Madame du Châtelet - in search of a memorial

 [For International Women's Day]

By an odd quirk of history, whereas Marie Curie has been awarded the honours of the Pantheon, the body of the 18th-century's greatest female scientist,  Émilie du Châtelet, lies under a completely anonymous black stone slab, in the nave of the parish church of Saint-Jacques in Lunéville.  As the French has it, "elle est piétinée depuis 1749"; generations of worshippers and visitors have simply trampled over her grave as they enter the church.

Église Saint-Jacques, Lunéville

An unmarked grave

Émilie du Châtelet died from the complications of childbirth at the Palace of Lunéville, on 10th September 1749.  The whole Court turned out for the funeral which was conducted with much pomp, as befitted a member of one of the grand chevaux, the old aristocratic families of Lorraine.  According to Gaston Maugras, King Stanislas personally insisted that the greatest honours be awarded to the mortal remains of the woman whose presence, for two years, had contributed so much to his pleasure. Madame du Châtelet's reputation for freethinking and immorality, and the presence of the arch-infidel Voltaire,  made for a tense occasion.  It is reported that, as the party traversed the salle des spectacles on its way from the Queen's apartments,  the bier suddenly broke and upset the coffin. The Jesuit father Menoux did not neglect to observe that this was the exact spot where only a few weeks earlier, Émile had played centre-stage in a profane comedy.  

 Maugras La Cour de Lunéville au xviiie siecle (1904), p.463-4
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2057422/f473.item

A snuffbox with secrets....

From the Wallace Collection: a beautiful  gold and cornelian snuffbox dating from about 1775, probably made by the Dresden goldsmith Johann Christian Neuber (1736 - 1808).  The box contains fine concealed portraits of Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet attributed in a 1865 catalogue to "Drouais".  The box first appeared for sale in Paris in 1863  and was acquired by Sir Richard Wallace in 1872.  Apparently, although the portraits were mentioned in the sale catalogues, no-one could find them until fairly recently when one of the Wallace curators pressed a button and out they popped!

See:
http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org:8080/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=64217&viewType=detailView

Charles Truman, "Gold boxes at the Wallace Collection"
http://marylebonejournal.com/culture/gold-boxes

Cavagnole - a "cheating game"

Gambling was another of Emilie's passions.  Her quick mind enabled her to calculate chances effectively (though it did not save her from spectacularly losing over 80,000 livres at the royal table at Fontainebleau in 1747).  On her death Voltaire lamented loss a "great man" who translated Newton and Virgil, but was known among women only for her "diamonds and cavagnole" ( to Baculard d’Arnaud, letter of 14th  October 1749)

Gaspare Traversi," The Card Party"  (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

"Cavagnole" was indeed a surprisingly unintellectual pastime for an intelligent woman. Usually played for low stakes, it was easy to cheat at and boringly simple to play.  It was looked upon with contempt by courtiers like Voltaire, who were obliged to suffer stifling evenings at the gambling table:

On croirait que le jeu console ; 
Mais l'ennui vient , à pas comptes ,
A la table d'un carvagnole , 
S'asseoir entre des majestés

[They believe that the game amuses / but boredom arrives, step by step/ at the cavagnole table / to take a seat between their Majesties].

Émilie du Châtelet - Madame Pompon-Newton

Émilie du Châtelet was well known for her love of fashion, jewellery and pretty things. Voltaire nicknamed her "Madame Pompon-Newton" and indulged her penchant. The ascerbic Mme Du Deffand reproached her with living beyond her means to keep up appearances, making herself ridiculous with her profusions of "frisure, pompons, pierreries, verreries". Mme de Graffigny could hardly contain her surprise when she saw her jewellery, particularly the snuffboxes:

 She had known Mme du Châtelet when she had only one tortoise-shell snuff-box; now she possessed "fifteen or twenty of gold, of precious stones, of beautiful lacquer, of enamelled  gold, a new fashion which was very expensive, and incense-boxes of the same kind, one more magnificent than the other; jasper watches with diamonds, needle-cases, and other wonderful things ; rings containing precious stones, and charms and trinkets without end.(Hamel, p.175-6).  

