The Friends of Voltaire;

THE FRIENDS OF VOLTAIRE cIOS I /.( I OIL '(if . h \'^lT(itrc7', S^- .fi-Puja^ JJvur^u.'i^-.a.'7'7 JEAN-LEROND D'ALEMBERT. From ami Engraxiing after Pnios. THE FKIENDS OF VOLTAIRE BY ' S. G. TALLENTYRE AUTHOR OF LIFE OF VOLTAIBE ' ' THB WOMEN OF THE SALONS ' ETC. i- Hi^uu * II faut que les §,mes pensantes se frottent Tune centre I'autre pour faire jaillir de la lumi^re.' VoLTAiEE : Letter to the Due d' XJzes^ December 4, 1751. WITH POETEAITS Y; OF THE '^\ I^NIVERSITY ^ OF ^/! \,wo9:\^ LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1906 [All rights r«i«rT*d] t BEESE np7ios ItoG CONTENTS PAGE I. D'Alembert : the Thinker (1717-1783) . 1 II. Diderot : the Talker (1713-1784) . ' . .32 III. GalianT: the Wit (1728-1787) 62 IV. Vauvbnargues : the Aphorist (1715-1747) . 96 V. D'Holbach: the Host (1723-1789) . 118 VI. Grimm: the Journalist (1723-1807) . 160 VII. Helvetius : the Contradiction (1715-1771) . 176 VIII. Turgot: the Statesman (1727-1781) ... 206 IX. Beaumarchais : the Playwright (1732-1799) . 236 X. CONDORCET : THE ARISTOCRAT (1743-1794) . 268 Index 299 294995 POETEAITS D'Alembert Frontispiece From an Engraving after Pvjos. Diderot To face ^.32 From an Engraving by Henriquez, after the Portrait by Vanloo. Galiani „ 62 From a Print. Vauvenargues „ 96 From a Print in the Bibliotheque Rationale, Paris. D'HOLBACH ,,118 From a Portrait in the Musde Cond4, Chantilly. Grimm „ 150 From an Engraving, after Carmontelle, in the Bibliothhque Rationale, Paris. HELvinus ,,176 From an Engraving by St. Aubin, after the Portrait by Vanloo. TURGOT ,,206 From an Engraving by Tje Beau, after the Portrait by Troy. Beaumarghais „ 236 From an Engraving, after Michon, in the Bibliotltique Nationale^ Paris. CONDORCBT . „ 268 From an Engraving by Lemvrt, after the Bust by St. Aubin. SOME SOUECES OP INFOEMATION D'Alembert. Joseph Bertrand. (Buvres et Correspondance inedites. B'Alembert, Correspondance avec d'Alembert. Marquise du Deffand. Diderot and the Encyclopaedists. John Morley. Eloge de d'Alembert. Condorcet. (Euvres. Diderot. Diderot. Beimach. Diderot, THomme et rEcrivain. Ducros. Diderot. Scherer. Diderot et Catherine II. Toumewx. Ferdinand© Galiani, Correspondance, Etude, etc. Perrey et Maugras. Lettres de I'Abbe Galiani. Eugene Asse. Memoires et Correspondance. Madame d'Epvnay. Jeunesse de Madame d'Epinay. Perrey et Maugras. Dernieres Annees de Madame d'Epinay. Perrey et Maugras. Memoires. Marmontel. Memoires. Morellet. Causeries du Lundi. Savnte-Beuve. Vauvenargues. Paleologue. (Euvres et ^loge de Vauvenargues. D. L. Gilbert. Melchior Grimm. Scherer, Eousseau. John Morley. Miscellanies. John Morley. Correspondance Litt^raire. Grimm et Diderot. Turgot. L4on Say. Turgot. W. B. Hodgson. (Euvres. Turgot. Vie de Turgot. Condorcet. Correspondance inedite de Condorcet et Turgot. C. Henry. La Marquise de Condorcet. Guillois. Vie de Condorcet. Bobinet. X THE FEIENDS OF VOLTAIRE Beaumarchais et Son Temps. Lominie. Beaumarchais. Hallays. Th^&tre de Beaumarchais. La Fin de TAncien E^gime. Imbert de Smnt-Ama/nd. French Eevolution. Ca/rlyle. Critical Essays. Garlyle. Correspondance. VoUwire. •Portraits Litt^raires du XVIII'^ Sieele. La Ha/rpe. Corn's de Litterature. La Harpe. M^moire sm* Helvetius. Darmron. Le Salon de Madame Helvetius. Guillois. Histoire de la Philosophic Moderne. Buhle. Life of Hume. Burton. The Private Correspondence of Garrick with Celebrated Persons. Memoires pour servir 4 I'Histoire de la Philosophic. Damiron. Letters. Laurence Sterne. THE FRIENDS OF VOLTAIRE I UALEMBERT: THE THINKER Of that vast intellectual movement which prepared the way for the most stupendous event in history, the French Kevolution, Voltaire was the creative spirit. Q But there was a group of men, less famous but not less great, who also heralded the coming of the new heaven and the new earth ; who were in a strict sense friends and fellow-workers of Voltaire, although one or two of them were personally little known to him ; whose aim was his aim, to destroy from among the people ' ignorance, the curse of God,' and who were, as he was, the prophets and the makers of a new dispensation That many of these light bringers were them- selves full of darkness, is true enough ; but they brought the light not the less, and in their own B 2 THE FEIENDS OF VOLTAIEE breasts burnt one cleansing flame, the passion for humanity. For the rest, they were the typical men of the most enthralling age in history—each with his human story as well as his public purpose, and his part to play on the glittering stage of the social life of old France, as well as in the great events which moulded her destiny and affected the fate of Europe. Foremost