Free Voltaire in Love by Nancy Mitford Page B

at school.) When he was at Cirey, both women supplied him with constant gifts of game, poultry, and peaches which were acknowledged in prose and in verse, heavily larded with compliments. ‘Paris is where you are.’ Delicious words, to a provincial lady.
    At last, in October, Émilie appears, arriving just as Voltaire is reading a letter from her telling him not to expect her for a while. She has brought hundreds of parcels and more chaos than ever to the house. ‘We have now got beds without curtains, rooms without windows, lacquer cabinets and no chairs, charming phaetons and no horses to draw them.’ Mme du Châtelet has had a terrible journey, shaken to pieces in an uncomfortable carriage, and has not slept, but she is in tearing spirits. She laughs and jokes and makes nothing of the difficulties of getting into a new house. Voltaire, under the charm, hardly even protests when she changes all his dispositions, puts doors where he had ordered windows and staircases where he had planned to have chimney-pieces. Luckily he has not planted a kitchen garden, for if he had she would certainly be turning it into a parterre. All this is told to Mme de Champbonin, Voltaire’s aimable Champenoise, without whom he cannot live. Since there is no bed for her (why, oh why must threepeople have three beds?) they will send a phaeton light as a feather and drawn by horses the size of elephants so that she can come and spend the day. It is really unthinkable that friends should be kept apart simply for the want of a bed or two. Mme de la Neuville is out of action as she is expecting a baby, but Voltaire will drive Mme du Châtelet over to see her as soon as he has finished being the odd man at Cirey. When the visitors’ rooms are ready both these charming neighbours must come and share his happiness. Voltaire wrote as if he were lord of the manor and husband of its lady. Du Châtelet was bravely fighting the Germans, serene in the knowledge that his property was being improved and his wife getting on with her mathematics. Voltaire paid for everything at Cirey, but, practical as always, kept accounts and considered the money as having been lent to du Châtelet.
    Ã‰milie went back to Paris for Christmas. Her friends said she led such a dissipated life there that it was impossible to see her. She spent a great deal of time with the Richelieus and resumed her pursuit of Maupertuis. On Christmas Eve: ‘I’d sooner be at Cirey and you at Basle than see as little of you as I do. I wish to celebrate the birth of Elohim with you. Why don’t you come and drink his health with Clairaut and me? I’ll expect you between eight and nine. We’ll go to Midnight Mass and hear the Christmas hymns on the organ, and I’ll take you home afterwards. I count on this, unless Mlle Delagni opposes it.’
    Voltaire once more stayed alone at Cirey. He had plenty to do. Work on the house was still in progress, he was writing Alzire, he had begun La Pucelle, his health was an occupation in itself and he conducted a correspondence that grew daily larger. To Thieriot, in English: ‘You tell me you are ready to leave England and come to me. Is it very true? Can you give me such a token of your heart? . . . Let not be your proposal a transient enthusiasm of a tender soul but the firm resolution of a strong and virtuous mind. Come, my dear, I conjure you to do it. It is most certain I have but few years to live, do not debar me from the pleasure of passing these moments with you . . . Literature is nothing without a friend, and a friend illiterate is but dry company; but a friend like you is a treasure.’
    In his post-bag from Paris he received young Crébillon’s Contes japonais (full of obscenities and sly digs at such various subjects as the Duchesse du Maine and the Bull Unigenitus). He said that if he, himself, had written them he would have been sent to the Bastille. Very soon he