Chapter XV: The Pope, the Pompadour, and “the Temple of Glory”

The new favour Voltaire had obtained had to be paid for like any other advantage of fortune. Then, as now, the finer the post, the more ennui and exaction in filling it. The nearer he climbs to the sun, the more scorched and weary the climber. Voltaire found out that simple fact of nature very soon.

The truth is he was a great deal too clever to be wasted. Was it a diplomatic letter that was required? The Historiographer had had practice in such things, and would naturally do them better than anyone else. A poem? He was a poet. An epigram? Once upon a time his epigrams had been so dangerously clever that he had positively been bastilled for them. Four days after the _fête_ the newly made courtier had written to Theriot that he was so utterly weary he had neither hands, feet, nor head. He spent the whole day hunting up anecdotes and the whole night making rhymes. He had the reputation of a wit, and the Court felt defrauded if he did not make a _bon mot_ every time he opened his lips. Then came the French victory of Fontenoy over the English--and of course the Historiographer must celebrate that historical event in an ode. It is but just to Voltaire to say that if he was in some sort belying his principles by being at Court at all, when there, he did, in so far as might be, live up to them. He had pleaded for peace pretty openly in those official documents, and pointed out better ways to glory than the way of battle.

But, after all, though war is deplorable, if war there must be, let _Us_ win by all means if we can. Even a peace advocate might feel some such sentiment. One peace advocate, with his facts drawn direct from a letter of d’Argenson’s, written from the scene of action itself about May 16, 1745, sat down in a fine glow of enthusiasm and produced his heroic poem, of three hundred lines and entitled “Fontenoy,” on the spot. Paris was delighted. The King was content. Five editions were sold in ten days. The Historiographer, of course, corrected, embellished, altered, indefatigably. “This battle has given me a great deal more trouble to celebrate than it gave the King to win it,” he observed, very truly. He was plagued out of his life by the Court ladies who really _must_ insist on the poet flattering in his poem all their cousins and lovers who had taken even the smallest part in the fight. “My head swims,” he wrote. He grumbled. But he was not ill content. Presently, “Fontenoy” received the compliment of being clumsily burlesqued, and a gay Voltaire answered the burlesques in a “Critical Letter from a Fine Lady to a Fine Gentleman of Paris”--dainty, light, rallying, graceful--and as good-humoured as witty. If his “Princess” had won him favour, “Fontenoy” had sealed it. He had gained the King. To keep him there remained but to gain also the woman and the priest who ruled him.

Looking back long after on this period of his life--“It was not the time of my glory if I ever had any,” said Voltaire. It was not. To fawn on that sensual stupidity the King, to cajole the Pope, to flatter the mistress--they were not occupations that commended themselves to a man with such a passion for work and such a supreme consciousness of a mission in life crying aloud to be fulfilled, as Voltaire. But the end--the end was everything. How should he speak truth if he were gagged? What hope of freedom to speak in these times without the royal indulgence? The means were contemptible enough, be it granted. But they were the only means. What matter how dirty the road if it led to the goal? That was Voltaire’s idea--not high-minded, nor quite without excuse, and perfectly characteristic. He plunged through that Court mire alert, gay, and vigorous; flattered the women; amused the courtiers; was eternally witty and gallant; and just sarcastic enough in his wit to make himself respected.

And then he set to work to gain the Pope. Hardly any other transaction of his life shows him as matchlessly clever and ingenious as this one. He _was_ a sceptic--that is, if a sceptic be one who believes in a creed of his own rather than the creed of other persons. He had the reputation of an atheist. The Church had banned his books, and discovered some subtle innuendo against herself in every line he wrote. Worse than all, the man was a satirist, a jester, a mocker, who viewed the huge pretensions and the gigantic claims of Rome with a cynic gleam in his eyes and a laugh on his lips.

He started his bold campaign by reading the whole of the Pope’s works and complimenting that very good-natured representative of St. Peter, Benedict XIV., on their ability. Benedict thereupon sent his “dear son” a couple of beautiful medals with his own portrait engraven thereon as a return civility. “He looks like a _bon diable_,” wrote the graceless Voltaire to d’Argenson, “who knows pretty well how much _all that_ is worth.”

And then on August 17th Voltaire wrote to beg permission to dedicate that “Mahomet,” which Lord Chesterfield had considered a covert attack on Christianity, to his Holiness himself. The letter with which he sent the play is a masterpiece of subtlety. The Voltairian daring and adroitness, which are without their counterpart in history, succeeded of course. If one can be at once supremely bold and supremely clever, success is a foregone conclusion. Voltaire was lucky in his man--and knew his man to perfection. Benedict XIV. was _bonhomme_ rather than an ideal pope, and _did_ accept his own infallibility and the astounding assumptions of his Church, with a great many comprehensive qualifications.

