bossuet and

Mme de Maintenon,

i

4

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

became bishop of Auxerre

come

a part of

one of Henri a

in 1704.

Ill’s favorites,

poem Les

of their ancestors had be-

French legend: Jacques de Levis,

who was killed,

famous duel with d’Entraigues.

ful

One

He

de Quelus,

to the king’s despair, in

figures in d’Aubigne’s venge-

But the husband

Tragiques.

Comte

whom Mme

de Main-

tenon had given to the adolescent Mile de Villette-Mursay enjoyed

no such glamour, and had been chosen only on condition that he immediately decamp, leaving the aunt the exclusive enjoyment of her niece. The exceptionally the masterpiece of whom

endowed Mile de Mursay was indeed

Mme de Maintenon, as an educatrice

extremely proud. Throughout her adolescence the

,

was

enchanted

girl

the court of Versailles.

“Sport and mirth,” wrote the her; her

mind was even more

Abbe de

Choisy, “sparkled around

lovable than her countenance; there

was no time to breathe or be bored when she was with one

.

.

.

and

if

her natural gaiety had permitted her to leave off performing certain rather flirtatious songs that

she

would have been

a totally

Even Saint-Simon,

Mme

related to

all

her innocence could scarcely justify,

accomplished being.”

scarcely likely to

show indulgence

for

de Maintenon, confessed to marveling

anyone

at his

old

enemy’s niece. “Never,” he writes, “was there a countenance so witty

and so touching, so eloquent, never such grace or so

much

more seductive Racine,

wit, never such gaiety

freshness, never so

much

and amusement, never

a

creature.”

amazed by her diction and her talents

as

an

actress,

com-

posed for her the prologue to the Piete in Esther which he had writ,

ten at

Mme de Maintenon’s request for the theater of Saint-Cyr. She

performed not only this prologue but several other replacing

young

actresses

who had

taken

ill,

roles in the play,

to the general delight

of the poet, the king, and the court. She even triumphed in the

main female

role

of Athalie, exceeding the

memory of the famous

Mile Champmesle by the grace of her diction and the sincerity of her emotion.

But the bewitching vout

Mme de

pomp commanded

Caylus was constrained by the de-

by an aging monarch. Saint-Simon writes

PARIS AT that Louis

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

XIV was intimidated by her gay and pointed sallies

•

and

imagined that he found in them a certain mockery of his person. ‘'Entertaining as she was,” he adds, “the king was not quite comfortable

with

and

her,

king, was also

ill

who was

she,

aware of being distanced by the

at ease in his presence.

He

never enjoyed her and

was always reserved, frequently severe with

her. This distressed

Mme de Maintenon.” She was indeed dismissed from

Due

son with the

Versailles, first in 1691; her liai-

de Villeroy brought her a second exile in 1694.

She had to take refuge with her mother-in-law in that for the

first

Paris. It

was then

time she was obliged to share her husband’s

and they had two children. The older son was born

life,

in 1692, the fu-

ture Caylus of the Enlightenment.

impossible to

It is

uncle,

know how he was brought

up.

Most

likely his

Monseigneur de Caylus, leader of the Jansenist episcopate,

frequently invited

to Auxerre.

It is

also certain that despite her

Mme de Caylus took charge of his education as much

animated life, as she could.

him

Yet precisely between 1694 and 1707,

when

she was

barred from Versailles, she flung herself into the most austere of de-

vout

activities,

under the direction of the general of the Oratory,

Pere de La Tour, himself notorious for his Jansenism, which further

aggravated the young woman’s disgrace in the king’s eyes.

One may

suppose that throughout this period, she zealously concerned herself with her

two children, and notably with the

tion of her eldest son.

The argumentative and punitive Jansenism

that Anne-Philippe initially encountered

nently distanced the young tion,

though

it

did not

intellectual forma-

man from

make

on

had perma-

all sides

religious faith.

a libertine of him, left

Such

him

desicca-

a free

mind

typical of the Enlightenment.

In 1704 his father,

whom

blase, stupefied for years

his regiment

Saint-Simon describes

as

“mortally

by wine and brandy,” and tucked away with

on the northern frontier,

died.

Mme de Caylus changed

her spiritual director and was cured of Jansenism. She was restored to favor

and

in 1707 returned to Versailles, enlivening her aunt

even the old king in the interstices of the dreary

life at

and

court, in the

6

1

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

darkest hours of the “great war.” old,

and she presented him

army, a sacrificial victim.

Her eldest son was now fifteen years

to Louis

He was

XIV.

sent off to the

He fought heroically at Malplaquet,

a vic-

won by the Marechal de Villars and received with great relief at Versailles amid so many disasters. Upon the youth’s return, tory dearly

the king seated

“Look

at

him

in his lap

young Caylus

If the rest of his life

and exclaimed

here, he’s already killed

is

to be understood,

it

to the

whole court:

one of my enemies!”

must always be remem-

bered that Caylus had been introduced into the holy of holies of the

monarchy at a very early age, and that he had seen the Great King at Versailles eye to eye

and

in disagreement as he

close at hand.

Even

as a

young man, mainly

was with certain aspects of Regency

remained deeply attached to

this

Paris,

he

vanished “Great Age,” the legend of

which only grew apace under Louis XV and of which Voltaire, who

knew

intimately and greatly esteemed the comte and his mother, be-

came the chief chorister in Le Siecle de Louis XIV, published

Mme de Caylus

is

cited

and celebrated

in this

in 1751.

work. In 1770,

after

the comte’s death, Voltaire published the manuscript of memoirs

by the comtesse, under the

The death of Louis

title

XIV in

left

Souvenirs de la cour de Louis XIV.

September

1715

have scuttled the “Maintenon party” of which

might be thought to

Mme de Caylus was

the chief ornament, and to assure the triumph of its adversaries, the

Due

d’Orleans, regent of France, and his partisans.

Mme de Main-

tenon, in the heavy veils of widowhood, withdrew to definitive re-

tirement at Saint-Cyr, becoming the mother abbess of her teaching

Mme de Caylus, whose income was threatened, was obliged

convent.

to return to Paris where, foresightedly, she

had arranged

in 1714 to

be lodged in a small house belonging to the Royal Buildings and situated

on the grounds of the

Palais

du Luxembourg. By this virtu-

ally rural retreat she participated in the general centrifugal

ment

that afforded the eighteenth century

a private

life. It

was here that her

its

move-

best opportunities for

eldest son joined her in 1715.

The

correspondence between the comtesse and her aunt abounds in praises of her son’s character

existence. She writes to

and of the sweetness of

Mme de Maintenon:

their shared

— PARIS AT

My

habitation

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT convenient, attractive, solitary.

is

.

.

.

17

Early

.

each morning I hear the crowing of several cocks and the bells

of several

little

garden

about twice the

is

convents that invite

covered by grapevines, I

shall take

my

I

is

little

bedroom

fill

my

with

how

life is

constituted,

carriages

on one

woman

is

sung to

God

much

he

my company

has

likes:

I

him

very

is

on the

is

other,

son the freedom to be

him

to myself once again. All

young man, with the

we must hope will adorn his

a splendid

His behavior

this

am quite content, evenings, when

to have

left,

my

grant

I

exception of piety, which it is

am

that

Luxembourg [where

side the

the moral virtues are to be found in this

meanwhile,

I

welcome:

the regent’s daughter engaged in her orgies],

as

entirely

never miss a sunbeam or a word of ves-

from the seminary where no

alone as

at Saint-

two pavilions

lacking:

pers

praises

My little

to prayer

many pots of flowers, and a stable

time to

comfortable here,

of our

size

Cyr, nevertheless nothing

me

companionship that

and

so correct

I

future;

enjoy with

his intentions so fine.

So much truth and remoteness from evil of any kind convince

God will touch him eventually. ... I dine, I sup alone or with my son. As a general rule my son and I play at trictrac me

that

together;

I

gossip with him,

the afternoon,

five in

by eight

I

Once

more

for

receive

I

kept

my

Mme

this habit, so

am

man and

1.

I

am

believe

Mme

remain alone in

it is

very content with

a lovable friend

de Dangeau, L’Estime

is

good

M.

excess;

my

soli-

d’Auxerre

assiduous about for

him

to get in

him from being too

very careful to keep

my eldest

son, he

is

an honest

2 .

Extracts from several letters of 1715; see

and

I

son than for myself; he I

at four or

company, sometimes to

de Barneval and

keeping me company, and

I

work, he reads to me;

o’clock, everyone leaves.

tude.

bored.

I

Mme de

et la tendresse,

Maintenon,

Mme de

private letters collected

sented by Pierre-E. Leroy and Marcel Loyau (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998).

Caylus,

and

pre-

i8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

She writes to her son: “Be

Comfort me

to your mother.

you can imagine

never forget

it.

everything that moves

happens to If

we

me

in

my

which

to

my

are

is

greater than

show how much

courage, wit, and

You

me

your brother, and a friend

distress,

hope some day

I

You have

and esteem you intellect:

a father to

all

I

love

the resources of

entire consolation, as

you

are

here in Paris; continue so that nothing

my peace.”

that might disturb

3

are to judge by the sort ofjournal intime the

Caylus kept between 1717 and 1747, of which

all

Comte de

that remains are

the fragments of Maximes et reflexions published in the nineteenth century, his

mother had nothing

formed, except for piety, in her contemplative.

cholic”

whom

left

amored of personal of Louis

a son

whom

she

had

image, at once sociable and

of studious leisure he had chosen. But this calls

military

liberty.

life

“my philosopher” without

regret,

He permanently

or

“my melan-

was above

all

en-

avoided the Versailles

XV and sought only the society of friends, on private ter-

rain. In his

which

life

mother

his

and who

own

from

with his mother that he assumed the regular

It is

habits that suited the bachelor,

to fear

Maximes

gives the

et reflexions

we

find this fragment

on

travel,

measure of his love of independence and his horror

of oppression, especially worldly oppression:

Traveling, one has not the faintest notion of duty. In any so-

journ, even if one enjoys such society as will to take

comfort in

it,

there

is

is

afforded, try as one

always some appearance to

own country, one is encountered, on every occasion, by someone who knows one and whom one neither can nor may “drop.” In a foreign city, on the contrary, one may propose as oneself whatever one be kept up in the day’s

activity.

In one’s

chooses to be; one pursues one’s every taste without question,

one

3.

is

properly responsive to the kindnesses one receives; in

Comtesse de Caylus, Souvenirs

Raunie,

1881), pp.

303-304,

letters

et

correspondance (privately published by E.

84 and

86.

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

PARIS AT

own country, one

one’s

is

overwhelmed by

a

thousand

•

i

9

prefer-

ences quite alien to one’s own.

The “cottage” and

its little

garden where he resided with his

mother were nonetheless hardly

a

Thebaid “in the

They

desert.”

A perpetual flow

were the discreet theater of hivelike commotion.

of visitors, gatherings, and dinners in the highest society of Paris

combined activity

a

continuous and determined political and diplomatic

with conversations and correspondences bearing on

burning questions of the perod’s

The

letters

between

1715

literary, artistic,

of the Comtesse de Caylus to

and

1719,

and musical

Mme

though extremely discreet,

confabulations and intrigues. These superior

the

life.

de Maintenon

reveal all sorts of

women, apparently

overwhelmed by the death of the Great King, were entirely

all

from having

far

renounced the world. In a biography of the Abbe Conti,

published after his death in 1749,

we discover an

aspect of the

life

of

Mme de Caylus and her son in their little house adjacent to the Luxembourg

that hardly corresponds to the

somewhat

rustic appear-

ance of the modest residence. The author of this biography, the

Venetian astronomer Toaldo,

who was very close to the abbe during

his lifetime, writes:

Conti entered

Mme de

return from England.

upon

Caylus’s circle at this time,

his

He was her neighbor (living in the out-

buildings of the Luxembourg). In her residence he had the pleasure of meeting the fine flower of Parisian society.

own

qualities

had sustained

all

lished at the late king’s court.

the friendships she had estab-

The Bishop of

quently to be Cardinal de Fleury, was

Frejus, subse-

among

her most

intimate friends and frequently sought her company. the habitues of the household figured phine’s physician,

M. Boudin,

Among

the dau-

and M. Nicolas, the geometrician and

laborator of the mathematician

Academy of Sciences. Quite

Her

Remond de Montmor,

regularly one

col-

of the

might find seated

zo

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

in the circle of her salon “her” marshals: de Villars, de Tallard,

Due

de Tesse, de Boufflers, and de Villeroy, as well as the

de Villeroy, the

Due

de La Feuillade, and the Marechal-Duc

de Brissac. All these great noblemen were fond friends of the

Abbe

Conti, for in

him they found those things beloved in all

climes and regions. But

more than anyone there

Mme de Caylus enjoyed this privilege

else.

As soon

was born between them

a reciprocal

teem. Even after his return to

each return post, and indeed

He was

only the

This was,

at great length.

letters

texts left

on

he had received from

es-

they corresponded by

Italy,

profuse in his praises of her, and

was near death, of all the

other,

and particular

most perfect lady he had encountered

pears, the

journeys.

knew each

they

as

his desk

ap-

it

in all his

when he

he considered

Mme de Caylus as wor-

thy to be read. These letters indeed awaken admiration for her intelligence: they are full of literary and political news, items of current interest retailed with the lightest conversational touches, all written with a natural grace that

gether captivating. She had

two

sons,

one

alto-

is

who had

left

military service to devote himself to travel and the fine arts,

the other

who was

in the king’s service as a

Knight of Malta.

The comte dined almost every evening with

his mother,

and

even after her death, in 1729, he continued corresponding

with the Abbe Conti, and was indeed the ful

last

and most

faith-

of his friends in France.

The gatherings of the “Maintenon party” and of the remains of the late king’s court around

august

Mme de Caylus, secretly linked to the

widow of Saint-Cyr, pursued

financial excitations

suffered

from

and

Versailles,

interests quite

opposed to the

orgies of the Regency. Yet the comtesse

and was never so happy

chateau and resuming her private

life.

had

as after leaving the

For his part, her son the comte

frequented the Hotel Crozat, which was virtually an extension of the Palais-Royal: there he

would

see the

Due d ’Orleans, and

could

not be unaware of the atmosphere of the Regency. Neither mother

PARIS AT

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

nor son was “of” the seventeenth century of Louis XIV and

n

.

Mme de

Maintenon, though they were not, having belonged to the late king’s inner

circle, “of” this

Prince

Charming

and her

new frivolous and pleasure-seeking age whose

the regent sought to incarnate.

son, as well as, in his way, the

time, with

all

Abbe de

de Caylus

Conti, were of their

the intimate detachment of those

From Louis XIV to Louis

Mme

who remember.

XV

The nineteenth century will dwindle and disappear even more ically in the

rad-

War of 1914 than the seventeenth did in the War Succession. The century of Victor Hugo obeyed the

Great

of the Spanish

precedent of the century of Voltaire, engulfed by the cataclysm of the Terror

and the revolutionary wars. The Dada

lowed November

11

years that fol-

afforded a worthy equivalent of the Incroyables

and the Merveilleuses who appeared

after the

Ninth of Thermidor.

In 1715, the French monarchy had received from Louis

XIV such

a

quasi-pharaonic analogy with cosmic order that the transition to the next reign, despite the regent’s taste for novelty,

managed

to

produce a triumph of continuity. The Sun King died, but his widow took care that the young planet that succeeded him did not lose sight of his

Mme

example and

his tradition.

de Maintenon, between 1715 and 1719, the year of her

death, though “in retirement” in her apartment at Saint-Cyr, was

not content to

make

her house of education for daughters of the

nobility into a sanctuary of the cult of Louis

appearances, in

no

less

tinies

an

quent

invisible

who

visits at

power seeking, at the

at a distance, to control

all

the des-

dawn of the new century. She possessed

corresponded with her regularly and paid her Saint-Cyr, a precious link to Paris

loyal to the late king.

in the

Grand. Buried, to

widowhood and the exercises of piety, she remained

of the realm

her niece,

le

armory of the

and

in

fre-

to all those

And then there remained one further weapon king’s

widow: her genius

separable from her political genius.

as

an educator,

in-

22

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

As Michel Antoine has shown

in his admirable biography of

Louis XV, the illustrious widow, exiled from the court, retained a firm

hand on the education of the boy Louis XV, which

the future.

The Abbe

Perot, tutor of the child-king,

Monseigneur Godet des Marais, the

at Saint-Cyr.

to say,

a disciple

on of

of Mme de

spiritual director

Maintenon and the superior of the house ess

was

is

The govern-

of the dauphin, then of the young king, was the Duchesse de

Ventadour, whose conduct and principles were constantly dictated

by

Mme

de Maintenon,

tion from the start.

who

When

Duchesse de Ventadour

the Marechal de Villeroy succeeded the

as the king’s

member of the “Maintenon lectual formation.

presence in

Mme

actually directed the prince’s educa-

personal adviser, he too was a

party” that directed the prince’s intel-

The marechal would moreover become de Caylus’s well-attended retreat

a faithful

at the

Luxem-

Due de Villeroy, captain of the king’s guards, formerly Mme de Caylus’s amant en titre and now her bourg, as would of course his son the

friend

and assiduous

lover of the to

Mme

guest.

As

for the marechal, he

Duchesse de Ventadour, and

had been the

this couple, eternally loyal

de Maintenan, shared the responsibility for the young

king’s education during the Regency.

The confidential correspondence between and 1715.

Mme

de Ventadour

Mme de Maintenon also continued as vigorously as ever after The king was thus

raised in the cult of his great-grandfather

and tutored according to the views of the latter’s morganatic spouse, still

served by the faithful

Abbe

Perot.

On February 15,

XV was seven years old. He was put in the care, thority of Marechal de Villeroy, of his

of Frejus,

new tutor,

still

1717,

Louis

under the au-

the former bishop

M. de Fleury. Mme de Ventadour would retire, to the loud

protestations of her

young

pupil, but the

“Maintenon party”

lost

nothing by the change. The Marechal de Villeroy, loyal courtier of Louis

XIV and of Mme de Maintenon, tolerated out of courtesy by

the regent, educated the king according to the grand official

man-

ners indefatigably practiced at Versailles by his great-grandfather:

the child-king

must appear

in certain ballets before the court

be initiated into the royal sport ofvenery. But

and

Mme de Maintenon’s

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

PARIS AT

major trump was the bishop of Frejus, care to

name

was one of the secondary

which the regent neglected

in 1715.

The Abbe

Perot, the

articles

23

had taken

the king

with his spouse’s approval,

in his will,

king’s tutor. This will,

whom

•

as the future

of Louis XIV’s

to have abolished by the Parlement

young

king’s first tutor

and

loyal to

Mme de Maintenon, remained in place in the team of royal educators.

Francois Chevalier, professor at the College de France, a math-

ematician and engineer of fortifications, was added to their company,

and he had belonged, the

little

like other

eminent members of the team, to

academy recruited by Fenelon, with the endorsement of

Mme de Maintenon, with whom he was very close at the time, for the education of the

Due

de Bourgogne, Louis XV’s father.

The continuity with the old court was consequently very strong around the young king, compensating ple of the regent

and

his coterie

for the influence

now in power.

supervised matters at a distance.

and exam-

Mme de Maintenon

On August 21,

Marechal

1721, the

de Viiieroy lost favor with the regent and was exiled from his governorship of Lyon.

M. de

Fleury was also dismissed from court. But

the king himself requested his return, and obtained the bishop had

encountered no

more influence than real obstacle

ever over the

it.

At

this

time

young king and

from the new preceptor, the Due de

Charost.

One

of the

first effects

of the education Louis

his declared will to return to Versailles, theater chy,

where he took up residence again,

seven years, on June

prime minister

December

2,

after

15,

1722.

Mme

XV, even

own

of the solar monar-

after a Parisian sojourn

having been regent, occurred shortly

1723. After a rather pathetic interval 10, 1726,

after,

on

Due

de

with the

along with his mis-

de Prie, an intimate friend of Mme du Deffand, Louis

as

he declared himself capable of taking matters into his

hands, entrusted the exercise of power to his beloved

Fleury,

who would soon

What

a

of

The death of Philippe d’Orleans,

Bourbon, exiled to Normandy on June tress

XV received was

triumph

had not remained

M. de

receive the cardinal’s hat in 1726.

for the

“Maintenon party”!

inactive in this

turnaround

Mme

de Caylus

in political fortunes.

24

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

We possess a letter from her written during the Regency to the Due du Maine, Mme de Montespan’s legitimate son, a cherished pupil of Mme de Maintenon and a great victim of the Regency, in which we find her very well informed about the conspiracy

brewed by the

due with the Spanish ambassador, the Prince de Cellamare, to

move

the regent. Gradually, under the Regency, the coterie of

de Maintenon, even

come

candidate:

by

Mme

death in 1719, expanded to be-

after the latter’s

a veritable conservative party,

principles of Louis

re-

program being

its

XIV’s European

policy.

And

to save the

this party

had

a

M. de Fleury, Louis XV’s tutor, installed in that position

Mme de Maintenon whose intimate friend he had been. He was when

seventy-three years old minister. Like

a

de Caylus’s

He was

Lux-

also a

of high culture, initiated by his erudition into the history and

monarchy whose longevity in Europe had

rival except the pontifical triple tiara.

Louis

spire in ple.

prime

his

circle at the

contemporary of the Great King.

the age-old tradition of a

no

young king made him

many habitues of Mme

embourg, he was

man

the

one could better

in-

XV a passion not to depart from Louis XIV’s examMme

In one of the letters from

retirement at Saint-Cyr, ations

No

de Caylus to her aunt in

we find this observation heavy with insinu-

and complicities: “I’m sending you

he comes to see

me from

a letter

time to time, and

it

from M. de

seems to

me

Frejus:

that he

is

one ofours”

The

links

between

Mme de Maintenon and the bishop of Frejus

were of long standing. The Comte de Caylus had been involved in them; from colonel

1711 to 1713, in

had sojourned

command

in Provence

on

of his regiment, the young his return

before marching to the Rhine frontier.

Mme

from Spain and

de Caylus writes to

her son:

I

am

delighted,

Frejus;

he

is

my

dear son, that you should be with

the most agreeable

M. de

man in the world, and I should

consider you only too happy were you to please him; nothing

would be more

likely to give

me

a

good opinion of you.

He

has done a good turn to one of his best friends, which has

PARIS AT caused

M.

me

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

infinite pleasure

de Frejus;

we missed him

ing we had yesterday at

The warmth of this

A

•

25

thousand compliments to

greatly at a

little

country gather-

M. de Valincour’s.

letter helps us

understand the choice Louis

XIV and Mme de Maintenon had made of M. de Fleury as the dauphin’s tutor, a choice that ultimately

determined his elevation to the

rank of prime minister under Louis XV. Fleury’s European policy took the opposite course to that of the regent and Cardinal Dubois. Versailles

once again became the center of power. But from the

depths of her tomb

Mme de Maintenon would have been vexed to

observe that another power had irresistibly appeared, contrary to

all

her expectations: the power of Paris.

The Enlightement Still Under the Authority of Versailles

We may measure

the at least apparent

the old court over the

Mme

dence between

Conti

after

Due

and provisional triumph of

d’Orleans’s Regency in the correspon-

de Caylus and her friend the

Abbe Antonio

Cardinal de Fleury’s triumph. Conti was not only a

Christian philosopher, a poet, a theoretician of the beautiful; like

many

great

men

Bos, Voltaire

diplomat.

—

And

of letters of the time

at ease in the

as a

— Roger de

Piles,

Abbe Du

most various milieux, he was

also a

Venetian, he was so twice over. During his per-

egrinations as a savant, he also considered himself on a mission of observation. to Louis

From 1722

to 1726, the Serenissima’s

new ambassador

XV, Baron Morosini, was one of his intimate friends. Abbe

Conti found himself beside Morosini in the best

from which

to observe the transition

sonal reign of Louis

XV, from

to that of Cardinal de Fleury.

seats in the

from the Regency

to the per-

the ministries of Dubois and

From

1718

house

Bourbon

on he was associated with

the invisible conspiracy striving to carry out plans bequeathed from

beyond the grave by

Mme

de Maintenon. The abbe, the comtesse,

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

i6

and her son were somewhat

deficient in political savvy in that they

placed an extreme value on intimacy, inwardness, leisure, and contemplation, and in

which the

felt

themselves threatened or deflected in a

spiritual

combat between Protestantism and Catholi-

cism had taken on a new, subtler, and

though one

composed

all

the

more

ruthless.

memorandum on

a

new age

France and in Europe.

Long

In the abbe’s letters to

discernible dimension,

Upon his return

Conti

to Venice,

the general political situation in

believed

has been published recently in

less

its

lost, this

private manuscript

original French text

4 .

Mme de Caylus, we may gain some notion

of the mind that dictated that memorandum. The Venetian congratulated himself and his correspondent on Cardinal de Fleury’s policy,

which reversed the

and returned ple: “I

want

alliances contracted

to the policies of Louis

to see France

resume her

by Cardinal Dubois

XIV. Conti

exam-

writes, for

earlier position in

Europe” or

again “to see France recover her earlier dignity and that original vigor which will always put her in the position of determining Europe’s destiny, even

when

she does not choose to extend her actual

conquests.”

Fleury was capable of showing, he writes, “that Britain’s role, but that

it is

not Great

of France to rule Europe, and thereby deprive

the English of that imperious notion that the wickedness of one of

your ministers [Dubois] and the weakness of the other

[the

Due de

Bourbon] had only too fondly encouraged.” The principle of the

“Maintenon

party,” of which

mulated in another

letter

Mme de Caylus was the Egeria,

Conti writes to

her: “After the

is

for-

death of

Louis XIV, there has been nothing great in Europe. English gold, spread by the court, triumphs everywhere and corrupts everyone.”

He

hopes once again that “France will take action entirely

ac-

cording to the system of Louis XIV.” Cardinal de Fleury’s conduct,

4.

From

a

manuscript kept in the Biblioteca Joppi in Udine, Sylvie

lished Conti’s essay (very enthusiastic for Louis in her

XIV’s enlightened

Mamy has pubrole in

Europe)

book Lettere da Venezia a Madame la Comtesse de Caylus, pp. 79-108.

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

PARIS AT

•

27

in reviving this system, “has put France in a position to dictate laws to the

Hapsburg emperor and to

piness of her peoples

This

last

formula

assure peace to

and the progress of the capital.

is

Europe

arts

and

for the hap-

sciences.”

For the Venetian Conti,

who is also a

citizen of the Republic of Letters, France’s authority as arbiter of

Europe

is

inseparable from

its

role as the central source

Here again

the arts and sciences.

is

one of the principles that the

“Versailles party” seeks to transmit intact

XIV

XV. But from one

to that of Louis

and focus of

from the century of Louis reign to the other,

from

Torcy to Fleury, the application of such principles cannot be unaware of the difference in the times. It

was

not, indeed, the great

had led France,

at the cost

conclusion of the suscitated

from

of enormous

War of the

sacrifices, to

Spanish Succession,

the successful

who was

to be re-

tomb. France no longer needed to conquer

his

hegemony, merely to exercise the change in

“King of War,” the old Mars who

it.

its

Neither the situation in Europe nor

mood, manners, and taste

that

had brought France

to

pleasure and peace required the state of exception that the Great

King had impressed upon tion

and

peril.

War

is

the realm during the years of confronta-

not excluded, but can no longer be anything

but diplomacy continued by other means. The great question for

Conti was the counterweight that only a Catholic, royal France can

and must oppose, on the Continent,

and rapacious egoism of England, now observing model, an original industry.

On

the

utilitarist

Abbe

pears, in the 1720s, the

reversal

own

political

philosophy and a science applicable to

Conti’s horizon of French geopolitics ap-

Family Pact among the Bourbons of France, 15,

1761,

of alliances, symbolized by the marriage of the dau-

phin and Marie-Antoinette, that

Hapsburgs on

its

and

to the divisive

which Choiseul concluded on August

Spain, and Naples,

and the

aristocratic,

May

16,

1770.

The

finally united

Bourbons and

institutions of Catholic Europe,

perturbed by a Lutheran Prussia, were thus allied against a Protestant future

whose

principles

had found

their secular

arm

in the

English navy and the City’s gold. The American war, apparently a

28

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

victory over England, tion of Louis

XVI

would

in reality be the involuntary contribu-

and Vergennes to the

short-

and long-term

tri-

umph of the philosophy of Locke, Adam Smith, and Bentham. In the deadliest of his wars, the Great King had nonetheless been able to present another countenance: as chief of his army’s general staff,

he imperturbably remained a Maecenas king, a Catholic Apollo

favoring the arts of peace and the nine Muses. The Lrench Enlight-

enment of the new century was only Louis

XIV never

sacrificed the arts

as brilliant as

it

was because

of peace and the science of lei-

weapons of war. The stake of

a

Lrench hegemony in

Europe was not merely a question of power:

it

involved the ultimate

sure to the

meaning of the new Platonist

century’s Enlightenment.

and Augustinian Catholic, though one extremely well

formed about

all scientific

the heart of the matter:

and philosophical innovations, went

Would

it

vailing influence of the France of Descartes

Racine and the Abbe

Du

to

remain under the pre-

and Malebranche, of

for themselves?

of the nobility of the mind

of Europe.

The mentor of the Comte de Caylus thus oriented his path from which he was not to

— beauty

Everything that in France tended to

this solution reinforced the Catholic continuity

a

in-

Bos, attached to the classical, Christian,

aristocratic presuppositions

and truth loved

a

the Enlightenment incline to the

empiricism of rapacious England, or would

and

The Abbe Conti,

stray.

Philippe declares himself a “tory”

disciple

on

In his correspondence, Anne-

when he

speaks of French

affairs.

He borrows the term from Henry St.John, now Lord Bolingbroke, chief of the Tory Party who sought refuge in France after 1714, since as the signatory

of the Treaty of Utrecht he was accused of high

treason and threatened with a death sentence by a

ment. Bolingbroke entered ing

Mme

Whig

Parlia-

Mme de Maintenon’s family by marry-

de Villette, the comtesse’s young mother-in-law. In the

ardent Querelle d’Homere Caylus sides with Conti against the am,

nesia of antiquity

recommended by Fontenelle and

his disciple

Houdart de La Motte. Sharing the views of the enlightened conservative party and

formed

at first

hand of the court

intrigues that

in-

might weaken or

PARIS AT

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

deflect the monarchy’s general policies, the friend

tege of Cardinal de Fleury tive position

is

•

19

and seasoned pro-

careful not to adopt any administra-

whatsoever, devoting himself chiefly to the Muses, in

close cooperation

with the organs of the realm’s spiritual primacy in

Europe, the academies, the mechanism connecting royal power to the

life

H

is

of the mind. studious leisure, his works, and the passion he would invest,

having witnessed

at its

source the birth of the Regency’s rococo

style,

in reorienting the royal buildings, the French school of painting

sculpture,

and the public

him one of classicism.

taste

toward a higher Louis

and

XV style made

the most vital figures of French and European neo-

With

the support of his

Pierre -Jean Mariette

two immensely learned

friends

and Jean-Jacques Barthelemy, he succeeded

transferring to Paris the

in

European movement toward the retour a

Vantique in the arts, a privilege of Rome and London until 1750. He died in 1765, spared from seeing the reform of French

tended by him and his friends

as

taste, in-

an improvement of the Crown’s

image, preempted as the symbol of a radical political revolution.

Texts in Homage to Mme de Caylus by the Abbe Conti, the Comte de Caylus, and Remond de Saint-Mard The Abbe Conti

to the

Comte de Caylus

Monsieur,

For fifteen days I have not dared write whereofM. Blart’s

letter

self that your silence

tune.

to you, fearing the fatal

blow

had forewarned me. In vain Iflattered my-

might have another cause than

Ambassador Canal had informed

this great misfor-

his friends, yet

no one had

dared speak ofthe matter to me. I had suspected something, upon hearingfrom the lady

nun who is the ambassadors cousin; her words caused

me great anxiety. One always deludes oneself in these last extremities, and I had the strength to withhold my tearsfor some moments, but at

3

o

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

the sight ofthe black seal on your letter, I was struck

courage to open

it.

Finally I was obliged to do

dumb and lost the and as great grief

so,

overwhelms the mind, I lost all awareness ofwhat I was reading, until having read your to

my

cousin,

two or three times

letter

and

to all those

who

to

my sister,

to

my mother,

take an interest in the health of

Mme your mother, I began to weep, and I am weeping still as I write I cannot find consolation, nor can I hope

to you.

mind

indeed weak, as you

is

ments.

say, in the

to console

you. The

presence of the heart's senti-

A pinprick causes an outbreak of cries despite all the efforts of

philosophy. It is unthinkable to suppose

from weeping when we

we can keep from grieving and

lose everything.

I can assure you without the

not be so desolate as lam had I lost

slightest exaggeration that I would

my entirefamily. I might possibly imagine that these would be losses I might compensate upon tion has

But

reflection.

abandoned me, or rather

desolation ofhaving lost all that

is

in the present case, all reflec-

all reflection merely increases the

most lovable in the world. Try as I

may to distract myself, I constantly see her either sitting with such calm grace in her garden or reading and studying in her apartment, and pondering with

so

much

taste

and good sense whatever subjects have

won her attention.

What intelligence, what firmness of thought andfeeling, what truth

but also

in everything that proceedsfrom the heart! I have

no hap-

piness save not seeing her suffer during her last illness, not hearing her last

words nor receiving her

imagination shows her to further tears as I write

last glances. Yet in spite

me in this sad state.

—I

confess I scarcely

of myself,

Spare mefrom shedding

know what I am saying, for

instead ofseeking to console you, I merely cause your tears by

You

offer

me

a communication for which I cannot

mother

is

too dear to

you not

to

Though we are separated by great me,

and it was a

the

risk

ofnot

memory of Mme your

take some pity on her sad friends. distances,

and I have always lived with you

erywhere,

and

my own.

sufficiently

thank you; lam sorry not to haveforestalledyou, at the very being heeded, but you are too kind,

my

by

you are no

my letters.

real pleasure to be

less

present to

Ifollowed you ev-

informed ofall your activi-

PARIS AT ties.

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

31

•

How could I help lovingyouforyour own merits andfor the deep ,

tenderness

Mme your mother has always hadfor you: a tenderness of many signs during your spells of illness ? I have the prostration and despair into which I have seen her

which she gave you not forgotten castfor

an

entire

so

month when shefeared she might lose you.

me how much you love all that she loved touches me deeply and makes me The phrase of religious attachment you employ

ofyour heart;

realize the great kindness

would own.

speak,

On

and

to that

this basis

it is to

to indicate to

that heart alone I

heart that I submit all the interests of my

I shall continue

to write to

you with the same

teem and the same tenderness with which I used to write mother.

lam sofar away.

I bear an irreparable

is

Mme your

How Ipity all herfriends ... I begyou to tell them that I share

their tears, though

Here

to

es-

the

lossfor

Comte de

I hear their sighs, and with them

which nothing can console us 5 .

Caylus’s reply:

Knowingy our sentiments as Ido, my dearabbe, I was not surprised by the

moved and moving letter you have

greatest misfortune of my

life.

Ifelt, as I read

able (in a sense) as that of the first the

moment

misfortune.

ivritten to

at which I write, I

it,

me

concerning the

a grief as unreason-

moment; and I assure you that

am filled and

in

my

overwhelmed by

With each day that I survive her, Ifeel more deeply the loss

I have suffered. The merest details ofthis privation constitute a dread-

ful condition, and I yield fliction with you.

to the

mournful pleasure ofsharing my

I have no idea how

I possess sufficient mental resources lated.

My country disgusts me.

fortunes will probably cause

no

help,

on

do

so.

to

living. Yet you

know that

Ifind myself utterly

iso-

The affairs that alwaysfollow such mis-

me

to leave

my

country. Philosophy

is

of

and Ifeel nothing but the mechanical operations of the least-

enlightened creature. All that

5.

to go

af-

Luigi Ferrari, “L’Abate Conti

enze, lettere, edarti 34/35,

t.

e

is

most alluring in the most lovable

Madame

94 (Venice,

de Caylus,” Reale Istituto Veneto di

1934): pp. 8-10.

sci-

3

i

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

relationship, all the pleasure tails is

and the

exhaustion that

it

afterward en-

6

succeeded by a dreadful solitude

memory of Mme de Caylus remained as vivid to her son and to the Abbe Conti, who died in 1749. It must have been on the anniversary of the countess’s death that Remond Ten years later,

in 1740, the

de Saint-Mard, a loyal

member of her circle between

1714 and 1729,

wrote for the comte, and perhaps for Conti, an admirable eulogy,

which inspired Sainte-Beuve traits,

to create

one of his

finest female por-

“Mme de Caylus, or Of Urbanity.”

I have read that it was once said ofthe poet Aristophanes that the Graces, seeking a

mutual temple, had selected his spirit in which

to receive the

worship ofmortals. Such a panegyric a thousand times better suited the late

Mme de Caylus. Knowing her, one abandoned without a thought

one’s mistresses, for they ceased to please,

and it was

difficult to live in

and her

What

her society without becoming her fiend

lover.

other

divinities can produce such extraordinary phenomena?

The old poets had imagined another creature altogether as lovable;

and to give us an adequate idea of the elothey said that she lived on his lips. Did not everyone

they called her Persuasion,

quence ofPericles, see

her in every action

and every word ofMme de Caylus?

The word “charm” gifs of Venus brief,

is

extravagently lavished,

and Minerva

strike

what cannot disgust us with

such a word.

me

and

the

combined

as insufficient to deserve

it;

in

the rest ofthe world is not worthy of

Now I ask all those who have known

thefelicity ofliving

with her, if in her presence they have not forgotten the whole of the

natural world and only desired not

to

be elsewhere?

She was born with great wit, and had the advantage ofbeing raised by a

woman who had the greatest knoivledge of what constitutes

amenities; hence no one

had a

nobler, readier

exactitude for all the proprieties than

6

.

Quoted by Samuel Rocheblanc

pp. 39-40.

true

manner, nor a greater

Mme de Caylus.

in Essaisurle

Comte de Caylus (Hachette,

1889),

PARIS AT

Her own

curiosity

THE DAWN OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT and

the society of men of repute

•

33

had made her

learned in spite ofherself though such masters had always been, I believe,

more concerned to please than

rationfrom

to instruct her.

Moreover her sepa-

what is called the company ofclever minds corresponded to

the natural beauty ofher

own and to

the delicacy ofher taste

After admiring the rectitude of her good sense in serious conversations, if

one sat

down

to table

goddess of the occasion;

it

she

and wit, pretends

her, she

immediately became the

was then that she reminded

Helen, for that poet, in order beauty

with

to represent the effects

me ofHomers of his heroine's

that she dissolved into the wine a rare plant

had brought with herfom Egypt, whose virtue made the company

forget all the disagreeable experiences they

had ever suffered.

Mme de

Caylus exceeded Helen, for she spread about her a joy that was so gentle

and so

characters

vivid,

a taste for pleasure so noble

seemed lovable and happy,

rather the magic ofa

7.

Remond

p. 229.

and so

elegant, that all

so surprising is the

woman who possesses true charm

de Saint-Mard, quoted by the

Abbe Gedoyn, Oeuvres

power or

7

diverses (1745),

2.

A French Alcihiades

and His English

Anthony Hamilton and

The grande affaire lish

the

Plato:

Comte de Gramont

of Louis XIV’s reign had been the Eng-

Revolution of 1688. Since Charles Stuart’s return to the throne

in 1660, the Great

King had been

domain of his European

able to keep

England within the

policy. Restored in large part

thanks to

French support, pensioned by the king of France, and provided

with mistresses selected and suborned by the French ambassadors, Charles

II

managed

generally

to circumnavigate his country’s vio-

Francophobia and to avoid excessive interference with the plans

lent

of the king of France. In

many aspects,

Charles Stuart was French. Son of Henriette of

France, the sister of Louis XIII, and the brother of Henriette of

England, wife of Louis XIV’s brother the II

Due

d’Orleans, Charles

belonged to the French royal family; having grown up and en-

gaged in his

first

“usurpation,” his

Of course

military actions in France during Cromwell’s

mind and manners were

he was nominally Anglican,

those of a French prince. like his father

Charles

I,

but he had been raised by an extremely devout Catholic mother

whose dream, side,

as

had been

long

as she

to restore her

Church of Rome. Charles the

reigned over England at her husband’s

II’s

new kingdom

to the

bosom of

younger brother and only male

the

heir,

Duke of York, took the step that his elder prudently avoided: he

converted overtly to Catholicism in 1673 and took wife a Catholic princess,

as his

Mary of Modena. Such avowed

second

papistry

made him odious in England and largely provoked the revolution of 1688,

which brought

to the throne a Protestant prince,

William of

Orange, husband of Mary, the very daughter of the deposed sover34

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO eign,

and principal

justification for her

England under the name William

husband

to

•

35

become king of

III.

Franco-English Affinities and Incompatibilities

— those attached to the Anglican Protestant sects — their difficulty with the

For the majority of Englishmen

Church or

to various

Stuart dynasty was at once political and religious. Political because traditionally this royal family of Scottish origin tended to absolute

monarchy of the French Charles

I

his

life.

And

type, a propensity that in 1649

religious because such

had

cost

an inclination also

favored Catholicism, a partiality that in 1587 had cost their great-

grandmother Mary

Stuart,

widow of

hers. This politico-religious difficulty

the Valois king of France,

was

intrinsically linked to the

dynasty’s deep affinities with France, odious to the English in general

not only for

its

Catholicism, which Louis

XIV had brutally re-

affirmed as the sole religion of his realm by the revocation of the

Edict of Nantes, and for

its

absolutism, which collided head-on

with English parliamentary tradition, but especially for

its

mari-

time power, both colonial and commercial, which hampered the interests

of an island whose whole fortune,

derived from

Charles

II’s

like that

of Holland,

seagoing commerce. Between 1660 and 1688, only 1

its

ruses

and the extraordinary virtuosity of Louis XIV’s

diplomacy and gold were able to contain the

irresistible efforts

im-

her trump cards in order to oppose

pelling England to play

all

France on the Continent

as well as

on the high

seas.

now released, England became the principal enemy of Louis XIV, who imagined that he had caught the island kingdom in his snares and who even encouraged the Duke of York, who became James II upon his brother’s death in 1685, to declare Catholicism the realm’s official religion, as Mary Tudor had After 1688, the Stuart brake

1.

See the brilliant recording of this epoch-making political drama in Steve Pincus,

1688: The First Modern Revolution (Yale University Press, 1009).

3

6

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

done

to her cost in the sixteenth century.

the aging Great King,

whose manners were dictated by the

noble, anti-mercenary ethic of generosity

dominated by

Opposing the France of ancient,

and whose mentality was

a Catholic metaphysic Platonic in essence, the

Eng-

land of the Glorious Revolution adopted an intellectual master suited to bitterly

man

its

trueforma mentis in 1688 the philosopher John Locke, ;

opposed to the Stuarts, published An Essay Concerning Hu-

Understanding which, contrary to an uninterrupted tradition ,

renewed by no less ness exclusively

a figure

than Descartes, based

on sense experience and

human consciouson the

social morality

properly understood adjustment of passions and interests. In 1690

Locke exhibited the pology in Two

political theory resulting

Treatises

from such an anthro-

of Government. As the new regime’s com-

missioner of commerce and of the colonies, Locke did not of course gain a unanimous adherence of English minds: Oxford University (traditionally loyal to the Stuarts)

British party of the ancients

its

own

Platonists,

and the

— usually recruited from the Tory ranks

generally favoring the Stuarts

ancients of Paris

had

and drawing inspiration from the

— defended tradition against the British moderns.

But on the whole, Locke’s anthropology and theory of knowledge impregnated eighteenth-century English thought and meshed

harmoniously with science

as

conceived by the Royal Society, heir

of Bacon’s inductive empiricism and committed to technological

commerce, industry, and agriculture,

all

sources of wealth for an aristocracy that did not believe, like

its

applications for navigation,

French counterpart, that such birth.

activities

were derogatory to noble

The remarkable French translation of Locke’s Essai sur

Tentendement humain, the work of a Calvinist refugee, Pierre Costes,

and published in Amsterdam, inaugurated English

utilitarianism’s

Continental offensive, supported by Voltaire’s encomium in his Lettres anglaises of 1727; along with Newton’s cosmology,

Mme

du Chatelet and

which

(again) Voltaire popularized in Europe,

Locke’s Essay became the spearhead of an English philosophical and

even scientific hegemony over the Lumieres of the Enlightenment.

But

it

must be understood that the Franco-English

conflict,

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO which assumed

a metaphysical

dimension

after 1688,

clear-cut antithesis. If Anglomania progressed in Paris

the eighteenth century in the

wake of the

37

•

was not

a

throughout

regent’s (and Dubois’s)

Anglophile policy and was encouraged by Voltaire’s Lettres anglaises

which made the “English model” the last word in France, on

,

the other

hand the English fascination with an

I’ancienne,

with

its

manners, fashions, and

aristocratic France

“art

of living” (rivaled

only by the attraction exerted by the visual arts of Italy

when

dis-

covered on the Grand Tour), powerfully influenced a British tocracy that, however attached to economic foundations to

its

tles,

aris-

unknown

French counterpart, was only the more disposed to employ

riches in the

enjoyment of a noble

leisure

a

housed

its

in Palladian cas-

embellished with Italian paintings, refreshed by parks inspired

by the landscapes of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Forrain, and entertained by gallant manners that, without too openly competing

with the elegant iibertinage whose secret belonged to Catholic France, were ardently practiced intra muros; and there was no destination

more favored by English

tury, in the intervals

aristocracy in the eighteenth cen-

of peace between the two realms, than Paris or

the fair provinces of France, to

which

this nobility escaped for long

sojourns whenever possible. In the Stuart dynasty, under Charles

and Charles nobility is

and

II, it its

was the

relative symbiosis

I

between the English

French counterpart (regarded since the Crusades,

as

too often forgotten in retrospect, as the archetype of European

aristocracies) that

had

and Fondon. Hence try of “living nobly”

facilitated the close alliance

this reverence for the

was

far

between Paris

modern Mother Coun-

from having vanished

in

England

after

the revolution of 1688.

Ford Bolingbroke, whose second marriage was de Villette, an exquisite Frenchwoman brought up

to the

Marquise

at Saint-Cyr,

had

adapted very well to a long exile in France. Ford Chesterfield, in the letters

addressed to his son during the young man’s Grand Tour, did

not conceal the admiration that the French civilization of manners inspired in him, refined

and

flattered

himself that

it

was

Paris that virtually

him from English barbarity. Horace Walpole, though the son

3 8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

of the

Whig prime minister who had been the mortal enemy of Bob

ingbroke and France, lingered from 1739 to 1741 in the French capi-

where he engaged

tal

in a long Platonic liaison

with the Marquise

du Deffand, an old lady who

in

of aristocratic France and

aestheticizing attitude toward

its

many respects was

the quintessence life.

Lord Bolingbroke experienced certain Jacobite temptations

company

the beginning of his French exile. In other words, he kept

with James

for a time

II’s

at

crown who

son, the “Pretender” to the

held court at Saint-Germain after his father’s death in 1701 and who as

long as he was supported by Louis

XIV

seemed

to promise

ambitious statesman some sort of future. English or Scottish, these Jacobite

noblemen

in exile

who went furthest in the

it

an

was

adoption

of French manners and in the identification of the French aristocracy’s

frame of mind a Vancienne The Restoration of Charles .

II

had

exported to London, and reproduced on the English stage, favored

by

several years of peace, the galant

trigues that

had constituted the charm of the French court

end of the Fronde as for

manners and gynaeceum

since the

— a young king and his brother setting, for Paris

London, the example and the impetus

Pepys’s

in-

for their court.

Samuel

Diary bears witness to the extraordinary mixture, in the

London of Charles

II,

of a puritanical repugnance in principle for

the debauchery of French and Catholic origin and a greedy appetite for

whatever crumbs could be snatched from the After 1688,

down

to the

alibi to

II

it

required a touch of folly

a rare sense

in England; otherwise

faise, either as a

ofJames

true,

same thing,

and Catholic

means an

it is

hero like the

and Louis XIV’s

or,

what comes

of sacrifice to remain Jacobite

one had to seek by

emigrate to France and

Spanish Succession, or

revels.

live resolutely

Duke of Berwick, brilliant general

else as a parasite

this noble

a la fran-

the illegitimate son

during the

War of the

of the operetta court of

Saint-Germain, supported by subsidies from Versailles. At the end

of Louis XIV’s reign and throughout the eighteenth century, Jacobitism, at the extreme right of the bility,

immense rainbow of English no-

though rich in extravagant characters, represented the

ultraviolet

of eccentricity, a color that did not quite blend, though

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO striving to harmonize,

39

with the subtler nuances of pale blue, yellow,

and pink of the butterfly wings and peacock Louis

•

tails

flaunted under

XV by Parisian polite society, so frivolous and so endearing.

The French Archetype of the Young Gentleman Of all

the Franglais Catholic Jacobites

exile, there

was

at least

one

who

followed James

who showed himself to

II

into

be more French

than any Frenchman, both by the purity of the language he wrote

and spoke and by the naturalness (untouched by provincialism) with which he entered into the French form of “living nobly.” An-

thony Hamilton, born in an ancient Scottish family, would have the honor of being received by Sainte-Beuve in the sanctum sancto-

rum of writers who French

have

known

the supreme beauties of the best

style:

Antoine Hamilton, one of the most Attic writers of our guage, was neither more nor

less

lan-

than an Englishman of Scot-

— Horace Walpole, the Abbe Galiani, Baron Besenval, the Prince de Ligne — have been said

tish descent.

Other foreigners

to possess or to play

Vespritfran$ais',

wondrously with

Hamilton, the performance

is

at a level

mits us to distinguish anything else in

it:

but for

which no longer he

is

per-

that esprit itself/

Hamilton’s masterpiece, the Memoires du Comte de Gramont published anonymously in 1713, offers a special case that shows

,

how

knew he had transcended the language and even the mentality of his own nation. Breaking the first rule of the very French

well the author

and very

aristocratic genre of

memoires which demands that such ,

“narratives in the service of History” be written in the

Hamilton secedes from interpreter of the hero

z.

his narration to

whose

exploits he

Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi Vol. 10 ,

person,

become the third-person

is

(1855),

first

recounting

pp. 95-97.

— this hero, a

4o

•

WHEN THE WORLD

SPOKE FRENCH

Frenchman, being his own brother-in-law, the Comte de Gramont. This nobleman had died in 1707, though his twilight

may have been

young

somewhat brightened by reading the

story of his

beginning of the reign of Charles

nearly half a century earlier.

II

the

life, at

English nationality could not have been abdicated with more

ele-

gance and forbearance than was shown by Anthony Hamilton, in order to inhabit and animate more completely the style and personality

of a French aristocrat,

ideal type of the

whom he

successfully designates as the

gentleman in that season of life when he

is

most

himself: his youth. For Hamilton, the French character, or as

Sainte-Beuve fran^ais,

with a touch of intentional contumely,

says,

summarized and concentrated

is

in this hero of “fine

birth,” the

modern

garded here

as superior to his ancient predecessor.

heir of the

an incomparable example to writing a

life,”

re-

He is proposed as the young noblemen of Europe: “I am

all

His intention had been

Gramont was an immediate Chamfort

Revolution.

Athenian kalos kagathos, but

proclaims the anonymous and invisible narrator,

“more extraordinary than us.” 5

Vesprit

those that [Plutarch] has bequeathed realized: the

success,

testifies

Memoires du Comte de

and remained one

until the

that for the generation that under-

took to liberate America and the one that greeted 1789 with enthusiasm, this

This

is

book “was the breviary of the young nobility.” the second singularity of these Memoires: violating an-

other rule of the genre, which deems that there be no great attention paid to youth,

with the

role

and that the narrative should

of the adult memoirist in public

centrates his account

on

his hero’s

the threshold of adulthood, valier.

He

affairs,

young

stars

Hamilton con-

happy youth from adolescence

when he still bears

the mere

shows the French gentleman “in bloom,”

say of their

do not

deal, essentially,

title

as the

of che-

Japanese

of Kabuki and Noh. Gravity and grandeur

suit the fine flower

of youth; the shadows of retirement and

the progress toward death that characterize

all

seventeenth-century

memoires disappear completely from this Life concentrated on

3.

to

Anthony Hamilton, Memoires du Comte de Gramont

(Seuil, 1994),

chapter

its

1.

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO

41

•

prime. In the image of Hamilton’s Gramont, the noble heroes of the

Enlightenment, Richelieu and the Prince de Ligne, remain nally

eter-

young and galant, forswearing age and darkness.

Yet the Memoires du Comte de Gramont

is

quite the contrary of

the Spanish picaresque narratives (of which Lesage’s Gil Bias

modern

is

the

version done in French). Several episodes of Gramont’s

life

(his successes,

but also his gambling misadventures, the rather gro-

tesque situations into which his pursuit of the most redoubtable

feminine prey involves him, the burle he and his friends delight in playing on fools and bumpkins, or that their

on them) might be Sorel’s

literally

own

Leporellos play

transposed into the world of Charles

Francion the great success of the Regency days of Marie de ,

when a young gentleman, libertine by definition, descends

Medicis, directly

from the

picaro.

Memoires published ,

cardinal,

how to

But though he could not have read Retz’s

after 1715,

Hamilton knows,

like the brilliant

sustain vigorous comedy, broad drollery,

downright parody that the Chevalier de Gramont

and he

in the noble if not heroic register,

is

and even

ceaselessly skirts

abetted here by the lively

but supremely elegant language in which he writes and in which his

young nobleman clan of

“in

young men

delicate balance

bloom” speaks and writes

as

mad

as

he

is

too, as well as his

to live joyously.

It is

this very

between “the inexhaustible fund of good humor

and vivacity” that Gramont expends and the grace by which his and he himself avoid any collapse into the

torian

his-

ridiculous, be-

tween the scabrous situations into which the young nobleman unhesitatingly flings himself and the imperceptibly ironic though

complicitous reserve maintained by the narrator, that for the quasi-Mozartian

charm

(the

Memoires of which Voltaire

these

is

Mozart of Cost fan

est,

the

liveliest,

4. Voltaire,

lished

.

.

which the

Le

(article

slenderest matter

is

and the most agreeable

Siecle de

of

age, this

is

embellished with the gay-

style.” 4

Louis XIV, “List of the various writers

on Hamilton).

tutte)

— more like Maintenon than one

might suppose— could write: “Of all the books of this the one in

responsible

who

were pub-

42

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

Certainly there were the one

many

other “characters” in France besides

Anthony Hamilton chose

tures: the

young nobleman

to describe with such lively fea-

and

in the furia of his natural splendor

his pursuit of peacetime pleasures, in the intervals of a military career that

us will be hero’s

already heroic and glorious, and that the narrator assures

is

two

still

more

faces, the

so.

