It was here that Hor-
ace Walpole found the "blind old woman" in her tub-like chair, and
began the friendship and intellectual flirtation of fifteen years.
ace Walpole found the "blind old woman" in her tub-like chair, and
began the friendship and intellectual flirtation of fifteen years.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v08 - Dah to Dra
"
And the loved one held out her hand.
"Come," he exclaimed, starting out of his fleeting dream.
And he signed.
The door opened and the Queen appeared. Her presence in
Christian's rooms at such an hour was so unforeseen, so unex-
pected, they had lived so long apart, that neither the King in
the act of signing his infamy, nor Lebeau, who stood watching
him, turned round at the slight noise she made. They thought
it was Boscovich coming up from the garden. Gliding lightly
like a shadow, she was already near the table, and had reached
the two accomplices, when Lebeau saw her. With her finger on
her lips she motioned him to be silent, and continued to advance,
wishing to convict the king in the very act of his treachery, and
avoid all evasion, subterfuge, or useless dissimulation; but the
valet set her order at defiance and gave the alarm, "The Queen,
sire! "
The Dalmatian, furious, struck straight in the face of this
malevolent caitiff with the powerful hand of a woman accustomed
to handle the reins; and drawing herself up erect, waited till the
wretch had disappeared before she addressed the king.
"What has happened, my dear Frédérique ? and to what am I
indebted for-? "
Standing bent over the table that he strove to hide, in a
graceful attitude that showed off his silk jacket embroidered in
pink, he smiled, and although his lips were rather pale, his voice
remained calm, his speech easy, with that polished elegance
which never left him when addressing his wife, and which placed.
a barrier between them like a hard lacquer screen adorned with
flowery and intricate arabesques. With one word, one gesture,
she put aside the barrier behind which he would fain have shel-
tered himself.
"Oh! no phrases, no grimacing- if you please. I know what
you were writing there. Do not try to give me the lie. ”
Then drawing nearer, overwhelming his timorous objection by
her haughty bearing:-
"Listen to me, Christian," and there was something in her
tone that gave an impression of solemnity to her words; "listen
to me: you have made me suffer cruelly since I became your
wife. I have never said anything but once the first time, you
remember. After that, when I saw that you had ceased to love
--
## p. 4464 (#238) ###########################################
4464
ALPHONSE DAUDET
me, I left you to yourself. Not that I was ignorant of anything
you did —not one of your infidelities, not one of your follies
remained unknown to me. For you must indeed be mad, mad
like your father, who died of exhaustion, mad with love for Lola;
mad like your grandfather John, who died in a shameful delirium,
foaming and framing kisses with the death-rattle in his throat,
and uttering words that made the Sisters of Charity grow pale.
Yes, it is the same fevered blood, the same hellish passion that
devours you.
At Ragusa, on the nights of the sortie, it was at
Fodora's that they sought you. I knew it, I knew that she had
left her theatre to follow you. I never uttered a single reproach.
The honor of your name was saved. And when the King was
absent from the ramparts, I took care his place should not be
empty. But here in Paris-"
Till now she had spoken slowly, coldly, in a tone of pity and
maternal reproof, as though inspired thereto by the downcast
eyes and pouting mouth of the King, who looked like a vicious
child receiving a scolding. But the name of Paris exasperated
her. A city without faith, a city cynical and accursed, its blood-
stained stones ever ready for sedition and barricades! What pos-
sessed these poor fallen kings, that they came to take refuge in
this Sodom! It was Paris, it was its atmosphere tainted by car-
nage and vice that completed the ruin of the historical houses;
it was this that had made Christian lose what the maddest of his
ancestors had always known how to preserve the respect and
pride of their race. Oh! When on the very day of their arrival,
the first night of their exile, she had seen him so excited, so gay,
while all around him were secretly weeping, Frédérique had
guessed the humiliation and shame she would have to undergo.
Then in one breath, without pausing, with cutting words that
lashed the pallid face of the royal rake, and striped it red as
with a whip, she recalled one after the other all his follies, his
rapid descent from pleasure to vice, and vice to crime.
"You have deceived me under my very eyes, in my own
house; adultery has sat at my table, it has brushed against my
dress.
When you were tired of that dollish little face who had
not even the grace to conceal her tears, you went to the gutter,
wallowing shamelessly in the slime and mud of the streets, and
bringing back the dregs of your orgies, of your sickly remorse,
all the pollution of the mire. Remember how I saw you totter
and stammer on that morning, when for the second time you lost
――――
## p. 4465 (#239) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4465
your throne. What have you not done! Holy Mother of angels!
What have you not done! You have traded with the royal seal,
you have sold crosses and titles. "
And in a lower tone, as though she feared lest the stillness
and silence of the night might hear, she added:-
"You have stolen, yes, stolen! Those diamonds, those stones
torn from the crown-it was you who did it, and I allowed my
faithful Greb to be suspected and dismissed. The theft being
known, it was necessary to find a sham culprit to prevent the
real one ever being discovered. For this has been my one, my
constant preoccupation: to uphold the King, to keep him un-
touched; to accept everything for that purpose, even the shame
which in the eyes of the world will end by sullying me. I had
adopted a watchword that sustained me, and encouraged me in
my hours of trial: All for the crown! ' And now you want to
sell it that crown that has cost me such anguish and such
tears; you want to barter it for gold, for the lifeless mask of that
Jewess, whom you had the indecency to bring face to face with
me to-day. "
Crushed, bending low his head, he had hitherto listened with-
out a word, but the insult directed against the woman he loved
roused him. Looking fixedly at the queen, his face bearing the
traces of her cutting words, he said politely, but very firmly:-
"Well, no, you are mistaken. The woman you mention has
had nothing to do with the determination I have taken. What I
am doing is done for you, for me, for our common happiness.
Tell me, are you not weary of this life of privations and expe-
dients? Do you think that I am ignorant of what is going on
here; that I do not suffer when I see you harassed by a pack
of tradespeople and duns? The other day when that man was
shouting in the yard I was coming in and heard him. Had it
not been for Rosen I would have crushed him under the wheels
of my phaeton. And you
And you-you were watching his departure
behind the curtains of your window.
Queen. We owe money to every one.
cry against us. Half the servants are unpaid. The tutor even
has received nothing for the last ten months. Madame de Silvis
pays herself by majestically wearing your old dresses. And there
are days when my councilor, the keeper of the royal seals, bor-
rows from my valet the wherewithal to buy snuff. You see I
am well acquainted with the state of things. And you do not
A nice position for a
There is a universal out-
VIII-280
## p. 4466 (#240) ###########################################
4466
ALPHONSE DAUDET
know my debts yet. I am over head and ears in debt. Every-
thing is giving way around us. A pretty state of things, indeed;
you will see that diadem of yours sold one day at the corner of
a street with old knives and forks. "
Little by little, gradually carried away by his own scoffing
nature and the jesting habits of his set, he dropped the mod-
erate tone he commenced with, and in his insolent little snuffling
voice began to dwell upon the ludicrous side of the situation,
with jeers and mockery, borrowed no doubt from Séphora, who
never lost an opportunity of demolishing by her sneering obser-
vations the few remaining scruples of her lover.
"You will accuse me of making phrases, but it is you who
deafen yourself with words. What, after all, is that crown of
Illyria that you are always talking about? It is worth nothing
except on a king's head; elsewhere it is obstruction, a useless
thing, which for flight is carried hidden away in a bonnet-box or
exposed under a glass shade like the laurels of an actor or the
blossoms of a concierge's bridal wreath. You must be convinced
of one thing, Frédérique. A king is truly king only on the throne,
with power to rule; fallen, he is nothing, less than nothing,
a rag.
