The Anglo-French Entente In The Seventeenth Century Part 19

[287] _Memoires pour l'histoire des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts_ (1707), ii.

pp. 934-945.

[288] Letter dated 30th October 1708.

[289] Letter dated 7th January 1735.

[290] Clarke and Foxcroft, _Life of Burnet_, p. 429.

[291] Letter of 29th July 1743.

[292] The MSS. letters are preserved in the library of the _Societe pour l'histoire du Protestantisme Francais_.

[293] Married women, unless of n.o.ble birth, were styled before 1789 _Mademoiselle_.

[294] Written September 1697. In this, as in the following letters, the pa.s.sages left out are merely of a complimentary nature.

[295] The touch of nature is wholly unexpected at this date.

[296] She was a contemporary writer of insipid pastorals.

[297] _i.e._ Locke and Mrs. Masham.

[298] Mrs. Blomer, then Rebecca Collier the quakeress.

[299] Mrs. Wharton.

CHAPTER XI

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE TRANSLATOR OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, THE CHEVALIER DE THeMISEUL

If, in December 1715, a Frenchman had been asked what important events had happened in the year, he would certainly have replied the death of Louis the Great and the publication of the _Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu_. In a few weeks that amusing lampoon on the scholars and commentators of the time had run through four editions. People who knew whispered the name of the man who sought to hide under the pseudonym of Doctor Matanasius; he was a cavalry officer, of mysterious birth, the Chevalier de Themiseul. Hitherto the life of the author had been an extraordinary web of adventures diversified by scandals, _lettres de cachet_, imprisonment and exile. After wandering through Holland, Sweden, and Germany, the young officer had come back, adorned with a halo of bravery, learning, daring speculation, and bitter humour. He flaunted notions that the Regency was about to popularise: deism, the cult of experimental science, contempt of authority, a lack of reverence for the cla.s.sics. A man of culture, moreover, he knew just enough of Latin and Greek to impose upon an average reader. By an extraordinary stroke of good luck, his success, which was rapid, lasted long enough for Abbe Sabatier de Castres to exclaim fifty years later, under the impression of the witty fireworks of the _Chef d'oeuvre_: "Irony reigns therein from beginning to end; pleasantry is handled with as much spirit as judgment, and produces effects which eloquence aiming straight at the point would have been unable to produce."

To say the truth, we know hardly more about the Chevalier de Themiseul than the men who lived under Louis XIV. He apparently never contradicted the idle story that gave him Bossuet for father and Mademoiselle de Mauleon for mother. As fond of blague as a Paris _gamin_, he must have enjoyed the idea of mystifying his friends while throwing dirt on a respected prelate's character. Abbe Sabatier de Castres, wishing to unravel the mystery, went to Orleans, searched the registers of the Parish of Saint-Victor and found therein recorded, on 27th September 1684, the christening of the Chevalier, son to Hyacinthe de Saint-Gelais, master bootmaker, and Anne Mathe, his wife. Others have read the record in a different manner; _Cordonnier_, they say, is not the father's trade, but his name, the Chevalier is not even ent.i.tled to a _de_, his name is plebeian Hyacinthe Cordonnier; Paul Cordonnier, a.s.sert the brothers Haag in their _Dictionary_, born on 24th September, the son not of a master-bootmaker, but of an officer in the army.

Now this is what one finds to-day in the register, if one takes the trouble to read it:

"To-day, Tuesday, September 26th, 1684, Hyacinthe, born on Sunday last, 24th said month, son of Jean Jacques Cordonnier, lord of Belleair, and demoiselle Anne Mathe, his wife, was christened by me Pierre Fraisy; and had for G.o.dfather Anthoine de Rouet, son to the late Antoine de Rouet and demoiselle Anthoinette Cordonnier and for G.o.dmother Marie Cordonnier, spinster."

And Saint-Hyacinthe's father signed "De Belair." The t.i.tle thus added to his father's name must have given rise to the Chevalier's dreams of a n.o.ble birth.

The mystery of the birth extends to the life. In 1701, the Chevalier's mother resided at Troyes in Champagne, giving her son, thanks to the bishop's patronage, a gentleman's education that qualified him for an officer's commission in the _regiment-royal_. Among the n.o.blemen living on their estates in Chalons and Reims he numbered acquaintances, and they treated him with due respect. Letters are extant which prove that he was on terms of friendship with the Pouillys and the Burignys, no mean men in their province. There is nothing to object to his conduct as a soldier. He fought bravely in Germany, and, if taken prisoner at Blenheim, it was together with Marshal de Tallart and many others whose courage no one dared to question.

His captivity in Holland acted somewhat in the same manner as exile in England did later on upon Voltaire. The ideas upon which his youth had been nursed were shattered to pieces. Eventually he got free and came back to Troyes. In 1709, he turned up in Stockholm, with the intention of fighting the Moscovites under the Swedish flag, but it was too late: Charles XII.

had just suffered a crushing reverse at Pultava.