The Château de Breteuil - Madame du Châtelet in wax

I do like waxworks (apart from those guillotined heads). The Château de Breteuil has loads, supplied by the Musée Grévin, including various historical personages inside the house and no less than seven tableaux from Perrault's fairy tales in the outbuildings!  In 2014 the Marquis commissioned a wax model of his ancestress, Madame du Châtelet. Here she is: 

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This is what  the Château de Breteuil Facebook page has to say:

1. The creation of a wax model requires considerable documentation. The reference point for the new waxwork was the portrait by Marianne Loir in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux; the château itself has a fine eighteenth-century copy in its collections. The work of Elisabeth Badinter and Judith Zinsser on the correspondence and archive sources, revealed Madame du Châtelet to have been a strong personality who freed herself from social conventions and attracted many enemies.

2. Information was carefuly gathered on her physical appearance - colour of eyes and hair; shape of the face. The mannequin's hair was created by Any d’Avray a  Parisian firm which specialises in theatrical wigs. The wigmakers were struck by the natural style; the hair was tided up in a simple chignon, with some locks left curled and loose on the shoulders.  Elodie Pommelet, a theatrical make-up artist, did the make up;  this too was quite natural, though with the use of powder as was the fashion for both women and men of the eighteenth-century nobility.

3. The costume was made by  Pascale Breyne of the Troupe du Crâne (a theatrical company which specialises in period comedies).  The dress is dark blue velvet, with detachable lace cuffs and fur trimming. This style of loose gown, called a "robe battante", was popularised by Madame de Montespan and was fashionable in the first half of the eighteenth century.

4.  The tableau was designed by the Marquis de Breteuil himself and his adviser Christophe Leray to present Emilie informally at work on her scientific studies.  The wax statue was positioned in front of an eighteenth-century telescope as though observing the stars.  The screen,  a family heirloom, was created from her actual sedan chair, with its gold decoration and the coats-of-arms of the Châtelet and Breteuil families.

Château de Breteuil
Website:  http://www.breteuil.fr/en/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Château-de-Breteuil/280436375301433

Madame du Châtelet - portraits of a "femme savante"

What did Madame du Châtelet look like?  The article on French Wikipedia conveniently gathers together a set of comments on her appearance and personality, all of them equally catty.  
According to the marquise du Deffand she was "large and dry-looking" with a ?florid complexion ("le teint échauffé"), thin face, pointed nose and small sea-green eyes. She remarks on her discoloured and damaged teeth.  Emilie's figure also comes in for criticism: she is  "without hips, narrow in the chest, with fat arms and legs and enormous feet".  The Souvenirs attributed to  Madame de Créquy likewise mentions the big hands and feet.  

The surviving portraits are more flattering, but to some extent confirm the descriptions.  They clearly show the same woman, big boned, with a low forehead, long nose and small closed mouth (no doubt concealing those imperfect teeth)!

Here are the main portraits, in so far as I have been able to find them on the internet.


By Bernard-François Lépicié

1910 engraving after Lépicié 

To judge from the features this portrait is undoubtedly a young Madame du Châtelet, with dark unpowdered hair.  It is credited to either Bernard-François Lépicié (1698-1755) or his son Nicolas-Bernard (1735-84).  Both ascriptions are slightly problematic - the father is known almost exclusively for engravings; the son, though  a portrait painter, was surely too young to have painted this youthful looking Émilie.  In 1892 the picture belonged to the Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild.  It is also reproduced in my old copy of Nancy Mitford's Voltaire in love from 1957 where the acknowledgement is "By courtesy of Mme. Thierry"; the engraving illustrated was for sale on ebay.

Here is a description of the painting from an 1892 exhibition catalogue: 

Cent chefs-d'oeuvre des écoles françaises et étrangères ...(Paris; G. Petit, 1892)
https://archive.org/stream/centchefsduvrede00unio#page/28/mode/2up/search/Chatelet


Marquise du Châtelet by Lepicie, no.24

Seated in a white silk dress with paniers;  low-cut bodice decorated with ribbons knotted in the shape of sunflowers; loose brown fur boa behind the neck and extending the length of the bodice.  Hands covered by two long mittens which extend to the sleeves; the left hand holds a closed book, the right a piece of paper showing figures of geometry.  The head, slightly to one side, faces forward; the mouth is serios, but with laughing and spirited eyes (les yeux railleurs et spirituels)