In his insistence on showing only one of his

one turned toward his

loves,

Hamilton, in

1713,

sounds the keynote of the age otDon Giovanni'. “Glory in arms,” he writes with

little

trace of

Cornelian tonality,

at most only half

“is

the brilliance that distinguishes a hero. Love must put the finishing

touch on the contour of his character, by the temper and temerity of his enterprises

and the glory of their

successes.

Of this we

have ex-

amples not only in novels but in the true history of the most famous warriors and the most celebrated conquerors.”

5

But there was no other character, in the ancient realm of France,

from

Petit

more

faithfully the tour de force of a

Jehan de Saintre to

Sorel’s

Francion

life

it is

incarnated

among the

severe

and

and the conventions of an extremely old

tocracy, a military caste that a degree that

who

young freedom and audacity

functioning, without ever violating them, cent rules of court

,

this type

had also become

a leisure class.

re-

aris-

To such

of modern Alcibiades, the Lauzun of the

court of Louis XIV, the Marechal de Richelieu of the court of Louis

XV, and eled

their

Austro-Walloon

rival the

Prince de Ligne,

on the Chevalier de Gramont, who

mod-

all

best represented

Vesprit

fran^ais to a Europe of the eighteenth century snobbishly enam-

oured of this type of young look the fact that he

Hamilton

infallibly

is

stylish rakes. In order that

no one

over-

describing the fine flower of a nation,

reminds us in passing that his hero

is

the

grandson of Diane d’Andoins, Comtesse de Gramont, one of the mistresses of young still

Henri de Navarre. Though not legitimated, he

can claim direct descent from Henri IV, the most French of all

French kings, and revives under Louis XIV the fashion of being valiantly

5.

young

that

was

set

by

le

Vert galant, Henri IV’s favorite

Hamilton, Memoires du Comte de Gramont, chapter

4.

(le-

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO gitimate) son,

Gaston d’Orleans, and by

43

•

his other but illegitimate

To

son by Gabrielle d’Estrees, Cesar de Vendome.

the audacious and

gracious freedom of any French gentleman of the old nobility, Gra-

mont added His

the pride and audacity of a descendant of royal blood.

economy,

gaiety, his disdain for

sumptuous expenditures,

and

his passion for gambling, his

his appetite fotgalant intrigues, his

his gifts as a lover, his wit, his valor,

touch of cynicism are so

youth makes

all

the

many

and even

charm

his impalpable

characteristics of nobility that his

more evident and

that

sum up

in a springtime

renewed from generation to generation the ancient genius of the of which France

istocracies

is

the

modern homeland, and of which

the French court, at the beginning of each

consummate

Madame

Fouis XIV, with

is

Royale, Fouis XIIFs

is

the most

sister,

or (in disgrace with

whom he had not hesitated to dispute the favors of

lesser planets, a terrain

Fondon, he

revives,

transposed to

of cruder adventures, though rich in exotic

aristocratic beauties, in

affords

reign,

obliged to sojourn at the court of Turin,

a court beauty) to seek exile in

and

new

theater.

Even when Gramont ruled by

ar-

which

his training as a

young

Parisian

him obvious advantages. Yet it is at the court a lafran$aise of

Charles

and the Duke of York,

II

strategies

of conquest,

in the dense

network of his many

among so many lovely young English girls well

armed to defend themselves and in addition frequently well guarded by vigilant husbands, that the Frenchman, setting an example for his

young English

erel in this

peers,

— a real cock-

enchanting the king himself

poultry yard of young dukes and duchesses disconcerted

by his grace

with

whom

who

will

— encounters the young lady who this bold

and practiced

is

his only true equal,

libertine will fall in love,

become the Comtesse de Gramont: Elizabeth Hamilton,

one of Anthony’s only after the

sisters.

last

The wedding,

moment of the

as in fairy tales, will take place

season of amours, at a date later

than that of the Memoires. This vocation for true tion of a partner tions, this it

in

and

love, this percep-

worthy of his hand and responsive

to his expecta-

marriage of reciprocal inclination between equals, even

no way commits

either

member

if

to vulgar fidelity, illustrates

44

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

Gramont’s typically heroic and French

among all

quality, the

one husband

the Englishmen of his rank and his generation spared by

matrimonial

failure.

The Memoires,

a portrait in

motion of Gramont, contains

a host

of miniature likenesses. The only full-length portrait that figures in the book, as

it

will later be inscribed in

future wife, with

est

so, in his

is

that of his

incidental erotic pursuits:

loveliest waist, the loveliest

arms in the world. She was

gesture.

hero’s heart,

whom he is from the very first passionately in love,

though unrelenting, even

She had the

its

bosom, and the

and graceful

tall,

loveli-

in her every

She was the original everywoman copied in the

choice of her wardrobe and the fashion of dressing her hair.

Her smooth white forehead was

always prominent, sur-

rounded by abundant locks obedient to that natural arrange-

ment so difficult to achieve. Her complexion boasted a certain freshness that

were not

borrowed colors could never

large,

agreeable,

cate

and the contour of her

and retrousse nose was not the

gether lovable countenance. All in bearing, by

de

all

eyes

Her mouth was

all

face quite perfect. least all,

that

A deli-

ornament of an

alto-

by her attitude, by her

the graces of her entire person, the Chevalier

Gramont had no doubt

form certain prejudices remained. Her

Her

but they were exceptionally bright, and her

glance signified whatever she desired. is

imitate.

to the advantage of all the others that

mind was

was not by those

that there was every reason to

virtually the mirror of her face.

vivacities

whose

sallies are

It

merely importu-

nate that she sought a distinction in her conversation. Yet she

avoided even more sedulously that affected deliberation in her words always so tiresome in

its

languor; yet without giv-

ing the impression of speaking rapid ly, she said

be said, and no more. She

between genuine

made

brilliance

all

that

was to

every imaginable distinction

and the

false variety;

and without

constantly seeking to embellish her every remark with gems

of wit, she was reserved yet remarkably accurate in her choice

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO of what to

Her sentiments were

say.

is

when one possesses

usual

45

noticeably noble, and

when need be, exceptionally proud. Yet she was less of her worth than

•

so

conscious

much. Con-

stituted as just described, she could not fail to be loved: but

from seeking that circumstance, she was exceptionally

far

particular about the merits of those

who might

pretend to

any such action. 6

Such was the Frenchwoman of choice who was predestined

become the Comtesse de Gramont and sure to single out

the

and

privilege.

whom

the chevalier

Duke of

made

Anthony Hamilton spared none of

young London debutantes who swarmed around Charles

the

II

Sir Peter Lely

and

as frequently con-

senting victims to their young gallants. For of all these English

I’esprit:

roses,

is

lady,

Mme Warrenhall

rightly known as

of milk and snow

[a

friend of Miss Hamilton]

an English beauty, molded of lilies and

as to color;

arms and hands, bosom and

in

girls

Elizabeth Hamilton was the only beauty possessing de

“That

was what

and

York, offering themselves as fashionably winsome

models to the court painter

at court,

to

apparently the purest waxworks

feet, yet all

of this without soul and

without expression.” 7

When we style

stand under the

museum

dome of the marvelous Louis XVI-

dedicated in 1918 to the ruined town of Saint-

Quentin by Michel David-Weill’s grandfather, surrounded by the contents of the studio of the portrait painter Quentin de La Tour,

we

feel

we have been

transported to an eighteenth-century salon,

surrounded by young, animated, smiling, lovable

men and women alike

lacking only the power of speech and

though each

Fayum 1713 in

different, each singular,

portraits are in death.

Comte and

faces, a host

It is

all

of

looking

each as unique in

life as

a little as if the archetypes of the

the Comtesse de Gramont, having definitively posed in

Anthony Hamilton’s Memoires had ,

multiplied over three

6.

Hamilton, Memoires du Comte de Gramont, pp. 118-119.

7.

Hamilton, Memoires du Comte de Gramont,

p. 2.81.

46

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

generations, spreading that spark that

of esprit instantly recognizable

minds

makes the men and women

among them.

to that admirable series of portraits

If

we then turn our

David painted between

1787 and 1792, including the sublime picture of the Lavoisier couple that today reigns at the top of the

York’s Metropolitan

charm

that

yond the

staircase of

New

Museum of Art, the last garland of that French

had extended through the eighteenth century well

nobility of court

horror: there so witty

monumental

is

and town, we experience

virtually not

be-

shudder of

a

one of these handsome young people,

and so obviously created

who

for happiness,

escaped be-

heading on the guillotine between 1792 and 1794.

AJacobite Transformed into a Frenchman

Who

was Anthony Hamilton? The author of the Memoires du

Comte de Gramont was born

in 1646, into the large family of Sir stock,

and Mary

Thurles, herself born to a great Irish Catholic family, the

Ormonds.

George Hamilton, of ancient Scottish Catholic

His lier

eldest brother James,

de

Gramont

at

one of the English friends of the Cheva-

the court of Charles

II,

was

a

gentleman of the

bedchamber and colonel of a regiment of foot soldiers.

He was killed

during a battle with the Dutch in 1679, and his uncle the

Ormond

erected a

monument

to

him

in

Duke of

Westminster Abbey. His

second brother, an even closer friend of Gramont’s, had been a page to Charles II during his exile in France. Officer of the in

London

Horse Guards

until 1667, he then entered the corps of “English gen-

darmes' insuring Louis XIV’s personal the rank of field marshal and gave

safety,

him

the

which

title

raised

of count.

him

He

to

was

killed in the French ranks during the Battle of Saverne.

The young man had accompanied and the

latter frequently sent

him

his

second brother to France,

to Ireland as a recruiting agent for

their elite regiment. In 1681 he played the part of Zephyr in Philippe

Quinault’s ballet

king

at

Le Triomphe de Vamour, performed

before the

the Chateau de Saint-Germain. Such, at the time, was the

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES

AND

HIS ENGLISH PLATO

47

•

symbiosis between the French and English courts that this officer

XIV could be

in the service of Louis ick in Ireland by first

gestures

He

King James

appointed governor of Limer-

II in 1685.

One

was to attend mass publicly and

fought in the

fierce military battle

new governor’s

of the

officially.

James

II led

against the

swift rebellion of a large part of his realm, a struggle that continued

two

for

years after

William

Hamilton was wounded caped massacre

at the siege

of Ennenskilden and barely

the Battle of the

ended the reign of the

definitively

and

at

was legitimated by Parliament.

III

Boyne on July

last

1,

es-

which

1690,

Stuart king, if not his hopes

his attempts to regain the throne.

After returning to France, Hamilton was attached, until his death in 1720, to the Stuart court in exile, to as its residence

one of his

Hamilton would be in her

own

finest chateaux, that

invited to the Duchesse

He was

and the Marquis de La

of the

Due

of Saint-Germain.

du Maine’s

festivities

chateau that have remained famous under the

Grandes nuits de Sceaux. lieu

which Louis XIV had assigned

de Vendome,

all

Fare,

befriended by the

name

Abbe de Chau-

both Epicurean poets in the

circle

of whom also frequented Sceaux where

they could meet the very young Arouet, the future Voltaire. Retiring from service, he devoted himself to the pleasures of poetry

and the

dialogues,

brilliant literature

humorous

essays,

— reflections — the

of improvisation in prose

maxims, and moral

only genre that the french aristocracy judged worthy of its its

nonchalance, and the pleasures of society. The

was already practicing riod with as

this sort

tales,

leisure,

Comte de Caylus

of language games

at the

same pe-

much facility as would be shown at the century’s end by

the Prince de Ligne.

Hamilton’s major literary enterprise, encouraged by Boileau in 1705,

would be the apocryphal Memoires du Comte de Gramont

,

which, frequently republished in Prance and in English translation, enjoyed a luxurious edition supervised by Horace Walpole press of his Strawberry Hill estate, gallantly dedicated to

at

the

Mme du

Deffand. Between 1749 and 1776, Hamilton’s unpublished and post-

humous works appeared in seven volumes

in

both Paris and London.

48

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

At Saint-Germain, Hamilton

preferred to the impotent in-

trigues of this little court in exile the intimacy of the circle of the

Duke of Berwick. He formed with etta Bulkely, la belle Henriette,

that cheered his final years

commerce of

letters

composed four time,

and

the

latter’s sister-in-law

an affectionate and platonic liaison

and that he sustained by an assiduous

literary offerings. It

was

which enjoyed

when

a great public success

style in

and discussed

as if

high esteem. Even his

to

a

Mme

company

XIV held Ham-

trivial letters

they had been those of

Dangeau had occasion

they were pub-

among

ravished by the author’s talents. The court of Louis

French

for her that he

contes, samples of a court genre fashionable at the

lished in 1730, after circulating in manuscript

ilton’s

Henri-

were read

de Sevigne, and

inform him, apropos of the encomia he

had addressed to the Duke of Berwick and that the duke had shown “They cheered the very

to the king:

taste

of every honest

man

in

Marly.”

Of grave

temperament, anything but

brilliant in conversation,

reluctantly worldly, as different as possible

Gramont whom he had made pious

man

aristocracy.

his brother-in-law

his hero, this bachelor

in his later years, as

and Catholic

from

became

a very

was frequently the case with French

But nothing affords

a clearer notion of his

Atticism in the French language and the Epicureanism of his manners than the dialogue

The

text

is

On Pleasure that follows.

an elegant pastiche both of Plato (chronicler of the

Athenian jeunesse doree attracted to Socrates, such Phaedrus, and Alcibiades) and of

Xenophon

as

Agathon,

(memorialist of the

young Cyrus). The theme of this dialogue

is

that of the “Hussars” represented in the

Memoires du Comte de

very closely related to

Gramont and of their adventurous pursuit of pleasure. At

we may be

surprised that such a

cobite writer

who had

first

theme should be preferred by

sight a Ja-

several times risked his life in battle for the

cause of English Catholicism and his king. Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, tant opinion ciated the

unanimous

Protes-

— of Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists — had asso-

Roman

Catholic religion and paganism, papist faith and

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES libertine self,

1

AND

HIS ENGLISH PLATO

•

conduct in a sort of Black Legend. Today, Catholicism once again,

igorist

natural alliance of the

49

it-

retrospectively outraged that such an un-

is

Roman faith and the pleasures of society and

the arts should once have been possible. In the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries,

seemed natural enough that there should be

it

mansions in the house of the pope, of his Very Christian

several

Majesty, and of the Catholic Stuart kings. If we as

can trace the Catholic Epicureanism of a literary figure such

Hamilton back to

a conciliating tradition of the

High Renaissance,

one that originated with the Catholic humanist Lorenzo Valla, author of De Voluptate (1435), and that flourished in France in the writings of Rabelais, Montaigne, and Gassendi,

we must

also take

into account, in order to understand the freedom of manners of the

Gramont and of his young English Catholic

Chevalier de

friends,

that the

Roman Church

of the period had the sense of both deco-

rum and

suitability that

took care not to demand too soon and too

suddenly of young officers on

leave,

and

especially of those belonging

to a nobility of birth, the behavior of monks or graybeards.

decisive valier’s

moments in the Memoires du Comte de Gramont is

choice of a military

ferred by his mother.

Such

pious lady), the young the furia francese loose in civilian

open

form of la

to

the che-

instead of the ecclesiastical one pre-

a choice

man

on the

life.

life

once made (and approved by the

could and was entitled to behave with

battlefield

and

Evidently there was

as a

thoroughbred on the

room

ety of the time, if not within the ranks of the since

One of the

in the Catholic soci-

Roman Church long

younger sons of the hereditary nobility, for

a

youthful

noble that ancient poetry and philosophy had once ex-

vie

alted to almost the

same

level as the life

of a sage. Hamilton

knew this

so well that he caused his hero to refuse the councils of wisdom

prudence offered him in London by

Frenchman be to

live

dangerously, joyously, generously, assuming

least for the lifestyle.

a “lay philosopher,” the exiled

Saint- Evremond: “to live nobly” for a young

such a choice.

To be wise

or devout

and

all

man would the risks of

would be no concern of his,

at

time being. Adulthood and old age deserve another

5

o

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

Anthony Hamilton: A Dialogue on Pleasure Yesterday the young

and truth

to tell, it

men made their traditional sacrifice to Mercury;

would be difficult to find anything more appealing

than Athenian youth. The ceremony completed and the day beingfine,

most of them emerged from the

and

afforded by the festival sures.

They were

still

city to

to divert

take advantage of the leisure

themselves with country plea-

wearing the garlands that they kept on their

heads the whole day, as they engaged in various sports and exercises on the banks of the

them,

Ilissus.

to ride across the

these observed

The older youths had brought horses with

plain

and display

their skill to their juniors;

them at such equitation or played games of their own

appropriate to their age.

Ofcourse there

were lovers

among them, for

you must know what our laws permit; and I, though not a

pened to be

there as well, I know not why.

rious than the day

itself,

indifferent to love him. it seemed to

and so

well

lover,

hap-

Agathon arrived, more glo-

made

as to impel even the most

He wasfollowed by a great troop, all ofwhom,

me, were touched by his beauty, as could be easily seen from

their behavior.

Some did not move, but remained as iffozen where

they stood, yet with glances so passionate that

it

was not difficult to

that they were more sensible offeelings than the rest in their gestures

and in

see

who were excessive

their every action. I had occasion to notice the

and also of some priests of Bacchus; but theirfenzy fom that which love inspires ! Those

presence there of Cory bants,

what a

difference in

infected with the latter passion reveal indeed wild eyes, terrible voices,

and streaming locks in great disorder; yet the god oflove causes them to seem only all the more appealing; he bestows upon tenderness as well as vivacity; the sound of the

ruled by him, becomes extremely touching, overlay each action with a sweetness inspire.

All eyes were fixed upon

paring him

to

ing,

I.

human

voice,

when

and the soul’s sentiments

and a grace no

this youth,

as upon hearts,

other divinity can

and I cannot escape com-

Homer’s Helen, whose charms overcame Priam himself.

I followed him like the others,

than

eyes,

among whom

there were

many

older

When I was close enough to this youth to hear what he was say-

I discovered that several young men ofthe troop, who seemed more

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO serious than the

implored him

rest,

to repeat the

tion with Aspasia on the subject ofpleasure,

many

sion to be

to be

mately he yielded,

and

claiming some other occa-

may do

so only imperfectly,

summon up Aspasia s

very words;

for

You know the

of her merit and her

greatest philosophers, including crates, ivho

instructed

to satisfy your curiosity,

catch

our government, by

and you know has drawn

among

him

in rhetoric. to

Hence you

as well that the

to

her some of the

others Anaxagoras;

and

So-

alone with her

will not be surprised that her

and

her learning,

guage ordinarily heard on womens

that they far exceed the lan-

One

lips.

and had broached the

subject

day, then,

learned from Socrates that one must speak

which that individual

know debauch

and

because I have

each individual of the

'Most men,’ she said to me,

excels: ’

rather than pleasure.

‘Indeed!’ I replied, in debauchery

to

when I was

ofpleasure, because she

could not help awakening ideas on the subject,

‘

me unprepared. But

never speaks seriously, nevertheless admits that she has

words correspond

subjects in

to

remember that I am yielding

to

mind

but I

would require some time

it

role Aspasia plays in

the love she has inspired in Pericles; reputatioi'i

natural to him:

so

and you

would have it, and I charge you

to your desire.

ulti-

company having gathered around

the whole

am more than willing, myfriends,

so you

which he had

concerned with such important matters. Yet

him, he spoke these words with thatfelicity

fear I

to

more appropriate, and added with a smile that he had not

supposed them

“I

51

words ofhis conversa-

a colloquy

He awhile demurred,

times referred.

•

‘is

fom what isfound

pleasure then so dijferent

?’

As whitefrom

black,’ she said, ‘and I believe you are a true volup’

tuary rather than a debauchee.

7 beg ofyou, is,

teach

me to know

myself,

as opposed to debauchery, so that

questions, to prove to

and to know what pleasure

when

Socrates comes with his

me that I do not know myself, I shall have weap-

ons with which to defend myselfand shall be able to that you have

had more than one disciple.

Aspasia could not keep fom smiling, tion at this point, this

is

what she

make him

realize

’

and taking up

the conversa-

said: ‘Nature has instilled in all

,

52

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

living things a certain desire to be happy;

and it is this inclination

causes each creature to seek the pleasure appropriate to

who participates metheus sure by

stolefire from

heaven

Man Pro-

it is said,

— man alone knows how

to enjoy plea-

this reflection, that distinguishes pleasurefiom

The perfect

preferences,

is

man knows pleasure,

but the

man

is

debauch-

who, indulging his

no dijferent fiom the beasts except by

only debauchery, which

fiom

and for whom,

being.

means ofhis mind and upon refection; and it is this inclination

ofthe mind, ery.

in the divine essence

its

that

his figure,

knows

nothing but a transport derived entirely

impressions of the senses: reason, which has been bestowed upon

us to distinguish usfiom all other animals, has no part in

has aflexibility ofits

own and can conform

the nature ofa wellborn soul, which

for reason

itselfto the things

that suit

joined to the body only byfragile

is

and delicate links. To speak precisely, lovable; all others are

it;

it is

only such characters

who are

hardened and reveal no inclination for virtue or

courtesy; hence they can never be said to experience true pleasure.

dare I, Agathon, speak ofyet higher things,

But

and dare I speak ofthem to

you? Ifear Iforget myself, yet I may be pardoned ifIforget myselfwith Agathon. You know Anaxagoras.

On

a certain occasion he was with

me as you are with me now; most ofthe young men were serving in the army, and my room wasfilled with no society but that ofphilosophers. The conversation turned to serious subjects, speak,

dogmatizing thus (perhaps contrary

and Anaxagoras began

to his conviction): “Before

the world began, ” he was taking a long view, “the elements were gled,

to

min-

and matterformed what the ancient poets used to call chaos; then warmth

pleasure or love contributed to this chaos a certain

never without movement; order

andfiom movement,” said he,

and the arrangement of the

ing with that which suited

it

universe; each part

that

is

“derive the

of matter unit-

and remaining in equilibrium with

the

neighboring bodies, according to the greatness ofits volume, ” these are the terms I

being of

remember his

all, possesses

using,

“and man, as the most accomplished

the greater part of this universal fire, which in

each particular body, as in the whole mass ofmatter, life

and of movement.

more nearly perfect,

This being

is

the principle of

who possessed the most was

also the

receiving more ofthatfire that generates the incli-

A FRENCH ALCIBIADES AND HIS ENGLISH PLATO

•

53

nation to pleasure. ” I interrupted his discourse as ifI were qualified to

do so. “Truly, ” said I,

“I

am gladyou have acknowledgedfire as thefirst

principle of all things; for I have never understood those

that such a principle might he water, which the beginning of one of Pindar’s odes.

is

And

mention the arts alone, hutfine manners,

who claim

why I have never liked

truly, ”

vivacity,

I added,

“not to

and all such things

would he remotefrom us indeed ifthere were nothing but water in the composition ofthe world. ’’And lam quite certain, ’Aspasia said to me, ‘

that water would never have inspired you to write the fine tragedy

and

that you read here recently

that ever since that occasion has in-

variably been referred to as the Flower ofAgathon.

’

I was so delighted, so absorbed by her discourse that, without being

Tut Aspasia, have I not

distracted by her flattery, I interrupted her:

heard Socrates himselfsay that pleasure was the inception ofevery evil, because

men

let

themselves be ensnared by

it like

fish by a baited

hook?’ c

It is quite true, ’she replied, that the very inclination that tends all ‘

ofus

to pleasure

has need ofphilosophy in order to be properly ordered;

and that is the quality by which one recognizes an precise attention controls every action

what he

is

doing. The others, on the contrary,

and with no constantly

of his

life,

honest man,

who by

and always knows

wandering at random

other guide than the impressions of their preference, are

under the tyranny ofone brutal passion or another.

manner of using pleasures

It

is

the

that distinguishes the voluptuary from the

’

debauchee.

I broke in: Then ‘

it is

pleasures with delicacy

and enjoying them

examples, Aspasia, ofsuch a ciple

case, so that,

ofthe thing, I might know how ’

'Most willingly, said Aspasia,

example than in grossness alike?

who knows

the voluptuary

love, the

He who

to

with feeling? Give

me some

no longer doubting the prin-

determine

its

consequences.’

and where else shall wefind such an

'

one pleasure most capable of delicacy

indulges in love by

not rely on discerning taste

the art of using

an

and

inclination that does

and refined sentiment is no

true voluptu-

ary but a debauchee. But he who loves the qualities of the soul more

than those of the body; who

strives to unite

them, as

much

as

it is

54

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

possible to do

so,

by a virtuous intercourse of wit and sentiment; who,

following a tested program ofgallantry, seeks only

body with a soul equally perfect

a lovely

to enjoy

—such an individual may be regarded

as possessing a true taste for pleasure. Such a taste sweetens reason

rather than weakening it,

and preserves the dignity ofhuman

7 see clearly now,’ I told her,

men who condemn

‘that

’

nature.

we must pay no heed to our wise ’

all pleasures alike.

7 daresay,’ she answered, that ‘

such wise men lack a sufficiently distinct notion ofpleasure, which they confuse with debauchery; for

is

not truth somehow the very pleasure of

understanding? Poetry, music, painting, eloquence, sculpture all these constitute the pleasures

of exquisite wines, of delicious

— do not

of the imagination ? The same

is

of all that can delight the

dishes,

true taste

without spoiling the temperament. Provided reason can maintain empire, all is permitted,

each action der.

.

is

just

and provided a man does not cease to be man,

and praiseworthy,

since vice exists only in disor-

.One can be a philosopher and yet

.

come

to

and

sacrifice to the Graces;

cannot these goddesses, without whose intervention love please,

its

itselffails to

terms with wisdom? I have alwaysfound that an

incli-

nationfor lovable things refines conduct, makesfor good manners and honesty,

and prepares

only in a sensitive

the

virtue, which, like love,

and tender nature.

And that, my friends, tirely

way for

can exist

’

was Aspasia’s

discourse, by

which I am en-

convinced. Since that day, I have no longer been of the

same

that pleasure

and

de-

bauchery are merely two names for the same thing. But such

men

are

opinion as those philosophers

only too fond of us, quently.

who maintain

and abandon

their sanctuaries for us only too fre-

And whatever they may say,

their actions convince me, ulti-

fom sharing Aspasia’s sentiments.

mately, that they are notfar

8.

Oeuvres diverses d’Antoine Hamilton, en vers

pp. 1-8.

et

en prose (A. A. Renouard,

1813),

3.

An

English Cicero in the France of Louis XIV:

Henry St John Viscount Bolingbroke ,

A recent book ture

au

by Bernard Cottret, Bolingbroke: Exit

et ecri-

Lumieres (Bolingbroke: Exile and Writing in the

siecle des

Century of the Enlightenment),

1

is

the

first

French language, to draw attention to

in a long while, in the

this singular eighteenth-

century figure, detested by English bigotry, forgotten by French volity,

fri-

misunderstood or caricatured by the historical or ideological

conventions that manacle the Age of Enlightenment. Manifestly will take further efforts to interest French readers in the lish

statesman and political philosopher

who

enormous French bibliography devoted lution of 1789

and

to the

Party.

It is

times, but has not kept

Founding

country. The

to the “origins” of the revo-

It is

true that he

was the leader of the

also true that he enjoyed himself greatly in the

country of Louis XV. This

historiography,

own

life-

movement of ideas that prepared its advent

has no entry for Bolingbroke.

Tory

one Eng-

enjoyed, in his

time, a greater prestige in France than in his

it

is

unpardonable in the France of our

American historians, on the heels of English

from studying what drew the attention of the

Fathers, notably Jefferson, to the thought

and action of

this “enlightened” conservative.

Bolingbroke managed to transform his political failure into an

enduring message. This message (and the key words he introduced into the political vocabulary, notably “patriot” to say the least, ambiguous: British fiercely dispute its

1.

meaning.

and “patriotism”)

and American historians

One would

like to

know how

it

is,

still

was

Paris: Klincksieck, 1992.. 55

5

6

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

understood in eighteenth-century France. Cottret’s book lightening on this point. This Tory statesman,

who

is

not en-

briefly sup-

ported the Stuart restoration, nonetheless (the better to oppose his

Whig adversaries)

played his part in the revolution of 1688 and

es-

poused certain aspects of Locke’s thought. Furthermore,

his system

of “patriotism,” outside England, could accommodate

itself to a

radical

and even Jacobin

And yet, Jacobite litical

ideology

interpretation.

or Hanoverian, under the sinuosities of a po-

making

the other side of the Channel, Bolingbroke tive viscerally

remains a conserva-

who

him

this

opposed the viscount’s posthumous

fiercely

and the new Tory generation, was

influence over George III

was an

own nature and by the jurisprudence of

obvious fact dictated by his

on

respects inspired by his views

natural law,

still

attached to his idea of England: for

the ages. Burke,

on

tactical concessions to the philosophes

when he wrote

in

in

many

historical jurisprudence, a stage of

high passion his Reflections on the

Revolution in France in 1790. In her novel Orlando Virginia ,

Woolf describes

the transition

from Elizabethan England to Puritan and Cromwellian England a

sudden change of climate.

from the

Roman Empire

from sun-drenched seasons ber,

from

a

We shift (a little as, in Gibbon, we shift

— to

and barbarian Europe)

to a Christian

to a perpetual foggy

“Merry England”

bright-colored

as

—young,

and rainy Novem-

ardent, violent, generous,

a severe Albion old before

its

time, wearing

mourning, hypocritical, calculating, moralizing, already Victorian.

With

every fiber of his being,

Henry

St

John belonged

to the

Eng-

land of Henry V, of Falstaff, and to the reign of Elizabeth that he regarded as exemplary. This magnificent, heroically built descen-

dant of an aristocratic landed family, highly endowed for the sports of his caste

dowed,

if possible, for

his desire to

restore

(love, venery, stag

its

hunting), and even

speech, friendship,

and

combat the “corruption” of his

more highly

en-

wit, never concealed

nation’s “genius”

and

to

“liberty.”

Like Shakespeare’s Henry V, he was in his youth a great debauchee, a great drinker and smoker. All his English biographers

AN ENGLISH CICERO call

IN

THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XIV

•

57

him a “rake”; none fails to refer to Congreve’s naughty comedies

in order to avoid specifying his turpitudes in detail.

Grand Tour on

his

the Continent in 1698-1699, remaining a long

while in Paris, where he

made

the French language his

astonishing degree. In 1700 he

with

He made

a rich heiress

of his

own

made

circle

own

to

an

a marriage of convenience

who

adored him, bored him,

and endured with dignity the perpetual public scandal of his debauchery. That same year he entered the

House of Commons,

cupying the seat that had already been his

father’s

oc-

and grandfather’s,

that of the family district of Wooton-Basset, in Wiltshire. His im-

provisational genius as a political orator was immediately recog-

nized in his crushing responses to the still-faltering speeches of the

man who was already his sworn enemy and who would become,

under the

first

two Hanover Georges, the master of England

for

twenty years: Robert Walpole. In 1700 St John was the rising star of the Tories, Walpole that of the Whigs.

At the age of twenty-three

in 1704, Bolingbroke

became

secretary

of war in Robert Harley’s Tory government under Queen Anne, the last

monarch

Stuart

cession

to rule England.

was raging on

all fronts.

The War of the Spanish Suc-

Marlborough, commander in chief

of the English and Allied troops on the Continent, formed a close friendship with his

forced to give retired

1707, the Harley cabinet

was

Whig government led by Walpole. St John Commons to his meditations and studies, obeying

way

from the

young minister. In to a

an alternation between philosophical retreat (pleasures included)

and political combat that henceforth governed allow

him

to

John his

plumb the depths of his opposition

Queen Anne

In 1710

his

recalled Harley,

who

life.

Exile

to Walpole.

this

time made St

secretary of state, thereby restoring his seat in the

Commons:

his brief lightninglike career

would

House of

had begun.

English opinion (notably the landed electorate, which saw in

war and

its

cost

its

own

eventual ruin as well as the immediate

for-

tune of the City) inclined toward peace, even a separate peace with France. St tion.

John and

They launched

his friends acted unhesitatingly in this direc-

a journal, The

Examiner

,

to

accompany

their

5

8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

action,

and the formidable

talent of Jonathan Swift (an early ally of

them with

St John) supported

his pamphlets. In

November, the

Duchess of Marlborough was dismissed from the queen’s entourage.

Though an increasingly violent jealousy divided Harley and St

— represented by the chaplain of the Catholic embassies in London, the Abbe Gaultier — were

John, peace negotiations with France

se-

cretly

commenced by

queen and of her

and Torcy posals of

the Tory minister, with the consent of the

favorite, the Jacobite

Lady Masham. Louis

also strongly favored a separate peace,

compromise through

and offered pro-

Marlborough, dismissed

Gaultier.

from command, was replaced by the Duke of Ormond, bite.

An

poet

Matthew

English negotiator was appointed and Prior,

one of the

ways attracted to himself. treaty was signed,

its

On

men

September

for Paris: the

left

of letters St John

27, a

al-

preliminary peace

allies.

The latter,

after a

were obliged to join the peace conference held

ginning in January

also a Jaco-

commercial clauses favoring England concealed

from the Dutch and Austrian tion,

brilliant

XIV

1711.

fit

at

of indigna-

Utrecht be-

At the same moment the Tory-majority

Parliament chose to stand in judgment on the previous govern-

ment, and Robert Walpole, convicted of corruption, was stripped of his seat

and imprisoned

would never

cease

in the

hammering

Tower of London: Bolingbroke

the

word “corruption”

against

Wal-

pole and his regime.

By now the

between the extension of the

revelation of the link

war and the enrichment of the Whigs, highlighted by the virulent pamphlets of St John’s friends Swift and Arbuthnot, succeeded in inflaming public opinion in favor of peace. The (raised

in 1712,

by the dauphin’s death in

which

sion of Philip

left

17 11

and the Due de Bourgogne’s

no obstacle other than

a sickly child to the acces-

V of Spain to the throne of France) were resolved by

an agreement between St John and Torcy. orders to restrict military operations, receiving

tory

payment from the English

on July 27 saved

allies.

last difficulties

face for Louis

Ormond

received secret

and the Allied troops ceased

treasury. Denain’s

French

vic-

XIV and intimidated England’s

AN ENGLISH CICERO At

IN

THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XIV

He had hoped

for a less

Harley (named Earl of Oxford in

modest

Abbe

Gaultier.

Paris,

He was

and the French court

title

and suspected

of having intrigued against

1711)

“My promotion,” he let it be known,

same month he reached the

59

the beginning of August the queen created St John Viscount

Bolingbroke.

him.

•

“is a

mortification.” That

accompanied by Matthew Prior and

received as head of state by Louis

at Fontainebleau.

XIV

Entertained later in Paris,

he sampled, after Matthew Prior, the charms of Mme de Tencin and her

sister,

Mme

de Ferriol,

and correspondent

who was

to

for the rest of his

himself sitting not far from James

remain his faithful friend

life.

III,

At

the

Opera he found

the Stuart Pretender (with

whom he was suspected of already engaging in negotiations). This enthusiastic French reception was no help to

him

in

Lon-

don. Harley temporarily confined the remaining arrangements to

Lord Darmouth, another Tory

minister.

But

it

was up

to Boling-

broke to complete the edifice he had so skillfully begun. Despite

new

difficulties

officially

between London and

signed on April

1,

1713.

and Torcy had every reason

Paris, the treaty

was

at last

The emperor abstained. Louis

to congratulate themselves

tively favorable conclusion to the war,

on

XIV

this rela-

which could have turned into

a total disaster for the realm if the Allies,

remaining united, had

pressed their advantages.

The Whigs never forgave Bolingbroke

ment with France or months

that

of Queen

for the precautions he took, in the

saw Robert

Flarley’s disgrace

Anne on August

XI V’s support,

for his policy of appease-

1,

tormented

and preceded the death

1714, to attempt to assure, with Louis

a Stuart succession.

Having reached London

in time,

the elector of Hanover, heir to the throne according to the rules of the “Protestant succession” established in 1688, took the

George

I,

was crowned

saw to the election of a

at

name of

Westminster, and immediately afterward

Whig Parliament. Having become

Is private counselor in 1714, Robert Walpole was

George

named prime

minister in 1721. The hour of Whig vengeance and of Walpole’s long reign

had

arrived.

The authors of the Treaty of Utrecht were imme-

diately arraigned before the

House of Commons. Bolingbroke

6o

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

chose to escape to France, while Parliament stripped him, as well as

Duke of Ormond, of all his citizen’s rights and his rank as a peer

the

of the realm. By going into exile he believed, perhaps correctly, that he had just escaped the scaffold.

Warmly received in Paris, Bolingbroke reassured Lord Stair, ambassador of the Hanoverian regime, but Louis

and the chances of a Stuart

XIV was

restoration, supported

still alive,

by Torcy and the

king of France, were not negligible. The negotiator of the Treaty of

Commercy and agreed to become his He received the title of earl, which Queen Anne

Utrecht met the Pretender secretary of state.

at

had denied him. But on September

i

Louis

XIV

Under

and unknown

to his

“ministers,” the Pretender decided to provoke

which

land,

The regent

relations.

was determined not to disturb Franco-English these worse than unfavorable conditions,

died.

an uprising in Scot-

and Bolingbroke was blamed. This

failed lamentably,

brought to an end his Jacobite phase, which moreover,

Cha-

like

teaubriand’s legitimism subsequently, was an attachment to a principle

without the faintest illusion

James

was

II,

as to its incarnation.

even more than his father and yet

a political cripple.

The

less

than his

The son of

own heirs,

court with which he had sur-

little

rounded himself was grotesque. The consequent blundering

left

Bolingbroke out in the cold, and the label of conspirator stuck.

Walpole would never cease France smiled

at the

to use

it

against him.

shipwreck and came to the rescue, which

assumed the features of an adorable widow, Marie-Claire Deschamps de Marcilly, Marquise de Villette.

Caylus

was

at Saint-Cyr, she

in the audience)

married

a

A companion of the Comtesse de

and her friend had triumphed

performing

graybeard uncle of

(the

roles in Racine’s Esther.

king

Having

Mme de Caylus — the Marquis de Vil-

Mme de Maintenon — Marie-Claire had been a widow for nine years. Was at Mme de Caylus’s or at Mme de Ferriol’s that Bolingbroke first met Mme de Villette? In any case,

lette, a first

cousin of

it

it

was love

at first sight for

both

parties. This

highborn,

humored, and vivacious Frenchwoman, endowed with lectual graces so often lacking in

lovely, all

good-

the intel-

Englishwomen of her caste, became

AN ENGLISH CICERO

THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XIV

IN

•

61

him a tender

permanently attached to the former

“rake,” devoting to

and admiring

of ill-humor, drunkenness, and

affection that his

fits

subsequent sensual relapses never managed to quise,

land,

whom

he married in 1719

had died

a

few months

in society as well as a

mind and

(his first wife,

earlier),

With

alter.

the mar-

abandoned

in

Eng-

Bolingbroke recovered his rank

home life and was able to resume with peace of

heart the reflections and readings he had initiated in the

years 1707-1709.

After 1720, the couple took up residence in the Chateau de La

Source near Orleans, overlooking an immense landscape of which the ornament and the

name was

that generous spring, the source of

the Loiret. Bolingbroke often visited Ablon, where he residence,

and from here he could

owned a small

easily reach Paris to participate as

an honored guest in the meetings of the Club de l’Entresol founded by the Abbe Alary, his friend and his initiator into French internal affairs; this private

academy of political

sciences

was frequented by

Montesquieu. Robert Shackleton, biographer of the great Bordelais magistrate, has carefully measured the debt that the future author

of LEsprit des

lois

owed the English

perience of the affairs of his

own

statesman, whose profound ex-

country and of Europe was

in-

creasingly illuminated by historical intelligence, the achievements

of modern philosophy, and his literary talent and

taste.

At La Source, Bolingbroke regularly received Leveque de Pouilly,

who published a monthly journal, L’Europe savante and who along with the Abbe Alary contributed to the theoretical development of ,

the viscount’s political experience, to which the exile assiduously

applied himself. The prestige of the “English Cicero,” as eloquent

and elegant creasing

as

still

he was erudite,

now became

universal in France, in-

further after the resumption of Bolingbroke ’s combat

with Walpole on English

would publish

soil.

in translation this

In 1752, the Journal britannique

judgment of Lord

Orrery’s,

corresponded to the general sentiments of the French

which

elite:

“His

passions calmed with age and with certain reversals of fortune;

whereupon more

serious studies

faculties; in his retreat

and

reflections further refined his

he brilliantly distinguished himself with a

62

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

The

special luster that escaped vulgar attention.

became

a philosopher equal to those of antiquity.

Socrates, the dignity

Horace,

libertine politician

all

The wisdom of

and the grace of Pliny, the wit and

were equally

and

legible in his writings

finesse

of

his conversa-

tion.”

Indeed Bolingbroke incarnated,

like

Alexander Pope, Eng-

land’s

Augustan Age, that temperate preface

to a neoclassical France

that, in

its

case,

The young

turned to blood. Voltaire,

who had

excellent antennae, visited

Henriade to Lord and Lady

Source in December 1722, and read Bolingbroke. give

He was

dazzled by the master of the house:

you some notion,” he wrote from Blois

Englishman

I

found

all

the politesse of our own.

must

“I

to Thieriot,

how delighted I was with my journey to La Milord Bolingbroke and

La

Source, and with

Mme de Villette. In this illustrious

the erudition of his country, and I

all

have never heard our language spo-

ken with more energy and justesse. This man, who

all his life

has plunged so deeply into pleasures as well as politics, has nonetheless found the means to learn everything and, what

more, to remember everything.

He knows

is

the history of the

ancient Egyptians like that of England, possesses Virgil as well as Milton, loves English, French, loves

them

differently, for

and

Italian poetry, but

he perfectly discerns the different

genius of each.

Voltaire saw Bolingbroke again at Ablon, to

from which he wrote

Mme de Bernieres in May 1723: “I believe am already a hundred I

leagues from Paris. Milord Bolingbroke has

Henri IV and Mariamne tors

[title

made me

of the tragedy he

and booksellers into the bargain.” As

is

late as

forget

both

writing] and ac-

1754 he wrote to

d’Argental apropos of Bolingbroke ’s recently published Works

“The English seem created to teach us

how

:

to think.” Indeed, the

master-to-disciple tone Bolingbroke adopted at the beginning of his

correspondence with the young poet reveals the extent (but also

the limits) of his influence over the

young philosopher

AN ENGLISH CICERO Your imagination

IN

THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XIV

[he wrote to Voltaire]

63

•

an inexhaustible

is

source of the finest and most various ideas. Everyone grants

you

this,

self

when

indulge it

to your heart’s content.

it

comes

your conduct.

Do

to correcting your

But

restrain your-

works or determining

not permit your imagination to enter the

realm of judgment. The two make poor yoke-fellows; taigne might have put there

is

as

Mon-

they do not walk apace. Indeed

it:

something more to be

said.

Imagination

is

bestowed

by Nature, which does not include the power to acquire Judgment. The former requires only Nature, the latter needs to be

And that is what is difficult to do, if you do not begin

formed.

early on.

tain

Each year

it

number of years

becomes more it

becomes impossible

to a certain degree of strength sion. It

is

difficult,

true that you have

and

and

after a cer-

to raise

judgment

to a certain point of preci-

more than enough such

years

ahead of you. But do not be fooled into thinking you have

Nature has given you a great

time to

lose.

make

function properly for you.

it

gift.

Make haste

to

In 1726, Voltaire met Bolingbroke again, that time in England:

somewhat

rehabilitated, the leader of the

Tory Party had taken up

arms once more against Walpole, though he could not regain

House of Lords. Relations between

seat in the

his

the French writer

and the English statesman cooled. Voltaire’s Lettres anglaises, which extensively mythologized England, struggle in

reflect the reality

of the

which Bolingbroke and Walpole were opposing champi-

ons. In 1731, however, Voltaire paid cal

do not

heroism by dedicating h

;

s

homage

to Bolingbroke ’s politi-

tragedy Brutus to the viscount.

Installed with his French wife at Dawley, near Uxbridge, in 1725,

Bolingbroke, having remained in constant correspondence with Swift and

become the friend as well as the mentor of Pope

provide the philosophical canvas for the

latter’s

(he

Essay on Man), was

now

in a position to be the soul of opposition to Walpole.

ured

as the

educator of a

new

generation of Tories.

periodical, The Craftsman, of which he

would

He

He

fig-

founded

a

was the editor in chief and

6

4

in

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

which he

criticized

Us government.

policies of George

these “editorials”

The

with biting irony the domestic and foreign In 1737, a French translation of

on English policy was published

leaders of French

diplomacy and

politics,

in

Amsterdam.

Chavigny, Bussy, and

Silhouette, read these analyses carefully. In 1749, the

work Boling-

broke had written in 1738 for the opposition to George

Walpole was

also translated

Vesprit du patriotisme,

and

and published in France ( Lettres sur

V idee

sur

II

d’un

roi patriote, et

parties qui divisaient VAngleterre tors de

sur Vetat des

Vavenement de George Ier).

House of

In 1736, exasperated at not having been restored to the

Fords and weary of conducting

a fruitless battle,

turned to France. The couple took up residence

Bolingbroke

re-

Chanteloup, in

at

Touraine (the future retreat of Choiseul in his disgrace), then

at the

Chateau d Argeville, on the banks of the Seine, between Montereau

and Fontainebleau. Here Bolingbroke continued and indirectly, by correspondence, still

his meditations

his action within the

Tory Party,

in the minority despite Walpole’s disgrace. In 1743 he

with his wife to the family

castle

father’s death, the year before,

moved

of Battersea, on the Thames: his

had

finally

made him

its

possessor.

Once again the young talents of the opposition gathered around him. It cilly,

was

here,

and not

at

Chanteloup, that Marie-Claire de Mar-

Fady Bolingbroke, died

overcome.

in

March

1750, leaving her

husband

He shortly followed her into the family tomb in Decem-

ber 1751.

Very much the grand seigneur, Bolingbrook had always dained to publish his writings. His Craftsman

pseudonymously. His

treatise

on

le roi patriote

articles

dis-

appeared

(destined for

Crown

Prince Frederick) was initially published in a limited and confidential edition,

by Pope.

without being avowed

It is

as his,

and

in a version “revised”

the only one of his texts that, under constraint, Boling-

broke was obliged to publish himself in order to refute piratical terpolations. Yet he did not

mourned him in lation”

tears.

abandon Pope

in-

in his last illness but

He angrily discovered the “treasonous trans-

by his friend only

after Pope’s

death in 1744.

AN ENGLISH CICERO

IN

THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XIV

.

65

Published by his secretary David Mallet, Bolingbroke ’s Works in five volumes, appeared

posthumously

in 1754.

,

The deism and

anticlericalism of his views with regard to history

and

philosophy revolted the Anglican clergy and alienated

religious

official criti-

cism in France. These views and his analyses of European history

(Tory

classics, later

stood in France;

it

celebrated by Disraeli) remained misunder-

was generally concluded that Bolingbroke ’s

tige

had depended only on

and

his conversation.

Henry

Mansfield’s fine

his

pres-

magnetic personality, his eloquence,

book Statesmanship and Party Govern-

ment: Bolinghroke and Burke,

2-

Isaac Cramnick’s studies,

H.T.

Dickinson’s biography, and a subtle article by Quentin Skinner 3

(among a rich secondary literature)

how

afford a better understanding of

Bolingbroke’s philosophy, adjusted to the English embattled

forum, could be misinterpreted in absolutist France.

As

a great reader

jected the

modern

of Montaigne and the ancients, Bolingbroke

notion, shared by

tractual basis of society

and

Hobbes and Locke, of the con-

civil laws,

which

saves

men from

a state

of nature incompatible with their survival and contrary to their dividual interests. For Bolingbroke, civil society

out a break from the

first

in-

had emerged with-

natural society: the family. Natural law

(an expression of divine Providence) incline

re-

and

their

own natural tendency

men to sociability. War within families and between nations

(aggregates of families) appears only with a strictly political society. If it consolidates such a society,

Such

is

it is

something of an afterthought.

the basis of Bolingbroke ’s Tory conservatism, the “patrio-

tism” he

recommended

to his king, along

with confessional

toler-

ance (natural religion has nc knowledge of the conflicts nourished

by arbitrary theological constructions). The natural condition, the “genius” of the English nation, the “free” political form

sumed

since the

it

has

as-

Middle Ages (here again Bolingbroke separates

2.

University of Chicago Press, 1965.

3.

London, Constable, 1970.

66

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

himself from the moderns

who situate that political origin in

and the long historical jurisprudence of the a royal prerogative based on,

The

fact

better to

1688),

British people required

and organizing,

a

broad consent.

remains that in order to erase his Jacobite taint and the

confound with

own

their

who

principles the Whigs,,

claimed to be the sole legitimate heirs of 1688, this “enlightened” conservative retained

and

much from the moderns

especially Locke); thereby he contributed to favoring a radical

interpretation of the English

Detached from

its

model

in the France of Louis

British context, stripped of

cences, the paradox of Bolingbroke,

who

(Machiavelli, Hobbes,

its

semantic

XIV.

irides-

who attacked bipartisan regimes,

advised a “patriot king” to entrust government only to “virtu-

ous” statesmen, and

who

same time was the

at the

first

to elaborate

the theory (and practice) of a systematic opposition aimed at purg-

ing the country of the “corruption” of power, readily lent itself Jn

France to justifying an

initially revolutionary,

subsequently

totali-

tarian Jacobinism.

Bolingbroke

s

works and the

essentials of his

correspondence

were written in splendid English prose. But the English statesman also left a

number of letters

in French that attest to a

no

less splen-

did ease in our language. These were published in 1808 by General

de Grimoard, from whose edition

To

I

here reproduce three.

Mme de Ferriol London, December 17-26, 1727

We have returnedfrom our exertions in Bath. My own quate for a seems

to

man who

me, entirely

health

has few desires: that of the marquise

satisfactory,

yet she

is

is

is

ade-

not, it

incomparably better than

she was last year.

You are right: I take a very regardless

warm interest in the young Breton; and

ofwhat my housekeeper [Mile A'isse, a pretty Circassian girl

ransomed by the brother-in-law ofMme de Ferriol and brought up by her] will say, I beg you to regard

him

as a child of whose mother

and

father I am very fond.

What you

report of Voltaire

and his projects

is

entirely within his

AN ENGLISH CICERO character,

IN

THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XIV

and altogether probable: what he himself tells me

the contrary. I shall answer hi?n shortly, affording satisfaction

ofsupposing me

him

is

67

•

quite

his inveterate

dupe because ofa handful ofrhetoric.

his

I have no interest whatever in hiring the cook who applied to M. Chevalier de Rochepierre: he

is

not a bad cook, though farfrom being

halfas good as he imagines, and besides he

mad. What I want

is

fellow who has some taste, thefirst principles ofhis trade, docility; I shall do the rest,

will put himselfin

le

is

a

and a certain

and make hisfortune into the bargain

ifhe

my hands.

The paragraph about wine in your letter pleases this year it will be surprisingly scarce,

men

will be reduced to punch.

ences

ofsuch a decoction.

is

since

and I fear that most ofour gentle-

God preserve us from

Thefailure ofM. de Fontenelles speech4 I have often thought he

me the more,

is

the wicked influ-

hardly a surprise to me.

quite a lot like Law in

some respects: they are

both intelligent men, in their different ways; they are not geniuses. Yet

pride lessly

and

have

self-satisfaction

made them propound

quite shame-

what an authentic genius would attempt only with

trepidation.

Instead ofrespectfullyfollowing in thefootsteps oftheir great predecessors,

they have ventured to present themselves as originals. The project

has not succeeded: the tinsel ofthe one has the others paper: others have

frauds, the dupes of their

own

had no more currency than

shown themselves systems.

to be

impertinent

Kindly permit me,

my

dear

Madame, humbly to kiss your hands and to use what paper remains to send a note

to

my friend d’Argental.

To M. d’Argental (Mme de Let us speak first ofall, loves, from

my

Ferriol’s son)

respectable magistrate,

of the object of our

whom I havejust received a letter whereofyou provided the

4. See, in Recueil des

harangues de I’Academiefran;aise,

vol. IV, p.

402, Fontenelles

speech on the Prove^al poets, in response to La Visclede’s speech in honor of the

adoption of the Marseille Academie by the Academie 1725.

Fran

Europe. When the need is great, everything serves. It required their

whims,

their simpers, their jargon in order to introduce amenity.

True chameleons, they changed color moment by moment, and

was

their variety, their mobility, their agility that

charms .”

it

produced their

11

The most magical embellishment of the Chateau de

House of Simon

Veronese’s Feast in the

a gift

,

Venice to Louis XIV, represents Jesus, the

Versailles,

from the Republic of

Word incarnate, luminous

with grave sweetness, in the midst of a sumptuous banquet where all

the delights of color melt into a shifting array featuring apostles

and

and

tailors, lords

ions, valets

ladies luxuriously dressed in the latest fash-

and chambermaids, huge hounds and tiny lapdogs, and

every kind of discourse, from the most profane to the most sacred.

This riot of handsome creatures and elegant costumes, of glistening furs tas

and luxuriant

and

a fragile

flesh,

composes

poem of humanity

eral condition.

once a splendid Christian vani-

moment of Epicurian

mercy grants the same grace ble

at

voluptas to

as the painter himself.

reconciled with

its

own

An

Christ’s

unforgetta-

carnal and ephem-

Veronese had received objections

implacable ones

which

— fortunately not

— from the Holy Office for having too intimately

confused essential with innocent accessories.

One might

say that

House of Simon when he represented Europe united

Caraccioli abounds in the spirit of The Feast in the

(one of the icons of rococo art)

around Louis

XV and converted to a conversation a la franpaise-.

The world has been seduced by the way people talk It is

ii.

amenity

itself speaking,

L’Europefran$aise, chapter n,

“On

candor

in France.

itself that laughs,

Fashions.”

what

is

LOUIS-ANTOINE CARACCIOLI AND “FRENCH EUROPE” agreeable mingles with is

•

361

what is useful, what is news with what

unspeakable, and conversation moves from one subject to

the next as imperceptibly as the most delicate nuances, the tenderest colors happily blended

An

among

Englishman

never used to have any subject but that which concerned his

government; an Italian talked only about music; a Dutchman only about his commercial interests; a Swiss gentleman only

about his country; a Pole about his freedom; an Austrian about

Now there is a unison of voices for the ways conversation. We speak of everything, and we speak well

his lineage.

of

11

.

Nothing is known of Louis-Antoine Terror, except that in 1795 the

him

a pension of

two thousand

Caraccioli’s fate during the

Convention of Thermidor granted francs,

which suggests the

poverty to which he had

fallen.

welcomed the Revolution

favorably. In 1785 he published a

titled Jesus Christ, by

Like

all

level

of

generous-spirited men, he

work en-

His Tolerance the Model of Legislators, dedi-

cated to the glory of Louis

XVI, emancipator of Protestants and

Jews. In 1789 he produced The Magnificat of the Third Estate, to

Be Sung on April 26 in as

On

the First Vespers ofthe States General, as well

the Prerogatives of the Third Estate, by the Duchess of

Born a Commoner, which

is

,

a sufficient indication of his hopes. In

1790 two more of his works were printed: Abbe Maury, Heart, or the Passion of our good

and humane

Good Friday and La

Now

Petite Lutece

Hand on

clergy, the Office

Great, wherein

is

of

to be seen

her adventures and her revolution from her origin to July 14, 1790, the

and of a federative constitution. Thereafter, death in 1803 Below may be read the conclusion of

date of her majority silence until his

LEurope franpaise, according to the

.

a

song of departure from a

spirit

first

and the manners of the Lrench realm,

but that concluded so poorly for having renounced inspiration.

