I’ve written before about why I love Nancy Mitford’s biographies so much. First off, she writes exactly the sort of narrative history that floats my boat: history that treats the past as, first and foremost, an endless, rich vein of gold to be mined for storytelling yarn, fascinating characters and plots so good that you need the excuse of Hey-It-Actually-Happened to get people to suspend their disbelief.* Secondly, her writing has, for the most part, exactly the right touch for the upper class social histories she chooses to cover: a light, witty tone and a focus on the day-to-day human foibles of the rich and powerful she covers. She’s more than able to achieve this due to my absolute favorite thing about her: She’s an ultimate Insider. A Gossip Girl in a timewarp back to the eighteenth century: at times a welcoming, warm Serena, and sometimes, deliciously, a cutting Blair at her worst.Mitford is able to offer a unique understanding of her biographies’ subjects precisely because she, unlike so many other historians, refuses to put her subjects on any sort of pedestal. Having been brought up an aristocrat herself, knee-deep in history and family and traditions up to her eyeballs, she treats courts, celebrities, great nobles and great historical personages with absolutely no deference whatsoever- unless, for her own reasons, she feels that they have earned it. (Louis XIV gets a grudging and not-entirely-complete pass, but only because he created her personal dream heaven come to earth- Versailles. Seriously, lady needs the Tardis to land on her doorstep, STAT. I can’t even imagine the unholy sums she would have paid to be a part of that Madame de Pompadour episode.) She has no self-consciousness and no hesitation in pronouncing with authority on the way that X lady of the court handled a rival, or how Y lord of the realm should have responded to the traitorous actions of a friend. (My favorite example comes from this book when she takes the actions of a barely-tolerated visitor of Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet as an excuse to give well-bred parasites who live off a career of constantly visiting their richer, country-house owning friends a piece of her mind.) Their characters are drawn, cut up and pronounced Good For Nothing or quite the best fellow who ever lived without the slightest hint of the temporizing and presentation of both sides that professional historians think appropriate- all without ever descending into any sort of Victorian moralizing. Oh no, her verdicts are of a very practical, no-nonsense, English sort. This person understands how things are done and that one does not. One of her biggest pet peeves with the female consorts of powerful men is when they just do not understand how to properly manage them in order to keep their high-status companions at their side and grateful to be there. (La Pompadour, a personal hero of hers, earns plaudits for her savvy when she personally sets up and manages a whorehouse for the king after the sexual aspect of their relationship grows cold.) The manors, townhouses, courts and palaces of these eighteenth century folk are where she lives, mentally, if not physically. These biographies are written, often, like Richelieu, Madame Pompadour and Louis XIV are her personally known contemporaries whose various episodes she dissects with perfect, witty, dry detachment.Voltaire in Love is another great example of this trend. Mitford had written biting, ironic asides about Voltaire before (“apt to bite the hand that fed him” is the one I remember being repeated), another example of those side characters you could tell she’d really rather write about that I wrote about in my review of the Sun King . So it wasn’t surprising to find that she’d chosen him as a subject.What was interesting is that she chose, rather than making herself responsible for doing a biography for his whole life, to focus on only the part of his life that interested her: His nearly twenty year-long love affair with Emilie, the Marquise du Châtelet. I really liked that she did that- it let her talk about all the stuff she loves (illustrious, vaunted men and women creating their great works…. and committing very human acts of folly along the way), without giving herself the obligation to follow through with the conventions of biography if she doesn’t want to. Voltaire’s early life is got through rather quickly, with only the fun highlights to give us the broad brushes of his character and the atmosphere he grew up in. It’s clear that Arouet (his birth name- he gave himself the name Voltaire) was an irresponsible, narcissistic sort, who thought rather a lot of himself. Selfish, disinclined to work, thoughtless- he once tried to elope with a girl after he’d been packed off to The Hague as an unpaid attache so that he wouldn't cause any more scandals. In short, the sort of boy nobody wants their sons to hang out with. In the negative column, he was also the sort who dished it out but had a problem taking it back (something that would make him ridiculous socially and get him in trouble with the law repeatedly. Nancy does not approve of this, which makes sense- it does not fit her code of what the Right Sort Does). But he was, as we know, also smart, talented, perceptive, and determined- a fan of the Enlightenment, logic and scientific advances. He was a great proponent of Newton in France- something quite controversial in those Cartesian times. He repeatedly got into fights with other writers and critics, was easily offended, and went in and out of jail all of his life...(Read the rest of my review on my blog at: http://shouldacouldawouldabooks.com/2... )
