Joseph Menoux, Jesuit and famous anti-philosophe, 11th March 1751
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| Frontispiece to Menoux's Discourse on History |
Menoux's position as head of the Royal Missions brought him into regular contact with the Court of Lorraine. He acted as Stanislas's confidant and informal emissary. It was Menoux who was sent to Cirey to facilitate Mme du Châtelet and Voltaire's visit to Lunéville in 1748. In August of the same year he accompanied Stanislas to Versailles, where the duc de Luynes described him as "un homme de belle figure et de beaucoup d'esprit" (Mémoires, ix, p.92).
It is often assumed that Menoux was Stanislas's confessor but this was not in fact the case. The royal couple both entrusted their consciences to Jesuits who had journeyed with them from Poland. The King's confessor was Sébastien Ubermanowicz, formerly a professor at the Jesuit University in Poznan; after his death in December 1764, he was replaced by the Lithuanian, Étienne Luskina. Menoux's only formal role at Lunéville was as an occasional preacher. He seems to have been a frequent presence, but it is not altogether clear whether he had lodgings in the palace; presumably he spent the majority of his time with his community in Nancy.
Given Menoux's published paeans of praise to Stanislas, it also seems doubtful that he ever attacked the King's morality from the pulpit, though we cannot be sure as none of his sermons survive. There is no need to infer that Stanislas was shamed into penitential retreats at the Hôtel des Missions; such retreats were a standard devotional practice and the new building had been designed to provide him with convenient and comfortable accommodation. The most we can say with certainty is that Menoux had a reputation for severity and that, unsurprisingly, he conflicted with Stanislas's mistress, Mme de Boufflers - a lively and openly promiscuous woman, who styled herself "la dame de volupté" . The abbé Porquet, who could scarcely find his way through the Benedicite, was rumoured to have been sponsored as chaplain by Mme de Boufflers in order to counter Menoux's unwelcome influence. Since she was a close ally of Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet, we inevitably see Menoux through her eyes. In his Memoirs - an unreliable work of the late 1750s - Voltaire parrots her resentment against the Jesuit: whereas Menoux commanded a salary and funding for his Mission, Mme de Boufflers (supposedly) had scarcely enough money for dresses. Voltaire depicts the two rivals for Stanislas's affection openly quarrelling after Mass.
Mme de Boufflers gathered around her a little company of gamblers, poets and literary abbés (Panpan Devaux, Saint-Lambert, Tercier, the abbé Porquet). After 1750 the leading light of her circle was the impressive figure of the comte de Tressan, Louis XV's exiled aide-de-camp, Governor of Toul, Grand Marshal to the Court at Lunéville - and firm ally of freethinkers and philosophes.
Opposed to this "parti lorrain" was a "parti français" or "parti dévot" supposedly under Menoux's leadership. The chronology is vague and the names of those involved do not really amount to a court cabal: among those cited are Royal chaplain and Bishop of Troyes, Poncet de la Rivière, and Alliott, the Intendant of the Palace with his wife. The Chancellor La Galaizière himself is also sometimes included, even though he was La Boufflers' erstwhile lover and surely not the man to defer to a Jesuit Father. There is no evidence that Menoux had any taste for Court intrigue. In any case, after 1750 Mme de Boufflers's position was unassailable.
Stanislas was a devout Christian but he was jealous of his freedom of action. There is every reason to suppose that he kept Menoux, who was notoriously outspoken, at a certain distance. Their relationship was tinged by Stanislas's customary jocularity. According to one anecdote the King commented to a struggling portraitist: "Do you wish to capture (trap) me? Ask Father de Menoux, he knows the right method...." (presumably a reference to the Jesuit reputation for subtlety) [Cited Rossinot, 2004, p.193].
The Literary Collaborator
The Academician
Stanislas's Academy, the Société royale et littéraire de Nancy, owed its existence largely to the initiative and influence of the comte de Tressan. It was at set up initially in the guise of a public library with five "censors", in effect salaried academicians, who met weekly in the room adjoining the library and held public sessions twice a year. Menoux was nominated as one of the first censors, along with Solignac who acted as librarian. The other three were Thibault de Montbois, the lieutenant-général of Nancy; the abbé de Tervernus, a scholar from the Cathedral chapter; and Father Joseph Gautier, Canon Regular of the Order of Saint Augustine and professor of Mathematics at the School of Cadets. They each received 500 livres in annual salary. The official documents inform us that Menoux, like Stanislas himself, was already at this time a member of the Pontifical Academy of Arcadia in Rome. In addition there were four honorary censors: Tressan, Poncet de la Rivière, Mgr de Choiseul, Bishop of Nancy and Pierre-André d'Héguerty, the former governor of La Réunion. A formal inauguration took place on 3rd February 1751. The day began at the Cathedral with a sung mass and a sermon delivered by Menoux. The entire Court then assembled in the salle des Cerfs of the former ducal palace for the first public session, which was addressed by Thibault de Montbois and Tressan.