11.

“globalization”

L’Europejran^aise, chapter 43,

“On

Conversation.”

its

evangelical

3

6i

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

From L’Europe fran^aise I breathe at last! Europe

Nothing

universe

(1774)

now the most agreeable abode in

is

more advantageous than having

is

means ofpublic highways and public posts

the

separated the Europeans from one another. tersburg,

Rome, Constantinople, and

.

there

.

is

the entire crossed by

enormous interval that .

Paris

now

touches Pe-

but one family that in-

habits different regions

I no longer meet with that fanaticism that seized upon the lan-

guage ofreligion

to set

nation against nation

The manner ofstudy face,

is

virtually

uniform

Superstition hides

its

and religion shows itself

IfI examine society, Ifind it the same among all Europeans, always allowing for certain nuances. Gentleness constitutes the basis of this circumstance, amenity, the

same arguments are

sentiments.

London

Women

as in

and

refinement. The

offered in support

same games are played,

ofthe same

ideas, the

are educated in Naples as they are in Paris, in

Madrid; and they

constitute the delight

ofall societies.

The querulous wit that plays on a word’s hidden meanings heeded. Only certain Italians preserve their concetti,

them because they

On

cling to their language,

all sides that

same

work

is

is

no longer

and

will keep

of which they are properly

sought out that bears the sign of delicacy

and genius, and it is universally desired that such a work be written French; that

is

sure and that

the one language that

is

in

everywhere spoken with plea-

would become unique, ifthe majority ofEuropeans were

consulted.

There are no longer any fashions but those that are French. The

English go

to

enormous trouble to sustain

theirs,

but they are preserved

only out of vanity.

One dresses in Vienna

as in Paris,

and one is coiffed in Dresden

as

in Lyon.

Italian exaggeration,

given way

to

German

French usages.

etiquette,

Spanish arrogance have

No one cares any longerfor what hampers

and constrains, and the advantages of birth and of rank are sacrificed

LOUIS-ANTOINE CARACCIOLI AND “FRENCH EUROPE” to the pleasures

lency, even as

ther

Happy

ofsociability. Highness even as Eminence and Excel-

Grandeur, deign

to

laugh with persons who possess nei-

nor prerogatives, nor quarterings of nobility

titles

363

•

to display

transformation, which has reformed manners, by seeming to

change no more than their garments!

now but one table among all the Grandees ofEurope, but one and the same manner ofdining. In every court is known that exTljere is

quisite delicacy that affords almost as

much pleasurefrom

the sight of

the dishes prepared asfrom their taste

[At meals] people converse with

interest, they

.

.

.

laugh freely. Cer-

tain literary disputes without bitterness, certain trifles without triviality, certain

diners

agreeable discoveries without indiscretion, enliven the

and entertain them

French politeness meets with no recalcitrance once it has been intro-

duced among the nations. There

Europe linked

.

.

.

therefore

from

;

is

is

no one who fails

now a map on which

ivhich I conclude that the

ation cannot be resisted,

and

French amenity willprevail the most serious things as

to love ease

all parts are

and

admirably

charms ofamity and insinu-

that as the years accumulate, the

more

— that amenity that gives such pleasure

it gives interest to

to

the most insignificant.

Inhabitants ofthe various parts ofEurope, ifthis book should reach you,

tell yourselves: it

would not

exist

discloses to the public eye is precisely

had we not desired it. What

what we do.

It proves that

it

we are

French for our language, for our behavior, for adaptations, for readings, for opinions,

manners

and we

unceasingly express that quality in our

Gustav III of Sweden: Stockholm

2 0.

the memory

In

Rome

Hollywood

—

stardom

vines

has exerted an etoilement

as far-flung

of France. The imprint of Rome its

>

of Europe, of which Goethe was an irreplace-

able witness, only ancient calls a

A Parisian from

—

its

and

law,

its

—what

as ineffaceable as that

language,

its cities,

and

— remains engraved even today within the limes that the

Emperor Aurelian ordered

built in the third century to protect the

empire, an absurd military strategy but an irrefutable reckoning of an

enduring configuration. The gentler degree of civilization represented

by France presupposes the earthworks and the foundations

Rome. The forms France introduced and spread mineral as they are moral.

subtly pliable, disposed to diplomacy less

and

is

much more

imperious than persuasive and luminous. France represents a

expansion has been

by

to happiness. Its language

tain progress in the seductive luxury of both heart its

are not so

architectonic,

Its intelligence, less

left

much greater. There

is

is

cer-

and mind. Hence

not nor can there be a

French limes or a French Great Wall of China. The “doctrine of natural frontiers,”

and with

all

the

more reason

that of the

Maginot Line,

have worked against the deepest vocation of the realm, whose shifting

and provisional form has never presented an obstacle tion exerted by for their

upon

it

own

more

its

most powerful magnets, neither power nor wealth

sake, but the art of rendering earth spiritual, that

is

had impregnated with

and our passage

to say, less ponderous,

ened. Thirteenth-century France, ciers ,

to the attrac-

its

its

knights,

its

heroic actions

more

poets,

and

its

its

enlight-

roman-

Frankish

language not only the Mediterranean and the Near East but also a

French Europe already more extensive than the Emperor Aurelian’s. 364

GUSTAV

OF SWEDEN

III

365

•

Eighteenth-century France could lay a claim to Russia, insinuated

China, implanted

self into

itself in

it-

North America, and reigned over

a French

Europe without having to occupy the Continent

terms.

even seduced Scandinavia where, already under Eouis XIII,

It

in military

Christina of Sweden, daughter of Gustav Adolph Vasa, Richelieu’s

powerful

ally,

had given

it

in

Stockholm

a bridgehead of learned

philosophers, and savants. Descartes came, and with

maise, Samuel Sorbiere,

Now

men,

him Claude Sau-

Samuel Bochart, and the poet Saint-Amant.

that Sweden, along with Finland

and Austria, has joined

influence”

moment has come to remember that “French had already won over to Europe those Vikings whom

Rome and

its

new Europe,

the

the

armies had not even dreamed of including in

its

vast

empire. Gustav III of Sweden, born in 1746 and reigning from 1771 to 1792, incarnates, better than any other

that favorable climate of

good manners,

fined taste at the heart of which

pean best

affairs

and

Enlightenment sovereign,

le parlerfran$ais

and brought them to

and

alert intelligence,

re-

conducted Euro-

a certain maturity, often for the

rarely for the worst.

A Francophile Prince Gustav

Ill’s

II’s sisters,

mother, Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, was one of Frederick

and like her brother, she had corresponded with Voltaire.

With an older son brought up a lafran^aise by his first Tessin,

and by

grounds

for

his mentor,

Count

Scheffer, she

Count

might have found

an affective understanding in their

for everything

tutor,

common

passion

— books, periodicals, plays — that came from France;

but this dry and haughty Prussian noblewoman of the old squirear-

chy harshly tried the prince’s neologism), though without

lively “sensibility” (the

managing to undermine

his intelligence, or his freedom. In 1778 he years,

and succeeded

scandal that the all

in stoically

word then

a

his character,

had been king

for seven

withstanding the unprecedented

widowed Queen Mother

created in the eyes of

Europe, and that fatally affected the Vasa dynasty, by publicly

3

66

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

insinuating that her

thorizing the

own

sons firstborn was a bastard, thereby au-

rumor propagated by the anti-French Bonnets

Party,

according to which the king of Sweden, her husband, like her brother the king of Prussia, preferred

Gustav

Ill’s

men

to

women.

unqualified Francophilia declared itself very

when he was merely the crown prince.

early,

This attachment to a distant

France was the vehicle of the Chapeaux Party, of which the prince

was the

leader,

and which regrouped

adversaries of the influence

court of Stockholm the

at the

and the intrigues of a too

closely neigh-

boring Russia, supported in the Swedish Diet by the Bonnets Party. the literary events of the French capital, the

In 1767, attentive to

all

crown prince began

a correspondence

with Marmontel and enthu-

siastically praised his “philosophical”

by the Sorbonne. The gled with

all

letters

novel Belisaire

,

condemned

of Count Scheffer’s pupil were span-

the neologisms then the passwords of “philosophy”:

beneficence, reason, humanity, sensibility, virtue, tenderness,

and

the adjectives attached thereto. In the Belisaire controversy, in

which Marmontel owed his

Mme Geoffrin, the all-too-

descendant of Gustav Adolph and Charles XII was care-

sensitive

fully

salvation to

maneuvered. Marmontel was eager to have published, by a

subterfuge that

managed to keep him out of the limelight, the letter

of sympathy from the crown prince thanking him for the Belisaire

,

which put the imprudent prince

gift

in difficulty in his

of

own

country, where the Tutheran clergy was up in flames against him.

The poor fellow was already opposed by the pro-Russian party and

now the pious were on

his

back

as well.

In 1771, following the lead of his younger brother Charles,

was the

first

able to

make

to visit Paris

a private visit to France. “I have arrived,” he

February 7 to his desired to see

and Versailles, the crown prince was

sister

Sophie -Albertine, “in this city

and that everyone

was not disappointed. Louis Marly. France,

He would

is

I

who

finally

wrote on

have so long

so concerned about at home.” Fie

XV

received

him

at Versailles

and

never forget the gracious majesty of the king of

whose support would never

acquaintance of “almost

all

fail

him. In

Paris,

he made the

the philosophes: Marmontel,

Grimm,

GUSTAV Thomas, Morellet, Helvetius.” But

at close

III

OF SWEDEN

367

•

range Marmontel did not

correspond to the bucolic notion he had conceived of him from his works: a

“He

is

an energumen,” he wrote his mother, “who talks with

kind of extreme enthusiasm and

publican.”

He

who

is

the greatest possible re-

frequented the theaters, but his stay was interrupted

by the news of the death of his

father,

Adolph

Frederick. Gustav

was

now the king of Sweden and head of his country’s Lutheran Church. Preoccupied by the example of Poland, and by the parlementary

fronde he had observed in France, the

new

sovereign, eager to be

an end to an

faithful to the inspiration of the Enlightenment, put

“anarchy” whose principle, as in Poland, lay in the powers of an

aris-

A peaceful coup

tocratic Diet too readily

swayed by Russian gold.

d’etat, fervently accepted

by the populace, suspended this nobiliary

parliament. Gustav III reestablished in his

rium of powers, promulgating Diet’s future jurisdiction

own

a constitutional

(August

favor the equilib-

law that limited the

1772). “Never,” he

21,

wrote

proudly to the Comtesse d’Egmont, the Marechal de Richelieu’s daughter, “has a revolution taken place more gently and peacefully

than

this one.” This authoritative action

as well as in

would not

Stockholm’s

would send

The

Sweden

if that

II,

who was

XV

preparing an

and an expeditionary

force of

kingdom’s independence were threatened.

and

lay low.

virtually absolute, the king intended to rule as

an “enlightened” prince. the

a fleet

tsarina understood the message

Having become

in Versailles

and the following year Louis

hesitate to threaten Catherine

invasion, that he

15,000 to

streets,

was approved

He

regularly notified Voltaire to witness

phenomenon, sending him his latest edicts and his court theater

programs

(in

French) and announcements of court

chiefly to you,”

that the

festivals: “It is

he wrote the philosopher,

human mind owes

and destroying the false political

the advantage of surmounting

barriers that ignorance, fanaticism,

program have

raised against

it.

and

a

Your writings

have enlightened Princes as to their true interests. You have

shown them, with

that amenity that you alone can give to

3

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

68

even the most serious matters, that the more enlightened a people

more peaceful and loyal they will be with regard

the

is,

to their obligations.

Hence

homage

ceive the first

only just that you should

it is

re-

that reason renders to humanity.

In 1776, having learned of the

first

French victories in the service

of the American insurgents, he wrote the Comtesse de Bouffiers, morganatic “widow” of the Prince de Conti:

congratulate you on the English losses in

Furthermore,

I

their colonies.

As a good Frenchwoman, you must participate

and

in them,

as a philosopher,

worthy of your self is

to

attention.

of such interest that

America

The spectacle of a if I

were not what

to follow at closer range every

ation of this

new republic.

where

state creating I

am,

it-

should go

I

nuance of the

cre-

1

In 1777 the Francophile king tersburg,

such great events are entirely

made an

official

his cousin Catherine II received

journey to

St.

Pe-

him with great cer-

emony, though without showing a trace of reciprocal sympathy corresponding to the public exhibition of good feeling. In 1783, his reign continuing successfully, he decided to

of friendship with France, in daily relation

tighter the

with life in Paris and Versailles by reading the

l 'Europe, a

civiles,

pro-insurgent journal created by Beau-

He

supplied

them both with news of Sweden. His correspondence with

1

.

Count Creutz, who would soon become

See the correspondence in French between Catherine

III,

collected by

Gunnar von

erine II et Gustave II:

seum, 1998). I

It

II

his

his

am-

prime minis-

and her cousin Gustav

Proschwitz, in the splendid edition he edited: Cath-

Une Correspondance

runs from 1771 to 179Z, but

is

retrouvee (Stockholm National

Mu-

particularly intense in the years 1790 to

79 2 {Gustave III par ses lettres [Stockholm: Norstedt/Paris: Touzot, 1986], --

peri-

and Le

et litteraires

marchais and published in London, like the Annales).

bassador,

bonds

now under a new reign. He had remained

odicals (Linguet’s Annales politicoes,

Courrier de

draw

p. 156.)

GUSTAV ter,

kept

him

closely

informed of the actual

court of France and the

moods of Parisian

OF SWEDEN

III

of

state

request, the count’s successor at Versailles

Necker’s

would be the

Baron de Stael-Holstein, engaged, on these conditions,

to

insipid

Germaine,

daughter of the Genevan banker then director of the treasury, of finance in 1777-1778. sailles a

young

friend

Marie-Antoinette:

The king of Sweden

who was

Count von

bitterest political adversaries.

almost

as

the

affairs at

Upon

opinion.

369

•

later

also possessed at Ver-

dear to

him

as to

Queen

Fersen, the son, however, of one of his

On

father, Fredrik Axel, Fersen fils

September

21,

to the fury of his

was appointed proprietary colonel

of the Royal Suedois, the regiment of the queen’s personal guard.

Under the name of Count de Haga, Gustav

III

began his

grimage to the Latin south by visiting Italy, arriving in October

pil-

1783-

Young Count Hans Axel von Fersen figured in his retinue. He made a

long stop in Rome, where the French ambassador, Cardinal de

Bernis, gave in his

honor and

in that of Joseph

II,

also journeying

incognito, one of those French festivities of which his predecessors

Polignac and Choiseul had set the inimitable tone; their successor

Chateaubriand would awaken the nostalgic echo of them for a

mem-

orable evening at the Villa Medicis in 1828. Every subsequent evening

of Count de Haga’s sojourn, Cardinal de Bernis received the Swedes at

supper as particular friends of France. The pope in person invited

his

Lutheran confrere along with his companions to

did collection of antiquities exhibited in the

Paris, arriving in

June 1784. The king was received quite fraternally

XVI

Gustav

III

and Marie-Antoinette,

for

at Versailles

whom, coached by

immediately developed a sort of worship.

in Paris his titled correspondent the

the splen-

Museo Clementino.

The joyous company then turned back toward

Louis

visit

Fersen,

He encountered

Comtesse de Boufflers and

political schemer’s noble friends, the

by

this

Marechale de Luxembourg,

the Princesse de Beauvau-Craon, and the Comtesse de Forcalquier.

He had the good fortune to arrive in time to attend, at the ComedieFran^aise,

two performances o £Le Manage de Figaro, Beaumarchais’s

comedy

first

without

a trace

performed on April of reprobation,

27,

which the king described,

as “insolent”:

he soon engaged in a

37 o

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

very friendly correspondence with the playwright.

At

the

Opera he

attended the premiere of Didon, a work by a protege of MarieAntoinette, the Italian composer Piccini, on a libretto by tel.

at

Marmon-

His stay culminated in the party given in his honor by the queen

Trianon on June 24, 1784. To his prime minister Creutz, remain-

ing in

command

at

Stockholm, the king described the event

as a

diplomatic triumph:

The queen’s party little

at

Trianon was charming indeed. In the

on M. de Marmontel’s Dormeur

theater there, they put

eveille,

the music by Gretry, with

all

the scenery and the ballet

from the Opera production, combined with the

The awarding of the Diamond Ribbon

Comedie

Italienne.

ended the

spectacle, supper

gardens, It

was

was served

in the pavilions of the

and after supper the English garden was illuminated.

a total

able persons

enchantment. The queen had permitted respect-

who had not been invited to supper to stroll in the

gardens, and everyone

which

forces of the

had been requested

to dress in white,

truly afforded a spectacle of the Elysian Fields.

queen did not

sit

down

at table,

The

but did the honors as they

might have been done by any self-confident lady of the house. She spoke to each of the Swedes in turn and saw to their needs

with extreme care and attention. The entire royal family was present, wards of the court

and

their wives, captains of the

Royal Guards, leaders of the other troops of the king’s house,

and of course the Swedish ambassador. The Princesse de Lamballe was the only person of royal blood in attendance. 1

The city did not lag behind the court. The king’s correspondence singles out

one by one the very

women whose

one be cut off within a short time, of the ravishing models

as

would be the majority of those

ofMme Vigee-Lebrun and David: “Mme de

Pons,” wrote the king to his prime minister,

z.

Gustave III par ses

heads would one by

lettres, p. 2.68.

GUSTAV

my

gave in

honor,

III

OF SWEDEN

371

•

Tuesday, a party with illuminations,

last

performances, amusing varieties, and a balloon loaded with firecrackers. All the great nobility

One

of the realm was present.

could not turn around without encountering some de

Mme de Pons had

Rohan, de Montmorency, or de Brissac

made

every effort to provide

tions possible. there and, for

afterward.

Back

in

on

mie la

all

the atten-

Marechale de Noailles took supper

her devoutness, attended Janot’s performance

Stockholm the king revived the Swedish Academie de founded in

own

his

all

la

the graces and

3

Belles-Lettres ate

Mme

all

Fran

Beaumarchais gives

Similarly,

French

manner

official is

free rein to his enthusiasm,

report offers this commentary: “His [Gustav

agreeable, his gestures, all his

his discourse.

and

movements

a

Ill’s]

are as lively as

He has nothing of the foreigner about him. He is a bit

too fond of talking, but speaks well, pronounces French well, and

one must pay very close attention to perceive whatever tiny faults he occasionally

To

give

makes

in our language.”

some notion of

this

spoken, as well as of the king’s

of those close to him. The

Swedish court where French was

style,

first,

here are some letters of his and

addressed to

Crown

then eleven years old, by his tutor, Count Scheffer, tiation into the

age of the Paris of Louis

III to the

end of their

Comtesse de

sion of his political

From Count

is

a veritable ini-

French civilization of forms. The next two, one

from the crown prince, the other from

other, at the

Prince Gustav,

his brother, give a lively im-

XV, where they father’s reign.

Boufflers,

The

Crown

last letter,

from Gustav

shows the sovereign in

judgment and of his

Scheffer to

sojourned, one after the

stylistic

full posses-

instrument.

Prince Gustav

Monseigneur,

When

I have the honor ofproposing that Your Royal Highness might

venture to write

letters,

Your Highness always

raises great difficulties,

and prefers to such exercise others that are actually much more difficult. However, I know that Your Highness

is

quite determined, as

natural, upon those projects that will cost

him

is

quite

the least effort. I

must

therefore suppose, Monseigneur, that the composition

ofa

seem

this is

7.

to

Your Highness an extremely painful activity;

Gustave III par ses

lettres,

pp. 11-n.

letter

an

must error,

GUSTAV

III

OF SWEDEN

375

•

which doubless proceeds from no more than the unjust notion Your Highness

may haveformed of the nature of epistolary style. I have no

desire to offer

Your Highness a dissertation upon

will soon find as

much difficulty in reading letters as in

But if Your Highness have merely

to

this subject here; you

wishes to

read the

letters

writing them.

know just what epistolary style is, you

ofMme de Sevigne; you

will have the

of hearing a conversation, that of a ?nother speaking

sense

her

to

daughter as ifthey were together, face-to-face. Ifyoufind a good deal of wit in these

letters, it is

and

that characteristic,

because

Mme de Sevigne had a great deal of

because one speaks wittily

when one has

wit.

But these letters to which I allude were never praised because they were witty; those ofVoiture

and Rabutin were quite as much so;

rather they

have been praised, admired, even adopted as modelsfor letters because they were simple

and

natural, not because wit was artfully inserted

whom From this you may con-

within them, but as it would, befound in the mouth ofa person to it

has not even occurred

clude,

to possess

such a thing.

Monseigneur, that with regard

to write

them than

to speak.

to letters, it is

no more

All that resembles conversation

difficult

is good,

all

that has a more prepared and affected quality good taste will infallibly

condemn. I daresay that after learning this Your Royal Highness, who speaks with such ease, will write in the to

do

so.

As an

experiment, Your Highness will permit

response to this very

you

will tell

letter,

choose

me to request a

and that without giving it another thought

me quite naturally what you would have answered had I

expressed aloud ness.

same manner when you

what I have just had the honor to write to Your High-

Ifyou follow such advice, Monseigneur, you will be surprised by

thefacility ofwhat you presently regard as so difficult,

you will succeed,

to the point

I should similarly timents by which

ofexclaiming:

rejoice to succeed in

Is

and I wager that

that all it

is?

convincingyou ofall the sen-

lam animated in your regard, and which authorize

me not only to speak and with which I

to you

shall be,

with the profound respect that

my

life

Highness's most humble, obedient,

long,

is

your due

Monseigneur, Your Royal

andfaithful servant. Ulricsdal,

April 7, 1777

Carl Fr. Scheffer

37 6

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

From

Prince Charles to

Crown

Prince Gustav 8

My Dear Brother, I have at last left this Paris so vaunted,

and so loved. What

so desired,

an assemblage ofpleasure, ofamenities, and what a contrast ofbeauty

and villainy, ofslovenliness, vices, and profligacy. To know this place, it must be seen from all sides. Paris is a city that is very large, very populous, but the beauties ofwhich do not strike you at thefirst glance, the houses

and palaces being surrounded by

tecture only in the courtyard,

the day at various entertainments

in Paris

kinds;

is

to

be found every hour of

to be

kept in this place, but

their poverty one judges that they pay very dearfor the

and the movements ofthe great ones. What is to is

and sciences,

the perfection of the arts

what

is

the

and promenades, makes one judge

of the great number offolk that happen

pleasures

one sees their archi-

and the street is embellished only on

outside of the walls. The populace, which

when one sees

walls,

to be seen

the paintings of all

at the Salon suggests the skill of the French

and the perfection of their genius,

the literary abilities,

and the good

done, which justly deserves the

taste that prevails in everything that

is

approval oftheforeigners who try

imitate such models.

But when one

be admired

to

regards the confusion ofmanners, the depravity

and

libertinage prevailing everywhere, one finds ourfatherland fortunate in being ignorant

of such dreadful customs, and one hopes never

to

acquire here at home perfections so notably wicked and depraved. Certain gatherings where

women ofquality mingle with whores are left on

occasion by elegant gentlemen in order to venture to associate with the latter.

This occurs quite shamelessly,

least irregularity.

I have seen the

and no one is embarrassed by the

Due

de Chartres with the

Due

de

Tauzun, the Due d’Aumont, and several other dukes showing themselves with

Mme de Mirepoix, Mme de

Villeroy,

morency and then leaving them in order

to

and Mme de Mont-

chat with whores, taking

them by the arm, walking with them, and going offto dine with them, while the other ladies merely laugh at the incident and say:

8.

Gustave III par ses

lettres p. ,

90— 92.

Where do

GUSTAV you suppose

they’re going, those

their way. That to

is

wild fellows ?

III

OF SWEDEN

and

377

.

then continue on

the kind ofthing that has greatly surprised

which 1 cannot become accustomed during my stay in

me and

this city.

Due de Choiseul, who has shown me many kindnesses, has twice had me to supper, along with the Comte de Sparre, colonel in the The

Royal Suedois regiment. Other days have been spent visiting chateaux

and palaces,

private collections, academies, theatrical performances,

and splendid drives. Two days

before I

left,

I received

my

audience with the King, not

being able do so previously, he being occupied with Parlements internal affairs, sessions ofJustice,

I have not seen

who has

seul,

only

etc.

Mme du Barry,

out of regardfor the

refused all contact with her,

home

foreigner has seen her at

and

and no

Due de

Choi-

minister or other

or at the theater or at Fontainebleau,

Count Hassenstein has done so, but having decided not to concern

himself with what people will say, he other day he

made a

may do anything he

very clever remark in her boudoir,

likes.

and that has

somewhat compensated the Due de Choiseulfor the frequent

make to

used to

toilette,

and declared that she would buy a

in her antechamber, but requested the

what the creature should be given opinion,

he

she put on her most imposing airs, since sev-

eral persons were present, it

visits

that lady.

Being at her

place

The

to eat.

some suggesting vegetables,

other such nonsense.

he said: “Feed it a

company

Each person

to

tiger and

inform her

offered his or her

others advocating a chicken,

and

When she asked the advice of Count Hassenstein,

courtier,

Madame. That wont cost you much. ” This

remark was greeted with a good deal oflaughter, though

it

was hardly

agreeable to the lady.

I left Paris three days ago. Traveling night and day, I arrived here yesterday, where the most urgent of my tasks existence,

move on wick,

my dear Brother.

was

to

remmd you

of my

I shall remain here several days, and then

andfrom there, after passing some while in BrunsI expect to spend a month or perhaps only three weeks in Berlin. to Cassel,

In this fashion, I expect to be seeing you soon,

I hope

to be in

and early

in

November

Stockholm, where I shall embrace a beloved Brother

37 8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

and enjoy among my family to

those pleasures that have been

unknown

me during my journey and that cannot be compared with anything

else in the

world.

Let the pleasures that are to be enjoyed in Sweden utation has spread asfar as Frankfurt

dear Brother; each word I receivefom

— and their

— not causeyou

toforget

rep-

me,

my

myfatherland is so dear to me that

I gulp down all the news I read, and when Ifinish I wish I were starting all over again. There

from home. elties

It

is

nothing like the pleasure of receiving news

is

much greater than

mere distraction ofseeing nov-

that are almost immediatelyforgotten once they are out ofsight.

But I shall not detain you any chatter,

my

the

which you will soon find

longer,

dear Brother, with all

to be your

own

case,

my

once you share

circumstances, undertaking your first expedition. I seek to possess

this

moment

ging you

to

in

your

recollection

and your

tenderest friendship, beg-

be convinced of my perfectfriendship

and the attachment

with which lam,

My dear Brother, Your

bestfriend

and tender brother, Charles

Frankfurt-am-Main, September 20, iyyo

From Crown

Prince Gustav to his mother, Louisa Ulrika,

Queen of

Sweden 9

Madame, I havejust made ajourney

to

Marly, where the King received me even

more graciously than thefirst time. of the Children of France, which

We were lodged in the apartments is

a great honor

and a

particular

mark ofthe Kings kindness. He treats us with the greatestfriendship, ifwe were his

behavior

own

children,

is perfection itselj

Tomorrow we go he has sent us his

9.

and he often jokes with my Brother, whose

— all the ladies here are charmed by him. participate in the Kings hunt—

to Versailles, to

own hunting uniform,

Gustave III par ses

as

lettres,

pp. 107-108.

as he didfor the

King ofDen-

GUSTAV mark.

It

III

OF SWEDEN

•

379

has grown hitter cold these last few days, a winter asfierce as

and the snow hasfallen

in Sweden,

a sleigh all the way I have already

abundance that we rode in

in such

to Versailles.

made the acquaintance ofalmost all the philosophers:

Marmontel, Grimm, Thomas, the Abbe de Morellet, Helvetius. They are more agreeable to read than to

who

tel,

is

charming

so

see. It is

in his tales

extraordinary that Marmon-

and so gay, should

otherwise in conversation; he is an energumen

enthusiasm

may

and

is

scarcely

dare think

who speaks with extreme

the greatest republican possible.

well believe that it is only to it here. It

be altogether

My dear Mother

Her that I dare say such a thing, and

would be a dreadful blasphemyfor which

I should never forgive myself. As for Grimm, he

is

more

though more reserved. Thomas speaks as forcefully as he

what strikes me which

fect,

is

as a general rule

among all of them

is

agreeable, writes,

but

a dreadful de-

that they have no modesty whatsoever, they all praise

themselves with as

much complacency as their admirers could ever do.

Asfor dAlembert, lam told that he is as modest as a great philosopher should here, ing.

be,

but I have not yet been able

and he

is

no longer an Armenian

to visit

but, people say,

I have been promised that a meeting with

A new play, its first

certain

The Ill-Natured Man, has

performance a

success,

him. Rousseau

him

a sociable be-

will be arranged.

recently been

put on

strike

me

as impressive at

piece has since been performed several times, butyesterday

it is

it

also

here,

but only because ofMole’s acting and

mannerisms that do not

put on again

is

all.

when

it

The

was

had no success at all, and no one applauded. As soon as

printed, I shall have the honor of sending

better with us, but here it

is

it to

you. It might do

a real problem.

There is a terrible dearth, right now, ofnovelties and on stage noth-

ing has been performed but The

Tondon Merchant, which was hissed.

That was before I arrived. The play hasjust been printed, but I haven’t read it yet. I’ve just seen

Le Kain play Nero

in Britannicus.

Nothing finer or

more admirable can be imagined. Brizard is also a splendid actor, but for the rest

we have nothing to complain ofat home, and it would be

wronging our ladies

to find

them

inferior.

Mme Dumesnil,

who

is

so

3

8o

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH and there are

highly praised falls into thefamiliar style in each verse, ,

only afew

moments when she isfine, hut then,

As for

rest, it is

the

better to say nothing

it is true,

she

is

sublime.

about them, though there

is

Mme Drouin for the roles ofthe ridiculous countess, in which she is very good indeed. But I haven't yet seen anyone who outdid Mme

still

Baptiste.

As for the Comedie Italienne, our troupe and

to that

that the comic operas

it is

much

superior in all respects to

of the Co m edie -Fra n $a ise, but I must

amuse me no

confess

better here than in Stockholm.

There has just been published here a manifesto of the Confederates

of Poland, which

is

quite well written and, curiously enough, the

speech of the bishop of Krakow, for which he was dismissed,

lated in the justificatory

is

trans-

The representative of the Confederates,

texts.

a very worthyfellow, has distributed the manifesto

here.

They have also published Voltaire's Questions on the Encyclopedia by Admiring Readers, but this

is

such a scarce item that I had the

greatest difficulty even borrowing a single copy.

The post hasn't nothing

is

me greatly: of how many

the last two days, which troubles

so dreadful as absence,

leagues separate

mains

left

and when I

think

mefrom all that I hold dear, and how much

time

re-

before I return, Ifeel a pain that all the pleasures I enjoy here

cannot make up for. That sweet emotion one feels at the heart of one's

family with a Father and a Mother so rightly and so tenderly adored such a feeling, I say, which

is

so

natural and

to

which I was

—

so accus-

tomed, leaves a terrible void in the soul that no other feeling can replace,

and renders any other quite insipidfor me.

My dear Mother willforgive me this digression,

but it is so sweet to

be able to express in writing thefeelings Ifind impossible to speak, ev-

erything that my heartfeels,

lam alone like this, all the time in the

and to give way to sentiment a little when

in a separation that

so

hardfor me and to which

world cannot accustom me. I have the honor

with the tenderest attachment very

is

and

the deepest respect,

to be,

madame,

the

humble and obedient son and servant of Your Majesty,

from

Paris,

February

iy,

iyyi

Gustav

GUSTAV From Gustav

III

OF SWEDEN

•

381

Comtesse de Boufflers 10

III to the

Stockholm, June 14, 1772

Madame, two ofyour letters at once, one from Janu-

I have

received,

ary 12

and the other dated February. I indicate the dates to

self of the is

blame for not having responded since

too precious to

you could have

clear

my-

Yourfriendship

then.

mefor my delicacy not to be wounded by the idea that easily imagined some negligence on my part as for

—

forgetfulness, such a thing is impossiblefor anyone

Since my last letters,

who has known you.

many things have occurred that might interest

you: the spectacle that my poorfatherland affords at this well deserve the attention ofa person

who

reflects

moment may

as deeply as you do.

The shock ofdemocracy against the expiring aristocracy, the latter preferring to submit to that democracy rather than

monarchy that opened its arms

— that

winter would have afforded you. It observed in France. Here older monarchy.

way

it

the scale tilted,

the political horizon that this

same

scene that I

was the aristocracy struggling against the consoled you

is

that,

whatever

your government would have been properly

we are

my particular interests,

bal-

rapidly approaching anarchy. There are

some people who would have me

those

be protected by the

virtually the

is

But what might have

anced, whereas here

ing

is

to

but,

believe that this

isfor

accustomed as I am

the best regard-

envisage only

to

ofthe State as a whole, I groan as a good citizen over thefate ofa

people

who

deserve to be happy,

who

desire to

become

so,

some fanatical and ambitious demagogues are leading

but

whom

into every

imaginable disaster by denaturing the truest and most salutary principles.

The spectacle ofPoland ought

to

open their eyes

to

what an am-

bitious Princess can undertake.

The sacred names of religion to the is

condition they

injurious.

As a

trembling the

and of liberty have reduced the Poles

now are in. The abuse ofthe most salutary things

spectator of every sort of shock, I await in fear

moment

and

I see approaching, when neighboring powers

will seek to profit by our difficulties to overcome us. I should at that

10.

Gustave III par ses

lettres,

pp. 116-128.

3

8z

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

juncture believe myselffree

from

the yoke to which

it

do anything in order to save

to

my country

Madame,

will be subjected. I assure you,

I do not feel the phlegm of the king of Poland, who calmly provinces divided up

tempted to

M.

ojfer

among

that

sees his

other Princes, without even seeming

any opposition whatever.

the Prince de Conti,

who

raised to a position of which he

is

so frequently

regarded as being

was much worthier than he who has

arrogated it to himselftoday, must be painfully ajfected by the present condition ofa realm that he has long regarded as belonging one day to his

own patrimony. Ijudge by

the sensation I myself experience

how

much his soul must be sujfering to see thisfine nation abandoned by its allies,

and a

between

my

victim ofits neighbors. Perhaps too the relation obtaining

more raw and my

tions

and that ofPoland renders my sensa-

country s situation interest

The affairs ofyour country,

more sensitive.

Madame, now seem

to

me calmer and,

if one can judge from such a distance, the ministerial conduct of the

Due d’Aiguillon

circulated against him. Indeed

common

had been

entirely erases the unfavorable reports that it

seems

to

me

that he displays an un-

moderation, quite different from the general opinion of his

character.

I

tance ofsix

may

be mistaken,

it is

hard

to judge accurately

hundred leagues. What most concerns me

the princes of the blood will behave. You flatter me, I

marking that your

trip to

is

to

at a dis-

know how

must say,

Sweden was merely delayed by

in re-

this event.

One more reason for me to hopefor their reconciliation.

lam eral, the

to the

enclosing a translation of the speech I gave to the States Gen-

day they took their oath. There are two

Prince de Conti on

deal to me.

At least,

my behalf. His approval would mean a great

it

would be very expedientfor them

but unfortunately personal interest

is

is

the un-

to believe,

the most destructive factor

General.

The ceremony ofhomage it

please give one

everything I said to the States General

varnished truth, which

among the States

copies,

took place out of doors,

ing our Kings. Vve

is

one ofthe most august I have ever seen;

and is the remains of the ancient way ofelect-

had a drawing made of the

been engraved I'll be pleased to send

it to you.

event,

and once

it

has

The coronation was on

GUSTAV

May

29,

and

III

OF SWEDEN

383

•

according to the superstitious (every country has such

people) there ivere fewer unfortunate accidents on this occasion than since that

of Charles XI. I’m waitingfor an opportunity

to

send you

the print.

As I’m writingfor your eyes your indulgence

to forgive the

alone, I count on yourfriendship

mistakes

and oversights

and

that escape

my

notice in writing in a foreign language, though as far as feelings are

concerned, nothing regarding your country

is

alien to me, but such in-

dulgence, which I claim as a consequence ofyourfriendship, I cannot

and must not expectfrom those who would read me before you,

my letter by the post.

ifI sent

Hence, do not be surprised by the old date.

I conclude all this chatter by hoping you believe

how sincerely I re-

gret having known you ifI am never to hope to see you again.

IfMme

the Comtesse

Gotland, I beg you,

Amelie should sometime

Madame,

give her all his compliments, ries

to tell

recall

Count von

her that he has requested

me

to

and that among all the agreeable memo-

he has broughtfrom France, her graces, her charming naivete, as

well as his affection for her dear mother,

and

the friendship for

him

that she was so eager to share with you will always remain engraved on his grateful heart.

A Romance in

2i.

“The Cyclops’ Maw”: >

Hans Axel von

Fersen

and

“Surely never lighted on seemed

to touch, a

more

Woman”

the “Austrian

this orb,

delightful vision.

I

which she hardly

saw her

just

above the

horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to

move

in, glittering like

dour and

Burke the

morning

of life and splen-

star, full

Chateaubriand repeated to himself these

joy.”

in 1821 in

Comte de

the

London,

in the presence of his

Marcellus, to

his last encounter

lines

of

embassy secretary

whom he had just described once again

with Marie-Antoinette on June

30, 1789;

he had

already entered the passage in the Memoires d’outre-tomb e\

She gave me, with a smiling glance, that gracious greeting she

had already given me the day of my presentation. forget that glance that

was so soon

I

shall never

to be extinguished. Marie-

Antoinette, whenever she smiled, drew the outline of her

mouth

so clearly that the

thing!)

made me recognize

when

is

the

that smile (fearful

the jaw of the daughter of kings,

that unfortunate’s head

tions of 1815.

This

memory of

was discovered in the exhuma-

1

first

occurrence, in the Memoires but also in Cha,

teaubriand’s intimate experience and in our literature, of what has

been called that “involuntary memory” associating the sweetness of recollection with the anticipation of death. Preceding the “thrush

of Montboissier” (the incunabulum of the famous Proustian “mad-

Memoires d’outre-tombe, edited byJ.C. Berchet (Gamier, 384

1989), vol.

1,

p. 308.

A

ROMANCE

IN “THE CYCLOPS’

MAW”

385

•

Combray”) there was the jaw of the queen exhumed

eleine of

the presence of Chateaubriand,

Chamber of

Peers

who with

had participated

a delegation

in the

in

from the

macabre ceremony of

disinterment.

The noble vicomte was given the

responsibility of describing the

incident to his confreres of the chamber,

found the

I

and

in his account

may be

1

first

sketch of the narrative in the Memoires d, outre-tomb e\

have seen, Gentlemen, the skeletal remains of Louis

XVI

mingled in the open grave with the quicklime that had con-

sumed

the flesh but that

pear!

have seen Marie-Antoinette’s coffin intact under the

I

had not caused the crime

shelter of a sort of vault that

had formed above

to disap-

her, as

though

by some miracle. The head alone had been displaced! and in that head’s shape could be recognized, tures in

O Providence, the fea-

which had breathed with the grace of a woman all the

majesty of a queen.

Historians can debate forever the errors and delinquencies of the

queen of France. Some,

last

like the

American Lynn Hunt, can

ap-

ply the grid of historical psychoanalysis to the torrents of obscenity

and

filth

that Paris disgorged

Affair of the Necklace,

upon the involuntary heroine of the

and then upon the prisoner of the

Tuileries,

the Temple, and the Conciergerie.

That felt as

not the heart of the matter. Chateaubriand, like Burke,

much and

woman last

is

said as

much. With the “Austrian

Woman”

it

was

par excellence that a witch-hunting hatred pursued to the

echoes of the

kill in

the person of the queen of France.

How could a nation known throughout Europe since the twelfth century for tured

chivalrous and hospitable disposition have dena-

its

itself to

the point of treating the most gracious of

all its

queens, as well as cartloads of other female victims, with that “bar-

barism in civilization” that has had no equivalent, even fiery autos-da-fe

among the

of the sixteenth century, except in the camps and

gulags of our iron century?

386

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

Chateaubriand, ahead of the Goncourt brothers, Leon Bloy, and Stefan Zweig,

made

Marie-Antoinette’s fate in 1789-1793 the

testi-

monial par excellence to the paradox of the French Revolution: the crime against humanity contemporary with the proclamation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and committed by several of

modern Tablet of the Law.

the authors of this

There was a precedent for the execution of Louis XVI: that king, a great reader of Hume’s History

ofEngland, knew better than any-

one that the sacerdotal vestments in which he was clad exposed him to capital

punishment. Yet the death of Charles

I

on the scaffold did

not suffice to denature England. That king’s wife, Henriette of France, the sister of Louis XIII, did not suffer the fate of Mary Stuart,

which concluded the Tudors’ bloody sixteenth century. The

treatment the French inflicted upon their queen created something irreparable.

The

“trail

and’s words to the

of blood never to be effaced,” in Chateaubri-

Chamber of Peers, linked political modernization

in France to a crime that summarizes, along with the unspeakable

and

silent

disappearance of the orphan Louis XVII,

all

those the

Terror was to multiply. In the queen’s person, every natural sentiment that constitutes

— pride, dignity, maternal love, the heart’s impulses, along with beauty and grace — were trampled upon and publicly defiled humanity

by her executioners. Tfie tender

attachment that united the queen to Count Hans

Axel von Fersen afforded

her, in the first days

of her misfortunes,

One is reminded of the couple formed, during the Fronde, by Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin. But Mazarin was a statesman; Fersen was a gallant gentlemen who counted

her

last

for

nothing in the French

earthly joys.

political

scheme of things. Neither of

these foreigners, initiated into the agreeable

ceur de vivre of France, but mistaking (like acter of a nation that Fersen, in his

manners and the dou-

all

of Europe) the char-

journal written in French,

qualified in 1785 as “frivolous, immoderate, filled with vanities

pretensions,” at

all

suspected, before the

fall

of the

age innermost depth of French ideas and passions.

and

Bastille, the sav-

A For

ROMANCE

IN “THE CYCLOPS’

MAW”

387

•

long while the queen tried to believe, even after her forced

a

departure from Versailles, that the French people would overcome the demagogues

who were deceiving them.

which had been betrayed by

its

wrote in his Journal

own

relatives

“I detest, I

:

nibals, they are all weaklings, cowards,

When

the volcano

two

Fer-

and abandoned by

abhor

this nation

its

of can-

with neither heart nor soul.”

had exploded and torn

to pieces the

Pompeian

grand French society that had long deceived them,

vestiges of the

the

Count von

by the hatred that had attacked the royal family,

sen, horrified

friends,

In 1793,

friends remained united in the cloud of death that envel-

oped them.

Born phone

in 1755 to a noble

if not as

Gustav

III,

Swedish family

as

profoundly Franco-

Francophile as the Tessins, the La Gardies, or King

Fersen had arrived in Paris in

met the dauphine during a masked

November

1773.

ball early in 1774. It

was only in

1778, after a second presentation, that the exceptionally

young

officer entered the circle

He had

of Marie-Antoinette,

handsome

who had

meanwhile become queen of France. To cut short the gossip about

some

idyll or

other concerning which the Swedish court had

sounded the alarm, Fersen gallantly enlisted corps Louis

in the expeditionary

XVI was sending to the aid of the American rebels and

did not return to Paris before June 1783. year that he queen’s

own

tav III

on

became

It

was

in

September of that

of the Royal Suedois, assigned to the

a colonel

guard. The following year he accompanied

his

King Gus-

journey to Italy and returned with him to Paris in

June 1784.

The love he had generated

him

sufficiently for

him

in Marie-Antoinette’s heart exalted

to be content with

burning words. More-

over he had had a long liaison with the lovely Eleonore Sullivan,

whose

favors he shared

habitue of the queen’s

Countess Sophie

with Quentin Crawfurd, another foreign

circle.

In his letters (in French) to his

Piper, before

lyzed, distinguished,

and

and

after the queen’s death,

justified his

two

queen) and love for El (Eleonore Sullivan).

sister

he ana-

loves: love for Elle (the

He did not consider them

incompatible but partly explicable by one another.

It

seems indeed

— 3

88

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

that Louis

XVI

in particular

— in the terrible years 1789-1792

saw nothing irreconcilable between the conjugal affection that

him

closely united

to Marie-Antoinette

the queen might feel for the

broken

loyalties,

and the attachment that

young Swede, one of the very

rare un-

along with that of the Englishman Crawfurd, that

endured for both of them. Fersen was not a Galahad, but he also had nothing of the Chevalier

de Faublas about him. His romance with Marie-Antoinette was

closer to

to

Marivaux and Mozart than to Louvet or Faclos.

know if,

as

It is

hard

Napoleon believed (one might not have thought him husband of Marie-Fouise of Austria

so prudish or bourgeois: the

refused to negotiate with Fersen at Radstatt

handsome Swede had “been

on

this pretext), the

to bed” with the queen.

Fersen and the heirs to his papers have done

they could to

all

suppress anything that might have tended in this direction. The (very hypothetical) possibility of sensual consolations left

to the

two amis except during the sojourn of the

was hardly

royal family in

the Tuileries between 1789 and 1791, far from the lynx-eyes of the old court,

less

easy to deceive perhaps than the national guards.

After the arrest of the royal family at Varennes on June 20, 1791,

Fersen (who had prepared the flight with Crawfurd, but had not

guided them beyond the gates of Paris) was to take refuge outside of France.

From abroad he would devote all his

his fortune to construct a

queen. a trip

He would even

means of salvation

risk,

for the

“Went

last

and

king and the

against the advice of Marie-Antoinette,

under an assumed name to Paris in February 1792.

ceeded one ries.

activities, his credit,

He

suc-

time in reaching the queen’s apartment in the Tuile-

to her,” he writes in his Journal, “taking

my

usual

way

miraculously enough, fearing the nat. gard., to her quarters. And,” crossed out, “Stayed there.”

He would

leave only the next

day

at

midnight, after a consultation with the king whose serenely despairing remarks he reported.

He survived only in appearance the queen’s torment. nal returns like a leitmotif the exclamation: “Oh, for her

on June 20!”

In his Jour-

if only

I

had died

ROMANCE

A

Without seeking honors, he

IV (who fatal

in 1792

masked ball

at the

his father, assassinated

Stockholm Opera) made him

a

during the

Grand Mar-

shal of the Realm, chancellor of the University of Upsala,

most trusted counselor. The rumor spread

389

•

King Gustav Adolph

received them.

had succeeded

MAW”

IN “THE CYCLOPS’

in

Sweden

and

his

that, out

of

hatred for revolutionary France, Marshal Fersen urged the king into

war with Napoleon. When, on May

28, 1810,

Prince von Holstein-

Augustenburg, heir apparent to the throne, died suddenly, rumor

had

it

that Ferson

had poisoned him

in order to take his place

and

have a free hand against France.

On June 20, the day of the heir apparent’s funeral, the marshal’s carriage

was

assailed

by the populace. Dragged to the

city hall, Fer-

sen was massacred by stones and canes, as he doubtless

been nineteen years

earlier in Paris

Antoinette and Louis

would have

had he returned beside Marie-

XVI in the carriage from Varennes.

Three unpublished

letters,

one from Marie-Antoinette to the

Austrian ambassador in France

at the

moment of the

royal family’s

forced transfer to the Tuileries in October 1789 (with a veiled allusion to Fersen), the other

two from Fersen

to

Lady Elizabeth

Foster,

dating from 1793, give some sense of their use of the French language, and a notion of the scheme that saved neither the Austrian

queen nor her Swedish friend from in his letters to Chantelou,

to “the

a history of France that Poussin,

had already compared during the Fronde

maw of a maddened Cyclops.”

From Marie-Antoinette to the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau Versailles,

Only today, sixth,

my

and I can

dear comte, did I receive your

easily

October 10, 1789

letter

of Tuesday the

imagine your anxieties, never having had a mo-

ment's doubt ofyour sincere attachment. I hope you did receive letter

my

oflast Wednesday that will have somewhat reassured you, I am

feeling quite well

and despite

all the unpleasantness to

which I have

3

9

o

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

constantly been subject, I hope nonetheless to restore the healthy

and

honest status ofthe bourgeoisie and ofthe people, though unfortunately

a great number ofthem do not have the upper hand, but with an unconquerable gentleness

and patience we must manage to overcome the

horrible mistrust that existed in so

many people’s minds and that has

constantly dragged us into the depths where the appropriate

him at

write right.

2

we are now. You write at

moment, yet I myself do not

this

moment, even if it

is

believe it

only to

tell

him

is

prudent

to

that I am all

The Assemb. will be coming here, but I am told there will be no

more than 600

deputies, because

ofall those who have gone

to

calm the

provinces rather than stirring them up over the situation here, for any-

thing

is

preferable to the horrors of a civil war. I was greatly relieved

that you

managed to get away from

curred in the last 24 hours

is

Versailles,

everything that has

quite incredible.

oc-

Nothing one can say

would be an exaggeration, quite the contrary, everything that could be said would be

less

than what we have seen and endured. You would do

well not to come herefor some time, for that

Moreover, I may not

my

little

bedroom

see

anyone

upstairs,

room next door and my son ward, I prefer

to

in

would still arousefeelings.

my own

apartments, all I have

is

my daughter is sleeping in my dressing in my main bedroom. Though it is awk-

have them with me: at

least

I shall not be accused of

receiving people chez moi. Farewell, monsieur, the

more unhappy I

am the more Ifeel how tenderly lam attached to my truefiends, and lam happy thatfor a long time I have counted you among them. 3

From Hans Axel von Fersen to Lady Elizabeth Foster Brussels, October 3, 1793

1 cannot imagine, Milady, what mischance has delayed the kind letter

you were good enough

i.

Very

3.

Manuscript

likely

to write

me fom Lausanne

an allusion to Fersen. letter,

private collection, Paris.

on August 30

and

A ROMANCE IN “THE CYCLOPS’ MAW”

391

.

that I received only a week ago. Such negligence has deprived me ofthe

pleasure oj knowing sooner that you think ofme interest in

my fate.

how much

the assurance of it delights me: one

and that you

take

an

and you must not doubt

I cherish such knowledge,

is

always comforted by

discovering onesfriends, but it seems that one has even greater need of

them when one is in

distress.

Mine is occasioned by thefate ofthe Royal

family. Their situation grieves

me greatly, and haunts me at every mo-

ment. I do nothing but dream ofsome means ofrescuing them, alas at present there seems

hope of any such thing; just yesterday we

little

learned ofthe retreat ofthe combined armies before Verdun ably out of France altogether, so there sign

ofdisaster seems

to be

drels

who

against

succeed.

us,

for

it

Even

hope than ever now, the

is less

on everything we try

nate family, nothing has any

effect,

and prob-

and it is

to

do for

this unfortu-

and scoun-

only villains

as regards the weather, everything conspires

has rained continuously for the last two months,

which has so damaged the roads that provisions could no longer reach the army. Dysentery was also beginning to inflict terrible ravages, it is

to

doubtless these two causes that persuaded the

make a retreat that has proved so disastrous in

poor Emigres will be in tion

is

despair, they

and

Duke ofBrunswick

its

consequences. The

have no resources and their posi-

dreadful, yet they are not in a such

bad state as

their King, for

at least they arefree men.

I have not

left

Brussels for a year, nor shall I do so this winter,

health has not been good and is not yet right,

without being exactly

of Prussia for the

sick.

last three weeks,

details

had sent him

lam almost always sickly

The B. de Breteuil has been with the King but I should guess that he will be

returning here shortly. Count Esterhazy the princes

my

last year. Such,

is still

my

in Petersburg

where

dear friend, are all the

about which you had questions, you cannot believe

my delight

in seeing that you are still concerned and that you have notforgotten a

friend whose tenderfeelingsfor you will end only with his

life.

my dearfiend. You may rely on thesefeelings ofmine. In you might send me your news fiom time to time. Tell the

Farewell, return,

Duchess how deeply I share her delight in Lady Duncannons recovery,

and let me know something about the latter.

Farewell.

39z

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

My

dear Duchess a thousand thanks for the note you wrote me, ,

and the kind interest you can express

how much

have sworn

it affects

lam

tain such feelings,

to you, for

take in

my affairs.

Ifeel more deeply than I

me. I hope you will continue

to enter-

worthy ofthem on account ofall those which I

life.

4

From FIans Axel von Fersen to Lady Elizabeth Foster Brussels, October 22, 17Q3

I did not

kind

realize,

lady,

upon receiving yours of the 10 th of this

month, that my answer would have painful

to

my

heart.

to

inform you ofapiece ofnews so

You doubtless know already that the Queen of

France, the paragon of Queens

and of women,

is

no more.

It

was at

morning of the 16th of this month that this crime was committed, which makes both nature and humanity tremble,

eleven-thirty in the

and my grief,

heart

which

is

nate princess

is

cruelly torn. Yours

is

too sensitive not to share

my

lightened only by the notion that at least this unfortu-

is

delivered from the disasters

and dreadful

sufferings

that she enduredforfour years and that only such courage as hers could resist.

Mme de Fitzjames

mon loss together. lation

is

I try

is

extremely distressed.

but alas,

to console her,

too great to be able to give

any

We mourn

our com-

my own needfor conso-

to her.

I lack the strength

to

provide you details concerning this sad occurrence, moreover those we possess are

give

anything but precise. Farewell,

me your news and believe in

my

dear friend, pity me,

the tenderfriendship Ifeelfor you.

A thousand thoughts to our good and kind Duchess. I havejust now received your parcelfom Count Elliot, and I shall give your letter to Duchess Fitzjames.

Count Elliott arrived yesterday evening and leaves this morning.5

4. 5.

Manuscript Manuscript

letter, letter,

private collection, Paris. private collection, Paris.

22.

Benjamin Franklin Frenchmen, ,

and Frenchwomen

Subjects and often slaves

of fashion, the French have

always been considered spirited, curious, versatile, defenseless in the face of novelties,

and

easily infatuated

by their foreign guests.

In the sixteenth century, Henri Estienne cursed the fashion that

outrageously favored Italians in France. In the seventeenth century,

John

an essay on the national

Barclay, a great traveler, could write in

characters of Europe:

The world can never be ity,

which seems

grateful

is

manners of

French ways;

French hospital-

suffice

it

their

in order to

all foreigners. It is

valued here, not their country.

forget the

for

open the temple of humanity

to

welcome the fortune of any and that

enough

own

.

.

