Volume 19 / Part 4 — Madame Du Deffand.

“Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not of love,” the poet tells us. And women too have died, and worms have eaten them, but not of ennui, although Mme. du Deffand for nearly fourscore years woke the echoes of Versailles and Paris with the pitiful lament: “I am bored! I am bored! I am dying of ennui!” If she eventually did die of it—which we stoutly deny—a malady that took eighty years to kill its victim can hardly be called a very cruel one. The vivacious, gossipping, wearied old lady contrived to extract a very reasonable amount of amusement, even of excitement, out of the existence whose wearisomeness she was for ever denouncing; and it is only fair to add that she contributed a very goodly share of amusement to other people. This renowned heroine and victim of ennui, Marie de Vichy-Chamroud, was born into this wearisome world in the year of grace 1697, of a noble family of the province of Burgundy. The De Vichy-Chamrouds were richer in parchments than in lands; so it fell out that Marie, young, lovely, accomplished, and teeming with wit, was condemned to marry an old man, and, what was still more terrible, a wearisome old man, who had not a single taste in common with her. Immediately on leaving the convent where she received what in those days was considered a liberal education, the beautiful young lady was presented to her future lord. If she bored herself as a young girl, free and happy, and with life before her, what must she have done as the wife of a querulous, stingy old man? All the revenge that was in her power Marie took. She bored her husband as much as he bored her, until at last, in sheer desperation, he agreed to give her an annuity, and let her go her way without him. As Marquise du Deffand, free and comparatively wealthy, the young wife began a new era. She opened a salon which soon became the centre of the wit and fashion of Paris. All that was eminent in war, arts, sciences, literature, and folly came there, and tried to chase away her eternal ennui. Amongst her many admirers, the President Hénault occupies the most conspicuous place, both from the dignity of his own character and the enduring nature of their mutual attachment. Hénault was one of the most remarkable men of his time. He was educated by the Oratorians, and had early the inestimable advantage of enjoying the advice, and almost the intimacy, of Massillon. He counted the scarcely lesser privilege of early personal acquaintance with the great poet Racine. As soon as he had completed his studies, young Hénault was introduced at court, where he at once made a favorable impression. “This is not to be wondered at,” says a chronicler of the times; “for, in truth, he was a youth of gracious parts, gay, witty, amiable, a good musician, and gifted with the art of making light and graceful verses.” While the Duchesse de Maine held her brilliant court, Hénault was a [pg 694] constant presence there, and one of its principal ornaments. He was so universally beloved that it was popularly said of him: “There is a man who has more friends than he can count, and not a single enemy.” And this lucky man was the devoted admirer of Mme. du Deffand for over fifty years.

He attained considerable fame as an author, and not the least remarkable feature in his works is that their authorship was vehemently contested, not only during Hénault's life, but for many years after his death. Most of his books were first published anonymously—a circumstance which, in their early career, may have explained the doubts concerning their origin. But the Abrégé Chronologique, which Hénault regarded as his best, appeared with the author's name at the outset, and this, strange to say, was the one which the world refused longest to believe was his, and persevered in long attributing to the Abbé Boudot. A copy of the book was found, in the abbé's own writing, amongst his papers when he died, and this is the only piece of evidence on which Hénault's detractors built their obstinate denial that he was the author of the Abrégé. Admitting that this fact looked suspicious, the book itself from first to last bears the stamp of Hénault's composition in the most unmistakable manner; the choice of the subject, its style and treatment, all point emphatically to him as the author, while there is abundant explanation of the accidental presence of the compromising copy amongst Boudot's papers. Hénault was in the habit of employing him to copy out his compositions. Voltaire, in one of his letters to the president, recommends the abbé as a very clever copyist, and also as a useful person to make researches for him at the Royal Library; and Grimm also recommends him for the same purpose, informing Hénault that Boudot had employment at the library, and was in charge of the literary and historical department. A man who held this subaltern post, and was treated as a mere scribe by such authorities, and who never pleaded guilty to writing even a pamphlet in his life, is, to say the least, a very unlikely person to be the author of such a work as Hénault's Abrégé. Mme. du Deffand and Grimm, who both liked to sharpen their wits pretty freely at the president's expense, never for an instant doubted the reality of his authorship, or suspected that any one had had a share in his books.

Unlike so many of his distinguished literary contemporaries, Hénault was a practical Christian. “His piety,” says the Marquis de Agesson, “was as free from fanaticism or bitterness as his books were from pedantry.”