He was quite wise enough in his generation to perceive that it was better to have a subtle Voltaire for a friend than an enemy. He therefore sent him his Apostolic Benediction: and accepted the dedication of “your admirable tragedy” in a charming letter dated September 19th. Voltaire, on his part, said he laid a work against the founder of a false religion at the feet of the chief of the true religion: “kissed the Pope’s holy feet” and “sacred purple” indefatigably in every letter he wrote; flattered the cardinals and went into ecstasies over Benedict’s virtues. The correspondence between the two was printed as a preface to a new edition of “Mahomet” in French and Italian; and M. de Voltaire, with his tongue in his cheek and not a little satisfaction in his soul, is proclaimed before all men the _protégé_ of Rome!

Long before this desirable consummation, as far back as May 3d of this 1745, he had written with a gay confidence that the devout might now ask _his_ protection for this world and the next. The subject never ceased to afford his sense of irony the most delicious amusement. But better than being amused he was henceforth “covered from his enemies by the stole of Heaven’s vicegerent.” The Pope, it has been seen, did not accept the dedication of “Mahomet” until September. Before that Voltaire was hard at work to win another influence--the influence of Madame d’Étioles, afterwards the Marquise de Pompadour.

The summer of 1745 was but a dull summer at Court. In May the King joined his army. What were the courtiers and flatterers to do with no one to flatter and toady? The firmament was dark without its Sun: and would have been darker yet but for the steady rising of one brilliant star. Clever head and cold heart, a cool and persistent ambition, a most subtle intellect, and a morality which never interfered with an early and plainly avowed intention to become the King’s mistress--such was the woman who “with her harlot’s foot on its neck” ruled France for nineteen years, lost it India and Canada, and spurred it, galloping, to the Revolution. With every charm, every grace, every accomplishment that can make a woman irresistible--all carefully learnt for that one noble end, the King’s subjugation--five-and-twenty years old, the wife of a wealthy _bourgeois_, M. d’Étioles, living in the country, and having already begun, and coolly waiting to finish, her conquest of the royal heart--such was the Pompadour when Voltaire first knew her. In May he was her correspondent. In June he was her visitor--drinking her tokay, and paying her the loveliest compliments, and discussing with her gravely all subjects in heaven and earth, for she had not only natural cleverness, but a fine cultivation, and, in her heart, said Voltaire, was always “one of us.” She confided in him her design on--she called it her passion for--the King.

In July Voltaire was addressing verses to his “dear and true Pompadour” and saying he might well call her in advance by a name which rhymed with “amour” and would soon be the loveliest name in France. She was formally created Marquise and came up to Court. She was the mistress of Louis. She was the mistress of France. And--she was the friend of Voltaire.

If he had thought it necessary to justify himself for that friendship, only he did not think it necessary at all, he might have argued, as he might have argued as to his alliance with the Pope, that it was a pity kings should be governed by priests and women; but that since they were, the best and wisest thing to do was to get the influence of the priests and women on the right side. What might a Pompadour not do? “One of us”--that meant a philosopher, mentally capable of seeing new points of view, acquiring new truths, breaking from old superstitions. In the hollow of her hand she held the happiness or the misery of thousands. Not only the welfare of a proud kingdom but the well-being of those silent suffering units who peopled the kingdom, hung, as too often before, on a shameless woman’s smile or frown. And if she could make or mar a country and a nation, how much more a Court poet?

Voltaire had begun writing to Rameau’s music an opera called “The Temple of Glory,” to celebrate Louis XV.’s victories in his campaign. It was just as well from Madame de Pompadour’s point of view to be on the right side of such a very poignant wit as M. de Voltaire’s. She _was_ on the right side of it. With all his usual audacity the poet inserted in his opera the most unmistakable and complimentary allusions to her and her King and to the relations between them. He was busy with other work too. Only one disease--it was an internal complaint this time--and an opera on hand at once would have been idleness indeed. All through the autumn of this 1745 he was writing the authorised historical account of the King’s campaigns, an honour which d’Argenson had procured for him, and which afterwards swelled into his “History of Louis XV.” Now, it was known as the “Campaigns of the King.” With a very rare love of justice, at a time when national feeling ran high, he wrote to Sir Everard Falkener, now secretary to the Duke of Cumberland, to ask him for first-hand facts regarding the war so that the historian might do justice to the “many great actions done by your nation”--our enemies, the English. He had time to read the back numbers of three past years of the “London Magazine” in English. Madame du Châtelet was always with him. In June they had been at Châlons for a fortnight with Madame du Deffand. In October they went to Fontainebleau--Madame creating not a little talk and scandal by insisting, on the way there, on a right, or a supposed right, of her family to ride in the best place in the first coach after the Queen’s--to the exclusion of other noble and indignant ladies, who had, or thought they had, similar rights.

