On December 4, 1738, there arrived at Cirey, having been almost upset out of her post-chaise, and actually compelled to wade through the midwinter mud of the worst roads in France, a visitor, Madame de Graffigny.

Fat and forty was Madame: a vulgar, cheerful, gossiping old nurse, already an ardent hero-worshipper of Voltaire, whom she had met at LunÉville, and with something of literary taste on her own account. The Graffigny had, in fact, caught that eighteenth-century epidemic which showed itself in easy wit, easy writing, and easy morals. She had a brute of a husband from whom she had just obtained a divorce. She had no money. She had any number of friends. Voltaire seems to have liked her because she was poor, good-natured, and adored him. He came to meet his guest in her room when she arrived at two o’clock on that December morning, with a flat candlestick in his hand, and looking for all the world, said the effusive lady, like a monk. Émilie was there, too. Her greetings were only a shade less warm than her lover’s. Madame de Graffigny was left alone: so that she could then and there sit down to her writing-table and for the benefit of a dear confidant, called Panpan, ring up the curtain on one of the most intimate and minute of domestic comedies ever given to the public.

Some years later Madame de Graffigny obtained some contemporary celebrity by her “Letters of a Peruvian.” They are altogether forgotten. But her “Vie PrivÉe de Voltaire et de Madame du ChÂtelet” will live as long as the fame of that strange pair and the popularity of gossiping memoirs.

Since their arrival there in 1734, both Voltaire and Émilie had been busy in improving, not only the outside, but the inside of their thirteenth-century chÂteau. Voltaire had a little wing to himself which, by the irony of fate or choice, adjoined the chapel. He could open his bedroom door and sacrifice to the convenances by seeing mass performed, while he went on with his own occupations. Sometimes the visitors fulfilled their religious duties in this way too. They were all very particular not to miss the attendance on Sundays and fÊte days. Their religion was a concession to social laws, like powdering the hair. When Voltaire was ill in bed, which was pretty often, he had his door opened so that he could hear the penitential litanies being recited, and had a screen drawn round him to exclude draughts. His rooms were very simply furnished, for use not show, spotlessly clean, so that you could kiss the floor, said Madame de Graffigny, in the enthusiastic hyperbole of her early letters. There was very little tapestry and a good deal of panelling which formed an admirable background to a few good pictures. There was a small hall, where their guests took their morning coffee sometimes, where a stove made the air like spring, and where there were books and scientific apparatus, a single sofa, and no luxurious armchairs at all. The dark room—still unfinished—led out of the hall, and there was a door into the garden.

The Goddess’s apartments were far more gorgeous. The lady visitor went into ecstasies over that bedroom and boudoir upholstered in pale blue and yellow—even to the basket for the dog—the pictures by Watteau and the fireplace by Martin, the window looking on the terrace, and the amber writing-case, a present from the politic Prince Frederick.

The rest of the castle was ill-cared for enough, she said. The thirty-six fires which blazed in it daily could not keep it warm. In her own room, in spite of a fire “like the fire of Troy,” she sat and shivered. On Christmas Eve the draught from the windows blew out the candles—although the visitor had solemnly vowed those draughts should be stopped with canvas bags, “if God gives me life.” It may not unfairly be surmised that most of the guests suffered as she did. Voltaire was a very good host—hospitable, kind, warm-hearted, very anxious they should not be bored, and indefatigable in amusing them with entertainments in the evenings and talking to them at meals. But their comfort in their rooms was naturally not his province. He did not think of it, and Émilie did not care. She did not object to visitors so long as they left her plenty of time and solitude to work: and then was ready enough to be charming in the evenings. Experimental science and good housekeeping are not necessarily incompatible: but each must have its own hours. Science had all Madame du ChÂtelet’s. She seems to have been the sort of mistress who provided a liberal table for her friends because it is much less trouble to be liberal than economical, and had occasional fits of frugality which took the form of feeding her servants very meanly. She was sublimely inconsiderate towards them, as she was, in a lesser degree, inconsiderate towards her own friends. She was of her age! The noblesse of that time treated their dependents exactly as if they were animals, and animals who were at once dumb, deaf, blind, and stupid. Behind their masters’ chairs, the valets listened to theories on which the masters talked and the servants acted. Longchamp, who was later half secretary, half valet to Voltaire, and before that in Madame du ChÂtelet’s service, has left on record how he assisted at her toilet as if he had been her maid. For her, he was not a human creature but a thing—not a man, but a machine.