On 27th December 1751 the Société royale et littéraire was formally established by letters-patent. By this time there were already twenty-five members, among them prominent figures of the French Enlightenment: Montesquieu, who had graciously sent a copy of his Lysimaque to Solignac; the president Henault, and, thanks to Tressan's influence, Fontenelle. Henceforth there were to be five pensionnaires, twelve honorary members, plus fifteen associates resident in Nancy and eight "foreigners". A perpetual secretary director and sub-director were elected annually. Menoux served as Director of the Academy, but only very late in his life, in January 1762, and again in February 1763 in conjunction with Tervernus.
The majority of those involved continued to be churchmen and local magistrates. Over the years, however, other famous luminaries were sponsored by Tressan, including La Condamine, Daubenton, Buffon and Maupertius. Father Leslie, the Jesuit verifier - who was remembered fondly by Voltaire - was among the associate members.
Menoux contributed two memoirs to the assemblies: both were published and graciously reviewed in the Journal de Trévoux, and also by Fréron in the Année litteraire, who described Menoux as "un homme d'esprit et de talent".
The first was delivered at an exceptional session which took place soon after the Academy's initial foundation, on 11th March 1751. On this occasion the entire society gathered at Lunéville in the presence of the King. Menoux pronounced graciously on the benefits of a public library and of an academy which would cultivate the arts and sciences under the protection of an enlightened prince. Evidently, he was not expressing his own views but served as a porte-parole for Stanislas, who reigned over his new society with evident pleasure. Here Menoux articulates Stanislas's conservative vision of enlightened progress brought about by the co-operative effort of a group of scholars.
The Historian
Menoux's second discourse, "on history", was delivered, no doubt also at Stanislas's instigation, on 20th October 1753. The new statutes of the Academy had invited members to collaborate in the creation of a vast "civil, ecclesiastical, literary and natural" history of the Duchies; Menoux was charged with outlining the plan. Experienced orator though he was, this comes across as a verbose and laboured composition.
Father Berruyer rouses my spirit and penetrates me with his fire, when he pronounces the Oracles of the Almighty. I feel myself seized with holy respect and religious terror, when he makes thunder crash down on the heads of guilty Kings, or the earth open up at the feet of rebellious Subjects. Although I have difficulty with certain of his opinions on the true sense of the prophecies, or with some singular views he puts in the mouth of the Patriarchs; I find him again in the Inspired tone with which he lays before me, with magnificence, the economy of the designs of God for his People and reveals to me the admirable workings of eternal justice and mercy. I admire him, when by wise conjectures and judicious reflections, he sets out facts, connects events, uncovers causes and predicts effects. I would admire him even more if his style was closer to the sublime simplicity of the Biblical Historians. (p.36-37)
At the same time, Menoux launches an attack on freethinkers, who present "license under the veil of liberty and irreligion under the mantle of philosophy" (p.13) His specific allusions are mostly discreet. He criticises Voltaire only as a historian, commenting that his History of Charles XII is narrow in scope and, by implication, lacking in research. However, in the section on "natural history" he ventures a general swipe at savants whose "philosophical dream" has led them into erroneous speculation; he mentions in particular Tressan's friend and correspondent Maupertius - an ill-advised piece of daring was which was destined to cause him considerable trouble....
Defender of the Faith
Menoux and Rousseau, 1751
Under Stanislas's auspices, the debate between religious orthodoxy and the philosophy of the Enlightenment at first progressed in relatively good-humoured fashion. In 1751, the world of letters was stirred by Rousseau's Discours sur les sciences et les arts, the winning entry for the Academy of Dijon's 1749 essay prize. The Mercure published a well-written and moderate Réponse from Stanislas, which provoked an unusually urbane rejoinder from Rousseau [Muratori (2005) p.490] Rousseau was proud of his reply, which he deemed bold but respectful. He also, no doubt correctly, discerned Menoux's influence in certain parts of Stanislas's text:
King Stanislas...was not too proud to enter the lists against me. This honour from him caused me to change my tone in writing my reply. I adopted a more serious but no less positive style and, without failing in respect for the author, completely refuted his work, in which, as I knew, a Jesuit by the name of Father de Menou had had a share. I relied on my perspicuity to disentangle the prince's share from the priest's and, mercilessly falling on all the Jesuitical phrases, lighted by the way on an anachronism that I thought could come from no-one but his Reverence [Confessions, trans. J. M. Cohen, Penguin, p.341]
The particular passage referred to was a clumsy appeal to the civilising effects of Revelation and Church tradition, to which Rousseau retorted stingingly that, in his view, the "puerile subtleties of scholasticism" had only paved the way for empty scientific pride.