Vainly do we cling to etiquette, to our titles, always
bringing forward our Majesty, on the panels of our carriages,
on the studs of our cuffs, hampering ourselves with an empty
ceremonial. It is all hypocrisy on our part, and mere politeness
and pity on the part of those who surround us -our friends and
our servants. Here I am King Christian II. for you, for Rosen,
for a few faithful ones. Outside I become a man like the rest,
M. Christian Two. Not even a surname, only 'Christian,' like an
actor of the Gaété. "
He stopped, out of breath; he did not remember having ever
spoken so long standing. The shrill notes of the night-birds, the
prolonged trills of the nightingales, broke the silence of the night.
A big moth that had singed its wings at the lights flew about,
thumping against the walls. This fluttering distress and the
smothered sobs of the Queen were the only sounds to be heard;
she knew how to meet rage and violence, but was powerless
before this scoffing banter, so foreign to her sincere nature;
it found her unarmed, like the valiant soldier who expects
straight blows and feels only the harassing stings of insects. See-
ing her break down, Christian thought her vanquished, and to
complete his victory he put the finishing touch to the burlesque
## p. 4467 (#241) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4467
picture he had drawn of kings in exile. "What a pitiful figure
they cut, all these poor princes in partibus, figurants of royalty,
who drape themselves in the frippery of the principal characters,
and declaim before the empty benches without a farthing of
receipts! Would they not be wiser if they held their peace and
returned to the obscurity of common life? For those who have
money there is some excuse. Their riches give them some right
to cling to these grandeurs. But the others, the poor cousins of
Palermo for instance, crowded together in a tiny house with their
horrid Italian cookery. It smells of onions when the door is
opened. Worthy folk certainly, but what an existence! And
those are not the worst off. The other day a Bourbon, a real
Bourbon, ran after an omnibus. Full, sir,' said the conductor.
But he kept on running. 'Don't I tell you it is full, my good
man? ' He got angry; he would have wished to be called 'Mon-
seigneur as if that should be known by the tie of his cravat!
Operetta kings, I tell you, Frédérique. It is to escape from
this ridiculous position, to insure a dignified and decent exist-
ence, that I have made up my mind to sign this. "
And he added, suddenly revealing the tortuous Slavonic nature
molded by the Jesuits:- "Moreover, this signature is really a
mere farce. Our own property is returned to us, that is all,
and I shall not consider myself in the slightest degree bound
by this.
Who knows? -these very thousands of pounds may
help us to recover the throne. "
The Queen impetuously raised her head, looked him straight
in the eyes for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders, saying:
"Do not make yourself out viler than you are. You know
that when once you have signed — but no. The truth is, you lack
strength and fortitude; you desert your kingly post at the most
perilous moment, when a new society, that will acknowledge
neither God nor master, pursues with its hatred the representa-
tives of Divine right, makes the heavens tremble over their heads
and the earth under their steps. The assassin's knife, bombs,
bullets, all serve their purpose. Treachery and murder are on
every side.
In the midst of our pageantry or our festivities, the
best of us as well as the worst, not one of us does not start if
only a man steps forward out of the crowd. Hardly a petition
that does not conceal a dagger. On leaving his palace what king
is certain of returning alive? And this is the hour you choose
to leave the field! "
## p. 4468 (#242) ###########################################
4468
ALPHONSE DAUDET
"Ah! if fighting could do it! " eagerly said Christian II. "But
to struggle as we do against ridicule, against poverty, against all
the petty meannesses of life, and feel that we only sink deeper
every day—"
A ray of hope lit up her eyes:-"Is it true? would you fight?
Then listen. "
Breathlessly she related, in a few rapid words, the expedition
she and Elysée had been preparing for the last three months by
letters, proclamations, and dispatches, which Father Alphée, ever
on the move, carried from one mountain village to the other.
This time it was not to the nobility they appealed, but to the
people; the muleteers, the porters of Ragusa, the market-gardeners
of Breno, of La Brazza, the islanders who go to market in their
feluccas, the nation which had remained faithful to the mon-
archical tradition, which was ready to rise and die for its king,
on condition that he should lead them. Companies were form-
ing, the watchword was already circulating, only the signal now
remained to be given.
The Queen, hurling her words at Christian to rout his weak-
ness by a vigorous charge, had a cruel pang when she saw
him shake his head, showing an indifference which was even
greater than his discouragement. Perhaps at the bottom of his
heart he was annoyed that the expedition should have been so
far organized without his knowledge. But he did not believe in
the feasibility of the plan. It would not be possible to advance
into the country; they would be compelled to hold the islands,
and devastate a beautiful country with very little chance of suc-
cess: a second edition of the Duc de Palma's adventure, a useless
effusion of blood.
"No, really, my dear Frédérique, you are led away by the
fanaticism of your chaplain and the wild enthusiasm of that hot-
headed Gascon. I also have my sources of information, far more
reliable than yours. The truth is, that in Dalmatia, as in many
other countries, monarchy has had its day. They are tired of it,
they will have no more of it. "
"Oh! I know the coward who will have no more of it," said
the Queen. And she went out hurriedly, leaving Christian much
surprised that the scene should have ended so abruptly.
He
hastily thrust the deed into his pocket, and prepared to go out
in his turn, when Frédérique reappeared, accompanied this time
by the little prince.
## p. 4469 (#243) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4469
Roused out of his sleep and hurriedly dressed, Zara, who had
passed from the hands of his nurse to those of the Queen with-
out a word having been uttered, opened wide his bewildered
eyes under his auburn curls, but asked no questions; he remem-
bered confusedly in his poor little dizzy head similar awakenings
for hasty flights, in the midst of pallid faces and breathless
exclamations. It was thus that he had acquired the habit of
passive obedience; that he allowed himself to be led anywhere,
provided the Queen called him in her grave and resolute voice,
and held ready for his childish weakness the shelter of her ten-
der arms and the support of her strong shoulder. She had said:
"Come! " and he had come with confidence, surprised only at the
surrounding silence, so different from those other stormy nights,
with their visions of blood and flames, roar of cannon, and rattle
of musketry.
He saw the King standing, no longer the careless good-
natured father who at times surprised him in his bed or crossed
the schoolroom with an encouraging smile, but a stern father,
whose expression of annoyance became more accentuated as he
saw them enter. Frédérique, without uttering one word, led the
child to the feet of Christian II. and abruptly kneeling, placed
him before her, crossing his little fingers in her joined hands:-
"The king will not listen to me, perhaps he will listen to
you, Zara. Come, say with me, 'Father. ' » The timid voice re-
peated, "Father. "
-
"My father! my king! I implore! do not despoil your child.
Do not deprive him of the crown he is to wear one day.
Remember that it is not yours alone; it comes from afar, from
God himself, who gave it six hundred years ago to the house of
Illyria. God has chosen me to be a king, father.
It is my
inheritance, my treasure; you have no right to take it from me. '»
The little prince accompanied his fervent murmur with the
imploring looks of a supplicant; but Christian turned away his
head, shrugged his shoulders, and furious though still polite, he
muttered a few words between his teeth: "Exaggeration! most
improper; turn the child's head. " Then he tried to withdraw
and gain the door. With one bound the Queen was on her feet,
caught sight of the table from which the parchment had disap-
peared, and comprehending at once that the infamous deed was.
signed, that the king had it in his possession, gave a despairing
shriek:
## p. 4470 (#244) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4470
"Christian! "
He continued to advance towards the door.
She made a step forward, picking up her dress as if to pur-
sue him; then suddenly said:—
"Well, be it so. "
He stopped short and turned round. She was standing before
the open window, her foot upon the narrow stone balcony, with
one arm clasping her son ready to bear him into death, the other
extended menacingly towards the cowardly deserter. The moon
lit up from without this dramatic group.