When Madame de Graffigny arrived she found two fellow-visitors also at Cirey—Madame de Champbonin, Voltaire’s near neighbour and distant relative, and her son. Madame de Champbonin was variously and elegantly known as the “fat lady” or the “great tomcat.” Voltaire made her in some sort a confidante. Perhaps the stout placidity of her disposition was restful after the tumultuous emotions of the “effervescent Émilie.” The son was employed as Émilie’s amanuensis, and copied for hours and hours manuscripts of which he did not understand a single word. The two lady visitors seem to have walked about the castle a good deal and admired its beauties, sympathised with each other concerning the draughts and the hostess’s sublime indifference to such trifles, and hugged themselves with delight at the thought that half France was dying to be in their position as guests at Cirey. To be sure, there were drawbacks even in this earthly Paradise: but half France did not know that, and the daily journal addressed to Panpan was still rapturous.

Presently the AbbÉ de Breteuil, Madame du ChÂtelet’s brother, also came to stay. He was grand vicaire at Sens. He was in every sense a typical abbÉ of the period—not much pretending to believe in the religion he professed—with a pronounced taste for broad stories—and “assez bon conteur” himself. The connection between his sister and Voltaire seemed to him only a thing to be proud of. He had countenanced it by his presence here before. The Marquis countenanced it too. Why should anyone else be particular? The abbÉ had come to enjoy himself, and he did.

While he was there the day began with coffee in Voltaire’s hall between 10.30 and 11.30. Even Madame du ChÂtelet seems to have roused herself dimly to the sense that she had visitors and that something might be expected of her in the way of entertaining them. Both she and Voltaire tore themselves away a little oftener and for a little longer time from their beloved Newton, during Breteuil’s visit. Everybody stayed with them in the hall till noon, when the Marquis and the two Champbonins went off to their dÉjeuner. The Marquis was always threatening to go to Brussels to see about an endless lawsuit he was concerned in there, and putting off his departure; which was a pity, as no one wanted him. After coffee, Voltaire, the abbÉ, Émilie, and Madame de Graffigny talked on all things in heaven and on earth for a while, and then separated.

The Marquise drove her great horses in her calÈche sometimes in the morning. Once she would have insisted on nervous Madame de Graffigny going with her, but Voltaire interfered and said people must be happy in their own way. So Émilie, who had herself no time for nerves, went out alone.

Sometimes the party met again for goÛter at four—sometimes not till the nine o’clock supper. That was the appointed hour for relaxation. Who would not have been of those evenings? Voltaire was inimitably gay, brilliant, and amusing. Madame de Graffigny had him on one side of her, and that pitiless bore, the unfortunate Marquis, on the other. He said nothing, fell asleep, and “went out with the tray.”

