Voltaire in Love by Nancy Mitford Read Free Book Online Page A

wretchedfellow himself. This was a financial blow to Voltaire, but the Henriade earned large sums in England, which he invested cleverly, laying the foundation of his riches. His love for his friend was not affected. ‘I always forgive the weak and am only inflexible towards wickedness . . . Men, in general, are so treacherous, so envious, and so cruel that it is a comfort to find one who is only weak.’ A few months later he was writing, in English, to Thieriot: ‘We fall out for ever if you do not take 500 French livres from the arrears which the Queen owes me. You must have an hundred crowns beside from Bernard . . . that must be so or we are no friends’. Later, when Thieriot went to England, he lived entirely on Voltaire’s royalties there.
    In March 1729, Voltaire was allowed to go back to France. In spite of his love for England, he had become homesick; like many a Frenchman, he could not stand the austerity. In well-to-do houses, according to him, there was no silver on the table; tallow candles were burnt by all but the very rich; the food everywhere was uneatable. The arts of society, the art of pleasing were hardly cultivated and social life very dull compared with that in France. Furthermore, the weather did not suit his ‘unhappy machine’. He often said that his unhappy machine demanded a Southern climate but that between the countries where one sweats and those where one thinks, he was obliged to choose the latter. The climate of Paris was bad enough but that of London was killing him. So, all in all, he was glad to go home. He never crossed the Channel again.
    Warned that it would be better, for the present, if he did not go to Paris itself, Voltaire took lodgings at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, appearing from time to time ‘like a hobgoblin’ at the town houses of such faithful friends as the Duc de Richelieu. Soon, however, he was allowed ‘to drag my chain in Paris’, that is to say full liberty to resume his old life of work and pleasure. Richelieu took him down to Fontainebleau and arranged that he should pay his court to the Queen; this put him on the same social footing as before the exile. The Duc de Bourbon had been overthrown while Voltaire was in England. He had been banished to Chantilly, and Mme de Prie to her husband’s château, where she very soon committed suicide. The boredom of country life was more than she couldendure. The young King made his tutor, Cardinal Fleury, chief Minister. The Cardinal had been Bishop of Fréjus, an obscure diocese in Provence, most of his life; at seventy-three he found himself dictator of France. He ruled for seventeen years.
    Everything Voltaire touched now turned to gold. He won an enormous state lottery, his investments prospered and his books were selling better than ever. Zaïre, the best of his tragedies, was published. It is about a Christian-born slave in Turkey who reverts to the faith and dies: the censor could find no objection to it. But of course Voltaire provided one. He dedicated it to Mr Fawkener (‘I like to dedicate my works to foreigners because it gives me the opportunity to speak of the follies of my fellow-countrymen’). He used the opportunity, in this case, to compare French intolerance with English freedom; the preface was seized by the police. Voltaire, however, made the necessary cuts and they withdrew their objections. Another play, Brutus, received a privilège; the Histoire de Charles XII, one of the most readable of all Voltaire’s books, appeared without the formal consent of the authorities but without any unpleasant consequences. He then settled down to write his next two works, Le Temple du Goût and Lettres philosophiques, for both of which unpleasant consequences were in store.
    In spite of his prosperity, however, Voltaire was unhappy. ‘My misery embitters me and makes me shy.’ He told Thieriot that he had more friends in Constantinople than