.

men’s wit

Foreigners need not

land nor bend them to

that there be

no pride on

their part,

nor too provincial a barbarism. Indeed the affections of this curious nation

may

in fact be gained

by professing a foreign

fashion, for France judges foreign costumes

than

its

own: one may say that the French

perfection in

life

or limb, provided they

more candidly

relish a certain

come from

im-

afar.

In the eighteenth century, Montesquieu’s Persians had no reason to

complain of Paris. In the nineteenth, neither Heine nor Turgenev

and

in the twentieth neither

Hemingway nor Richard Wright nor

Picasso suffered to the slightest degree in Paris from their exotic birth.

Could the French have suddenly gone accused of doing

so,

and nowadays

into reverse?

They

are

readily accuse themselves of 393

394

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

inveterate xenophobia. If there

xenophobia in France,

shadow of a long and extraordinary

latedly cast philia,

is

it is

the be-

tradition of xeno-

indeed of xenomania, unexampled elsewhere in the world.

The career of Benjamin Franklin

in Paris

that Barclay’s observation, a century

and

would

suffice to attest

a half earlier, identified a

long-lasting French habitude.

Born

Boston in 1706, the

in

self-made man,

fifteen, this

last

of a tallow-chandler’s brood of

who ultimately created a prominent posi-

tion for himself in the world of Philadelphia printing, less

treated

on

his

two sojourns

when he returned there in

1755

in

London

with the

was nonethe-

as a classless outcast.

triple title

Even

of director-general

of His Britannic Majesty’s Post on the American continent,

mem-

ber of the Legislative Assembly of the Pennsylvania Parliament, and

head of that assembly’s mission to the Crown and to the honorable owners of the province, the Penns, he was never anything there but a

morganatic diplomat, doomed to obscurity and rebuffs.

dealings with the English aristocracy, and lieved he

had made

face the facts of a

friends there

and even

He had

on some occasions

allies,

be-

but was obliged to

contempt that ultimately blew up in

his face. This

neither surprised nor discouraged this mild but deeply radical

Whig, who tific

attributed

all

his English disappointments to the scien-

absurdity of the existence in England of a hereditary nobility.

Such dable.

social thorns only

toughened him, indeed made him formi-

They did not prevent him from gaining, against the

edifice of

pride and ruse that was the British establishment, surprising successes in defending his mission’s interests. Yet scientific glory (attested nonetheless

of the

by the Royal Society’s Copley Medal), which the discovery

electric nature

rod had

won

of lightning and the invention of the lightning

(1748-1751) for the virtuoso artisan and autodidact of

genius, did not afford this in

London. In

commoner even

a

makeshift sort of title

aristocratic France, Franklin’s experiments

peated in the presence of Louis XV, and in his

were

re-

own hand the king of

France wrote a congratulatory letter to the Boston tallow-chandler’s son. Enthusiastic French disciples this

new Prometheus

made him

stolen the thunder

their prophet:

Had not

from Jupiter himself?

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN During

his

395

•

second London sojourn, which lasted ten years,

Franklin nonetheless did his best, while quite effectively protecting the interests of the English colonies, to favor their maintenance un-

der the British Crown, stipulating self-government in iff matters. It

in

and

fiscal

tar-

was certainly contrary to his efforts that there developed

New England and Virginia a movement of armed rebellion and a

demand

for independence. Yet

it

was Franklin who, on January

29,

1774, suffered a scapegoat’s fate in the eyes of an exasperated England: before the Privy Council of the

Crown,

a tribunal presided over

by the prime minister, Lord North, Great Britain’s public prosecutor covered Franklin with scornful insults before the most elegant assemblage of the realm, including numerous lords who were his “friends.”

Stripped several days later of his position as director-general of His Majesty’s Post, there was nothing for Franklin to do but return, an

unwilling martyr of independence, to a rebellious America.

From London, he had made notably to France in 1767.

and

vices

its

several forays

onto the Continent,

well-administered sanitation

Paris’s

and

excellent system of distribution

filtration

appealed to this practical mind, a friend to comfort and Like everyone

ity.

else,

ser-

of water

commod-

he was dazzled by Versailles where he was

invited to attend the souper du roi Louis :

XV exchanged several gra-

cious remarks with him. Everywhere he was received with politeness

and even honor.

pleasing, felt

pleased everyone.

wearing a becoming

quite at

sieur

He

home

suit

and

He

a light

in the circle of Physiocrats

applied himself to

wig a

He

la fran^aise.

formed around Mon-

Quesnay and the Marquis de Mirabeau (author of LAmi

des

hommes), seduced by their ideas of general prosperity through rational agriculture, fiscal reform, freedom of commerce, policies: all grist for

He

Physiocrat journal Les Ephemerides

du

pean circulation became

more

free-trade

an American mill hampered by an urban Eng-

land insatiable for indirect taxes.

cause of

and

King George’s

to Paris in 1769,

published citoyen,

a precious organ

which by

its

Euro-

of propaganda for the

transatlantic colonies.

though

articles in the

He

returned once

briefly.

The friendships Franklin had made

in France during these

two

39 6

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

visits

designated

new

the

him in 1776

government

to represent to the French

federal state (in gestation, in revolution, but

still

nonexis-

tent in the eyes of international law). France, supported in the

iterranean by the Family Pact

with Vienna, was

at this

and

time by

in Central

Europe by an

far the greatest

Med-

alliance

and most prosper-

ous European power, the only one moreover whose public opinion

manifested a veritable enthusiasm for the “Rebels.” The reign of Louis ca’s

XVI had begun

as a

golden age. All of revolutionary Ameri-

hopes turned to France.

At the

age of sixty-nine, accompanied by

the Patriarch of Philadelphia set off

which depended the

On December 3,

on

entire future of the

two of his grandsons,

this great adventure,

on

American Revolution.

him

1776, a storm forced

to

beron and to reach Nantes by coach; on those

disembark

Qui-

at

muddy roads he may

have encountered the future Chouans. In the century of the Enlightenment, these medieval peasants must have struck as

backward

as the

fully dispossessing

and

cember 20 he reached

the

as just

Delaware Indians his compatriots were cheerliquidating.

Franklin’s arrival in Nantes

ficially at

him

Immediately reported in

became the news of the

Versailles,

where he registered

On

day.

at

Paris,

De-

an inn. Of-

peace with England, France had hitherto responded to

American Congress’s requests

for supplies

through the media-

tion of an engaging commercial agent: Beaumarchais.

band was covered by

a firm entitled, doubtless in

Barber of Seville Rodrigue Flortalez ,

et

Such contra-

homage

Compagnie. The

to The

British

ambassador, Lord Stormont, discovered these sinister French maneuvers and peppered Vergennes, the minister of foreign protests. Franklin’s appearance in Paris, there, utterly

affairs,

and the success he became

transformed the Anglo-Franco-American situation.

In one of his Lettres anglaises, Voltaire had portrayed the ers as a

with

heartwarming

society.

Le Quaker had become

a

QuakFrench

myth, related to the Noble Savage subsequently accredited by Rousseau. Philadelphia,

whence Franklin had come, was

dation; this time the

and wear his hair a

American envoy took

a

Quaker foun-

great care not to dress

lafran^aise: his “citizen’s”

garments, his republi-

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

397

•

can manners, and his rustic simplicity embodied both American

myths

at once.

Though anything but

a

Quaker, Franklin assumed

the character and appearance of one, cultivated the misunderstanding,

and did so with such

the Noble Savage of the

guileless amiability that

American

and Rousseauans, enemies arms to

idolize

With lin

a

forests.

Whereupon

Voltairians

in all other respects, fell into each other’s

him.

shrewd sense of the scene and of public

immediately made three

visits

that were as

three times over he carried off all the honors. a private audience affairs, a

he also passed for

relations, Frank-

many test

The

first

cases;

and

was of course

with Vergennes, Louis XVI’s minister of foreign

cultivated

and generous grand

seigneur,

who was touched

by the modesty and competence of the good fellow delegated by the

American Congress. His colleague Malesherbes had been moved in the same fashion, several years earlier, by Rousseau, that plebeian of genius,

and had taken him under

his protection permanently. Be-

hind the scenes, Vergennes saw to

it

that

two million

livres

were

advanced to the insurgents.

More formidable was

Franklin’s appearance before the supreme

tribunal of Parisian high society, the salon in the rue Saint-

Dominique presided over by that blind the Marquise

December

du Deffand. Franklin was presented

29, 1776, to the

the famous tonneau. her: the

regent of the Enlightenment,

A

after

dinner on

marquise enthroned in her basket

brilliant

chair,

areopagus was gathered around

Vicomte de Beaune, the Chevalier de Boutteville, the Abbe

Barthelemy, the

Comte de Guines, former French ambassador

to

London, the ex-prime minister the Due de Choiseul, and the young

Englishman called

Eliott.

The worst might well have been expected. The marquise was

in

love with

Horace Walpole. Lord Stormont, the present English am-

bassador,

was one of her habitues. In

principle, she

ought to have

sided with the British government. Franklin’s democratic

mercial notions, had she

more deeply than

known them, would

Voltaire’s paradoxes,

d’Alembert’s logic, which she detested.

and com-

have horrified her

which she disdained, or

39 8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

Yet everything happened for the best. Franklin spoke

tened a great deal, smiled and exclaimed

at the right

was declared altogether an honnete homme. that Choiseul,

back

and

disaster:

moments.

He

must be supposed

who tugged against his reins and dreamed of a come-

prime minister, had personally organized

as

hostess

It

little, lis-

great friend

and made certain

it

this visit to his

did not turn into a

one unfavorable word from the formidable marquise could

have ruined Franklin. As a matter of fact, the American cause was already so popular in France that even candidates for the ministries

made

it

a

duty to provide the new nation with funds.

Then Franklin paid

known him

a visit to the

Marquis de Mirabeau.

He had

and was well aware of the Physiocrats’ sym-

since 1767

pathy for the American cause. But the Physiocrats, including Turgot, the

most famous of them

pacifist too,

all,

were also

but his mission compelled

pacifists.

him

Franklin was a

to plead for war.

The

affection of the “Friend of Man” for Franklin, the solidarity of the

Physiocrats with this foreign brother, moderated and even neutralized their reservations.

Only Turgot, who was not present

at the

interview, remained intractable.

Franklin was above

all

determined to

raise to a

white heat the

public opinion already disposed in his favor. Starting on January 1777, he regularly attended the

was

a corresponding

member.

Academie des

15,

Sciences, of which he

He visited the great Parisian libraries:

that of the king, the Sainte-Genevieve, the Mazarine, etc. His de-

lighted confreres

and the

selves his servants.

entire Republic of Letters declared

them-

The French and foreign grands seigneurs who

prided themselves on erudition or scientific knowledge lined up to

meet the great man: the Due de Croy, the Due de Chaulnes, the

Comte de

Lauragais, Prince Galitzin, Baron Blome,

last three,

diplomats of European scope, became serious trumps in

M.

Eyck. The

Franklin’s hand.

The worlds of high

society

and fashion flung themselves

at his feet.

The young Due de La Rochefoucauld, who knew English, obtained the favor of serving as secretary to the

His entire

illustrious,

American grand homme.

powerful, and ancient family immediately

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN became the megaphone of Franklin’s fame and the American

399

•

cause.

Nor

did the tribe of the Noailles hang back. The son-in-law of the

Due

d’Ayen, the Marquis de La Fayette, once the formalities were

over,

begged Franklin to

Washington’s

embarked

in

William the

staff.

facilitate his

engagement

Despite Louis XVI’s opposition, the marquis

May. The Comte de Broglie dreamed of becoming the Silent

of the new “United Provinces”; so the

and powerful de Broglie family adopted Franklin and But

it

was

on

as a volunteer

mere tycoon,

a

his cause.

of disciple of Franklin, Le Ray de

a sort

Chaumont, who lodged him

illustrious

in the outbuildings of his

Hotel de

Valentinois, in Passy. This breezy neighborhood was the rendezvous

of French Freemasonry, which the at this time.

to a

Due d ’Orleans was busy reviving

In this milieu Franklin found friends,

huge network of the French

press,

of these

efficient use

Tlie velvet that yielded

the

life,

and

at this

access

made

the most abun-

relations.

most eagerly

women, who had always played an

public

and

published in France or

abroad. Excellent journalist that he was, he

dant and

allies,

time reigned

They became infatuated with

as

this

to Franklin’s caresses

was

exceptional role in French

never before.

pseudo- Quaker, sensual and

sentimental, doughty and cunning as a peasant, but a

good com-

panion and a gentle shepherd, not eloquent but generous with his cajoleries.

In Paris Franklin experienced

land Barthes called a “fragment of a

So many supports and such

first

lover’s discourse.”

a variety

to withstand without flinching the

much more than what Roof comforts permitted him

grim news that reached him

at

from America and that made Lord Stormont swagger. Then,

when

the rebels’

Burgoyne and

first

great victory

his army,

was announced

— the capture of

which had marched south from Canada

Franklin displayed his vulpine capacities. Pretending to negotiate

with London, he convinced Vergennes that speedily seize this

February

8,

it

was

vital that

shadow of peace and engage openly

1778, Franklin finally

wreaked

France

in war.

his brilliant revenge

On on

Hotel des Affaires

Lord Stormont and English arrogance:

in the

Etrangeres, formerly the Hotel Lautrec,

on the Quai des Theatins,

4 oo

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

he and Vergennes signed a Franco-American treaty of alliance.

March

On

XVI officially received at Versailles the American

20, Louis

delegation led by Franklin.

The legend spread that the wigmaker had been unable

to find a

perruque big enough for the great American. All France chorused:

“He has

a big head, a great big head.” Actually he presented himself

own scattered long white locks, without a One could hear the whole court, under the

to the king coiffed in his

court sword on his hip. spell,

murmuring: “He’s dressed

Quaker!”

like a

Thus the inventor of the lightning rod and the slow-combustion stove

was

ther,

on that

also the creator of “self-promotion”

and “the

look.” Fur-

day, in the finest theater in the universe, the

grand

apartments of Louis XIV, the young troupe of the “Fifteen United

and presented by Louis

Provinces,” flanked by their patriarch in person, day, the

made

on the world stage. The next

a sensational entrance

American delegate received

XVI

a very

kind welcome

at the

queen’s lever, then chez Monsieur, the king’s brother; then cbez

Ma-

dame, the Comtesse de Provence; and lastly chez Madame Elisabeth, the king’s

sister.

One understands why the Chateau of Versailles has

remained dear to the United eral:

States. It

is

their other

from here they were launched into world

Henceforth, gress of the

as official

United

Paris.

States,

Franklin

knew

it

true glory.

Even more

from the hand of the dying

who had arrived just in time to enjoy his own apotheosis in

Accompanied by his grandson William Temple, Franklin did

not miss the opportunity of paying Voltaire a Villette. eral

history.

ambassador plenipotentiary of the Con-

than from Louis XVI, he received Voltaire,

Cape Canav-

The two

amazement,

“stars”

conversed

in French, after

visit at

the Hotel de

at first in English, then, to gen-

which Franklin pushed

his grand-

son William Temple toward Voltaire, asking the latter to bless him: the king of the Republic of Letters extended his skeletal

hand over

the youth’s head and pronounced his benediction “in the

God and Liberty.”

Everyone burst into

Several days later Voltaire

the

Academie des

tears.

and Franklin

Sciences, in

its

name of

sat

next to each other at

formal session

at the

Louvre. The

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN crowd compelled them

to stand, to greet each other,

“An embrace a

together. Finally the public shouted:

The

hugged the

tiny French skeleton

tall,

crowd applauded, wept, and shouted,

and

401

•

to speak

la jran$aise

\

stout American, while the

“How delightful to see Solon

and Sophocles embrace!”

The envious and the frequently theless

made

on the other

scoffers

side

of the Atlantic

Ambassador Franklin. None-

things difficult for

he led a softer existence than he had ever known, comfortably

installed in his Passy residence, abundantly supplied with rare wines,

many

servants, an infirmary, a print shop, a laboratory, a studio

workshop, and “moveable

a carriage.

he was

feast,”

The

much

American

first

demand with

in

ning with Queen Marie-Antoinette,

who

to enjoy Paris as a

great ladies, begin-

consulted

him

and otherwise made much of him. All sought

oracle

him, to

call

him

echo of these scandal.

To

“Papa,”

and he returned

who informed him

to

of the

world. The like,

The French

this.

fact,

he replied:

the

all

mutton, dine where you let it

be

everyone offered to

embrace

the

mouth

dure

is

(in

I

are the politest nation in the

persons you meet try to find out what you

first

and inform

apparently

The

caused something of a

You speak of the kindness Frenchwomen have shown me. must explain

of

embrace

their favors in kind.

liberties, crossing the Atlantic,

friends

as a sort

rest. If it is

will,

known

me

you

that

I

understood that you

are served

like

mutton. Someone

liked the ladies; straightaway

ladies (or the ladies offered themselves)

other words, to kiss on the neck. For kissing

or the cheek

is

not done here, the former proce-

regarded as uncouth, the latter spoils the rouge).

Never was an ambassador (and Franklin still held that office provisionally,

on the dotted

line, as

it

were)

more wildly fashionable

his foreign capital of accreditation. Paris has frequently ject to

his

been sub-

such frenzy, but for the most part in the democratic era

lowing the Revolution, and for national

nephew

the future

Napoleon

III,

political stars:

in

fol-

Bonaparte,

General Boulanger. Ahead of

402

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

his time, Franklin

managed

no one

to excite ancien regime Paris as

before him, taking the city and society at the secret point that

makes every man and especially every woman ing them,

all at

the same

moment,

American democrat invented and

thrill,

and transform-

into an ecstatic crowd. This

released the rock-star

phenome>

non

in the midst of aristocratic Paris! Louis

XVI,

subtler than his-

torians have often described him, detected in this

phenomenon

a

whiff of the trouble that lay ahead. Exasperated by the extraordinary merchandising of Franklin himself, of his portrait on snuff-

XVI

boxes and fans, on clocks and medallions, Louis

Manufacture Royale de Sevres

tom of which gleamed

to

produce

a

ordered the

chamber pot

at the bot-

the famous medallion of Franklin, with

its

celebrated caption. Ff e sent this household utensil as a gift to one of

the great ladies of his court

the American. This was

and author of entirely

who was

Mme

fanatically enthusiastic about

Campan,

reader to the king’s aunts

memoirs reporting the

reliable

incident.

The

“caption” she alludes to was in fact the Latin inscription that Tur-

got was said to have

under

composed

his heroic bust carved

in Franklin’s

honor and that figured

by Houdon, another key item in his

publicity campaign: Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis (Ff e

has wrested lightning from heaven and from tyrants their scepters). Sufficient, indeed, to irritate

and even

to outrage the

king of France.

A few years later, in 1784, when the ambassador of the quite young federal republic, mission accomplished,

to Louis

XVI,

to

make

the latter finished the charade that

the portrait in the

back to

came

le grand

chamber

his farewell

had begun with

pot: according to a tradition dating

monarque Louis ceremoniously offered the depart,

ing diplomat, as a signal honor, his

own

portrait in full court cos-

tume, a work of the famous miniaturist Louis Sicardy, mounted in an oval gold case engraved with the royal initials

and

set

with splendid

diamonds. Did Franklin compare the two halves of the mute symbolic message,

plebeian,

each in

on one hand the profane

effigy

of the

self- advertising

on the other the icon of the sovereign crowned

its

appropriate frame?

at

Reims,

Did the ambassador understand the

lesson in hierarchy articulated by the

monarch though concealed

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

•

403

beneath the most exquisite forms of etiquette and politesse? Improbable, but not impossible. Franklin had at least as

nae

and the rumor of the

as the king,

had taken with regard ears.

Whatever the

cious object that,

which were sold

first initiative

many

anten-

that the latter

may very well have reached his

to portraiture

case, the ambassador’s family inherited the pre-

from generation

to generation, lost

to finance journeys

and useful

Since 1959, the king’s ambiguous

gift,

its

diamonds,

acquisitions.

minus

its

crown of

dia-

monds, has been in the collection of the American Philosophical Society,

which Franklin founded

after his return to Philadelphia.

None of the douceurs de vivre of the French

ancien regime’s autum-

nal season was denied to Franklin’s vigorous winter.

M. and

Mme

d’Houdetot, joined by Saint-Lambert, poet of Les saisons and Madame’s lover in the bargain, gave in his honor, on April fete

champetre

at their

his carriage a kilometer

praise of liberty.

He

rated with garlands a delicious supper

Samois

estate.

12, 1781, a

Franklin had to step out of

from the chateau, welcomed by choruses

in

advanced through the park and gardens deco-

and

floral arches

of triumph to the table where

was served. Between courses, the guests sang a set

of verses composed for the occasion:

We celebrate the genius ofBenjamin, And the benefits linked with his name: In America he shall have altars, In Samois we drink to hisfame.

After the meal, Franklin was invited to plant a Virginia chestnut in the garden, with a votive inscription on a marble plaque attached to its

trunk. Returning from the ceremony, an orchestra accompanied

the procession of guests

who

sang in chorus:

This seedling, planted by hisfavoring hand,

May raise its nascent trunk to stand Above the sterile elms, soon making sweet The welkin ofthis rural seat

4o 4

WHEN THE WORLD

•

Where Lightning can no

SPOKE FRENCH longer set at naught

All thatfrail mankind has wrought,

For Franklin s genius has devised a way Fo cancel or direct its sway,

Sparing thence the coming human race Endless disasters

else to face.

In Passy, Franklin enjoyed, successively, two adorable

women,

Mme

Helvetius and

Mme

idylls

with two

Brillon de Jouy, his

The extremely wealthy widow of the farmer-general and

neighbors.

great philosopher before the Eternal,

Mme Helvetius had been one

of the most ravishing young beauties of France and Lorraine, her native province

where her family, the

Lignivilles,

were among the

oldest stock of the duchy. In her salons at Auteuil, she

received rope,

all

the talents and great

and preserved

had

regally

names of Paris and indeed of Eu-

as well the fine

remainder of her glorious looks.

The old American ambassador delightedly inhaled the fragrance of this

autumnal

rose of the French aristocracy,

the great and glorious

Her salons, become

entree to

Wasp who had Noah’s Ark;

resist

crossed the seas to reach her.

which had always been

a slightly passe

and she did not

greatly coveted,

still lovely,

had now

distinguished, witty,

and tenderhearted, she now found herself besieged by kittens, puppies, birds,

and young abbes. She coddled Franklin, making much

not everything of him.

He wrote tale after tale for her in French, call-

ing her “Notre-Dame-d’Auteuil.” In 1780 he went so far as to

her an offer of marriage. Turgot,

whom

she consulted

on

and

cleverness,

an instant.

on

all

for all her efforts at coddling

something cracked between them.

His appetite whetted

for

One wonders what

Mme Franklin in Auteuil in 1793?

French

direction of another neighbor,

felicity,

Franklin turned in the

Mme Brillon, nee Hardancourt, wife

of the receiver-general of bills of Parlement. pretty, she

others, scolded her se-

weakness of considering such a prop-

And then,

would have become of M. and

make

whom she had loved in her youth and

this point as

verely for having indulged the osition for even

if

Still

young and extremely

had grown up vzz&mgLa Nouvelle Heloise. The pair spent

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

405

•

very long evenings together, in music, conversation, and innocent caresses, like Julie

and Saint-Preux at Clarens. Together they visited

Moulin

famous English gardens ofWatelet. Did Henry

James

Jolie, the

recall this “conversion”

of Paris

of the old son of Boston to the charms

when he described in The Ambassadors the elderly American

bachelor coming to Paris to wrest young lovely

Mme Vionnet and falling himself into the snares of a French

Armida? Franklin, emboldened, went between

This

new

a deluge

so far as to envisage a marriage

William Temple, and one of the Brillon

his grandson,

daughters, a proposition that

by

Chad from the arms of the

laceration to his

M. and Mme Brillon politely evaded. amour propre was

make

5,

1781.

terms.

treaty’s preliminaries

all

at

England was

Franklin was a significant pivot of the negotiations.

1783, the

drowned

of joy: news of the crushing Franco-American victory

Chesapeake Bay was announced on September obliged to

blessedly

were

When

the

on January

finally signed, at Versailles

20,

hour of his own apotheosis had struck. All France, indeed

Europe, appeared to have made the pilgrimage to the Hotel de

Valentinois, the pied.

main portion of which the ambassador now occu-

His portrait was reproduced in even the smallest market

stall,

XVI and Washingon. Every scientific acad-

alongside those of Fouis

emy in the provinces and Europe conferred membership upon him, if had not already been accomplished, and requested documenta-

this

tion of the experiments

and discoveries he continued

to

make

in his

workshop-laboratory in Passy. His advice was decisive in the disqualification

ences.

of Mesmer and his famous bucket by the Academie des

Sci-

The Fodge of the Nine Sisters made him a lifetime “Venerable.”

He had become

a living

messiah heralding humanity’s salvation

by science and morality. His authority was such that in the soil

planted deep

it

of the French public an Enlightenment catechism {Poor

Richard’s Almanack, 1748) that neither Voltaire’s nor Rousseau’s writings,

both addressing a cultivated

on such late as

and

a scale.

elite,

had managed

to popularize

The young Comte de Mirabeau volunteered to

trans-

also to circulate in France (with Franklin’s consent as well

Chamfort’s) the

first

frontal attack against hereditary nobility

4o 6

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

ever to be printed in Europe: Considerations on the Order of Cincinnati's

the

Franklin had devised this pamphlet to silence the veterans of

.

War of Independence who were

tary order.

seeking to constitute a heredi-

Mirabeau adapted and amplified the

text to

produce a

firebrand against very basis of the French monarchy. Franklin

harm

have seen no

which abounded

in the thing,

XVI

tions of admiration for Fouis

may

in public declara-

and did not skimp on

praises

(which cannot be read retrospectively without a shudder) of the

French national character:

In manners and civility the French have surpassed the English

by many degrees.

find here a nation entirely congenial to

I

who live here. The

those from other countries

Spanish have a

Dutch

reputation for pride, the Scotch for insolence, the avarice.

But

I

believe the French can be reproached for

which

tional vice. Perhaps a certain frivolity, gravity.

To

and then

dress one’s hair so that one

to carry that hat

with tobacco short, all

that

ble.

is

follies,

fill

one’s nose

but hardly vices. In

lacking in the French character,

may contribute

to

make

a

man

real

unable to wear a hat,

under one’s arm; to

— these may be called

nothing good

is

no na-

of no

is

for

agreeable

among

and estima-

These people have, merely, a handful of excessive baga-

telles

that they might readily eliminate.

Whatever

Franklin’s afterthoughts might have been about the

“bagatelles” to be eliminated in France, he

was not

excessively re-

warded by the United States, of which he had literally been the midwife. “Released”

Back

on May i,

1785,

in Philadelphia he played

sage in the Constitutional

popularity but

new

no more than the part of an

Convention of

elderly

1787, respected for his

mocked behind

the scenes by the real bosses of the

At

he successfully opposed the persis-

political system.

tence, in this

he was replaced by Thomas Jefferson.

least

new America, of

which he characterized

as

the teaching of Greek and Fatin,

“charlatanism in literature” and in which

he saw the roots of a possible American aristocracy,

as useless as

it

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN would be

idle; a

moral monstrosity that

cal sociologist Thorstein

•

407

as late as 1889 the puritani-

Veblen was to fustigate in his famous The-

ory ofthe Leisure Class.

Franklin applauded the news of the French Revolution, though deploring

its

excesses.

He died on April

Philadelphia, surrounded by his books

17,

1790, in his big house in

and the machines he had

vented and constructed. His will created two foundations to artisans of Boston

and Philadelphia.

assist

in-

the

He was eighty-four years old.

When news of his death reached France, the young Comte de Mirabeau gave his funeral oration at the National Assembly and saw to it

that a vote passed for three days of national mourning. In a

work

published in French in Washington in 1927, Gabriel Chinard collected

all

the speeches and descriptions published of the ceremonies

performed in Franklin’s honor by a unanimous France (including future victims of the Terror such as Vicq d’Azyr, Marie-Antoinette’s

doctor,

the

and future advocates of the guillotine such

first

as Robespierre):

version of those revolutionary pantheonizations of which

Jean-Claude Bonnet has

lately

become the

enthusiastic historian.

Franklin spoke and wrote an estimable French. the letter that he wrote to

Mme

I

1

reproduce here

Helvetius after her refusal of his

proposal of marriage and that he himself printed on the embassy presses in an telles

amusing collection of his

de Passy, as well

as

gallantries entitled

an exchange of letters between

Les Baga-

Mme Brillon

and himself, reproduced from the manuscript of the American osophical Society.

Phil-

2

From Benjamin Franklin to Mme Helvetius (printed in Les Bagatelles and not dated) Desolated by your barbaric resolution, pronounced so positively yester-

day evening,

1.

z.

to

remain alone

all

your

life

in

honor of your dear

Naissance du Pantheon (Fayard, 1998). The Papers ofBenjamin Franklin,

\o\. z8 (Yale

University Press, 1990), pp. 464-465.

— 4 o8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

husband, I withdrew

my residence, flung myselfon my bed,

to

andfound myselfin

ing myselfa dead man,

suppos-

the Elysian Fields.

me

I was asked if I desired to see any particular personages. Bring

among the philosophers.

— There are two ofthem who reside nearby in

garden, they are fine neighbors

this

and close friends of each

Who are they ?— Socrates and Helvetius. — I esteem them me

giously; but let

see

other

.

both prodi-

Helvetius first of all, for I understand a

little

He received me with great courtesy, he said, for some time. He asked me

French and not one word of Greek.

having known

many

a great

her.

to be

questions about the war,

and about

exceedingly,

— Ah! said

he,

another

and

it is

you make me

mustforget such a thing first years,

the present state of

— Then you do

in France.

informed about your dearfriend Mme Helvetius; yet she

you

loves

still

reputation,

of liberty, and of the government

religion,

not seek

me by

only

recall

in order to be

an hour

since

T was with

my former felicity. — Yet

happy

here.

one

For several of the

I thought only of her. Finally Ifound consolation. I took

wife.

One as like her as I couldfind. She is not,

much good sense, a

gether so beautiful, but she has as

it is true, alto-

little

more

wit,

me greatly. Her continual study is to please me; and at this very moment she has gone to find me the best nectar and the best ambrosia with which to regale me this evening; stay with me and you and she

loves

shall see her.

— I perceive, said

I,

that yourformer companion

is

more

faithful than you: for she has been offered several good matches, all of

which she has refused. I confess that I myselfhave loved her madly; but she was severe in

you.

—T pity you, said

and lovely

R

my

creature,

and the Abbe

for she has not

AbbeM

lost

regard,

and

he, for your

and lovable

M

still

rejected

me

absolutely,

for love of

misfortune; for truly, she

indeed.

But

are not the

with her on occasion ?

a single one ofyourfriends.

is

a good

Abbe de

— Yes

certainly,

— Tfyou had lured the

(by giving him a cafe a la creme) to speak in your behalf,

perhaps you would have succeeded; for he reasons as subtly as Scotus or

St.

Thomas; he places

his

Duns

arguments in such good order that

they become almost irresistible; or else by presenting the

R

la

Abbe de

la

with somefine edition ofan old classical author, you might have

persuaded him

to

speak against you,

and

that might have succeeded

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

•

409

even better:for I have always noticed that whenever he counsels some,

thing, she

shows a very strong tendency

words there entered the new recognized in her to her,

do the

to

opposite.

—At these

Mme Helvetius with the nectar: at once I

Mme Franklin, my old American friend. Iprotested

yet she said to me, quite coldly: I have been a good wife to youfor

andfour months, almost halfa century; content yourHere, I haveformed a new relationship that will lastfor

forty-nine years selfwith that. eternity.

Vexed by

this rejection

by

my Eurydice,

I immediately resolved

to

quit these ungrateful shades, to return to this good world, to see the sun once more,

and you yourself. Here I am!

Let us take our revenge!

From Madame Brillon to Benjamin Franklin May 11, 1779 You are quite

right,

my

dear Papa, we must envision true happiness

only in the peace ofour souls; acter ofthose with

it is

whom we live,

not in our power to change the char-

nor to prevent the course ofthe vexa-

tions that surround us; these are the his daughter, excessively sensitive

words ofa sage who seeks to console

about teaching her the truth;

Papa, I beg your friendship, your healthy philosophy, you,

and submits; give me

the strength that

is

’s

concede thatfor

a dreadful evil; how hard it isfora

woman who would unhesitatingly give husband

heart hears

take the place ofan

my friend,

indifference your child can neverfeel; but

one who knows love, ingratitude

may

my

O my

her

life

in order to assure her

happiness, to see herselfstripped of the fruit ofher concerns

and her desires by subterfuge and duplicity

— time will mend

Papa has said, and I believe him; but has not my Papa time is the substance ofwhich

life is

made? 3

Well,

all,

as

my

also said that

my life, myfriend-,

is

made ofafabric sofine and light that grieflacerates it cruelly. IfI were

3.

An

echo from Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (1748): “Dost thou love

then do not squander time; for that’s the stufflife

is

made

of”

(III, 64).

life?

l

4 io

to

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

have reason

blame

to

myself, I should have ceased existing long ago

My soul is pure, simple, frank, I dare say as much to my Papa, claim that soul duct,

worthy of him; and I dare assure hi?n that

is

which he has declared to be

I dare

my con-

wise, shall not belie itself, that I shall

await justice with patience, that I shall follow the counsels of my

re-

y

spectable friend with dignity

and trust—farewell, my

well-beloved

Papa, never call me anything but your daughter: yesterday you called

me madame and my heart sank, I searched my soul to find some way I may have wronged ofwhich you were reluctant to tell me—forgive me, my friend, this is nothing I blame you for, it is a weakness of mine, I was born much too sensitivefor my own happiness andfor that of my friends; cure me and pity me, ifyou can do the one and the other as Tomorrow

well.

not? Believe me,

by

my husband,

I assure you

it is

Wednesday, you will be coming for

is

tea, will you

my Papa, the delight I take in receiving you is shared my children, myfriends, I have no doubt about it and the truth.

From Benjamin Franklin to Mme Brillon (the next day) You

tell

me,

my

dear girl, that your heart

from your letters, that this

is

too sensitive. I can cer-

all too true. To be truly sensi-

tainly

tell,

tive to

our own faults, that is good; but to be truly sensitive and pained

by the faults of others, that tive to such things, ted.

We

ourselves

and to

not. It is their responsibility to be sensi-

be pained by the wrongs they

must remain at peace, which

innocence and virtue.

That is true

is

is

Butyou say that

is

had commit-

the fair share of

“ ingratitude is

a dreadful evil.

”

— ofingrates — but not oftheir benefactors. You have con-

ferred benefits on those you believed worthy ofthem. So you have done

your duty, for it with that,

is

our duty

and happy in

ingrates, that

is

and you must be content

the consciousness ofhaving done so. Ifthey are

and not yours; and it is

their crime

unhappy when they regard. Ifthey

to be beneficent;

reflect

they

who

will be

on the turpitude of their conduct in your

do you harm,

reflect

that though they

may have previ-

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

•

411

ously been your equals, they have, by their behavior, placed themselves

beneath you. Ifyou revenge yourself by punishing them properly, you

them

will restore

to the state

ofequality they had lost. But ifyouforgive

them, without administering some punishment, you will perpetuate in

them that low

state to

which they hadfallen andfrom which they

can never emerge without true repentance low, then,

my

you have so

very dear

and

true reparation. Fol-

andforever lovable girl,

the good resolution

wisely taken to continue to fulfill allyour duties, as a good

mother, a good wife, a goodfriend, a good neighbor, a good Christian,

(without forgetting to be a good daughter to your Papa)

etc.

overlook

now.

and

to forget, ifpossible, the

And rest assured that in

harm

that

may

and

to

be done to you

ofyour conduct will

time, the rectitude

win over the hearts and minds ofeven the wickedest persons; and even

more

those

who

are basically good-natured

though for the present perhaps they are a others. Thus, all

and who show good sense,

little

misled by the wiles of

of them will ask ofyou with compunction the return

ofyourfriendship, and they will becomefor thefuture your most zealousfriends.

I am aware that I have perpetrated here a this

may

purity

distress

and

expressions,

you,

elegance

.

who

But

lot

of very bad French;

write that charming language with such

ifyou can

gauche and incorrect as

my obscure they probably are, you may have manage

to

decipher

at least that sort ofpleasure one has in explaining riddles or in discovering secrets.

A

United States Ambassador

to the

Rescue of

Louis XVI: Gouverneur Morris

In

the abundant literature

on the French Revolution,

one frequently finds cited the testimony of one Gouverneur Morris,

whom

1

the learned authors provide remarkably

little

information, either because such details appear to afford

little

concerning

of interest or because certain incongruities had better remain

unexamined.

who must

This faceless witness,

be cited even

so,

then passes in

many readers’ eyes for the “governor” of some state of the American federation who must have retired to France at the worst possible moment. Jean-Jacques

Fiechter’s

excellent biography

somewhat ahead of the French Revolution’s

filled,

real lacuna. Fiechter instructs us that

given

name has nothing to do with

had never origin,

held.

whose

He was

1

therefore

bicentennial, a

Gouverneur Morris’s French

the

title

born in 1752 to

a

of “governor,” which he

Morris family of English

New York, on an estate baptized Mor-

installation in

rissania (today reduced to a

charming museum

in

Harlem) dates

back to the seventeenth century: the family had avoided Charles

II’s

Restoration and the repression against Cromwell’s partisans that followed. His mother, Sarah Gouverneur, sole daughter of Hugue-

nots escaping the Revocation of 1685, had given that was that of her ate

1.

1.

somewhat

own

longer.

It

family,

was

him

a first

which she thus sought

also she

who

name

to perpetu-

chose, in order to provide

1751-1816.

Un Diplomate americain sous la

Terreur: Les annees europeennes de Gouverneur

Morris, 1789-1798 { Paris: Fayard, 1983).

411

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE

him an

•

413

excellent classical (and French) education, the Calvinist

Academy of New

Rochelle, created

on the model of the Academie

de Saumur by a colony of Protestants fleeing the persecutions of

Louis XIV.

He

brilliantly passed his lawyer’s

examinations

at the

age of twenty. Tall,

a

powerfully built, the young American had regular features,

proud gaze, and

has

left this

One of Washington’s officers

a magnificent voice.

portrait of him:

Mr. Governeur Morris

is

one of those Genius’s in

ery species of talents combine to render flourishing in public debate:

— He

him

whom

ev-

conspicious and

winds through

mazes of rhetoric, and throws around him such

all

the

a glare that he

who

charms, captivates, and leads away the senses of all

hear

him. With an infinite streach of fancy he brings to view things

when he

der

the labor of reasoning easy

all

All these

gifts

is

engaged in deep argumentation, that ren-

and

pleasing.

were eventually to win him the

in Paris, at a period

when male beauty

canon of Polycletus and the Washington, twenty years

Roman

rediscovered for criteria the ideal

with

his senior,

friendship, belonged physically to the

of the orator. George

whom he formed a close

same

neoclassical type, in

perfect agreement with the “colonial” colonnades

Palladian architecture. The sculptor

liveliest successes

Houdon,

and pediments of

in order to complete

successfully the general’s full-length statue, at the

moment

he had

been elected president of the United States in 1789, arranged for

Gouverneur Morris

to pose for

request of Thomas Jefferson,

tween the head of state and

With such

him

in his Parisian studio, at the

who was struck by the resemblance be-

his

young friend.

advantages, Gouverneur Morris, well before seducing

the salon sirens of France, quickly

became

not without scandal, a great lady-killer a

The jealous gods of the Protestant

in his la

own

Kennedy

ethic begrudged

in 1780, escaping a little too rapidly

from

country, and

him

or Clinton. this talent:

a Philadelphia

mansion

414

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH man

where the

of the house had surprised him, Morris

fell

under

the wheels of a carriage and had to have one leg amputated at the knee. His

wooden leg in no way clouded his

in fact rather

ened in the

adding to

streets

agreeable temperament,

his attraction for the ladies. In 1792, threat-

of Paris by a crowd shouting

its

hostile feelings

against the “aristocrat,” Morris emerged from the episode with great

aptitude indeed, brandishing his claiming: “I

In 1775,

wooden

and

leg as a trophy

ex-

won this on the battlefield of American independence!”

making a choice contrary

cer loyal to the British

to that of his brother,

Crown, Morris was

elected to the

York Provincial Congress of the insurgents, then again,

an

first

offi-

New

in 1777, to

the Continental Congress that voted for and led the Revolution.

was

at this

It

point that he became intimate with Washington. After

the victory of 1783, he was

made secretary of the treasury of the pro-

visional government; in these functions he sharpened his experi-

ence of Franco-American economic and financial

realities, in

the questions of the considerable debt contracted by the to the French

monarchy

(it

which

new nation

rose further in 1793 to 16,835,000 livres)

and the American exports of cereals and dried beef (vital

for France

during this entire period) were of great importance. In 1787, elected deputy to the Philadelphia Convention, he was

one of the members,

at age twenty-three,

of the committee ap-

pointed to draw up the Constitution: he played a preponderant part in

it,

entering in his

own

thers for having polished

lifetime the legend of the

and written out

text of both the Bill of Rights

in his

Founding

Fa-

own hand the final

and the Constitution.

In these practical exercises of constitutional law and political philosophy, Morris was on the side of the moderate editors of The Federalist Papers this legislative activity revealed, but also sharp;

ened, his superior gifts of analysis and foresight,

which

justified

Washington’s deep sympathy for him and which found occasion to function on an infinitely more difficult and dangerous terrain in

France and in Europe between 1789 and 1794. This profound political

wisdom

afforded

him

the right to judge

without indulgence the constitutional metaphysic of the intellectu-

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE als

then dominating the Parisian scene. In his diary, one of the

liest

and best-informed accounts we possess of the

Revolution, Morris writes: is

to dine

The Abbe

not yet come in

much

“Go

with

Sieyes

is

Newton

and opinions will form in

politics a

all

that has ever

Madame says that new era,

as that

of

in physics.”

This theoretical and decisive turn of

among Americans on

mind was not unknown

the scene. Gouverneur Morris (anticipating

the severe judgment of Conor Cruise O’Brien in his Affair:

Paris of the

and descants with

here,

been said or sung on that subject before him, and his writings

live-

Madame de Stael, who

on government, despising

self-sufficiency

415

•

Thomas

and

Jefferson

book The Long

the French Revolution

,

1785-1800)

reproaches his predecessor in the American embassy in Paris (and his republican friends in the

United

States) for allowing themselves

to be guided in their analysis of French events

would readily describe eager for equality racist

(O’Brien recalls that Jefferson,

— for France and in theory—was in fact coldly

and pro-slavery

members of

as ideological

by blinkers that we

in his personal behavior).

the Montagne, Morris

would

Of such American

write, before July 14,

1789: “They imagine that everything will proceed

smoothly the further they depart from present

all

the

more

institutions. In their

men insofar as they are necessary to such men exist nowhere, and even less

cabinet they see

their system.

Unfortunately,

in France.”

And on June

19,

1789,

future successor in the

with

all

aiming still more directly at Washington’s

White House, Morris wrote:

the leaders of liberty here,

tinctions of order.

is

“[Jefferson],

desirous of annihilating dis-

How far such views may be right respecting man-

kind in general is, I think, extremely problematical, but with respect

am sure it is wrong and cannot eventuate well.” On June 21, he declares to La Fayette, who does not even understand what his interlocutor means: “I am opposed to the democracy from regard to liberty.” And a little later that year, on November 26, to this nation

I

he writes: “[La Fayette] says he should

America.

I tell

this country,

him

that an

like

two chambers,

as in

American constitution would not do

for

and that two such chambers would not answer where

— 4i6

•

there

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH an hereditary executive; but that every country must have a

is

constitution suited to

circumstances, and the state of France

its

re-

quires a higher toned government than that of England.”

Gouverneur Morris had arrived

in Paris in February 1789 to

head the American economic and financial mission.

He

quickly

found himself at home, introduced into Parisian high society and Versailles

by the many connections he had made

close friend,

as

its

Washington’s

among

the French

to the support of the insurgents.

he struggled under the British yoke, this good reader of

Montesquieu had come with

of Independence,

had flocked

noblesse d’epee that

Even

War

during the

as

at

to

know well both the French aristocracy

weaknesses but also

inherited strength of a civilization

its

of old and refined manners (quite superior in this regard to the harsh British gentry) —and the old French monarchical structure,

it

too a work of art secreted by the ages and fashioned by the nature of a great people: after

all, it

no

less

its

existence. Morris

was

to this ancient

monarchy and

ancient nobility that the United States

would have preferred

owed and

to this

owes

still

that each be allowed to

evolve with a certain prudence, without awakening the barbarous

passions of civil

war and the temptations of despotism. Such

senti-

ments were shared by the most enlightened Founding Fathers, and not only Washington: John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and even Jefferson’s “spiritual son”

William Short, charge 3

interregnum between his “father” and Morris

went so

far as to

demand

(in spite

success) the signature of Louis

d’affaires in the

— this young man

ofJefferson and naturally without

XVI,

already imprisoned in the

Temple, on the bottom of the receipt for a repayment of the Ameri-

can debt contracted by the young republic to the king of France.

One would

have to wait for Edith Wharton,

Henry James (whose work has point by

3.

Mona Ozouf)

Henry Adams, and

recently been reread

to locate

from

among Americans

a

this view-

disabused

The correspondence between the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld and William

Short has recently been rediscovered and published in the collection Le retrouve, edited by

Doina Pasca Harsanyi

(Paris:

Temps

Mercure de France, 2001).

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE complicity with the

human

•

417

success represented by the French

longue duree.

Gouverneur Morris’s Epicurean attitude sense)

toward

had given him

life

a

philosophical

(in the

whiff of brimstone in his

own

country. In Paris, however, in the last days of the douceur de vivre

found

a climate that suited

great business.”

Women

Or

it.

“Indeed,” he writes, “pleasure

again: “Here,

we

are in the

is

,

it

the

country of Woman.

enjoy a virtually limitless power, and seem to take an ex-

treme pleasure in

it,

though

I

tremely comfortable about the

am

not sure that the country

is

ex-

fact.”

Even when the repeated massacres had begun,

filling

him with

horror, the diary’s author finds respite in the contemplation of that

“dream of stone,” and named

Paris.

notes: “I think

presented

and

one of the

silence,

finest views

and the

woods and

The weather has

this

ever

I

river

17, 1791,

he

saw was that which

A

evening from the Pont Royal.

fine

moon-

descending gently through the

various bridges, between lofty houses,

other side the

French history has imagined

light that

The evening of the bloody day July

itself this

dead

shine, a

trees,

all

distant hills.

illuminated

Not

.

.

.

and on the

a breath of air stirring.

day been very hot.”

He has his entree at Mme Necker’s and at Mme de Stael’s, whose cult to her brilliant father he did not share:

“He has

manner of the countinghouse, and, being dressed velvet,

in embroidered

he contrasts strongly with his habilements. His bow, his ad-

dress, etc., say,

ceived,

and

Tam the man.’.

yet this

He makes these

the look and

is

a rash

.

.

If he

is

really a great

man I am de-

”

judgment

friends with the great Malesherbes

(who has become,

same years, the mentor of young Chateaubriand);

March

1790, Morris writes of him:

7,

and so much serenity that

is is

“He has

so

in a letter of

much goodness

impossible not to feel a very sincere

affection for him.”

From stances

the start, this disabused analyst of situations and circum-

is

convinced of two things: on the Continent the “Euro-

pean system” created by the

treaties

of Westphalia

is

ruined, and

France has every means of designing another that will be even more

— 4 i8

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

favorable to her future. But this

monarchy’s structural

crisis

Gouverneur Morris writes

would require

under

and the

a Richelieu,

wavering king (on July

a

i,

1789,

“The sword has slipped out of

to John Jay:

the monarch’s hands without his perceiving a

tittle

of the matter

My private opinion is that the King, to get fairly out of the scrape in which he

finds himself,

would subscribe

to anything”)

and

a politi-

cally crippled aristocracy merely delays this inevitable redistribu-

tion of the cards.

of the

state will

Within the country, the absence of will at the head

make impossible any moderate and reasonable solu-

tions to the regime’s crisis

which France

and will

will emerge, after

create a dramatic situation

many

from

convulsions, only by a mili-

tary dictatorship that will impose order internally

and intervene

in

Europe by means of an empire. Has anyone proved a better prophet?

Gouverneur Morris’s short-term pessimism great heart

from doing everything in

He was partially in val,

power to prevent the worst.

its

agreement with an

will not keep this

“ultra” like

Baron de Besen-

who found the convocation of the States General to be a dispro-

portionately dramatic gesture for a bagatelle like the budget deficit (a

very modest deficit by our

own

standards, 160 million

get total of a half-billion livres). Chateaubriand, in his

will express the

on

a bud-

Memoires

same retrospective bewilderment. Hence the “eco-

nomic attache” of the American embassy proposed

to

Necker an

ingenious financial framework that could allow the anticipated

payment of the

,

re-

federal debt, reduced (according to the interests of

the United States) but capable of relieving the famous deficit that

was one of the origins of the French

political crisis.

Necker refused.

For lack of anything better, Gouverneur Morris made himself the intermediary of massive imports of flour and rice from the

United

States, payable

on the terms of the debt (they later saved the

Revolutionary governments from hunger

riots),

the transatlantic property investments that

many Frenchmen

cluding Talleyrand and the Necker family

without

risks

of disappointments

when

but he also oriented

— chose

to

—

in-

make, not

they were not well advised.

His own funds (which he had greatly improved by the commissions that such contracts assured him) were generously

opened

to hard-

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE pressed French nobles (the

La

the wife of General de

But Morris’s

role in

first

•

419

rank of these would one day include

Fayette).

French

affairs

soon exceeded the limits of his

mission. Fie was too astute in political analysis not to be tempted to

intervene in a chess

game

being played before his

unusual and unpredictable

as

eyes, in the center

as

what was

of the universe, since his

arrival.

Was

man fell in love with one of the most ravishing and talented women of Parisian society, but also it

an accident that this

one most closely linked to Stael)?

ladies’

politics (after,

of course, Germaine de

Adele de Flahaut, wife of the Comte d’Angiviller’s younger

brother, the director of the king’s buildings

apartment in the Louvre, was already the

with

a large

tress

of the bishop of Autun,

who was

son, Charles,

Due

vigorous American’s arms.

and disconcerted,

felt for

for the diable boiteux

de Morny),

Initially,

it is,

and

I

Queen

when

she

Ffortense of fell

into the

Gouverneur Morris, jealous

of old Europe: “He appears to

cannot help

mis-

Talleyrand the aversion of a “noble savage”

conclusions so disadvantageous to so

lover of

cunning, ambitious, and malicious man.

sly,

official

Talleyrand (by whom she had a

M. de

become the

to

Fiolland and father of the

“a

and thereby provided

him

are

he wrote,

be,”

do not know why

I

formed

in

my mind, but

it.”

Mme de Flahaut having ultimately yielded to the newcomer, and the bishop of Autun having to this

accommodated himself quite

gallantly

menage a quatre, Gouverneur Morris, unaccustomed to find-

ing political genius in the French nobility, inevitably soon recognized Talleyrand’s and granted

cannot deny

a

on Adele de Flahaut by consoling

Comte de Narbonne’s

most

the estime that a chess

champion

champion of another category. Since Talleyrand took

a small revenge

the

him

brilliant society

infidelities,

Mme de Stael for

Morris thereby entered the

of Paris, and revealed himself quite compe-

tent to take part, if not in terms of cynicism (for example, Talleyrand,

weary of Louis XVI, lican

left), at least

briefly allying

himself with the extreme repub-

in the exercise of wit.

Though he had no

illusions as to

Louis XVI’s

will, or that

of his

4xo

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

most

loyal minister, the

Comte de Montmorin

(the ill-fated father

of Pauline de Beaumont, the survivor of the Terror whom Chateaubriand would canonize in the Memoires defatigably offered

d 'outre-tomb e), Morris

in-

them his lucid analysis of the situation, enlightened

by the information he was given concerning the projects of the Girondins and the Jacobins.

When

the king

cept the Constitution of 1791, Morris

the king possessed, and

his

mind

to ac-

composed in English, a language

made Mme de Flahaut translate for the queen,

an acceptance speech to the assembly: the secret, and

made up

Mme de Beaumont was in on

Mme de Stael managed to find

it

out.

The speech was

ultimately not retained. Fortunately nothing was ever discovered of this princely counselor’s role played

cretion of this kind

would make possible Gouverneur Morris’s nom-

ination, in January 1792, to the

Washington,

by the American diplomat. Dis-

rank of ambassador plenipotentiary.

who had imposed Morris on Jefferson (now secretary

of state), strongly advised his friend to cultivate prudence

and

reserve.

Nevertheless, perhaps having read the president’s real intentions

between the

lines,

Morris did his best to collaborate with Mont-

morin on the second attempted escape of the

become

royal family,

increasingly unpopular since the start of the

Austria and practically

whom

the

Duke of Brunswick’s

condemned. The conspirators combined

money, for which he accounted in

Vienna

Other escape

in 1796.

or by the queen’s friends cussed.

As

if fascinated

queen were ulace,

still

by

Mme de Stael

Crawfurd and Fersen, were much disaster, the

when

On

the enraged pop-

invaded the palace and compelled them

from

led to the prison of the Temple.

that day the

passion)

dis-

king and the

to take refuge in the lodge of the logographer of the Assembly,

which they were

of

Madame Royale in

projects, conceived

by their imminent

day,

their resources;

a certain fraction

a letter to

in the Tuileries, defenseless,

on the indicated

war against

stupid manifesto had

Gouverneur Morris became the depositary of this

who had

American embassy

became the refuge not only

(rivaling Sweden’s in

of Adele de Flahaut

com-

and her

son but also of numerous other noble families entitled to seek the gratitude of the United States. In his report of August 16 to Jeffer-

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE

421

ambassador paid homage to the king’s dignity in misfor-

son, the

tune; he nonetheless added: “The republicans

march boldly and openly to

•

had the good sense

to

to their object, and, as they took care not

mince matters nor embarrass themselves by legal or constitutional they had the advantage of union, concert, and design

niceties,

against the disjointed

On

members of a body without

September 10 Morris informed

a head.”

bloody

his minister of the

week:

We have had one week of unchecked murders, in which some thousands have perished in this

two and three hundred of the

city. It

clergy,

began with between

who would not take

the

oath prescribed by law. Thence these executors ofspeedyjustice

went to the Abbaye, where the prisoners were confined who

Court on the

were

at

lieve,

the only

10th.

woman

Madame

killed,

de Lamballe was,

I

and she was beheaded and

bedis-

embowelled; the head and entrails paraded on pikes through the street, and the I

body dragged

after

them. They continued,

am told, in the neighborhood of the Temple until the Queen

looked out

at this

horrid spectacle.