The supper was elegant and sufficient, without being profuse. Voltaire had his valet always behind his chair to look after him, besides two other lackeys also in attendance. Émilie was geometrical no more. She was a woman of the world, trained in the first Court in Europe, witty, easy, charming, delightful. The stories had been broad at previous suppers; but they were broader than ever now, for the especial benefit of Breteuil. He told some of the same kind himself which entertained everybody immensely and which Madame de Graffigny, who had laughed at them fit “to split her spleen,” retailed for Panpan’s benefit the next day. The company drank Rhine wine or champagne which loosened their tongues and brightened their wits, though they were a temperate little gathering, by nature as well as from prudence. Voltaire improvised verses over the dessert, or read something aloud, or quoted from memory. The bare mention of J. B. Rousseau or Jore or any other enemy drew from him a quick torrent of vivacious indignation. One night, after dessert and the perfume handed after the dessert, there was a magic-lantern. Voltaire showed it with “propos to make you die of laughing,” said Madame de Graffigny. Another night there were charades. A third, there was a reading of the “Mondain.” A fourth, the entire party migrated to the bathroom—an exquisite room with porcelain tiles, marble pavement, pictures, engravings, and bric-À-brac—where Voltaire read aloud a canto of the “Pucelle.” Panpan’s correspondent avowedly enjoyed that immensely. So did everyone else. To hear something really shocking and dangerous read aloud in a bathroom with closed doors—how piquant! Madame de Graffigny gave Panpan epitomes of the cantos she heard, and lived to wish she had not. After the cantos they amused themselves by making punch.

Another evening they rehearsed “The Prodigal Son” and a farce Voltaire had written, “Boursouffle.” Private theatricals were one of the Cirey manias. The little theatre was reopened for Breteuil’s benefit. Pauline du ChÂtelet of twelve was interrupted in her education at Joinville to play the part of “Marthe,” which she learnt in the post-chaise coming home. One night they danced in the theatre. Another, Voltaire read one of the “Discourses on Man.” Yet another they discussed Newtonianism. Once, Voltaire showed them the scientific apparatus—which still stood in the hall awaiting the completion of the dark room—and they looked at globes and through telescopes. Twice he read his new play “MÉrope” to them, and on the second occasion the effusive Graffigny “wept to sobs.” She had also told them her own melancholy family history, when it had been Voltaire’s turn to weep, and Madame du ChÂtelet was unable to pursue her geometrical studies for the evening.

Breteuil did not stay more than a week or so in all. The fun had been fast and furious while it lasted. It may be surmised that Voltaire and Émilie were not sorry to relax their efforts to keep the social ball rolling. They plunged deeper than ever into hard work. Madame worked all day as well as all night—and never left her room except for the morning coffee and the evening supper. Voltaire often could not tear himself from his desk until that supper was half over, and directly it was finished could hardly be prevented from returning to his writing. He did his best—he had the true French politesse all his life long—to talk and tell stories and amuse his guests; but his thoughts were far away. He was shut up in his own room the whole day too, now, except for a few minutes when he called on his two lady guests. He would not even sit down. “The time people waste in talking is frightful,” he said on one of these brief visits. “One should not lose a minute. The greatest waste possible is waste of time.” Madame de Graffigny was thrown on the stout lady for all companionship, and was in the melancholy position of the person who has to pretend she likes quiet, solitude, and reflection, and does not. After a very little while her graphic and garrulous pen goes much less easily and gaily over the paper.

Voltaire and Madame du ChÂtelet had troubles of which their guest did not know the cause, but of which she felt the effect. The Christmas Day of 1738 was one of the darkest of both their lives. To be unhappy is seldom to be very amiable. This Graffigny too was, on her own showing, something of a fool. Voltaire and Madame lived in a Paradise about which a serpent, called the French authorities, was for ever lurking, ready to spoil. Voltaire was always writing something he should not have written. And Madame de Graffigny was always writing those voluminous, gushing, confidential, imprudent epistles to Panpan. What did she say in them? On December 29, 1738, a tempest which had long been gathering in petty mistrusts, small jealousies, opened or kept back letters, suspicions, fears, hatreds—burst in a clap of thunder. There was a constrained and silent supper. Then Voltaire came to Madame de Graffigny’s rooms and accused her of having betrayed his trust and endangered his safety by having copied cantos of the “Pucelle” and sent them to Panpan. She denied the accusation in toto. Voltaire, beside himself with fury, made her sit down and write and ask Panpan and Desmarets, her lover, both for the original canto she had sent and the copies which had been made of it. The unfortunate lady entirely lost her head. Then enter Madame du ChÂtelet in a rage royal, besides which Voltaire’s was calmness, temperance, and reason. She produced a certain letter from her pocket as a proof of infamy and flung it, very nearly literally, in her guest’s face. She accused her of having stolen a canto of the “Pucelle” from her desk. She reminded her that she had never liked her, and had only invited her to Cirey because she had nowhere else to go. The Graffigny was a monster, the most indigne of creatures—all the opprobrious things in the du ChÂtelet dictionary, which was a very full one. Voltaire put his arm round his furious mistress and dragged her away at last. The quarrel was so loud that the Graffigny’s maid, two rooms off, heard every word of it. Madame de Champbonin came in, in the middle, but very prudently retired at once. When Madame de Graffigny was calm enough to read the letter which Emilie had flung at her, she discovered it was one of Panpan’s which Emilie had intercepted and read and wherein was the remark “The canto of ‘Jeanne’ is charming.” Madame de Graffigny was able to explain to Voltaire in a very few words that this sentence referred to her description of the pleasure one of those readings of the “Pucelle” had given to herself, and that there had been no question of stealing, copying, and sending a canto to anybody in the world.