Mme. du Deffand, who spared her friend on no other points, spared him on this. She never laughed at his religion. On that score alone he was safe from her irony and sarcasm. She even openly commended him for challenging Voltaire's impious vituperation of the faith; and in her own correspondence with the infidel philosopher she speaks almost with enthusiasm of the clear intellect, the pointed wit, and irresistible goodness of his antagonist. When he was past eighty, Hénault wrote privately to Voltaire, imploring him, in the most touching terms, to retract some of his diabolical satires on religion; and this letter, which, unhappily, we know remained without effect, was found amongst Voltaire's [pg 695] papers after his death. He, on his side, strove to win over Hénault to the “enlightened school,” and with artful flattery and subtlest sophistry urged him to change certain historical passages in the Abrégé Chronologique which strongly vindicated the influence of Christianity. But the Christian writer withstood these blandishments. In a literary point Voltaire contributed in no small degree to the reputation of Hénault, whose style he praised with creditable candor. It is strange to see the lively and bored old marquise holding steadily the friendship of these widely dissimilar men. Diderot, D'Alembert, and Montesquieu were also habitués of her brilliant salon. But none of them could do more than give her momentary deliverance from her life-long enemy—ennui. She went on boring herself, in spite of the perpetual cross-fire of esprit that the brightest wits of the age kept up around her, and she bored her friends almost to exasperation by the unceasing repetition of the complaint: Que je m'ennuie! Que je m'ennuie!

At the age of fifty-four a terrible misfortune befell the marquise. She grew blind. It was soon after this that she became acquainted with Mlle. de l'Espinasse. The sprightliness and the energy of this young girl were an immense consolation to Mme. du Deffand, and cheered her for a time in that “eternal night,” as she pathetically described it, in which she now dwelt. But they did not agree for long. After living happily together for some few years, they quarrelled and separated. It is impossible to say whose fault it was. Each had violent partisans, who accused the other, but proved nothing. Mme. du Deffand was undoubtedly difficult to live with, as all people are who draw exclusively on those around them for amusement; but she was old and she was blind, and it is beyond doubt she was a kind benefactress to her young companion, and that, at the moment of separation, she wrote a most touching letter to her, asking forgiveness for all she had done inadvertently to pain her, and urging the young girl to remember how cruelly she was afflicted both by blindness and by ennui. To this Mlle. de l'Espinasse returned a curt and ungracious answer. Nor did she imitate the kindliness of speech of her quondam employer, who always spoke of her ever after their quarrel with the utmost good-nature and forbearance.

Just as her home was resounding to these domestic discords, Mme. du Deffand made the acquaintance of Horace Walpole. They were spontaneously pleased with each other. Mme. du Deffand would have probably been still more so, if she could have foreseen how triumphantly this new friendship was destined to rescue her memory from oblivion. We know more of her and her salon through the voluminous correspondence that passed between her and that prince of gossips and most brilliant of scribblers than through any other source; although she comes in, it is true, for more ridicule at his hands than eulogy. He constantly reproaches her for making him the laughing-stock of Paris and London by her absurd affection, and coarsely tells her he does not want to be the hero of a novel where the heroine is a blind octogenarian.

This correspondence was published at the beginning of the century, and was hailed as a valuable addition to the French literature [pg 696] of that period. On reading it, one feels transported into the society of the fascinating women and accomplished men whom it so cleverly depicts. Mme. du Deffand passes in review the authors and actors of her time with a graphic power of delineation rarely equalled. Unsparing in her criticism, she is in some instances no doubt too severe, and occasionally even unjust; it is nevertheless acknowledged that in her literary judgments she is rarely at fault; they are marked throughout by discrimination, taste, and delicacy.

Horace Walpole made Mme. du Deffand's acquaintance when she had become quite blind; on his being presented to her, she drew her hand over his face, in order to ascertain whether he was plain or handsome, and what his age was. Her touch had acquired such sensitive delicacy in course of time that it enabled her to calculate people's ages and looks with the greatest accuracy. In quite the latter years of her life Mme. du Deffand, who had never been avowedly an unbeliever, although practically so, turned her thoughts to religion, and sought in the teaching of the faith those consolations to her ennui that wit and philosophy had failed to secure her. She announces this change of sentiment, with her usual frankness, in one of her letters to Walpole. Her biographers throw but little light on the subject. La Harpe alludes to her having had many interviews with the celebrated Jesuit, F. Lenfant—an episode which is dismissed by Mme. du Deffand herself with the remark that “the Père Lenfant was very clever, and that she was much pleased with him.”

The Père Lenfant who is thus incidentally introduced to us in the memoirs of the lively French woman was one of the countless noble and touching victims of the Revolution—that raging torrent that drowned so many gentle voices in its roar. He was gifted with an eloquence that drew around him all the lovers of rhetoric and the most able men of his day. The poet Young heard him, and was so struck by his power and pathos that he entreated a Protestant clergyman of his acquaintance to go and hear him; the latter did so, and embraced the faith. Once, on coming out from a sermon of the Père Lenfant's, preached at S. Sulpice during Lent, Diderot exclaimed to D'Alembert, who had been drinking in every word from beginning to end, with his eyes riveted on the preacher: “It would be hard to hear that man often without becoming a Christian.”