Back the Chevalier went to Holland, learning meantime English, Spanish, and Italian, reading Bayle, Le Clerc, and Locke, and many other books forbidden in France. At the Utrecht congress he caused a scandal by courting the d.u.c.h.ess of Ossuna, wife to the Spanish plenipotentiary. The jealous husband promptly obtained an order of expulsion, and poor Themiseul needs must take refuge once more at his mother's in Troyes.

A new scandal soon drove him thence. Being entrusted by an austere abbess with the task of teaching her young niece Italian, he fell in love with his fair pupil while they read Dante together, trying maybe to live up to the story of Francesca da Rimini. To avoid the _lettre de cachet_, he fled to Holland, and for prudence' sake, exchanged his name of Chevalier de Themiseul for the less warlike one of Saint-Hyacinthe.

Under that name his literary career began. Together with the mathematician S'Gravesande, De Sallengre, and Prosper Marchand the bookseller, he wrote for the Hague _Journal litteraire_ (1713). Two years later, the sudden success of the _Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu_ acted upon his brain like a potent liquor, and caused all his subsequent misfortunes.

To one who reads the pamphlet to-day, the wit seems rather thin. It is difficult to realise the enjoyment that our great-grandfathers could take in laughing in that exaggerated fashion at a German commentator. An indecent French song beginning _L'autre jour Colin malade_ is supposed to have been discovered by Doctor Matanasius, a scholar of European renown. He proclaims it a masterpiece, the work of an unknown poet of genius, and, with the help of a few hundred notes and comments, strives to gain his point. Now Doctor Matanasius is no more the laughing-stock of the literary world. His name is Renan, Gaston Paris, or Skeat. The _Chef d'oeuvre_ gives us the impression of a man loading a blunderbuss to shoot at a shadow. The productions of Swift and Voltaire, in the same vein, are infinitely better. Poor Matanasius, with his elaborate reminiscences of barrack-room raillery, seems sadly out of date; being of the earth, earthy, his song and his commentary have both crumbled to dust.

Yet he sought to build up a career of glory and wealth on the flimsy foundation. Fighting in the cause of modern learning with the headlong rashness of a dragoon charging up to the enemy's guns, he wrote the _Lettres to Madame Dacier_, he undertook to rival the Dutch literary papers with his _Memoires litteraires_; but the public who had appreciated the _Chef d'oeuvre_, were slow in subscribing to the new paper. Unlucky Matanasius was doomed to write only one masterpiece, for all his subsequent productions fell dead from the press.

Once more in France, with brain teeming with schemes and but little money in his pocket, the man, who was now nearing forty, fell back upon his last resource, a new love-affair. The victim this time was Suzanne, Colonel de Marconnay's daughter, with whom he eloped to England (1722).

The duly-married couple remained in England twelve years. What their life and that of their children must have been, a few scattered letters help us to understand. The father-in-law declining to help the wanderers, Saint-Hyacinthe, who decidedly had renounced the Catholic faith, turned to the Huguenot community. The poorer among them eked out a scant livelihood by teaching French, writing for Dutch booksellers, translating English books; the most needy received relief--money and clothing. The brilliant dragoon, who had been feasted in Paris, did not blush to hold out his hand and accept the mite doled out by the trustees of the "Fund for the poor Protestants."

There was still in the man an inexhaustible fund of illusion. He could rail and boast and dream. He seems never to have given up the hope of attaining to reputation and competence. In the blackest year of his life, he began translating _Robinson Crusoe_ (1720), but, wearying of the task, left the Dutchman Justus van Effen to finish it. A letter of his to M. de Burigny, dated 6th September 1727, is sweetly optimistic. "Cross the Channel," he says, to his friend, "but, for Heaven's sake, come alone; don't bring your man along with you. I can manage to accommodate you with rooms in my house, and receive you at my table. What you will eat," he adds, with a flourish of liberality, "with what I am obliged to have for my own family, will not cost me more than two sous a day."[300]

In London, most probably at the Rainbow Coffee-House, then the resort of the refugees, Saint-Hyacinthe one day came upon Voltaire. The two men had met once before in Paris, when Voltaire's _Oedipe_ was being acted. It is said that, during a performance, the Chevalier de Themiseul, pointing out to the full house, exclaimed: "That is the completest praise of your tragedy." To which Voltaire replied with a bow: "Your opinion, Monsieur, flatters me more than that of all that audience." But times had changed.

Needy Saint-Hyacinthe was no longer the successful author that a younger man is naturally anxious not to wound. "M. de Voltaire," Saint-Hyacinthe repeated later, "led a very irregular life in England; he made many enemies by proceedings not in accordance with the principles of strict morality." "Saint-Hyacinthe," Voltaire retorted, "lived in London princ.i.p.ally on my alms and his lampoons. He cheated me and dared to insult me."