Cannot one fancy how that little, sensitive, vif, angry Voltaire was on his knees to his offended guest at once, begging her a thousand pardons, kissing her hands, apologising, furious with Émilie and ashamed of himself? It was already five o’clock in the morning. But Émilie was recalled not the less (MegÆra, poor Graffigny named her now). Voltaire argued long with her, in English, to bring her to reason, and was so far successful that the next day she coldly apologised to her guest. She was too much in the wrong to forgive easily or thoroughly. As for Voltaire, he asked pardon again and again with tears in his eyes. He could not do too much to make up for his suspicions and mistake. Émilie was diabolically cold and haughty. The unfortunate visitor was “in hell,” she said. But she had no money and nowhere to go to. There were silent uncomfortable suppers. Voltaire’s “pathetic” excuses and nervous anxiety for her comfort and well-being, when he came to see her in her rooms, did not make her position much easier.

After waiting three weeks Madame de Graffigny obtained confirmation of her story from Desmarets and Panpan.

Émilie at last relented so far as to give her guest the very doubtful pleasure of driving her out in that calÈche of hers, and talking to her more freely and amicably. But though such wounds as Madame de Graffigny had received may heal, the scars remain for ever.

On January 12, 1739, the mathematical Maupertuis, Madame du ChÂtelet’s tutor, came to stay a few days. The unlucky Graffigny suffered a good deal from her eyes about this time, and stayed much in her room. Voltaire himself was in wretched health; so there was no play-acting. Madame de Champbonin left for Paris on a mission of whose nature the Graffigny was ignorant. On January 18th the Marquis du ChÂtelet went to Seineville bearing with him many letters and messages for dear Panpan. Early in the next month, Desmarets, the lover of Madame de Graffigny, came to stay and Cirey roused itself to another burst of gaiety. It acted “Zaire” and “The Prodigal Son” and a play called “The Spirit of Contradiction.” One rehearsal lasted till three o’clock in the morning. Once the party spent the whole day in Émilie’s room where she was “in bed without being ill.” The next, she was singing to the clavecin, accompanying herself. Another, she sang through a whole opera after supper. She and Desmarets went out riding. In one twenty-four hours the company had rehearsed and played thirty-three acts of tragedies, operas, and comedies. Desmarets read Panpan’s letters to the Graffigny while she was at her toilette, as she had no time herself. Desmarets was “transported, intoxicated”—enjoying himself immensely.

His mistress may be presumed to have been more unhappy than ever, since the first thing he had done on his arrival at Cirey was to tell her he no longer felt for her the feelings of a lover. He went away.

About the middle of February, 1739, Madame de Graffigny herself left Cirey, having been there less than three months—not six, as the title-page of her book declares. For the rest of her life Voltaire was one of the most staunch and generous friends she had in the world.

