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Sharing Grief/Initiating Consolation: Voltaire's Letters of Condolence

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Sharing Grief/Initiating Consolation: Voltaire's Letters of Condolence University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Modern Languages and Literatures, Department French Language and Literature Papers of 10-24-1996 Sharing Grief/Initiating Consolation: Voltaire's Letters of Condolence Thomas M. Carr Jr. University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangfrench Part of the Modern Languages Commons Carr, Thomas M. Jr., "Sharing Grief/Initiating Consolation: Voltaire's Letters of Condolence" (1996). French Language and Literature Papers. 16. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangfrench/16 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Modern Languages and Literatures, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in French Language and Literature Papers by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in Studies In Eighteenth-Century Culture, Sharing Grief/Initiating volume 25 (1996), edited by Sindy Conger, pp. 131-146. Published by the American Society for Conso1ation:Voltaire's Letters of Eighteenth-Century Studies. Condolence THOMAS M. CARR, JR. he letter of condolence has generally been neglected by students of Tepistolary discourse1 in spite of being located at the intersection of a number of recent critical concerns. Interest among historians of death is shift- ing from the nrs moriendi that prepared the dying for a holy death to the grief of those who mourn the decea~ed.~Second, letters of condolence raise the problem of the representation of grief and the adequacy of language to con- vey it.' Finally, a rhetoric of consolation is implicit in the topoi of condolence selected by the letter writer, and while the consolatory discourse of antiquity has been the subject of much study, only recently has consolation in the early modern period attracted attenti~n.~Voltaire's extensive correspondence not only offers varied examples of letters of condolence, but consolation is a theme to which he repeatedly returned both in his letters and in the conte~.~ Of course, while consolation and condolence are related, they are not syn- onymous. The Dictionnaire de Trkvoux defines condolkance as the "timoignage qu'on rend B quelqu'un du diplaisir qu'on a de la perte qu'il a faite" while consolation is a "discours qui sert B adoucir la douleur d'un affligC; soulagement, adoucissement que I'on apporte au diplaisir, B l'affliction de quelqu'un." Condolences are a first step in the consolatory process. They are an expression of sympathy for the grief someone else experiences due to a loss; they may or may not be followed by an effort to ease the sorrow and 132 / CARR Sharing Griefllnitiating Consolation / 133 relieve the grief. Such consolation itself usually involves offering arguments Condolences, of course, are expressed directly when circumstances allow, designed to urge mourners to reframe their loss in a new perspective or to but when letters are involved an epistolary pact of three steps is established. show them how some replacement can compensate for it. An initial letter comes from someone near to the deceased announcing the Three areas are under investigation here: condolences as a social and epis- death; the expectation is that a letter of condolence will follow, for which a tolary practice; the problem of representing one's sympathy in such a way letter of acknowledgment must be sent." In Voltaire's correspondence, it is that the condolences appear to be more than gestures required by civility; rare to find all three letters extant. One example might be his announcement and the consolatory commonplaces Voltaire found most congenial to condo- of Mme du Chitelet's death to Frederick the Great (D4039), the king's not lences. too gracious condolences (D4047), and Voltaire's response (D4059). So great was the social pressure to write that friends reminded Voltaire of his duty to send a compliment de condoltance when they felt he was neglecting his obligations.12 One suspects in some cases friends like d'kgental feared that In the Ancien Rtgime the bienstances dictated clear expectations con- Voltaire's failure to write would be taken as a sign that they themselves had cerning the expression of condolences. In his recent survey of the manuals of failed in their duty to notify him of the death." Likewise, given the burden letter writing that codify these conventions, Maurice Daumas notes that such that acknowledging a great number of expressions of sympathy placed on the letters are a sign of polite society's increasing concern for civility and points bereaved, Voltaire at times included a statement in the condolences that no to the growing importance of condolences for a death within the larger cat- response was expected, as he did when the daughter-in-law of his old friend