"To an operetta King, a Queen of tragedy," she said, stern
and terrible. "If you do not burn this instant what you have
just signed, and swear on the cross that it will never be re-
peated, your race is ended, crushed, wife and child, there on the
stones. "
Such earnestness seemed to inspire her vibrating tone, her
splendid figure bent towards the emptiness of space as though to
spring, that the King, terrified, dashed forward to stop her.
"Frédérique ! "
At the cry of his father, at the quiver of the arm that held
him, the child-who was entirely out of the window-thought
that all was finished, that they were about to die. He never
uttered a word nor a moan; was he not going with his mother?
Only, his tiny hands clutched the queen's neck convulsively, and
throwing back his head with his fair hair hanging down, the
little victim closed his eyes before the appalling horror of the
fall.
Christian could no longer resist. The resignation, the cour-
age of this child, who of his future kingly duties already knew
the first to die well-overcame him. His heart was bursting.
He threw upon the table the crumpled parchment which for a
moment he had been nervously holding in his hand, and fell sob-
bing in an arm-chair. Frédérique, still suspicious, read the deed
through from the first line to the very signature, then going up
to a candle, she burned it till the flame scorched her fingers,
shaking the ashes upon the table; she then left the room, carry-
ing off her son, who was already falling asleep in her arms in
his heroically tragic attitude.
Translation of Laura Ensor and E. Bartow.
## p. 4471 (#245) ###########################################
4471
MADAME DU DEFFAND
(MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND)
(1697-1780)
M
ADAME DU DEFFAND is interesting as a personality, a type,
and an influence. Living through nearly the whole of the
eighteenth century, she assimilated its wealth of new ideas,
and was herself a product of the thought-revolution already kindling
the spirit of 1789.
She very early showed her mental independence by puzzling
questions upon religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win
her to orthodoxy. But he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to
buy her a catechism, and went off declar-
ing her charming. The inefficacy of the
catechism was proved later, when the
precocious girl developed into the grace-
ful, unscrupulous society woman. She was
always fascinating to the brightest men
and women of her own and other lands.
But the early years of social triumph, when
she still had the beautiful eyes admired
by Voltaire, are less significant than the
nearly thirty years of blindness in the con-
vent of St. Joseph, which after her afflic-
tion she made her home. Here she held
her famous receptions for the literary and
social celebrities of Paris. Here Mademoiselle Lespinasse endured a
miserable ten years as her companion, then rebelled against her
exactions, and left to establish a rival salon of her own, aided by
her devoted D'Alembert. His preference Madame du Deffand never
forgave. Henceforth she opposed philosophy, and demanded from
her devotees only stimulus and amusement.
It was here that Hor-
ace Walpole found the "blind old woman" in her tub-like chair, and
began the friendship and intellectual flirtation of fifteen years. It
proved a great interest in her life, notwithstanding Walpole's dread
of ridicule at a suggestion of romance between his middle-aged self
and this woman twenty years older.
MADAME DU DEFFAND
She was a power in the lives of many famous people, intimate
with Madame de Staël, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Madame de Choiseul,
the Duchess of Luxembourg, Madame Necker, Hume, Madame de
1
## p. 4472 (#246) ###########################################
4472
MADAME DU DEFFAND
Genlis. In her salon old creeds were argued down, new ideas dis-
seminated, and bons mots and witty gossip circulated. She has re-
counted what went on, and explained the reign of clever women in
her century. Ignoring her blindness, she lived her life as gayly as
she could in visiting, feasting, opera-going, and letter-writing. But
even her social supremacy and brilliant correspondence with Voltaire,
Walpole, and others, did not satisfy her. She wished to appeal to
the heart, and she appealed only to the head. Of all ills she most
dreaded ennui, and the very dread of it made her unhappy. She
became more and more insufficient to herself, until at eighty-three
she died with clear-sighted indifference.
"She was perhaps the wittiest woman who ever lived," says
Saintsbury. Hers was an inextinguishable wit, always alert, epi-
grammatic, enriching the language with proverbial phrases.
During her life Voltaire's science of unbelief and Rousseau's
appeal to nature and sentiment were stimulating Europe. For Rous-
seau, Madame du Deffand had no respect; but Voltaire's philosophy
appealed to her egotism. It bade a human being investigate his own.
puzzles, and seek solution in himself. Madame du Deffand agreed,
but failed to find satisfaction in her anxious analysis; she envied
believers in God, and longed for illusions, yet allowed herself none.
Jealous, exacting, critical, with all the arrogance of the old aris-
tocracy, she was as merciless to herself as to others.
«All my
judgments have been false and daring and too hasty.
never known any one perfectly.
To whom then can I have
recourse? " she cries despairingly.
I have
•
Sainte-Beuve emphasizes her noblest quality: with all her faults
she was true. She lived out her life frankly, boldly, without self-
deception or imposition. So in the entertaining volumes of her let-
ters and pen-portraits of acquaintances, she has left a valuable record.
She takes us back a century, and shows not only how people looked
and what they did, but how they thought and felt.
TO THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL
PARIS, Sunday, December 28th, 1766.
D
o You know, dear Grandmama [a pet name], that you are the
greatest philosopher that ever lived? Your predecessors
spoke equally well, perhaps, but they were less consistent
in their conduct. All your reasonings start from the same senti-
ment, and that makes the perfect accord one always feels be-
tween what you say and what you do. I know very well why,
## p. 4473 (#247) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4473
loving you madly, I am ill at ease with you. It is because I
know that you must pity everybody who is unlike yourself. My
desire to please you, the brief time that I am permitted with
you, and my eagerness to profit by it, all trouble, embarrass,
intimidate me and discompose me.
I exaggerate, I utter platitudes; and end by being disgusted
with myself, and eager to rectify the impression I may have
made upon you.
You wish me to write to M. de Choiseul, and to make my
letter pretty and bright. Ah, indeed! I'm the ruler of my own
imagination, am I! I depend upon chance. A purpose to do or
to say such or such a thing takes away the possibility. I am not
in the least like you. I do not hold in my hands the springs of
my spirit. However, I will write to M. de Choiseul. I will
seize a propitious moment. The surest means of making it come
is to feel hurried.
I am sending you an extract from an impertinent little pam-
phlet entitled 'Letter to the Author of the Justification of Jean
Jacques. ' You will see how it treats our friend. I am not sure
that it should be allowed; whether M. de Choiseul should not
talk to M. de Sartines about it. It is for you to decide, dear
Grandmama, if it is suitable, and if M. de Choiseul ought to
permit licenses so impertinent.
I am dying to see you. In spite of my fear, in spite of my
dreads, I am convinced that you love me because I love you.
TO MR. CRAWFORD
SUNDAY, March 9th, 1766.
I
READ your letter to Madame de Forcalquier, or rather I gave
it to her to read. I thought from her tone that she liked it,
but she will not commit herself. She is more than incom-
prehensible. The Trinity is not more mysterious. She is com-
posed of systems, which she does not understand herself; great
words, great principles, great strains of music, of which nothing
remains. However, I am of your opinion, that she is worth
more than all my other acquaintances. She agrees that it would
be delightful to have you live in this country; but if she were
only to see you en passant, it hardly matters whether you came
or not; that she has not forgotten you, but that she will forget
## p. 4474 (#248) ###########################################
4474
MADAME DU DEFFAND
you. Eh! Why shouldn't she forget you? She does not know
A hundred speeches of the sort which vex me.
you. .
What is certain is, that her
They say of people who have too much vivacity that they
were put in too hot an oven. They might say of her, on the
contrary, that she is underdone. She is the sketch of a beauti-
ful work, but it is not finished.
sentiments, if she has sentiments, are sincere, and that she does
not bore you.
I showed her your letter because I thought that
would give you pleasure; but be sure that no one in the world,
not even she, shall see what you write me in future except
Niart [her secretary], who as you know is a well.
I have just made you a fine promise that I will not show
your letters; perhaps I shall never be able to show them.