Montmorin had suffered an even more savage

torture: covered

blows, then impaled alive, the father of Pauline de

dragged by the

At

made

England, where he

Mme de Stael’s country residence, Juniper Hall. Adele de

Flahaut, to earn in this point entered

Hamburg her upon

livelihood and that of her son, at

a career as a

Morris was the only ambassador Paris.

Beaumont was

mob from the Abbaye prison to the National Assembly.

this point Talleyrand decided to flee to

for

with

He managed to send,

popular novelist. Gouverneur

who

indirectly,

did not abandon his post in

some

aid to the royal family.

His sumptuous embassy (the Hotel Seymour, in the rue de la Planche)

was the

which

last Parisian

several

salon illuminated during the Terror, during

temporary survivors sought

the walls to gain entrance.

The

relief

by creeping along

furniture, silverware,

works of art,

precious books, and vintage wines bought at low prices from the

422

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

royal cellars were conveyed here before being

packed up and sent to

Cherbourg. (At the same time William Beckford did the same shopping, destination Fonthill Abbey.)

Gouverneur Morris planned to

transform Morrissania, his family mansion, into an American mu-

seum of the French art de

vivre

,

on the model of what Jefferson was >

undertaking in Monticello, his splendid Palladian

villa in Virginia.

Morris’s French country house in Sainville, where he spent most

of his time during the Terror, was the refuge of the Comtesse de

Damas, wife of one of his old military companions Independence

produced by

(she

War

in the

bequeathed to her host a splendid portrait,

Fiechter),

and of

several other ladies rescued

ambassador. Ffe could do nothing more for Louis

XVI

of re-

by the

except to

bear witness, in his report to Jefferson, of the deployment of troops

and the

of the public

terrified abstention

execution on the former Place Louis

On October 18,

new

moment of

Washington the

regime, and foresaw the quasi-genocidal

law of 22 Prairial of the year

The present government

II:

is

evidently a despotism both in prin-

and practice. The Convention now consists of only a part

of those who were chosen to frame a constitution. Those, putting under arrest their fellows, claim

will observe that

to send out

and put others

one of the ordinary measures of government

power

to

is

remove

officers

chosen by the people,

in their places. This power, as well as that of im-

prisoning on suspicion,

is

liberally exercised.

ary Tribunal, established here to judge

unbounded scope

among

power, and have

commissions with unlimited authority. They are

invested with

ion

all

after

Committee of Safety. You

delegated the greater part of it to a

gives

the

XV.

1793, he described in a letter to

radicalization of the

ciple

at the

to will.

It is

on general

principles,

an empirical phrase in fash-

the patriots, that terror

Whatever may be the lot of France,

The Revolution-

is

the order of the day

... it

seems evident that she

soon must be governed by a single despot. Whether she will pass to that point through the

medium of a

triumvirate or

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE other small body of men seems as yet undetermined.

most probable that she

hand

will.

I

think

persons

who consider themselves as victims. Nature recoils Committee of Public

Recalled on the insistence of the French

Gouverneur Morris had time, before receiving the

of dismissal from Philadelphia, to witness the

and the beginnings of the Directory.

erre

it

Already the prisons are surcharged with

at

letter

423

A great and awful crisis seems to

be near

Safety,

•

He left

fall

Paris

official

of Robespi-

on October

1794, resuming his diary, which he had prudently interrupted

10,

on August

ing from court to

Hamburg

near

his dear

He lingered another four years in Europe, movcourt. He several times reencountered at Altona,

10, 1793.

(aside

from

Adele de Flahaut,

his last Parisian mistress,

now

a

famous

1793 and engaged since 1796 to a

Count de Souza, who

novelist,

Mme Simon),

widowed

since

young Portuguese diplomat,

actually married Adele only in 1802, so nu-

merous were the former

lovers

who seemed

to

make

their various

rendezvous with the lady in this nest of emigres: Talleyrand, back

from America, Lord Wycombe, Gouverneur

The diary

as well as the private

.

.

and diplomatic correspondence

of Gouverneur Morris has been published, generally in English, but like

most of the Founding Fathers, he spoke and wrote French very

well.

I

limit myself to citing

dressed to the

Comte

two of his

letters in that

language ad-

de Montmorin, Louis XVI’s minister of for-

eign affairs, one in 1790 and the other in 1791, as well as the draft of a note addressed to the king.

Letters of Gouverneur Morris To

the

Comte

de

Montmorin January 26, 1790

The King

is

advised

to

present himself to the Assembly

and

to place

himself (it is said) at the head ofthe Revolution. The metier ofrevolutionary, it seems to me,

is

hardly appropriate for a prince. I did not

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

4 2.4

hesitate to say at the time that this cept.

was an inept and perfidious con-

These are hitterfruits that he has hitherto culledfrom his speeches

to the

Assembly. Inaction

is for

him not only

the surest course hut the

only one not extremely dangerous. That those

who fear

quences of having driven matters to extremes seek

from

events in the

that those

shadow of royal authority

who began

the Revolution

and who,

is

now

to

the conse-

take shelter

clear enough. Again,

in attaining their goal,

see themselves overtaken by their disciples, seek support against the

violence they have provoked,

them desired

surprise me.

all the

it

But that

only natural. That the cleverest among

some years the name of the monarchy

in

more completely of its content does not at

all

to preserve for

order to void

is

the

King should lend himself to

this procedure,

that he should lower his head and run right into the trap being setfor

him! Ah! That is a Then what

is

terrible pity.

to be

done ? Nothing. The Comte dArtois s children

are already well out of the realm, so that the royalfamily entirely in the

is

no longer

hands ofits enemies, who will be inclined to show more

respect to those

who

still

remain here for fear of reprisals from those

who have escaped. Let them do

their worst! In a short time, the whole

social structure will be brought

down, and the very persons who have

poured insult on the crowned heads and

instilled bitterness in their

hearts will in their turn experience the very evils they have occasioned.

War

will

enemy

come at the moment the general weakening will grant the

their certain prey. It will

on a new footing. Finance, in tages. It is

come

to purge the State

and set things

skillful hands, will gain certain

not the means that France

lacks, or the talent to

advanemploy

them; but it must not be supposed that it will be possible to restore matters to theirformer condition.

stitution that will assure

No, France must henceforth have a con-

its people

all the liberty of which it

is

or there will surely be a terrible tyranny. Such a circumstance

capable, is

not at

all within the powers

ofa wise and sensitive king. Therefore the latter

possibility will surely

come

wait for

its

to pass,

and there

will be nothing to do but

advent. Let the people be disgusted by the unprecedented

novelties for ivhich they are so greedy: time changes everything,

henceforth tranquillity will become, in

its

and

turn, the object most ar-

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE dently desired. Then spoils of

men

will

come

before the

King

4z5

•

him

to offer

the

which he has just been stripped, and it will be in his power

to

assure the happiness ofFranceforever.

To

Comte

the

Montmorin

de

May 2$, I desire,

my dear count,

ent state ofaffairs, letter rather

asked:

before I leave, to tell you something ofthe pres-

and I must ask you to take the trouble ofreading this

than occupying a few more moments ofyour time in con-

me

You gave

versation.

a very good response the other day when you

But who are the persons who at this

that question,

it

would keep

populace.

would still be impossible

to

the goodwill of the people

moment are regarded

very

with favor by the people 1 If it were as easy as

sons

it is difficult to

to

draw your attention

to

answer

know how long such peror, to

put

it better,

Iam making no attempt to conceal the difficulty,

But I wish

iygi

something else that

is

of the

as you

see.

very clear.

We know quite well the men, and the women too, who are detested— very unjustly, but heartily

we

and frankly. Now,

shall not choose very well, but

change our

have

to

choices.

When

it

it is

quite possible that

will still be a very

good thing

the newcomers are depopularized,

change again, since by then the opposition will be

associates

ofours rather than

to theformer leaders.

vinced that if the persons you favor

now were

to

we shall

to these

new

Iam strongly con-

to retain their positions

for several months more, the political scene would be restored. Already

we are beginning some remedy for it the leader,

to see that is

anarchy will soon destroy everything if

not soon devised. This remedy

is

the authority of

and since everything depends on public opinion, we require

the time necessary to

I must ask you

make people realize this great truth. Meanwhile

to consider

and

that the Assembly

the departments

have sought the dismissal ofseveral persons; that the disorders inseparably connected to a paper currency 4 will continually affect the lower classes

ofsociety; and that we shall then

see the

struggle between the partisans ofthe old and the

4.

The

assignats,

emergence of a sort of

new regimes, perhaps

promissory notes issued by the revolutionary government.

4 i6

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

between the King

and

the Assembly. For

it

cannot be doubted that

If,

at such a moment, the

court were to find itself surrounded by those

who have drawn upon

each will seek to cast blame on the other.

themselves the quite unjust hatred ofthe populace, the consequences? Especially

from

if,

who is to answerfor

at the same time, France

is

threatened

outside her borders? You are well aware ofthe schemes long since

devised by those I mention,

Duchesne,

and you

will see that the

good Father

whom I have the honor ofmaking known to you,s is already

beginning to indoctrinate his belovedflock. I bidyoufarewell. Ipromise

myself the pleasure ofseeing you tomorrow at your

cafe,

when you

me this and the other little papers that you know. I am, with the sincerest attachment, M. le Comte, your humble

shall return to

servant.

G. Morris

To King Louis XVI Paris,

November 18,

1791

Sire,

It is

a long while since M. de Montmorin

accepted

it

and M. de Segur

only to resign the following day. Circumstances do not yet

permit Your Majesty Your Majesty

is

to fill the

post with the proper person, indeed

experiencing great difficulty in

sional nomination. Such a

bad indeedfor no one

vices

of the constitution.

to be willing to serve

be changed soon, since everyone realizes

publican party knows as

making even a provi-

marked indifference to thefirst places ofthe

realm thereby demonstrates the very

left his post,

is

must be

under it, and it must

how unworkable it is. The

much and sets great store

inevitable impatience. That party

It

re-

by Your Majesty’s

convinced that Your Majesty will

give occasion to his enemies to raise themselves on the monarchy’s

andflatters itself that in the shocks inseparablefrom such utter anarchy the King will remain alone among the wreckage ofhis realm. ruins,

At such a moment,

5. It

Sire,

I dare address myself to Your Majesty. I

appears that Morris helped launch a “false” royalist Father Duchesne to coun-

ter the attacks

of Hebert’s journal and of the Enrages.

A UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE RESCUE

.

427

shall not consider whether his old minister has served well or badly,

had been devoid of talent and zeal, it me that the Kings role is to regard himselfobligated to make

because even supposing that he

seems

to

his gratitude evident to all. Certain unfortunate circumstances oblige

him

to oppose

a representative Assembly.

Now such Assemblies are al-

ways ungrateful, and consequently their members are moved only by a passing sentiment ofenthusiasm. Yet a King,

King,

commands hope, which

is

and especially a grateful

a universal human motive. As

to say

a result ofwhich, everyone will sooner or later abandon the Assembly's causefor the Kings. Thus, even ifgratitude were not a virtue,

always be a royal quality, for

However,

always a great means ofgoverning.

it is

only the greatest prizes that count, for

men and little services are rarely

useful to kings.

By distributing

a host ofsmall gratifications, one dissipates enormous sums host ofingrates.

one

By granting, on

excites the efforts

manages The

must

does notfall to everyone, or on every occasion, to dispense

In a royal lottery,

largesse. little

it

it is

it

is

a

the contrary, great thoughfew rewards,

of all by paying only one

to reconcile the severest

moment

to create

recipient,

and thereby

economy with great magnificence.

approaching, Sire,

when

the factions lacerating

France will engage all their powers. If the emigres remain calm until the Republicans have entirely broken with those

who

desire the conser-

vation of what they call the monarchy, the latter will gradually unite

with the aristocratic party,

and then

law of the stronger. In

union, there will be a question of the royal

authority,

this

and Your Majesty's

who hope to

the Republicans will yield to the

rights will be supported only by those

lam not offering the praise of France. May it be useful to Your

derive advantagefrom them.

of humanity,

sire,

but a picture

Majesty. I desire his happiness

and that of his august Queen with

all

my soul, and it is in accord with that desire that I dare communicate to them my reflections, convinced that they will pardon a perhaps importunate zeal.

,

24

A Queen

-

of England in Partibus: Louise

Maximilienne Caroline von Stolberg-Gedern Countess of Albany

Chateaubriand with

ends his history Les Quatre Stuarts (1828)

this brief funeral oration for James II:

Charles

I

[at

Saint-Germain]

rises

“The tomb of the son of

above our ruins, a melancholy

witness of two revolutions and an extraordinary proof of the contagious fatality attached to the race of the Stuarts.”

Louis XVI, reading Hume’s History ofEngland in the Tuileries

and then

in the prison of the Temple, meditated

divine-right thrones, a fragility

unknown

on the

fragility

of

to his ancestors but first

manifested in the seventeenth century by the destiny of the Stuarts.

The author of the Memoires d’outre-tombe was haunted by the same parallel: the chronological

his

two

displacement that

sons, allies of Louis

made Charles

XIII and Louis XIV,

a

and

I

premonitory

mirror of the French royal family’s future, while revolutionary England offered an inverse image of the France of the Terror.

On

the

other side of the Channel, the monarchy and the aristocracy survived the execution of Charles

while in France sion in 1828

I

and his second

son’s definitive exile,

— Chateaubriand had already reached this conclu-

— not only was a dynasty too intimately associated with

divine right no longer at

home

but the monarchical form

could never again “take” after the execution of Louis

itself

XVI. Had

the

French martyr-king read in 1790 Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in

France ? Historian and statesman that he was, Chateaubri-

and paid

close attention to the contrast the great

drew between English continuity and French young emigre endeavoring and had paid 4x8

a visit to

Whig

essayist

discontinuity.

As

a

to “think the Revolution,” Chateaubri-

Burke in

1797.

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS

429

The Penultimate Stuart His narrative, in Les Quatre Stuarts ends with James ,

1701 at Saint-Germain, “like a saint”

deed the

II’s

death in

(Dangeau dixit). James was

in-

of the dynasty to have actually reigned, however

last

briefly, rather like

Charles

instead, Chateaubriand,

X after Louis XVIII.

In the Memoires

with the same premonitory chronological

displacement, describes the concluding history of the English Restoration

—just

as

he

gives, in his

accounts of journeys to Prague and

to Butschirad, the history of Charles X’s abdication in 1830, the ad-

ventures of the Duchesse de Berry, and the twilight of the exiled

court of the dethroned

last

Bourbon king and

Edward

He

re-

grandsons, “the

Young

(Charles III in partibus), better

known

traces the pathetic existence of James

Pretender,” Charles

his family.

II’s

under the pseudonym the Count of Albany (1720-1788), and the obscurer last

life

of his brother the Cardinal of York (1725-1807): these

two Stuarts never reigned and died without

alist

issue.

The memori-

Chateaubriand also evokes the robust personality of Charles

Edward’s wife,

whom he had met in

Florence in 1803 and

who

sur-

vived her husband by nearly forty years.

Forgotten by French biographers since Saint-Rene Taillandier

and surviving

(1863)

Countess of Albany,

in English

memory thanks

like the Prince

ample of the continuity and the society

de Ligne,

vitality

is

to

Vernon Lee, the

a characteristic ex-

of literary European high

between the Enlightenment and Romanticism, remaining

outside of France, unscathed by the traumatism of the Terror and the emigration, vivors.

Much

which morally crushed

less affected

so

many of their French sur-

than Germaine de

Stael, that

Genevan

bourgeoise (though a Parisienne at heart), by the French drama and its

ideologies, this

cosmopolitan grande dame managed to escape

the “contagious fatality” attached to the Stuarts,

which spread

to

the French dynasty even before 1789. She separated as soon as possible

from Charles Edward, and

right

moment.

The European

circle she

in 1792 she left Paris at just the

gathered around herself in Florence,

430

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

though unable that circle

to rival the

grand occasions of Coppet, with which

was linked, enjoyed

and again under the Empire,

a longer

Paris

life.

During the Revolution

was no longer the “world capital”

of French Europe: a constellation of cosmopolitan salons began to glitter outside less

of France, taking up the slack of Parisian salons with

worldly brilliance but already with the gravity of nineteenth-

(Mme

century Romantic ones. During the Terror, Adele de Flahaut

de Souza) transported her salon to Altona, outside Hamburg. de Stael reconstituted hers father’s in

Juniper Hall, in England, then

her

was one of these delocalized nerve centers of Euro-

civilization.

During the period between the two world wars,

an analogous phenomenon was to be observed: circle in

at

Coppet. The Countess of Albany’s Florentine salon,

starting in 1792,

pean

at

Mme

Luxembourg and

Mme

the Decades of Pontigny in

Mayrisch’s

Burgundy en-

deavored to shield the conversation of the Republic of Letters from the racket of Paris. written,

The history of “European salons” remains

and the Countess of Albany, born

a

German

by marriage queen of England, though Italian a notable place within

Her marriage April

17,

starting

princess

at heart,

life:

it.

to Charles

his

and

would hold

Edward, celebrated

at

Macerata on

1772, occurred long after the great adventure of the

Pretender’s

to be

Young

attempt to regain the crown of his ancestors

from the dynasty’s fatherland, Scotland. This truly heroic

attempt was the inspiring model for the Duchesse de Berry’s 1831 escapade,

which turned into opera buffa. The Pretender’s landing in

Scotland, his initial military successes, and the chivalric loyalties he

aroused have remained the great legend of the ancient kingdom,

immortalized by two of Walter verley

Scott’s

most celebrated

novels,

Wa-

and The Fair Maid ofPerth, whose Restoration Romanticism

worked a certain enchantment. Bonnie Prince Charlie, who counted on the support of Versailles (then rallied the Jacobite

The

war with England), though he

Highlanders and made a foray that threatened

London, gained no support from forces.

at

loyal Scottish knights

sacred at Culloden (April

16,

either French military or naval

were repulsed, scattered, and mas-

1746) by the

Duke of Cumberland’s

A QUEEN OF army, and the Pretender barely

ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS

managed

to escape

431

from one Hebri-

des island to the next, regaining France at Morlaix.

In Paris, another humiliation awaited him two years

later.

By the

XV agreed to expel from his realm

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louis

the heir of the Stuarts and the great-grandson of Henriette of France.

Charles Edward, regarding French hospitality as a family privilege,

own

refused to leave Paris of his

he was arrested in his box

at the

in the direction of Avignon.

returned in secret to Paris; nito to

To

general reprobation,

Opera and expelled manu

It is likely

militari

that he almost immediately

even appears that he ventured incog-

it

London, where neither the Jacobites nor the Hanoverian

police paid

had

free will.

much attention to his presence. The crushed young hero

in effect

become an

inveterate

and prematurely aged drunkard.

In 1776, his father, the Knight of St. George (James

Rome. From

Basel,

III),

died in

where he heard the news, Charles Edward rode

to the papal capital in order to be recognized as king of England

Clement XIII. Tie pope conspicuously ignored

his existence.

by

The

following year, rebuked by his brother the Cardinal of York, he agreed, very

much

against his will, to present his respects to the

Holy Father under the simple

title

of Count of Albany.

The young Princess von Stolberg-Gedern, daughter of Thuringian family of Austrian obedience and sessions,

a great

many Flemish

pos-

was an idea that occurred to the Due de Choiseul.

He wanted the race of the Stuarts to perpetuate itself in order to keep an ace up

Versailles’s sleeve in the great

Anglo-French game.

Louise Maximilienne Caroline was not yet nineteen. Entirely French

by education, this canoness of the Abbaye de Sainte-Vandru was pretty, witty,

and

cultivated,

and

in such a marriage the

Fontevraud of Flanders saw a crown.

On his part,

Hapsburg

Charles Edward

was lured by the pension Choiseul had promised him. The couple

made

a royal entrance into

on the papal resolution not

Rome, which had no

effect

whatsoever

to recognize “Charles III.”

Never had Rome, on the eve of the suppression of the Jesuits, been a

more brilliant European

capital of the arts. Furthermore, Cardinal

de Bernis, the French ambassador, brought there in Choiseul’s wake

43^

•

WHEN THE WORLD

Parisian elegance ties

SPOKE FRENCH

and luxury,

sumptuous

reflections of the

festivi-

of Versailles. Ignored, “Queen” Louise, unable to express her

rank on any occasion, was doomed to abstain from them

As

all.

the

papal jubilee of 1774 approached, the “king” and “queen,” to avoid a cascade of affronts, were obliged to say farewell to

Rome and estab-

Grand Duke Leopold,

like the pope, ig-

lish residence in Florence.

nored them. Charles Edward’s impotent rage found expression only in his private

life:

dead drunk, he cruelly abused his young bride.

The Queen and the Poet Two years previously, a young Piedmontese gentleman, virtually an autodidact but intent on becoming the

new

Petrarch

and the new

Dante, had made Florence his residence to rid himself of what in his autobiography he would

mined

to

call

“French barbarism”: he had deter-

make himself a master of the Tuscan

Europe, unconscious of the

fact,

had already been undermined by

the emergence of a Europe of the nations. tional,” the

language. French

By choosing

to be “na-

Revolution and imperial France between them stripped

away the “universality” of French language and manners, even they claimed to replace

it

by the universality of great

as

civic principles.

Impatience with the Gallic yoke suffered by Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803) corresponded to analogous aspirations manifested in the same period by

Germany, notably in Herder and Hamann,

most apologists of the German

race, language,

Describing in his autobiography his ery,

the Piedmontese poet

first

tives, all in

me no

French,

ward perfection advanced.

I

would write:

year’s

journey

I

had

other books than several Italian narra-

was every day making new progress

which

to-

was already

far

traveling companions, conversation

al-

in this barbarism in

With my

spirit.

journey of Italian discov-

Furthermore, since in departing for a

brought with

and national

fore-

I

ways occurred in French, and in the various Milanese houses

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS frequented with them,

I

it

was

little

if I

mind was never

sort

—

,

child’s play,

for

language save by accident: est

grammatical

ory.

As

rule,

for Italian,

I

I

was arranging in

my

dressed in anything but French tatters;

wrote some wretched

and of the worst

French that we spoke.

also in

Flence this suspicion of certain ideas

433

•

I

it

had

to be in French

had never learned

I

if ever I

encountered even the

had taken no care

knew even

this cursed

less

to

commit it

of that. Thus

I

to

tini-

mem-

gathered

the fruit of the original disaster of being born in an amphibi-

ous country and then of the fine education

It

was only in

1775, disgusted

tragedy, Cleopatra

,

I

received there.

by the mediocrity of his

first

Italian

and even more by the French prose tragedies

stacked under his desk, that he took against “the paltry and unpleasant

tongue” of the Welches (Voltaire’s pejorative

name

for the

un-Roman

origins of the French); he then swore “to spare neither ink nor energy to put myself in a condition to speak

spoken in

Italy,

convinced

that, if once

would not thereafter cost me much In Florence in 1777,

As soon

as

he

set eyes

all

the future

the

common

I

was seeking,

Dante lacked was

— he knew

erything that was rare a treasure,

it

since, far

me

it

a Beatrice.

— blond with

would be

two months that

this

from finding in

she:

was the her, as in

literary glory,

and

instead of a disgust for useful

occupations inevitably diminishing a stimulus,

to speak well,

and compose properly.”

run of women, an obstacle to

in the love she inspired in

found

managed

upon the Countess of Albany

at last realized after

very woman

I

to conceive

black eyes, intelligent, and bookish

Having

my own language as well as it was

my

thoughts, here

I

an encouragement, and an example for evfine,

I

learned to

and henceforth

I

know and to appreciate so

gave myself to her entirely.

A providential encounter. The young Italian aristocrat prefigured Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Vigny, seeking in the writer’s quill

and

laurels a substitute for the

sword and wig of the old-fashioned

434

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH The Countess of Albany,

court-and-battlefield gentleman.

too,

was

seeking a role of substitution. The ardent flame of this handsome red-haired cicisbeo, the sacrifice he

him

nationality (which for years cost fortune),

Maria

made

to her of his

Piedmontese

the income of a third of his

and the many poems and dramas she inspired (notably

Stuart) ran too strongly within the current of her

sires for

own

de-

her to remain insensitive to the Italian poet’s objurgations.

Insulted and abused at home, she grew impatient with her reclusive

himself took

situation. Alfieri

Grand Duke Leopold and

brief from

obtaining the support of

the Cardinal of York in organizing the

from the conjugal domicile, now

countess’s escape to all the world.

steps,

At

a prison familiar

she took refuge in a Florentine convent.

first

Pope Pius VI approved the separation and designated

A a

Roman convent where the countess might find asylum. The scandal was enormous, and the rage of “Charles whelming.

Alfieri

armed horsemen

turned into a bravo, arranging for a group of to protect the countess’s carriage as

Rome. Then he turned back and, months

III” over-

it

left

for

for decency’s sake, waited several

in Florence.

In 1781, on the pretext of a journey to Naples, he again saw the

queen of his heart behind her convent self

from

this

Antoinette,

new

who

now

free her-

Queen Marie-

granted her a generous pension, thereby freeing

bishop of Frascati,

took up residence in his ace,

Rome. To

prison, the countess solicited

her from any financial dependence in-law,

grille in

upon the cardinal her

who

brother-

generally resided there. She

Roman apartments in the Chancellery Pal-

while the touchy Alfieri obtained, after a great deal of bowing

and scraping

for

which he never forgave the Roman

authorization to reside at last in

They were

clergy, curial

Rome.

in the groping process of together inventing the

mantic adulterous couple, developing apart from conventional ety a literary

and

artistic

Rosoci-

sphere inaccessible to scandal. In doing so

they cleared the way for such legendary pairs as Germaine de Stael

and Benjamin Constant, Chateaubriand and Pauline de Beaumont, Chateaubriand and Juliette Recamier, George Sand and Alfred de

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS Musset, Liszt and

Mme

d’Agoult; these became the

new

•

435

Europe’s

ruling couples. Electrified by his visits to the Chancellery Palace, Alfieri’s talent

made

its

definitive ascent,

and the Roman salons

where he read and even staged his new tragedies began to spread the

news that

a genius

to the antique”

had been born

was in

full spate.

The vogue of the “return

to Italy.

The

aristocratic poet’s

dramas were

already being compared to David’s Oath of the Horatii everything ,

in

them exhaling passions of liberty, hatred of tyrants, republican

virtue,

and the

stoic

courage to confront violent death.

All the same, the situation was scabrous. The Cardinal of York,

from

his bishopric in Frascati,

distressed.

in

ended by realizing as much and being

TRe pope informed the poet that he was an undesirable

Rome. In

despair, Alfieri

was obliged

to leave.

But he was hence-

forth a major figure of the Italian Republic of Letters, cherished in

Milan by the old poet

Parini, in

Padua by the famous Cesarotti,

Ossian’s translator. In Florence Alfieri printed a select group of his tragedies. Yet he

come

was gnawed by a certain ennui and decided to

by journeying to England, where he would give himself up

it

to another of his passions, racehorses.

pause

over-

at the

On

the way, he

made

a long

Fountain of Vaucluse, where he invoked Petrarch and

Laura and in imitation of the fourteenth-century poet addressed versified maledictions to Paris, that “sink of iniquity,”

and to the

“nasal jargon” of the French.

Meanwhile the countess enjoyed the III

of Sweden, visiting Italy under the

official solicitude

of Gustav

name of Count de Haga. Not

content with soliciting from Baron de Stael, his ambassador in Paris, a

supplementary pension for Charles Edward from the court

of Versailles, the king took wife.

it

into his head to unite

The Countess of Albany managed

to negotiate a separation in

to convince

husband and

him

instead

good and due form, which he obtained.

Approved by the Cardinal of York, signed by Charles Edward, authorized by the pope, and sweetened for the

Count of Albany by

an augmentation of the pension provided by France, definitively

her

own

this

document

emancipated the countess. She could henceforth rule in

fashion and on her

own

account.

436

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

A Late Season

in Paris

She agreed to meet her lover in Alsace, where they spent an agree-

two months;

able

it

was

a spot

from which

Alfieri could easily

run

over to Kehl to check the proofs of his dramatic poems, printed by

“Beaumarchais’s admirable press,” publisher as well of Voltaire’s

complete works. After this delay for propriety’s sake, they moved on to Paris,

which the countess had no reason

to snub,

and where the

Imprimerie Didot would prepare yet another edition of Alfieri ’s 1787,

and

aced French ancien regime.

We

tragedies.

The year was

it

was the

late

autumn of the men-

must concede

this

grand morga-

natic couple, in addition to the art of evading the faintest

the

demimonde, the further

art

shadow of

of proceeding with a sure instinct

for the apropos, always being present “where the action

is”

and

promptly leaving when things go wrong.

But make no mistake: in Countess of Albany

their long shared adventure,

who had

a firm grip

it

was the

on the helm. She had the

kind of mind analogous to the one that kept Talleyrand unsinkable in an age of revolutions. Like the bishop of Autun, she

owed

to

it

the iron discipline and infallible tact forged in the old courts of Europe.

At Charles Edward’s

same school

as

side, fallen as

he was, she had been to the

Mme de Maintenon or Mme des Ursins. She therefore

never dreamed of marrying Alfieri, which would have cost her a royal title.

Intrepidly she pulled off the tour de force of always being

greeted and treated as a queen, though publicly living in concubinage. She

had assumed the

tradition of the court ofJames II at Saint-

Germain, but unconsciously she was preparing Chateaubriand couple and their In the

first

nest, the

for the Recamier-

Abbaye-aux-Bois.

Parisian residence she shared with her poet at the end

of the rue Montparnasse, almost in the countryside, she had

ranged a sort of throne room,

all

her

silver

ar-

was engraved with the

arms of Great Britain, and her servants were trained to address her

Your Majesty.

as

Mme de Stael always began her letters to the countess

“Dear Majesty.” Never for

a

moment

did the countess lose sight of

Florence where Charles Edward, assisted by an illegitimate daugh-

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS

whom he had transformed into

ter

some dignity

in her

a

arms on January

437

Duchess of Albany, died with

30, 1788. In order to counterbal-

ance this moral rehabilitation, she boldly emerged from the reserve she

had hitherto preserved. Transporting her

royal decor to the rue

de Bourgogne, she took advantage of the great Parisian stage to declare herself the

muse and sovereign of Europe’s greatest living poet,

permitting him to dedicate to her, with a fervor that eternally raised her above any vulgar reproach, the tragedy of Myrrha in the Didot edition: tion,

“You alone

of my poetry and of my inspira-

are the source

my entire life dates from the day when it was united with yours.”

Thus she abandoned

an illusory and narrow-minded

to his fate

king only to create out of whole cloth a prince consort who was also a prince of the spirit.

The French public was well prepared by Rous-

seau’s fictive trio of Julie, Saint-Preux,

this legitimation

and M. de Woimar

to accept

of adultery in the name of poetic fecundity and

spiritual supremacy.

Indeed Parisian high society rushed to accept the queen and her poet. Paris

acknowledged

new

a

salon,

where great lords and high

dignitaries such as Jacques Necker, the

Comte de Montmorin,

Malesherbes, diplomats like the Viennese minister

Comte de Mercy-

Argenteau, the Swedish minister Baron de Stael-Holstein with his

young wife, and even the papal nunzio Monseigneur Dugnani ularly

A splendid revenge: never had the Eng-

dined and conversed.

lish court,

even in the days of Charles

finer linen in

its castles.

Even

convinced of Alfieri’s genius, the Countess of

Albany

reg-

if she

and Henriette, sported

had never been more than

Mme

a sort of

I

de Stael

now

half-

established with

power-to-power friendship that

never altered. Beaumarchais came to the rue de Bourgogne, where the morganatic couple had their second Parisian address, to read La

Mere coupable on February

One

5,

1791.

of her masterstrokes was her brief sojourn in London. As

the “legitimate

widowed queen,”

“usurping” royal couple George

throned

it

in the royal

box

at the

Parliament. Horace Walpole

she was officially received by the III

and Queen Charlotte; she

opera and on the ladies bench in

commented on

this

enormous

practical

438

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

joke: “It

is

the great reversal of our day.” In the diary she kept during

this stay, the countess erty,”

marveled

like

Montesquieu

at

“English

lib-

but she considered English manners the least polite in Eu-

rope. She felt

no

desire,

satisfied, to linger in

with extraordinary

once her

whim and

London. Her

brilliance:

her curiosity had been

upon her

salon,

return, shone

David, Marie-Joseph and Andre

Chenier, the famous Hellenist and traveler Ansse de Villoison, the antiquaries d’Hancarville

and Seroux d Agincourt, and Alexandre

and Josephine de Beauharnais augmented the number of her habitues. Alfieri could scarcely

than

this

dream of

a literary agent

more

effective

new Beatrice. Yet the poet’s biases against the French were

not diminished, quite the contrary: political revolution, in which

he had thought cratic poetics

at first to

of

recognize the shift to action of his aristo-

liberty, increasingly revolted

liberty of Miltiades

and Cato, he saw the most jealous and ferocious

of tyrannies being established before his

with Burke,

him. Instead of the

who wrote

eyes.

He

entirely agreed

eloquently in 1790:

In such a popular persecution, individual sufferers are in a

much more

deplorable condition than in any other.

cruel prince, they have the

Under

balmy compassion of mankind

a

to

assuage the smart of their wounds; they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those

who

are subjected to

wrong under mul-

titudes are deprived of all external consolation.

They seem

deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their

whole

species.

Along with Andre Chenier and Friedrich

Schiller, this fierce “re-

publican” passionately supported the cause of Louis XVI, for whom

he composed an Apologie du

roi.

In private he no longer called the

Revolution anything but questa tragica farsa.

The bloody

riot

of August 10 persuaded him to decamp, and the

countess offered no objection. This tragedy was not theirs.

On

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS August

18

they set out, duly armed with passports delivered by the

section of their quartier. let

439

them pass, but the

At

the

White

barrier, the national

guards

and halted them with

sans-culottes were alert

shouts of “Death to the aristocrats!” “Aristos to the Hotel de Ville!”

“The rich are leaving Paris with their money so the poor can starve!”

The mob fieri,

swelled, threatening to set the

fortified

Al-

by his up-to-date passports and arguing from his

sta-

contended so

to the rescue, opposition

days

later,

carriages

effectively that the national

was

silenced,

ted to drive out onto the high road.

Two

on

fire.

tus as a foreigner,

came

two

guard

and they were permit-

They had escaped

just in time.

an arrest warrant for the countess would be pasted

on her domicile, she had been added the normal course of events

to the

list

of emigres, and in

would have ended hanging from

a

streetlamp in front of the Hotel de Ville.

After these violent emotions, the Italian poet, already

ill

dis-

posed, conceived an incoercible hatred against France. In 1804, his

Oeuvres completes, published under the direction of the Countess of

Albany, would contain a collection of verse and prose entitled IlMisogallo,

republished in

London

in 1814 but never translated into

French. These xenias had been written in the heat of Alfieri’s arrival in Flanders,

where the couple found

their first refuge.

Twilight of an Ideal Couple By November 1792 they had returned ess

to Florence. There the count-

recovered the respect due her rank, and in her Palazzo Giantigli-

azzi

on the Arno, equipped

in

1794 with a theater for performances

of Alfieri’s tragedies, she resumed her role to the world of arts, letters,

as

Maecenas and hostess

and diplomacy. But the poet’s querulous

humor, ravaged by taedium

vitae, limited the

new

ascent of the

countess’s worldly vocation. In 1799 they were obliged to to the hills of Florence in order to

vasion,

remain apart from the French

which Alfieri viewed with horror and

of Bonaparte’s

officers

withdraw in-

rage. Yet the gallantry

toward the countess and the connections she

440

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

had recently formed with Josephine managed

them from

to save

any damage.

By now the

official

grand amour, which

Alfieri’s writings

had

never ceased to exalt to the point of incandescence, was nothing but

Yeux d’Elsa for Aragon and

a social fiction as cold as that of Les

Triolet or the Windsors’ son.

glamour

for

Edward VIII and Mrs. Simp-

Romantic passion, aimed against the conventions,

comes

convention

a

Vittorio

first

itself,

frequently one

more

rigid

suffered these constraints internally

just as in Paris

he had suffered the no

less

than marriage.

and

numerous

in silence,

disappointing political

experience of liberty’s mutation to license and to terror. in

in time be-

He engaged

brief and costly liaisons. Yet in his autobiography the

idolatry of his

queen and muse always remained

burrowed ever deeper into

at

high pitch.

He

his laborious translations of ancient

poems. Little

by little, a young plebeian painter, French into the bargain,

a product of David’s studio

and of the Academie de France in Rome,

Fran^ois-Xavier Fabre (1766-1837), intimacy.

He had begun

in 1793

made

and the poet

well kept.

together.

The

way

into the couple’s

by giving the “Queen of England”

drawing lessons and subsequently made ess

his

secrets

a first portrait

of this

life

a

of the count-

trois

have been

The correspondence between the new Petrarch and

his

Laura was destroyed by Fabre during the countess’s lifetime and

at

her request. The formal executor of Fabre ’s will, a Jansenist, saw to it

that

none of his papers survived.

When Alfieri died on October 7, 1803, his “incomparable friend” had not

left

her poet’s bedside for a moment. She had lost Marie-

Antoinette’s pension, but became the sole heiress of a Piedmontese

fortune that her lover had recovered in

and the

tearful letters that

its

entirety.

A widow’s grief,

made her a familiar presence throughout

Europe, were worthy of the legend of Dante and Beatrice, of Petrarch

and Laura, which the couple had reinvented

together.

A

marble tombstone, the work of Canova, on which was engraved a Latin epitaph composed by Alfieri, eternally associated the great poet’s

name with

that of Aloysia e Stolbergis comitissa Albaniae. ,

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS This

monument was

inaugurated with great

Croce, the Westminster

Some months

pomp

,

i

in 1810 at Santa

Abbey of Florence.

after the official

period of mourning, Fran^ois-

Xavier Fabre had taken up residence near the countess a casa di torio Alfieri

44

on the Lungarno.

He presided,

artist to artist,

Vit-

over the

conception and completion of Canova’s severe sepulchral monu-

ment

to the poet’s

cal perfection

1804.

He

memory.

He also superintended the

typographi-

of Alfieri ’s Oeuvres completes which appeared in ,

even borrowed the subject of a grand tableau d’histoire

from one of

Alfieri’s tragedies.

Chateaubriand,

have discovered the whole truth of the

trio’s

who

claimed to

relationships in 1803,

during Alfreds obsequies, nastily commented on the poet’s Muse: “This lady, thick-waisted and quite expressionless as to countenance,

made rather a common impression. ings were to

Alfieri,

It

grieves

me that this heart, fortified and sustained

should have required further sustentation.”

A European Salon It

women in Rubens’s paint-

grow old, they would resemble the Countess of Albany

when I met her. by

If the

in

Florence

was then, nonetheless, that her great season

as the hostess

of Europe,

long constricted by Alfieri’s growing unsociability, could really flourish in Florence. All the

new books published in France and Germany

were read and discussed in the Palazzo Giantigliazzi. All foreigners of distinction passing through Italy aspired to be received there.

The Countess of Albany was too much to relish the ardent eloquence deployed

a figure

of the old courts

by Mme de Stael against the

Terror and the Empire. Such civic passion was too redolent, for her,

of the France of 1789.

On good terms with Josephine,

friendly with Elisa Bacciochi, the emperor’s older

she was also

sister,

since 1808

the Duchess of Tuscany. But in her heart of hearts, and for quite

other reasons than the chatelaine of Coppet, she was even more

ir-

reconcilable with the Empire.

Her

Florentine salon was therefore not, like Coppet, a center of

44i

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH thought and political resistance, but in her correspondence with

liberal

Mme de Stael’s guests, who were sometimes her own, like Sismondi and Bonstetten, she kept herself professionally informed of all that was said and read

in her friend’s establishment. This sufficed to con-

cern the imperial police: the anti-French ghost of Alfieri might raise a suspicion that the countess’s house

had become

a symbol, if not a ral-

lying point, for an Italy rebellious to Napoleon’s plans. In

the Countess of Albany received orders to

She

left

He

requested her, not without irony, “to satisfy her

taste for the fine arts” in the

deracinated

and had forced her

He

French

capital,

without further trou-

own plans for the integration of Tuscany with the Empire.

bling his

pet.

move to Paris by autumn.

accompanied by Fabre. The emperor received her during

an audience.

He had

Mme

to

de Stael from Paris, which she adored,

occupy a residence under surveillance

at

Cop-

deracinated the Countess of Albany from Florence where

she ruled at her ease and confined her in Paris, for lost all taste in 1792.

and

May 1809

which she had

Fabre of course could reconnect with David

his old studio buddies. After a year, the countess fortunately

received authorization to return to Florence. All things considered,

she was not a threat in the eyes of the police.

In

Mme

1815,

Albertine to the countess.

It is

an essential the

de Stael, in Pisa for the wedding of her daughter

Due

easy

many letters with the behind the mundane graces,

de Broglie, exchanged

enough

to glimpse,

political divergence:

Hundred Days, but one

both

women desired the

failure

feared an antiliberal reaction

other hardly concealed that she desired exactly that.

of

and the

Mme de Stael

reached the point, the following year, of cruelly writing to the countess: “In this period of legitimacy, couldn’t you

of England

all

become queen

over again?”

The countess concealed her sentiments well enough that

widow of the

“republican” Alfieri but also the

widow of a

she could obtain the confidences of Italian liberals. to her ple

was

to

as the

Stuart,

What mattered

remain in the movement and to attract to herself peo-

who counted. A virtuoso of conversation a lafran^aise, she could

not afford to flaunt convictions in any vulgar fashion. Hence the

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS fine flower

•

443

of liberal Europe, Adele de Souza, the elder Bertin (the

and Ugo

friend of Chateaubriand) Paul-Louis Courier, Lamartine,

among her

Foscolo could be numbered

guests

and correspondents.

But the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duchess of Hamilton, Cardinal Consalvi, ambassadors, ambassadorial secretaries, indeed the fine flower

of the Europe of the Holy Alliance were equally pleased

to appear with the countess

and indeed

at

her home.

Fabre was of plebeian birth, but the countess, the social future of the arts,

had not chosen

a

who had understood

mediocre

der to exercise at his side the function of royal muse.

Grand

Prix de

Rome

in 1787, this pupil of

artist in or-

Winner of the

David was regarded by

the master as the most gifted of his disciples after Drouais. Stendhal

judged too quickly,

as

he frequently did,

ing Montpellier: “Monsieur Fabre

not to

make them.” Fabre

when he wrote,

knew how

to

buy

after visit-

pictures, but

excelled in portrait, landscape,

and

his-

tory painting. Deprived of (or delivered from) Parisian competition,

he painted

results. ail

relatively little, at intervals,

but often with happy

Like David exiled in Brussels, he adapted nicely in Florence,

things being equal, to an infrequent or visiting clientele.

Holding

political views contrary to David’s,

ents to live with

him

in 1798,

and his liaison with the

eternal emigre prolonged his

has

left

he brought his par-

own

illustrious

emigration. Paul-Louis Courier

us incontestable testimony in favor of the countess’s wit

that of her consort in a brief

and

and sparkling dialogue

entitled

and

Con-

versation chez la Comtesse d’Albany reporting three-way discussions ,

at

Naples in

1812. It fell to

Fran^ois-Xavier Fabre,

polized this “conversation,” to establish

who rather mono-

— not without a polemical

point against Napoleonic France and an indirect

homage

— the superiority of

heroism, and the

fecundity of the

arts

and

letters to military

wisdom of the

ancients to the restless

to Alfieri

mind of the

moderns.

The countess died

in January 1824, leaving Fabre her sole heir.

took the time to have erected for

her,

according to his

He

own design,

a

marble cenotaph in Santa Croce near Alfieri ’s tomb. That same year Fabre returned to Montpellier, the town of his birth, which after his

444

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

death and according to his will

made of his

to contain the pictures by Renaissance

stately

home

a

museum

and seventeenth-century

masters that he had collected in the mansion on the Lungarno, as well as the countess’s abundant epistolary archives and the contents

of his

own

had given

studio. In exchange for these considerable exports, he

Alfieri’s

To give some style,

here

ment on

is

a

manuscripts to the Biblioteca Laurentiana.

idea of the Countess of Albany’s wit

and animated

fragment of her London diary and a penetrating judg-

Mme de Stael’s love-hate relationship with the Revolution

and the Terror.

Specimens of the Countess of Albany’s Prose Notes on England

(1791)

I spent aboutfour months in England, three ofthem in London. I had

imagined

this city quite differently.

Though I knew that the English

were melancholy, I could not conceive that a stay in their capital would be as sad as Ifound it to

be.

No sort ofsociety, a great many crowds

Since they spend nine months ofthe year en famille with veryfew persons, they choose,

call flurry. ing,

when

in the capital, to indulge themselves in

Consequently the

what they

women never stay home. The entire morn-

which begins at two in the afternoon (for they

going to bed atfour in the morning), nading, for the English need,

is

spent

rise

only at noon,

making calls and prome-

and the climate necessitates, a great deal

ofmovement. Coal smoke and the continual absence ofsunshine, heavy eating and drinking oblige people to shake themselves up a this exercise does

in

lot; yet all

not save them from attacks ofgout, which keeps them

bedfor months and sometimesforyears, for many people are crippled

by this disease, which I attribute in large part to their intemperance.

All the provincial towns are preferable

to

ancholy and less smoke-ridden; the houses are costs

a good deal of money, the windows,

too,

London, being less melbetter, too.

As everything

are taxed; consequently

one has but two or three on the street, which renders the houses cramped

A QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS and

uncomfortable;

and since property

built straight up, story

and

this

upon

an inappreciable

story.

one,

is

is

445

•

extremely dear, bouses are

The one luxury England

enjoys,

Their govern-

political liberty

ment being a mixture of aristocracy and democracy and monarchy, this latter element,

is

powerful enough

ruin the country, for though the prime minister

ity in the

Chamber, if he seeks

to the nation, his friends

keep

may have a

major-

undertake some enterprise harmful

to

abandon him,

war with

as occurred in the

much government as is necessary,

Russia. The people have only as is,

to

machine running without the help ofthe other two, yet not enough

the to

though quite limited,

of which they are capable, and though

that

often claimed that the

it is

government is bought at elections, the offices invariablyfall to persons

who would not cause,

willingly dishonor themselves by supporting a

one harmful to the nation

The aristocracy

is

also

and contrary

to their

apart of the government, for a

own

bad

interests.

certain

number

offamilies compose the House ofLords; but that Cha?nber never flicts

damage, because the House of Commons

of these

ers

lords,

and there

is

not a single

who may not aspire to become a the State should lead there.

dure,

what

and

is

due

to

he has rendered

The populacefeels at liberty, yet

each individual;

it is

accustomed

to this proce-

the English people, while respecting their superiors,

government,

this country, as well as its people,

least in the entire universe:

produce that has no

to

But there is no country where each order is

that they are equal before the law. IfEngland

has

with the broth-

member of the lower house

lord, ifthe services

so pigeonholed into classes as England.

renders

is filled

in-

bad

taste; it is

climate,

poor

had had an

oppressive

would be the soil,

and

know

last

and

consequently

only the virtue of its government that

made this country habitable. The English are a melancholy people,

with no imagination or even wit; all are greedy for money, the domi-

nant English

more or

less

characteristic; there

is

no one who cannot be bought by

of this metal. I attribute

this vice to the

extreme needfelt

in this country where, even with a considerablefortune, one

is yet poor,

a consequence ofthe enormous taxes that must be paid and the dreadful cost ofeven things ofthe mere It seems to

necessity.

me that the good laws ofthis country have accustomed its

446

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

people to justice;

it similarly

seems that the weak are properly protected;

children running in the streets have never anything to fear. The lish love their

Eng-

womenfolk for physical needs, but do not understand

the necessity of living in society with them. They are severe

and

de-

manding husbands, and their wives are generally more obedient than in other countries, because they have

houses keeps

themfrom

receiving at home without the servants

husband being informed. They are mothers, though they love gaming,

given

to dissipation.

There

private society, nor the

more at risk; the arrangement of

is

in general

and the great ladies are excessively

charm ofsuch a is

thing; one lives in the constant

to say

with one’s husband

children, for one grants nothing to one’s father

“ The

less

nor

to one’s

and one’s

mother, at

which I havefrequented.

English are not capable of responding

and still

good wives and good

nothing in London that could be called

company of one’s family, which

least in the class

and the

to

any of the fine

arts,

of executing them; they buy many pictures and under-

stand nothing whatever about them

Observations on

Madame de Stael’s Influence ofthe Passions on

the Happiness ofIndividuals

(1797)

ajumble ofideas pluckedfrom hither andyon, seasoned by

This book

is

a

and

careless

and Nations

obscure style that

times. It is evident that the lady

is

is

the product of the

much taken

bad

of the

by the Revolution, which

absorbs all her thoughts; that sheflatters the powers ofthe

order to return to Paris, absencefrom which

taste

is

moment in

her devouring passion.

In the chapter “On the Love of Glory, ” she describes herfather, for she believes

him

to be the greatest

man

of the age

She

also believes she

knows love, though she knows merely the imagination’s lapses the chapter

“On the

Spirit of Party”

among the plots ofthe Revolution,

1.

Saint-Rene Taillandier,

pp. 112-116.

La

is

interesting,

Only

for having lEed

she knows their every intricacy. This

Comtesse d’Albany

(Paris:

Michel Levy

Freres, 1862),

ENGLAND IN PARTIBUS

A QUEEN OF is

one ofthose books that willfallfrom ones hands,

that are born during the troubles ofthe

Certainly

it is difficult to

express a

like so

447

many others

moment and perish

with them.

more iniquitousjudgment than

How many mistakes, howflagrant the injustices! Can it be that

hers.

the introduction alone has not enlightened the author as to the true

Mme de Stael,

character oj her book

and the

one is inclined to

was afaithful representative ofour genius, when

say,

true mission ofFrance ? “

she eloquently cried in 1796:

‘Shame be upon

me

if in the course of

two dreadful years, during the reign of terror in France, I had been capable ofsuch an endeavor, ifI could have conceived such a plan

garnered such a

result,

involving the horrid mixture ofevery

atrocity ! Generations to

come

will perhaps

human

examine the cause and the

influence ofthese two years; but we, the contemporaries ots

and

ofthe victims immolated during these bloody days

and compatri-

— could we have

sustained the gift ofgeneralizing ideas, of meditating upon abstractions,

ofseparating ourselves even a momentfrom our impressions in

order to analyze them? No, even today reason can scarcely approach this

incommensurable period. To judge these

names one assigns them, ideas, ideasfor

is to force

them back

events, by

whatever

into the order

ofexisting

which there were already expressions. Confronting this

hideous image, the soul’s every agony

is

renewed, one shudders, one

burns, one longs to do battle, one hopes to die; yet thought cannot yet

grasp any ofthese recollections, the sensations to which they give birth

drown any otherfaculty. Hence it is by averting this monstrous epoch, it is

with the help ofother main events ofthe French Revolution

and of

the history of all peoples that I should try to unite impartial observations as to governments,

and ifsuch

reflections

were

to

lead

acknowledgment offirst principles on which the republican tion

ofFrance

the

constitu-

founded, I wonder ivhether, even amid thefrenzies of

is

the spirit ofparty that

of the world,

me to

it

now

lacerate France and, through her, the rest

might be conceivable that the enthusiasm for certain

ideas does not exclude the profound scorn for certain

men, and that

hope for thefuture might be reconciled with the execration ofthe past.

z.

Saint-Rene Taillandier,

La

Comtesse d’Albany, pp. 144-146.

”2

Homme

Charles-Joseph de Ligne: The Last

2$.

d’Esprit

The Prince de Ligne family to which not

modern

the

belongs to that Enlightenment literary

much attention has been paid, so jealously have

heirs of les gens de lettres

and les philosophes secured the

leading roles on our century’s stage for their

family of hommes

one that

set the

Enlightenment. ily’s

own ancestors. Yet this

andfemmes d’esprit too, was precisely the

d’esprit,

tone and the

style, if not

the thinking

itself,

of the

Men of letters and philosophers dreaded that fam-

ascendancy, and competed with

it

by intimidating means

(par-

adox, provocation, scandal, sarcasm) likely to rouse opinion and put the crowd of laughers

on

their side.

The

figure

who

today

is

some-

times called the “media intellectual” appeared in eighteenth-century Paris

and took that century by

Esprit

is

surprise.

not the same as intelligence that plays to the gallery.

an ancient and aristocratic notion. Ingenium by ,

natural gift received at birth. ingenuus,

who

It is

its

etymology,

also a quality of the free

dares to have his sentiment but expresses

it

It is is

a

man, the apropos,

without forcing the tone and taking care not to wound, to humiliate,

or to provoke by vulgar outbursts. This confidential felicity of

lively,

in the

rapid repartee, this sense of the

most

mot juste and

delicate contingency, are social gifts

ingly distributed,

and

their reputation

ketplace. In the sixteenth

is

the right tone

and graces

spar-

not cherished in the mar-

and seventeenth

centuries, Castiglione,

Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, and La Bruyere had been the several Socrates of this aristocracy of esprit that “establishment,” even if nothing keeps

In 1713, 448

is

never identified with an

them from

overlapping.

Anthony Hamilton’s Memoires du Comte de Gramont,

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE which Chamfort would describe nobility,”

had sketched

heroic

on the

time, but always an

Marechal de Richelieu

typical portrait of a

battlefield, boldly

young

in 1787 as the “breviary of our

for the century of the

and the Prince de Ligne the

449

•

young gentleman,

amorous and adventurous

in peace-

homme d’esprit, a cornucopia of diverting remarks,

of piquant characterizations, of sharp and epigrammatic anecdotes. It

follows that the

of his age, the

man

ail

“man of wit” caught by Hamilton in the fine flower

too busy living gaily and dangerously, has nothing of

of letters or the philosopher about him.

in-law, vain

who had

of his clever pen,

the Memoires that the aging

It

was

his brother-

taken the trouble to polish

Gramont could scarcely be bothered to

write but that he had nourished orally on memories of his younger days selected for the diversion of his friends. The young knight of the

Memoires du Comte de Gramont ends by finding a companion worthy of himself in Elizabeth Hamilton, a female equivalent of this male paragon. style

He will marry her.

This book set the tone until 1789 for the

and behavior and conversation appropriate

youth of the French

nobility, a

model

If education, study, reflection, is

for their

European equivalents.

and work can develop ingenium

crucial that such a help be neither

known

nor seen. Esprit

sual improvisation, free of all the stigmata of effort

ant prides himself. lovable ease that

It

male

to the fierce

is

,

it

a ca-

on which the ped-

has everything to do with charm, vivacity, the

becomes

as irresistible in love affairs as in the great

world. Epigram, pun, the quick turn of phrase, the telling characterization, the racy story

— everything that adds

salt to

dialogue and

fire

to life in society enters into the felicity of the oral expression of

the

man

or

woman

of wit. Graces of speech and the social

these talents for the joys of life signify only

among those

ballet,

“wellborn,”

by blood or co-optation. They are inconceivable to the vulgar,

merous among lords and squires moires,

Hamilton

the “smart set” with

greatest

whom

they

come

In the

Me-

of the court of Charles

names of England,

kabilete) invariably has that

persons

among commoners.

assails the dullards

though they bear the

it

as

nu-

as

in contact.

for not divining

Wit

(Pascal calls

profound complicity with the

among commoners that he denies

II,

to the demi-habiles

real

among

450

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

the wellborn. The people have no acquaintance with the dullard’s

vanity and the parvenu’s crude arrogance, possessing a natural com-

mon sense along with a spontaneous appetite for all the various gifts of nature. An homme d’esprit is at home everywhere. Knowing who he

but making no show of

is

it,

he acknowledges the diversity of

conditions, of tastes, of manners without ceasing to evaluate them.