VOLTAIRE IN LOVE. (1957). Nancy Mitford. ****.Although Voltaire’s works are discussed at length, this chronicle focuses on his relationship with the Marquise du Chatelet, known to history as Emilie. “To look at she was quite unlike the general idea of an eighteenth century Marquise. Mme. Du Deffand, who never forgave her for carrying off the greatest entertainer of the age, has left a descrition of her which is certainly too catty but may have some truth: thin, dry and flat-chested, huge arms and legs, huge feet, tiny head, tinly little sea-green eyes, bad teeth, black hair and a weather-beaten complexion, vain, overdressed and untidy…Over and over again she is described, in letters and memoirs of her day, as beautiful; reading between the lines one can conclude that she was what is now called a handsome woman.” She did not compare in beauty to Madame de Pompadour. “Emile was an intellectual; she had not endless hours to waste with hairdressers and dressmakers.” During the time that the two of them were together, Voltaire was very rich. “His fortune came neither from his books, which were too often pirated, nor from his plays, whose royalties he always gave to the actors, but from astute business dealings.” It also helped that he was awarded several different pensions from the king. Aside from providing the physical love that Voltaire needed – between his bouts of illness – Emile was a natural born scientist. Her real interests lay in both math and physics. Her greatest work was the translation of Newton’s work from his Latin into French. She was far ahead of all the other ladies of the court, and – to be honest – most of the men, too. In addition to his relationship with Louis XV, a good back ground is provided for Voltaire’s friendship with Frederick the Great and King Stanislas of Poland. Unless you are a student of the period, most of the other personalities that pass through this book will be of small concern, but they are introduced to provide a feeling of the society of the time. This is a well-written book that explores Voltaire’s relationship with Emile and with the rest of the cast living at Versailles at the time. This is a must-read for you history buffs of eighteenth century France. Recommended.
What do You think about Voltaire In Love (1999)?
What a disappointment. I wanted to read this book because I was intrigued to learn that Voltaire’s lover for 16 years, Marquise Emilie du Chatelet, was a mathematician, physicist, and author during the Age of Enlightenment. Her major achievement is considered to be her translation and commentary on Isaac Newton's work Principia Mathematica. Voltaire often referred to her as his muse and the only true love of his life.Emilie lived together with her husband (the Marquis du Chatelet) and her lover (Voltaire) happily in Paris and in her country house Cirey-sur-Blaise in North-Eastern France. Voltaire and Emilie shared a passion for science and they set up a laboratory in du Châtelet's home. This biography by Nancy Mitford however, was extremely tedious. Mainly because it pretty much skimmed over du Chatelet’s intellectual achievements and instead focused on minutiae of the social and sex life of the upper classes in 18th century France. Apparently back then everybody (including Voltaire and Emilie) had several lovers at once but then would get into fits of rage and hysterics when they found out they were being betrayed. It was extremely difficult to keep track of who was sleeping with whom throughout the book. It was exhausting.Voltaire was constantly quarrelling with the church and almost all other French institutions and was often sent into exile or landed in trouble with the law in some way. However, there was no real discussion of the impact of his works. It was just a lot of gossipy reports on people's reactions and his own desire to settle personal scores.They both come across as petty, jealous people obsessed with their standing in French society and King Louis XV’s court. Mitford's main sources were letters and diaries and the book reads like an 18th century version of a National Enquirer exposé. I guess this has its appeal but it was not what I was looking for in a biography.