Truly, truly, I am like Madame de Forcalquier, and do not know
you!
I spent three hours with Mr. Walpole yesterday, but only half
an hour alone with him. Lord George and his wife returned his
short call, but your Dr. James stayed there all the time. He is
a very gloomy, uninteresting man.
Have you seen Jean Jacques? Is he still in London? Have
you seen your father? Imagine yourself tête-à-tête with me in
the corner of the fireplace, and answer all my questions, but
especially those which concern your health. Have you seen the
doctors? Have they ordered you the waters? And tell me too,
honestly, if I shall ever see you again. Reflect that you are
only twenty-five years old, that I am a hundred, and that it only
requires a brief kindness to put pleasure in my life. No, I will
not assume the pathetic. Do just what pleases you.
TO HORACE WALPOLE
TUESDAY, August 5th, 1766.
I
HAVE received your letter of July 31st-no number, sheets of
different sizes. All these observations mean nothing, unless
it is that a person without anything to do or to think occupies
herself with puerile things. Indeed, I should do very wrong not
to profit by all your lessons, and to persist in the error of believ-
ing in friendship, and regarding it as a good; no, no; I renounce
my errors, and am absolutely persuaded that of all illusions that
is the most dangerous.
## p. 4475 (#249) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4475
You who are the apostle of this wise doctrine, receive my
confession and my vows never to love, never to seek to be loved
by any one; but tell me if it is permitted to desire the return of
agreeable persons; if one may long for news of them, and if to
be interested in them and to let them know it is to lack virtue,
good sense, and proper behavior. I am awaiting enlightenment.
I cannot doubt your sincerity; you have given me too many
proofs of it; explain yourself without reserve.
WEDNESDAY, 6th.
Of all the things in your letter, what struck me the most yes-
terday were your moralizings on friendship, which forced me to
reply at once. I was interrupted by Monsieur and Madame de
Beauvan, who came to take me to supper with them in the
country at the good Duchess of Saint-Pierre's. I returned early.
I did not close my eyes during the night. I woke up Niart [her
secretary] earlier than usual to go on with my letter, and to
re-read me yours.
I am better pleased with it this morning than
I was yesterday. The matter of friendship shocked me less. I
find that the conclusion is-let us be friends without friendship.
Ah well, so be it; I consent. Perhaps it is agreeable; let us
learn by experience, and for that- see each other the oftener! In
truth, you have only a comic actress, a deaf woman,
and some
chickens to leave, as you have only a blind woman and many
goslings to find; but I promise you that the blind woman will
have much to ask and much to tell.
I do not know what to say to you about your ministry. You
have entertained me so little with politics, that if others had not
informed me, all that goes on with you would be less intelligible
to me than the affairs of China. They have told me something
of the character of the count; and as for this certain good com-
rade [Conway], I think I know him perfectly. I am pleased that
he has remained, but not that he does not oppose your philos-
ophy. All your opinions are beautiful and praiseworthy; but if
I were in his place I should certainly hinder you from making
use of them, and not regulate my conduct by your moderation
and disinterestedness. Oh! as for my lord, you cannot keep
him,- that's the public cry. It seems to me that the brother and
sister-in-law are. not pleased. Do you not detest the people?
From the agrarian law to your monument, your lamps, and your
## p. 4476 (#250) ###########################################
4476
MADAME DU DEFFAND
black standard, its joy, its sadness, its applause, its complaints,
are all odious to me. But I am going back to speak to you about
yourself. You say that your fortune, instead of augmenting, will
suffer diminution. I am much afraid of that. No liberty with-
out a competency. Remember that. If your economy falls upon
your trips to France I shall be miserable. But listen to this with-
out getting vexed.
I possess, as you know, a small lodging-room belonging to
me, little worthy of the son of Robert Walpole, but which may
satisfy the philosopher Horace. If he found it convenient, he
could occupy it without incurring the slightest ridicule. He can
consult sensible people, and while waiting, be persuaded that it
is not my personal interest which induces me to offer it to him.
Honestly, my mentor, you could not do better than take it.
You would be near me or a hundred leagues from me if you
liked it better. It would not engage you to any attention nor
any assiduity; we would renew our vows against friendship. It
would even be necessary to render more observance to the Idol
[Comtesse de Boufflers]; for who could be shocked, if not she?
Pont-de-Veyle, who approves and advises this arrangement, claims
that even the Idol would find nothing to oppose. Think of that.
Grandmama returned yesterday morning. My favor with her
is better established. She will take supper with me Friday; and
as the supper was arranged without foreseeing that she would
be there, she will find a company which will not exactly suit
her, among others the Idol, and the Archbishop of Toulouse.
I shall have many things to tell you when I see you.
be that they will hardly interest you, but it will be the world of
my Strawberry Hill.
It may
You agree with me about the letters, which pleases me. I be-
lieve myself a genius when I find myself in agreement with you.
This Prince Geoffrin is excellent. Surely heaven is witness that I
do not love you, but I am forced to find you very agreeable.
Are you waiting until your arrival here to give a jug to the
Maréchale de Luxembourg? I see no necessity of making a
present to the Idol; incense, incense, that is all it wants!
I have a great desire that you should read a Memoir of La
Chalottais; it is very rare, very much "prohibited," but I am
intriguing to get it.
## p. 4477 (#251) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4477
M. de Beauvan begs you to send me a febrifuge for him. It
is from Dr. James, I think. There are two kinds; one is mild
and the other violent. He requires a louis's worth of each.
You are mightily deceiving yourself if you think Voltaire
author of the analysis of the romance of 'Héloise. ' The author
is a man from Bordeaux, a friend of M. de Secondat. Àpropos
of Voltaire, he has had the King of Prussia sounded to know if
he would consent to give him asylum at Wesel in case he were
obliged to leave his abode. This his Majesty has very willingly
granted.
Good-by. I am counting upon being able in future to give
you news of your court and your ministry. I have made a new
acquaintance, who is a favorite of Lord Bute and the most inti-
mate friend of Lord Holderness. I do not doubt that this lord
is aiming at my Lord Rochefort's place, who they say scarcely
troubles himself about the embassy.
Write me, I beg you, at least once a week.
Tell me if M. Crawford is in Scotland.
It is thought that the first news from Rome will inform us of
the death of Chevalier Macdonald.
N°
NOVEMBER, 1765.
I do not want to draw your likeness; nobody knows
you less than I. Sometimes you seem to me what I wish
you were, sometimes what I fear you may be, and per-
haps never what you really are. I know very well that you
have a great deal of wit of all kinds and all styles, and you
must know it better than any one.
O, NO!
PORTRAIT OF HORACE WALPOLE
But your character should be painted, and of that I am not a
good judge. It would require indifference, or impartiality at
least. However, I can tell you that you are a very sincere man,
that you have principles, that you are brave, that you pride
yourself upon your firmness; that when you have come to a
decision, good or bad, nothing induces you to change it, so that
your firmness sometimes resembles obstinacy. Your heart is
good and your friendship strong, but neither tender nor facile.
Your fear of being weak makes you hard. You are on your guard
against all sensibility. You cannot refuse to render valuable
## p. 4478 (#252) ###########################################
4478
MADAME DU DEFFAND
services to your friends; you sacrifice your own interest to them,
but you refuse them the slightest of favors. Kind and humane
to all about you, you do not give yourself the slightest trouble
to please your friends in little ways.
Your disposition is very agreeable although not very even.
All your ways are noble, easy, and natural. Your desire to
please does not lead you into affectation. Your knowledge of the
world and your experience have given you a great contempt for
men, and taught you how to live with them. You know that all
their assurances go for nothing. In exchange you give them
politeness and consideration, and all those who do not care about
being loved are content with you.