The misfortune that can

afflict

the heart of an

homme d’esprit (and

that eventually impels him, as in the case of Anthony Hamilton, to write) sion.

is

not a reason for him to limit his ingenium and seek compas-

Like the warrior’s valor and the

never slackens. Even

when

lover’s desire, his esprit

de joie

inspired by melancholy (the Prince de

Ligne, belittled by his father, frustrated in the advancement of his military career,

overwhelmed by the death of a beloved son, suffered

many disappointments), the nonliterature of an homme d’esprit resists acknowledging that Rousseauan

self-pity that the survivors

of the

eighteenth century censured in Chateaubriand. Such nonliterature

has the gay naturalness of conversation, which

continues by other

it

And like conversation, it discovers its reward in itself. Nothing is more odious to a man of wit than the label of “professional author,” except perhaps that of the “successful author” who derives a

means.

profit

from what he writes and from

notion of a masterpiece

is

its

eventual

sales.

The

artisanal

profoundly alien to him, for it presupposes

hard labor, which destroys a natural

style

and offends liberty. That the

Prince de Ligne was a European authority in the sphere o £gens d’esprit is

evidenced by the

“What

little I’ve

Comte de

Tilly’s

read to you from

Memoires, dedicated to Ligne:

mg Memoires

in Berlin [in 1805]

seems to have gained your approval; you were indulgent enough to praise

1.

them

so highly that

I

did not hesitate to continue to the end.”

Memoires de Comte Alexandre de

(Paris:

Mercure de France,

de Ligne, to to leave a

Tilly,

edited by Christian Meichior-Bonnet

1986), p. 58. These Memoires are dedicated to the Prince

whom the author writes: “How to explain the impulse that compels us

memento

certain spoils

to ruins

from death,

and wreckage? Might we have an inclination

him

for a time:

to claim

to leave certain traces of ourselves, to propagate the

thoughts contemporaneous with our passage through will survive

1

we

love to

life?

combat nothingness”

We hope (p. 57).

our writings

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE By beheading esprit s public d’esprit, the Revolution toil

of the “successful”

strategies

as well as a

condemned

good number of hommes

the survivors to the sedulous

text, to the histrionic

of the “genius”

who

451

•

and publicity-seeking

must, like Napoleon, proceed from

exploit to exploit, to the forced labors that

must be carried out

in

order to achieve advancement, and for the losers to the sufferings of the crucified. Chateaubriand

survivor

who

is

has broken with the Hamilton model and been com-

pelled to accept the discipline writer, living

young

the archetype of the noble

and histrionism of the professional

by his reputation and by his pen. The Prince de Ligne,

ruined by the French invasion of Flanders, was by then too old to

change his

but was nevertheless compelled, in 1795, to

style,

sell his

writings in a democratic market to a publisher and even, supreme

shame, to write for his

living.

Fouquier-Tinville could not arrange the execution of Charles-Joseph

de Ligne, citizen of French Europe and the archetype of a former tocrat.

The Prince de Ligne had had the wit not

and not ily

to have set foot in France after 1787.

from the Catholic

His very old feudal fam-

him

to be

born

a prince of the

natural capital was Vienna, though he spoke no

He was

and France were

among peers and as in Versailles

Nor self

Empire. His

more German than

French by the language and education

that a former student of the Jesuits of Louis-le-Grand Paris

born French,

Low Countries, of the same rank as the Arem-

bergs or the Croys, caused

Frederick the Great.

to be

aris-

for this

grand seigneur

relations in Berlin as in

—

as

Warsaw,

had given him;

much

at

home

in St. Petersburg

— that second fatherland of every homme d’

esprit.

did the Prince de Ligne have occasion to distinguish him-

and eventually

to die during the Franco-Austrian wars of the

Revolution and the Empire. The higher Viennese bureaucracy variably denied for the

him

a military

command and

regularly preferred,

conduct of absurdly conceived wars, nonentities

whom Du-

mouriez and later Napoleon found an easy target of ridicule. Yet

born

soldier

had given

his

measure

in-

in his youth; he

had

this

brilliantly

45i

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

served Austria during the Seven Years’ War, though Austria never

afterward gave

up

him occasion to deploy his military talents. He made army

for this prematurely interrupted career in the imperial

with insatiable love ated

affairs,

all its specialties,

that other aristocratic sport.

without

He appreci-

bourgeois prejudice. All

clerical or

he excluded from love was marriage, that lineal duty that he mately fulfilled without any

fuss.

ulti-

He was indeed an inconstant and

even absent husband, but the best of fathers.

When in

countered Giacomo Casanova in the

melancholy retreat of

Dux,

in

Bohemia, he formed

Casanova’s L’Histoire de

ma

latter’s

a close friendship. vie

,

Not

1794 he en-

surprisingly,

which Count Waldstein’s old

li-

brarian was then writing as a cheerful recollection of a suddenly

vanishing French Europe, delighted the prince, his colleague in ters

and

De

in regrets.

Ligne enjoyed triumphs other than those of the alcove, par-

ticularly in the art

won him

of conversation, which

the esteem of

connoisseurs and champions as incontestable as Frederick erine

let-

II,

II,

Cath-

Stanislaw Poniatowski, and Germaine de Stael. Senac de

Meilhan has

left

us a portrait of his ingenium in action:

“He

gave

the impression of a poet in the exaltation of his verve, and of a

painter in the heat of composition. His countenance expression, his

embrace

a

had

a noble

manner was somewhat distracted yet fond. He could

man

tenderly yet be at a loss to

remember

his

name, and

frequently would pass by one of his friends without seeing him.”

Correspondence, for an

homme d’esprit,

is

conversation contin-

ued by other means, yet with the same verve, in the same Prince de Ligne was a peerless letter-writer.

on stages de chateau, also sion.

one in

life,

He wore

like

style.

The

A convincing performer

everyone in the eighteenth century, he was

performing the most various

roles in swiff succes-

the most diverse campaign or parade uniforms of

several armies: Austrian, Polish, Russian. Despite such dazzling sociability, this gift field

of ubiquity, and these metamorphoses, lacking a

of authentic action, he ardently engaged in writing, yet with-

out succeeding in producing himself on the stage of the Republic of Letters.

He did, however, visit Ferney to pay his respects to Voltaire

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE

453

•

almanac of eminent European nobility and

in 1763, figuring in the

crowned heads who corresponded with the bered up to Rousseau’s

patriarch.

He

clam-

rue Platriere in 1767. Such ges-

attic in the

tures manifested an appetency for the philosophes, but hardly an allegiance.

Like

wore

all

noble warriors with a taste for writing (Montaigne,

sword

a

in his portraits,

was

first

who

preeminent

to serve as a

model), he wrote profusely as an amateur in genres that themselves

were nonprofessional, and not only tion or that of his friends. lished anonymously,

The Comte de Caylus, who always pub-

and frequently

in collective compilations, left

an impressive quantity of manuscripts, vers de

societe,

chateau travel diaries, maxims, reflections, and ,

part of

them vanished

personal satisfac-

letters, for his

tales,

in the revolutionary torment.

comedies de

but a great

Though two

generations younger, the Prince de Ligne was seized by the same

addiction to private and autobiographical writing and proved to be

no

less

abundant than Caylus.

There

own

is,

indeed, a “literature of

features,

demic

its

own

genres.

The

hommes d ’esprit”

that has

difficulty that history

literary criticism (leaving aside the lesson

and

its

aca-

of Sainte-Beuve)

have persistently encountered in situating the prince’s Memoires

comes

largely

from

their not having taken the true

literature of often very gifted amateurs,

characteristic

is

a frequently

measure of this

whose most misleading

and extensively postponed publication.

The quite recent appearance of the unpublished (and hitherto un-

known) correspondence of the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld with William Short, between 1790 and

1

1838, attests to the fact that the

clandestine manuscripts of the eighteenth century are not always

those of persecuted philosophers.

But used to

as a say,

consequence of writing drop by drop,

as

Jean Paulhan

one acquires the knack, even the metier. Montaigne,

here too, afforded the best of examples.

An

abundant and virtuoso

letter-writer, essayist, moralist, historian, literary critic, poet,

i.

Edited by Doina Pasca Harsanyi

(Paris:

Mercure de France, 1001).

and

454

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

dramaturge, the Prince de Ligne excelled in the same genres but with different arborescences. Even

lus,

Cay-

as

when he determined

to

publish a great part of his production, he failed to create a writer’s personality distinct from his persona of prince of the Empire. So he

remained

a

grand seigneur,

at

once the most independent of men and

the most perfect courtier, which obliged

him not to publish under his

own name, and not to expose himself to the judgment of the wider public. It also doomed him to remain marginal to the Republic of grand seigneur preferred the company of writers to that

Letters. This

of the majority of his peers, yet he did not privilege that company.

With time and

Due

mania, like the called title

litz

disappointments, he developed a secret graphode Saint-Simon. The sequel to his Melanges he

Mes posthumes among which ,

Fragments del’histoire de ma

between 1795 and

we have had critical text

1814.

to wait for the 3

.

The

prince’s

vie

,

figure the

Memoires under the

written in Vienna and at Toep-

Nothing was known of them until Jerome Vercruysse edition

work

in fiction,

1927;

to obtain the

thanks to the efforts of

Roland Mortier and Marcel Couvreur, has begun

to reach the

at-

tention of the learned. His Livres rouges or roses a collection of de,

lightful short stories,

his heirs.

They

are

were for a long time condemned to darkness by

now at last printed

in his Complete Works. 4

'

One

discovers in the Prince de Ligne, nonchalantly sown, seeds that, carefully cultivated,

Proust:

would make the fortune of Chateaubriand and

“Have I spoken on some occasion of the pain one suffers from

recollections?

The dinner

bell

of the chateau here

[at

Toeplitz] has

the same sound as that of the Chateau de Bel-Oeil. This has

on me

the same effect as the cry of the peacocks that are kept in the Prater.”

The same year he began writing his

3.

Fragments de Vhistoire de

ma

vie, vol. I,

— by definition posthumous

edited by Jerome Vercruysse (Paris:

Champion, 2000). 4.

Now extensively published by Professor Roland Mortier and other scholars in a

series that

appeared from 2000 to 2007 (Paris and Geneva: Editions Champion).

The complete Correspondence,

in the

same

series, is a

work

in progress.

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE

455

•

—Memoires, in the deep shadow that the French Revolution had cast mind

over Europe, the Prince de Ligne

made up

anonymously, in Dresden,

publishing house of the Walther

at the

his

to publish, but

brothers, thirty-four successive volumes of Melanges militaires, raires, et

sentimentaire (an

unhappy neologism destined

that other one: sentimental ),

that paid

some of his

1795 to 1811. for

first

his

slept

this chateau along with his gardens

still

and

remains his only famous text (because

printed in his lifetime): Coup d’oeil sur Bel-Oeil.

At the beginning of 1809 he made another cien regime of

hommes

d’esprit

step outside the an-

and penetrated somewhat further

into the professional Republic of Letters.

had delighted in Vienna, published in

Mme de Stael, whom he

Paris,

with

an anthology of his Melanges. This work had a several editions.

The name and

avowed, thus made their belated

and

hand have

in the archives of the family chateau of Bel-Oeil in

kiosks in a short essay that

was the

from

eternal debts. This publication extended

Belgium.The prince described

it

combat

from which he derived some income and

Other numerous manuscripts from

two centuries

to

litte-

title

a preface-portrait, lively success

and

de Ligne, this time clearly

official

entrance into literature,

in the authors lifetime.

Almost simultaneously, Chateaubriand published piece, polished since 1804,

his master-

Les Martyrs, an epic in prose. The book

was lacerated by the Empire’s

official criticism,

and the public

re-

mained

aloof. Lienee

writers,

one loyal to the amateurism of the eighteenth century, the

an ironic

set-to

between the two

aristocrat-

other urgently seeking to adapt himself to the “age of revolutions.”

The Prince de Ligne’s best

friend, according to his

own

statements,

was Alexandre de Laborde, son of Marie -Antoinette’s banker lotined in 1793).

By 1805 Alexandre de Laborde was

(guil-

closely linked

to Chateaubriand, a guest at the family chateau of Mereville. There

Lucien Bonaparte met Antoinette Jouberthon, and Chateaubriand

met and fell in love with Nathalie de his “best beloved.”

“Dear

Francis,” as

Noailles, Laborde’s twin

sister,

Mme de Stael called Chateau-

briand, was moreover on the best of terms with the

Lady of Coppet,

456

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

de Ligne’s publisher and friend. The future author of the Memoires

known de Ligne’s Mes Posthumes, where the prince wrote, “This is a dead man speaking. ’’But he could d’Outre-Tombe could not have

have read in 1828 in the opening pages of Tilly’s Memoires the same preference for adopting a “ghost’s voice” characteristic of the survivors of 1793: “I

would not have

let

the world before having ceased to

myself write

if I

were not dead to

live.” 5

Of course, for the prince and for Tilly, “beyond the grave” meant the pastoral underworld of the Dialogues des morts of Fenelon and Fontenelle, where one perpetuated the conversation between gens

d 'esprit that had given life its

savor. It

had nothing in common with

Milton’s and his admirer and translator Chateaubriand’s biblical

and modern Hell.

While

still

an adolescent, the Prince de Ligne had been appointed

chamberlain to Empress Maria Theresa Marie-Antoinette before she first

left for

at

the Hofburg.

He knew

France. In 1779 he appeared

in the dauphine’s Austrian entourage, then in the queen’s,

controlled by

Ambassador de Mercy-Argenteau. In

biography of the prince, Philip Mancel princess,

who managed

is

his

memorable

not tender to the young

to focus against herself and against

French

royalty the only strong religious sentiment the Enlightenment left

still

had

intact in France: patriotism. This biographer absolves de Ligne,

who shone in the salons of Paris even more than at Versailles and who avoided participation in the intrigues of the seraglio. Counter to

French opinion and the dauphine’s attitude, the prince, III

like

Gustav

of Sweden, had every indulgence for the old Louis XV’s liaison

with the exquisite Comtesse du Barry, and

after the king’s

death paid

several gallant visits to the ex-royal mistress at Louveciennes. In

France, he sought above isters

to obtain

all

support in the various

trials

from the queen and her min-

lingering under Parisian jurisdic-

tion, whose financial stake was vital for this

Based mainly in Vienna

after 1787,

magnificent spendthr

1'

ft.

he demonstrated his political

intelligence of French affairs in 1792, writing to his friend Segur,

5.

Memoires du Comte Alexandre de

Tilly.

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE

who had

rallied to the cause

iron scepter: that

come

slaves, as

is

you

457

of the Revolution, he prophesied: “An

the consequence of such liberty.

deserve.” This

was

You

will be-

also the sentiment of Gouver-

neur Morris, American ambassador to Paris

And Bonaparte,

•

the same period.

at

even appearing under his name, was already on the

vanishing point of revolutionary perspectives in the eyes of the sharpest observers.

As

a

grand seigneur spontaneously

critical

of central authority,

the Prince de Ligne did not sympathize with Joseph

II’s

enlight-

ened despotism. In 1789 he supported the rebellion of Flanders against Viennese centralism. But as an Enlightenment layman free spirit

he took anticlerical positions and,

tated hypocrites

and bigots with

Without causing him

and

like Voltaire, devas-

his epigrams.

to deviate

from

his

fundamentally

liberal

turn of mind, the Terror restored simultaneously his sense of Catholic piety

and of the monarchical ancien regime, both of which had

hitherto been so patent and unshakable facts entirely susceptible to spirited mockery.

renewed gress

When

in 1814, at the age of seventy-four, full of

and hopes, he watched the proceedings of the Con-

faith

of Vienna, which would,

Europe of the

treaties

it

was believed, revive the

of the

spirit

of Westphalia and, by a Eloly Alliance, put an

end to the nightmare parenthesis of the Revolution and the Empire, the

handsome

old

man,

as

witty as ever, was enthralled by the

fire-

works of several imperial and royal courts concentrated in the same metropolis. For

two years

(1814-1815) receptions, balls,

opera performances, and concerts as the

Louis XVI’s and Napoleon’s

Congress does not walk, to

courtier

ing

it,

the artistic as well

diplomatic capital of Europe, substituting

thesis to

owed

made Vienna

it

dances.”

Paris.

comedy and

itself for a

As Ligne

The recent

paren-

said:

literary

“The

fame he

Mme de Stael added to his reputation as an incomparable and diplomat.

He was

the

the grand seigneur had also

man

of the day. Without

become

a

glamorous

realiz-

star in the

modern

sense, spinning in a galaxy of kings, emperors, ministers,

generals,

and beautiful women. Chateaubriand, though he would

claim to have become the leading

man

of the Congress of Verona

458

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

(1822),

became

star only after the fact, in the narrative

its

he pub-

lished himself along with the acts of the congress.

The Prince de Ligne was accustomed to slow rhythms, advances in the relatively limited life.

He

did not long

resist

circles

to gradual

of ancien regime diplomatic

the artificial (strictly speaking, already

media) pressure that Napoleon had imposed upon international

and

relations at Erfurt gress

Tilsit

and that the anti-Napoleonic Con-

of Vienna, that triumph of the French language and indeed of

French Europe, had inherited. Exhausted, the Prince de Ligne died

on December

13, 1815,

fortified

by the sacraments of the church. The

night before, as his wife reported to

inquired after his poor health, he

go to the

devil, they’re the cause

made

of it

Never did the Prince de Ligne’s livelier

than in his

which constitutes

across Russia to the

that

all

the sovereigns

a last thrust: “Tell

had

them

to

all.”

talent for conversation appear

Marquise de Coigny, the

letters to the

a

him

complete reportage on Catherine

Crimea in January 1787

(the

II’s

totality

show

of

trip

“Potemkin villages”

were invented to decorate her progress). The tsarina was accompanied by ambassadors from France (Segur), Austria (Cobenzl), and

England (Fitz-Herbert), and she had invited the Prince de Ligne

accompany them

as her particular friend

and

guest: his wit

to

was to

serve the diplomacy of the Russian autocrat.

On May 18, Joseph II,

De

Ligne made the third

traveling incognito, joined the empress.

party in their discussions. This was the prelude to a Russo-Turkish

war (1787-1792)

which the cosmopolitan prince participated

in

Russian uniform: Catherine

II

had given him an

in a

estate in the re-

gion of Yalta. It

was appropriate that

Mme de Stael published these letters in

her 1809 anthology, completing empress’s minister

Comte

favorite

prince’s portrait of the

Potemkin, taken from a letter to the

de Segur. Germaine had erected a cenotaph to what she had

most loved wished

and

them by the

in the French ancien regime, to

at all costs, like

what she would have

Stendhal, to transplant into the

new grim

regime a I’anglaise of the post-1789 moderns: the charm of hommes [et

femmes)

cl ’esprit.

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE

•

459

Letters from Prince de Ligne To the Marquise de Coigny 6 Barczisarai, June

Arriving in Tauris, I had expected things, true

and false,

soul, to take a

turn

to elevate

my

1,

1787

soul by the great

that have occurred here. It was prepared, that

to the heroic

with Mithridates, to thefabulous with

Iphigenia, to the military with the

Romans,

to the

tender with the

Greeks, to the piratical with the Tartars, to the mercantile with the

Genevans. All such genres are quitefamiliar to me. But here comes one

my troth. They have all vanished behind or before the Thousand and One Nights. I am in the harem of the last Khan of Crimea, who was quite

altogether other than these, by

wrong to have broken

his

camp and abandoned to

four years since, the loveliest country Fate has bestowed upon nas,

the Russians,

some

in all the world.

me the quarters ofthe loveliest ofthe sulta-

anal upon Segur those ofthe chiefblack eunuch. I have not yet seen

him, for I am writingyou atfive in the morning; but I wager that, for reasons the contrary of my own, I)

a dreadful night.

gle wrinkle,

marquise

and out offear, he has spent

(as

have

My cursed imagination is not susceptible to a sin-

it is fresh,

pink,

and plump

as the cheek of madame the

herself.

In our palace (which has a touch of the Moorish, ofthe Arabesque,

ofthe Chinese, and ofthe Turkish) there arefountains, paintings, a great deal ofgilding,

secret gardens,

and inscriptions everywhere, among

others in the extremely entertaining and extremely splendid audience

chamber, in Turkish

letters

ofgold, around the

cornice: “Despite the

Jealous, one learns the world over that in all ofIsfahan, ofDamascus,

ofIstanbul, there

is

Since Cherson,

nothing to befound so rich

we havefound encampments magical by

atic magnificence in the deserts. I

what

6.

age.

When

Lettres et pensees

by R. Trousson

andfair as here.

their Asi-

no longer know where I am, nor in

I suddenly discern mountains

rising,

du Prince de Ligne (from the edition of Mme de

(Paris: Tallandier, 1989).

”

which then

Stael), edited

4 6o

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

march past, I believe

it is

daries, creatures that,

a dream: there are studfarms of drome-

all

when

they stand up on their long

legs,

produce

the effect ofa certain distance. Is this not the very place, I ask myself,

thatfurnished the stable ofthe three kingsfor theirfamous journey to

Bethlehem? I am tain

dreaming, I

young Caucasian princes isfiner

flesh tion

still

and whiter than

ofone or two.

when I encounter

tell myself,

all in silver,

mounted on

When I see them — these princes — armed with bows be in the days ofold (or

know

Cyrus. Their quivers are superb. You

and more piquant, for they are not so steeped in heart,

his thereupon,

Woe

their cure. in truth

whole detachments of Circassians handsome as

when I encounter here

Choiseul girl at the queens

certain

balls,

Murzas

Mme de Lau-

Mme Lebrun

better dressed than the

or certain Cossack

than Mile Bertin 8 and in

those ventured by

gayer

befound almost anywhere.

the day, whose captive waists are even slenderer than

taste in fabric

bears,

the anacreontic.

you disdain such means, which are

and readily to

When I come upon

ofyoung?)

Love

who wouldfind them fiery! For you would despise

quitefamiliar,

zun’s7;

is it

only the one

and God be thanked yourfeatures arefiner than

Marquise of my

whose

that ofall our duchesses, with the excep-

and arrows, I believe myselfto

to those

steeds

cer-

colors

officers

with more

more harmonious than

in her paintings, I

am

seized by

an

astonishment not to be gainsaid.

When, returning from Stare Kim sleep,

to

a palace for a single night’s

I discover there the most interesting thing in half the globe

almost asfar as the Caspian Sea, I suppose that tan’s temptation,

this

is

and

a parody ofSa-

who never showed anything half so

lovely to

him

whom you know. I sawfrom the same coign ofvantage, leaving my bedroom, the Sea

ofAsaph, the Black Sea, the Sea of Zabache, and the Caucasus. The guilty Titan

who was eaten

not stolen as

much fire as you have in your own

7.

eyes

had

and imagination,

Amelie de BoufFers (1751-1794), granddaughter of the Marechale de Luxem-

bourg, married to the 8.

here (eternally, I believe) by a vulture

Due

de Lauzun.

Marie-Antoinette’s milliner.

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE as your silly hunt-the-slipper Abbe d’Espagnac

461

would say. Ifyou were

and ifyou were a storyteller such

here, at Barczisarai, with us;

•

as Di-

narzade, I should not believe you; but instead ofyour letting me

tell,

I

would tell you, dear marquise. For it is still a dream, when,

in a

triumphal chariot set about with

figures in precious stones, seated in the depths ofsuch a carriagefor six passengers, between two persons on whose shoulders the heatfrequently

overwhelms me, I hear, as I wake, one ofmy traveling companions say, “I

have thirty million

subjects, they tell

“And I have twenty-two, ” the other one adds the first, “an army of at

Kamchatka

least six

me, counting only males.” ”

hundred thousand men, from

including the Hook ofthe Caucuses.

to Riga,

ofthat, ” the second replies,

“I

havejust what I need.

Segur will instruct you how much

”

“I require,

replies, “all told.

this

”

“With half

”

comrade has pleased him.

who

en-

Releasedfrom the cares of his empire, he

cre-

Segur, on the other hand, has greatly pleased the emperor,

chants everyone he ates

its felicity

sees.

own

by his

society.

He showed only a

brief instance of

temperament the other day, when he received news of the the

Low

Countries. It was this one or all those

Crimea,

like all the

rebellion

who had land

Murzas and those to whom,

like

me and,

the Order

would be

seizing

who has

me

kissed

better, ” I told

in the

me, the empress

has given land, who have sworn an oath of loyalty to him.

toward

of

He came

by the forelock, said, “You are the first of

hands with the long-bearded

lords.” “It

andfor me

him, “for Your Majesty

that I be

with the Tartar gentlemen than with the Flemish gentlemen.” In our carriage, we passed in review all the states personages.

God knows how we managed

to

and

accommodate them

“Rather than sign the separation ofthirteen provinces, like George,

”9

said Catherine II quite sweetly,

“And rather than have handed in brother-in-law, convoking and abuses, I don’t know

“I

the great

my brother

would havefired a pistol.

my resignation,

like

my brother and

naming the nations in order to

what I should have done,” saidJoseph

George

III

of England.

discuss

II.

They were also ofthe same opinion about the king ofSweden,

9.

”

whom

?

4 6i

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

they did not

and whom

like,

had taken a grudge against

ofa blue and silver bathrobe, he said, with a dia-

in Italy, on account

mond plaque.

the emperor

They both agreed that he has energy, talent,

“Yes, certainly,” I replied,

defending him

the great generosity I had seen

(since his

treat a kind, lovable prince possessed

Baltic, not

more

,

10

fom La

man, ” I said

Mancha,

Summon M.

de

satire, in

me and

which one dares

of as much genius as

to

Joseph

Don Qui-

“would be from the

II,

unless one were to

nasty jokers would add,

crowned heads.

kindness to

wit.

him expend attached me to him). “Your

Majesty might well prevent a scurrilous

xote himself.” “Such a

and

add

who yet might have

three letters respected the

Villette in order to explain

means, for one must have a good knowledge ofFrench

what it all

and of history

for such a thing, and the ladies would have difficulty understanding a ”

joke that employs such phraseology. Their Imperial Majesties reflected for some time concerning the

poor Turkish

devils.

Remarks were made

amateur ofclassical antiquity and ofsome

in their

own

regard.

As an

novelties as well, I spoke

reestablishing the Greeks; Catherine spoke of reviving Lycurgus

Solon. I mentioned Alcibiades;

future than the past, said:

“What the devil is to

In thisfashion

II,

who was more for

the

the positive rather than the chimerical, ?”

be done with Constantinople

and I said to them, speakingfor myself, “Your Maj-

will merely be taking on misery after misery.

too well, ” said the emperor, speaking respectfor us.

and

many islands and provinces were disposed ofwith no

difficulty whatever, esties

andfor

and Joseph

of

Do you

know,

one of my fathers mistresses

“We treat them all

of me in particular; he lacks all

Madame, and

”

that he was once in love with

that he kept

me fom managing a

proper entrance into the world at the side of a certain Marquise de Prie, angelically pretty

and indeed a first passion

the two ofus shared

There was no reserve at all between these two great sovereigns. They told each other the most interesting things: “Has anyone ever attempted to take your life? Myself,

io.

“Chevalier de

theless

married

la

I was threatened on one occasion.” “Well, I

Machette,” like the Marquis de Villette

oft to his protegee, “Belle et

whom Voltaire

Bonne” de Varicourt.

none-

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE did

receive

certain

anonymous

letters .”

charming and unknown

The empress had asked write verses ? Write

me an

us,

•

There followed a confessors story details

ofa whole world ofpeople,

one day, in her galley:

“How

explanation ofsuch a thing,

M.

463

and etc.

does one

de Segur.

”

He wrote out the rules of versification with some delightful examples. And she set to work then and there, producing six lines with so many mistakes that all three of us burst out laughing. And she said to me, “To teach you to diately;

makefun of me, make some verses yourselves, imme-

I wont attempt any more, I’m thoroughly disgusted with such

exercisesfor the rest

ofmy

” life.

“Well done!” said Fitz-Herbert 11; “The

two ofyou should have saved your talents for the grave of one ofyour bitches”:

Here

Duchess Anderson

lies

Who bit Monsieur Rogerson. Then I was given rhymes

them quickly

To

,

here’s

to

11

compose

verses on,

with orders

to

complete

how I met the challenge:

the rules of verse, the laws of harmony,

Compel

the strength of genius to submit.

In vain the neighbor states will sue for peace, In vain your empire shows

its

golden

For rhyme, abandon glory for

And trace new paths

to

a

face.

while

Memory’s holy place.

my lords, ” she told us, and you shall see the result.” And

This all came back to her at Barczisarai. “Ah, “I shall

this is

withdraw

to

my

quarters,

what she showed us, no more and no

less:

On the Great Khan’s sofa, stuffed with down, In a golden kiosk,

all

11.

The envoy from London.

12.

Catherine

II’s

grilled

personal physician.

with gold

.

.

?

464

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

You can

easily guess

managed to gofurther,

we covered her with reproaches for not having afterfour hours

ofpondering and making such

a good start. For nothing ever gets done on a This country

comes

true,

is

certainly a

trip.

land of dreams, but none of them ever

one can never find a single

woman

with

whom

make

to

such things happen. The ones here are all locked up by these wretched

Mohammedans, who never learned Segurs song about the ing deceived by your own

my head

wife.

bliss of be-

The Duchess ofLuxemburg would turn

and Fd make a song

if she were in Achmeczet;

to the

Marechale de Mouchy ifshe lived in Balaklava. There

is

whom one can adore in the

no one but you, dear marquise,

heart ofParis: adore

is

the proper

word

— who has timefor loving

Hereabouts there are several sects ofdervishes, each more entertaining than the next even

— whirling, screaming.

madder than

and

The latter are Jansenists,

.

exhausted and they fall on the ground in hopes

is

to enter

heaven.

Ileft the court here

climb

.

the medieval convulsionaries. They scream Allah!

until their strength

ofrising only

.

on the plain for some days, and risked my

then climb

down from

the Tczetterdar, following rugged

streambeds instead ofthe paths I could neverfind. I needed to

mind,

my

tongue,

my

ears,

life to

and my

rest

eyes from the brilliance

my

of the

illuminations that every night contend with one another, wherever we

may day.

be,

andfrom

the sun, which

is

only too

much

over our heads all

And at last I’vefound what Fm going to tellyou,

you: which

is

or rather to send

that Fve written on this very page in pencil what Fvejust

copied out properly in ink for you.

To

the

Comte

Louis-Philippe de Segur

Camp I see an

army commander

erine II])

day;

who has an

Otchakow, August i, 1788

(Prince Potemkin [the favorite of Cath-

idle look

about him yet who labors night and

who has no other desk but his knees, no other comb but hisfingers;

always in bed yet sleeping neither day or night because his zealfor his sovereign,

whom

he adores, continually torments him, so that a can-

CHARLES-JOSEPH DE LIGNE

•

465

nonball he does not receive disturbs him by the thought that it costs the

ofsome ofhis soldiers. Fearfulfor others, bravefor himself; halting

life

under thefiercest attack

to give his orders,

yet morefor the purposes of

Ulysses than of Achilles; anxious in anticipation

of all dangers, gay

ivhen in their midst; sad in pleasures; unhappy by dint of happiness, indifferent to all diversions, easily disgusted, morose, inconsistent; a

deep philosopher, a skillful minister; as a politician sublime or a child

of ten; never

vindictive, asking pardon for

promptly repairing an ing the devil,

whom

injustice

a misfortune

he’s caused,

he hasn’t; believing he loves God, fear-

he supposes

to be

greater

and grander than a

hand beckoning to women he finds allurwith the other making the sign ofthe cross; arms outspread at the

Prince Potemkin; with one ing,

feet of a statue of the Virgin, or

around

his mistress’s alabaster neck;

and immediately

receiving countless favors from his great sovereign,

bestowing them elsewhere; accepting estates from the empress, returning them to her or paying what she owes without letting her know ofit; selling and

buying back immense domains in order to build there some

great colonnade

and an English garden,

then immediately disposing

of them; always gambling or never gambling; preferring

to

give to

charity rather than to pay his debts; prodigiously rich without having

a sou; suspicious or trusting, jealous or grateful, sarcastic or playful; easily influencedfor or against, reversing

ology to his generals,

questioning those to

and war

himselfat once; talking the-

to his archbishops;

whom he speaks,

never reading but

contradicting them to learn

still

more; pulling rude faces or kind ones; affecting the most repulsive

manners or the most welcoming; having alternately est

airs

ofthe proud-

Oriental satrap or ofthe wiliest courtier ofLouis XV; under a great

show ofharshness, actually very gentle cious

about

his

moments ofattention,

and all his preferences; able, like

in the depths

to

soul; capri-

his meals, his periods oj repose,

eager as a child to

a grown man,

ofhis

own

everything,

and quite

do without; abstemious for all his greedy

glances; gnawing his nails, biting into apples

and turnips; grumbling

or laughing, dissimulating or swearing on his honor, roaming the streets or praying,

singing or meditating; inviting, dismissing; sum-

moning twenty aides-de-camp without having anything to

tell

them;

4 66

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

tolerating hot weather better than anyone, apparently thinking

of

nothing but the choicest immersions; making light of the cold while

seeming

to be

slippers,

without cap or hat: I’ve seen him

unable

do without his furs; barefoot or in spangled

to

sometimes in a filthy bathrobe or

else

like that

a superb

under

rifle fire;

tunic, with his three

medals, his ribbons and diamonds as bigas your thumb set all around the empress’s portrait, those

diamonds apparently put

enemyfire; bending over backward or curled up standing tall, nose in the

air,

draw

there to

in a ball at home,

and

proud, fine, noble, majestic, or seductive

when infront ofhis troops like Agamemnon among the kings ofGreece.

What is

his

magic then? Genius, genius again, and

nius; natural wit,

an

excellent

memory, a

kind ofmalice without meanness,

certain elevation

his;

more ge-

ofspirit, a

cleverness without cunning: a

mixture of whims whose good moments, when they heart to

still

occur,

draw

a great generosity, a certain grace and fitness in

wards: remarkable

tact,

the talent to guess

a great knowledge ofmen

happy every

his re-

what he doesn’t know, and

An Enlightenment

26.

Test Site:

Poland and

Its

Last King Stanislaw II Augustus Poniatowski ,

what

In

they regarded as the Far West, political thinkers of the

Enlightenment ultimately located their promised land in

Europe they sought, but much more

British America. In Eastern

distractedly, a test site in the ancient Catholic lic

of Poland,

of Frederick sia

its

II,

fluid

Stanislaw

II

and spongy

II,

frontiers encircled

who had

was subject

from 1764 to

1795.

For thirty years, this

to a Russian protectorate even as he civil

contended

war, and also had to endure a

unconscionable partition of his country

to create a

the Rus-

taken for bus motto “Patience and Cour-

with a declared or masked

Prussia.

II,

Augustus Poniatowski, the “crowned philosopher,”

disarmed king,

and

by the Prussia

and the Ottoman Empire. The long reign of

lasted, for better or worse,

age,”

and nobiliary Repub-

the Austria of Maria Theresa and Joseph

of Catherine

a “virgin”

among

first

Russia, Austria,

Without altogether succumbing, the king attempted

modern

state in

what remained of his realm and

ulti-

mately, incited by the enthusiasm of Polish youth for the French

Revolution, dared to provide

it

with an English-style constitution.

The entrance of Russian and Prussian troops into Warsaw put an end to this experiment, which cobin. lost,

Having survived the

under the Russian boot,

litical existence.

Prussia

first

St.

Petersburg regarded as Ja-

partition, the

its last

in 1792

amputated realm

semblance of independent po-

and Austria received

as their

due an addi-

tional share of the cake, a situation foreshadowing Poland’s in 1940.

In 1798 the ex-king ended his days in a closely watched residence, an exile in the capital

If there

of the

tsars.

was one country where the

age’s

much-prized diplomacy, 467

4 68

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

sensibility,

and philosophy dropped the mask and revealed

underpinnings of tainly the

realpolitik, cynicism,

and sycophancy,

remote Poland of Stanislaw Augustus.

it

was

its

cer-

And yet its player-

kingpossessed enough of such diplomacy, sensibility, and philosophy, derived from his education and his travels in Western Europe, to

amid

survive for three decades

a

multitude of dangers, stubbornly

maintaining, within his shrinking realm, the modernizing program

of an “enlightened sovereign” despite the West’s indifference and his neighbors’ increasing military pressure,

and enduring as well the

frequent armed rebellions of compatriots with less

sympathized.

On

whom

closer inspection, this reign

was

he nonethea sort

of in-

complete and inglorious masterpiece of the Age of Enlightenment

The Education of

a

1 .

Future Philosopher-King

Bonaparte, younger son of minor provincial nobility in Europe’s oldest hereditary realm,

even

less

was quite unlikely

to

become

a

king

or,

imaginably, an emperor. Similarly, nothing except perhaps

prophecies invented after the fact predisposed the sixth son of

Count Stanislaw Poniatowski his

hand held

several

to

become king of Poland. However

trump cards

that Stanislaw ’s relatives, teachers,

that Bonaparte

would

lack,

and

and an imperious mistress man-

aged to turn to advantage, somewhat against his will. Nobly born

as

he was, Stanislaw ’s father had been a hero, fervently celebrated by Voltaire in one of his

first

Uniting, as Voltaire has

it,

masterpieces, the Histoire de Charles XII.

the courage of Achilles with the cunning

of Ulysses, Count Poniatowski had revealed himself capable of prodigious exploits that on several occasions had saved the

i.

On

life

of his

Poniatowski and his times, the basic work remains that of Jean Fabre,

Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et I’Europe des Lumieres (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1951),

supplemented by Poniatowski’s Memoires,

oi Sciences, 1907). For a

phy, see

Adam

more recent

2 vols. (St.

Petersburg

Academy

synthesis, including an up-to-date bibliogra-

Zamoyski, The Last King of Poland (London: Weidenfeld and

Nicholson, 1992).

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST

SITE

469

.

master, Peter the Greats impetuous adversary, and, being equally

adept at diplomatic and political

feats,

had on

several occasions at

Constantinople, where Charles XII had taken refuge after the rible defeat

ter-

of Poltava, almost managed to launch the Ottoman

forces against the tsar, thereby appeasing the

king of Sweden’s

vengeful feelings. Hailed as a hero in Paris during the Regency

was then that

this eyewitness

provided Voltaire with the elements

of his Histoire de Charles XII), the to his

(it

“Handsome

Pole”

had returned

own capital aureoled with the laurels of Mars, acquired beside

Charles XII against both Russians and Turks, and sporting the myrof Venus

tles

won from the Duchesse du Maine and Mme de Tencin

number of Parisian

over any

ladies,

both high and low. This double

prestige merited in 1720 a love marriage with ryska, as well as the

Constanza Czarto-

honor of entering the council of “the Family,”

as

the Poles called the aristocratic Czartoryski clan, the most titled and

powerful in the kingdom,

sole hereditary rival

of the more or

less

united clans of the Radziwills, Potockis, Branickis, and Sapiehas.

Unlike most of the crowns of Europe, that of Poland ciple that tive.

by

veto

and

in times of election

opened

a vast

diplomacy, corruption, and military blackmail by the Euro-

pean courts competing for who would forge date. In the sixteenth century, III)

libe-

which in normal times kept any decision from being made

this eloquent assembly,

field to

this nobiliary

was divided among irreconcilable clans wielding the ,

prin-

Roman Emperor) was not hereditary but elec-

The Polish Diet, which elected the kings of

republic,

rum

of the Holy

(as in

had

its

candi-

(the future

Henri

a majority for

Henri de Valois

briefly reigned over Poland. In the eighteenth century, the

grand electors of Saxony, Augustus

had been kings of Poland

II

the Strong and Augustus

in alternation.

III,

During the interregnums,

Louis

XV had

intrigued in vain to have his cousin the Prince de

Conti

elected.

A Polish nobleman, Stanislaw Leszczynski, of mod-

est

standing but France’s alternate candidate, had briefly managed

to “rule” the Polish anarchy before restoring the throne to

tus III

and finding

a

Augus-

comfortable refuge with his son-in-law, the

king of France, in the Duchy of Lorraine. The “King’s Secret” (the

470

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

personal diplomacy of Louis

XV) had determined once and for all,

though without managing to provide the means, that Poland would remain a traditional nobiliary republic, If a Leszczynski,

more

a less a

i.e.,

“Family”

a rubber-stamp state. client,

had managed

to

why not a Poniatowski, son of a Czartoryska? Favored by his parents among all their numerous progeny, young Stanislaw, born rule,

in 1732, revealed precocious talents. that,

He had

received an education

without openly preparing him for the royal metier, gradually

placed

him among possible candidates for an election that the death

of Augustus of Saxony would eventually bring about. In rife

with almost

ferred

as

many preceptors

as

a

century

diplomatic agents, the pre-

and coddled son of Constanza Czartoryska responded to the

teachings of the most heteroclite masters, before exposing himself to the tempestuous direction of

her

own

numerous mamans who, each

in

way, succeeded the watchful and severe Constanza. This

Telemachus lacked

for neither

alities, sexes, religions,

Mentors nor Minervas of all nation-

and philosophic

this passionately patriotic Pole the

allegiances,

which made of

progeny par excellence of a cos-

mopolitan and variegated Europe of the

later

Enlightenment. This

paradox earned him a good deal of hatred among

a Polish nobility

whose biased “republicanism” Rousseau admired, encouraging their partiality for a fiercely, jealous, politically imbecile national-

ism,

known

as

Stanislaw dencies, put

ants

who

s

“Sarmatism.”

mother, a devout Catholic riddled with quietist ten-

him

gave

initially in the

him

hands of German Lutheran ped-

the rudiments of Latin, Polish, geometry, and

national law; thereafter he studied under Italian Theatine fathers

who

taught

him an

ater, fine arts,

elegant French and gave

him

a taste for the the-

and good manners. From the age of twelve, he was

tormented by the theological anxiety the eighteenth century had inherited from the great disputes of the preceding age between J?nsenists

and Molinists, between Bossuet and Fenelon: Free

will or

predetermination? Voluntarism or submission to Providence? Several years later, Stanislaw

whom

would rouse the anger of the master from

he had learned most, defending against his libertine volun-

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST

tical

optimist

XVI. In

him under the

who

influence of a wavering

Egalite under the Terror), the

and mys-

Due

de Chartres (Philippe

Abbe Allaire, took it upon himself to

complete young Stanislaw s training in

was from

471

led him, in such questions, to resemble Louis

1745 the future tutor of the

civility. It

.

human prudence can foresee.” This

tarism the cause of “fatalities no preference brought

SITE

this perfect

classical rhetoric

honnete

despite his real mastery of Polish,

homme

and French

that he acquired,

German, English,

and

Italian,

Russian, his avowed predilection for French and for the clipped

prose style of La Bruyere,

Anthony Hamilton, and Voltaire.

Simultaneously, Stanislaw, devoured by the pride and timidity that

made him an exemplary

disciple

of each and every hand

ex-

tended to him, received certain lessons from his powerful Czartoryski uncles.

Elizabeth

s

Hoping

to rally

him

to his idol Frederick

islaw into the subtleties

of Konigsberg, initiated Stan-

and distinguos of

useful casuistry in the juridical, political,

scholastic logic, a truly

and diplomatic labyrinth

affairs.

In 1747, seeking to

engineer

Empress

ambassador to Poland, Count Hermann-Charles Kay-

serling, ex-professor at the University

of Polish

II,

who was

his fortune in Poland, a Swiss military

also a secret agent of Louis

Salverte, arrived in

nobleman

make

Warsaw and forthwith

in fortifications. This

XV, Lucas de Toux de instructed the

young

was the only military training ever

received by Stanislaw Poniatowski, the future defenseless king

thereby resembled Louis

Mason, Toux de Paris

XVI

even more

closely.

A

high-ranking

Salverte henceforth continually seesawed

and Warsaw, though

for

whose

benefit

who

between

no one knows

— the

Lodges or the “Secret” of the king of France?

During the summer of 1750, the Polish Telemachus (then teen years old),

on

a visit to Berlin

seven-

where Kayserling had sent him to

worship his god Frederick, encountered the English mentor who was to take

him under

his

wing

for

some

he inculcated Stanislaw with his

years to come.

own

To begin

with,

scorn for the king of Prussia,

“a perverse, barren, spiteful little wretch.” In

London

the author

of this conviction, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, had been the

47i

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

scandalous prince of the jeunesse doree of the Dilettanti Society and

of the Hell-Fire Club founded by Lord Hervey. His friend Horace

Walpole referred to him His mordant

wit, equally

as “a bright genius, fit

for satire

Whig

served Robert Walpole that the

him

a baronet

and

and an ambassador,

first

dangerously bright.”

vers galant,

in Dresden, then in Berlin

II,

him and heaped

humiliations upon him. Voltaire,

talents,

Potsdam, took a contrary fancy to

so well

prime minister had made

where Frederick

envying his

had

took an instant dislike to

who was

Sir Charles’s wit

then

at

and his compli-

ments; as he wrote to d’Argental: “The envoy from England has sent

me some

very fine English verses.” The following year Williams

managed

to get himself sent back to Dresden, one of Augustus Ill’s

two

capitals.

A liaison with

Stanislaw’s older brother, the

mir, did not keep the irresistible Sir Charles

“handsome” Casi-

from befriending the

younger, whose wit and culture he greatly appreciated; he realized,

made him

a perception that

that their son

cious

had

trump card

a favorite of the Poniatowski parents,

a royal future.

He

also

planned to ensure a pre-

for British policy in Eastern Europe. In Dresden,

more agreeably than

in Berlin, Sir Charles

managed once more

to

construct around himself a minor version of the Dilettanti, with his secretary

Harry Digby,

several other

mir Poniatowski. This too was

young Englishmen, and

a complicity

design, tacitly approved by the family,

with a view to a grand

which made him Stanislaw’s

guide on the precipitous paths of politics and diplomacy.

new

preceptor, Stanislaw

left

Casi-

With

this

the Arcadian terrain so dear to Fe-

nelon for the troubled shores soon to be explored by Balzac: through the Mentor-Telemachus pair shines the

Vautrin-Rubempre

pact,

who would write to Stanislaw: “I love and my own son, always remember that,” though with-

sealed by Sir Charles,

cherish you like

out Stanislaw, delighted by his impassioned preceptor, perceiving the slightest double entendre in such a sentence.

In the knight’s

company and

that of his friends, Stanislaw lost

his timidity as well as his innocence.

“My

friendship with Sir

Charles Williams,” he wrote in his Memoires, “became more

inti-

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST mate and was very

effective in the

me and

my

that

473

•

world of society, affording

consideration and the appearance of a mature

not yet offer

SITE

me

man that my age

a

did

very short stature, which developed

only that very year by a quite sudden growth, had hitherto only retarded,”

1

During the splendid court that

King Augustus held

— theaters, operas,

in Leipzig

ballets, concerts

on the occasion of Saint Mi-

chael’s Fair in 1750, Stanislaw enjoyed the

most magical hours of his

life:

This happy

lasted six weeks.

life

money but more than

I

had

health, not

needed, no worries,

I

I

much

was living

splendid place, in a lovely season, in very good company,

almost in love but not

seemed

to

at all libertine,

me happy and

During

Briihl.

The countess,

I’ve

never been so happy but

a friend

of

3

of Constanza’s, took a great liking to first

of his mamans.

Enlightenment Europe

Stanislaw ’s parents, to keep

him from losing his position

preferred that he make, instead of a single continuous

young English and Dutch

brief sojourns in the great ters

when

my good times vanished with them.

Stanislaw and “adopted” him. This was the

the usual thing for

who

omnipotent prime minister, Count von

Ill’s

A Grand Tour

saw only people

was

he found himself in great sympathy with the

this visit,

wife of Augustus

I

appeared to have no other business

than to enjoy themselves, the six weeks were up,

I

in a

European

in Poland,

Grand Tour,

aristocrats, a series

capitals, well

prepared by

of

let-

of recommendation and interrupted by dutiful attention to ob-

ligations at

home. Stanislaw had already ventured

2.

Poniatowski, Memoires, vol.

I,

p. 42.

3.

Poniatowski Memoires,

I,

pp. 44-45.

,

vol.

to Flanders to

474

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

meet the Marshal Maurice of Saxony in 1748. In 1750 he acquainted himself with the Viennese court, which he found

commenced with

tion he niece ily

a

stilted.

maid of honor of Victoria of Savoy, the

and heiress of Prince Eugene, which was denounced

by the nuncio Serbelloni, provoked his immediate

saw.

He

returned to Vienna in 1753 to attend

his

embassy in

Versailles.

He

to his fam-

recall to

Count von

ceremony of accession to the imperial chancellery on from

A flirta-

War-

Kaunitz’s

his return

subsequently accompanied Sir

Charles Williams to Hanover, the electorate of the king of England,

George

II,

then visited The Hague, where he befriended

Count von Bentinck, real

the torturer of a proud divorced wife and the

power of the court of Orange. At

this point

he

left Sir

Charles,

who returned to London, and headed for Paris. He remained there only five months, nor could he ever manage to return, yet this brief stay sufficed for

him to consider himself hence-

forth a Parisian, whatever rebuffs he received from Choiseul and the king’s secret diplomacy, whatever disappointments he suffered

French

frivolity

and the

difficulty

of being admitted into what was

considered in Paris extremely good society.

with entirely Briihl,

literary felicities.

Versailles,

Recommended by the Countess von

terest in

Mme de Brancas,

Mme de Maintenon and who herself kept alive at

by her conversation, her

memory of the the

He had to content himself

he was received and adopted by the ancient

who had known

style,

and her kind of politesse, the

court of Louis XIV. Faced with an utter lack of in-

himself on the part of political Versailles, Stanislaw,

Abbe Allaire had brought up on French memoires

self to

be

all

the

more

sensitive to the “Proustian”

court of France and to personages there present.

from

,

whom

revealed him-

dimension of the

who restored the past in the

Beyond the Duchesse de Brancas, he was quite prepared

attach himself to that other

de Noailles,

to

mine of memory, the ancient Marechal

Mme de Maintenon’s nephew, had he not irritated the

old gentleman at the very start by clumsily praising him in the same

breath as Puisieux, his ex-colleague in the king’s council, though

unfortunately the marechal regarded old minister Puisieux cisely, a valet.

as,

pre-

The same disappointment was encountered with

re-

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST

whom

gard to the king, to Richelieu, but

who did not address one word to him. He was unable a political part in her country’s

Marie Leszczynska, Louis XV’s queen, who had

the conjugal bed and was living by her little

475

•

he was presented by the Marechal de

meet Choiseul. Instead of playing favor,

SITE

own

retired

from

choice in an agreeable

devout court of her own, could do nothing for Stanislaw.

The

city,

in the person of his universal hostess,

Mme

Geoffrin,

initially

made much of him, then

irritable

maman who could not forgive his gaffe with the Marechal

de Noailles. “I tried to

“I

him

dealt with

as a scolding

and

submitted to correction,” he wrote in his Memoires

accustom myself to the different

styles

Mme

,

Geoffrin

employed according to the occasion.” 4 In her salon he encountered Montesquieu, similarly reduced to servitude by La Patronne (whom he described in petto

as “a fishwife

of the beau monde”), and the

leading survivor of the moderns, Fontenelle, next to

Geoffrin “insisted on placing a

whom Mme

iron stove to maintain

little

the degree of warmth necessary to preserve

him

him

at

in his ninety-sixth

or ninety-seventh year; he preserved to the very end of his career, despite his deafness, that witty coquetry

of his better days.

He

asked

Polish as well as French.” that Stanislaw also

d’Alembert, to

5

It

me

and simpering expression

one time quite seriously

if

I

knew

was in the same rue Saint-Honore salon

met the philosophers Grimm, Marmontel, and

whom he had little to say for himself but all of whom

he admired duly without reservation.

Brought up on La Bruyere’s Caracteres Stanislaw paid ,

close at-

tention to the bizarreries and innocent singularities in which Paris still

abounded, which flourished

as

openly

as

they chose without

troubling anyone:

I

was presented to the Due de Gesvres, governor of Paris,

at

He was in his bed, whose curtains were folded back on either side to the wall, as might be those of a woman at the noon.

4. 5.

Poniatowski, Memoires vol. ,

Poniatowski, Memoires

,

vol.

I,

I,

p. 86. p. 89.

476

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

end of her delivery who years old,

is

now receiving society. He was sixty

wore a woman’s coif fastened under

was actually making knots with

was

a

man who had waged

a shuttle, like a

his chin,

and

woman. This

war, yet his effeminate manners

astonished no one, and the public seemed quite pleased with

him.

And I said to myself: “One travels to see elsewhere what

one cannot

what

lies

home, and externals do not always

see at

reveal

within, and one must learn not to be surprised by

anything .” 6

Though

moment must

the great affair of the

have been the exile

of the Parlement of Paris to Pontoise, Parisian conversations were entirely

concerned with the Quarrel of the Buffoons, which the

encyclopedists, siding with Italian vaudeville against the opera of

Lully and Rameau, utilized to further the theories advanced in their

admired friend and new accomplice Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s

articles in the Encyclopedic.

Stanislaw was received by the Prince de Conti, eternal and eternally disappointed candidate to the throne of Poland, henceforth in disgrace city,

with Louis

XV and weakening in public opinion. In the

and in the country as

same

families’ roofs

well,

thanks to the coexistence under the

of several generations of forceful characters and

varying stages of manners, today’s fashion hugged the fashion of the past.

The Duchesse d’Orleans, the Prince de Conti’s

sister,

by her

countenance, by her entire person, in repose and in movement, walking, riding, dancing, or seated, “continually recalled Watteau’s

most delightful paintings .” 7 But relates

Stanislaw in his Memoires

to encounter once again

the

Due

tion,

6.

was an equal pleasure

almost

all

the

among

the figures

who composed

and fourth genera-

names that had become familiar

Poniatowski, Memoires vol.

I,

p. 90.

Poniatowski, Memoires, vol.

I,

p. 92.

for me,”

,

d’Orleans’s court, in the third

,

7.

“it

to

me by

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST the descriptions that the famous the era of Louis their

old

SITE

477

•

Grande Mademoiselle, of

XIV, and the Cardinal de Retz have

memoirs of the house of Orleans of their own

left

us in

day.