Stanislas, however, declared the dispute closed and continued to treat Rousseau with esteem and kindness. [See Muratori (2005) p.453-510]
Conflict in the Academy 1752-54
In theory the formal memoirs of the Academy were confined to matters of pure erudition and avoided politics or religion. Nonetheless, in this era of the Encyclopédie wars, the dominant influence of Tressan led to a division between philosophes and dévots. Allegiances mirrored the earlier factions at Court, but the stakes were now much higher since Tressan was determined that the Academy should not just be a provincial learned society but should court the major figures of the Enlightenment.
Menoux is again cast as the leader of the traditionalists, but his control over the behaviour of others was limited. Father Gautier, for instance, penned a vituperative attack on Rousseau's discourse, and was much more outspoken in his defence of religion. Moreover, the anti-philosophe party now included not just senior ecclesiastics and literary clerics, but also men of letters like Fréron and the ambitious young Lorraine playwright Palissot de Montenoy. Stanislas himself relished the element of debate, but it is fair to say he was playing a dangerous game - as indeed proved the case when Palissot provoked outrage in Paris with his plays Le Cercle, premiered in Nancy in 1755, and Les Philosophes in 1760. [Muratori (2005) p.298-9.]
Menoux himself might still have sought to further Stanislas's irenic policy, but he found himself inexorably drawn into conflict, largely it seems through his personal hostility to Tressan. There was evidently a great deal of antagonism on both sides; if Menoux sometimes resorted to intrigue, he was also often outmanoeuvred by the powerful and articulate Count.
Tressan artfully pushed out the boundaries of purely scholarly discourse. On 8th May 1752 he delivered a provocative speech to the Academy on the "progress of letters, sciences and the arts" in which he praised the recent expeditions of Maupertius and La Condamine and announced with pleasure the upcoming publication of the prospectus to the Encyclopédie. He did not neglect the opportunity to salute provocatively the "passage from the state theological and metaphysical to the state positive".
Menoux wrote a moderate letter to Marie Leszczynska asking her to prevail upon her father to bring Tressan to heel; she duly agreed that she would "no longer see M. de Tressan". However, Tressan send copies of his discourse to the Bishop of Toul and to the doctors of the Sorbonne who obligingly pronounced it acceptable.
Menoux incautiously returned to the fray in his discourse "on history" pronounced on 20th October 1753, with its thinly veiled sleight against Maupertius. Menoux observes that modern philosophers in their "disputes and writings" can only build on the achievements of superior geniuses like Newton. By implication this applies to Maupertius, even though his formulation of the principle of least action had, "in the opinion of a learned Academy", been made independently from that of Leibniz. (p.43)
In a letter of 1754 Tressan reports triumphantly to Maupertius, that the Jesuit had been "humiliated and confounded" over his impertinent speech. Tressan had protested to the Chancellery against the publication of the discourse and, as a result, Stanislas ordered Menoux to remove his more outspoken criticisms. When he failed to comply, Tressan forced his hand by sending out twelve suitably annotated copies of the speech to various influential correspondents, six in Paris and six in Nancy. The Academy's official memoirs now carried a censored version, this time duly praised Maupertius alongside Newton, Reaumur and Cassini. In 1754 Tressan secured the election of both Maupertius and La Condamine as associate members. In 1758 Menoux diplomatically seconded Stanislas's expression of regret that Maupertius has not on this occasion found time to visit Lorraine.
[All the relevant details can be found in François Le Tacon's paper of 2003, referenced below]
Menoux and Voltaire, 1753-54
After Voltaire left the court of Frederick the Great, he tarried for over a year in Colmar (October 1753 to November 1754). Here he was taken aback by the power and influence commanded by the Jesuits, "as despotic here among the savages of the banks of the Rhine as they are in Paraguay"(D5691). The house at Colmar was openly militant in its defence of orthodoxy - only four years previously it had orchestrated the ceremonial burning of Bayle's Dictionary. Moreover, the new Rector of the College, Father Krust, was well-connected in Versailles, where his brother had recently become confessor to the Dauphine. When Voltaire learned that the Council of Alsace wanted to take action against his newly published Abrégé de l'histoire universelle, he naturally discerned Jesuitical machinations. His particular suspect was a visiting Jesuit preacher, Sébastien Mérat, who had denounced him from the pulpit of the College's church. Mérat was a formerly a missionary in Nancy, hence the finger of suspicion pointed squarely at Menoux, though with what justification is impossible to say.