It must be acknowledged that Saint-Hyacinthe struck the first blow. In 1728, having a mind to correct the mistakes that he had noticed in the _Henriade_, he did the work in the most thoroughly impertinent manner.

Thus, to the following line:

"Aux remparts de Paris les deux rois s'avancerent,"

he added the comment: "It is not good grammar to say _s'avancer_, but _s'avancer vers_; so the author should write:

"Vers les murs de Paris les deux rois s'avancerent."

And further on, in a note on the expression "alles dans Albion," "it is surprising that a poet who has written tragedies, and an epic, without mentioning those miscellaneous pieces where an agreeable politeness must prevail, should not know the use of the prepositions _dans_ and _en_." Then there was captiousness in some of the remarks; thus Voltaire had written

"Et fait aimer son joug a l'Anglois indompte, Qui ne peut ni servir, ni vivre en liberte."

"M. de Voltaire," slyly added his enemy, "should not have tried in a vague and sorry ant.i.thesis to give an idea of the English character that is both insulting and erroneous."

A more striking example of perfidiousness was effectually to stir Voltaire's resentment a little later. To one of the numerous editions of the _Chef d'oeuvre_, Saint-Hyacinthe added a postscript ent.i.tled _The Deification of Doctor Aristarchus Ma.s.so_, in which he related the well-known anecdote of Voltaire being set upon by an officer: "'Fight,'

exclaims the officer, 'or take care of your shoulders.' The poet not being bold enough to fight, the officer handsomely cudgelled him, in the hope that the sore insult might lend him courage; but the poet's caution rose as the blows showered down upon him," etc. Though not mentioned by name, Voltaire was pretty clearly pointed out. Soon after, malicious Abbe Desfontaines inserted the anecdote in his libellous _Voltairomanie_ (1739), and all Paris began to make merry over the poet's cowardice. In spite of the provocation, Voltaire acted with characteristic forbearance, begging mutual friends to adjust the difficulty, and saying that he should feel quite satisfied if Saint-Hyacinthe would retract and solemnly declare that he had taken no part in the abbe's libel. But Saint-Hyacinthe's stubbornness drove Voltaire to retaliate, and so he threw all his venom in the following paragraph:--

"Teach the public, for example, he wrote in his _Advice to a Journalist_ (1741), that the _Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu_ or _Matanasius_ is by the late M. de Sallengre and an ill.u.s.trious mathematician of a consummate talent who adds wit to scholarship, lastly by all those who contributed in The Hague to the _Journal Litteraire_, and that M. de Saint-Hyacinthe provided the song with many remarks. But if to that skit be added an infamous pamphlet worthy of the dirtiest rogue, and written no doubt by one of those sorry Frenchmen who wander about foreign lands to the disgrace of literature and their own country, give due emphasis to the horror and ridicule of that monstrous alliance."

To that crushing blow Saint-Hyacinthe replied without delay. "Though your _Temple du gout_," he wrote, "has convinced me that your taste is often depraved, I cannot believe you can go the length of confounding what is the work of one with what is the work of many.... I am not so fortunate as to do honour either to my country or to literature; but I may say that if it suffices to love them to do them honour, no one surely would do so more than I.... I have never been vile enough to praise foreign countries at the expense of my own, and heap eulogies upon their great men, while undervaluing those that do honour to France."

Bitter as the reply was, it did not appease Saint-Hyacinthe's anger.

Hearing that Voltaire had just been elected a member of the French Academy, "The Academy," he wrote to a friend, "will be honoured to receive among the forty a man devoid of either morals or principles, and who does not know his own tongue unless he has begun learning it these few years past" (17th February 1743). His _Recherches philosophiques_ he had inscribed to the King of Prussia and, the latter taking no notice of the work, "Voltaire,"

he complained, "has indisposed the king against me" (10th October 1745).[301]

The latter part of his life Saint-Hyacinthe spent at Geneken, near Breda.

Thence he had launched his indignant reply to the _Advice to a Journalist_.

His literary activity was still great. The two letters, now published for the first time, show him trying to induce Dutch booksellers to publish the ma.n.u.scripts of which he possesses "two chests full." As usual, he is in dire straits, persecuted by duns and lawyers, yet none the less full of hopes. The schemes he thinks about are excellent till he is cheated by some "great rogue." One pictures to oneself an eighteenth-century Mr. Micawber, buoyant and impecunious. Nor are there missing in the background the wife and family, whose protest is brought home to us in a startling manner by the "seduction" of the eldest daughter. Here Saint-Hyacinthe refers to Mlle de Marconnay, for so she was called, who, under the patronage of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Antin, retired to Troyes.[302] The fates of the two other children are unknown.