I do not know whether you have much feeling. If you have,
you fight it as a weakness. You permit yourself only that which
seems virtuous. You are a philosopher; you have no vanity,
although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love
does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults
than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you
are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You
possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your
tone is excellent.
And the loved one held out her hand.
"Come," he exclaimed, starting out of his fleeting dream.
And he signed.
The door opened and the Queen appeared. Her presence in
Christian's rooms at such an hour was so unforeseen, so unex-
pected, they had lived so long apart, that neither the King in
the act of signing his infamy, nor Lebeau, who stood watching
him, turned round at the slight noise she made. They thought
it was Boscovich coming up from the garden. Gliding lightly
like a shadow, she was already near the table, and had reached
the two accomplices, when Lebeau saw her. With her finger on
her lips she motioned him to be silent, and continued to advance,
wishing to convict the king in the very act of his treachery, and
avoid all evasion, subterfuge, or useless dissimulation; but the
valet set her order at defiance and gave the alarm, "The Queen,
sire! "
The Dalmatian, furious, struck straight in the face of this
malevolent caitiff with the powerful hand of a woman accustomed
to handle the reins; and drawing herself up erect, waited till the
wretch had disappeared before she addressed the king.
"What has happened, my dear Frédérique ? and to what am I
indebted for-? "
Standing bent over the table that he strove to hide, in a
graceful attitude that showed off his silk jacket embroidered in
pink, he smiled, and although his lips were rather pale, his voice
remained calm, his speech easy, with that polished elegance
which never left him when addressing his wife, and which placed.
a barrier between them like a hard lacquer screen adorned with
flowery and intricate arabesques. With one word, one gesture,
she put aside the barrier behind which he would fain have shel-
tered himself.
"Oh! no phrases, no grimacing- if you please. I know what
you were writing there. Do not try to give me the lie. ”
Then drawing nearer, overwhelming his timorous objection by
her haughty bearing:-
"Listen to me, Christian," and there was something in her
tone that gave an impression of solemnity to her words; "listen
to me: you have made me suffer cruelly since I became your
wife. I have never said anything but once the first time, you
remember. After that, when I saw that you had ceased to love
--
## p. 4464 (#238) ###########################################
4464
ALPHONSE DAUDET
me, I left you to yourself. Not that I was ignorant of anything
you did —not one of your infidelities, not one of your follies
remained unknown to me. For you must indeed be mad, mad
like your father, who died of exhaustion, mad with love for Lola;
mad like your grandfather John, who died in a shameful delirium,
foaming and framing kisses with the death-rattle in his throat,
and uttering words that made the Sisters of Charity grow pale.
Yes, it is the same fevered blood, the same hellish passion that
devours you.
At Ragusa, on the nights of the sortie, it was at
Fodora's that they sought you. I knew it, I knew that she had
left her theatre to follow you. I never uttered a single reproach.
The honor of your name was saved. And when the King was
absent from the ramparts, I took care his place should not be
empty. But here in Paris-"
Till now she had spoken slowly, coldly, in a tone of pity and
maternal reproof, as though inspired thereto by the downcast
eyes and pouting mouth of the King, who looked like a vicious
child receiving a scolding. But the name of Paris exasperated
her. A city without faith, a city cynical and accursed, its blood-
stained stones ever ready for sedition and barricades! What pos-
sessed these poor fallen kings, that they came to take refuge in
this Sodom! It was Paris, it was its atmosphere tainted by car-
nage and vice that completed the ruin of the historical houses;
it was this that had made Christian lose what the maddest of his
ancestors had always known how to preserve the respect and
pride of their race. Oh! When on the very day of their arrival,
the first night of their exile, she had seen him so excited, so gay,
while all around him were secretly weeping, Frédérique had
guessed the humiliation and shame she would have to undergo.
Then in one breath, without pausing, with cutting words that
lashed the pallid face of the royal rake, and striped it red as
with a whip, she recalled one after the other all his follies, his
rapid descent from pleasure to vice, and vice to crime.
"You have deceived me under my very eyes, in my own
house; adultery has sat at my table, it has brushed against my
dress.
When you were tired of that dollish little face who had
not even the grace to conceal her tears, you went to the gutter,
wallowing shamelessly in the slime and mud of the streets, and
bringing back the dregs of your orgies, of your sickly remorse,
all the pollution of the mire. Remember how I saw you totter
and stammer on that morning, when for the second time you lost
――――
## p. 4465 (#239) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4465
your throne. What have you not done! Holy Mother of angels!
What have you not done! You have traded with the royal seal,
you have sold crosses and titles. "
And in a lower tone, as though she feared lest the stillness
and silence of the night might hear, she added:-
"You have stolen, yes, stolen! Those diamonds, those stones
torn from the crown-it was you who did it, and I allowed my
faithful Greb to be suspected and dismissed. The theft being
known, it was necessary to find a sham culprit to prevent the
real one ever being discovered. For this has been my one, my
constant preoccupation: to uphold the King, to keep him un-
touched; to accept everything for that purpose, even the shame
which in the eyes of the world will end by sullying me. I had
adopted a watchword that sustained me, and encouraged me in
my hours of trial: All for the crown! ' And now you want to
sell it that crown that has cost me such anguish and such
tears; you want to barter it for gold, for the lifeless mask of that
Jewess, whom you had the indecency to bring face to face with
me to-day. "
Crushed, bending low his head, he had hitherto listened with-
out a word, but the insult directed against the woman he loved
roused him. Looking fixedly at the queen, his face bearing the
traces of her cutting words, he said politely, but very firmly:-
"Well, no, you are mistaken. The woman you mention has
had nothing to do with the determination I have taken. What I
am doing is done for you, for me, for our common happiness.
Tell me, are you not weary of this life of privations and expe-
dients? Do you think that I am ignorant of what is going on
here; that I do not suffer when I see you harassed by a pack
of tradespeople and duns? The other day when that man was
shouting in the yard I was coming in and heard him. Had it
not been for Rosen I would have crushed him under the wheels
of my phaeton. And you
And you-you were watching his departure
behind the curtains of your window.
Queen. We owe money to every one.
cry against us. Half the servants are unpaid. The tutor even
has received nothing for the last ten months. Madame de Silvis
pays herself by majestically wearing your old dresses. And there
are days when my councilor, the keeper of the royal seals, bor-
rows from my valet the wherewithal to buy snuff. You see I
am well acquainted with the state of things. And you do not
A nice position for a
There is a universal out-
VIII-280
## p. 4466 (#240) ###########################################
4466
ALPHONSE DAUDET
know my debts yet. I am over head and ears in debt. Every-
thing is giving way around us. A pretty state of things, indeed;
you will see that diadem of yours sold one day at the corner of
a street with old knives and forks. "
Little by little, gradually carried away by his own scoffing
nature and the jesting habits of his set, he dropped the mod-
erate tone he commenced with, and in his insolent little snuffling
voice began to dwell upon the ludicrous side of the situation,
with jeers and mockery, borrowed no doubt from Séphora, who
never lost an opportunity of demolishing by her sneering obser-
vations the few remaining scruples of her lover.
"You will accuse me of making phrases, but it is you who
deafen yourself with words. What, after all, is that crown of
Illyria that you are always talking about? It is worth nothing
except on a king's head; elsewhere it is obstruction, a useless
thing, which for flight is carried hidden away in a bonnet-box or
exposed under a glass shade like the laurels of an actor or the
blossoms of a concierge's bridal wreath. You must be convinced
of one thing, Frédérique. A king is truly king only on the throne,
with power to rule; fallen, he is nothing, less than nothing,
a rag.