The exchange of letters between Voltaire and Menoux which ensured was a masterpiece of strategic manoeuvring on both sides. Voltaire began by disingenuously professing his love for the Society and asking Menoux to remind Father Mérat that "a mouth charged with announcing the word of God should not be the trumpet of calumny"(D5680; dated 17th February 1754). Menoux replied that, although he had no longer has authority over Mérat, he would certainly forward Voltaire's letter. Mérat is "a wise and moderate man", but those devoted to religion cannot always keep quiet when they hear "unceasing attacks on what they see as the most sacred and salutary thing in the world".(D5690 M to V. 23rd February 1754).
There are several witnesses to the fact that the two letters, perhaps leaked by Menoux or one of his associates, were disseminated throughout Europe; they were generally considered damaging to Voltaire, who had given a fawning transparently false exhibition of devotion, and received a well-deserved lecture in reply. Madame Du Deffand wrote to the Baron Scheffer in April that the letters were well known in Paris and added, of Voltaire, that "it really is a shame that such a fine genius should be such a big fool". A reply from Scheffer confirmed that the correspondence had gone down well among Voltaire's enemies in Berlin.
Voltaire now energetically attempted to secure Menoux's written disavowal, especially since the offending letters had apparently come to the attention of both Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. On 10th April, in a letter now lost, Menoux obligingly complied, casting the blame on the Jesuit censors and professing his friendship. On 12th April, he declared himself mortified that his Provincial, Father Fagnier, had allowed the letters to appear and hoped that the bothersome affair might open the way for Voltaire's salvation. (D5770) Perhaps Menoux really did still entertain hope's for Voltaire's conversion; he kept the channels of communication open with promises of books, and even proposed to accompany Voltaire on a visit to take the waters at Plombières. Voltaire replied suitably - see letter below.
Letter from Voltaire to Menoux, written in the hand of Voltaire's secretary Collini from Colmar and dated 12 April 1754 [D5770a] Privately owned ms. Voltaire Studio:
One safely ensconced in Les Délices Voltaire could could sharpen his pen against his Jesuit adversaries with impunity. Krust was cruelly lampooned in Candide and, in his unpublished Memoirs Voltaire sets out a spiteful story of Menoux's scheme to substitute Mme du Châtelet as Stanislas's mistress. Equally implausibly he accuses Menoux of material rapacity. "The Jesuit Menoux is not at all an idiot as you suspect, but quite the contrary", Voltaire reports to Mme du Deffrand: he has conned a million livres from King Stanislas for worthless missions, and acquired a handsome benefice from Benedict XIV by the empty promise to translate his work into French. Voltaire concludes (with a hint of respect): "he is a great plotter and intriguer, shrewd and obliging, a dangerous enemy and a great converter of souls" (D8630; 3rd December 1759).
The Apologist
Menoux also, in all probability, contributed to Stanislas's L'incrédulité combattue par le simple bon sens, first published in 1760, and later included in Volume 4 of the Oeuvres du Philosophe bienfaisant (1763). The indomitable Jesuit did not neglect to send a copy to Voltaire, who thanked Stanislas courteously but replied to Menoux himself with stinging irony:
The final years
A conflict with Stanislas
Perhaps the saddest event of Menoux's final years was a mysterious and unexpected quarrel with the 87- year-old King of Poland. Stanislas had continued to support Menoux steadfastly, despite his indiscretions - in 1760 against Tressan, and in 1761 over the Nicéville debacle; in January 1762 he had even insisted, in the face of considerable opposition, on his election as Director of the Academy. Then suddenly, at the very time when Lorraine was offering sanctuary to the Jesuits expelled from France, the two men had a heated disagreement. Until recently, the cause was completely unknown. It now appears that they fell out over the relatively trivial matter of an indecorous statue:
Menoux's last intervention had been to demand the destruction of the Amphitrite with naked breasts on one of the fountains in the place Royale. The fierce prudery of the Jesuit confessor at first caused amusement, and was assumed to be a passing whim. But he held fast to his obsession, created a storm over it, filled his sermons with the unedifying vision of the lead goddess...Finally, at the end of his arguments, he threatened to leave Lorraine and abandon his office if an end was not put to the scandal. Nobody wanted to retain him. [Rossinot. Stanislas (2004), p.271]
Durival simply records laconically: "20 September 1764. Father Menoux resigns as superior of the Royal Missions of Lorraine".
Menoux continued to attend the sessions of the Academy into early 1765 but, fittingly, he did not outlive his royal patron. He died at the Jesuit Retreat on 6th February 1766, the day after the King's accident, and was buried in the Novitiate church.
https://archive.org/details/bibliothquedelac05back/page/n485/mode/2up
https://www.academie-stanislas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tomexviii-letacon.pdf
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