An

Mme de Polignac, one of the Duchesse d’Orleans’s ladies

in waiting, dispensed

by her wit almost

much

as

pleasure in

that court as did her niece, the Marquise de Blot, by the

charms of her countenance

Since the cantankerous

8 .

Mme Geoffrin’s lessons counted for less

than those of Sir Charles Williams, the Polish tourist was dizzied rather than dazzled by that “inexhaustible wealth of ever-new objects that constantly fed the frivolous attention

of the French,” and

he was on the point of acknowledging his tedium, tions to proceed to

England had not

was nevertheless about

left

the impression that he

to obtain that lasting “vogue” Parisians so

granted to adopted foreigners.

easily

him

if family instruc-

It

was perhaps

this curtailed

accomplishment that would keep him on the qui vive with regard to the philosophes,

“Maman”

Geoffrin, and French public opinion,

so powerful but so easily distracted

and so wildly prejudiced.

In London, though he did not find Sir Charles there, his mission

and the introductions he had received from “the Family,” anxious

London

to pit

against Versailles, brought

the highest level of English political castle,

the prime minister, to the

uiline countenance,”

life,

him

from the old Duke of New-

young Pitt,

“tall,

on the brink of his great

York, sons of Lord Chancellor Hardwick, with

acquainted during his stay in The

him

into relations with

thin,

career.

with an aq-

The brothers

whom he had become

Hague with

Sir Charles, offered

the most affectionate and the most seriously intellectual com-

pany he had

yet encountered.

He

learned English, discovered

Shakespeare, landscape gardening, cockfighting, and the curiosities

of English education, divided between caning and utter abandon-

ment

to savagery, a

combination that encouraged each pupil to

tivate his “originality” if not his eccentricity.

8.

Poniatowski, Memoires, vol.

I,

p. 93.

cul-

A more perspicacious

478

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

observer than Voltaire, the Stanislaw of the Memoires remarked

and

that a calculating

utilitarian individualism

rule in Britain, according to the slogan affecting respect for the law

and

a

had become the

Primo mihi though without ,

prudent sense of common

interest.

He was astonished by the quasi-instrumental array of well-groomed British sailors, functioning as if cold, very

Modern Times

on springs

in a naval review. This

specialization appeared to conflict with

generosity and love of liberty, aristocratic conventions that Stanislaw

shared with Continental Enlightenment similar

Anglo-Saxon professionalism

tastes.

He

discovered a

in the maniacal care

Lord

Chesterfield took in showing himself to be up-to-date in his Pari-

unaware of the casual and offhanded essence of

sian conversation, this

supremely

difficult art:

Lord Chesterfield spoke the Lrench language with much greater purity

and even elegance than any Englishman

so far encountered, in

I

have

which an anti-Gallican wit and tone

went much further than what one hears nowadays. But he was so fond of displaying his

talent for linguistic novelty that

he expressly paid a correspondent in Paris to send him

the

all

words and new expressions that fashion continually produces.

He had

nothing more pressing to

say,

was presented to him, than to observe that this very

gens

morning not only many poilus but

comme

since the

ilfaut

en habits co quins in

St.

first

time

many

under whose eyes

much

his vocabulary

my

in succession,

I

must have seen

also beaucoup de

James’s Park.” Yet

same fashion that produces so many new words

cards almost as

haps be

“I

the

some future

manuscript may one day

dis-

philologist,

fall,

will per-

obliged to be able, thanks to me, to augment

of obsoletorum of the mystical signification of

these underlined expressions. Poilu, originally a hunting term,

once signified a dog with a certain texture of reddish

pelt;

but

in the figurative sense, fashionable speakers designated this as

by

word any obscure fellow whose birth was quite unknown,

opposed

to gens

comme ilfaut who were

all

noblemen or

at

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST least distinguished in their sphere.

SITE

•

479

Now these gens comme il

faut had already got into the habit of taking morning walks in the streets, but

had not

they were wearing

yet adopted the

when

they did

were making use of the thing.

so,

word frac for what

though they already

Now this thing in Paris in 1754

was called un habit de coquin

[a

rogue’s suit],

and

it is

the

knowledge of this important truth that Milord Chesterfield zealously flashed before

my eyes, or at least my ears.

What Stanislaw lacked — henceforth

assured of British support,

though disdained by France and by Frederick Versailles

—was

9

II,

then allied with

the indispensable accord of Russia. Providence

willed that Sir Charles Williams be appointed in June 175$ to the

embassy of St. Petersburg, and Stanislaw’s family was delighted by the notion that their son, under the guidance of this practiced shep-

make himself known

herd, should proceed to

in the capital of the

Russian Empire, traditional protector of “the Family.” Stanislaw

moved

into the British embassy at the Russian court. Sir Charles

had received taken

it

his mission to seal the

upon himself to make

somewhat beyond the

Anglo-Russian alliance and had

this alliance serve Stanislaw’s career

reign of the Tsarina Elizabeth, daughter of

Peter the Great, empress of all the Russias.

The the

future, for those

who kept

Grand Duchess Catherine

their eyes open,

Alexei'evna,

would belong to

ex-Sophie von Anhalt-

Duke Peter Feodorovitch, Duke of German nephew Elizabeth had selected

Zerbst, abused spouse of Grand

Schleswig-Holstein, the as

her successor. The long-term seal of the Anglo-Russian alliance,

as well as Stanislaw’s

crown, depended on a spark passing between

the reigning tsarina and the royal candidate. Eighteenth-century

diplomacy preferred to

light

its

fires

with the tinder of

elective

affinities.

Sir Charles’s perspicacity

and discretion were manifested by the

measure of his devotion to the

9.

Poniatowski, Memoires,

vol.

I,

interests

p. 119.

of London and his passion

4 8o

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

for the athletic

young

Lucien de Ru-

Pole. Like Vautrin, arranging

bempre’s amours with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and his marriage

with Clotilde de Grandlieu, Williams managed to have

Stanislaw noticed by the grand duchess, search of lovers as well as funds.

He

whom

he

knew

to be in

obtained for her the funds she

lacked, neutralized Elizabeth’s minister Bestutchev by paying

him

off,

and with the help of Naryschkin,

cal

bedchamber, he arranged for Stanislaw a secret rendezvous,

though one of high

risk, since

and key by her husband, was

No

tsarina.

gentleman of the grand du-

the grand duchess, kept under lock

also closely

watched by the reigning

diplomatic immunity covered the young Pole:

forgetting,” Stanislaw Siberia.”

a

He became

would write,

“that there

was such

was

a thing as a

Catherine’s lover and saw her frequently. Wil-

liams immediately obtained Catherine’s entire trust sistible to

“I

anyone with high ambitions

both confidant and letter box, in the success of this intrigue

— he was

irre-

— and became the third party,

fiery liaison

he had ignited. The

was darkened by the dramatic

failure

of his

mission to the Tsarina Elizabeth. Alarmed by the triple alliance of

England, Austria, and Russia that Williams had virtually concluded, Frederick II reacted strongly to the prospect, and to discourage

Maria Theresa even while seducing the

Disavowed

net.

British cabi-

in England, despised in Russia, the English

sador became persona non grata in 1755

managed

St.

ambas-

autumn of

Petersburg by the

-

Sir Charles’s

nervous reaction to his humiliating defeat became

such that, driven to extremes one day by an argument with Stanislaw over free will, he threatened to break off their sacred agreement. Catherine’s lover momentarily faltered, so narrowly did the plot

and

his

whole future seem to depend on the ambassador’s genius.

He toyed with the possibility of suicide. But the cloud lifted: fears

disappeared as soon as

we were reconciled, because

almost like a father and because

I

had an

essential

which constitutes the mainspring of life and

io.

Poniatowski, Memoires, vok

I,

p. 155.

I

“These

loved

him

need to hope,

especially of youth .”

10

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST The

Adonis, recalling the day of their

and perilous

first

pleasures,

of Nicholas

secret

I

where Stanislaw’s Memoires

during the entire nineteenth century:

She was twenty-five. She had scarcely emerged from her childbed, and was at that at its all.

peak

With

would

Mme Hanska’s lover, had Balzac been able to pen-

etrate the State Archives

remained in

481

•

Germanic Venus drawn by the Sarmatian

portrait of the

have enchanted

SITE

moment of beauty that is ordinarily

whom such a thing is granted at

any woman to

for

first

her black tresses, her skin of a dazzling whiteness,

the brilliance of her great blue eyes set shallowly but expressively

between extremely long black

nose, a

mouth

lashes, the short,

that seemed to crave kisses, perfect hands

arms, a svelte waist, rather altogether light and

lively,

tall

than short in

made her pass with equal ease from

even childish games to a message physical labor daunted her

gay as the

its

sound

moods

the most whimsical,

the decoding table, which

no more than the

important or even dangerous

which she had

at

as

and

stature, her gait

yet of a distinct nobility, the

of her voice very pleasant and her laughter that

sharp

substance.

text,

however

The discomfort

in

lived since her unfortunate marriage, the pri-

own mind and spirit, had made reading her great resource. She knew a great deal. With a caressing turn of mind, capable of grasping each mans

vation of any

company analogous

to her

weakness, she made her way henceforth, by the love of her people, to that throne

with such glory

I

which she has subsequently occupied

cannot

resist

here the very costume in which

was

a little

gown of white

I

the pleasure of indicating

discovered her that day:

satin, a light scarf of lace

interwo-

ven with pink ribbons her only ornament. She did not it

would seem, how

and the truth tion,

when on

is

that

days

it

realize,

I

came

I

have often asked myself the same ques-

when

to be in her private apartments,

the court was receiving

company

I

had passed amid so many guards and watchmen of all kinds,

how it could be that I had already penetrated so frequently, as

4 8z

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

though wrapped that

To

I

in a

mantle of invisibility, into the regions

dared not even envisage in public?

their terror, their youth,

11

and the ambition that possessed them

both was added, kindling their desire to

a

white heat, the abstinence

they had so eagerly left behind. She had just given birth to the child

of her

first lover.

As

for Stanislaw, “by a remarkable singularity,” as

he explained with disarming roguishness, at the age

“I

could offer her, though

11 of twenty-two, what no one had yet taken from me.”

Far from London, far from Vienna, far from Warsaw, at the court

of St. Petersburg one was in ancient Thebes, in the Scotland of Macbeth, or in the seraglio of Roxane

and Bajazet, unimaginable in

that capital of the Enlightenment. Stanislaw

Peter the Great

had

deed spy one did in

left

upon

knew

Paris,

the watchword

his death: “//faut espionner.”

And in-

Petersburg “upon great things and small.” The

St.

Medusa countenance of the head of the

secret chancellery, Alek-

sandr Shuvalov, a cousin of “Monsieur Pompadour,” Empress Elizabeth’s official lover,

augment the ture

was well known to the young

terror that the

Pole. “As if to

mere name of his position

had given him certain nervous

tics

inspired, na-

that horribly disfigured his

countenance, hideous moreover, on each occasion he was seriously occupied.” 13 Sir Charles had fathomed the strong and also the

weak

points of this police system whose equivalent France was not to

know

until after 1792, thanks then to the Jacobin genius of Fouche. In this sense, Russia

was

politically ahead.

But every precaution was

taken by Sir Charles’s cunning and cash to keep the lovers from

being discovered. In the course of her pillow talk with Stanislaw, the grand duchess,

turning the pages of her lover like a book, studied the Paris

that he

knew

well and

whose favor she knew, from Frederick

example, to be of such importance to

modern

11.

Poniatowski, Memoires, vol.

iz.

Poniatowski, Memoires vol.

I,

p. 157.

13.

Poniatowski, Memoires vol.

I,

pp. 3Z5-3Z6.

,

,

I,

p. 158.

potentates.

Above

II’s

all

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST

SITE

.

483

she was fascinated by the chief French trumpet of fame, Voltaire.

Together the two candidates for enlightened despotism reveled in reading his blasphemous Pucelle d’Orleans, long kept from ordinary

consumption, but a copy of which Count Poniatowski, enchanted by Stanislaw’s grand ducal amours, had obtained from the Marechal

And while the grand duchess

de Richelieu and passed on to his son.

perfected her French style and glimpsed what she must say and do to captivate Voltaire, her lover learned

from her those

state secrets

that he eagerly transmitted to Sir Charles, spinning the

web of an

improbable Anglo-Russian alliance.

Under the Protectorate

Catherine the Great

of

Twice Stanislaw returned to Poland, and

after the

second time, in

December 1756, he reappeared in St. Petersburg with the title of ambassador from the court of Saxony, hard-pressed since Frederick

having

now turned

against France

II,

and supported by England, had

invaded the electorate, bombarded and pillaged Dresden, and

brought Augustus lish

III to his knees.

double agent, the

break

officially

with

Fearing to be taken for an Eng-

new ambassador from Saxony was

Sir Charles

Williams,

obliged to

who nonetheless contin-

ued to supervise Stanislaw’s amours with Catherine. But the Englishman, whose diplomatic situation became untenable under pressure from the French ambassador, the Marquis de l’Hopital,

was obliged to

mind deeply

He

left

leave St. Petersburg

troubled.

He was

behind him two

to

during the summer of 1757, his

commit

lovers at a loss.

valov and the empress had ultimately

and Stanislaw, too exposed, had

to

suicide

With good

managed

decamp

two

years later.

reason, for Shu-

to discover the plot,

quite suddenly in his

on August

14, 1758.

He would not see his grand duchess again

for thirty years.

During

all this

turn,

good

graces, the ex-lover

time, having

would never

become king by her

cease to feel the claws of the

Russian bear, whose fur and ferocity Catherine

assumed.

II

had meanwhile

484

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

On January 4, III

1762, Tsarina Elizabeth died.

He

assumed the crown.

to Frederick. Catherine

longed to

fly to

Peter

overturned alliances and rallied Russia

was threatened with repudiation. Stanislaw

her rescue, but she discouraged

Gregory Orlov, and

lover, the giant

Her nephew

him

curtly.

Her new

his brother Alexis took, charge

of the coup d’etat indispensable to her safety and her ambitions: succeeded on the night of July

The

9.

tsar

was imprisoned.

it

He was

soon to be assassinated. The new empress of all the Russias immedimessage to her

ately sent a

serling as

my

ex-lover: “I

am now sending Count Key-

ambassador to Poland to

see

you crowned king

and should he not succeed

after

in your case,

my

the present

tsar’s

choice

on Prince Adam Czartoryski.” 14 Whatever the outcome,

falls

“the Family”

death,

would triumph. But

Stanislaw, already

dreaming of

marriage, had not yet taken the measure of the steely will that had

appeared in erine II

St.

Petersburg in place of his voluptuous mistress. Cath-

no longer regarded her passing fancy

away and

far

beneath

On October

5,

her, a passive

1763,

it

pawn

was Augustus

gle for the Polish succession

became

as

anything but far

in her grand scheme.

Ill’s

turn to

frantic, “the

die.

The

strug-

Family” having

candidates other than Stanislaw, the Radziwill clan promoting

own, and the foreign ambassadors working other. Catherine

for

its

one faction or the

and the proconsul whom she dispatched

to Poland,

Prince Nikolay Vasilyevich Repnin, settled the matter. Repnin obtained the support of the English ambassador, the favorite of Frederick

II

who

Thomas Wroughton,

then needed the Russian alliance,

and ignored the opinion of Fouis XV’s and Choiseul’s ambassador, Marquis de Paulmy, weakened by the disastrous outcome for France of the Seven Years’

War and opposed on

the spot by a rival dis-

patched by the King’s Secret, General Monet, bearing quite ent instructions! Versailles could afford the luxury of foreign policies

and two

i

On August 27,

Diet convened and unanimously elected Stanislaw,

4 Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski .

two

rival

corps diplomatiques.

Russian troops moved toward Warsaw. elective

differ-

et I’Europe des

Lumieres,

1764, the

who was

p. 223.

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST crowned before an enormous crowd

vember

25,

Augustus.

Saint Catherine’s Day.

in

SITE

•

485

St.Johns Cathedral on No-

He took the name of Stanislaw II

He was thirty-three years old and to his own mind repre-

sented not Russia, despite the decisive support he had received from that empire, but

hope and renewal.

to invite Voltaire to

Grimm and

Warsaw;

Among his

first

concerns were

to address his friendliest greetings to

Diderot, the powerful editors of the

elite

handwritten

journal Correspondance litteraire\ and to furnish adequate information to the journalists of the Leiden Gazette

and the Courrier du

Bas-Rhin. All for nought: to interest the French-language press, in other words, the press

itself,

other arguments were then required

than the simple goodwill toward philosophy expressed by the

wretched Stanislaw. Internally, the

was determined

weakness of the new king’s position, though he

to serve Polish

independence and enlightenment,

soon saw the revival of old clan jealousies. His reform

activities

with

regard to the state, education, and the tax base, which tended to be

favored by public opinion, excessively conflicted with old habits and vested interests, and did not

fail

tanism. The religious question

gion in Poland

to pass for anti-Polish cosmopoli-

— Catholicism being the

state reli-

— also offered an excellent pretext for foreign powers,

Protestant in the case of Prussia,

Orthodox

contest the gradualist policy of Stanislaw,

in the case of Russia, to

who was

reluctant to ap-

pear precipitate and counted on the long-term effect of Enlighten-

ment

influences to convert the Poles to denominational equality.

Proconsul Repnin, on Catherine

II’s

orders, used this

argument

to

humiliate the king publicly in the presence of the Diet. The Russian troops

moved once

again.

The Diet, under

this pressure,

the return to the liberum, veto that paralyzed

it,

voted for

but before disband-

ing confirmed “in perpetuity” the civic incapacity of Polish nonCatholics.

did not

The Russians, with good

reason,

and

for the time being,

insist.

The “republican” grandees, regrouped by the Radziwills

Radom

in the

Confederation and approved by the majority of bishops,

then defied the king, accused of being servile toward Russia, while

4 86

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

themselves appealing in secret to the support of Proconsul Repnin, all

too happy to possess a

new instrument of pressure

slaw. Catherine’s representative realized that his

a strong

against Stani-

hands were

move: Russian grenadiers rushed into the Diet in

sion in order to arrest

and carry off the

prelates

who

free for full ses-

shouted in

fa-

vor of the realm’s unity of faith. Despite this rebellion, which favored the Russia enterprise, Stanislaw nevertheless managed to save the essentials of the administrative

reforms he had already caused to be adopted. The

Radom

Confederation, reaffirmed in February 1767 in the town of Bar, crossed the line, took up arms, and set off a civil war against the king. Stanislaw

took

its

had

to

watch impotently

as the

Russian repression

course against the rebels whose patriotism he approved,

though they had not hesitated

to flatter Russia to prevail against

him. Ffe was caught between several lines of fire. minent. The England of George

III,

A tragedy was im-

David Hume, and

Burke was the only country where Stanislaw ’s good

faith

Edmund

was recog-

nized and the crime brewing against the the Polish nation de-

nounced. But England did not intervene.

Maria Theresa was the Frederick

II,

who

first

to advance her troops into Poland.

lampoons deriding the

gleefully published

ex-

friend of Sir Charles Williams, imitated the Austrian empress.

Stanislaw had yet another brief respite when, victim of a kidnap-

ping by the Confederation of Bar, he managed to escape his probable assassins

November

and triumphantly regain the royal palace

3,

Two months

1771.

and Russia signed an agreement February pie that

17,

fell

on January

Warsaw on

4, 1772,

for the partition of Poland,

Austria

and on

a Russo-Prussian convention delimited the slice of the

to the “philosopher-king” of Sans, Souci.

sian philosophical party, treaties

later,

in

The

entire Pari-

and Voltaire from Ferney, greeted these

with a sort of TeDeam Catharinam

,

as if they were

marking

the triumph of the Russian goddess of Tolerance! Stanislaw, under a ternal rebellion

on

the Russian troops

masked Russian occupation, and with an

his hands, over

had won

a fierce

in-

which, unfortunately for him,

and

definitive victory in

August

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST 1772, lacked the

means

to unite his nation against Russia

nobiliaryfronde, as Gustav III of Sweden

ber 1772.

He had

Europe waiting

To give

Warsaw

managed to do

Nor did he possess, like the king of Sweden,

Versailles.

a

SITE

in

487

•

and the Septem-

the support of

to be content to flood with eloquent protests a

until the crime

was committed.

that crime an appearance of legality, Catherine II sent to

new

Magnus von

proconsul, Baron Otto

Stackelberg,

whose manners were perfect but whose ultimatum brooked no kind of answer: “Submit or abdicate.” To quell both king and Diet, Stackelberg

found numerous “collaborators” among the grandees who

hated the reformer king. Under the direct pressure of the Russian soldiers, the

Diet swallowed the treaties ratifiying the amputation

of a third of the realm’s territory it

and of two thirds of its population;

further imposed on Poland a constitution even

than

its

traditional

more paralyzing

one had ever been.

The king too was obliged

to bend, but did not break.

He contin-

ued to embellish Warsaw, where the Venetian painter Bernardo Bellotto was put in charge of representing a angle; he also sought a reconciliation

federation of Bar and, calling

panorama from every

with the survivors of the Con-

Du

on the economic expertise of a

Pont de Nemours or the pedagogic

skill

of a Condillac, pursued his

program of economic and judiciary reforms and construction of a national education. His IV.

As

his

model was no longer Louis

XIV but Henri

most recent biographer has elegantly written, he

vated his garden” with perseverance. But after the storm, smelling

it

“culti-

was an autumn garden

of decomposition. The France of Louis

XVI

and Vergennes had of course become favorable toward him, but fered

no

real aid. Plotters

and adventurers of both

sexes pullulated

around the king, who sought in pleasures and the hope of some of miracle a compensation for his anguish.

He

of-

sort

could neither bring

himself to collaborate frankly with the Russian protectorate nor to

deny his sympathy with the decimated opposition that sought to be “republican” and “national.” For his part, the Proconsul Stackelberg,

who

did everything to diminish a vassal he mistrusted, did

not even support

him

against repeated Prussian aggressions.

4 88

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

In 1785, Stanislaw tried to reconnect with Catherine

exchange the

stifling protectorate for

He went

ance.

to

meet her

at

II,

and

an anti-Turkish military

Kanew. After thirty

alli-

he found

years,

himself in a tete-a-tete with his former mistress on the imperial ley that

He

Emperor Joseph

II,

who had

He was

also able to

meet with

joined Catherine incognito. The

Prince de Ligne was with the party. All to no

avail.

Abiding by the

of 1775, the tsarina wanted nothing to do with an alliance

would have permitted the

that

gal-

was carrying the tsarina down the Dnieper to the Crimea.

repeated his offer of an alliance.

treaties

to

remilitarization

and the very

exis-

tence of a Polish state.

The young generation of

formed

Poles,

in Stanislaw ’s schools,

were enthralled in 1789-1790 by the news of the French Revolution.

Rousseau was their maitre a penser. The king preferred the

views of Edmund Burke, whose Reflections he read in 1790. In any case, the

hour had struck

for a great constitutional debate

the English model and the

and

Pitt

new French

The

one.

weighing on Russia had seemed to

between

threats of England

offset certain dangers,

May

4,

to abide

by

but Pitt gave up pursuing his advantage. Nonetheless, on 1791,

the

amid general enthusiasm the king swore an oath

new

liberal constitution

voted by the Diet:

it

made Poland

a

hereditary monarchy.

On May 14, land’s borders,

to the

1792, 9,700 Russian

armed

“liberators” crossed Po-

“summoned” by a confederation of grandees

hostile

new constitution. The young state’s newly levied army offered

a courageous resistance.

On July 23

pitulation addressed to the tsarina. a military dictatorship.

Stanislaw signed a letter of ca-

The Russian protectorate became

A second treaty of partition,

ish territory to insignificance,

reducing Pol-

was signed on January

tween Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

23, 1793, be-

And this was only a beginning.

the

whom the Confederates of 1792 made responsible for new partition, was now a king in name only. When on March

23,

1794, a revolution led by Kosciuszko exploded in Krakow, then

Stanislaw,

in

Warsaw, massacring the Russian occupiers and

their

most

dent collaborators, Stanislaw unhesitatingly sided with them.

evi-

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST

SITE

•

The response was overwhelming. In June 25,000 Prussians ing with 15,000 Russians under Suvarov’s

Warsaw, where

a Jacobin Terror

taken, Catherine erased the clared in

it

little

command

join-

laid siege to

commenced. Once the

city

was

Poland of 1793 from the map, de-

and sent Stanislaw to house

to be occupied territory,

489

Grodno. The third treaty of partition,

this

arrest

time confirming the

suppression of Poland, was signed on October 24, 1795. Stanislaw

was forced

to abdicate.

He had

never ceased writing devotedly to

Catherine, hoping against hope for a change in her policies.

“Maman Geoffrin” and the Duplicity

of

Parisian Consciences The character of Stanislaw flaws in

its

philosopher-king had a good

many

metal: they would suffice to attest to the Enlightenment’s

contradictions.

would

as a

The policy of Versailles toward Stanislaw’s Poland

suffice for its part to belie the reputation for cleverness that

French diplomacy had acquired since the Ryswick, and Utrech t. But what could

treaties

of Wesphalia,

now be said of the attitude of

the Parisian philosophers and their leader Voltaire toward a king

who, by that he

their

own

admission, was their pupil and toward a country

had labored against time and

to their

own

tide to “enlighten” according

views? If the French court showed itself to be stupid,

the capital of the Enlightenment revealed itself as odious. It all

began with

Mme

Geoffrin’s journey to

Warsaw

in 1766,

concerning which Voltaire had managed to write that “in France this

must be

a great period for all

thinking people.” The Patronne of

the philosophic salon of 372, rue Saint-Honore, until the coronation

of 1764, had regarded Stanislaw Poniatowski tle

boy”

whom

as

no more than

a “lit-

she was obliged to instruct in the elements of good

behavior. For fear that he might connect with the best art connois-

seur and adviser of the period, the

Comte de Caylus, she had banned

her Polish protege from her “Mondays,” her day for artists and amateurs,

and henceforth reserved

for herself the role of intermediary

49°

WHEN THE WORLD

•

for his purchases

SPOKE FRENCH

of pictures and

statues.

The new king was

quire for his collections, to his great despair,

and many

to ac-

many mediocre works

fakes.

Once Stanislaw had become king, he regarded Mme Geoffrin

as

what she appeared, a precious intermediary between foreign princes such

as

salon.

himself and the philosophic pundits

who

frequented her

He therefore addressed to her, during her visit, the same pro-

motional circulars he sent to his Western correspondents. In

ex-

woman he called, outside her reach,

“la

change he received, from the

Geoffrin,” torrents of tenderness to

and that he certainly did not long

resist

desire.

which he was not accustomed Yet this eternal “son” could not

grasping the hand one more

maman held out to him.

The Patronne of the philosophes, unlike Proust’s Mme Verdurin, had not even an ounce of wickedness in her

character.

But she was

intoxicated with snobbery, and put her remarkable practical sense

and her psychological

flair in

the service of this violent passion.

“Her” philosophers’ ideas interested her only notions that had to be endorsed her, for

they were, after

all,

men

if she

was

fairness, she

to keep

illusions

to

any number of people in

many members of foreign

had no

them attached

of letters famous enough to attract

to the house of a bourgeoise like herself

high society and

as politically correct

nobility as well. In

about Frederick

II

all

or the tsarina, and

she was one of the rare French people, male or female,

who sincerely

sympathized with Stanislaw. Devout, prudish, charitable though tightfisted, ter

and conservative through and through,

like her

daugh-

whom she had “made” Marquise de La Ferte-Imbault, her entire

life as a

hostess, indeed as

an “ambassadress” of the Enlightenment

philosophers, was based on a profound misunderstanding that she herself as well as her habitues understood well

with great

enough

to conceal

care.

This hidden misunderstanding grafted

Mme

Geoffrin’s

power

onto that which her philosophers had acquired to dictate French

and indeed European public opinion. to verify to

its

fullest extent this

And it was the obscure desire

power, a mere reflection of that of

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST at

of her enthroned “son.” She went so far as to allow

tal

491

•

— she who seventy had, like foot outside Paris — a journey to the remote capi-

her habitues, that led her to conceive Boileau, never set

SITE

herself,

un-

derstanding nothing of politics or diplomacy, to write to Choiseul

on March too

11,1765, suggesting that

much

he proceed to recognize her “child”

ignored by Versailles: a suggestion that indefinitely

ruined Stanislaw’s project to the king, Choiseul, and the

warm in his regard the sentiments of Comte de Broglie, head of the King’s

Secret.

Stanislaw resisted for some time, but was obliged to resign himself to

approving this journey.

comfortable coach

set

On May

21,

1766,

Mme

Geoffrin’s

out on the cobblestones of the rue Saint-

Honore. For the entire length of the extensive journey she was

re-

ceived from capital to capital as the queen of the Enlightenment,

notably in Vienna where she received honors of the court she would never have dreamed of expecting from Versailles. Europe had eyes fixed

on

this

messenger of the philosophes, duly accredited

its

as

she was by Voltaire.

The stay in Warsaw did not last, however, beyond ten weeks. Posing as the

Mme de Maintenon of the realm, meddling with the po-

decisions of a country she

litical

was “Gothic” and that

knew nothing

would be

it

vital,

about, save that

it

with the help of the good

Russian regiments, unequivocally to impose the enlightenment desired

by her Parisian habitues, interfering in family quarrels she

managed only

to embitter further, intervening with all her prudery

in Stanislaw’s private life

and with

all

her parsimony in his court’s

financial affairs, this pretentious interloper, initially effusively,

welcomed

so

was soon reduced to quarreling by correspondence with

a

king too preoccupied to see her too long and too often. If Stanislaw

had ever supposed that the presence might

install at

Warsaw

at his

a bucket brigade

court of “la Geoffrin”

of philosophers and con-

vince the world of his European prestige, he soon realized his mistake.

Of course

one revered

in “la Geoffrin” the shades

of Grimm,

d’Alembert, Marmontel, and Voltaire, but in her unaccompanied

49*

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

presence, the royal reader of French classics to realize that she

had plenty of occasions

was ultimately no better than

Mme

Pernelle in

Moreover, neither Voltaire nor d’Alembert ever dreamed

Tartuffe.

of going to Warsaw, and ful stopovers there;

Grimm made

Diderot en route to

only the briefest of disdainPetersburg actually man-

St.

aged to detour around the Polish obstacle! Furious,

La Patronne retraced her journey on September

though she managed onciliation, she said.”

Even

so,

to receive

from the king certain

letters

and

of rec-

answered them by a curt “Everything has been the correspondence straggled on, so anxious was

Stanislaw not to sever any

ties

with

Paris.

Exasperated as he was by

her advice to abdicate or else submit to Russian power, theless to

13,

it

was none-

Mme Geoffrin that he confided, at the height of the Con-

federation of Bar rebellion, the secret of his wavering and persevering royal policy:

“Whenever the Russians

tell

me, ‘You speak for those

who seek to dethrone you,’ I answer, ‘As I see it, they sin out of ignorance, but their motives, at least as regards the majority, have patrio-

tism and national independence as their objective; they are Poles,

hence

I

must

try to aid

them

as well as

I

can.’” 15

A mere reflection of philosophical cliches, poor Mme was

in spite of everything

Voltaire,

an angel of good faith in comparison with

who by midcentury had reached

fame and authority,

in

Geoffrin

Poland

the peak of his European

as elsewhere.

The lord of Ferney saw

Catholic Poland against the dark background of Gothic ages in

which, according to him, France ness of the century of Louis

itself had

wallowed until the

great-

XIV and the progress of the century of

Voltaire. In his eyes, this cave

of fanaticism stained an Eastern Eu-

rope where the Enlightenment of two Louis

XIVs shone

in all

its

glory and well deserved the entire favor of the Republic of Letters. It is difficult

to imagine

these beacons

an optical inversion more obtuse.

was Frederick the Great, from

would permanently detach

Voltaire,

and

voked him to no more than an indulgent

15.

all

whom

One

of

no quariel

of whose defects pro-

irony.

The other was Cath-

Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et I’Europe des Lumieres, p. 310.

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST erine, she too labeled “the Great”

won

all his

ter III

SITE

493

•

by him and his parrots, having

philosophical sympathy during the “liquidation” of Pe-

and again during the

on August

assassination,

16,

1764, of

another nuisance, Prince Ivan. Sure of matching Voltaire’s senti-

ment

— though only the year before Voltaire had published Traite tolerance — d’Alembert, Voltaire’s local Parisian agent, had

sur la sent

him

this

commentary at the

time:

According to the proverb, “Better

kill

the devil than

devil kill you.” If princes adopted mottoes, as

tom, this would be the to get rid of so

sorry one

is

tsarina’s.

Yet

it is

many people and then

about

it all,

but that

is

let

was once the cus-

really too

bad to have

remark in print

to

the

hardly your

fault.

how

One ought

not make this sort of excuse in public too frequently.

I

agree

with you, philosophy shouldn’t be overly proud of such pupils.

But what can you do? We must love our friends,

Evidently philosophers can friends bles;

and

tell

faults

was generous with her

her orders of political promotion were paid to the

purchased the horological production of Ferney,

him

16 .

the difference between powerful

helpless friends. Catherine

library while leaving

and all

last sou;

ru-

she

as well as Diderot’s

the usufruct thereof; she agreed to pur-

chase several French works of art of which Diderot hastened to play the honest broker; and finally she distributed pensions as gener-

ously as Fouis XIV. Another point in

common

with the Great

King: she had an army. In one and the same person she for her friends

and French propagandists the

by which she claimed to illuminate Russia. its

to be satisfied with being the

possible at the “I

6.

Enlightenment

was quite natural that

progressive rays should extend to the reactionary shadows of Po-

land. Stanislaw, always short of money

1

It

entire

summed up

moon

and

battalions,

would have

of this Petersburg sun, and

same time, of the Potsdam sun

if

as well.

don’t know,” Voltaire wrote to d’Alembert in

November

Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et I’Europe des Lumieres, p. 317.

1764,

494 just is

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

when

Catherine’s lover had been elected king of Poland,

“who

the greater philosopher: Stanislaw, or the king of Prussia, or the

One

Tsarina.

is

amazed by the progress reason

making

is

in the

north .” 17

During

his

ance, Voltaire

the Sirvens.

land had

campaign in favor of Calas, the

Having

boldens

made

in 1766 before the Diet, in

humanity by establishing

me somewhat.

It is

True salvation

By

is

for

which he encouraged

took him

Sire,

at his

word and

the benefit you bestow

a wise tolerance in

a concern of the

you belong. I shall die in peace,

Simeon

toler-

received the text of the speech the king of Po-

regarded the matter as settled: “But, all

and

had obtained from Stanislaw two hundred ducats

civic equality for non-Catholics, Voltaire

upon

Sirvens,

human

Poland em-

race, to

since I have seen the days

which

ofsalvation.

the benefactor. Sire, you will pardon the aged

for exclaiming: Benefaction!”

18

a wonderful semantic rearrangement, the splendid pretext

the tsarina

would invoke

to justify in 1767 the entry of Russian

troops into Poland and the repression of the Confederation of Bar

Europe

rebellion enabled her advocate Voltaire to offer

own campaign

tion of peoples’ rights as a brilliant victory of his favor of tolerance:

“Not only

is

this princess tolerant,”

“but she desires her neighbors to be so as well

this viola-

he wrote,

She has sworn that

she does not covet an inch of land, and that everything she does

only for the glory of tolerance.” 19

St.

is

A pseudonymous pamphlet, which

circulated throughout Europe, brought Voltaire

and bribes from

in

sumptuous

gifts

Petersburg. Les Dissensions des eglises en Pologne

describes the tsarina

and her armies

as

the secular

arm of philosophy

performing what Stanislaw had been pleased to encourage: the defeat

of a bloody fanaticism dishonoring Poland and humanity. The

pseudonymous author went

17.

so far as to write:

Voltaire, Correspondance, edited

by Theodore Besterman (Oxford: Voltaire

Foundation), letter D12185. 18.

Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et I’Europe des Lumieres, p. 321.

19.

Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et I’Europe des Lumieres, p. 319

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST It

was astonishing to

see a Russian

SITE

495

•

army living in the heart of

Poland with much better discipline than was ever shown by Polish troops. There has not been the slightest disorder.

The

countryside has been enriched instead of being devastated: the

army was

One might

there only to protect tolerance

have taken this army for nothing but a Diet convoked for the sake of Liberty.

10

'‘Humanitarian war,” preventive protection of minorities, the right to intervene

— the moral masks of realpolitik had already been

invented. Even so, Voltairean initial enthusiasm for the civilized

and

civilizing Russian troops

was somewhat confounded by the

news, in 1772, of the brutal partition of Poland by which the two

Louis

XI Vs of the North had dealt themselves such winning hands.

This time the philosopher, this

who

at first

was reluctant to

crime of philosophers, refrained from mentioning

even under the

veil

it

believe in in public,

of anonymity. In private, in his correspondence,

he confined himself to quoting La Fontaine

My friends,

the Soli-

me — or

to sadly

tary said, things of this world are of no concern to

disowning his habitual declamations against the “Welches” and

hymns

to the glory of the

Reason of the North:

“I still prefer

his

being

French to Danish, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Prussian, or Turk; yet

would be

a

and

11

free.”

Frenchman

solitaire far ,

from

Paris, a

Frenchman Swiss

In his correspondence with Frederick, he limited himself at to

first

an ironic remark on the motto of a medal the king of Prussia had

struck in imitation of Fouis

XIV in order to celebrate his part in the

Polish banquet, Regno redintegrato (“the realm restored to

which Voltaire would have

tiers”), to

(“one realm more”).

whom not

he was never to write again.

failed,

rightly preferred

Not one word of condolence

its

fron-

Regno novo

to Stanislaw, to

Mme du Deffand, though, had

with a certain secret pique, to invite the sage to make for

20. Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et 21.

I

VEurope des Lumieres, p.

Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et I’Europe des Lumieres.

322.

496

•

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

once a generous gesture. ten him, “to

make some

Only a voice such

knew

as

“I

much

should so

like you,” she

sort offactum for the

yours could

make

had

poor king of Poland.

itself heard.”

22-

Of course she

had mentally adopted

perfectly well that Voltaire

writ-

in this

painful affair the motto paraphrased from Corneille’s Prusias: “Ah, don’t

make

quarrels for

brilliant English

pamphlet did not

ful silence, following so

him

tively gave

me with my philosopher-kings!” fail

to ridicule Voltaire’s

much hollow propaganda

the unfortunate figure of no

In defense of the great

man

Lindsay’s

shame-

that retrospec-

more than

a dupe.

“outstripped by history,”

it

must be

acknowledged that he did not dupe himself. To Frederick, to whom he sent the severe English pamphlet

he went

as a

proof of sacrificial

loyalty,

he could go without directly colliding with his old

as far as

accomplice:

I

was trapped

like

an idiot when

I

foolishly supposed, before

the Turkish war, that the empress of Russia was in league

with the king of Poland to do

Orthodox] dissidents and

a

freedom of con-

carry out their plans without the poor devils suspecting

thing

23 .

Despite this taire’s

solely to establish

and

You kings, you’re like Homer’s gods who make mortal

science.

men

justice to the [Protestant

and Stanislaw’s awareness of how much Vol-

jilt,

moral smoke rings had encouraged the

king of Poland persisted no of the Enlightenment

as “the

full-length statue of the great his castles

and parks.

less

tsarina’s appetite, the

obstinately in regarding the king

honor of his

age.”

Three busts and

a

man continue to this day to embellish

Up to the final triumph of the author of Can-

dide at the Comedie-Fran^aise, he kept himself abreast of his every gesture

and remark.

He gleefully leafed through his personal file

the great writer’s letters

ii. Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste 23.

and manuscripts, and continued

Poniatowski

et

of

to regard

I’Europe des Lumieres.

Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et I’Ewrope des Lumieres, p. 328.

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST himself as the Sage of Ferney’s ress

disciple, faithful to the ideal

gleaned from his writings,

He

fancies.

Poland

admired Rousseau

had written

the latter

at the request

SITE

497

•

of prog-

not to his person and his passing

if

as well, all the

more perhaps

since

in 1772 of his project of a constitution for

of the Confederation of Bar, crushed, in spite

of Stanislaw’s impotent objurgations, by General Apraksin’s Rus-

His reign had nonetheless permitted the

sian troops.

Poland, to participate in the general

One

could hardly say as

Stanislaw

II

much

Poles, if not

movement of minds in Europe.

for the Russia of Catherine

II.

Augustus, French Memorialist

Stanislaw Poniatowski, ending his days in the Marble Palace of St. I

had summoned him upon Cath-

Us death, would have been

surprised to learn that his earthly

Petersburg to which Tsar Paul erine

fame might one day become that of a French mories, but that

was in

writer.

He

Me-

left

his eyes his political justification for the Po-

land to come, and not a French literary monument. Even today, true, the

it is

French themselves are unaware of the centrality of the

own literary tradition, and only a forgot-

genre of memoires in their

ten book, though one that merits rediscovery, has hitherto done justice to the distinction

of the king of Poland’s Memoires in this

ultra-French tradition.

The superiority of memoires over the best historiography they show instead of trying to explain.

ondary

state

through

of a witness

his still-searing

And

who knows

felt,

in the gathering darkness by the light of a

of memoires

is

art

going to

is

seen,

die, leafing

what he has

illuminated one

sun that will not

of aristocratic origin,

during the ancien regime, this

sinewy

is

that

they show in that sec-

memories of what he has

done, what he has heard, what he has

If the genre

he

is

if it

last

time

rise again.

was so

brilliant

no doubt primarily because the

of dialogue and narrative, the talent of portraiture and

anecdote, were necessary elements of the spirit of conversation that

extended quite naturally into written correspondence, and that

498

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

was, so to speak, concentrated in memoires

when

their

hour had

come. In writing his memoires, a court aristocrat was sustained by the sentiment of having been a part of historical events and associ-

ated with the group of men and in

which he had lived,

which he had grown by the

all

up.

women who epitomized the period

of them included in the milieu of power in

The extraordinary

of memoires had

final projection

interior film postulated

initially

so to speak, shot during a previous existence

been recorded and,

on the lookout,

in the

dangerous, breathless, sometimes intoxicating suspense of the court

and the “companies” gravitating around one. One does not forget

what has made one tremble with But why should

fear or pleasure.

this aristocratic genre

born in France with

Joinville,

have been a French genre,

and accompanying the

successive

reigns of our kings, the successive states of our language, with

an

abundance, a variety, a vitality culminating in the seventeenth century with the various memoires of the Fronde? Perhaps because the

French aristocracy was

once very attached to

at

its

kings and in a

perpetualfronde an open or intimate rebellion against their yoke. ,

The

fact

is

that in the eighteenth century, the great foreigners

who wrote memoires — Frederick II and his sister the Margravine of Bayreuth, Baron de Besenval, the Prince de Ligne,

nova

— regarding the genre

them

product of French

,

with even more

talent, in French,

it is

have written

wrote his Me-

because he

knew bet-

than anyone the French tradition of the genre, to the point of

inhaling at Versailles and at Paris, a fragrance Iu,

soil,

in our language. If Stanislaw Poniatowski also

moires. ter

as a

Giacomo Casa-

from the Baudelairean

of names and characters

when he discovered them fiacon, a savor of deja

who had

already

in 1753,

vu and deja

“become familiar”

to

him. 14 If Stanislaw’s Memoires (especially in their early volumes,

from which

I

have already quoted a good deal) have a brilliance and

a suspense exceptional

among

foreigners written in French,

and of

style: it is

24. Poniatowski,

the eighteenth-century memoires by it is

not only a question of language

because he began them and continued to write

Memoires

,

vol.

I,

p. 93.

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TEST them

SITE

in the archetypical situation of the classics of the genre,

the threat not only of death but of damnatio memoriae.

has been

made

illustrious in

quered and in disgrace

Simon

France by great lords and

— Retz,

under

The genre con-

ladies,

Grande Mademoiselle,

the

499

•

Saint-

— who confide to their family, even to a remote posterity, the from the sea into which they

desire to rescue the precious bottle secretly flung

it

knew his great

to them. Stanislaw

authors virtually

by heart. The day came when he found himself confined by the

same

life

drama and he

resorted to the same literary release.

Dictated in French to his secretary Christian-Wilhelm Friese

between 1771 and 1798,

reread,

and corrected

Memoires of King Stanislaw have this singular genre.

who

is

all

They reflect the

in his

own

the characteristic features of

living speech of a

who

not a professional writer, but

hand, the

is

man of action

a past master in the vir-

tuoso usage of the French language. The Memoires of Stanislaw

Poniatowski are exceptional for their freshness, their freedom of

and abundance of their

tone, the felicity

improvisation that follows hearse

its

its

own

oral improvisation, but

an

impulse and has no need to

re-

effects to carry off its vocalises.

classical prose, in the Voltairean sense

Rousseauan Sehnsucht can be heard

He began to write in already being conceived,

1771,

when

Against a background of

of the term, something of

as well.

the

first

partition of Poland

was

when the imprudent Confederation of Bar

had drawn the Russian army onto national

territory,

and when

Stanislaw realized that his reign, hanging by no more than a thread,

would never be

a source of glory to

and of Louis XIV had been for Saint-Simon

had trampled Louis

it

XV, who

— a figure

in 1753

summed up

The

fate his

definition

What the state of Richelieu

for Retz, for the

of

Fatum

had not deigned

after

Grande Mademoiselle,

— was what

underfoot, what Frederick,

what Voltaire, who him,

him.

who had violated it, what

to speak a

1772 had once and for

for this eternal pupil

Memoires met with

is

who

Catherine,

all

word

to him,

and

ceased writing to

of the Enlightenment.

also archetypical of a genre

by

posthumous and threatened by long disappearances.

Written in clandestinity, memoires sometimes surface long

after

5

oo

WHEN THE WORLD SPOKE FRENCH

•

their author’s death. This delay

is

memoires of the Fronde saw the light of day only

XV, upon

death. Louis

duke’s Memoires

little

,

after

Louis XIV’s

Saint-Simon’s death, had sequestered the

which

it

great families of the court.

was known in high places might

XIV

damage the glory of Louis

well

and the honor of numerous

What had happened

peated on an entirely different scale in

in France

tsarist Russia,

was

re-

where mem-

a la fran^aise, an exotic genre, were not, to say the

oires

The

frequently a matter of state.

least,

protected by a literary tradition, and where nonetheless the ex-king

of Poland was obliged to end his days, forswearing his in the

Marble Palace where he died

The

a state secret at

were immediately transported and deposited under

high

briefly in 1891,

I,

in the State Archives.

when Tsar Alexander

III

risk,

seal in the

chives of Foreign Affairs, then, for greater security, in 1832,

orders of Nicholas

people

in 1798.

morocco-bound volumes,

eight

own

Ar-

on the

They emerged only

was curious enough to

glance through them. Aside from their entirely personal content,

they contained a collection of diplomatic and political documents (all

in French) essential for the Russo-Polish history of an unfortu-

nate reign.

It

was only in 1907 that Serge Goua'inov obtained Nich-

olas IPs authorization to publish

them on the press of the Academy

of Sciences, more than a century

after Stanislaw’s death.

To

this

day only one Frenchman, Jean Fabre, in the magnificent

book he published in

1952, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski etl’Europe

des Lumieres has fully accounted for this masterpiece of our lan,

guage. ies.

Few copies of this biography are to be found in French librar-

Stanislaw’s

Memoires

one of the best panoramas of

are

Enlightenment Europe that can be read, traits,

and

it

also the archive of

a gallery

of striking por-

an Enlightenment sovereign

reigned in an Eastern Europe to which such illumination

from in

far off,

who came

from high places, but was nowhere better received than

Poland where

tragic denials

it

suffered, long before 1793, the

series

of

own days, in by “socialism with a human face.”

and disappointments

Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague,

same

suffered, in

our

INDEX

Comte

Adams, Henry, 416

Angiviller,

Adams, John, 416

Anhalt, princes

Adolph

Frederick,

Agoult,

Mme d’, 435

Aiguillon,

King of Sweden, 367

Due d’,

Mile,

II),

173-74

see Catherine II “the Great,”

66,

3,

Alba, Duchess

Duke

Anhalt-Zerbst, Princess von (mother

Anhalt-Zerbst, Sophie von,

38a

67-68

Tsarina of Russia

Alary, Abbe, 61

Alba,

of, 163

of Catherine

Ailesbury, 133 A'fsse,

419

d’,

Anjou, Philippe

Albani, Alessandro, Cardinal, 82 of,

143, 144, 258

Anne, Queen of England,

437

Albany, Louise Maximilienne

of,

Anne of Austria, Queen Anthony of Padua,

428-46

Aldenburg, Charlotte-Sophie

d’,

see

Antoine, Michel, 22,

353

Appiani, Andrea, 318

dAldenburg, Countess of

Apraksin, General, 497

Rond d’,

123, 218, 222,

3,

104,

113,

242, 243, 281, 285,

286, 336, 379, 397, 475, 491-92, 493

Alen^on,

d’,

98,

I,

Alexander

III,

58,

Aremberg family,

Comte

186

451

Argenson, Marquis Argental,

104

Tsar of Russia, 500

Artois,

d’, 3,

Comte

62,

d’,

Aubigne, Constant

d’, 13

Algarotti, Francesco, xxix, 139-58, 228

Aubigne, Fran^oise

d’,

Allaire,

Abbe,

471,

4

Maintenon,

Aubigne, Louise-Artemise

Audran, Claude,

135, 136, 195

Amelot du Fournay, Michel,

see

1

Fran^oise dAubigne, Marquise de

474

Amelot de La Houssaye, Abraham Nicolas,

424

12-13,

444

432-41,

67-68, 106

170, 372,

d’,

Aubigne, Agrippa

Alexander the Great, 70, 114 Alfieri, Vittorio, xxv, xxix,

102

d’, 101,

Ariosto, 141, 202, 300

Tsar of Russia, 260

Alexander

Arbuthnot, Dr.,

of France, 386

324, 326

Bentinck, Charlotte-Sophie

Alembert, Jean Le

57, 58, 59,

76, 80

Caroline von Stolberg-Gedern,

Countess

King

Anna Ivanovna, Tsarina of Russia,

238

Albany, Duchess

see Philip V,

of Spain

of, 323

of,

d’,

195

III,

d’, 13

87

Augustus, Emperor of Rome,

112, 153

501

5

oi

INDEX

•

Augustus

II,

King of Poland,

148,

469

Augustus

III,

79, 98,

Josephine, Empress of France

King of Poland,

100,

148, 469, 470, 472, 473, 483

Aumont, Due Aurelian,

Auxerre,

Due

365

d’,

369-70, 374, 396, 436, 437 de, 420, 421,

68

d’,

434

Beaune, Vicomte de, 397

Beauvau-Craon, Princesse

17

Aydie, Chevalier

Ayen,

Beaumarchais, Pierre, 244, 368,

Beaumont, Pauline

376

d’,

Emperor of Rome, d’,

Beauharnais, Josephine de, see

Beauvilliers,

Due

de, 369

de, 129

Beccaria, Cesare, 140, 269

399

Beckford, Harriet, 303 Bacciochi, Elisa, Duchess of Tuscany,

441

308-9, 323

Bacon, Francis, Baletti,

36

8,

Beckford, Louisa, 303, 304

Elena (Flaminia),

Balletti,

87, 88

Antonio (Mario),

87,

90

Baltimore, Lord, 143 Balzac,

Honore

Barclay, John,

de, xxix, 337, 472, 481

393-94

Mme de, 17

Barney, Natalie, 209, Barre, Chevalier de

Barry,

311

la,

Comtesse du,

Beckford, Maria Hamilton, 298-300, 302, 306, 308

Beckford, William,

II,

Beckford, William,

Sr.,

Belle-Isle,

Barillon, Paul, 194

Barneval,

Beckford, Lady Margaret Gordon,

233,

Giovanni, 310

Bellori,

Gian

Bembo,

247

100

Pietro, 149

487

Pietro, 147

Benavente, Countess

of,

33m

Benedict XIV, Pope, 140, 268, 337

397

Barthes, Roland, 399

Benozzi, Zanetta

Basnage de Beauval, Jacques,

298, 310

de, 82,

Bellini,

Bellotto, Bernardo,

377, 456

Barthelemy, Abbe, 29,

Marechal

298-316, 317-35

(Silvia), 87,

Bentham, Jeremy, 28

5

Batteux, Abbe, 351

Bentinck, Charlotte-Sophie

Batthiany, Countess, 81

d Aldenburg, Countess

Baudelaire, Charles, xxix, 222

159-76, 474

Baudouin, 275

Bayeu family,

Bentinck, Willem von,

321,

322

Berenson, Bernard,

Bayreuth, Frederica Sophia Wil-

Berghove, de, 137

helmina, Margravine

of, 110-11,

125-38, 173, 498

Bayreuth, Frederick, Margrave

of,

474

82,

209

Mme de, 62

Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 152 Bernis, Cardinal de, 260, 369, 431-32

Bayreuth, George Frederick Charles, of,

161, 163, 166,

Bernier, Francois, 307

Bernieres,

134-38

Margrave

of,

Bentley, Richard, 229

Bayle, Pierre, 261

12.7,

89-90, 92

127

Beauharnais, Alexandre de, 438

Berry,

Agnes and Mary, 232

Berry, Duchesse de, 429, 430

Bertin,

443

INDEX Bertin, Mile,

460

Boufflers,

Bertoni, Ferdinando, 301

Duke

Boufflers,

Marechal

de, ZZ7, 368, 369,

de, zo, 80

Henri

Boulainvilliers,

48, 74, 101

of, 38,

de,

Besenval, Baron de, 39, 418, 498

Boulanger, General, 401

Bestutchev, Count,

Boulle,

Bettinelli, Severio,

Biancolelli,

480

Andre

de, Z3, z6, 10711, ZZ5

Bourbon dynasty,

90

86, 87,

97

Charles, 310

Bourbon, Due

140

Domenico,

Due

xx, Z7, Z69,

Bismarck, Otto von, xix

Bourgogne,

Blake, William, 301

Bourgogne, Duchesse de, ZZ5

Blamont, Francois Colin de, 349

Bouton, 304

Blanchard, Thomas,

Boutteville, Chevalier de, 397

191

Boyer, Etienne, 8z

Blixen, Karen, Z16-17

Brancas, Duchesse de, 474

Blome, Baron, 398

Branicki family, 469

Marquise

de, zoz,

Bremond, Abbe, 347

477

Bloy, Leon, 386

Bocage,

Breteuil,

Mme du, zn, 349

Baron

de, 391

Breuil, Sieur du,

Boccaccio, 191

1

16

Mme, 404-5,

Brillon de Jouy,

Bochart, Samuel, 365

Brissac,

Marechal-Duc

Bolingbroke, Ffenry St John, Viscount,

Broglie,

Comte de,

Broglie,

Due

37-38, 53-69, 186, 188

Bolingbroke, Marie-Claire de

de,

de, zo, 371

399, 491

44Z

Brook, Peter, 91 Briihl,

Countess von, 473, 474

Bonaparte, Joseph, 3Z5

Briihl,

Count von,

Bonaparte, Lucien, 3Z7, 455

Bruno, Saint, 30Z

Marsiily, Lady,

407,

409-11

Boileau, Nicolas, 47, 1Z9, 139, z6i, 491

z, z8,

4Z9

de, Z3, 58, 180-81, ZZ5

Blavet, 349

Blot,

503

374,381-83

Berulle, Cardinal de, 337, 338

Berwick,

Comtesse

•

13,

z8, 37, 6z,

64

Bonaparte, Napoleon, see Napoleon

Emperor of France

I,

Brunswick,

Duke

101, 148,

473

of, z, 391,

4Z0

Brunswick, Sophie Dorothea von, 98

Bonnal, Father, 34Z

Bulkely, Henrietta, 48

Bonnet, Jean-Claude, 407

Burgoyne, John, 399

Bonstetten, Charles Victor de,

44Z

Burke,

Edmund, xxv,

56, 149, 179, Z30,

Borges, Jorge Luis, 31Z

z88, 301, 309, 384, 385, 4Z8, 438,

Borgognone,

486, 488

II,

Bossuet, Bishop,

148 9, 13,

86, 338,

470

Bussy, Marquis de,

64

Comte

Boswell, James, zo8

Bussy-Rabutin,

Bouchardon, Edme, 349

Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 301, 3Z0

Boucher, Francois, 334n

Bouchet, Mile du, Z04, Z07

Cabarrus, 1 17

Boudin,

Caesar, Julius, 70, 147

19

de, 375

5o 4

•

INDEX

Calas, Jean, 140, 227,

494

Calvin, John, 165

Cambis,

Mme de, 236

Caylus,

Abbe de,

Caylus,

Anne-Claude Philippe de

Tubieres,

Campan, Mme, 402

13-14,

Comte

15

de, 1-33, 47, 150,

189, 228, 453, 454,

489

Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite Fe Valois

Canal, Ambassador, 29

Canova, Antonio, 440-41

de Villette-Mursay, Comtesse de,

Cantillana, Count, 269

4-5, 9-12, 13-21, 22, 23-26, 28,

Capacelli,

Marquis Albergati, 140

Caraccioli,

Domenico, 336-37, 340

29-33, 60, 268

Caylus family, 13-14

Caraccioli, Louis-Antoine, 285, 336-63

Cellamare, Prince de, 24

Carafa, Marquis Antonio, 74

Cesarotti, Melchior, 435

Cardailhac, Jeanne de,

Chamarante, Fieutenant,

13

85

Carency, Prince de, 324, 330, 334

Chamfort, Nicolas, 40, 405, 449

Carignan, Marie de Bourbon,

Champmesle, Marie, 14 Chantelou, Paul Freart de, 389

Princesse de, 71

Carmichael, William, 329

Chappe, Abbe, 243

Carmona, Manuel Salvador, 334

Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon, 307

Queen of England, 205

Caroline,

Carracci family, 149, 310

Charles

King of England,

I,

386, 428,

Charles

Carriera, Rosalba, 4

38,

Casanova, Giacomo, 89-90, 270, 452,

194, 412,

199,

Castries,

Roman Emperor,

73,

192

Charles VI, Holy

448

Due de,

449 King of Spain, 326-27

Charles V, Holy

Castiglione, Balthazar, 98, 182, 192,

34, 35, 37,

40, 43, 45, 46, 76, 146, 183,

Charles IV,

Castel, Father, 343

239,

437

King of England,

II,

Casali, Andrea, 305

498

35, 37,

Roman Emperor,

76,

80, 81, 100, 321

105

Cataneo, 157

Charles X, King of France, 429

Catherine, Infanta of Spain, 73

Charles XII, King of Sweden, 79, 98,

Catherine

I,

Tsarina of Russia, 131-34,

468-69

Charles XIII, King of Sweden, 366,

258

Catherine

366,

II

“the Great,” Tsarina of

Russia, 123, 163, 171, 227, 240-57, 258, 260, 267, 280, 285,

286-87,

291, 292, 336, 367, 368, 372, 452,

458, 461-66, 467,

479-89, 490,

492-95, 496-97, 499 Catherine de Medicis, Queen of France, 71 Catinat, Marechal, 76

376-78 Charles Edward, “the

Young

Pretender,” 38, 429, 430-31, 434>

435 436 >

Charlotte, Charolais,

Charost,

Queen of England, 437 Comte de, 107

Due

de, 23

Charron,

Pierre, 356

Chartres,

Due

de, 376, 471

INDEX Clement XIII, Pope,

Chateaubriand, Fran^ois-Rene,

Vicomte

de, xvi, xx-xxi, 60, 159,

337,

Cobenzl, Count von, 438

Cochin, Charles-Nicolas, 7

384-86, 417, 418, 420, 428-29,

Cocteau, Jean, 358

433. 434> 436, 44i> 443. 45i> 454.