In the comparative quiet of Fontainebleau Voltaire worked at his “Campaigns”--“as I always work--with passion.”

He and Madame returned to Versailles in November in time to welcome the King. On the 26th of that month the Sun was beaming graciously in his firmament again--after a campaign in which he had done nothing but look on from a very cautious distance. And on November 27, 1745, appeared “The Temple of Glory.”

The two principal characters in it are Trajan, great in war but the friend of peace, emperor, Roman--and lover; and Plotine, the beloved. The dullest among the audience must have seen whom these characters represented.

Ta plus belle gloire
Vient du tendre amour,

sang the chorus to Trajan. And did not _amour_ rhyme with Pompadour for ever and ever? Among the spectators were the injured Queen, who had no reason now to love this M. de Voltaire; and Madame du Châtelet, taking advantage of another hereditary right and sitting in her royal mistress’s presence. Rameau’s music was delightful and the dancing perfection. Richelieu had superintended the _mise-en-scène_. The curtain went down on a tumult of applause. And Voltaire, with that boyish French capacity of his for being intoxicated by the very thin wine of a social success, strolled up to the royal box and said to Richelieu, to be overheard of the King, “Trajan est-il content?”

There are a dozen versions of the story. There are several vehement denials that any such incident took place. But there is no smoke without fire, and the episode is characteristic enough of a pleased and audacious Voltaire. He does not ever allude to it himself: but that may be accounted for by the fact that Trajan was _not_ very content with the too daring question. He had reason to be a little sulky at his royal name being so openly coupled--with Plotine’s. One authority has it that he turned his back on Voltaire and addressed compliments to Rameau.

But “The Temple of Glory” was repeated; and the Sun came out from behind the little cloud as bright as ever.

The next court _divertissement_, performed on December 22d, was not indeed written by Voltaire, but by Jean Jacques Rousseau, citizen of Geneva, with whom Voltaire was now brought into a polite correspondence, and with whom he was hereafter to fight as he had never fought even with Rousseau’s old exiled namesake at The Hague.

On January 16th of the new year, 1746, Longchamp entered as a kind of confidential valet into the service of Madame du Châtelet, and from her service was shortly drafted into that of M. de Voltaire. Half secretary, half servant, and all observer, Longchamp lived to write memoirs of unusual interest and fidelity, and to make Voltaire a proof of the fallacy of the saying that no man is a hero to his valet. Longchamp, Collini, Wagnière, who were in turns the servant-secretaries of Voltaire, have all painted his picture as most generous, hasty, and kind, with the sensitive temper of genius and the forethought and consideration for others, even for dependents, which genius too often lacks. To Voltaire’s generation the _canaille_ were as dirt beneath the feet; but not to Voltaire. Irritable and impulsive in speech, he had at times to his servants the manners of the old _régime_; but he had ever the heart of a better age.

Abundantly generous--“a miser of nothing, but his time”--one servant speaks in warm terms of his “solid and durable indulgence and goodness,” and another of his kindness, sympathy, and forgiveness. The character that masters give their servants is often unreliable through ignorance or weak indulgence; but the character that servants give their masters rarely falls into either of these errors.

From that fiery inquisition, the inquisition of the domestic eye, Voltaire is one of the few great men in history whose character comes out better than it went in.

All the early months of 1746 were taken up in keeping the vantage ground he had gained and in gaining more. He wrote letters to Italian cardinals in Italian. He reminded the Pope of the dutiful existence of his dutiful son. He pleased Madame de Pompadour. He amused sulky Trajan. He began a regular Voltairian battle against Charles Roy, an old scurrilous minor poet, who stood not ill at Court, himself hoped for a chair in the Academy, and had written an unsuccessful rival piece to Voltaire’s “Princess.” These occupations were very fatiguing. But they were essential. On March 17th a fresh vacancy fell in at the French Academy, and who should have it if not Voltaire? The gods were more favourable now. The candidate canvassed for himself feverishly. He wrote an artful letter to the Lieutenant of Police and a beautiful one to Father La Tour, one of his old schoolmasters, expressing a warm affection for religion and the Jesuits. If the thing was to be done at all it must be done thoroughly.

On April 25, 1746, the greatest literary man of the age, who was fifty-two years old and a member of almost every other Academy in Europe, was at last formally elected to the Literary Society of his own country. On May 9th he read before it his preliminary discourse, Voltairian in every line.