among them was d'Alembert. Often talked about but little known, or vaguely remembered only as the patient lover of Made- moiselle de Lespinasse, Jean Lerond d'Alembert, the successor of Newton, the author of the Preface of the Encyclopaedia, deserves an enduring fame. On a November evening in the year 1717, one hundred and eighty-nine years ago, a gendarme^ going his round in Paris, discovered on the steps of the church of Saint-Jean Lerond, once the baptistery of Notre-Dame, a child of a few hours old. The story runs that the baby was richly clad, and had on his small person marks which would lead to his identification. But the fact remains that he was abandoned in mid-winter, left without food or shelter to take his feeble chance of life and of the cold charity of some such institution as the Enfants Trouv^s. It was no thanks to the mother D'ALEMBEET: THE THINKER 3 who bore him that the gendarme who found him had compassion on his helpless infancy. The man had the baby hurriedly christened after his first cradle, Jean Baptiste Lerond, took him to a working woman whom he could trust, and who nursed him—^for six weeks say some authorities, for a few days say others —in the little village of Cremery near Montdidier. At the end of the time there returned to Paris a certain gallant General Destouches, who had been abroad in the execution of his military duties. He went to visit Madame de Tencin, and from her learnt of the birth and the abandonment of their son. No study of the eighteenth century can be complete without mention of the extraordinary women who were born with that marvellous age, and fortunately died with it. Cold, calculating, and corrupt, with the devilish cleverness of a Machiavelli, with the natural instinct of love used for gain and for trickery, and with the natural instinct of maternity wholly absent, d'Alembert's mother was the most perfect type of this monstrous class. Small, keen, alert, with a little sharp face like a bird's, brilliantly eloquent, bold, subtle, tireless, a great minister of intrigue, and insatiably ambitious—such was Madame de Tencin. It was she who assisted at the meetings of statesmen, and B 2 4 THE FEIENDS OF VOLTAIEE gave Marshal Eichelieu a plan and a line of con- duct. It was she who managed the afiairs of her brother Cardinal de Tencin, and, through him, tried to effect peace between France and Frederick in the midst of the Seven Years' War. It was she who fought the hideous incompetence of Maurepas, the Naval Minister ; and it was she who summed herself up to FonteneUe when she laid her hand on her heart, saying, ' Here is nothing but brain.' From the moment of his birth she had only one wish with regard to her child—to be rid of him. A long procession of lovers had left her wholly incapable of shame. But the child would be a worry—and she did not mean to be worried ! If the father had better instincts—well, let him follow them. He did. He employed Molin, Madame de Tencin's doctor, to find out the baby's nurse, Anne Lemaire, and claim the little creature from her. The great d'Alembert told Madame Suard many years after how Destouches drove all round Paris with the baby (' with a head no bigger than an apple') in his arms, trying to find for him a suitable foster-mother. But little Jean Baptiste Lerond seemed to be dying, and no one would take him. At last, however, Destouches discovered, living in the Kue Michel-Lecomte, a poor glazier's wife, whose motherly soul was touched by D'ALEMBEET: THE THINKER 6 the infant's piteous plight, and who took him to her love and care, and kept him there for fifty years. History has concerned itself much less with Madame Kousseau than with Madame de Tencin. Yet it was the glazier's wife who was d'Alem- bert's real mother after all. If she was low- born and ignorant, she had yet the happiest of all acquirements—she knew how to win love and to keep it. The great d'Alembert, universally acclaimed as one of the first intellects of Europe, had ever for this simple person, who defined a philosopher as ' a fool who torments himself during his life that people may talk of him when he is dead,' the tender reverence which true greatness, and only true greatness perhaps, can bear towards homely goodness. From her he learnt the bless- ing of peace and obscurity. From his association with her he learnt his noble idea— difficult in any age, but in that age of degrading luxury and self- indulgence well nigh impossible—that it is sinful to enjoy superfluities while other men want necessaries. His hidden life in the dark attic above her husband's shop made it possible for him to do that life's work.

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