—Alicia
Don't read this review if you're a fan of biographies or of Nancy Mitford.I say that because I'm a very poor biography reader - it's the very occasional one that can hold me for the entire book. This, unfortunately fits with the regular ones, and, as the book is due back at the library and I have already renewed it once and there are so many other books to read, I am returning it unfinished.I did enjoy Mitford's writing style, and I did enjoy learning about Voltaire, who hitherto has been just a name to me, so I don't regret spending the time reading it so far. Many people, I am sure, will thoroughly enjoy this book.
—Kathleen Dixon
ÉMILIE DU CHÂTELET: THE LADY WHO WAS A GREAT MAN, My December post at BookslutIn a 1740 letter to an English friend, Voltaire expressed his regret at being unable to visit him, as he could not live without, even for a short period, “that lady whom I look upon as a great man and as a most solid and respectable friend. She understands Newton; she despises superstition and in short she makes me happy.” The famous French poet, playwright, and polemicist was then midway through his extraordinary fifteen-year love affair with the Marquise du Châtelet, a liaison that would produce works of genius from both their pens.Émilie du Châtelet was a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher who loved to bedeck herself in diamonds, attend salons and soirées, show off at court, and indulge in amorous adventures. Émilie was born into French aristocracy and showed an early aptitude for learning. Her father hired the best Parisian tutors to educate her. When she was nineteen, he arranged her marriage to the Marquis du Châtelet, a man who adored his young wife, appreciated her talents, and never interfered with her indefatigable pursuit of intellectual excellence.At twenty-six Émilie resolved, after giving birth to her third child, to turn to the serious study of mathematics. At a dinner party in Paris, she encountered Voltaire. He was thirty-nine and after an exile in England — his controversial compositions frequently forced him to flee France — he had returned steeped in Newton’s scientific discoveries and the philosophy of Locke. He couldn’t, however, arouse in French academics — devoted Cartesians — any intellectual curiosity, much less enthusiasm, for these new ideas from across the Channel. Émilie became ignited mind and body by Voltaire and his ability to clearly express complex notions about the natural world. For his part, Voltaire found in the Marquise someone whose scientific intelligence enhanced, challenged, and eventually surpassed his own.Their uncommon relationship drives Nancy Mitford’s remarkable 1957 book Voltaire in Love, reissued by The New York Review Books in November 2012. In zestful prose, itself dripping with Voltarian wit, Mitford spins an account of the lovers’ incessant shenanigans, both highbrow and bawdy, and in so doing paints a flamboyant, down-and-dirty tableau of the French Enlightenment. Mitford offers hilarious and astonishing reports of the lovers’ quarrels, betrayals, and sexual appetites; their embroilments with the nobility at Versailles; Émilie’s destructive gambling habit (to repay her staggering debts she developed a financing arrangement similar to modern derivatives); Voltaire’s endless fights with fellow writers and banishments by the royal censor; the ménage at Cirey, Émilie’s husband’s country estate in Champagne where the lovers transformed a crumbling chateau into a resplendent laboratory and high-powered think tank; the myriad productions, both failures and successes, of Voltaire’s plays, many featuring Émilie as leading lady; Émilie’s desperate push to finish her masterpiece, an annotated translation of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, after discovering at age forty-two that she was pregnant by her young lover (by then she and Voltaire no longer shared a bed) and unlikely to survive the birth, which she did not.Adam Gopnik, in his introduction to the new edition of Mitford’s book, calls it “a small-scale masterpiece of antiheroic history.” Mitford’s work is an amuse-bouche for at least three subsequent full-scale biographies of the Marquise: The Divine Mistress (1970) by Samuel Edwards; Émilie du Châtelet: Daring Genius of the Enlightenment (2006) by Judith Zinsser; and David Bodanis’s Passionate Minds: Émilie du Châtelet, Voltaire, and the Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment(2006), which details how fundamental du Châtelet’s work was to scientific development.Read on at www.Bookslut.com
—Jenny McPhee