When the order of the Jesuits was disbanded in France, the Père Lenfant was thrown upon the world. He was then forty-seven years of age. The decree which despoiled him of his religious garb could not rob him of its spirit. He continued his good works and his apostolate with fervor and wisdom. Several crowned heads tried to win him to their courts, but in vain. The son of S. Ignatius held steadily aloof from the tempting snare. He preached indefatigably at all times and places, at Lunéville, Vienne, Versailles, wherever he was called; and everywhere the great and the learned flocked round his pulpit. His contemporaries describe the effects of his eloquence as electrical. He captivated his hearers, not so much by the magnificence of his language, as by the pathos of his voice and the force of his own faith. Père Lenfant preached the [pg 697] Lent of 1791 before the court; but on refusing to take the oath of the clergy to the civil constitution, he was obliged to withdraw. Shortly afterwards he was taken prisoner and condemned to death. On being brought before his judges, the people cried out that his life might be spared, and, yielding to the cries, his jailers let him go; before, however, he had got free from the crowd, a woman called out: “There goes the king's confessor!” At these words the thirst for blood, that had seemed for a moment satiated or suspended, rose up anew. The mob set upon him like tigers. The Père Lenfant uttered only words of love and forgiveness, and, raising his hands to heaven, exclaimed: “My God, I thank thee for allowing me to offer my life for thee, as thou hast offered thine for me!” And with this gracious sentence on his lips the Jesuit father fell and expired under the blows of the murderers.

This little sketch of the Marquise du Deffand would be incomplete without a passing mention of the author of the Esprit des Lois, who was one of the most distinguished of her numerous friends.

Her letters to Montesquieu have been preserved; they are, however, much less interesting than those to Walpole, and consequently much less known. Mme. du Deffand could be a staunch friend, though she was often a trying one; she proved herself such to Montesquieu. Amongst other good offices, she cleared him from the charge of avarice which was laid at his door so generally. History revoked the verdict, it is true, but only when the subject of it was gone beyond the reach of earthly rehabilitation. Montesquieu's exceeding modesty and desire to have his benefits known only to the recipients was the real, and perhaps the only, cause of his reputed avarice. One example of his delicate generosity we cannot refrain from giving.

He was in the habit of visiting Marseilles to see his sister, Mme. d'Héricourt, who resided there. During one of these visits he happened one evening to be lounging on the quay; the weather was sultry, and it occurred to Montesquieu that he would take a boat, and have a row on the sea. His attention was drawn to a young man who was looking out for a customer. He hailed him, and got in. As soon as they were out a little at sea, Montesquieu perceived that his boatman was a novice at the work, and rowed with difficulty. He questioned him, and learned that he was, in truth, a jeweller by trade, and a boatman only on Sundays and holidays, in order to gain a trifle towards helping his mother and sisters, who were working to procure 4,000 crowns to ransom his father, who was a prisoner at Tetuan. Montesquieu was deeply touched by the story. He made a resolution on the spot, but said nothing. Before landing, however, he got from the boatman his father's name and the name of his master. On parting, he handed him his purse, and walked away rapidly; great was the delight of the young man, on opening it, to find that it contained sixteen golden louis.

Six weeks after this the captive suddenly appeared in the midst of his wife and children. He saw, by the astonishment mingled with their joy, that it was not to them he owed his liberation; but the surprise and gratitude of all were increased on his telling them that not only was his ransom paid, but likewise his voyage home and his [pg 698] clothing; and, over and above this, a sum of fifty louis d'or had been handed to him on starting. The young boatman no sooner heard this fairy tale than he bethought him of the generous stranger who had presented him the purse and expressed such sympathy on hearing of his sorrow. He determined to seek him. For two years he did so, but in vain. The name of the benefactor to whom he and his owed such a sweet and magnificent debt of gratitude remained an impenetrable mystery. At last one day, while walking in the streets of Paris, he suddenly encountered Montesquieu face to face; the young man fell upon his knees, kissed the hand of his benefactor, and entreated him to come with him to the home he had blessed, and witness the joy that he had brought back to a desolate family. But Montesquieu feigned ignorance and surprise, declared he knew nothing of what the young man was talking about, and at last, wrenching his hand away abruptly, he disappeared in the crowd, nor did his pursuer succeed in finding him again.

This action would never have been discovered had not Montesquieu's executor found among his papers a memorandum in his own handwriting, stating that he had sent 7,500 francs to Mr. Main, an English banker at Cadiz; on the latter being applied to for information, he replied that he had given that sum, by the order of M. de Montesquieu, for the ransom of a man named Robert, a Marseillais, detained as a slave at Tetuan. Inquiries were set on foot, and the Robert family told the rest.

This touching incident was made the foundation of many dramatic pieces. If it did no more than clear a noble character from the unworthy charge of heartlessness and avarice, the world would have been the better for its discovery.