Vainly do we cling to etiquette, to our titles, always
bringing forward our Majesty, on the panels of our carriages,
on the studs of our cuffs, hampering ourselves with an empty
ceremonial. It is all hypocrisy on our part, and mere politeness
and pity on the part of those who surround us -our friends and
our servants. Here I am King Christian II. for you, for Rosen,
for a few faithful ones. Outside I become a man like the rest,
M. Christian Two. Not even a surname, only 'Christian,' like an
actor of the Gaété. "
He stopped, out of breath; he did not remember having ever
spoken so long standing. The shrill notes of the night-birds, the
prolonged trills of the nightingales, broke the silence of the night.
A big moth that had singed its wings at the lights flew about,
thumping against the walls. This fluttering distress and the
smothered sobs of the Queen were the only sounds to be heard;
she knew how to meet rage and violence, but was powerless
before this scoffing banter, so foreign to her sincere nature;
it found her unarmed, like the valiant soldier who expects
straight blows and feels only the harassing stings of insects. See-
ing her break down, Christian thought her vanquished, and to
complete his victory he put the finishing touch to the burlesque
## p. 4467 (#241) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4467
picture he had drawn of kings in exile. "What a pitiful figure
they cut, all these poor princes in partibus, figurants of royalty,
who drape themselves in the frippery of the principal characters,
and declaim before the empty benches without a farthing of
receipts! Would they not be wiser if they held their peace and
returned to the obscurity of common life? For those who have
money there is some excuse. Their riches give them some right
to cling to these grandeurs. But the others, the poor cousins of
Palermo for instance, crowded together in a tiny house with their
horrid Italian cookery. It smells of onions when the door is
opened. Worthy folk certainly, but what an existence! And
those are not the worst off. The other day a Bourbon, a real
Bourbon, ran after an omnibus. Full, sir,' said the conductor.
But he kept on running. 'Don't I tell you it is full, my good
man? ' He got angry; he would have wished to be called 'Mon-
seigneur as if that should be known by the tie of his cravat!
Operetta kings, I tell you, Frédérique. It is to escape from
this ridiculous position, to insure a dignified and decent exist-
ence, that I have made up my mind to sign this. "
And he added, suddenly revealing the tortuous Slavonic nature
molded by the Jesuits:- "Moreover, this signature is really a
mere farce. Our own property is returned to us, that is all,
and I shall not consider myself in the slightest degree bound
by this.
Who knows? -these very thousands of pounds may
help us to recover the throne. "
The Queen impetuously raised her head, looked him straight
in the eyes for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders, saying:
"Do not make yourself out viler than you are. You know
that when once you have signed — but no. The truth is, you lack
strength and fortitude; you desert your kingly post at the most
perilous moment, when a new society, that will acknowledge
neither God nor master, pursues with its hatred the representa-
tives of Divine right, makes the heavens tremble over their heads
and the earth under their steps. The assassin's knife, bombs,
bullets, all serve their purpose. Treachery and murder are on
every side.
In the midst of our pageantry or our festivities, the
best of us as well as the worst, not one of us does not start if
only a man steps forward out of the crowd. Hardly a petition
that does not conceal a dagger. On leaving his palace what king
is certain of returning alive? And this is the hour you choose
to leave the field! "
## p. 4468 (#242) ###########################################
4468
ALPHONSE DAUDET
"Ah! if fighting could do it! " eagerly said Christian II. "But
to struggle as we do against ridicule, against poverty, against all
the petty meannesses of life, and feel that we only sink deeper
every day—"
A ray of hope lit up her eyes:-"Is it true? would you fight?
Then listen. "
Breathlessly she related, in a few rapid words, the expedition
she and Elysée had been preparing for the last three months by
letters, proclamations, and dispatches, which Father Alphée, ever
on the move, carried from one mountain village to the other.
This time it was not to the nobility they appealed, but to the
people; the muleteers, the porters of Ragusa, the market-gardeners
of Breno, of La Brazza, the islanders who go to market in their
feluccas, the nation which had remained faithful to the mon-
archical tradition, which was ready to rise and die for its king,
on condition that he should lead them. Companies were form-
ing, the watchword was already circulating, only the signal now
remained to be given.
The Queen, hurling her words at Christian to rout his weak-
ness by a vigorous charge, had a cruel pang when she saw
him shake his head, showing an indifference which was even
greater than his discouragement. Perhaps at the bottom of his
heart he was annoyed that the expedition should have been so
far organized without his knowledge. But he did not believe in
the feasibility of the plan. It would not be possible to advance
into the country; they would be compelled to hold the islands,
and devastate a beautiful country with very little chance of suc-
cess: a second edition of the Duc de Palma's adventure, a useless
effusion of blood.
"No, really, my dear Frédérique, you are led away by the
fanaticism of your chaplain and the wild enthusiasm of that hot-
headed Gascon. I also have my sources of information, far more
reliable than yours. The truth is, that in Dalmatia, as in many
other countries, monarchy has had its day. They are tired of it,
they will have no more of it. "
"Oh! I know the coward who will have no more of it," said
the Queen. And she went out hurriedly, leaving Christian much
surprised that the scene should have ended so abruptly.
He
hastily thrust the deed into his pocket, and prepared to go out
in his turn, when Frédérique reappeared, accompanied this time
by the little prince.
## p. 4469 (#243) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4469
Roused out of his sleep and hurriedly dressed, Zara, who had
passed from the hands of his nurse to those of the Queen with-
out a word having been uttered, opened wide his bewildered
eyes under his auburn curls, but asked no questions; he remem-
bered confusedly in his poor little dizzy head similar awakenings
for hasty flights, in the midst of pallid faces and breathless
exclamations. It was thus that he had acquired the habit of
passive obedience; that he allowed himself to be led anywhere,
provided the Queen called him in her grave and resolute voice,
and held ready for his childish weakness the shelter of her ten-
der arms and the support of her strong shoulder. She had said:
"Come! " and he had come with confidence, surprised only at the
surrounding silence, so different from those other stormy nights,
with their visions of blood and flames, roar of cannon, and rattle
of musketry.
He saw the King standing, no longer the careless good-
natured father who at times surprised him in his bed or crossed
the schoolroom with an encouraging smile, but a stern father,
whose expression of annoyance became more accentuated as he
saw them enter. Frédérique, without uttering one word, led the
child to the feet of Christian II. and abruptly kneeling, placed
him before her, crossing his little fingers in her joined hands:-
"The king will not listen to me, perhaps he will listen to
you, Zara. Come, say with me, 'Father. ' » The timid voice re-
peated, "Father. "
-
"My father! my king! I implore! do not despoil your child.
Do not deprive him of the crown he is to wear one day.
Remember that it is not yours alone; it comes from afar, from
God himself, who gave it six hundred years ago to the house of
Illyria. God has chosen me to be a king, father.
It is my
inheritance, my treasure; you have no right to take it from me. '»
The little prince accompanied his fervent murmur with the
imploring looks of a supplicant; but Christian turned away his
head, shrugged his shoulders, and furious though still polite, he
muttered a few words between his teeth: "Exaggeration! most
improper; turn the child's head. " Then he tried to withdraw
and gain the door. With one bound the Queen was on her feet,
caught sight of the table from which the parchment had disap-
peared, and comprehending at once that the infamous deed was.
signed, that the king had it in his possession, gave a despairing
shriek:
## p. 4470 (#244) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4470
"Christian! "
He continued to advance towards the door.
She made a step forward, picking up her dress as if to pur-
sue him; then suddenly said:—
"Well, be it so. "
He stopped short and turned round. She was standing before
the open window, her foot upon the narrow stone balcony, with
one arm clasping her son ready to bear him into death, the other
extended menacingly towards the cowardly deserter. The moon
lit up from without this dramatic group.
"To an operetta King, a Queen of tragedy," she said, stern
and terrible. "If you do not burn this instant what you have
just signed, and swear on the cross that it will never be re-
peated, your race is ended, crushed, wife and child, there on the
stones. "
Such earnestness seemed to inspire her vibrating tone, her
splendid figure bent towards the emptiness of space as though to
spring, that the King, terrified, dashed forward to stop her.