Collection of the Baroness N. de Rothschild

Found and lost? the manuscripts of Madame du Châtelet

Lot 16: Exposition abrégée du système...de Newton

On 29th October 2012 there was much excitement when a host of scientific manuscripts by Émilie du Châtelet went under the hammer at Christie's in Paris.  They included a corrected version of her translation of Newton, Exposition abrégée du système du monde selon les principes de Mr Newton, two unpublished works on Newton's optics and various studies on geometry, arithmetic and physics. A copy of Voltaire's Eléments de la philosophie de Newton contained annotations by both Madame du Châtelet and Voltaire himself, confirmation  - if any were needed -  that.Émilie was the brains behind the work.  Lesser lots included parts, written up in the hand of Voltaire's secretary Longchamp, from three theatrical works performed at the "petit théâtre".

Lot 17: Three plays by Voltaire performed at Cirey

Recovery

Lot 3:  Portrait of Emilie  after Marianne Loir.

The story behind the sale is nice tale of unexpected rediscovery. Almost nothing remains of the original furnishings from Cirey and Madame du Châtelet's papers had long been supposed destroyed, either on her death in 1749 or after the execution of her son, Louis Marie Florent du Châtelet, in 1793. But in 2010 the whole family archive was miraculous found intact in ten wooden boxes in the attic of a house in Rosnay-l'Hôpital (Aube), where Cirey's inheritors had moved when the chateau was sold in 1892;  up to this time the documents had been tenaciously guarded by an elderly female descendant. Documents concerning the chateau, dating back to 13th century, were deposited in the Departmental Archives of Haute-Marne at Chaumont. But there was no legal impediment to the sale of Madame du Châtelet's personal manuscripts and joy gave way to concern as the scholarly community anticipated the break-up of the newly acquired collection.  Despite a campaign which resulted in a petition from 1,4000 researchers worldwide, the French Ministry of Culture did not move to preempt.  The auction went ahead and the manuscripts made record prices:  € 961,000 (double the estimate) for the Exposition abrégée; € 421,000 for Voltaire's Eléments de la philosophie de Newton  (against an estimate of € 60,000); four times the expected amount for two works on optics.

Lot 17: Abrégé de l'optique de m^r Newton

And loss?

The purchaser was financier Gérard Lhéritier , president and founder of Aristophil, a company specialising in rare manuscripts and owner of the Musée des lettres et manuscrits, boulevard Saint-Germain, where the collection includes the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom and Napoleon's wedding certificate.  Despite a few qualms about private ownership, La Gazette des Délices for Winter 2012 pronounced itself pleased: French taxpayers had saved their euros, the manuscripts were kept together and the Bibliothèque nationale had been promised detailed descriptions.  In March 2013 the manuscripts went on temporary exhibition; viewers were even furnished with a magnifying glass for detailed inspection. There was just the slight worry that operatives were on hand apparently offering the manuscripts in lots "for sale".......

Publicity video by Aristophil. Despite the slick production, this is a pretty poor effort (for instance, I think it was the poet J-B Rousseau, not Jean-Jacques who was the family house guest!)

All was, indeed, not well -  as became apparent last November, when the museum and various branches of Aristophil were subject to a dramatic descente by the anti-fraud brigade......The company is accused of “deceptive marketing practices," and“gang fraud."(!)  Aristophil's basic scheme sounds like something out of the 18th-century.  Clients  are invited to "buy" lots  -  effectively acquire shares - in rare manuscripts, with promises of attractive returns.  The market has been artificially inflated by the company's own aggressive buying strategy. This is big money: Aristophil  are said to own five percent of the global books, letters and manuscript market estimated at three billion euros a year. They have created a "speculative bubble" which is now set to burst.  Legal proceedings against them started as early as 2010 and one of the objectives of November raids was to seize assets for Aristophil's clients.

The investigation is likely to be a long one. Currently the museum is still open (with a Valentine's Day exhibition) and the media fightback has begun with a "Soutenons Aristophil"  website and Facebook page.  All we can only hope for the long term is that Emilie's manuscripts stay safe and don't disappear again, this time into some creditor's bank vault....