Coigny, Marquise de, 458-64 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, xxvii, 218, 341

457-58

Chatelet, Marquise du, 36, 116, 122, 141, 158,

see Pitt,

William,

Lord Chatham Chaulieu,

Abbe

Chaulnes,

Due de,

Chaunu,

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 309

Columbus, Christopher, 348

349

Chatham, Lord,

de, 47,

Commercy, Prince Conde, Grand, Condillac,

294

de,

74

72, 73, 218

Abbe

de, 298

Condorcet, Marquis de, 166

398

Condren, 337

Pierre, 353

Chavigny, 64

Congreve, William, 57

Chenier, Andre, xxv, 438

Consalvi, Cardinal, 443

Chenier, Marie-Joseph, 438

Constant, Benjamin, 434

Chesterfield, Petronilla

von der

Conti,

Chesterfield, Philip

Dormer

Stanhope, fourth Earl 177-215, 298, 299.

Conti,

of, 37,

no,

478-79

Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, third of, 183,

of,

Armand, Prince

206-7

Corff,

M.

de, 137 81, 86,

90, 92, 119,

200, 225, 294, 496

Correggio, 149 Costes, Pierre, 36

Chinard, Gabriel, 407

Cottret, Bernard,

Due

469, 476

Copeau, Jacques, 189

Chevalier, Francois, 23

Choiseul,

1-33, 141,

de, xx, 72-73,

101, 104, 194, 368, 382,

Corneille, Pierre,

186

Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, fifth

Earl

Abbe Antonio, xxix,

268

Schulenburg, Lady, 204

Earl

505

431-32

165, 210, 301, 348, 334, 369,

455. 456,

•

de, xx, 27, 64, 198, 223,

55,

56

Courier, Paul-Louis, 443

231, 234, 269, 270, 369, 377, 397,

Courtenay, William, 302, 303, 308, 323

398, 431-32, 474, 49i

Courtenay

family, 308

Couty, M.,

235, 238

Choiseul, Choisy,

Mme de, 269, 460

Abbe

Christina,

Couvreur, Marcel, 454

de, 14, 71, 350

Queen of Sweden,

Christine Marie of France

98, 365

(Madame

Royale), 43

Cozens, Alexander, 299-300, 302,

303-4,307-8 Craig, Gordon, 91

Churchill, Winston, xvi, 77-78, 79, 83

Cramnick,

Cicero, xxvii, 112, 182

Craven, Lady, 230

Clairon, (actor), 99

Crawfurd, Quintin,

Clausewitz, Carl von, 99

Crebillon, Claude Prosper Jolyot de, 203

Clemenceau, Georges, xx

Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot de, 119, 348

Isaac, 65

387, 388,

420

1

5

o6

INDEX

•

262-65, 269, 270-71, 280,

Crespi, Giuseppe Maria, 82

261,

Creutz, Count, 368-69, 370

281, 284, 285, 286, 288, 290, 291,

Cromwell, Oliver, 412

374, 492, 493

Croy,

Due de,

Croy family,

Digby, Harry, 472

398

Dillon, Arthur, 2

451

Crozat, Pierre,

3,

4, 82,

Cumberland, Duke Cunard, Nancy,

of,

Benjamin, 65

149

Disraeli,

430

Domenichino,

191

Dorat,Jean, 225

31

Custine, Astolphe de, 144, 283

Dostoevsky, Fyodor, xxv

Czartoryska, Constanza, Princess

Drouais, Jean Germain, 443

Poniatowski, 469, 470, 473

Adam, 484

Czartoryski, Prince

Czartoryski family, 469, 471

Drysdale, Robert, 299

Dubois, Guillaume, Cardinal,

(painter), 318

Du Bos, Abbe,

Anne, 224, 340

25,

26, 37

Dubois Dacier,

3,

25, 28,

240

Daguerre, Louis, 304, 318

Duchesne, Father, 426

Damas, Comtesse

Duclos, Charles Pinot, 178, 276, 281

Dangeau, Marquis

Dante

422

de,

de, 48,

429

Dufresny, Charles, 88, 145

Alighieri, 147, 432,

440

Dugnani, Monseigneur, 437

Darmouth, Lord,

Duhan

39

Dashkova, Ekaterina Romanovna, Princess

of,

Dumesnil,

David, Jacques-Louis, 166, 370, 435,

Duncannon, Lady,

Mme,

David-Weill, Michel, 45

Dupin,

Decroux, Etienne, 189

Dupin de

216-39, 2-44.

2.76,

23, 38, 47,

169,

Descartes, Rene,

244

8,

178

Francueil, Charles Louis,

103, 104, 178

Egmont, Comtesse

Delacroix, Eugene, 327

Mme,

28, 36, 141, 294,

d’,

367

Elisabeth,

Madame, 400

Elizabeth

I,

Queen of England,

56

Elizabeth Petrovna, Tsarina of Russia, 242, 258, 471, 479-80, 483-84

348, 365

no

Desfontaines, Abbe, 340

Eluard, Paul,

Despreaux, Nicolas Boileau, 114

Entraigues,

Destouches, Chevalier,

Epinay, Louise

Devonshire, Duchess Dickinson, H.

391

320-21, 336,

397-98, 495-96

Denis,

451

Dupin, Maurice, 104

443

Deffand, Marquise du,

Mme, 379-80

Dumouriez, Charles Francois,

258-67

438, 440, 442,

(tutor), 128, 129

3

of,

443

7,

243-45, 254,

97, 99,

14 d’,

269, 270-78, 280,

282-83, 284, 291

Erasmus, 139

T., 65

Diderot, Denis,

d’,

241-42,

255, 258,

259-60,

Espagnac,

Abbe

de, 461

Este, Francesco III,

Duke

of,

148

INDEX Esterhazy, Count, 391

Foscolo, Ugo, 150,

Estienne, Henri, 393

Foster,

Estrees, Gabrielle Estrees,

d’,

443

Lady Elizabeth,

389,

390-92

d’,

Foucquet, Nicolas,

184

82, 225, 318

Euclid, 151

Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine, 451

Eugene, Prince of Savoy-Carignan,

Fox, Charles, 238

70-85, 474 Euler,

507

Fouche, Joseph, 482

43

Marechal-Duc

•

Abbe,

Fraguier,

Leonhard, 169

3

Franchi, Gregorio, 326

Euripides, 288

Francis

II

Rakoczi, Prince of Hungary,

78 Fabre, Fran^ois-Xavier,

440-41, 441,

443-44

Franklin, Benjamin,

Fabre, Jean, 283, 500

2,

169, 236,

393-411 Frederick, Prince ofWales, 126, 137, 138

Farinelli, 12

Farquhar, John, Fel,

Francois de Sales, Saint, 339, 356

Frederick

311

Mile, 282

II,

King of Prussia,

xx, xxix,

64, 70, 82, 100, 103, 110-24,

Fenelon, Francois,

9, 23, 129,

301, 348, 456, 470,

180, 298,

472

126-27,

i2-8, 130,

171, 241,

139-58, 162, 164,

242, 243, 260, 280, 284,

Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, 268

291, 365, 366, 391, 451, 452, 467,

Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, 328

471, 472, 479, 480, 482, 483,

Ferriol,

Comte

Ferriol,

Mme de, 2, 59, 60, 66-68

de,

484, 486, 490, 492, 496, 497,

3

498, 499

Fersen, Fredrik Axel von, 369 Fersen,

Hans Axel von,

Frederick William

King of Prussia,

I,

hi, 125-27, 131-34

369, 372,

384-92, 420

Freron, Elie Catherine, 176, 227

Fiechter, Jean-Jacques, 412,

422

Friese,

Christian-Wilhelm, 499

Fischer von Erlach, 75, 83, 137

Friese,

Count von,

Fitz-Herbert, 458, 463

Fuseli,

Henry, 301

Fitzjames,

281

Mme de, 392

Flahaut, Adele de, 419, 420, 421, 423,

Gainsborough, Thomas, 207 Galiani,

43 °> 443 Flahaut, Charles de, 419,

Abbe Ferdinando,

268-78

420

Flaubert, Gustave, xxv

Galiani, Bernardo, 268

Flaxman, John, 301

Galiani, Celestino, 268

Fleury, Cardinal de, 19, 22-27, 2 9> 101

Galitzin, Prince, 398

Folard, Chevalier de, 99, 100

Galitzin, Princess, 133

Fontenelle, Bernard

Galland, Antoine, 307

28, 67, 89, 128,

le

Bovier de, 2-3,

140-41, 145,

219,

Gassendi, Pierre, 49

348, 456, 475 Forcalquier,

Comtesse

Galway, Lord, 184

de, 227, 369

Gaultier,

Abbe,

58, 59

39, 140,

5

o8

•

INDEX Gramont, Elizabeth Hamilton,

Gautier, Theophile, 307

Comtesse

Gaxotte, Pierre, in, 353 Geoffrin, Marie-Therese,

6, 227,

228,

241, 243, 239, 262, 269, 281-82,

de, 43-45,

Grand Dauphin

449

(son of Louis

58, 225

285,336, 340, 366, 475, 477>

Grande Mademoiselle,

489-90, 491

Gray, Thomas, 142, 229, 301

George

188,

George

King of England,

I,

II,

King of England,

III,

204-5,

2.06,

64, 126,

207,

King of England,

395. 437. 461,

Gesvres,

Due

160, 477,

342-43

Grenaille, Francois de,

de,

474

56, 207,

486

Grimm,

Friedrich Melchior, 241, 244,

254, 255, 269, 270, 271, 272, 274, 275, 278,

279-97,

366, 379, 475,

491-92

Grimoard, General

475-76

336, 339, 340,

de,

66

Gherardi, Evariste, 88

Grotowski, Jerzy,

Gibbon, Edward, 56

Guasco, Abbe de, 199

Gillot, Claude, 87

Guibert,

Comte

Girardin, Marquis de, xx

Guignon

(musician), 349

Gleichen, Baron von, Gloucester,

499

Gretry, Andre, 370

204

186, 188,

George

59, 98, 186,

XIV),

Duke

de, 218

Guillemardet, Felix, 326-27

269

237

Guines,

Paul, 22

Gustav

of,

Godet des Marais,

137,

91

Godoy, Manuel, 326-27

Comte II

de, 397

Adolph, King of Sweden,

70, 98, 365, 366

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, xxv,

Gustav

III,

King of Sweden, xxi,

261,

280, 364-83, 387, 435, 456,

364 Goldoni, Carlo, 91-92

Goncourt

461-62, 487

Gustav IV Adolph, King of Sweden,

brothers, 353, 386

Goor, General, 83

389

Gordon, Lady Margaret,

see Beckford,

Guyon,

Mme,

301

Lady Margaret Gordon Gotland, Count von, 383

Halevy, Ludovic, 357

Gottsched, Johann Christoph, 164,

Halifax, Lord George Savile, Marquis of, 180, 181, 183, 184, 187,

281, 283

Edmond,

Gouai'nov, Serge, 500

Halley,

Gouges, Olympe de, 166

Hamann, Johann Georg,

Goya, Francisco, 317-28

Hamilton, Alexander, 416

Gracian, Balthazar, 197

Hamilton, Anthony, 34-54,

Graffigny,

Mme de, 211, 349

Grailly, Pierre de,

300

Gramont, Comte

de,

34-54,

42

8

150,

432

186, 229,

300, 448-50, 451, 471

Hamilton, Colonel James, 46, 300 186,

449

Gramont, Diane d’Andoins, Comtesse de,

189

Hamilton, Duchess

of, 311,

Hamilton, Elizabeth,

see

443

Gramont,

Elizabeth Hamilton, Comtesse de

INDEX Hamilton,

Emma Lyons, Lady, 303

Hesse-Darmstadt, Prince

of,

Hamilton, George, 46

Hildebrandt, Johann von, 73

Hamilton, Maria, see Beckford, Maria

Hobbes, Thomas,

Hamilton

63, 66,

241

Hogarth, William, 197

Hohenzollern dynasty,

Hancarville, Pierre-Fran^ois, 438

Holbach, Baron

Hannibal, 70

Holbein, Hans, the Younger, 148

Hanover dynasty,

57,

Hapsburg dynasty,

126, 128

281

d’,

Holstein-Augustenbourg, Prince von,

186

xx, 17, 70, 73, 76,

389

Homer,

Z07

114, 152, 222

Hardwick, Lord Chancellor, 477

Horace, 62,

Harley, Robert,

Horn, Aurore

37, 59

Haro, Mariana, Countess

of,

3x2

151, 183

de,

104

Hortense, Queen of Holland, 419

Harte, Raphael, 193

Houdart de La Motte, Antoine, 28

Harte, William, 196, 197, 203

Houdetot, Comte

Hasse, Hella

S.,

509

284

Hamilton, William, 303

83,

•

403-4

d’,

Houdetot, Sophie, Comtesse

i6on

Hassenstein, Count, 377

d’,

403-4

Hawkins-Witsched, Sophie, 172-76

Houdon, Jean-Antoine, 402,

Hazlitt, William, 310

Huber, Jean, 300

Hearst, William Randolph, 309

Hugo,

Heine, Heinrich, 393

Hume,

Heinrich, Prince of Prussia, 164, 280

Hunt, Lynn,

413

Victor, 21

David, 486 385

Helvetius, Claude Adrien, 366, 379

Helvetius,

Mme,

Hemingway,

404, 407-9

Infantado,

Ivan

324

IV “the Terrible,” Tsar of Russia, 2650

Henriette of France, 34, 386, 431, 437 III,

1 ,’

Ingres, Jean Auguste, 318

Ernest, 393

Henriette of England, 34

Henri

Due de

King of France,

14, 86,

Ivan VI, Tsar of Russia, 493

King of France,

42, 127, 254,

James, Henry, 200, 207, 209, 310, 403,

469 Henri

IV,

416

487

Henry V, King of England, Herbelot, Barthelemy

d’,

56

James

>

281,

474

38, 59,

Hervey, Lord, 142-44, 472

Jefferson,

280, 284, 290

428-29, 436

60, 68, 431

John, 418

Jay,

of,

33, 39,

Janot, 371

Hervey, Lady, 210

Hesse-Darmstadt, Caroline, Princess

34,

James Edward, “the Old Pretender,”

Hermann-Maurice of Saxony, Marshal of France, 97-109,

King of England,

43> 45 47> 183,

307

Herder, Johann Gottfried, 150, 432

II,

Thomas,

55,

420-21, 422 Jelyotte (singer), 349

406, 413, 415,

5

io

INDEX

•

John

Sobieski,

Johnn, Baron

King of Poland,

de, 166-67,

La Grange, Nicolas,

73

119

La Gueriniere, 203

170-72

Johnson, Samuel, 202, 208

La Harpe, Jean-Fran^ois,

Joinville, Jean de,

Lamartine, Alphonse de, 433, 443

498

Lamballe, Princesse de, 370, 421

Jonneau,

183

Joseph

Holy Roman Emperor,

I,

79,

80

Joseph

Lambert, Marquise

Holy Roman Emperor,

457, 458, 461-62, 467,

369,

de, 2-3, 99, 180,

241

181,

II,

288, 339

Lami, Abbe, 354 Lancret, Nicolas, 147

488

Josephine, Empress of France, 438,

Larbaud, Valery,

311

La Rochfoucauld, Due

440, 441 Jouberthon, Alexandrine,

197,

327, 455

de, 183, 195,

398-99. 448

La Rochfoucauld, Duchesse Kann, Roger, Katte,

311

Anton von,

261, 265-67, 372,

Kayserling, 471,

La Tour, de

164, 260,

(priest), 15

La Tour, Quentin

Count Hermann-Charles,

Comte

Lauzun, Due Lauzun,

204

Konigsmark, Aurora von, 98

Mme de, 460

La Ville, Abbe

de, 198, 199

Lavoisier, Antoine,

97-98 Konigsmark, Philipp Christoph, 98

Law, William, 337

Kosciuszko, Tadeusz, 488

Le Brun, Charles, Lebrun,

de, 176

La Bruyere, Jean

de, 91-92,

448, 471,

Marquis

de, 47,

Marquis

Feuillade,

Due

La Fontaine, Jean

Lee, Vernon, 429

Le Grand (diction professor), 99

294

de, 415, 419

de, 20,

de,

Leibniz, Gottfried, 4,

490

de, 89, 139, 194,

340-41 Fosse, Charles de,

495

5, 8,

240, 241, 352

Le Kain

78

Lafont de Saint-Yenne, Etienne,

La

5

Lefevre d’Etaples, Jacques, 225

La Ferte-Imbault, Marquise La

82, 87, 193

Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 99-100, 106-9

475

Fayette,

46

Mme, 460

Leclerc, Jean,

Laborde, Alexandre de, 455

La

de, 324-25, 330,

334

Konigsmark, Johann Christoph von,

Fare,

de, 398

de, 376

La Vauguyon, Due

Kiki (choirboy), 326, 331-32

La Beaumelle, Laurent

349

Princesse de, 160

Lauraguais,

484

La

de, 45,

La Tremoille, Charlotte-Amelie,

474

Kendal, Ehrengard Melunisa, Duchess of,

416m

453

Hans-Hermann von, in

Kaunitz, Wenzel

de,

(actor),

379

Lelio, see Riccoboni, Luigi Lely, Peter, 45

Le Moyne, Francois, 349 3

Leo X, Pope, 190

81-82, 122,

INDEX Louis XIV, King of France,

Leonardo da Vinci, 310 Leopold, Grand

Leopold

Duke of Tuscany,

II,

see

Holy Roman

I,

Holy Roman Emperor,

II,

73,

14-16, 21-22, 23,

71, 72, 73,

74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80-81, 83, 86,

179, 181, 187, 188, 190, 192, 193,

194-95, 216, 218, 220, 294, 347,

434

Le Ray de Chaumont, Jacques-

353,

Donatien, 399

360, 413, 428, 474, 477, 487,

492-.

499. 500

Louis XV, King of France,

Lesage, Alain-Rene, 41 Lespinasse, Julie de, 218, 222, 269, 278,

340 Lettice,

11, 13,

87, 89, 98, hi, 127, 129, 139, 149,

Holy Roman Emperor,

372, 432,

4,

46-47, 58-59, 60, 66,

74-75> 76, 79

Leopold

2, 3,

xviii, xxii,

24, 26-27, 34. 35-36, 38, 42, 43,

Emperor Leopold

1,

511

•

xxxi,

1,

16, 18, 21, 22, 39,

101, 102,

Reverend Doctor, 299, 300,

302

xxii, xxiii,

103-4,

42,

55,

97,

112, 113, 159, 179,

194, 220, 225, 228, 243, 269, 279, 291, 336, 341, 343, 347, 349, 353,

Leveque de

Pouilly, Louis-Jean, 61

366, 367, 373, 374, 377, 395, 431,

L’Hopital, Marquis de, 483

456, 469, 474-75. 476, 49i. 499.

Ligne, Charles-Joseph, Prince de, 41, 42, 47, 72, 242, 429,

39,

448-66,

500 Louis XVI, King of France, xx,

xxiii,

xxv, 27, 28, 170-72, 286, 327, 347,

488, 498

361, 369, 37 z_ 73> 385. 386, 387,

404

Ligniville family,

Lindsay, 496

388, 389, 396, 399,

Linguet, Simon-Nicolas, 368

405, 406, 416, 418, 419-21, 422,

Liotard, Jean-Fran^ois, 142, 148

423-26, 438, 471, 487

400, 402-3,

Lipsius, Justius, 193

Louis XVII, 372, 386

Listenois, Prince de, 324

Louis XVIII, King of France, 106, 372,

Listenois, Princesse de, 324, 330

429 Loutherbourg, Philip James de, 303-4,

Liston, Robert, 324, 329, 330 Liszt, Franz, 435

Livy,

306 Louvois, Marquis de, 71

11

Locke, John,

8, 28, 36, 36, 65,

66, 141,

Lucan, 229 Lucian, xxvii

240, 241

Loeben, Johanna Maria von, 99

Lucretius, 222

Lope de Vega, 86

Ludwig II, King of Bavaria,

Lorrain, Claude,

37,

Lully, Jean-Baptiste, 297, 349,

310

Louisa Ulrika of Prussia,

Queen

Consort of Sweden, 365-66, 37 1

,

367,

Louis XIII, King of France, 34, 343,

428

476

Luther, Martin, 125, 290

378-Bo

365, 386,

309, 310

Luxembourg, Marechal

de,

Luxembourg, Marechale

464 Lysippus, 82

xx

de, 227, 369,

512

.

INDEX

Mably, Abbe, 298

Mariette, Pierre-Jean,

Machiavelli, Niccolo, 66,

3,

Marlborough, Duchess

Magritte, Rene, 216

Marlborough, Duke

Due

du, 24, 219, 225

Maine, Duchesse du, 223,

of, 57, 58,

Marmontel, Jean-Fran^ois,

Marquise

de, 4, 12-15, 16-17,

J

9>

Marsilly, Marie-Claire de, see

Bolingbroke, Marie-Claire de Marsilly,

474

Lady

Maistre, Joseph de, 291

Marsin, Marechal, 77, 78

Malagrida, Gabriel, xxi

Marx, Karl, 268

Malebranche, Nicolas,

8,

28, 337,

348

Malesherbes, Guillaume-Chretien de, xx, 397, 417,

Mary, Queen of Scots,

35,

386

Mary I, Queen of England,

34

Mallarme, Stephane, xxx, 307

Masham, Lady,

Mallet, David, 65

Massillon, Bishop, 224, 348

Mamy,

Mattaire, Pierre, 196, 203

26n

58

Mancel, Philip, 456

Maupertuis, 162, 163

Mansfield, Henry, 65

Maurepas, Comte

Comte

de,

384

Marguerite de Navarre, 225

Maria Theresa, Holy

Roman Empress,

Maurice de Saxe,

de, xxiv, 103

see

Mayrisch,

Mme, 430

Mazarin, Cardinal,

486

Mead, Robert,

Maria Theresa of Spain, Queen of France, 76

Hermann-Maurice

of Saxony, Marshal of France

164, 165, 241, 285, 456, 467, 480,

Marie-Antoinette,

35-36

Mary of Modena, Queen of England,

437

Malezieu, Nicolas de, 223-25

Marcellus,

103, 336,

Marsh, Elizabeth, 299

20-25, 60, 86, 105, 218-19, 238,

Sylvie,

76-78,

366-67, 370, 374, 379, 475, 491

469

Maintenon, Fran^oise d’Aubigne,

436,

of, 58

79, 80, 83-85, 99

47, 218-19,

2,

148

Marivaux, Pierre de, 86-96, 142, 159

153, 195

Maffei, Scipione, 88, 141, 228

Maine,

29, 82,

71, 83,

386

5

Mecklenburg, Duke and Duchess von, 132

Queen of France,

Meilhac, Henri, 357

xx, 27, 164, 166, 260, 321, 369,

Meister, Henri, 284

370, 371, 372.-73, 384-92, 400,

Mengs, Anton Raphael,

401, 420, 421, 434, 456

Mercy-Argenteau,

Marie de Medicis, Queen of France, 41, 148

Marie Leszczynska, Queen of France, 475

xxii-xxiii,

325,

Comte

334n, 335

de,

389-90, 437, 456

Mere, Chevalier de,

183

Merimee, Prosper, 307

Mesmer, Franz Anton,

308,

405

Marie-Louise, Empress of France, 388

Metternich, Prince Klemens von, xix

Marie Therese of France (Madame

Milnes, Charlotte, 165

Roy ale), 420

Milton, John, 456

INDEX Mirabeau, Comte

de, 170-71,

405-6,

407

513

•

Miinzer, Thomas, 290

Murat, Joachim, 328

Mirabeau, Marquis de, 286, Mirepoix,

395, 398

Musset, Alfred de, 434-35

Mme de, 376

Modena, Duke

of, xviii,

Nadar, 318

87

Mohammed

(young Tunisian), 324

Mole

379

(actor),

Napoleon

I,

Emperor of France,

xx,

70, 77, 97, 100, 125, 167, 388, 389,

Moliere, xxix, 86-87, 89, 90-91, 92,

94-95, 106,

189,

401, 439, 442, 451, 457, 458,

Napoleon

294

Monconseil, Marquise de, 199, 205-6,

III,

468

Emperor of France, 401

Narbonne, Comte

de, 419

Naryschkin, 480

210-15

Moncrif, Fran^ois-Augustin de, 199

Nassau-Sarrebriick, Princess

Mondonville, Jean-Joseph, 349

Necker, Jacques, 170-71, 172, 369, 418,

Monet, General, 484

437

Monnet,Jean, 360

Necker,

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley,

de, 6, 7, 49, 63, 65,

124, 183, 187, 221, 222, 342, 353, 356,

Montespan, Marquise

217,

261, 393, 416, 438,

475

Montgolfier brothers, xvii Montijo, Count,

Abbe

Morny, Due

Nicholas

I,

Nicholas

II,

10, 36, 140, 152

5, 8,

Tsar of Russia, 481, 500 Tsar of Russia, 500

Nivernais,

Due de,

228

Due

Noailles, Adrien Maurice,

Duchesse

de, 371

de,

13,

de,

13,

371

Noailles, Nathalie Faborde,

de, 171, 420, 421,

Comtesse

de, 455

Noronha e Menezes, Don Diego

423-26, 437

Morellet,

Isaac, 4,

Noailles, Fran^oise Charlotte,

Mme de, 376

Montmorin, Comte

Mora, Marquis

Newton,

206, 477

105-6, 474-75

331

Montmorency, Due Montmorency,

Duke of,

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 268, 291, 358

de, 216

6, 61, 97, 173, 187, 188,

240-41,

262, 269, 417

Nicolai, General, 166

448, 453

Montesquieu,

Mme,

Newcastle,

81,

I42.-43

Montaigne, Michel

280

of,

de, 218

de,

329

North, Ford, 236,

de, 366, 379

238, 395

de, 419

Conor

Morosini, Baron, 25

O’Brien,

Morris, Gouverneur, 412-27, 457

Offenbach, Jacques, 357

Morris, Sarah Gouverneur, 412-13

Olonne,

Mortier, Roland, 454

Orleans, Duchesse

Moses, 226

Orleans, Gaston

Mouchy, Marechale

de,

299, 307

Mme d’, 233

41, 283,

d’,

d’,

Orleans, Philippe,

464

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus,

Cruise, 415

476-77

42-43

Due

d’,

3-4,

16, 20,

22, 23, 25, 34, 37, 78, 87, 99, 184, 219, 225, 235, 284, 399,

476

5

i4

INDEX

•

Orlov,

Count Alexis,

150-51, 158,

484

Piazzetta,

Giovanni

Battista, 148

Orlov, Gregory,

484

Picasso, Pablo, 393

Ormesson, Jean

d’,

358

Piccini, Niccolo, 370

46, 58, 60, 80

Pigalle, Jean-Baptiste, 104, 124,

Ormond, Duke of, Orrery, Lord, 61

Orsay,

Comte

Roger

Piles,

d’,

Piper,

310

de,

220

25, 149, 192, 193, 195

3,

Countess Sophie, 387

Orsini, Countess, 301

Piranesi, Giambattista, 149, 150

Ortega y Gasset, Jose, 311

Pitt,

George, 303

Ossat, Cardinal

Pitt,

William, Lord Chatham, 236-37,

d’,

195

298-99, 300, 477

Ossian, 435

William “the Younger,” 488

Ovid, 147, 151

Pitt,

Ozouf, Mona, 416

Pius VI, Pope, 434, 435 Plato, 48, 147, 181 Pliny, 62

Pacchierotti, 305

Giovanni, 171

Paisiello,

Plutarch, 342

Podewils, Count, 157

Palatine, Elizabeth Charlotte,

Polignac, Melchior de, 240-41, 271, 369

Princesse, 86, 87, 99

Mme de, 477

Palma Vecchio, 148

Polignac,

Parini, Giuseppe, 435

Polycletus, 207, 413

Pascal, Blaise,

no,

111, 116, 338, 356,

Pompadour, 223

449 Passionei,

Domenico,

Poniatowski, Casimir, 472

83

Paul, Saint, 126

Poniatowski,

Tsar of Russia, 260, 497

Paul

I,

Paul

III,

Mme de, 97, 103, 219-20,

Count

473> 483

Pope, 192

Mme de, 370-71

Pons,

Paulhan, Jean, 453

Pont-de-Veyle,

Paulmy, Marquis de, 484

Pope, Alexander, 62,

Pepys, Samuel, 38

I

Duchess

“the Great,” Tsar of Russia, 79,

115,

130-34, 144, 242, 247,

251,

260, 261, 265-67, 468, 482 Peter

III,

63, 64, 142, 186,

Portsmouth, Louise de Keroualle,

Perrault, Charles, 341, 347

Peter

68

3,

205

Abbe, 22-23

Perot,

Stanislaw, 468,

Tsar of Russia, 259, 264, 479,

484

440

Peyron, 349

194

Potemkin, Prince, 458, 464-66 Potocki family, 469 Poussin, Nicolas,

37, 87, 149, 193,

389

Powell, Colin, 70 Prie,

Petrarch, 147, 191, 432, 435,

of,

Marquise

Prior,

de, 23, 125

Matthew,

2, 58,

59

Procopius, 129

Gunnar von,

II,

King of Spain,

190, 192

Proschwitz,

Philip V,

King of Spain,

1-2, 58, 76

Proust, Marcel, xxix, 129, 216, 454,

Philip

Philip Neri, Saint, 339

Provence, Comtesse de,

373

400

490

INDEX

•

515

Pugachev, Marquis, 256

Richelieu, Cardinal, xvii, 365, 418,

499

Puisieux, de,

Riesener, Jean Flenri, 310

474

Rimbaud, Arthur, 320

Puisieux, Madeleine de, 349

Rinteau, Marie, 104

Quelus, Jacques de Levis,

Comte

de, 14

Quesnay, Francois, 286, 395

Rivarol,

Antoine

de, xxv, 352

Robespierre, Maximilien, xxviii, 407,

Quinault, Philippe, 46, 296

42-3

Quintilian, 180, 182, 207, 299

Rochepierre, Chevalier de, 67

Quintus Curtius,

Rocoules,

72, 114

Mme de, 128, 129

Rohan, Chevalier Rabelais, Francois, 49, 87

Racine, Jean, 139, 227,

9, 11, 14, 28,

Rollin, Charles, 351

60, 119, 129,

288

Ann,

Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste, 81-82, 97,

301

in 348 ,

Rainier, Prince of Monaco, 311

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, xx, 173-76,

Mme de, 187

Rameau, Jean-Philippe, Ramsay, Chevalier,

299, 302, 303

Roumenzof, Count, 250

Radziwill family, 469, 485

Rambouillet,

Romney, George,

Ronsara, Pierre de, 225

Racine, Louis, 348-49 Radcliffe,

de, 139, 371

177, 178-82, 189, 190, 206, 209,

xxiii, 349,

476

9

217, 222, 261, 280, 281, 282,

379> 396, 397. 405, 437.

2-98, 339>

Raphael, 149, 192, 310, 335

287-88,

453. 470, 476, 488, 497,

499

Rauzzini, Venanzio, 303

Ruault, Nicolas,

Raynal, Abbe, 241, 275, 276, 281, 283

Rubens, Peter Paul, 192-93, 195

244

Recamier, Juliette, 434, 436

Regnard, Jean-Fran^ois, 88

Sade, Marquis de, 301, 311

Reitzensein, Colonel de, 137

Saint-Amant, 363

Remond de Montmor,

Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin,

Remond

Pierre, 19

de Saint-Mard, Toussaint, 29,

32-33,

39,

32,

40, 127, 268, 453

Saint-Evremond, Charles de, 49

340

Reni, Guido, 193, 197

St John, Henry, see Bolingbroke,

Repnin, Nicolas Vassilievitch, 485-86

Henry St John, Viscount

Retz, Cardinal de, 41, 477, 499

Saint-Lambert, Jean Fran^oise de, 403

Rewski, General, 337

Saint-Rene Taillandier, 429

Reynolds, Joshua, 202

Saint-Simon,

Ricci, Sebastiano, 4, 148

Richelieu,

217, 222,

Armand, Marechal

500

Sand, George, 104, 434 230 de, 41,

42, 102, 194, 367, 449, 474-7S>

483

xxix, 14-15, 71,

79, 128, 129, 454, 499,

Riccoboni, Luigi, 4, 86-96

Richardson, Samuel,

Due de,

Santa Cruz, Jose de Silva y Bazan,

Marques

de, 321-22, 324-25, 327

Santa Cruz, Maria-Ana de Waldstein-

Wartemberg, Marquesa

de, 317-35

2

6

5

1

INDEX

•

402

Sapieha family, 469

Sicardy, Louis,

Saumaise, Claude, 365

Sieburg, Friedrich, 356

Saussure, Horace-Benedict de, 300

Sieyes,

Sauveur, Joseph, 7

Silhouette, Etienne de,

Savoy,

Duke

of, 75,

Savoy, Victoria

of,

Don Pedro de, Simon, Mme, 423

83-84

Silva,

474

Duke of,

141, 275, 280,

328

Sirven family, 140, 242,

494

Sismondi, Jean Charles de, 442

285

Saxe-Gotha, Louise

of,

Skinner, Quentin, 65

284

Adam,

286

Scarron, Paul, 128, 129-30

Smith,

Schaumburg-Lippe, Albrecht-

Soane, Sir John, 305

Wolfgangof, 161-62, Scheffer,

64

Singer, Winaretta, 209, 311

Saxe, Marie-Josephe de, 101

Saxe-Gotha,

Abbe, 415

Count,

xxi, 365,

Socrates, 48, 62, 223

163

Soissons, Eugene-Maurice de

366-67,

Savoie-Carignan,

374-75 Schiller, Friedrich, xxv,

Comte

de,

70-71, 98-99

438

Schomberg, Count von, 276, 278, 281

Schonborn

28,

Soissons,

family, 81

Olympia Mancini, Comtesse

de, 71, 83

Schopenhauer, Arthur, xxv

Solimena, Francesco, 82

Schulenburg, General-Count von

der,

Sophia Dorothea of Ffanover, Queen of Prussia, 126, 131-34

98

Schulenburg, Petronilla von der, see Chesterfield, Petronilla

von der

Schulenburg, Lady Scott, Walter,

Sophie-Albertine of Sweden, 366 Sophocles, 220, 223, 224, 226, 288 Sorbiere, Samuel, 365 Sorel, Charles, 41,

430

42

Scudery, Madeleine de, 349

Soult, Marechal, 325

Segur, Philippe de, 426, 457, 458, 459,

Souza, Adele de, see Flahaut, Adele de Souza,

Comte

Senac de Meilhan, Gabriel, 452

Sparre,

Comte

Seneca, 195

Spencer, Lady, 235

461, 463,

464-66

Serbelloni, Fabrizio,

Stackelberg,

474

Seroux dAgincourt, Jean-Baptiste, 438 Sevigne,

Mme de, 48, 230, 349, 375

de, 377

Otto Magnus von, 487

Albertine de, 442

Stael,

Germaine Necker

de, xxv, 303,

369, 415, 417, 419, 420, 421, 429,

430, 434, 436, 437, 44i-42-> 444-,

36, 86, 222, 288,

300 Shirely,

423

Stael,

Shackleton, Robert, 61 Shakespeare, William,

de,

446-47, 452, 455-56,

457, 458

Stael-Holstein, Baron de, 369, 435, 437

Fanny, 203

Lord, 60

Short, William, 416, 453

Stair,

Shuvalov, Aleksandr, 482, 483

Stanhope, Elizabeth, 180

Shuvalov, Ivan Ivanovich,

Stanhope, Eugenia, 206

244

INDEX Stanhope, Philip,

37,

177-78, 179,

181,

184, 185, 189, 190-91, 193, 196-97,

200-206, 207-8,

198, 199,

211,

Stanhope, Philip Dormer, see ChesterPhilip

Dormer Stanhope,

fourth Earl of

I

Leszczynski,

Poland,

Stanislaw

Temple, William, 400, 405 Tencin, Cardinal de, 104

Mme de, 2-3, 59, 241, 469

Tencin,

II

Tesse,

Marechal

de, 20, 79

Count, 365

Theodora, Byzantine Empress, 129

King of

Thieriot, Nicolas-Claude, 62, 122, 141

Thomas, Antoine-Leonard, 366, 379

469-70

Augustus Poniatowski,

King of Poland, 227-28, 373, 452,

Teresa, Saint, 301

Tessin,

Stanislavsky, Konstanin, 91, 189

Stanislaw

243, 259,

467-500

Thomassin, Louis, 337 Thott, Chevalier, 255 Thurles, Mary,

46

Stedingk, Baron von, 371

Tiepolo, Giambattista, 148, 149, 325

Stein, Baron, 136

Tilly,

Stein, Baroness, 138

Titian, 149, 191, 192, 193, 197

Stendhal, 98, 443, 458

Toaldo,

Stewart, Lady Euphemia, 299

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 165

Stirner,

Max, 309

Stuart dynasty,

Comte

de, 450,

456

19

Tolstoy, Leo, 261

Tommaseo, Niccolo,

Stormont, Lord, 396, 397, 399

183,

517

Tenducci, Giusto Fernando, 305

212-15

field,

•

35, 36, 37, 47, 59,

60,

Torcy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de, 27, 58, 59,

429, 431

150

60

Suard, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine, 273

Tournemine, Rene-Joseph,

Suetonius, 129

Toux de

Suleiman the Magnificent, 73

Trautson, Princess von, 164

Sullivan, Eleonore, 387

Trefusis, Violette, 311

Superville (physician), 128

Trissino,

Suvarov, Alexander, 489

Tudor dynasty, 386

Swift, Jonathan, 58, 63, 80, 186

Turenne, Marechal de, 70, 74, 128

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 301

Turgenev, Ivan, 393

139

Salverte, Lucas de, 471

Gian Giorgio, 88

Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, 286, Tacitus, 97, 129, 195 Tallard,

Marechal

398, 402,

de, 20, 77,

404

84

Talleyrand, xix, 125, 418, 421, 423, 436

Urban VIII, Pope, 228

Talmont, Maria Jablonowska, Princess

Ursins, Princesse des, 436

de,

Uxelles,

243

Marechal

d’,

2

Tanucci, Bernardo, 268-69 Tarento, Princess

of,

160

Valincour, Jean-Baptiste-Henri de, 25

Tasso, Torquato, 88, 124, 152, 202

Valla, Lorenzo,

Taube, Baron von, 372

Valois dynasty, 87

49

5

1

8

INDEX

•

Van Dyck, Anthony, Van Loo, Vassif,

Virgil, 152, 153

193

Voiture, Vincent, 187, 229, 307, 375

Carle, 149

Ahmed, 324

Vauban, Marquis

Volland, Sophie, 290, 374 Voltaire, xviii, xxi-xxii, xxx,

de, 2

Vaudemont, Prince Veblen, Thorstein,

de,

74

2.5,

36—37, 41, 62, 63, 70, 88, 90,

100, 103, io6n, 110-24,

407

Velazquez, Diego, 193, 207, 310, 322, 325

130, i39-42.>

de, 43 de, 47,

167,

129,

151.

160,

168-70,

175-76, 180, 186, 188,

I 73>

Vendome, Louis Joseph, Due

12.8,

144-45. Do.

164-63,

162, 163,

Vendome, Cesar, Due

16,

3, it,

211, 217,

218-19, 222-26, 240, 241,

242-57, 261, 270, 271, 273, 275,

74, 76, 78,79

Ventadour, Duchesse de, 22

285, 286, 288, 292, 300, 307, 338,

Verborg, Ben, i6on

340-41, 347, 348,

Vercruysse, Jerome, 454

367-68,

Comte

Vergennes, Charles Gravier, de, 2, 28, 396, 397,

399-400, 487

Veronese, Paolo, 148, 360

Vicentini,

371, 380, 396,

400-401,

405, 436, 452.-53. 468-69, 471, 472, 478, 483, 486, 489, 491-97,

499 Vorontsova, Ekaterina Romanovna,

269

Verri, Pietro,

352, 353, 363,

Tomasso-Antonio

Dashkova, Princess of

see

(Tomassino), 90 Vico, Giambattista,

Vicq d Azyr,

Felix,

8,

Walpole, Horace, fourth Earl of

268

Orford, xxix, xxx, 37-38,

407

Vigee-Lebrun, Elisabeth,

318,

370

Vigny, Alfred de, 433 Villars,

Marechal

no,

188, 218, 219,

105, 357

Walpole, Robert, 57, 58, 59,

Due

Villeroy,

Marechal

Villette,

Benjamin Le

de,

15,

227-39, 3 DI 3°9. .

320-21, 324, 397, 437-38, 472.

de, 16, 20, 76, 80-81,

Villeroy,

39, 47,

Earl of Orford,

60, 61, 63, 64, 186, 188,

204, 217, 228-29,

20, 22

de, 20,

first

22-23

Valois, Sieur de,

2.37,

472.

Walpole, Robert (Horace’s cousin), 32-4

Walther brothers, 455

D Villette,

Marie-Claire Deschamps de

Marcilly, Marquise de,

13,

28, 37,

60-61

13,

Le

Valois,

Marquis

60, 461

Villette-Mursay, Marthe-Marguerite

414, 416, 420, 422

Watteau, Antoine, 193, 197,

3,

Weisbrod, 166 Wells, Orson,

Marguerite Le Valois de

Wharton, Edith, 416

Villette-Mursay, Comtesse de

William

,

Ansse

de, 438

4, 7, 9, 87, 147,

201

de see Caylus, Marthe-

Villoison,

399, 405, 413,

Watelet, Claude-Henri, 228

Villette, Philippe

de,

Washington, George,

47,

III,

311

King of England, 34-35,

74-75, 76, 183

Williams, Charles Hanbury, 471-72, 474, 477, 479-80, 481-82, 486

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim,

149,

150

Woolf, Leonard, 229 Woolf, Virginia, 56

Wordsworth, William, xxv Wratislaw, John Wenceslau, 77

Wright, Richard, 393

Wroughton, Thomas, 484 Wurtemberg, Duke

of,

166

Wycombe, Lord, 423 Xenophon, 48

York, Cardinal

York, James,

of,

Duke

429, 431, 434, 433 of, see

James

King of England York brothers, 477 Yourcenar, Marguerite, 104

Youssoupof, Prince, 244, 256

Zanetti, Antonio-Maria, 4

Zurbaran, Francisco, 325 Zweig, Stefan, 386

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MANDELSTAM The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam OLIVIA MANNING Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy OLIVIA MANNING School for Love GUY DE MAUPASSANT Afloat GUY DE MAUPASSANT Alien Hearts JAMES MCCOURT Mawrdew Czgowchwz HENRI MICHAUX Miserable Miracle OSIP

JESSICA MITFORD Hons and Rebels JESSICA MITFORD Poison Penmanship

NANCY MITFORD Madame de Pompadour HENRY DE MONTHERLANT Chaos and Night BRIAN MOORE The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne ALBERTO MORAVIA Boredom ALBERTO MORAVIA Contempt JAN MORRIS Conundrum PENELOPE MORTIMER The Pumpkin Eater ALVARO MUTIS The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

MYERS The Root and the Flower DARCY O'BRIEN A Way of Life, Like Any Other YURI OLESHA Envy L.H.

IONA AND PETER OPIE The IRIS

OWENS After

Lore and Language of Schoolchildren

Claude

RUSSELL PAGE The Education of a Gardener ALEXANDROS PAPADI AM ANTIS The Murderess BORIS PASTERNAK, MARINA TSVETAYEVA, AND RAINER MARIA RILKE

CESARE PAVESE The Moon and the Bonfires CESARE PAVESE The Selected Works of Cesare LUIGI PIRANDELLO The Late Mattia Pascal

Letters,

Pavese

ANDREY PLATONOV The Foundation Pit ANDREY PLATONOV Soul and Other Stories J.F. POWERS Morte d’Urban J.F. POWERS The Stories of J.F. Powers J.F. POWERS Wheat That Springeth Green CHRISTOPHER PRIEST Inverted World BOLEStAW PRUS The Doll

RAYMOND QUENEAU We Always Treat Women Too RAYMOND QUENEAU Witch Grass RAYMOND RADIGUET Count d’Orgel’s Ball JULES

RENARD

JEAN RENOIR

Well

Nature Stories

Renoir,

My

Father

GREGOR VON REZZORI Memoirs of an Anti-Semite GREGOR VON REZZORI The S nows of Yesteryear: Portraits TIM ROBINSON Stones of Aran: Labyrinth TIM ROBINSON Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage

MILTON ROKEACH The Three FR.

ROLFE Hadrian

Christs of Ypsilanti

the Seventh

GILLIAN ROSE Love’s Work

for

an Autobiography

Summer

1926

WILLIAM ROUGHEAD

Classic

Crimes

CONSTANCE ROURKE American Humor: A TAYEB SALIH Season of Migration to TAYEB SALIH The Wedding of Zein

GERSHOM SCHOLEM

the

Study of the National Character

North

Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship

DANIEL PAUL SCHREBER Memoirs of My Nervous JAMES SCHUYLER Alfred and Guinevere JAMES SCHUYLER What’s for Dinner? LEONARDO SCIASCIA The Day of the Owl

LEONARDO LEONARDO LEONARDO LEONARDO

Illness

SCIASCIA Equal Danger

SCIASCIA The Moro

Affair

SCIASCIA To Each His

Own

SCIASCIA The Wine-Dark Sea

VICTOR SEGALEN Rene Leys PHILIPE-PAUL DE SEGUR Defeat: Napoleon’s Russian Campaign

VICTOR SERGE The Case of Comrade Tulayev VICTOR SERGE Conquered City VICTOR SERGE Unforgiving Years SHCHEDRIN The Golovlyov Family GEORGES SIMENON Dirty Snow

GEORGES SIMENON The Engagement GEORGES SIMENON The Man Who Watched Trains Go By GEORGES SIMENON Monsieur Monde Vanishes GEORGES SIMENON Pedigree GEORGES SIMENON Red Lights GEORGES SIMENON The Strangers in the House GEORGES SIMENON Three Bedrooms in Manhattan GEORGES SIMENON Tropic Moon GEORGES SIMENON The Widow CHARLES SIMIC Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell MAY SINCLAIR Mary Olivier: A Life TESS SLESINGER The Unpossessed:

A

Novel of the Thirties

VLADIMIR SOROKIN Ice Trilogy VLADIMIR SOROKIN The Queue DAVID STACTON The Judges of the Secret Court JEAN STAFFORD The Mountain Lion CHRISTINA STEAD Letty Fox: Her Luck GEORGE R. STEWART Names on the Land

STENDHAL The Life of Henry Brulard ADALBERT STIFTER Rock Crystal

THEODOR STORM

HOWARD

The Rider on the White Horse

STURGIS Belchamber

ITALO SVEVO As

a

HARVEY SWADOS

Man Grows

Older

Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn

SYMONS The Quest for Corvo HENRY DAVID THOREAU The Journal:

A.J.A.

1837-1861

TATYANA TOLSTAYA The Slynx TATYANA TOLSTAYA White Walls: Collected Stories EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY Records of Shelley, Byron, and LIONEL TRILLING The

Liberal Imagination

LIONEL TRILLING The Middle of the Journey

IVAN TURGENEV Virgin

Soil

the

Author

JULES VALLES The Child

MARK VAN DOREN

Shakesp eare

CARL VAN VECHTEN The Tiger in the House ELIZABETH VON ARNIM The Enchanted April EDWARD LEWIS WALLANT The Tenants of Moonbloom ROBERT WALSER Jakob von Gunten ROBERT WALSER Selected Stories REX WARNER Men and Gods SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Lolly Willowes SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Mr. Fortune’s Maggot and The SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Summer Will Show

ALEKSANDER WAT My Century C.V.

WEDGWOOD The Thirty Years War

SIMONE WEIL AND RACHEL BESPALOFF War and

the Iliad

GLENWAY WESCOTT Apartment in Athens GLENWAY WESCOTT The Pilgrim Hawk REBECCA WEST The Fountain Overflows EDITH WHARTON The New York Stories of Edith Wharton PATRICK WHITE Riders

in the

Chariot

WHITE The Goshawk JOHN WILLIAMS Butcher’s Crossing JOHN WILLIAMS Stoner ANGUS WILSON Anglo-Saxon Attitudes EDMUND WILSON Memoirs of Hecate County EDMUND WILSON To the Finland Station RUDOLF AND MARGARET WITTKOWER Born Under GEOFFREY WOLFF Black Sun T.H.

WYNDHAM The Complete JOHN WYNDHAM The Chrysalids FRANCIS

STEFAN STEFAN STEFAN STEFAN

ZWEIG ZWEIG ZWEIG ZWEIG

Beware of Pity Chess Story Journey Into the Past

The Post-Offlce Girl

Fiction

Saturn

Salutation

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During the eighteenth century, from the death of Louis XIV until the Revolution, French culture set the standard

Sweden, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, and Germany, among kings and queens, diplomats, military leaders, writers, aristocrats, and artists, French was the universal language of politics and intellectual life. In When the World Spoke French, Marc Fumaroli presents a gallery of portraits of Europeans and Americans who conversed and corresponded in French, along with for all of Europe. In

V

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excerpts from their letters or other writings. .

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These men and women, despite their differences, were all irresistibly attracted to the ideal of human happiness inspired by the Enlightenment,

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lii

Paris

atmm

i.

.

v

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ac'a.

spirit

or far

with

all

was

capital

Whether they were away, speaking French connected them in

and whose

in Paris

whose

Icing

those

was

who

Voltaire.

desired to emulate Parisian

and social pleasures. Their stories are testaments to the appeal of that famous “sweetness of life” nourished by France and its language.

tastes, style of

life,

“The names read like a Who’s Who: the Visa Botingbroke and Lord Chesterfield of England, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Frederick the Great and Frederick Melchoir Grimm of Prussia/Germany, Catherine the Gre« of Russia, Gustavus

III

of Sweden, Benjamin Franklin and

Gouverneur Morris of the United States, Stanislas Poland, to mention only ten of them.”

I!

of

.

Cover

illustration: Jean-Baptiste

Chateau de Vore,

c.

1720.

Oudry, Music or the Concert (detail); decorative panel painted for the

Musee du Louvre/Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, NY

Cover design: Katy Homans

US $18.95

/

CAN $21.50

ISBN 978-1-59017-375-6

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9

781590 173756 -‘‘fc* *

/

UK £11.99

*