"Frédérique ! "
At the cry of his father, at the quiver of the arm that held
him, the child-who was entirely out of the window-thought
that all was finished, that they were about to die. He never
uttered a word nor a moan; was he not going with his mother?
Only, his tiny hands clutched the queen's neck convulsively, and
throwing back his head with his fair hair hanging down, the
little victim closed his eyes before the appalling horror of the
fall.
Christian could no longer resist. The resignation, the cour-
age of this child, who of his future kingly duties already knew
the first to die well-overcame him. His heart was bursting.
He threw upon the table the crumpled parchment which for a
moment he had been nervously holding in his hand, and fell sob-
bing in an arm-chair. Frédérique, still suspicious, read the deed
through from the first line to the very signature, then going up
to a candle, she burned it till the flame scorched her fingers,
shaking the ashes upon the table; she then left the room, carry-
ing off her son, who was already falling asleep in her arms in
his heroically tragic attitude.
Translation of Laura Ensor and E. Bartow.
## p. 4471 (#245) ###########################################
4471
MADAME DU DEFFAND
(MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND)
(1697-1780)
M
ADAME DU DEFFAND is interesting as a personality, a type,
and an influence. Living through nearly the whole of the
eighteenth century, she assimilated its wealth of new ideas,
and was herself a product of the thought-revolution already kindling
the spirit of 1789.
She very early showed her mental independence by puzzling
questions upon religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win
her to orthodoxy. But he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to
buy her a catechism, and went off declar-
ing her charming. The inefficacy of the
catechism was proved later, when the
precocious girl developed into the grace-
ful, unscrupulous society woman. She was
always fascinating to the brightest men
and women of her own and other lands.
But the early years of social triumph, when
she still had the beautiful eyes admired
by Voltaire, are less significant than the
nearly thirty years of blindness in the con-
vent of St. Joseph, which after her afflic-
tion she made her home. Here she held
her famous receptions for the literary and
social celebrities of Paris. Here Mademoiselle Lespinasse endured a
miserable ten years as her companion, then rebelled against her
exactions, and left to establish a rival salon of her own, aided by
her devoted D'Alembert. His preference Madame du Deffand never
forgave. Henceforth she opposed philosophy, and demanded from
her devotees only stimulus and amusement.
It was here that Hor-
ace Walpole found the "blind old woman" in her tub-like chair, and
began the friendship and intellectual flirtation of fifteen years. It
proved a great interest in her life, notwithstanding Walpole's dread
of ridicule at a suggestion of romance between his middle-aged self
and this woman twenty years older.
MADAME DU DEFFAND
She was a power in the lives of many famous people, intimate
with Madame de Staël, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Madame de Choiseul,
the Duchess of Luxembourg, Madame Necker, Hume, Madame de
1
## p. 4472 (#246) ###########################################
4472
MADAME DU DEFFAND
Genlis. In her salon old creeds were argued down, new ideas dis-
seminated, and bons mots and witty gossip circulated. She has re-
counted what went on, and explained the reign of clever women in
her century. Ignoring her blindness, she lived her life as gayly as
she could in visiting, feasting, opera-going, and letter-writing. But
even her social supremacy and brilliant correspondence with Voltaire,
Walpole, and others, did not satisfy her. She wished to appeal to
the heart, and she appealed only to the head. Of all ills she most
dreaded ennui, and the very dread of it made her unhappy. She
became more and more insufficient to herself, until at eighty-three
she died with clear-sighted indifference.
"She was perhaps the wittiest woman who ever lived," says
Saintsbury. Hers was an inextinguishable wit, always alert, epi-
grammatic, enriching the language with proverbial phrases.
During her life Voltaire's science of unbelief and Rousseau's
appeal to nature and sentiment were stimulating Europe. For Rous-
seau, Madame du Deffand had no respect; but Voltaire's philosophy
appealed to her egotism. It bade a human being investigate his own.
puzzles, and seek solution in himself. Madame du Deffand agreed,
but failed to find satisfaction in her anxious analysis; she envied
believers in God, and longed for illusions, yet allowed herself none.
Jealous, exacting, critical, with all the arrogance of the old aris-
tocracy, she was as merciless to herself as to others.
«All my
judgments have been false and daring and too hasty.
never known any one perfectly.
To whom then can I have
recourse? " she cries despairingly.
I have
•
Sainte-Beuve emphasizes her noblest quality: with all her faults
she was true. She lived out her life frankly, boldly, without self-
deception or imposition. So in the entertaining volumes of her let-
ters and pen-portraits of acquaintances, she has left a valuable record.
She takes us back a century, and shows not only how people looked
and what they did, but how they thought and felt.
TO THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL
PARIS, Sunday, December 28th, 1766.
D
o You know, dear Grandmama [a pet name], that you are the
greatest philosopher that ever lived? Your predecessors
spoke equally well, perhaps, but they were less consistent
in their conduct. All your reasonings start from the same senti-
ment, and that makes the perfect accord one always feels be-
tween what you say and what you do. I know very well why,
## p. 4473 (#247) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4473
loving you madly, I am ill at ease with you. It is because I
know that you must pity everybody who is unlike yourself. My
desire to please you, the brief time that I am permitted with
you, and my eagerness to profit by it, all trouble, embarrass,
intimidate me and discompose me.
I exaggerate, I utter platitudes; and end by being disgusted
with myself, and eager to rectify the impression I may have
made upon you.
You wish me to write to M. de Choiseul, and to make my
letter pretty and bright. Ah, indeed! I'm the ruler of my own
imagination, am I! I depend upon chance. A purpose to do or
to say such or such a thing takes away the possibility. I am not
in the least like you. I do not hold in my hands the springs of
my spirit. However, I will write to M. de Choiseul. I will
seize a propitious moment. The surest means of making it come
is to feel hurried.
I am sending you an extract from an impertinent little pam-
phlet entitled 'Letter to the Author of the Justification of Jean
Jacques. ' You will see how it treats our friend. I am not sure
that it should be allowed; whether M. de Choiseul should not
talk to M. de Sartines about it. It is for you to decide, dear
Grandmama, if it is suitable, and if M. de Choiseul ought to
permit licenses so impertinent.
I am dying to see you. In spite of my fear, in spite of my
dreads, I am convinced that you love me because I love you.
TO MR. CRAWFORD
SUNDAY, March 9th, 1766.
I
READ your letter to Madame de Forcalquier, or rather I gave
it to her to read. I thought from her tone that she liked it,
but she will not commit herself. She is more than incom-
prehensible. The Trinity is not more mysterious. She is com-
posed of systems, which she does not understand herself; great
words, great principles, great strains of music, of which nothing
remains. However, I am of your opinion, that she is worth
more than all my other acquaintances. She agrees that it would
be delightful to have you live in this country; but if she were
only to see you en passant, it hardly matters whether you came
or not; that she has not forgotten you, but that she will forget
## p. 4474 (#248) ###########################################
4474
MADAME DU DEFFAND
you. Eh! Why shouldn't she forget you? She does not know
A hundred speeches of the sort which vex me.
you. .
What is certain is, that her
They say of people who have too much vivacity that they
were put in too hot an oven. They might say of her, on the
contrary, that she is underdone. She is the sketch of a beauti-
ful work, but it is not finished.
sentiments, if she has sentiments, are sincere, and that she does
not bore you.
I showed her your letter because I thought that
would give you pleasure; but be sure that no one in the world,
not even she, shall see what you write me in future except
Niart [her secretary], who as you know is a well.
I have just made you a fine promise that I will not show
your letters; perhaps I shall never be able to show them.
Truly, truly, I am like Madame de Forcalquier, and do not know
you!