References


Details of the sale 
Christie's website: 
http://www.christies.com/
salelanding/index.aspx?intSaleID=23914

"Les manuscrits et souvenirs d'Emilie du Châtelet vendus pour 3,28 millions d'euros", L'Obs 29/10/12.
 http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/
monde/20121029.FAP2514/les-manuscrits-et-souvenirs-d-emilie-du-chatelet-vendus-pour-3-28-millions-d-euros.html

Finding  the manuscripts
Andrew Brown, " 'Minerve dictait et j’écrivais':les archives Du Châtelet retrouvées"  Cahiers Voltaire, 11 (2012), p.7-9.
http://c18.net/18img/cv11-specimen.pdf

Il faut sauver les archives de Voltaire, Le Dauphine.com, 28/09/12
http://www.ledauphine.com/ain/2012/09/28/il-faut-sauver-les-archives-voltaire

Financial fraud?"
€500 Million Ponzi Scheme Suspected at Paris Museum" Artnet, 20/11/14.
http://news.artnet.com/market/eur500-million-ponzi-scheme-suspected-at-paris-museum-174371

Voltaire's private theatre at Cirey

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http://aura.u-pec.fr/duchatelet/int4.3.html

Voltaire's "Petit théâtre" at the Château de Cirey looks like some paper model from a doll's house. It is the only private theatre to survive from the 18th century apart from the (altogether grander) Opéra at Versailles and Marie-Antoinette's theatre at the Petit Trianon. As it dates from 1735, it is actually among the earliest French theatres of any kind. Despite the prestige of French drama, the French lagged behind in theatre design: in 1748 Voltaire complained bitterly that the press of spectators on the stage of the Comédie-Française had reduced his tragedy "Semiramis" to farce.  It was to be another ten years before the Comédie was remodelled on Italian lines. Voltaire later build private theatres at Les Délices and Ferney, but only the theatre at Cirey, lovingly restored in 1999, now remains..

The tiny auditorium, nestling under the roof of the château, boasts five benches to accommodate a dozen or so spectators. On one side, a small box with painted rails commands the best views. It is balanced by a trompe l'oeil box on the opposite wall - partly plastered over in the 19th century. In what remains of the painting a jaunty abbé turns his back oddly away from the stage; he once admired the cleavage of his young female companion, but nowadays only her hand remains.

In Voltaire's theatre the stage was strictly reserved for the actors; this posed no problem - since house guests were dragooned into performing, spectators were in short supply. The blue curtain is again painted in trompe-l'oeil; the central medallion originally held cards - some of which still exist - in which the name of the play was displayed. Three sets of scenery, made of painted cloth stretched over wooden frames,.have been painstakingly restored. They represent a "rustic room", a "forest" (six frames) and an "exotic garden".

Although he was distracted by scientific reading and research Voltaire’s enthusiasm for the theatre did not diminish during his time at Cirey. He worked on his tragedy Mérope in 1737, then embarked on two new tragedies Mahomet and Zulime, to say nothing of a libretto and a couple of comedies. 

According to Madame de Graffigny, who stayed at the chateau for nine weeks in 1738 and 1739, guests were put through a punishing schedule: 

".You can't catch your breath here. Today we performed The prodigal child  and another play in three acts, which we had to rehearse. We rehearsed Zaire until three in the morning; we will perform it tomorrow …We must dress our hair, get our costumes fitted, listen to an opera; what chaos! …We counted up last evening that in twenty-four hours we had rehearsed and performed twenty-three acts – comedies, tragedies and operas. 

Worse was to follow; for three days in celebration of Mardi Gras Madame de Graffigny counted no less that thirty-seven acts over a three-day marathon which culminated in a performance of Zaire finishing at one thirty in the morning.  Léopole Desmarets, Graffigny's lover, left a comic account of  Madame Du Châtelet  and Voltaire in the lead roles; Émilie performed in a monotone, whilst an ill-tempered Voltaire required constant prompting and everyone muffed their lines.( see Carlson, p.52-3)




In 2009 Lauren Gunderson produced a critically-acclaimed play Émilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life  at the Petit Theatre at Cirey; her vision of the theatre at Cirey was a little grander than the real thing!:

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References

Le petit théâtre de Voltaire" on the Château de Cirey websiste 
http://www.visitvoltaire.com/f_little_theater.htm

Journal JHM Vidéos, "Petit théâtre de Voltaire" (25/06/09)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9oii5_petit-theatre-voltaire_creation

Marvin A. Carlson, Voltaire and the Theatre of the Eighteenth Century (1998) 
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OoIaRFoCG-4C&source=gbs_navlinks_s