egory of letters of consolation during the period 1630 to 1725: Fyot de la Marche died in 1765 (D12293). As the premier poet of his day, Voltaire's obligation went further than a Le genre fort ancien de la Ietrre de consolation reprtsente tout au long de simple letter. After thanking Voltaire for his expression of sympathy on the la p4riode Ctudite environ 8%des lettres. La consolation, qui peut concerner la captivitt, I'emprisonnement, la maladie, est centrte de plus en plus sur death of her former lover and long time friend Formont, Mrne du Deffand le dtcts. Les modtles de lettres familiales se multiplient et se diversifient continues, "Mais, monsieur, pourquoi refusez-vous B mon ami un mot d'tloge? (jusqu'aux consolations entre freres et soeurs.) Enfin, les lettres d'avis de . Quatre lignes de vous soit en vers soit en prose honoreraient sa mtmoire dices et les rtponses prennent peu A peu la plus grande place.6 et seraient pour moi une vraie consolation" (D8032). One hopes she experi- enced twice the consolation she expected when she received his reply which The manuals offered advice on writing such letters, samples written by contained not four but eight lines of verse praising their mutual friend (D8040). epistolary masters like Malherbe, and model letters devised by the authors of However, Frederick was not so easily satisfied. In December 1758 Voltaire these handbooks for all manner of circumstances.' Voltaire himself avoided replied to the king's thank-you letter to the poet's condolences on the occa- the oratorical brand of formal consolation exemplified by Malherbe, and for sion of the death of Frederick's sister Wilhelmina with a thirty-four line poem imitations in his correspondence of the invented model letters furnished by (D7979). The king rebuked Voltaire testily, "J'ai rey les vers que vous avez the manuals, one must turn, not to letters he wrote himself, but to two stiffly faits; apparemment que je ne me suis pas bien expliqut. Je dtsire quelque formal ones written in 1767 by officials of the court of the duchess of Saxe- chose de plus tclatant et de public. I1 faut que toute I'Europe pleure avec moi Gotha informing Voltaire of her death (D14501, D14557).8 une vertu trop peu connue" (D8062). Voltaire obeyed the royal directive by Voltaire's correspondence, nonetheless, offers an impressive range of con- writing an entirely new poem, the "Ode sur la perte que 1'Allemagne a faite dolences: carefully composed compliments de condoltance when etiquette de Sa Altesse Royale Mme la Margrave de Bareith" that was duly published required the most formal respect; short, rapidly written billets that conveyed in spring 1759. However, the poet did not always accede to such requests; Voltaire's immediate reaction to the initial news of a death; longer letters in for example, Voltaire does not seem to have obliged the marquise d'kgens's which Voltaire uses what Genevikve Haroche-Bouzinac calls the "art allusif' suggestion to "faire parler votre douleur, votre muse" in honor of her hus- of transition to pass from the condolences that occupy the first paragraph to band (D17598). a discussion of other matters of the day;g requests that friends convey his Voltaire, of course, made the letters or poems of condolence required by condolences when, for one reason or another, it was not opportune for him to etiquette and fame serve his larger purposes. Perhaps the most fundamental write directly."' function of condolences is to reaffirm the tie between the bereaved and the 134 / CARR Sharing Griefllnitiating Consolation / 135 letter writer, and Voltaire uses the occasion provided by the social obligation intensity of the sympathy that is at the heart of any condolences is a function to send condolences to strengthen this relationship, or even orient it according of the intimacy between the letter writer and the letter's recipient. The bond to his agenda of the moment. For example, the condolences sent upon between the deceased and the recipient determines the intensity of the Formont's death in 1758 allowed Voltaire to reestablish his languishing recipient's grief for which the letter writer is expressing sympathy; finally, correspondence with Mrne du Deffand whose salon attracted the elite of the degree of closeness between the deceased and the letter writer determines Parisian society and who counted among her intimates the wife of the de whether the letter writer experiences a personal grief that overlays sympathy facto prime minister and Voltaire's patron, Choiseul. Similarly, during a period for the recipient's grief. in 1757 when Voltaire and Frederick were only exchanging messages through One might predict that the level of emotional involvement would be the the king's sister, Voltaire took the occasion of the death of Frederick's mother weakest in cases in which the letter writer did not know the deceased, and the to write the monarch directly (D7315).
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