I spent three hours with Mr. Walpole yesterday, but only half
an hour alone with him. Lord George and his wife returned his
short call, but your Dr. James stayed there all the time. He is
a very gloomy, uninteresting man.
Have you seen Jean Jacques? Is he still in London? Have
you seen your father? Imagine yourself tête-à-tête with me in
the corner of the fireplace, and answer all my questions, but
especially those which concern your health. Have you seen the
doctors? Have they ordered you the waters? And tell me too,
honestly, if I shall ever see you again. Reflect that you are
only twenty-five years old, that I am a hundred, and that it only
requires a brief kindness to put pleasure in my life. No, I will
not assume the pathetic. Do just what pleases you.
TO HORACE WALPOLE
TUESDAY, August 5th, 1766.
I
HAVE received your letter of July 31st-no number, sheets of
different sizes. All these observations mean nothing, unless
it is that a person without anything to do or to think occupies
herself with puerile things. Indeed, I should do very wrong not
to profit by all your lessons, and to persist in the error of believ-
ing in friendship, and regarding it as a good; no, no; I renounce
my errors, and am absolutely persuaded that of all illusions that
is the most dangerous.
## p. 4475 (#249) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4475
You who are the apostle of this wise doctrine, receive my
confession and my vows never to love, never to seek to be loved
by any one; but tell me if it is permitted to desire the return of
agreeable persons; if one may long for news of them, and if to
be interested in them and to let them know it is to lack virtue,
good sense, and proper behavior. I am awaiting enlightenment.
I cannot doubt your sincerity; you have given me too many
proofs of it; explain yourself without reserve.
WEDNESDAY, 6th.
Of all the things in your letter, what struck me the most yes-
terday were your moralizings on friendship, which forced me to
reply at once. I was interrupted by Monsieur and Madame de
Beauvan, who came to take me to supper with them in the
country at the good Duchess of Saint-Pierre's. I returned early.
I did not close my eyes during the night. I woke up Niart [her
secretary] earlier than usual to go on with my letter, and to
re-read me yours.
I am better pleased with it this morning than
I was yesterday. The matter of friendship shocked me less. I
find that the conclusion is-let us be friends without friendship.
Ah well, so be it; I consent. Perhaps it is agreeable; let us
learn by experience, and for that- see each other the oftener! In
truth, you have only a comic actress, a deaf woman,
and some
chickens to leave, as you have only a blind woman and many
goslings to find; but I promise you that the blind woman will
have much to ask and much to tell.
I do not know what to say to you about your ministry. You
have entertained me so little with politics, that if others had not
informed me, all that goes on with you would be less intelligible
to me than the affairs of China. They have told me something
of the character of the count; and as for this certain good com-
rade [Conway], I think I know him perfectly. I am pleased that
he has remained, but not that he does not oppose your philos-
ophy. All your opinions are beautiful and praiseworthy; but if
I were in his place I should certainly hinder you from making
use of them, and not regulate my conduct by your moderation
and disinterestedness. Oh! as for my lord, you cannot keep
him,- that's the public cry. It seems to me that the brother and
sister-in-law are. not pleased. Do you not detest the people?
From the agrarian law to your monument, your lamps, and your
## p. 4476 (#250) ###########################################
4476
MADAME DU DEFFAND
black standard, its joy, its sadness, its applause, its complaints,
are all odious to me. But I am going back to speak to you about
yourself. You say that your fortune, instead of augmenting, will
suffer diminution. I am much afraid of that. No liberty with-
out a competency. Remember that. If your economy falls upon
your trips to France I shall be miserable. But listen to this with-
out getting vexed.
I possess, as you know, a small lodging-room belonging to
me, little worthy of the son of Robert Walpole, but which may
satisfy the philosopher Horace. If he found it convenient, he
could occupy it without incurring the slightest ridicule. He can
consult sensible people, and while waiting, be persuaded that it
is not my personal interest which induces me to offer it to him.
Honestly, my mentor, you could not do better than take it.
You would be near me or a hundred leagues from me if you
liked it better. It would not engage you to any attention nor
any assiduity; we would renew our vows against friendship. It
would even be necessary to render more observance to the Idol
[Comtesse de Boufflers]; for who could be shocked, if not she?
Pont-de-Veyle, who approves and advises this arrangement, claims
that even the Idol would find nothing to oppose. Think of that.
Grandmama returned yesterday morning. My favor with her
is better established. She will take supper with me Friday; and
as the supper was arranged without foreseeing that she would
be there, she will find a company which will not exactly suit
her, among others the Idol, and the Archbishop of Toulouse.
I shall have many things to tell you when I see you.
be that they will hardly interest you, but it will be the world of
my Strawberry Hill.
It may
You agree with me about the letters, which pleases me. I be-
lieve myself a genius when I find myself in agreement with you.
This Prince Geoffrin is excellent. Surely heaven is witness that I
do not love you, but I am forced to find you very agreeable.
Are you waiting until your arrival here to give a jug to the
Maréchale de Luxembourg? I see no necessity of making a
present to the Idol; incense, incense, that is all it wants!
I have a great desire that you should read a Memoir of La
Chalottais; it is very rare, very much "prohibited," but I am
intriguing to get it.
## p. 4477 (#251) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4477
M. de Beauvan begs you to send me a febrifuge for him. It
is from Dr. James, I think. There are two kinds; one is mild
and the other violent. He requires a louis's worth of each.
You are mightily deceiving yourself if you think Voltaire
author of the analysis of the romance of 'Héloise. ' The author
is a man from Bordeaux, a friend of M. de Secondat. Àpropos
of Voltaire, he has had the King of Prussia sounded to know if
he would consent to give him asylum at Wesel in case he were
obliged to leave his abode. This his Majesty has very willingly
granted.
Good-by. I am counting upon being able in future to give
you news of your court and your ministry. I have made a new
acquaintance, who is a favorite of Lord Bute and the most inti-
mate friend of Lord Holderness. I do not doubt that this lord
is aiming at my Lord Rochefort's place, who they say scarcely
troubles himself about the embassy.
Write me, I beg you, at least once a week.
Tell me if M. Crawford is in Scotland.
It is thought that the first news from Rome will inform us of
the death of Chevalier Macdonald.
N°
NOVEMBER, 1765.
I do not want to draw your likeness; nobody knows
you less than I. Sometimes you seem to me what I wish
you were, sometimes what I fear you may be, and per-
haps never what you really are. I know very well that you
have a great deal of wit of all kinds and all styles, and you
must know it better than any one.
O, NO!
PORTRAIT OF HORACE WALPOLE
But your character should be painted, and of that I am not a
good judge. It would require indifference, or impartiality at
least. However, I can tell you that you are a very sincere man,
that you have principles, that you are brave, that you pride
yourself upon your firmness; that when you have come to a
decision, good or bad, nothing induces you to change it, so that
your firmness sometimes resembles obstinacy. Your heart is
good and your friendship strong, but neither tender nor facile.
Your fear of being weak makes you hard. You are on your guard
against all sensibility. You cannot refuse to render valuable
## p. 4478 (#252) ###########################################
4478
MADAME DU DEFFAND
services to your friends; you sacrifice your own interest to them,
but you refuse them the slightest of favors. Kind and humane
to all about you, you do not give yourself the slightest trouble
to please your friends in little ways.
Your disposition is very agreeable although not very even.
All your ways are noble, easy, and natural. Your desire to
please does not lead you into affectation. Your knowledge of the
world and your experience have given you a great contempt for
men, and taught you how to live with them. You know that all
their assurances go for nothing. In exchange you give them
politeness and consideration, and all those who do not care about
being loved are content with you.
I do not know whether you have much feeling. If you have,
you fight it as a weakness. You permit yourself only that which
seems virtuous. You are a philosopher; you have no vanity,
although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love
does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults
than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you
are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You
possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your
tone is excellent.