Nothing in Madame de Graffigny’s “Vie PrivÉe de Voltaire et de Madame du ChÂtelet” is so interesting as the light she throws on their relationship to each other. The golden chains had begun to eat into the flesh. Voltaire and Madame du ChÂtelet, like lesser persons, had to pay the inexorable penalty of a breach of moral law. “Wrong committed—suffering insured.” Their punishment was the severest of all—it came, not from outward circumstances, but from themselves. The very relationship which had been a sin and a delight, was now at once sin and torment. The gods are just.

The visitor was not long in discovering clouds in the blue heavens of Voltaire’s “Cirey-en-fÉlicitÉ.” There was the “eternal cackle” of Émilie’s tongue, and her sublime indifference to trifles like the hours of meals. Did not she love power too? Not only to have power but, womanlike, to show she had it. One day her lover’s coat does not please her. He shall change it! He agrees—for peace, one may suppose, since the coat is good enough and he does not wish to catch cold by putting on another—and his valet is sent for; but cannot be found. Let the matter rest! Not Madame. She persists. They quarrel with a great deal of vivacity, in English. They always quarrel in English. Voltaire goes out of the room in a rage, and sends word to say he has the colic. They are very like two children. Presently they are reconciled—also in English and tenderly. “Mais elle lui rend la vie un peu dure.”

Another time the quarrel is about a glass of Rhine wine. Rhine wine disagrees with this imprudent Voltaire! The imprudent Voltaire, is, not to put too fine a point upon it, very much out of temper with Émilie’s interference in the matter. And it takes the united and warmest persuasions of Breteuil and Graffigny to make him read “Jeanne” after supper as he has promised.

At one of the readings of “MÉrope,” Madame du ChÂtelet, with her abominably clever tongue, turns it into ridicule and laughs at it. She knows her vain and sensitive Voltaire’s tender places, it seems, and for the life of her cannot help putting her finger on them just to see if he will wince. He always winces. He will not speak all supper time. After supper it is the nymph’s turn to be cross, and Voltaire shows the visitors his globes while she sits sulking in a chair, pretending to be asleep.

What an old, old story it is! What a weary, dull, aggravating old story! and what a happy world it might be still if all the miseries men carefully manufacture for themselves were taken out of it!

Yet another day, and there is a very bitter quarrel about some verses. Émilie says she has written them. Voltaire does not believe it. They both lose their tempers, and it is even said Voltaire takes a knife from the table and threatens her with it, crying, “Do not look at me with your squinting, haggard eyes!” Perhaps the story is exaggerated. It is to be hoped so. Madame de Graffigny speaks too of Voltaire’s wretched health; of his system of doctoring and starving himself; of his disposition at once kind, nervous, and petulant. He told her one day, she says, that Émilie was a terrible woman who had no “flexibilitÉ dans le coeur” although that heart was good. The Graffigny adds on her own account that it was not possible to be more “spied” than Voltaire was, or to have less liberty. It must indeed be remembered that the Graffigny was speaking of a woman of whose superior powers she was always jealous, and whom she had learnt to hate. Émilie had at least one great good quality: she never abused other women behind their backs.

It has been said that lovers’ quarrels are but the renewal of love. There was never a falser word. Every quarrel is a blot on a fair page; forgiveness may erase it, but, at the best, the mark of the erasure is there for ever and the page wears thin. Perhaps Voltaire and Madame du ChÂtelet acted on the dangerous assumption that, since they could be reconciled to-morrow, it was no matter if they quarrelled to-day. Their attachment had now lasted not quite five years. It lingered nearly another ten. Every day Émilie drew the cords by which her lover was bound to her tighter—and a little tighter still; until that dramatic moment when she cut them for ever. As for Voltaire, he still warmly admired her genius; wrote her verses; forgave her temper, and held himself unalterably hers.

The life at Cirey—already the subject of a burlesque in Paris—was not what he had dreamed it might be. He was himself hasty, capricious, not easy to live with. But he was also most generous, most affectionate, and most forgiving. And faithful to the end.